Monthly Archives: April 2013
Banksters screw mortgage fraud recipients
Mortgage relief recipients are met with “insufficient funds” when trying to cash a long-awaited check from the same banks that foreclosed on them. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/victims-of-foreclosure-abuses-face-another-woe-bounced-checks/?hp Many struggling homeowners got exactly that this week when they lined up to take their cut of a $3.6 billion settlement with the nation’s largest banks — lenders accused of wrongful […]
IMF more powerful than EU countries
The I.M.F. has more say over crisis management than many euro zone members, and Christine Lagarde, the managing director, has become a quasi head of state, whose views carry more weight than those of many elected leaders. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/business/global/euro-zone-crisis-has-increased-imfs-power.html?ref=world More than half of the I.M.F.’s lending goes to the euro zone. Poorer nations that contribute to […]
Syria’s Assad calls a spade a spade
“There are big powers, especially Western powers who historically never accepted the idea of other nations having their independence. They want those nations to submit to them.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/world/middleeast/assad-frames-syria-struggle-as-him-against-western-colonizers.html?hp The interview with Syrian president Bashir Al-Assad was conducted on Syria’s Independence Day celebrating the end of French occupation 67 years ago.“We must ask ourselves, did the […]
Security and the real threat of terrorism
The Sept. 11 attacks were an anomaly in an overall gradual decline in the number of terrorist attacks since the 1970s, according to the Global Terrorism Database. Since 2001, the number of fatalities in terrorist attacks has reached double digits in only one year, 2009, when an Army psychiatrist killed 13 people at Fort Hood, […]
The Eisenhower Legacy and the cost of war
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its […]
Review finds US inflicts pain, torment in torture report
An independent review of interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/world/us-practiced-torture-after-9-11-nonpartisan-review-concludes.html?hp&_r=0 There never before had been “the kind of considered and […]
West takes hold of narco-states in Africa
D.E.A. operatives posed as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the rebel group designated a terrorist organization by the United States. They met with ranking members of the Bissau military to import thousands of kilos of cocaine into the country.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/world/africa/us-sting-that-snared-guinea-bissau-ex-admiral-shines-light-on-drug-trade.html?ref=world The operations have laid bare some of the inner workings of […]
EPA to allow more radioactive contamination
The US EPA expects to publish a draft document that would change its long-standing advice to state and local governments about how to limit long-term exposure to radiation after a reactor accident or a “dirty bomb” attack http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/science/earth/new-rules-for-us-nuclear-disaster-response.html?ref=us The E.P.A. document, called Protective Action Guidelines, and the report prepared for the Department of Homeland Security […]
West turns Afghanistan into first ”Narco-state”
For the third year in a row, opium cultivation has increased across Afghanistan. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/world/asia/afghanistan-opium-production-increases-for-3rd-year.html?ref=world Opium could be the country’s major economic activity after the departure of foreign military forces in 2014, raising the specter of what one referred to as “the world’s first true narco-state.” Afghanistan is already the world’s largest producer of opium, and […]
The C.I.A.’s Secret Army and The Davis Episode
More than two years later, the Raymond Davis episode has been largely forgotten in the United States. It was immediately overshadowed by the dramatic raid months later that killed Osama bin Laden. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/magazine/raymond-davis-pakistan.html?ref=world&_r=0 Davis shot two young men who approached his car on a black motorcycle, their guns drawn, at an intersection congested with cars, […]
Agri-Biz to shut down US farm investigations
“Ag-gag” laws are designed to limit undercover investigations on factory farms by campaigning groups. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22098224 Concerns over the conditions in which cattle, pigs and poultry are raised and slaughtered have prompted many animal welfare groups to mount undercover investigations. There is no single US federal law that protects animals, welfare investigators have played a significant […]
Rights groups address US on drone killings
In a letter sent to President Obama this week, the nation’s leading human rights organizations questioned the legal basis for targeted killing and called for an end to the secrecy surrounding the use of drones. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/13/us/politics/rights-groups-question-legality-of-targeted-killing.html?ref=world The letter lists what it calls troubling reports of the criteria used by the Central Intelligence Agency and the […]
Google head wants state-only drone use
Head of Google calls for civilian drone technology to be regulated, warning about privacy and security concerns. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22134898 Cheap miniature versions of the unmanned aircraft used by militaries could fall into the wrong (civilian) hands. “I’m not going to pass judgment on whether armies should exist, but I would prefer to not spread and democratise […]
Free of misdeeds, Banksters report record profits
JP Morgan has reported record first quarter profits of $6.5bn (£4.2bn). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22126115 Mortgage lender Wells Fargo also reported record first quarter profits. JP Morgan was boosted by a big drop in spending on litigation, which was $0.3bn in the first quarter of 2013 compared with $2.7bn a year earlier. CEO Dimon said, ” the growth […]
Energy lobby thwarts EPA
The EPA delayed issuance of a new rule limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from new power plants after the electric power industry objected. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/13/science/earth/epa-to-delay-emissions-rule-at-new-power-plants.html?ref=us The rule would have put in place the first restrictions on climate-altering gases from the power sector in the United States. Agency officials said it would be […]
Koch brother wins millions after bad wine investment
A billionaire from the state of Florida has won $12m (£7.8m) in damages awarded by a New York jury in a dispute over fake vintage wine. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22132149 Koch alleged two dozen bottles of the fake wine were fraudulently sold to him at an auction in 2005. “We weren’t even expecting any damages and we got […]
Google wants your data after you die
Internet users around the world have expressed concern about what happens to their data after their demise. Google will allow users to decide what happens to their data after they die or become inactive online. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22119227 Google said users can opt to have their data deleted after three, six, nine or 12 months of inactivity. […]
US Special OPs continue to murder Afghans
A special operations raid meant to disrupt a Taliban arms operation in southern Afghanistan ended in the death of a man with family ties to the Afghan president’s inner circle. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/world/asia/death-of-man-with-ties-to-karzai-adds-to-tensions-with-military.html?ref=world The conflict comes at a time of growing tensions over American Special Operations forces in the country, after President Hamid Karzai recently banned their […]
Dirty Babylon 
Right-Wing Extremist Month and the Boston Marathon False Flag
An InfoWars reporter got the first question to Governor Deval L. Patrick of Massachusetts during a press briefing following the bombings at the Boston Marathon asking if the terror attack was a false flag operation. At least someone got it out there. I’m afraid this one is going to fall on domestic terrorists and accelerate the […]