4TheRecord (4TR)

We Have Moved

2010-12-17T18:04:00.002Z

Hello,

This section of my blog is no longer being updated. We have moved to www.4therecord.org/.

Thank you

James

Student protester needed brain operation

2010-12-12T06:59:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5zS-BzJOWM

The Sun - December 10th 2010

The police watchdog launched an independent investigation today after a 20-year old student was left unconscious with bleeding on the brain after being hit on the head with a police trunceon. Alfie Meadows, a philosophy student at Middlesex University, was struck as he tried to leave the area outside Westminster Abbey during last night's tuition fee protests, his mother said. The Independent Police Complaints Commission launched an investigation, but warned that inquiries were still at an early stage. After falling unconscious on the way to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Mr Meadows underwent a three-hour operation for bleeding on the brain. His mother Susan, 55, an English literature lecturer at Roehampton University, said: "He was hit on the head by a police truncheon. "He said it was the hugest blow he ever felt in his life. "The surface wound wasn't very big but, three hours after the blow, he suffered bleeding to the brain. "He survived the operation and he's in the recovery room."

Police charge horses as protestors causing them to become agressive

The police watchdog is investigating after a student protester was left with bleeding on the brain after being hit with a police truncheon. Alfie Meadows, a philosophy student at Middlesex University, was struck as he tried to leave the area outside Westminster Abbey during Thursday's tuition fee protests, his mother said. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has launched an investigation, but said inquiries were still at an early stage. After falling unconscious on the way to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Mr Meadows underwent a three-hour operation for bleeding on the brain. His mother Susan, 55, an English literature lecturer at Roehampton University, said: "He was hit on the head by a police truncheon. He said it was the hugest blow he ever felt in his life. "The surface wound wasn't very big but, three hours after the blow, he suffered bleeding to the brain. He survived the operation and he's in the recovery room." Mr Meadows was with a number of friends, including two lecturers, Nina Power, a colleague of his mother's, and Peter Hallward, a philosophy lecturer at Kingston University.

But as they tried to leave the area where protesters were being held in a police "kettling" operation, the second-year undergraduate suffered a blow to the head. His mother, who stayed up all night in the hospital with her son, said he was taken to hospital after his condition deteriorated. Speaking later, Mrs Meadows added: "The wonderful news is that Alfie is talking and doing very well. But he's got tubes coming out of him everywhere. He will be in hospital for quite a while, it was a very major thing. "He can remember the demonstration. He wanted to know whether other people were hurt, what happened afterwards and whether his friends were OK. We're just absolutely unbelievably thrilled that he has come through it. It was the most tremendous blow to his head. "Basically he had a stroke last night. He couldn't speak or move his hand. But thanks to the wonderful medical care he's come through it. It was terrifying."

After falling unconscious on the way to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Mr Meadows underwent a three-hour operation for bleeding on the brain. His mother Susan, 55, an English literature lecturer at Roehampton University, said: "He was hit on the head by a police truncheon. "He said it was the hugest blow he ever felt in his life. "The surface wound wasn't very big but, three hours after the blow, he suffered bleeding to the brain. "He survived the operation and he's in the recovery room." Mr Meadows was with a number of friends, including two lecturers, Nina Power, a colleague of his mother's, and Peter Hallward, a philosophy lecturer at Kingston University.

But as they tried to leave the area where protesters were being held in a police "kettling" operation, the second-year undergraduate suffered a blow to the head. He phoned his mother, who was also at the protest in a different area. "He said he had been hit on the head and was bleeding," she said. "I got out of the kettle and met him and he told me all about it. "He knew he had to go to hospital but he didn't initially know how bad it was.

Speaking later, Mrs Meadows added: "The wonderful news is that Alfie is talking and doing very well. "But he's got tubes coming out of him everywhere. He will be in hospital for quite a while, it was a very major thing. "He can remember the demonstration. He wanted to know whether other people were hurt, what happened afterwards and whether his friends were OK. "We're just absolutely unbelievably thrilled that he has come through it. It was the most tremendous blow to his head. "Basically he had a stroke last night. He couldn't speak or move his hand. "But thanks to the wonderful medical care he's come through it. It was terrifying." She said she felt "very strongly" about the police behaviour, adding: "It's part of a pattern of the way in which these events are being policed.

"Alfie said to me before this happened 'Somebody is going to get killed'. It's very frightening." Ms Power, 32, a philosophy lecturer, said she was with Mr Meadows just minutes before the incident. She said: "The police had been very violent all day. Whoever was trying to get out, they weren't allowing them. "We were standing quite far back. We were nowhere near the front line. "We were just talking about getting out. I went one way and Alfie tried another. "The police were getting very violent at that point. Where I tried to get out they were charging with horses. We had to run back. "Alfie is not a violent person. He wouldn't have done anything silly. He's not the sort of person who would have been carrying weapons. "He's very political, engaged and passionate, but he's not a violent person at all." She said the other lecturer, Mr Hallward, saw Alfie later on and he was on his own in the street, looking "very confused". An IPCC spokeswoman said:

"The Independent Police Complaints Commission has begun an independent investigation following an allegation that a 20-year-old man was hit on the head with a police truncheon, causing serious head injuries, at a student demonstration in London yesterday. "The IPCC was informed by the Metropolitan Police about the allegation in the early hours of this morning. "Investigators were deployed and, following an assessment of the information currently available, a decision has been taken to independently investigate to consider the nature of any police contact that took place. "The investigation is at a very early stage and updates will be provided as and when they become available." The IPCC later appealed for witnesses to come forward. "As a result of information from the people who are understood to have been with Alfie Meadows, it is believed that the incident took place in the late afternoon/early evening on Thursday December 9 2010, in the vicinity of Parliament Square, although the exact time and location has not yet been confirmed," a spokeswoman said.

"He was initially taken to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and then subsequently transferred to another London hospital where his condition is currently described as stable. "The IPCC investigation will seek to establish the nature of any police contact that took place, and whether any police actions were lawful, proportionate and necessary. "Alfie is described as white, with long brown hair in a ponytail and was wearing a red and white scarf and a camouflage green padded jacket." Investigators are looking at CCTV, police logs and working to trace witnesses, she said.

Independent investigation after man is seriously injured at student demonstration.

10 December 2010

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has begun an independent investigation following an allegation that a 20-year-old man was hit on the head with a police truncheon, causing serious head injuries, at a student demonstration in London yesterday.

The IPCC was informed by the Metropolitan Police about the allegation in the early hours of this morning. Investigators were deployed and, following an assessment of the information currently available, a decision has been taken to independently investigate to consider the nature of any police contact that took place.

The investigation is at a very early stage and updates will be provided as and when they become available.

Issued by:

Trish Keville, London & South East Press Officer, 020 7166 3130

For The Record has made a Freedom of Information Request regarding the Police refusing entry of members of the public to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

12 December 2010

Dear Metropolitan Police Service (MPS),

I am writing to request information regarding the closure of an NHS
Hospital to members of the public (Chelsea and Westminster
Hospital) on December 9th 2010. It was reported that the Police
refused access to members of the public who were unable to receive
treatment at this hospital.

The information I require are as follows:

1) Who authorised the Police to prevent members of the public
gaining access to the above mentioned hospital? (Their name, rank
and department);

2) What date was it decided that the hospital would be closed to
members of the public (Pre-Planning);

3) Copies of any e-mails, letters or other written record regarding
this closure of a Public Hospital;

4) The reasons for closing the Hospital off to members of the
public;

5) The name/number and rank of the Police officer(s) who initially
refused Alfie Meadows entry to the hospital;

6) Any UK Statute or Case Law which gives the Police authority to
prevent the public from entering an hospital when medical attention
is required.

Yours faithfully,

For The Record (FTR)

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/closure_of_nhs_hospital_to_membe

JFK - Secrecy is Repugnant (1961 Speech)

2010-12-11T12:52:00.000Z

"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know."

"Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed-- and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First (emphasized) Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution-- not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold educate and sometimes even anger public opinion."

LA Police use of "Gestapo Tactics" in killing 7 unarmed men

2010-12-11T11:00:00.002Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kic2UifJLpU

“And This Happened in Los Angeles:” Malcolm X Describes Police Brutality Against Members of the Nation of Islam

ELMAN: Malcolm X, I wonder if you can tell me very briefly what took place in Los Angeles? You mentioned earlier on the evening that there was police brutality and there was atrocity committed. Would you explain what the incident was?

MALCOLM X: there was police brutality and there was atrocity, and the press was just as atrocious as the police. Because they helped the police to cover it up by propagating a false image across the country, that there was a blazing gun battle which involved Muslims and police shooting at each other. And everyone who know Muslims knows that Muslims don’t even carry a finger nail file, much less carry guns. So that the blazing gun battle that the Los Angeles papers were writing about actually consisted of policemen’s guns who were blazing away at unarmed Negroes, so-called Negroes, whom they murdered and shot down in cold blood. And how it happened, according to our information —

About 11:15 last Friday night, after the meeting was over, two brothers who worked for a dry cleaners had some clothing in their car that they were getting to another brother, and two white policemen puled up to question them, and — in other words, he probably thought that they were burglars or something or thieves. And when he stopped to question them, they stopped and began to give him whatever information he asked. But he got fresh with them, told them to get up on the curb, which they did, and one brother in explaining it was talking with his hands, and the officer told him, don’t talk with his hands.

So he took one hand and held it down. So he brought the other hand, and he was still talking, and the officer grabbed it and started twisting it, and from the information that we’ve been able to gather, the other brother moved in to help him. And when he moved in to help him, the other policeman moved in and a struggle took place. And while they were struggling with each other, a dance hall cop, a cop who is the officer on duty in a dance hall, saw the struggle and he started shooting.

This caused an alarm to go out to all police cars, and instead of them coming and converging on the place where the incident was occurring, they went straight to our house of worship, our mosque, which was a block away. And when they got to the mosque, they drew up with their guns drawn and shooting. They were shooting the bullets, not in the air but at the mosque when they pulled up. And the secretary of the mosque, the one who was shot down by them, by being the official, he went up and asked the police what did they want. And it was while he was asking them what did they want that they shot him through the heart. And when he fell to the sidewalk, they beat him in his head and handcuffed him and left him laying there on the sidewalk for 45 minutes. . .

In the shooting that took place, seven men were shot. Seven Muslims were shot. None of them were armed. None of them were struggling. None of them were fighting. None of them were trying to defend themselves at all. And after being taken to the police station, they were held for 48 hours and weren’t even given hospitalization. We have one now who is completely paralyzed. We just got all of them free last night. . . . And this happened in Los Angeles last Friday night, in the United States of America, not South Africa or France or Portugal or any place else or in Russia behind the iron curtain, but right her in the United States of America. . . .

ELMAN: Do you welcome an investigation of the matter?

MALCOLM X: The matter should be investigated. The matter should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. What do they look like, running all over this country investigating things that are of no consequence, and they haven’t got sense enough to go into Los Angeles and investigate the Gestapo tactics of the police department out there? What do they look like condemning Eichman for what he did in Germany or the Nazis for what they did in Germany, and you’ve got some Gestapo tactics being practiced by the police department in this country against 20 million black people, second class citizens, day in and day out — not only down South but up North. Los Angeles isn’t down South. Los Angeles isn’t in Mississippi. Los Angeles is in the state of California, which produced Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — and Richard Nixon, the man who was Vice President of this country for some eight or nine years and who wants to run for President again.

ELMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Malcolm X.

MALCOLM X: Your welcome.

Source: Interviewed by Dick Elman for WBAI Radio, 1962
Courtesy of Columbia University Oral History Collection
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/7041

L.A. Courtroom, Malcolm X displaying pictures of Muslim Ronald Stokes, killed by police a year earlier / Gordon Parks (1963)

The 1965 Watts Riots

1964 seemed to mark a turning point in America; with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, a new age in race relations appeared to be dawning. But the states acted quickly to circumvent the new federal law. California reacted with Proposition 14, which moved to block the fair housing components of the Civil Rights Act. This, and other acts, created a feeling of injustice and despair in the inner cities. On August 11, 1965, a routine traffic stop in South Central Los Angeles provided the spark that lit the fire of those seething feelings. The riots lasted for six days, leaving 34 dead, over a thousand people injured, nearly 4,000 arested, and hundreds of buildings destroyed. After the riots, then Governor Pat Brown named John McCone to head a commission to study the riots. The report issued by the Commission concluded that the riots weren't the act of thugs, but rather symptomatic of much deeper problems: the high jobless rate in the inner city, poor housing, bad schools. Although the problems were clearly pointed out in the report, no great effort was made to address them, or to rebuild what had been destroyed in the riots.

Malcolm X: A Declaration of Independence (March 12, 1964)

2010-12-11T09:50:00.000Z

"Concerning nonviolence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks. It is legal and lawful in this country to own a shotgun or a rifle. We believe in obeying the law. In areas where our people are the constant victims of brutality, and the government seems unable or unwilling to protect them, we should form rifle clubs that can be used to defend ourselves and our property in times of emergency, such as happened last year in Birmingham Alabama, in Plaquemine, Louisiana in Cambridge, Maryland and in Danville, Virginia. When our people are being bitten by dogs, they are within their rights to kill those dogs. We should be peaceful, law-abiding—but the time has come for the American Negro to fight back in self-defense whenever and wherever he is being unjustly and unlawfully attacked. If the government thinks I am wrong for saying this, then let the government start doing its job." ~ Malcolm X - March 12th 1964

Julian Assange extradition attempt an uphill struggle, says specialist

2010-12-10T00:05:00.002Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CSdND2TrY8

A former extradition specialist for the Crown Prosecution Service today predicted it would be "very difficult" for Sweden to get the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, sent back to face sexual assault allegations. Raj Joshi, a former head of the European and International Division at the CPS, said Sweden's lack of a formal criminal charge against Assange increased his lawyers' chances of success in blocking the extradition attempt. Assange's lawyers are scheduled to visit him tomorrow in prison for the first time since he was jailed on remand yesterday after Sweden requested his extradition. Swedish prosecutors say they want to interview Assange about allegations of sexual assault against two women. His lawyers say they fear the US will attempt to extradite him to face charges over the release of hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables though Washington has not so far taken any legal action against him.

Today, a British group campaigning for more rapists to be punished questioned the "unusual zeal" with which Assange, an Australian citizen, was being pursued over the allegations of sexual assault in Sweden. In a letter to the Guardian, Katrin Axelsson from Women Against Rape said it was routine for people charged with rape in the UK to be granted bail. Assange is yet to be formally charged by the Swedes. Axelsson also said Sweden had a poor record bringing rapists to justice: "Many women in both Sweden and Britain will wonder at the unusual zeal with which Julian Assange is being pursued for rape allegations … There is a long tradition of the use of rape and sexual assault for political agendas that have nothing to do with women's safety."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffC_psoaKM8

Extradition Act 2003
11 Bars to extradition
(1)If the judge is required to proceed under this section he must decide whether the person’s extradition to the category 1 territory is barred by reason of—.
(a)the rule against double jeopardy;.
(b)extraneous considerations;.
(c)the passage of time;.
(d)the person’s age;.
(e)hostage-taking considerations;.
(f)speciality;.
(g)the person’s earlier extradition to the United Kingdom from another category 1 territory;.
(h)the person’s earlier extradition to the United Kingdom from a non-category 1 territory..
(2)Sections 12 to 19 apply for the interpretation of subsection (1)..
(3)If the judge decides any of the questions in subsection (1) in the affirmative he must order the person’s discharge..
(4)If the judge decides those questions in the negative and the person is alleged to be unlawfully at large after conviction of the extradition offence, the judge must proceed under section 20..
(5)If the judge decides those questions in the negative and the person is accused of the commission of the extradition offence but is not alleged to be unlawfully at large after conviction of it, the judge must proceed under section 21.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/41/section/11?view=plain

21 Human rights

(1)If the judge is required to proceed under this section (by virtue of section 11 or 20) he must decide whether the person’s extradition would be compatible with the Convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998 (c. 42).

(2)If the judge decides the question in subsection (1) in the negative he must order the person’s discharge.

(3)If the judge decides that question in the affirmative he must order the person to be extradited to the category 1 territory in which the warrant was issued.

(4)If the judge makes an order under subsection (3) he must remand the person in custody or on bail to wait for his extradition to the category 1 territory.

(5)If the judge remands the person in custody he may later grant bail.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/41/section/21?view=plain
13 Extraneous considerations

A person’s extradition to a category 1 territory is barred by reason of extraneous considerations if (and only if) it appears that—

(a)the Part 1 warrant issued in respect of him (though purporting to be issued on account of the extradition offence) is in fact issued for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing him on account of his race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or political opinions, or

(b)if extradited he might be prejudiced at his trial or punished, detained or restricted in his personal liberty by reason of his race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or political opinions.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/41/section/13?view=plain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3PjvzLHvAE

Assange detained for questioning

2010-12-08T19:46:00.000Z

Has Spain become a dictatorship?

2010-12-06T19:18:00.000Z

Spain's prime minister has said his government may extend an emergency decree it has put in place to end a 24-hour wildcat air traffic controllers' strike. Flights have returned to normal after a weekend of travel chaos which disrupted hundreds of thousands of journeys. Officials said 250,000 people were hit by Saturday's walkout, amid a long-running dispute about working hours. The emergency measures had not been seen since military rule. The state of alert allows the government to arrest those who refuse to work.

"The government has issued a decree for a period of a state of alert to ensure normality," which is due to continue for 15 days, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said. "Depending on how the situation develops, the government will take the decision to extend the measure, and will of course do it taking public opinion into consideration and in conjunction with political parties." Threats of further strikes over the Christmas and New Year period would thus be quashed by the government, reports say.

Being arrested for refusing to go to work goes to far behond the right of the state over the people. The right to remove yourself from work on political or personal grounds is a right many people died for. Spain wishes to take it away from the people and exposes itself as a dictatorship. This is the kind of action you would expect North Korea to do or China.

Saudis 'chief funders of Sunni militants'

2010-12-05T23:12:00.000Z

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned last year in a leaked classified memo that donors in Saudi Arabia were the "most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide". She said it was "an ongoing challenge" to persuade Saudi officials to treat such activity as a strategic priority. The groups funded include al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, she added. The memo, released by Wikileaks, also criticised efforts to combat militants by the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait. Meanwhile, a lawyer for the founder of the Wikileaks website said he was holding back secret material for release* if anything happened to him. He told the BBC that a rape case being prepared in Sweden against Julian Assange, an Australian national, was politically motivated.

*File was released by WikiLeaks months ago which is heavily encrytped and was called "Insurance File"

Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba "probably raised millions of dollars" annually from Saudi sources, often during the Hajj - and the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, she alleged. Mrs Clinton said reforms to criminalise terrorist financing and restrict the overseas flow of funds from Saudi-based charities had been effective, but that they did not cover equally suspect "multilateral organisations". Another cable alleges that the Pakistani charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which has been accused of being a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, used a Saudi-based front company to fund its activities in 2005. Leaked US diplomatic cable The US embassy in Riyadh said in February that the Saudi authorities remained "almost completely dependent on the CIA" for information.

SECRET SECTION 01 of 03 RIYADH 000182

NOFORN
SIPDIS

S/SRAP FOR AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE
DOHA FOR AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/10/2020
TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER KTFN SA AF PK
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE AMBASSADOR
HOLBROOKE'S FEBRUARY 15-16 VISIT TO RIYADH

Ref: KABUL 500

RIYADH 00000182 001.2 of 003


Classified By: Ambassador James B. Smith for reasons 1.4 (B) and (D)

1. (C) Ambassador Holbrooke, Embassy Riyadh warmly welcomes
you to Saudi Arabia, which, by virtue of its historical and
cultural ties to Central Asia; personal relationships between
Saudi, Afghani and Pakistani leaders; financial power; and
leadership of the Muslim world, can play a central role in
implementing the President's strategy for Afghanistan and
Pakistan. Your visit comes at a time of great potential but
great uncertainty: the Saudi-Afghan relationship appears to
be warming up, while the traditionally close Saudi-Pakistani
relationship has grown increasingly strained. The Saudis are
broadly supportive of our approach to Afghanistan and
Pakistan, but occasionally express skepticism about our
timing or our approach. Your visit provides an opportunity
to mine the Saudis' wealth of experience in dealing with
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and extremism, and further explore
ways to translate our shared goals into action in the unique
Saudi context. We have requested meetings with GIP Director
Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, Assistant Interior Minister
Prince Mohammed bin Nayif, and Prince Turki Al-Faisal during
your visit.

2. (C) SAUDI-AFGHAN RELATIONS WARMING: President Karzai's
February 2-3 visit to the Kingdom, although richer in
symbolism than substance, was a sign that lukewarm
Saudi-Afghan relations may finally be warming up. In his
official statement at the London Conference, FM Saud
announced a $150 million pledge of additional financial
support for Afghan reconstruction. He expressed broad Saudi
support for reconciliation, adding that they would be willing
to assist at the request of President Karzai-- on the
condition that the Taliban sever its relationship with
Al-Qaeda and cease providing refuge to its leaders. While
not as forward leaning as we may have liked, FM Saud's
statement put the Saudis on the record and created an
opportunity to put reconciliation talks back in
motion--eventually. Saudi participation at the Turkish-led
regional conference on Afghanistan on January 26 was further
evidence of the Saudi commitment to engagement. Karzai's
visit showed that the King was ready to deal with Karzai as a
legitimate, Muslim head of state. However, the Saudis
continue to have concerns about Afghan corruption and believe
greater political incorporation of the Pashtun community is
essential. Their apparent wish to downplay Karzai's
visit--as compared to the Afghans (reftel)--may also indicate
the King's desire to keep some distance and maintain his
credibility as a potential reconciliation mediator.

3. (s/nf) but mediation not ready for prime time:
Privately, the Saudis tell us it's still "too soon" to be
publicly discussing technical and financial aspects of
reintegration efforts. GIP Director Prince Muqrin has made
clear that his marching orders are to work through
intelligence channels only until progress becomes
sustainable, at which point foreign ministries will be
brought in. In a recent meeting with the Ambassador, Prince
Muqrin hinted at but did not provide details about what
appears to be significant movement on the Saudi mediation
effort, with visits by high-level Taliban and Afghan
officials, since the Hajj. We surmise that Muqrin is
reluctant to share information because the talks remain
delicate and he fears U.S. involvement could derail progress.
He has also voiced concern about how to address UNSCR 1267
prohibitions on dealing with various Taliban members.

4. (C) ZARDARI STILL THE PROBLEM IN PAKISTAN: The Saudis
generally agree that there is a need to deny terrorists
safehavens in Pakistan, but question whether the methods we
have outlined will be effective. Despite tense relations
with the Zardari government, close military and intelligence
cooperation continues between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The
Saudis believe opposition leader Nawaz Sharif can play a
"great role" in working with tribal chiefs and that "money is
better than bullets" in the fight against the Taliban. They
have started to fulfill their pledge from the Tokyo donor,s
conference (over half of the $700 million pledged has been
disbursed) and have expressed a willingness to continue with
financial support for a stable Pakistan. Saudi interlocutors
stress the importance of remembering that Pakistan remains

Riyadh 00000182 002.2 of 003


pre-occupied with issues on its Indian border, coloring its
ability to deal with the Taliban.

5. (C) IN THE ARMY WE TRUST: The tumultuous democratic
process in Pakistan makes the Saudis nervous, and they appear
to be looking for "another Musharraf": a strong, forceful
leader they know they can trust. In his January meeting with
General Jones, the King cited President Zardari as an
impediment to denying terrorist safehavens, calling him an
"obstacle" and "a rotten head" that was infecting the whole
body. He maintained that the Pakistani Army was capable of
being a strong partner for the U.S., and opined that U.S.
development assistance would rebuild trust. He asserted that
that the Army was staying out of Pakistani politics in
deference to U.S. wishes, rather than doing what it "should."
FM Saud told General Jones that we must reach out to tribal
leaders and separate "those we could work with" from "those
we must fight." He believed that using the military to fight
extremists posed certain dangers, and that the credibility of
the army must be maintained. The Saudis were pushing
Pakistan's civilian leaders to work together, but "compromise
seemed alien to Pakistani politicians."

6. (C) TURKI'S TAKE: During a recent meeting with
Ambassador, former GIP Director Prince Turki Al-Faisal called
Afghanistan a "puzzle," where establishing trust with Afghan
leaders, and recognizing the links between Pakistan and the
Taliban, were keys to success. All financial aid to the
Afghan government should be conditional: benchmarks must be
set for the leadership, and aid must be withheld until these
are met. Recent Saudi efforts to assist in Taliban mediation
had failed, he said, when "both sides fell short." He
described the Taliban leadership as "fractured," and
suggested the U.S. and NATO needed to target criminal
elements more vociferously and re-focus our attention on
capturing Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri. He
suggested Saudi Arabia, the U.S., China, Russia, Afghanistan
and Pakistan could join forces and share assets in order to
capture or kill bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri. This would break
the terrorists' "aura of invincibility" and allow the U.S. to
"declare victory" and move on.

7. (S/NF) TERRORISM FINANCE: Terrorist funding emanating
from Saudi Arabia remains a serious concern. Over the last
year, however, Saudi Arabia has made important progress in
combating al-Qaida financing emanating from the country.
Sensitive reporting indicates that al-Qaida's ability to
raise funds has deteriorated substantially, and that it is
now in its weakest state since 9/11. The Kingdom is also
cooperating more actively than at any previous point to
respond to terrorist financing concerns raised by the United
States, and to investigate and detain financial facilitators
of concern. Nonetheless, sustained engagement is required to
maintain the current momentum, particularly in providing the
Saudis with specific details and actionable information.
Your visit provides another opportunity to welcome the
progress Saudi Arabia has made, and reiterate the importance
that President Obama and the USG place on curtailing
fundraising activity by global terrorist groups in Saudi
Arabia, particularly those that undermine the stability of
Afghanistan and Pakistan.

8. (S/NF) TERRORISM FINANCE, CONTINUED: While in the past
the KSA stood reluctant to pursue Saudi donors who backed
groups that did not directly threaten the Kingdom, the Saudi
Ministry of Interior (MOI) has now demonstrated willingness
to take action, and has begun to detain individuals involved
in funding networks for groups such as Lashkar e-Tayyiba
(LeT), the Taliban, and in some cases even Hamas. xxxxxxxxxxxx
as donors in Saudi Arabia continue to
constitute a source of funding to Sunni extremist groups
worldwide. Available intelligence reflects that the Kingdom
remains an important fundraising locale-especially during the
Hajj and Ramadan-for the Taliban, LeT, and other terrorist
groups based in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The MOI remains
almost completely dependent on the CIA to provide analytic
support and direction for its counterterrorism operations. As
such, our success against terrorist financing in the Kingdom
remains directly tied to our ability to provide actionable
intelligence to our Saudi counterparts. In order to enhance
the USG's ability to influence and direct Saudi efforts to

Riyadh 00000182 003.2 of 003


disrupt terrorist financing, in 2008 we stood up a Treasury
attach office in Embassy Riyadh. This office actively
contributes to the daily intelligence sharing process that
is led by CIA.

9. (S/NF) TERRORISM FINANCE, CONTINUED: Saudi Arabia has
taken increasingly aggressive efforts to disrupt al-Qaida's
access to funding from Saudi sources. An example of recent
progress by the KSA is the conviction of over 300 people for
involvement in terrorism, including some for providing
financial support. News reports suggest that appeals may be
opened to the media in order to enhance the deterrent effects
of such prosecutions. In addition, Assistant Interior
Minister for Security Affairs Mohammed bin Nayif stated that
the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) deliberately timed its
August 19, 2009 press release regarding the arrest of 44
terrorist supporters to deter potential donors from giving
money to suspected terrorist groups during Ramadan. Although
a great deal of work remains to be done, Mohammed bin Nayif
has given his commitment to work with the United States on
Taliban finance, and has said that the MOI will arrest
individuals involved in Saudi-based Taliban fundraising
activities - even if involved in the reconciliation process -
when provided with actionable intelligence.

10. (S/NF) IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES: The Saudis have
expressed broad support for the President's strategy on
Afghanistan and Pakistan, but often balk when asked to
designate an SRAP to coordinate policy with the USG and
others. In part, this reflects the centralized Saudi
decision-making process and the reality that issues related
to Afghanistan and Pakistan policy are not delegated, but
rather dealt with directly by the King and members of the
intelligence community. While the Saudis are hesitant to
delegate authority and tend to make only broad-based
commitments to high-profile, multilateral initiatives, they
appear ready, willing and eager to share their experiences
with us and identify greater opportunities for cooperation on
a bilateral basis. Your visit provides an opportunity to
further explore how we can best translate our shared goals
into action in the unique Saudi context.

Smith

S E C R E T STATE 083026 

SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
RELEASABLE TO PAKISTAN 

EO 12958 DECL: 08/07/2019 
TAGS EFIN, KTFN, PREL, PTER, UNSC 
SUBJECT: UN 1267 (AL-QAIDA/TALIBAN) SANCTIONS: USG 
OPPOSITION TO FOCAL POINT DE-LISTING REQUEST FOR JUD AND HAFIZ SAEED
REF: STATE 65044
Classified By: IO Assistant Secretary Esther Brimmer for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

1. (U) This is an action request. Please see paragraphs 4-6.
---------------------- 
SUMMARY AND OBJECTIVES
---------------------- 
2. (SBU) In May 2009, legal representatives for 1267-listed entity 
Jamaat-ud-Dawah (identified by the UN 1267 Committee as an alias for 
Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, permanent reference number QE.L.118.05) and its leader, 
Muhammad Saeed (permanent reference number QI.S.263.08) petitioned on their 
clients behalf for delisting via the UN focal point. The focal point, which 
was established in the UN Secretariat pursuant to UNSCR 1730 to allow listed 
individuals/entities (or their representatives) to petition directly for 
de-listing, forwarded the de-listing request on behalf of JUD and Saeed for 
review to the USG (designating state) and to the Government of Pakistan 
(state of citizenship/residence/incorporation). The USG and GOP have had three 
months to review the de-listing petition. We have completed our review and 
plan to notify the UN focal point on August 25 of our opposition to de-listing. 
Before doing so, we would like to take this opportunity to: -- share the results 
of our review of the de-listing petition for JUD and Muhammad Saeed with 
Pakistani officials; -- seek GOP views on the request; -- underscore our ongoing 
oncern over the threat posed by LeT/JUD and Saeed; -- ask Pakistani officials to 
update us on actions taken to impose UN 1267 sanctions on LeT/JUD and Saeed.
---------- 
BACKGROUND
---------- 
3. (S) On December 10, 2008, the UN 1267 Committee took several actions related 
to the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Tayibba (LeT), including its listing of 
Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JUD) as an alias for LeT, as well as the listing of JUDâ€™s 
leader, Muhammad Saeed. The Committee in 2005 added LeT to its Consolidated List
citing its affiliation with al-Qaida. The addition of the JUD alias, as well as 
the listing of Saeed, followed closely on the heels of the LeT-perpetrated 
attacks in Mumbai, India, in November 2008. Prior to the attacks, our request to
list JUD and Saeed were placed on hold by China at the behest of Pakistan. In 
spite of Pakistani acquiescence to the listings in December 2008, we continue to
see reporting indicating that JUD is still operating in multiple locations in 
Pakistan, and that the group continues to openly raise funds. It is unclear what,
if any, steps the GOP has taken to freeze JUDâ€™s assets or otherwise implement 
UN 1267 sanctions, which include an asset freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo.
-------------- 
ACTION REQUEST
-------------- 
4. (SBU) USUN is requested to inform the focal point on August 25, after both 
USUN and Islamabad have had a chance to inform Pakistani officials of our views,
of our opposition to the de-listing request on behalf of JUD and Muhammad Saeed.
In its communication to the focal point, USUN should refute the assertion in 
Saeedâ€™s and his legal representatives claim in the focal point de-listing 
petition that â€œthere are no grounds for placing Saeed and JUD on the 
Consolidated List and the material relied upon is incorrect and baselessâ€ and
note that we stand by the information included in the statements of case we 
submitted (co-sponsored by the UK and France) to the UN 1267 Committee to add 
JUD and Saeed to the Consolidated List. USUN should further state that we have
seen no evidence of a change in circumstance warranting de-listing of JUD or 
Saeed.

5. (SBU) USUN and Embassy Islamabad should inform Pakistani officials in New 
York and Islamabad, respectively, of our opposition to the de-listing petition
for JUD and Saeed. Action addressees may wish to draw upon the following points:
-- We have reviewed the de-listing petition from attorneys on behalf of 
Jamaat-ud Dawa (JUD) and its leader Hafiz Saeed and will soon inform the UN 
1267 Committee, via the UN focal point, of our opposition to de-listing.
-- We first wanted to share our views with Pakistani officials, and to seek 
Pakistanâ€™s view on the de-listing petition.
-- As you are no doubt aware, we are deeply concerned about the threat posed by
LeT/JUD, and reject Saeedâ€™s and his legal representatives claim in the focal 
point de-listing petition that â€œthere are no grounds for placing Saeed and JUD
on the Consolidated List and the material relied upon is incorrect and baseless.
â€
-- In fact, LeT and JUD stem from the same original organization, 
Markaz-ud-Dawawal-Irshad (MDI). When LeT was declared a terrorist organization
in Pakistan in 2002, MDI publicly divested itself of LeT at that time and 
renamed itself JUD. LeT transferred most of its assets and personnel to the 
newly formed JUD, ensuring its survival.
-- We believe that LeT uses JUD facilities as a public front for its activities
and shares offices, phone numbers, personnel and bank accounts. LeTâ€™s old 
offices merely changed the name on the door.
-- JUDâ€™s budget, using funds from both witting and unwitting donors, is 
dedicated to social services and/or humanitarian relief but some is used to 
finance LeT operations.
-- We are also aware that LeT and JUD share many senior leaders, including 
Hafiz Saeed, who according to information available to the USG, as of 2009 
continued to control LeT and issue guidance to LeT members.
-- We would like here your views on the status of LeT/JUD and Saeed, and would
particularly appreciate an update on steps Pakistan has taken or will take to 
implement UN 1267 sanctions on them.

6. (S/REL to Pakistan) Embassy Islamabad is also requested to share a 
non-paper, included below in paragraph 7, prepared by our intelligence 
community in February 2009 assessing JUDâ€™s links to LeT. This non-paper, 
which was previously passed by former S/CT Coordinator Dell Daily to Pakistani
Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani, provides more detailed 
information on our concerns about LeT/JUD and Saeed that underpin our view 
that their listing by the UN 1267 Committee was and remains appropriate.

7. (S/REL to Pakistan) BEGIN TEXT OF NON-PAPER
(U//FOUO) Assessing Jamaat-ud-Dawaâ€™s Links to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba
SUMMARY
(S//REL) The Community assesses that LT, a Pakistan-based terrorist group, uses
the JUD name as an alias. JUD is a religious, educational, and humanitarian 
organization that the Community assesses provides cover and protection for 
LTâ€™s militant activities in Pakistan. LT and JUD share many senior leaders; 
LT falls under the authority of JUD leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed; and JUD 
supports and facilitates LTâ€™s violent activities.  - LT and JUD stem from 
the same original organization*Markaz-ud-Dawawal-Irshad (MDI)*that was founded 
around 1986 and for which LT served as its armed, militant wing. MDI was 
renamed JUD in December 2001.  
- LT was declared a terrorist organization in January 2002, and MDI publicly 
divested itself of the LT at that time. LT transferred most of its assets and 
personnel under the newly formed JUD.
(S//REL) The Community assesses that JUD relies heavily on private donations, 
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), madrassas, and businesses spread 
throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Some of the money to 
finance LT operations is obtained by fraudulently redirecting donations 
intended for humanitarian work.
(S//REL) JUD and LT have branch offices with different names and have adopted a
number of aliases as a denial and deception tactic.
END SUMMARY
(C//REL) Various Names and Aliases
(S//REL) The Intelligence Community assesses that Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT) and 
Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) are part of the same organization, originally called 
Markaz-ud-Dawawal-Irshad (MDI), that was founded by Hafiz Muhammed Saeed and 
other faculty at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore in 1986.
MDI was established with funding from donors in the Middle East and set up camps
to prepare its personnel to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
MDI reorganized after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, creating
LT as its paramilitary wing to fight in the Indian-controlled districts of 
Jammu and Kashmir while MDI focused on religious and humanitarian activity. 
Saeed led both MDI and LT during the 1990s.
When the US declared LT a terrorist organization in December 2001, MDI 
reorganized*changing its name to JUD to draw a distinction between its 
charitable and educational work and LTâ€™s militant activities*in an effort 
by MDI leaders to shield their fundraising and other activities from sanctions.
Saeed publicly resigned from LT, telling the media that he had assumed the 
leadership of JUD. In mid-January 2002, LT was banned.
Islamabad â€œwatchlistedâ€ JUD in 2003, but the government has resisted 
pressure to take action against the group, particularly after JUD,s popular 
earthquake relief efforts in 2005 and 2006 in response to the October 2005 
earthquake in Pakistan.
LT has used JUD facilities as a public front for its activities and, shared 
offices, phone numbers, leaders, and bank accounts. LT members identified 
themselves as JUD when in Pakistan and as LT when in Kashmir.
LT/JUD purportedly raises funds for the Palestinian people in response to 
Israelâ€™s attacks on Gaza. The Community judges that as of January, JUD also
may be operating under the alias Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool. LTâ€™s political 
affairs coordinator Khalid Waleed identified himself in late December as the 
chief organizer for a conference for Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool, according to 
intelligence reporting. - On 6 February, the JUD held a Kashmir Solidarity 
Conference at which JUD renamed itself Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir (TAK). At 
JUD,s first public protest since December, supporters used old JUD banners 
and chanted JUD slogans, but rallied under the name TAK to avoid arrest.
BEGIN TEXT BOX
(U//FOUO) UN Links Jamaat-ud-Dawa to Terrorism
(S//REL) The United Nations (UN) banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), and on 10 
December, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Al-Qaida and Taliban 
Sanctions Committee (the 1267 Committee) approved the addition of JUD as a 
new LT alias for targeted sanctions. This UN designation required all UN member
states to freeze any assets this entity may have under the member statesâ€™ 
jurisdiction, Impose a travel ban, and implement an arms embargo against them
as set out in paragraph 1 of UNSC Resolution 1822 of 2008.
(S//REL) The Community assesses that LT/JUD, in an attempt to evade
restrictions, has established branch offices with different names and adopted
a number of aliases. One branch, Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq, is a publicly
acknowledged charitable arm of JUD and has its own web page with photos of
hospitals and ambulances. Other aliases include Paasbaan-e-Ahle-Hadith,
Paasban-e-Kashmir, Al-Mansoorian, and Al-Nasaryeen. We assess that LT and
LT-associated militants will continue to use aliases in order to circumvent
restrictions on their movement and operations.
END TEXT BOX
(U//FOUO) Financial Support
(S//REL) The Community assesses that JUD fundraising has relied heavily on
private donations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), madrassas, and
businesses spread throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Some of
JUDâ€™s budget, using funds raised both from witting donors and by fraud, is
dedicated to social services or humanitarian relief projects, while some is
used to finance LT operations.  - In December 2005, an official of Idara
Khidmat-e-Khalq forwarded JUD donation receipts to a probable LT front company
in Saudi Arabia where an LT finance official may have been closely associated
with the general manager*possibly acting as a front for moving LT funds,
according to intelligence reporting.  - Makki in 2002 frequently visited the
Middle East and viewed it as a main source of funding. To demonstrate results
to donors, JUD would finance the cost of building a new school or upgrading
facilities at a madrassa, but would inflate the cost to siphon money to LT.
(S//REL) The Community lacks sufficient intelligence to determine if or how
the November Mumbai attacks have affected donations to JUD. Some donors may
be dissuaded from supporting JUD if they become aware that their funds may be
used for additional terrorist attacks, whereas other donors may support LTâ€™s
attacks. As public and government scrutiny increases in the wake of the attacks
and subsequent designation of JUD as an alias of LT by the UN, we assess that
JUD will rely more on covert fundraising efforts.
(U//FOUO) Leadership
(S//REL) The Community assesses that Saeed is the leader of LT and Lakvi is
LTâ€™s operations commander*and they continue to run the organization despite
being detained for their role in the November Mumbai attacks. We also judge
that they have planned, directed, and executed LT attacks throughout South Asia
and likely have used some funds collected in the name of JUDâ€™s charitable
activities to support multiple LT terrorist operations, including the November
Mumbai attacks. The Community assesses that Saeed continues to lead both
organizations.
 
However, the Community is unable to assess to what extent senior JUD leaders
such as Saeed are involved in specific terrorist operations or the level of
detail to which they are knowledgeable about specific past and pending attacks.
- As of mid-July Lakvi was responsible for the LTâ€™s military operations budget
of PKR 365 million (approximately US $5.2 million) per year. He reportedly used
the money to purchase all materials required for LT operations other than 
weapons and ammunition, according to a source claiming direct and ongoing 
access to LT leaders.
END TEXT OF NON-PAPER
--------------------------------------- 
REPORTING DEADLINE AND POINT OF CONTACT
--------------------------------------- 
8. (U) Action addressees should report as soon as possible but no later than 
August 19 results of their demarche to Pakistani officials .

9. (U) Questions may be directed to IO/PSC (Erin Crowe, 202-736-7847). CLINTON

Mr Ouattara is the elected President

2010-12-04T20:25:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vapKBuh0uLY

December 4th 2010

Ivory Coast is in a major political crisis, after rival presidential candidates swore themselves in.
The incumbent Laurent Gbagbo took the oath to serve a new term, but within hours Alassane Ouattara also laid claim to the presidency. The US, UN and France say Sunday's run-off poll was won by Mr Ouattara. He was declared the winner by the electoral body, but this was overturned by the Constitutional Council, which is led by an ally of Mr Gbagbo. The presidential run-off was intended to reunify the world's largest cocoa producer after a civil war in 2002, but has now left the nation with two rival presidents.

Within hours, Mr Ouattara, a former rebel from the predominantly Muslim north of the country, was sworn in at an Abidjan hotel guarded by UN peacekeepers. Earlier on Saturday, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro tendered his resignation, saying he backed Mr Ouattara. Mr Soro has warned that overturning the results threatens to derail attempts to stabilise and reunify the country after the war. On Thursday, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) declared that Mr Ouattara had won the 28 November run-off by 54.1% to 45.9%.

Free Media?

2010-12-04T01:45:00.003Z

Dr Ron Paul Congressman - House of Representatives

But in a Thursday interview with Fox Business, Paul said the idea of prosecuting Assange crosses the line. “In a free society we're supposed to know the truth,” Paul said. “In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.” “This whole notion that Assange, who's an Australian, that we want to prosecute him for treason. I mean, aren't they jumping to a wild conclusion?” he added. “This is media, isn't it? I mean, why don't we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?”

Cyber attack forces Wikileaks to change web address

2010-12-03T13:49:00.000Z

December 3rd 2010 @ 10:49 GMT

Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks has been forced to change its web address after the company providing its domain name cut off service. EveryDNS.net said it had terminated services because Wikileaks.org had come under massive cyber attacks. But Wikileaks has already reappeared using a Swiss web address. Wikileaks has also used micro-blogging site Twitter to urge its fans to redistribute its "raw" net address so it can be viewed at any time. This numerical internet protocol (IP) address remains live and accessible even when web domains - the normal "www" addresses used to access most sites - are unavailable. Experts say it is likely that Wikileaks has done deals with lots of web hosting companies, although many are likely to back away from dealing with the controversial site in the light of recent web attacks.

In a post on Twitter, Wikileaks acknowledged that its domain had been "killed" by EveryDNS.net. It was not clear how long disruption to the wikileaks.org site would last. In a statement on its website, EveryDNS.net said it had issued a 24-hour termination notice to Wikileaks which ended at 0300 GMT on 2 December. It said the domain wikileaks.org had become the target of "multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks". "These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 500,000 other websites," it said.

"Any downtime of the wikileaks.org website has resulted from its failure to use another hosted DNS service provider," it added. Websites use web hosting firms such as EveryDNS.net to translate their raw IP addresses to a more memorable web address such as Wikileaks.org. But the IP address of a website will also direct users to the site. One web expert explained that Wikileaks had managed to re-establish web access via a different address.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11907641

Wikileaks Mirrors

Find all the current Wikileaks Mirrors here. Helpful, if the main site - wikileaks.org - is down.

Domain Name Mirrors

wikileaks.org - Official Wikileaks Page [46.51.171.90, 184.72.37.90]
cablegate.wikileaks.org - Secret US Embassy Cables [91.194.60.90, 91.194.60.112, 204.236.131.131]
chat.wikileaks.org - Secure SSL Chat Page [88.80.13.160]
sunshinepress.org - Secure Document Submission Page [88.80.2.32]
wikileaks.com - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.net - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.biz - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.de - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.eu - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.fi - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.mobi - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.nl - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.pl - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.us - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
ljsf.org - Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]

Real mirrors on different IP Addresses

wikileaks.info - Mirror hosted in Switzerland [62.2.16.94]
wikileaks.se - Mirror hosted in Sweden [88.80.6.179]
nyud.net - Mirror hosted in the United States [129.170.214.192] (FULLY WORKING SITE)

Important Wikileaks Links

twitter.com/wikileaks - Official Wikileaks Twitter Page
facebook.com/wikileaks - Official Wikileaks Facebook Page

Scotland Yard 'will arrest wanted WikiLeaks boss today'

2010-12-03T07:11:00.001Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=werHpglOzA4

2:51 AM on 3rd December 2010

WikiLeaks supremo Julian Assange could be arrested in Britain today over sex allegations.
Scotland Yard detectives were last night preparing to detain the 39-year-old over claims of rape and sexual assault in Sweden. An extradition warrant is expected to be passed to the Metropolitan Police today or early next week. They have apparently known for over a month where Australian-born Mr Assange, who is in hiding in south-east England, is staying. He supplied the force with his contact details upon arrival in Britain in October, said his London-based lawyer. It today emerged that Mr Assange only escaped arrest yesterday because the Swedish authorities filled out an Interpol arrest warrant incorrectly. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘If an international arrest warrant is legitimately issued and is passed to us and if we know where that person is then of course we would arrest them.’ The internet whistleblower will be the subject of an international manhunt when the Interpol ‘red notice’ is correctly issued. He was added to the worldwide wanted list amid growing fury in Washington at the mass release of more than 250,000 classified U.S. communiques. One aide said: 'The inquiry into the criminal nature of the leaks is still at a preliminary stage in Washington, but Sweden clearly thinks the charges against him are serious enough for him to be extradited back there.’

There had been reports that the U.S. was investigating whether Mr Assange had committed treason, but as he is an Australian citizen such charges would not stick. Mark Stephens, Mr Assange’s lawyer, has questioned the timing of Interpol’s warrant, saying his client was being persecuted. Mr Assange lives a rootless life, has hardly any possessions and uses his Australian passport to stay with friends in various countries. Prosecutors in Sweden want to question him over alleged attacks on two women during a visit to Stockholm to give a lecture to the Social Democratic Party in August. He is accused of attacking one woman in Stockholm and then sexually assaulting another woman in the town of Enkoping, 40 miles from the capital, three days later. Mr Stephens said his client had repeatedly offered to meet Swedish investigators either at the Swedish embassy in London or a UK police station. ‘The allegations against him are false and without basis,’ he added. Kristinn Hrafnsson, a spokesman for WikiLeaks, said Mr Assange and other staff were in hiding in an undisclosed location outside London. 'If you have people calling for your assassination it is wise to keep a low profile,’ he said. 'He is in a secret location working on the project. Julian says he is innocent and I believe him.’ He added that Mr Assange would disclose his location and clear his name ‘in due course’. The WikiLeaks founder has not been seen in public since a press conference in Geneva on November 5.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1334899/Scotland-Yard-arrest-wanted-WikiLeaks-boss-today.html?ITO=1490

EveryDNS terminates WikiLeaks due to violation of Acceptable Use Policy

2010-12-03T06:35:00.002Z

December 3rd 2010 @ 06:00 GMT

EveryDNS has released this statement:

All systems are functioning normally.

EveryDNS.net provided domain name system (DNS) services to the wikileaks.org domain name until 10PM EST, December 2, 2010, when such services were terminated. As with other users of the EveryDNS.net network, this service was provided for free. The termination of services was effected pursuant to, and in accordance with, the EveryDNS.net Acceptable Use Policy.

More specifically, the services were terminated for violation of the provision which states that "Member shall not interfere with another Member's use and enjoyment of the Service or another entity's use and enjoyment of similar services." The interference at issues arises from the fact that wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 500,000 other websites.

Thus, last night, at approximately 10PM EST, December 1, 2010 a 24 hour termination notification email was sent to the email address associated with the wikileaks.org account. In addition to this email, notices were sent to Wikileaks via Twitter and the chat function available through the wikileaks.org website. Any downtime of the wikileaks.org website has resulted from its failure to use another hosted DNS service provider.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/30/wikileaks-cablegate-live-_n_789789.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=120210&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily+Brief#39_everydns-responds

http://cablesearch.org (US Cable Leaks) is unnefected by this action.

United States Government - Kidnap and Torture

2010-12-03T02:47:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hh-877s01U

Man sues CIA over torture claims

7 December 2005, 03:17 GMT

A man who says he was a victim of the CIA's alleged secret prisons is suing its former chief over torture claims. Khaled al-Masri says he was kidnapped in 2003 while on holiday in Macedonia, flown to Afghanistan and mistreated. His is a rare legal challenge to the US policy of "extraordinary rendition" - flying suspects to third countries without judicial process. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this week the US does not practice or condone torture. Human rights groups say extraordinary rendition is a violation of international law. The US maintains that all such operations are conducted within the law. The landmark lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a district court in Alexandria, Virginia. It claims that former CIA director George Tenet and other CIA officials violated US and universal human rights laws when they authorised agents to kidnap Mr Masri. The lawsuit says Mr Masri suffered "prolonged arbitrary detention, torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment". Mr Masri, 42, a Lebanese-born German citizen, spoke at an ACLU news conference in Washington via a satellite video link from Stuttgart, Germany. He claims he was beaten and injected with drugs before being taken to Afghanistan and held for five months.

The civil rights group says the government has to be held to account over "extraordinary rendition". "Kidnapping a foreign national for the purpose of detaining and interrogating him outside the law is contrary to American values," said Anthony D Romero, executive director of the ACLU. "Our government has acted as if it is above the law. We go to court today to reaffirm that the rule of law is central to our identity as a nation." The case was discussed earlier in Berlin by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Secretary of State Rice. Mrs Merkel said the US acknowledged making a mistake in detaining Mr Masri. While refusing to comment on the case directly, Ms Rice said the US sought to rectify any mistakes made. Both told reporters that intelligence work was an essential part of the war on terror, but should not break international law. Before she left the US, Ms Rice admitted that terror suspects were flown abroad for interrogation but denied they were tortured. She said suspects were moved by plane under a process known as rendition, and that this was "a lawful weapon".

cable 07BERLIN242, AL-MASRI CASE -- CHANCELLERY AWARE OF USG CONCERNS

VZCZCXYZ0015
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHRL #0242 0371748
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
O 061748Z FEB 07
FM AMEMBASSY BERLIN
TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6940

S E C R E T BERLIN 000242 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NOFORN 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR S/ES-O, EUR AND L 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/06/2017 
TAGS: KJUS PTER PREL PGOV GM
SUBJECT: AL-MASRI CASE -- CHANCELLERY AWARE OF USG CONCERNS 
 
REF: A. BERLIN 230 
 
     Â¶B. BERLIN 200 
 
Classified By: DCM John M. Koenig for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
Â¶1.  (S/NF) In a February 6 discussion with German Deputy 
National Security Adviser Rolf Nikel, the DCM reiterated our 
strong concerns about the possible issuance of international 
arrest warrants in the al-Masri case.  The DCM noted that the 
reports in the German media of the discussion on the issue 
between the Secretary and FM Steinmeier in Washington were 
not accurate, in that the media reports suggest the USG was 
not troubled by developments in the al-Masri case.  The DCM 
emphasized that this was not the case and that issuance of 
international arrest warrants would have a negative impact on 
our bilateral relationship.  He reminded Nikel of the 
repercussions to U.S.-Italian bilateral relations in the wake 
of a similar move by Italian authorities last year. 
 
Â¶2.  (S/NF) The DCM pointed out that our intention was not to 
threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German 
Government weigh carefully at every step of the way the 
implications for relations with the U.S.  We of course 
recognized the independence of the German judiciary, but 
noted that a decision to issue international arrest warrants 
or extradition requests would require the concurrence of the 
German Federal Government, specifically the MFA and the 
Ministry of Justice (MOJ).  The DCM said our initial 
indications had been that the German federal authorities 
would not allow the warrants to be issued, but that 
subsequent contacts led us to believe this was not the case. 
 
Â¶3.  (S/NF) Nikel also underscored the independence of the 
German judiciary, but confirmed that the MFA and MOJ would 
have a procedural role to play.  He said the case was subject 
to political, as well as judicial, scrutiny.  From a judicial 
standpoint, the facts are clear, and the Munich prosecutor 
has acted correctly.  Politically speaking, said Nikel, 
Germany would have to examine the implications for relations 
with the U.S.  At the same time, he noted our political 
differences about how the global war on terrorism should be 
waged, for example on the appropriateness of the Guantanamo 
facility and the alleged use of renditions. 
 
Â¶4.  (S/NF) Nikel also cited intense pressure from the 
Bundestag and the German media.  The German federal 
Government must consider the "entire political context," said 
Nikel.  He assured the DCM that the Chancellery is well aware 
of the bilateral political implications of the case, but 
added that this case "will not be easy."  The Chancellery 
would nonetheless try to be as constructive as possible. 
 
Â¶5.  (S/NF) The DCM pointed out that the USG would likewise 
have a difficult time in managing domestic political 
implications if international arrest warrants are issued.  He 
reiterated our concerns and expressed the hope that the 
Chancellery would keep us informed of further developments in 
the case, so as to avoid surprises.  Nikel undertook to do 
so, but reiterated that he could not, at this point "promise 
that everything will turn out well." 
TIMKEN JR

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2007/02/07BERLIN242.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBZBA-uMreU

CIA flying suspects to torture?

March 6, 2005

(CBS) You may not have heard the term "rendition," at least not the way the Central Intelligence Agency uses it. But renditions have become one of the most important secret weapons in the war on terror. In recent years, well over 100 people have disappeared or been "rendered" all around the world. Witnesses tell the same story: masked men in an unmarked jet seize their target, cut off his clothes, put him in a blindfold and jumpsuit, tranquilize him and fly him away. They're describing U.S. agents collaring terrorism suspects. Some notorious terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11, were rendered this way. But as Correspondent Scott Pelley reports, it's happening to many others. Some are taken to prisons infamous for torture. And a few may have been rendered by mistake.

One of the covert missions happened in Stockholm, and the details have touched off a national scandal in Sweden. Two Egyptians living in Sweden, Mohammad Al-Zery and Ahmed Agiza, were arrested by Swedish police and brought to an airport. An executive jet was waiting with a crew of mysterious masked men. "America security agents just took over," says Tomas Hammarberg, a former Swedish diplomat who pressed for and got an investigation into how the Egyptians disappeared. "We know that they were badly treated on the spot, that scissors and knives were used to take off their clothes. And they were shackled. And some tranquilizers were put in the back of them, obviously in order to make them dizzy and fall asleep." An airport officer told 60 Minutes she saw the two men hustled to the plane.

She didn't want to be identified, but she had no doubt about where the plane came from: "I know that the aircraft was American registration ... because the 'N' first, on the registration." The so-called "N" number marks an American plane. Swedish records show a Gulfstream G5, N379P was there that night. Within hours, Al-Zery and Agiza, both of whom had been seeking asylum in Sweden, found themselves in an Egyptian prison. Hammarberg says Sweden sent a diplomat to see them weeks later.The so-called "N" number marks an American plane. Swedish records show a Gulfstream G5, N379P was there that night. Within hours, Al-Zery and Agiza, both of whom had been seeking asylum in Sweden, found themselves in an Egyptian prison. Hammarberg says Sweden sent a diplomat to see them weeks later.

What did they tell the diplomat about how they were being treated? "That they had been treated brutally in general, had been beaten up several times, that they had been threatened," says Hammarberg. "But probably the worst phase of torture came after that first visit by the ambassador. ... They were under electric torture." The Egyptians say Agiza is an Islamic militant and they sentenced him to 25 years. But Al-Zery wasn't charged. After two years in jail, he was sent to his village in Egypt. The authorities are not allowing interviews. "The option of not doing something is extraordinarily dangerous to the American people," says Michael Scheuer, who until three months ago was a senior CIA official in the counterterrorist center. Scheuer created the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and helped set up the rendition program during the Clinton administration. "Basically, the National Security Council gave us the mission, take down these cells, dismantle them and take people off the streets so they can't kill Americans," says Scheuer. "They just didn't give us anywhere to take the people after we captured." So the CIA started taking suspects to Egypt and Jordan. Scheuer says renditions were authorized by Clinton's National Security Council and officials in Congress - and all understood what it meant to send suspects to those countries.

"They don't have the same legal system we have. But we know that going into it," says Scheuer. "And so the idea that we're gonna suddenly throw our hands up like Claude Raines in 'Casablanca' and say, 'I'm shocked that justice in Egypt isn't like it is in Milwaukee,' there's a certain disingenuousness to that." "And one of the things that you know about justice in Egypt is that people get tortured," says Pelley. "Well, it can be rough. I have to assume that that's the case," says Scheuer. But doesn't that make the United States complicit in the torture? "You'll have to ask the lawyers," says Scheuer. Is it convenient? "It's convenient in the sense that it allows American policy makers and American politicians to avoid making hard decisions," says Scheuer. "Yes. It's very convenient. It's finding someone else to do your dirty work." The indispensable tool for that work is a small fleet of executive jets authorized to land at all U.S. military bases worldwide. Scheuer wouldn't tell 60 Minutes about the planes that are used in these operations - that information is classified. The CIA declined to talk about it, but it turns out the CIA has left plenty of clues out in the open, in the public record. The tail number of the Gulfstream was first reported by witnesses in Pakistan. In public records, the tail number came back to a company called Premiere Executive Transport Services, with headquarters listed in Dedham, Mass. But Dedham is a dead end. The address is a law office on the second floor of a bank -- there's no airline there.

The flight log shows one flight took the 737 to Skopje, Macedonia, to Baghdad and finally Kabul, Afghanistan. 60 Minutes found a man who says he was on that flight. Khaled el-Masri was born in Kuwait, but he now lives in Germany with his wife and four children. He became a German citizen 10 years ago. He told 60 Minutes he was on vacation in Macedonia last year when Macedonian police, apparently acting on a tip, took him off a bus, held him for three weeks, then took him to the Skopje airport where he believes he was abducted by the CIA. "They took me to this room, and they hit me all over and they slashed my clothes with sharp objects, maybe knives or scissors," says el-Masri. "I also heard photos being taken while this was going on - and they took off the blindfold and I saw that there were a lot of men standing in the room. They were wearing black masks and black gloves." El-Masri says he was injected with drugs, and after his flight, he woke up in an American-run prison in Afghanistan. He showed 60 Minutes a prison floor plan he drew from memory. He says other prisoners were from Pakistan, Tanzania, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. El-Masri told 60 Minutes that he was held for five months and interrogated by Americans through an interpreter. "He yelled at me and he said that, 'You're in a country without laws and no one knows where you are. Do you know what that means?' I said yes," says el-Masri. "It was very clear to me that he meant I could stay in my cell for 20 years or be buried somewhere, and nobody knows what happened to you."

He says they were asking him "whether I had contacts with Islamic parties like al Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood or aid organizations, lots of questions." He says he told the Americans he'd never been involved in militant Islam. El-Masri says he wasn't tortured, but he says he was beaten and kept in solitary confinement. Then, after his five months of questioning, he was simply released. At that point, did anyone ever tell him that they'd made a mistake? "They told me that they had confused names and that they had cleared it up, but I can't imagine that," says el-Masri. "You can clear up switching names in a few minutes." He says he was flown out of Afghanistan and dumped on a road in Albania. When he finally made his way back home in Germany, he found that his wife and kids had gone to her family in Lebanon. He called there to explain what happened. El-Masri says that his wife believed him: "I never lied to her, and my appearance showed that I had been in prison." How did he explain what happened to him to his son? "I explained to him what happened to me. And he understood," says el-Masri. "I said it was the Americans [who did this to me]."

"And if some of that useful information is gleaned by torture, that's OK," asks Pelley. "It's OK with me," says Scheuer. "I'm responsible for protecting Americans." Scheuer says in the Clinton and Bush administrations, and in Congress, details of rendition flights were known to top officials. Now that the missions are coming to light, Scheuer says there is worry in the CIA that field agents will take the fall if any of the missions are later deemed illegal. Are CIA people feeling vulnerable to that? "I think from the first day we ever did it there was a certain macabre humor that said sooner or later this sword of Damocles is gonna fall because if something goes wrong, the policy maker and the politicians and the congressional committees aren't gonna belly up to the bar and say, 'We authorized this,'" says Scheuer.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/04/60minutes/main678155.shtml

Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KTBLwRBa-I

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYPBkFiYM1Y

Amazon faces leaks boycot and many call for executions

2010-12-02T07:14:00.001Z

The Metro (UK) Front page and pages 14-15
December 2nd 2010

Amazon is facing a backlash from its customers after kicking whistle blowing website WikiLeaks off its servers. The Internet giant took action after coming under pressure from right-wingers in the US to stop hosting the site, which this week published tens of thousands of confidential diplomatic e-mails. Jow Lieberman, chairman of the senate homeland security committee, called on other companies to end their links with the website. He said: "WikiLeaks' illegal, outrageous and reckless acts have compromised our national security and puts lives at risk around the world" But Amazon now faces protests from free speech campaigners, who say it should be "punished with boycott" at what is its busiest trading period of the year. The e-tailer began hosting WikiLeaks on its servers after the site's host in Sweden came under cyber attack on Sunday.

Yesterday, the site had returned to its original Swedish host, leaving Amazon facing the wrath of its customers. One tweeted: "For the first time in my life, I have a disposable income in dollars. Not one penny is going to Amazon." The right wing was not silenced either with outspoken Republican Mick Huckabee calling for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be executed for treason. (It must be noted only citizens can commit treason). "I think anything less then execution is too kind a penalty. They've put American lives at risks. They have put relationships that will take decades to rebuild at risk, and they knoew full well that they were handling sensitive documents." Mr Huckabee told reporters at a book signing. Mr Huckabees' demand came as a senior advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper called for on-the-run WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be killed. "I think Assange should be assassinated, actually," Tom Flanagan told Canadian TV. "I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something," he added. Mr Flanagan later refused to retract the comment, adding: "I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange does disappear."

SRI LANKA WAR-CRIMES

2010-12-02T03:52:00.001Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtGNLneU5Cw

SRI LANKA WAR-CRIMES ACCOUNTABILITY: THE TAMIL

Friday, 15 January 2010, 12:23
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000032
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INSB
EO 12958 DECL: 01/15/2020
TAGS PGOV, PREL, PREF, PHUM, PTER, EAID, MOPS, CE
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA WAR-CRIMES ACCOUNTABILITY: THE TAMIL
PERSPECTIVE
REF: A. 09 COLOMBO 1180 B. COLOMBO 8
COLOMBO 00000032 001.2 OF 003
Classified By: AMBASSADOR PATRICIA A. BUTENIS. REASONS: 1.4 (B, D)
Â¶1. (S) SUMMARY: There have been a few tentative steps on accountability for crimes allegedly committed by Sri Lankan troops and civilian officials during the war with the LTTE. President Rajapaksa named a committee to make recommendations to him on the U.S. incidents report by April, and candidate Fonseka has discussed privately the formation of some form of â€œtruth and reconciliationâ€ commission. Otherwise, accountability has not been a high-profile issue -- including for Tamils in Sri Lanka. While Tamils have told us they would like to see some form of accountability, they have been pragmatic in what they can expect and have focused instead on securing greater rights and freedoms, resolving the IDP question, and improving economic prospects in the war-ravaged and former LTTE-occupied areas. Indeed, while they wanted to keep the issue alive for possible future action, Tamil politicians with whom we spoke in Colombo, Jaffna, and elsewhere said now was not time and that pushing hard on the issue would make them â€œvulnerable.â€ END SUMMARY.
ACCOUNTABILITY AS A POLITICAL ISSUE
-----------------------------------
Â¶2. (S) Accountability for alleged crimes committed by GSL troops and officials during the war is the most difficult issue on our bilateral agenda. (NOTE: Both the State Department Report to Congress on Incidents during the Conflict and the widely read report by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) also detailed many incidents of alleged crimes perpetrated by the LTTE. Most of the LTTE leadership was killed at the end of the war, leaving few to be held responsible for those crimes. The Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) is holding thousands of mid- and lower-level ex-LTTE combatants for future rehabilitation and/or criminal prosecution. It is unclear whether any such prosecutions will meet international standards. END NOTE.) There have been some tentative steps on accountability on the GSL side. Soon after the appearance of the State Department report, President Rajapaksa announced the formation of an expertsâ€™ committee to examine the report and to provide him with recommendations on dealing with the allegations. At the end of the year, the president extended the deadline for the committeeâ€™s recommendations from December 31 until April. For his part, General Fonseka has spoken publicly of the need for a new deal with the Tamils and other minorities. Privately, his campaign manager told the Ambassador that Fonseka had ordered the opposition campaign to begin work planning a â€œtruth and reconciliationâ€ commission (ref B).
Â¶3. (S) These tentative steps notwithstanding, accountability has not been a high-profile issue in the presidential election -- other than President Rajapaksaâ€™s promises personally to stand up to any international power or body that would try to prosecute Sri Lankan war heroes. While regrettable, the lack of attention to accountability is not surprising. There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power. In Sri Lanka this is further complicated by the fact that responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the countryâ€™s senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka.
THE TAMIL PERSPECTIVE
---------------------
COLOMBO 00000032 002.2 OF 003
Â¶4. (S) For different reasons, of course, accountability also has not been a top priority for most Tamils in Sri Lanka. While Tamils have told us they would like to see some form of accountability, they have been pragmatic in what they can expect and have focused instead on securing greater rights and freedoms, resolving the IDP question, and improving economic prospects in the war-ravaged and former LTTE-occupied areas. Indeed, while they wanted to keep the issue alive for possible future action, Tamil leaders with whom we spoke in Colombo, Jaffna, and elsewhere said now was not time and that pushing hard on the issue would make them â€œvulnerable.â€
Â¶5. (S) The one prominent Tamil who has spoken publicly on the issue is Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP, self-proclaimed presidential candidate, and Prabhakaran relative M.K. Sivajilingam. Breaking from both the TNA mainstream and the pro-government Tamil groups, he launched his campaign because he believed neither the government nor the opposition was adequately addressing Tamil issues. Sivajilingam has focused on creating a de-centralized federal structure in Sri Lanka with separate prime ministers for the Sinhalese and Tamils, but he also has spoken about accountability, demanding an international inquiry to get justice for the deaths and suffering of the Tamil people.
Â¶6. (S) Other Tamil politicians have not made public statements on accountability and are generally more pragmatic in their thinking. In our multiple recent discussions with TNA leader R. Sampanthan, he said he believed accountability was important and he welcomed the international communityâ€™s -- especially the diasporaâ€™s -- interest in the issue. But Sampanthan was realistic about the dim prospects for any Sri Lankan government to take up the issue. Granting that governments in power do not investigate their own, Sampanthan nevertheless said it was important to the health of the nation to get the truth out. While he believed the Tamil community was â€œvulnerableâ€ on the issue and said he would not discuss â€œwar crimesâ€ per se in parliament for fear of retaliation, Sampanthan would emphasize the importance of people knowing the truth about what happened during the war. We also have asked Sampanthan repeatedly for his ideas on an accountability mechanism that would be credible to Tamils and possible within the current political context, but he has not been able to provide such a model.
Â¶7. (S) Mano Ganesan, MP and leader of the ethnic Tamil Democratic Peopleâ€™s Front (DPF), is a Colombo-based Tamil who counts as supporters many of the well-educated, long-term Colombo and Western Province resident Tamils, and was an early supporter of Fonseka. The general made promises that convinced him that if Fonseka were to win, ethnic reconciliation issues would then be decided by parliament, not the Executive President. On accountability, Ganesan told us that while the issue was significant XXXXXXXXXXXX accountability was a divisive issue and the focus now had to be on uniting to rid the country of the Rajapaksas.
Â¶8. (S) TNA MP Pathmini Sithamparanathan told us in mid-December that the true story of what happened in the final weeks of the war would not go away and would come out eventually, but she also said now was not the time for war crimes-type investigations. Finally, on a recent trip to Jaffna, PolOff found that local politicians did not raise accountability for events at the end of the war as an issue of immediate concern, focusing instead on current bread-and-butter issues, such as IDP releases, concerns about Sinhala emigration to traditional Tamil regions, and
COLOMBO 00000032 003.2 OF 003
re-developing the local economy.
COMMENT
-------
Â¶9. (S) Accountability is clearly an issue of importance for the ultimate political and moral health of Sri Lankan society. There is an obvious split, however, between the Tamil diaspora and Tamils in Sri Lanka on how and when to address the issue. While we understand the former would like to see the issue as an immediate top-priority issue, most Tamils in Sri Lanka appear to think it is both unrealistic and counter-productive to push the issue too aggressively now. While Tamil leaders are very vocal and committed to national reconciliation and creating a political system more equitable to all ethnic communities, they believe themselves vulnerable to political or even physical attack if they raise the issue of accountability publicly, and common Tamils appear focused on more immediate economic and social concerns. A few have suggested to us that while they cannot address the issue, they would like to see the international community push it. Such an approach, however, would seem to play into the super-heated campaign rhetoric of Rajapaksa and his allies that there is an international conspiracy against Sri Lanka and its â€œwar heroes.â€ BUTENIS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eksn5X7lT6s

War crimes lawyers seek arrest of Sri Lankan president in Oxford

Lawyers working for Tamil activists are attempting to obtain a war crimes arrest warrant against Sri Lanka's president and senior member of his entourage who have arrived in Britain. Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose government defeated the separatist Tamil Tigers last year amid humanitarian protests about the treatment of civilians trapped in the war zone, is due to speak at the Oxford Union on Thursday. The visit comes as Tamil supporters claim to have acquired a video showing a former Tamil Tiger colonel being interrogated by Sri Lankan forces. His family allege he was killed after surrendering. Rajapaksa is also expected to meet the defence secretary, Liam Fox. Last year the UK revoked a number of arms exports licences to Sri Lanka in response to the conflict. The Sri Lankan head of state's visit, postponed from last month, is likely to trigger mass protests. Tamil demonstrators were at Heathrow airport for his arrival on Monday evening; more are expected in Oxford later this week.

Last month David Cameron endorsed calls for an independent investigation into the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009. He told the Commons: "Everyone has read the papers and seen the TV footage, but we need an independent investigation" to work out whether there had been human rights abuses. A spokesman for the public relations firm Bell Pottinger, which represents Rajapaksa, denied that he had cancelled his trip to the UK last month becuse of fears that he might face an arrest warrant. "He had to give a keynote speech at the UN," the spokesman said, "and visit Shanghai. He had a busy international schedule. He's here now to speak to the Oxford Union." Rajapaksa last spoke at the Oxford Union in 2008. His second visit tomorrow, according to his spokesperson, will mean that he is the first serving head of state to address the union twice. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has established a three-man committee to investigate ways of dealing with the war crime allegations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJbzpbm1Kjk

-- UNCUT -- Sri Lankan Army execution video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hLjtsuIwH4

Wikileaks set to release US Embassy Cables

2010-11-28T23:23:00.000Z

"We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack." - Wikileaks @ 21:00 GMT 28/11/10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAfPn1Bmd5o

Congress warned of harm from WikiLeaks release

Wednesday 24 November 2010 20.27 GMT

The US state department has warned Congress it expects a damaging release of sensitive diplomatic documents by the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website. The department said the release may create tensions with other governments. Congressional committees were notified of the likelihood of a damaging release of diplomatic cables in coming days, a spokesman said. The Pentagon has also told the US Senate and House armed services committees that the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel "are each currently working with WikiLeaks to co-ordinate the release of the documents".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfX1jI2Fd4Q

US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis
Sunday 28 November 2010 18.13 GMT

The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year. At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many designated "secret" – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership. These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues. These include a shift in relations between China and North Korea, high level concerns over Pakistan's growing instability and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.

The cables published today reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material. Classified "human intelligence directives" issued in the name of Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA. The most controversial target was the UN leadership. That directive requested the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top officials and their staff and details of "private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys". PJ Crowley, the state department spokesman in Washington, said: "Let me assure you: our diplomats are just that, diplomats. They do not engage in intelligence activities.

They represent our country around the world, maintain open and transparent contact with other governments as well as public and private figures, and report home. That's what diplomats have done for hundreds of years." The acting deputy spokesman for Ban Ki Moon, Farhan Haq, said the UN chief had no immediate comment: "We are aware of the reports." The dispatches also shed light on older diplomatic issues. One cable, for example, reveals, that Nelson Mandela was "furious" when a top adviser stopped him meeting Margaret Thatcher shortly after his release from prison to explain why the ANC objected to her policy of "constructive engagement" with the apartheid regime. "We understand Mandela was keen for a Thatcher meeting but that [appointments secretary Zwelakhe] Sisulu argued successfully against it," according to the cable. It continues: "Mandela has on several occasions expressed his eagerness for an early meeting with Thatcher to express the ANC's objections to her policy. We were consequently surprised when the meeting didn't materialise on his mid-April visit to London and suspected that ANC hardliners had nixed Mandela's plans."

The US embassy cables are marked "Sipdis" – secret internet protocol distribution. They were compiled as part of a programme under which selected dispatches, considered moderately secret but suitable for sharing with other agencies, would be automatically loaded on to secure embassy websites, and linked with the military's Siprnet internet system. They are classified at various levels up to "secret noforn" [no foreigners]. More than 11,000 are marked secret, while around 9,000 of the cables are marked noforn. More than 3 million US government personnel and soldiers, many extremely junior, are cleared to have potential access to this material, even though the cables contain the identities of foreign informants, often sensitive contacts in dictatorial regimes. Some are marked "protect" or "strictly protect". Last spring, 22-year-old intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was charged with leaking many of these cables, along with a gun-camera video of an Apache helicopter crew mistakenly killing two Reuters news agency employees in Baghdad in 2007, which was subsequently posted by WikiLeaks. Manning is facing a court martial.

In July and October WikiLeaks also published thousands of leaked military reports from Afghanistan and Iraq. These were made available for analysis beforehand to the Guardian, along with Der Spiegel and the New York Times. A former hacker, Adrian Lamo, who reported Manning to the US authorities, said the soldier had told him in chat messages that the cables revealed "how the first world exploits the third, in detail". He also said, according to Lamo, that Clinton "and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available in searchable format to the public … everywhere there's a US post … there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed". Asked why such sensitive material was posted on a network accessible to thousands of government employees, the state department spokesman told the Guardian: "The 9/11 attacks and their aftermath revealed gaps in intra-governmental information sharing.

Since the attacks of 9/11, the US government has taken significant steps to facilitate information sharing. These efforts were focused on giving diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence specialists quicker and easier access to more data to more effectively do their jobs." He added: "We have been taking aggressive action in recent weeks and months to enhance the security of our systems and to prevent the leak of information."

US Cables by Dates (1991 to 2003 is NOT present) Cables range from 1966 to 2010

2005/03 2005/05 2005/06 2005/12

2006/04 2006/08 2006/12

2007/01 2007/02 2007/03 2007/04 2007/05 2007/06 2007/07 2007/08 2007/11

2008/01 2008/03 2008/04 2008/05 2008/07 2008/08 2008/09 2008/10 2008/12

2009/01 2009/02 2009/03 2009/04 2009/05 2009/06 2009/07 2009/08 2009/09 2009/10 2009/11 2009/12

2010/01 2010/02

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/

North Korean War?

2010-11-23T10:26:00.001Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ijgC_HXuo

South Korea says it has returned fire after North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells at one of its border islands, killing two marines. The South's military was placed on its highest non-wartime alert after the shells landed on Yeonpyeong island. The North said it did not fire first in the incident. Two South Korean marines and four civilians were also injured. Analysts say this is one of the most serious clashes since the Korean War ended without a peace treaty in 1953. There have been occasional cross-border clashes since, but the latest incident comes at a time of rising regional tension. North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-il is thought to be ill and trying to ensure the succession of his youngest son.

A spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korean shells had started falling in the waters off the island of Yeonpyeong at 1434 (0534 GMT). At least 50 landed directly on the island, most hitting a South Korean military base there. The South's military immediately fired back some 80 shells in self-defence, Col Lee Bung-woo added. A resident on the island told the AFP news agency that dozens of houses were damaged by the barrage, while television pictures showed plumes of smoke rising above the island. "Houses and mountains are on fire and people are evacuating. You can't see very well because of plumes of smoke," a witness on the island told YTN television station. "People are frightened to death." Local government spokesman Yoon Kwan-seok said the shelling lasted for about an hour and then stopped abruptly. Four residents were hurt.

"The whole of Yeonpyeong island was blacked out following the North Korean attacks," he was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency. "All of the island's 1,600-odd residents were evacuated to a shelter." The South Korean military has also deployed fighter jets to Yeonpyeong, which lies about 3km (1.8 miles) south of the disputed inter-Korean maritime border and 100km (60 miles) west of the Korean Peninsula. Later, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak warned North Korea that his country would "sternly retaliate against any further provocations". "North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong island constitutes a clear armed provocation. Furthermore, its reckless shelling of civilian targets is unpardonable," his office said in a statement. "North Korean authorities must take responsibility."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxs6JuVuZoY

ITN conduct a "set up" interview with George Galloway May 2005

2010-11-21T22:13:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNNh2Bfj1x0

US Senate approves Pigford and Cobell suit settlements

2010-11-21T21:58:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3_HpBNpa0s

The US Senate has approved a $4.6bn (£2.9bn) payment to Native Americans and black farmers who complained of government discrimination. The legal settlement would benefit black farmers who sued for alleged bias by US agriculture officials. It would also settle a 15 year-old suit by Native Americans who said the government cheated them out of of oil, gas and grazing royalties. The legislation now needs approval by the House of Representatives. Many of the claims date back to the 19th century. At least 300,000 Native Americans claimed that since 1887, the US interior department swindled them out of royalties.

The suit, called the Cobell lawsuit for lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, dragged on for 15 years and encompassed 3,600 court filings and 80 judicial rulings, the Associated Press reported. "Personally I still think we're owed $100bn, but how long do you drag this thing out?" said Ms Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe from Browning in the state of Montana. "Do you drag it out until every beneficiary is dead? You just can't do that." The US government settled the suit last year, agreeing to pay $3.4bn; the Senate bill would fund the settlement. The black farmers would receive $1.2bn to settle the so-called Pigford suit in which they said local US agriculture department officials discriminated against blacks in awarding loans and other aid. "Twenty-six years' justice is in sight for our nation's black farmers," said John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association.

Leading to War - See where to truth lies

2010-11-20T23:08:00.002Z

Bush Administration Claims vs. The Facts

The Bush administration made a series of claims prior to the Iraq War, each intended to support the idea that Saddam Hussein was a grave and imminent threat. None of these claims were true. The epilogue of the film, LEADING TO WAR, presents refutations to eight of these claims. Here, each of these claims is examined in detail, using government and press reports, to show how the Bush administration presented intelligence to support these claims, despite the fact that behind closed doors Bush officials knew this intelligence to be disputed or even false.

Eight Pre-War Claims Refuted:

• No weapons of mass destruction of any kind were found in Iraq.

• No mobile biological weapons labs were found in Iraq.

• Iraq did not seek to acquire yellowcake uranium from Africa.

• The aluminum tubes were not suitable for nuclear weapons development.

• Mohamed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, did not meet with Iraqi intelligence in Prague.

• Iraq did not provide chemical weapons training to al-Qaeda.

• There was no collaborative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

• The implication that Iraq was involved in the attacks of 9/11 was untrue.

Download

http://www.leadingtowar.com/film/movs/nosb.downloader.php

Obama fails to "Restore standards to due process" in a order he made January 2009

2010-11-18T10:11:00.000Z

January 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF5z2j-5DxQ

November 18th 2010

Tanzanian Ahmed Ghailani, 36, was found guilty of conspiracy to damage or destroy US property with explosives. But he was cleared of many other counts including murder and murder conspiracy. Ghailani faces a minimum of 20 years in prison. The verdict comes as the US weighs other civilian terror trials. The BBC's Iain Mackenzie, in Washington, says the verdict in the Ghailani case will be seen as a huge blow to the Obama administration. It hopes to try other Guantanamo detainees in civilian courts - including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Officials will now be considering how to proceed, but it could mean the controversial prison remains open for some time to come, our correspondent adds.

Mr Ghailani was detained in Pakistan in 2004, taken to a secret CIA facility and then to Guantanamo Bay in 2006. He was subject to what the government refers to as "enhanced interrogation" by the CIA. His lawyers say he was tortured. Despite losing its key witness, the government was given broad latitude to refer to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden throughout the trial. Defence lawyer Peter Quijano welcomed the acquittals. He said the one conviction would be appealed, adding: "We still truly believe he is innocent of all these charges."

Guantanamo Bay - USA Video

November 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g-5HE_PfQA

The Asch Experiment

2010-11-14T06:29:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRh5qy09nNw

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/mindchangers1.shtml

Can Thermite cut through steel?

2010-11-14T06:15:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYW-z7nrTZk

Fox News takes a look at 9/11 Truth Movement

2010-11-14T05:14:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNzRzG9_TSo

United States Launches Missile and Denies it

2010-11-09T20:47:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bzLReDKJHA

9th November 2010

Pentagon officials say they cannot explain reports of a missile launch off the coast of California on Monday. A CBS News helicopter captured what looked like the vapour trail of a missile rising from the water about 35 miles (56 km) offshore. "Right now all indications are that it was not [defence department] involvement in this launch" Pentagon spokesman Col David Lapan said. The Pentagon does not consider the missile a threat. "So far we've come up empty with any explanation," Col Lapan said. "We're doing everything we can to try to figure out if anybody has any knowledge of what this event may have been." Under normal circumstances, the launch of a US missile would require several different authorisations and notifications, but none are evident. It is unclear if the suspected missile was launched from land or sea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2qKMchcgzk

UK firebrand politician allowed into Canada

2010-11-08T22:25:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7aG51TSjYI

Sat Oct 2, 10:37 PM

By Maria Babbage, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - A defiant George Galloway says he may take another run at legal action against Immigration Minister Jason Kenney for branding him a terrorist and trying to muzzle his anti-war views.

The outspoken former British MP, who landed in Toronto Saturday, came out swinging against his political nemesis.

He said he wants "redress" from Kenney, accusing the cabinet minister of putting his life at risk. "I'm not being melodramatic," Galloway said. "There are crazy people in the world who — if I really was, really were the person Jason Kenney painted me as — might have thought themselves fully justified in putting a bullet in me." Galloway said he'll go into more details about the "searing" and "surreal" turn his life took after Kenney deemed him a security risk when he speaks Sunday in Toronto.

The speech will also focus on how the Canadian government is using anti-terrorism as an excuse to suppress legitimate political debate, he said. By trying to keep him out of Canada, Kenney has only managed to attract more attention to his anti-war views, Galloway said.

"He's damaged Canada's reputation," he said. "I don't know if it's because he's a fool or a knave. I'm not sure which would be worse, but I am sure that Canada deserves better than that."

Galloway, who cleared customs over an hour after his plane landed, was greeted by dozens of chanting, sign-waving supporters at the airport. He said he was quizzed at length by three immigration officials, but found them to be professional and polite. Galloway was scheduled to speak in Canada in March 2009 about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but aborted the tour after Ottawa said he would likely be denied entry. The government cited his dealing with Gaza's elected Hamas government, which Canada considers a terrorist organization. Earlier this week, a Federal Court judge found the Conservative government had acted politically to suppress his opinions. Galloway said Kenney's terrorist allegation cost him his long-held seat in the U.K. House of Commons in May, hampered his ability to travel and created anxiety and stress for him and his family. He abandoned a libel suit against Kenney on the grounds that it was proving too expensive to fight, but said Saturday he will consult his Canadian lawyers and examine his legal options.

"I'm very happy to be in Canada, and my presence proves that Canada remains a country governed by laws, not by 'here today, gone tomorrow' politicians and their whims," he said.

Brandishing signs condemning Kenney the "Minister for Censorship and Deportation," Galloway supporters said they're outraged by the government's attempts to suppress free speech. "All he is doing is delivering aid — ambulances, incubators, hospital supplies, wheelchairs, that kind of thing — to the people of Gaza who have been under siege and are living in deplorable conditions," said 29-year-old student Fava Zaharuk, who volunteers with the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War. "And it's for this that we're banning him from speaking in Canada? I don't want that kind of government."

Law Section Updated

2010-11-07T18:26:00.003Z

Two new Statutes have been added to the law section.

Crime and Disorder Act 2008

Courts Act 2003

Video Recordings Act 2010

Prevention of Crimes Act 1871

Mr. Sunshine? Ron Paul Wins Support to Audit Fed Reserve

2010-11-06T22:47:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFQHWooDURw

All of a sudden, Congress is paying close attention to Ron Paul. The feisty congressman from Texas, whose insurgent "Ron Paul Revolution" presidential campaign rankled Republican leaders last year, now has the GOP House leadership on his side -- backing a measure that generated paltry support when he first introduced it 26 years ago. Paul, as of Tuesday, has won 245 co-sponsors to a bill that would require a full-fledged audit of the Federal Reserve by the end of 2010. Paul attracted just 18 co-sponsors when he authored a similar bill, which died, in 1983. While the impact Fed policies have on inflation is once again a concern, fears about loose monetary policy and excessive federal spending appear even more widespread in 2009. "In the past, I never got much support, but I think it's the financial crisis obviously that's drawing so much attention to it, and people want to know more about the Federal Reserve," Paul told FOXNews.com.

"I think if we can get that much attention on this bill, I don't believe senators could vote against it, if people knew what they were voting for because everyone is suspicious of the Federal Reserve," DeMint said. Paul's underlying goal is to abolish the Federal Reserve, which he finds contemptible. "I blame almost everything on the Fed because they create the bubbles, they create the credit," Paul said. But the move to require an audit, which Paul described as "neutral," puts him a bit more in the congressional mainstream. "The whole process is unconstitutional. There is no legal authority to operate such a monetary system," Paul said in February, in a statement calling for Washington to "end the Fed." He introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act the following day.

France and Britain join forces

2010-11-02T16:12:00.000Z

The Prime Minister and the French president signed agreements for greater military co-operation including aircraft carriers, submarines, nuclear technology and ground forces. As part of the agreement, the two countries will share aircraft carrier capability. When France’s single carrier is out of service, Britain’s one vessel could conduct missions for both nations, and vice versa. Mr Cameron said the British Prime Minister said citizens of both countries would be "better protected" as a result of the two treaties.

Mr Sarkozy said the “unprecedented” agreement marked “a level of trust and confidence between the two countries never equalled in history.” Mr Sarkozy was asked whether he would be prepared to deploy French forces to deal with a crisis over the Falkland Islands. He replied that he would only deploy French forces where French interests were at stake, but insisted that any “major” British security crisis would almost certainly affect France too.

Mr Sarkozy said it would be unlikely that Britain could face the kind of crisis which required the deployment of an aircraft carrier without it affecting France. "We are not identical, there are many things on which we don't agree and I know that there is the Channel between our two countries," he said. "However, our values are the same, we share the same values, our interests are fair. All my political life I have argued in favour of rapprochement between London and Paris." He added: "If you, my British friends, have to face a major crisis, could you imagine France simply sitting there, its arms crossed, saying that it's none of our business?" Mr Cameron said of the defence agreement: "We have been able to do something really quite big, bold and radical.

Who owns American debt?

2010-11-01T23:08:00.001Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLWRjuvx2RQ

US federal deficit: who owns America's debt?

China has defended its investment in US Treasury bonds, amid concern that its position as the biggest investor in US debt may become political as well as economic. Treasury bonds are how the US - and all governments for that matter - borrow money: they issue government securities, which other countries and institutions buy. So, the US national debt is owned predominantly by Asian economies. The US Treasury releases the figures on this - here they are in a more useable form.

Last year, China expressed concern over the security of its vast United States treasury holdings and premier Wen Jiabao has urged Washington to safeguard their value. Take a look, download the spreadsheet and let us know what you can do with the data.

DATA: Foreign owners of US treasury securities

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/mar/09/china-federal-deficit-us-america-debt

Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin' says Prof David Nutt

2010-11-01T04:49:00.003Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH1ujBgOzVM

"Alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack, according to a study published in medical journal the Lancet. The report is co-authored by Professor David Nutt, the former UK chief drugs adviser who was sacked by the government in October 2009. It ranks 20 drugs on 16 measures of harm to users and to wider society. Tobacco and cocaine are judged to be equally harmful, while ecstasy and LSD are among the least damaging."

"The findings run contrary to the government's long-established drug classification system, but the paper's authors argue that their system - based on the consensus of experts - provides an accurate assessment of harm for policy makers. "Our findings lend support to previous work in the UK and the Netherlands, confirming that the present drug classification systems have little relation to the evidence of harm," the paper says. "They also accord with the conclusions of previous expert reports that aggressively targeting alcohol harms is a valid and necessary public health strategy." In 2007, Prof Nutt and colleagues undertook a limited attempt to create a harm ranking system, sparking controversy over the criteria and the findings."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210

"The adviser, Dr. David Nutt, said in a lecture that alcohol is more hazardous than many outlawed substances, and that the United Kingdom might be making a mistake in throwing marijuana smokers in jail. His comments were published in a press release in October, and the next day he was dismissed. The buzz over his sacking has yet to subside: Nutt has become the talk of pubs and Parliament, as well as the subject of tabloid headlines like: “Drug advisor on wacky baccy?” But behind Nutt’s words lay something perhaps more surprising, and harder to grapple with. His comments weren’t the idle musings of a reality-insulated professor in a policy job. They were based on a list - a scientifically compiled ranking of drugs, assembled by specialists in chemistry, health, and enforcement, published in a prestigious medical journal two years earlier.

The list, printed as a chart with the unassuming title “Mean Harm Scores for 20 Substances,” ranked a set of common drugs, both legal and illegal, in order of their harmfulness - how addictive they were, how physically damaging, and how much they threatened society. Many drug specialists now consider it one of the most objective sources available on the actual harmfulness of different substances.
That ranking showed, with numbers, what Nutt was fired for saying out loud: Overall, alcohol is far worse than many illegal drugs. So is tobacco. Smoking pot is less harmful than drinking, and LSD is less damaging yet.

Nutt says he didn’t see himself as promoting drug use or trying to subvert the government. He was pressing the point that a government policy, especially a health-related one like a drug law, should be grounded in factual information. In doing so, he found himself caught in a crossfire that cost him the advisory post he had held for a decade."

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/12/13/you_cant_handle_the_truth/?page=1

Bayer withdraws AIDS contaminated drug and gives it to Europe with FDA knowledge

2010-10-30T23:41:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-grZDj35j0

Blood, Money and AIDS: Hemophiliacs Are Split;Liability Cases Bogged Down in Disputes

Last December, Corey Dubin, a hemophiliac infected with the virus that causes AIDS, met for lunch at a Carrow's restaurant in Camarillo, Calif., with John Bacich, the president of a Baxter International Inc. unit that makes blood-clotting products. Mr. Dubin, like an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 hemophiliacs nationwide, became infected with H.I.V. after receiving a tainted clotting substance made by Baxter and three other companies in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Hundreds of victims had sued. But statutes of limitations prevented thousands more from bringing claims. Mr. Dubin however had not come to lunch to pick a fight. Rather, dissatisfied with the way key plaintiffs' lawyers were handling the litigation, he was on a stealth mission to negotiate, for all those infected, a settlement with the four companies without the knowledge of key plaintiffs' lawyers.

But some like Mr. Baldwin contend that the activists may have scuttled earlier deals that could have gotten money quickly to those who desperately needed it. "I've had mothers calling me saying that they'd be happy to get $30,000 for their son so they can buy him a new car before he dies," said Mr. Baldwin, whose brother, also a hemophiliac, died three years ago of AIDS. It is estimated that more than 2,000 H.I.V.- infected hemophiliacs have died.

Bad blood between hemophiliacs, Bayer: Patients sue over tainted transfusions spreading HIV, hep C

A San Francisco attorney filed a class-action lawsuit Monday on behalf of thousands of hemophiliacs who claim that Bayer Corp. and several other companies knowingly sold blood products contaminated with HIV and hepatitis C. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, alleges that the companies conspired to sell blood-clotting products that were manufactured using blood from sick, high-risk donors. The suit also alleges that companies stopped selling the products in the United States because of the known risk of HIV and hepatitis transmission but continued distributing the infected products in Latin America, Asia and Europe in 1984 and 1985.

"Tens of thousands of hemophiliacs globally were infected with HIV or (hepatitis C) after receiving blood products from blood plasma that was originally manufactured in the United States," said San Francisco attorney Robert J. Nelson. "This is a worldwide tragedy. Thousands of hemophiliacs have unnecessarily died from AIDS and many thousands more are infected with HIV or hepatitis C." The companies named in the suit include Berkeley-based Cutter Biological, which is a division of Bayer; Baxter Healthcare Corp.'s Hyland Pharmaceutical division; Armour Pharmaceutical Co. and Alpha Therapeutic Corp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU0zNVslXCk

Pataki Signs Bill Letting Hemophiliacs Sue Companies Over Blood-Clotting Products

Under the bill signed by Mr. Pataki, people infected by blood products, or their survivors, will have two years to bring product liability suits against the manufacturers. ''I just looked at my son's beautiful picture on the wall and said, 'Yes, C. J., you'll have your day in court,' '' said Regina Boccard, 44, of Huntington, N.Y., whose 13-year-old hemophiliac son, Charles John, died of AIDS in 1994. The signing comes after the settlement of a class-action suit brought by hemophiliacs nationwide against the manufacturers of blood products. Under that $620 million settlement, the companies agreed to pay $100,000 to each infected hemophiliac. Those people would then be barred from filing suits against the companies.

More than 5,000 people have accepted the settlement. About 75 of the 600 who rejected it live in New York, and most are expected to file suits. Since the bill passed the Legislature in August, both sides have vigorously lobbied to sway Mr. Pataki. Lobbyists for the blood products industry, which includes Bayer A.G. and Baxter International Inc., asserted that the bill could lead to catastrophic financial losses for the manufacturers.

Aids scandals around the world

China is the latest country to admit that Aids is cutting a swathe through its population, but Aids-related scandals have dogged many other countries since the 1980s and 1990s. One of the most high-profile cases was that of France's tainted blood scandal, which saw a former health minister convicted for failing adequately to screen blood which led to the deaths from Aids of five people, and the contamination of two others during a key period in 1985. In April of this year, Canada's Supreme Court found the Canadian Red Cross guilty of negligence for failing to screen blood donors effectively for HIV infection. Three suits were brought against the Red Cross by people who received tainted blood. Two of them subsequently died of Aids and the third is HIV positive. About 2,000 people were infected with HIV and up to 60,000 with Hepatitis C before blood tests began in late 1985.

In Italy, a Rome court ordered the Health Ministry in June of this year to pay damages to 351 people who contracted the HIV virus and hepatitis through blood transfusions. The court said the ministry was too slow to introduce measures to prevent the virus being spread by donated blood, and did not establish proper checks on plasma. About 100 of the victims - all haemophiliacs - have already died, but the court ruled that their families were entitled to the compensation. In March this year, a court in Tokyo cleared a former top Aids expert of professional negligence over a scandal that exposed thousands to the HIV virus through tainted blood products. The high-profile scandal, which grabbed headlines in the mid-1990s, shocked Japan with allegations of a government cover-up and unethical links between big business and bureaucrats. Japan's Health Ministry did not ban unheated blood products until December 1985, despite knowing they risked being tainted with HIV.

In Iran in the late 1990s, the former head of Iran's blood transfusion centre also went on trial over allegations that patients contracted the HIV virus after receiving contaminated blood. Dr Farhadi and two other doctors faced several charges including negligence in importing HIV-tainted supplies from France. And in Portugal, a court indicted a former health minister over an Aids scandal dating back to her time in office during the 1980s. The court said the minister, Leonor Beleza, should be tried for propagating a contagious disease. The decision refers back to a case in which more than 100 Portuguese haemophiliacs were infected with the Aids virus after receiving transfusions of contaminated plasma that had been imported and distributed by the public health service.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjSJo0H5bTo

Australia to use China style censorship

2010-10-30T13:46:00.000+01:00

Cracking Peer to Peer? That's a new one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vwRoe8CKYA

US voices 'concerns' over Australia's internet filter

Washington is worried about the impact of proposal, which would force internet service providers to block offensive material, including child pornography, bestiality and details on how to carry out criminal activity.

Opponents of the plan claim the scope of the material that could be filtered out is too wide and that the restrictions could be applied to media organisations reporting details of criminal activity. "Our main message of course is that we remain committed to advancing the free flow of information which we view as vital to economic prosperity and preserving open societies globally," Michael Tran, a US State Department spokesman, said.

"We don't discuss the details of specific diplomatic exchanges, but I can say that in the context of that ongoing relationship, we have raised our concerns on this matter with Australian officials," he said. The Australian government has refused to comment on the matter. The proposed filter would make Australia one of the strictest internet regulators among the world's democracies, with some critics claiming it will put the country in the same league as China.

Q & A - The Future of the Internet: Audience Vote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdYx9TVj--g

Internet filter draft legislation delayed

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy had planned for the internet filter to be debated this week, but his office confirmed the drafting of the legislation was still not complete and discussions with ISPs and other stakeholders on outstanding issues were still taking place. With only three Senate sitting days in May during the Budget session, and a growing backlog of Government business, it is unlikely the filter will be presented before June.

"The Government will take the time to ensure that it gets the legislative framework right," a spokeswoman for Senator Conroy said. "Discussions with ISPs and owners of high traffic sites on the implementation of ISP filtering are ongoing. The Government is also considering the responses to the consultation paper on improved transparency and accountability measures which will feed into the legislative framework." "The Bill will be introduced when these processes are completed," the spokeswoman said.

It is not clear whether the internet filtering plan has a chance of getting through the Senate. The Greens are opposed to the scheme, and the opposition says while it supports in principle measures to protect children online, it has deep reservations about mandatory ISP level filtering. Shadow communications spokesman Tony Smith said the coalition will wait until the draft legislation is tabled before it formalises a policy on the issue. The filtering scheme is not the only Communications portfolio legislation being pushed back. The extensions to the Do Not Call register to include businesses was to have been put to the Senate this week, but also looks certain to be pushed back until the June sittings.

Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdYx9TVj--g

http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/regulation/37640-internet-filter-draft-legislation-delayed

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7534335/US-voices-concerns-over-Australias-internet-filter.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vwRoe8CKYA

Military burns unsolicited Bibles sent to Afghanistan

2010-10-30T03:53:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m0FQ6GdGVM

Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday. The unsolicited Bibles sent by a church in the United States were confiscated about a year ago at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because military rules forbid troops of any religion from proselytizing while deployed there, Lt. Col. Mark Wright said. Such religious outreach can endanger American troops and civilians in the devoutly Muslim nation, Wright said.

"The decision was made that it was a 'force protection' measure to throw them away, because, if they did get out, it could be perceived by Afghans that the U.S. government or the U.S. military was trying to convert Muslims," Wright told CNN on Tuesday. Troops at posts in war zones are required to burn their trash, Wright said. The Bibles were written in the languages Pashto and Dari. This decision came to light recently, after the Al Jazeera English network aired video of a group prayer service and chapel sermon that a reporter said suggested U.S. troops were being encouraged to spread Christianity.

The military denied that earlier this month, saying much in the video was taken out of context.
"This was irresponsible and dangerous journalism sensationalizing year-old footage of a religious service for U.S. soldiers on a U.S. base and inferring that troops are evangelizing to Afghans," Col. Gregory Julian said. The military says a soldier at Bagram received the Bibles and didn't realize he wasn't allowed to hand them out. In the Al Jazeera video, which shows the Bibles at the prayer service, an unnamed soldier says members of his church raised money for them. The chaplain later corrected the soldier and confiscated the Bibles, Wright said.

Military officers considered sending the Bibles back to the church, he said, but they worried the church would turn around and send them to another organization in Afghanistan -- giving the impression that they had been distributed by the U.S. government. That could lead to violence against troops or U.S. civilians, Wright said. Al Jazeera English, a Qatar-based international news service, said its reporters tried to get a response from military officials for its story but were unable to do so. The U.S. military air base at Bagram is home to thousands of troops from all branches of the U.S. military. The vast majority of the troops do not leave the base and are in various support roles for U.S. troops across Afghanistan.

Links:
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-05-20/world/us.military.bibles.burned_1_bibles-al-jazeera-english-military-personnel?_s=PM:WORLD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m0FQ6GdGVM

CIA plot on synagogue intended to provoke Pakistan?

2010-10-25T21:14:00.000+01:00

"Perhaps most powerfully, the prosecutors showed the court the fake bombs, built by the F.B.I"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNc-g11oRFs&feature=channel

Four men were convicted on Monday on charges of planting what they believed were bombs outside synagogues in the Bronx and plotting to fire missiles at military planes.

The case was widely seen as an important test of the entrapment defense. It turned on the role of a government informer who spent several months secretly recording conversations with the men that included plans for mass violence and anti-Semitic comments, along with their moments of hesitation and concerns about hurting women or children. Prosecutors said that the plot revealed the dangers of homegrown terrorism, and that the informer, posing as a Pakistani terrorist, had presented the defendants with an opportunity to commit violence to which they were predisposed. But defense lawyers said the case crossed the line into entrapment. They said the informer, on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, dangled offers of money and lured impoverished men with no ties to international terrorism into a plot they could never have dreamed up on their own.

In the end, the entrapment defense failed, as it has in every other terrorism trial since Sept. 11, 2001. About 2:30 p.m. on Monday, the jury forewoman stood and began reading the verdicts with a wavering voice. “Guilty,” she said, 30 times, as the girlfriend of one of the defendants sobbed in the gallery.
The four men — Onta Williams, Laguerre Payen, James Cromitie and David Williams IV — will be sentenced on March 24. Each could face life in prison. Mr. Cromitie and David Williams were convicted on all eight counts of the indictment. Onta Williams and Mr. Payen, who met the informer late in the investigation, were found not guilty on one of the counts: attempting to kill officers and employees of the United States.

All the men were quiet as the verdicts were read. Mr. Cromitie’s lawyer, Vincent L. Briccetti, patted his client on the shoulder, while a few seats away, David Williams wore a grim smile. After the jury left the room, Mr. Williams’s aunt, Alicia McWilliams-McCollum, stood and yelled obscenities, saying there was no justice. Court officers told her to leave. In an interview a few hours after the verdict, one juror indicated that the deliberations, which lasted eight days, had been taxing. “We considered that what they did was a serious crime. We also considered that they didn’t have that kind of background,” said the juror, who insisted that his name not be published. “We

took our time. We dug deep.”

The events that led to the convictions started in June 2008, with a meeting outside a mosque in Newburgh, N.Y., between the informer, Shahed Hussain, and Mr. Cromitie. That day, prosecutors said, Mr. Cromitie sparked the interest of the authorities by saying he wanted to “do something” to America.
Over the next 11 months the three other defendants joined a plot that included leaving bombs outside two synagogues in the Riverdale section of the Bronx and firing Stinger missiles at military transport planes at Stewart International Airport.

In a statement, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said Monday: “Homegrown terrorism is a serious threat, and today’s convictions affirm our commitment to do everything we can to protect against it. The defendants in this case agreed to plant bombs and use missiles they thought were very real weapons of terrorism. We are safer today as a result of these convictions.”

Mark B. Gombiner, who represented Onta Williams, called the notion that citizens were safer “pure nonsense,” adding, “It does not reflect anything that happened during the investigation and prosecution.”
Mr. Gombiner and the other defense lawyers had tried to make their cross-examination of the informer, Mr. Hussain, the centerpiece of their case. For days in court, they questioned him about his criminal history, his financial dealings and his life in Pakistan, saying inconsistencies in his testimony showed he was a liar. They said he felt compelled to deliver a conviction to satisfy his government handlers and expected to be rewarded with citizenship.

Throughout the investigation, the defense lawyers said, it was Mr. Hussain, not the defendants, who steered the conversation toward religious justifications for violence. Karen J. Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University, who sat through much of the trial, said: “If this wasn’t an entrapment case, then we’re not going to see an entrapment case in a terrorism trial. We really need to think about ideology as part of entrapment. In this case, they took people who might or might not commit hate crimes, and led them along the path to jihad.”

But the prosecutors said most of the recordings showed the men were ready to act. In one of the recordings, Mr. Cromitie, who was especially voluble, said he wanted to make a “big noise.” Jurors saw recordings of the men inspecting inert bombs and Stinger missile launchers, and scouting Stewart Airport, where they planned to fire missiles at C-5 Galaxy military transport planes. Perhaps most powerfully, the prosecutors showed the court the fake bombs, built by the F.B.I., that Mr. Cromitie left in cars outside the synagogues. They were bundled into bags with 500 ball bearings, which, prosecutors said, were intended to kill.

Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.

Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNc-g11oRFs&feature=channel

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/nyregion/19plot.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1288036895-d/Wh0ebGRwA0+YfZGYnF2g

US Contractors may be responsible for Terrorism in Iraq and assasinations in Pakistan

2010-10-25T20:25:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et_jgkNgBmM

An Act of Terrorism? Blackwater Sniper Shot Dead Three Iraqi Guards At Iraqi Media Center in February

Steve Fainaru of the Washington Post discusses his new account of the February killings. After a brief investigation, the U.S. government concluded that the actions of Blackwater fell within approved rules governing the use of force, but the Iraqi police described the shootings as an "act of terrorism." [includes rush transcript]

Legal and political woes continue for the private military firm Blackwater. Iraq’s Interior Minister announced this week he would authorize raids against Western military firms to ensure compliance with Iraqi weaponry laws. Scrutiny of the private military industry in Iraq has peaked following the killing of seventeen Iraqis by Blackwater guards in September.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, the Bush administration has shown its first audible signs of distancing itself from Blackwater. On Tuesday, the White House quietly missed a deadline to weigh in on a wrongful death case brought by families of three American servicemembers who died when a Blackwater aircraft crashed in Afghanistan. Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, a major Republican donor, said: "After the President has said that as commander-in-chief he is ultimately responsible for contractors on the battlefield, it is disappointing that his administration has been unwilling to make that interest clear before the courts."

Meanwhile, the Washington Post has * revealed* new details of a little-noticed killing by Blackwater operatives in Iraq earlier this year. On February 7th, Blackwater forces shot dead three guards working for the state-funded Iraqi Media Network in Baghdad. An Iraqi police report described the shootings as an "act of terrorism." The police concluded that Blackwater opened fire without any provocation.

But the U.S. government concluded that the actions of the Blackwater guards fell within approved rules governing the use of force. The Iraqi Media Network sought to sue Blackwater in an Iraqi court, but an Iraqi judge rejected the petition, citing a 2004 law signed by L. Paul Bremer, the former head of the U.S. occupation. To date, neither Blackwater nor the U.S. embassy have apologized or paid any compensation to the victims’ families.

Steve Fainaru is the Washington Post reporter who wrote this new account of the February killings.

We contacted Blackwater to invite them on the program, but they did not respond to our requests.

Steve Fainaru, foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, specializing in private security issues. Read Steve’s article "How Blackwater Sniper Fire Felled 3 Iraqi Guards".

Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAIp2Z2m19w

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgZ5HISzCXI

An Iraqi police report described the shootings as "an act of terrorism" and said Blackwater "caused the incident." The media network concluded that the guards were killed "without any provocation." - Washington Post

Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et_jgkNgBmM

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/11/9/an_act_of_terrorism_blackwater_sniper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAIp2Z2m19w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgZ5HISzCXI

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/07/AR2007110702751.html?hpid=topnews

Lakhdar Boumediene detained for 7 1/2 years

2010-10-24T06:32:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArGyrP4ATRQ

Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, May 26, 2009

PARIS, May 25 -- When the nightmare finally ended -- seven years at Guantanamo Bay, two years of force-feeding through a tube in his right nostril, the long struggle to proclaim his innocence before a judge, and finally 10 days of hospitalization -- Lakhdar Boumediene celebrated with pizza for lunch in a little Paris dive. "When we were at the restaurant," Boumediene said Monday, shortly after the meal that marked his release from doctors' care and reentry into normal society, "I told my wife that for the first time I felt like a man again, tasting things, picking things up in my fingers, eating lunch with my wife and my two daughters."

Boumediene, 43, had been in a French military clinic under physical and psychological observation since his arrival in Paris on May 15 aboard a U.S. government aircraft that carried him -- in shackles -- away from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In what he describes as an ugly mistake by U.S. authorities, Boumediene, an Algerian citizen, had spent seven years there as terrorism suspect No. 10005. Later he became the plaintiff in a landmark Supreme Court case, Boumediene v. Bush, that in June 2008 gave Guantanamo detainees the right to seek judicial review of their imprisonment. Boumediene, in a lengthy interview in a Paris suburb, said he joined the case to represent the scores of prisoners held at Guantanamo charged with being "enemy combatants" and having no power to challenge the accusation in court. Later ordered released by a U.S. district judge in Washington, he represents something new: dozens of prisoners whom the U.S. government has decided to release but cannot, because no other country will take them in and most Americans do not want them on U.S. soil.

At the request of the Obama administration, France agreed to take in Boumediene but appears reluctant to accept any more detainees. Britain accepted one released Guantanamo prisoner in February and has promised to take in a second. In all, human rights activists say, Washington is looking for homes for about 60 such prisoners, swept up without trial in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and now judged fit for release. Boumediene's version of events is impossible to verify independently. But he described himself as collateral damage in those sweeps, an aid worker in Bosnia wrenched from his life and, he said, interrogated endlessly about something about which he had no knowledge.

Boumediene, who at the time was an aid worker with the Red Crescent, was arrested in Bosnia in October 2001 along with five other Algerians accused of plotting to blow up the U.S. and British embassies in Sarajevo, charges that were later withdrawn. In January 2002, the six were turned over to U.S. officials and flown to Guantanamo, despite rulings by several Bosnian courts that there was no reason to deport them.
U.S. interest was high because one of the six Algerians, Belkacem Bensayah, was accused by U.S. investigators of being an al-Qaeda operative in Bosnia. Moreover, Bosnian police had discovered a piece of paper in Bensayah's home with a handwritten number and a name that corresponded to that of a senior al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan.

Boumediene, in the interview, said he did not know Bensayah well but that, as a fellow Algerian, Bensayah had come to Boumediene's Red Crescent office seeking help for his family. In addition, he said, Bensayah's wife sought assistance after her husband's arrest, and Boumediene provided money for a lawyer. Boumediene said U.S. officials concluded that those connections linked him to al-Qaeda's activities in Bosnia. In addition, Boumediene said, a stint in Pakistan in the early 1990s aroused the suspicions of U.S. investigators and may have landed his name on a watch list shared by Algerian security services with their U.S. counterparts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhiHrpyH4gw

Links:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052502263.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArGyrP4ATRQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhiHrpyH4gw

Tony Hopfinger, Reporter Detained By Joe Miller's Security Guards, Speaks Out About Ordeal (VIDEO)

2010-10-22T22:24:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKacbuQ3Stk

The Alaska-based reporter who was briefly handcuffed and detained by security detail for Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller offered additional details about his ordeal in an interview with The Huffington Post on Monday.

Tony Hopfinger, who edits the website Alaska Dispatch, said that the roughly 25 minutes that he was detained in a empty corridor with only one private security guard watching him, was intimidating, maddening and cause for concern about the treatment of the press by political candidates.

"Getting handcuffed by somebody you don't know at a public school, no one had said it was a private event or cast it that way, I mean intimidated, yeah [I was]. But I guess I was more pissed off. Miller, I felt, was going to answer my question on the reprimand part," said Hopfinger.

"I think, just like in other parts of the country, the media is finding itself having a hard time doing its job in this political cycle because, whenever we ask questions, there are certain candidates out there who decry 'lamestream media' or whatever. Mr. Miller has had plenty of time to answer questions. He has been given plenty of opportunities. He somehow believes he shouldn't be questioned about his background and yet he wants a job in six years, to a post where there are only 100 in the entire country, and we are not supposed to ask questions about anything of his past. There is a little bit of shoot the messenger. It is happening up here, and other parts of the country. There are certain candidates who just want to turn this around and act like it's the media causing the problem. That has always been there, that element. It is just more ramped up this political cycle."

On Sunday, Miller's private security guards handcuffed and detained Hopfinger after he tried to ask the candidate about his time at the Fairbanks Northstar Borough. Miller was accused of using borough equipment in the unsuccessful 2008 attempt to oust state Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich.

Hopfinger said that he followed Miller through the school hallway, hoping to get an on-the-record explanation about the issue. At some point, he said, he found himself alone among reporters and "surrounded by a bunch of security guard types and Miller supporters." Miller never told him to stop asking questions, he said. But his backers did.

"I figure I'm at a public school and they are telling me I'm trespassing," he said. "And it was just a matter of seconds, I'm challenging this trespass issue and the next thing you know they got me detained and I'm in handcuffs and they put me in another corridor of the building. So for 25 minutes no one even knew where the hell I was... They said we were going to call the police and I said, 'Fine, call the police.'"

Hopfinger said that both he and his paper have not yet ruled out considering legal remedies. But his preference is to let Miller's actions "speak for themselves."

"Right now, we will look at whatever options we need to look at," he said. "I think really, at the end of the day, I would just prefer to see Mr. Miller [answer the questions]."

Miller's campaign put out a statement after the incident saying that Hopfinger "physically assaulted another individual and made threatening gestures and movements towards the candidate" - charges denied by Hopfinger. The Alaska Republican's office also has said they didn't know that Hopfinger was a "blogger" (he's not, the Dispatch is a for-profit start-up news website that employs four reporters, two of whom have won Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting).

Miller has been critical of the Alaskan media, saying that they focus on irrelevant issues and he has instead opted to appear frequently on Fox News. "We've drawn a line in the sand. You can ask me about background, you can ask me about personal issues -- I'm not going to answer," Miller said recently.

He has been especially critical of the Alaska Dispatch, saying "one of the major investors, publishers in that blog is a max donor to the Murkowski campaign." Miller is the lone candidate in the Senate race refusing to attend the site's sponsored debate (which is taking place, ironically, tonight).

Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKacbuQ3Stk

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/18/reporter-detained-by-joe-_n_766565.html

East Sussex sex abuse fear vicars allowed to work

2010-10-21T22:27:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4eXg4mvhRM

21 October 2010

East Sussex sex abuse fear vicars allowed to work

Two vicars were allowed to work at churches in East Sussex following serious sex abuse allegations, a BBC South East investigation has revealed. Roy Cotton, who died in 2006, worked as a parish priest in Brede near Rye in the 1990s despite being convicted of a sexual offence against a boy in 1954. Collin Pritchard served as the vicar of St Barnabas, Bexhill, until 2007 after being arrested over sex abuse claims. The Diocese of Chichester has appointed a judge to carry out an investigation. In 2008 Pritchard pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two boys in the 1970s and 1980s and was jailed for five years.

The offences took place while he was parish priest at St Andrew's Church in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. The court heard that Cotton had been involved in the offences but died in 2006, two weeks before Pritchard was arrested. Pritchard and Cotton first came to the attention of Sussex Police in 1997 after two abuse victims came forward. The victims said they were sexually abused by the pair during foreign holidays and camping trips.

Insufficient evidence

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided there was not enough evidence against them but kept its files open. The Diocese of Chichester has confirmed the pair were given permission to officiate by different bishops despite their arrests and Cotton's previous conviction, which lay on his church career file. Cotton continued to serve as a parish priest until 1999 and Pritchard worked at St Barnabas between 2001 and 2007, both apparently without superviseon. In 2006 Northampton Police started a fresh investigation after another victim told police they had been abused.

Pritchard was suspended in September 2007 when a new safeguarding officer at the diocese realised he was a risk to children. Pete Saunders, of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), said: "I think they are more than safeguarding errors, there seems to have been an almost malicious and deliberate attempt to bypass the safeguarding measures that exist." Referring to Cotton, child protection expert Chris Mills said: "People with serious convictions should never be allowed to work with children in any unsupervised capacity.

"At the time in 1997 it is clear that this person needs to have been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation but also pending the outcome of the employer's own investigation into whether this person was suitable to continue working with children."

Following Pritchard's conviction in 2008 the current Bishop of Chichester commissioned an independent investigation into the cases of the two men.

Despite requests by BBC South East Today the Diocese of Chichester has refused to release the document. The churches' safeguarding expert told BBC South East a second investigation had been started because of "issues" with the findings of the first report. Archdeacon of Hastings and Lewes, the Venerable Philip Jones said:

"The Diocese of Chichester gives the protection of children the highest priority and takes seriously all concerns raised. "As we have indicated to the BBC, a review is being undertaken into safeguarding practice in the diocese and in regard to questions raised by this BBC report. "We do not wish to pre-empt the outcome of that review and are unable to comment until it is completed."

The discovery also comes after it was revealed that East Sussex vicar Ronald Glazebrook, who is believed to have abused a former altar boy, was allowed to serve at a church despite being convicted of possessing a gun. The Church of England said it would begin an investigation into the matter, following the revelations in September about Mr Glazebrook who died in 2001 after he was attacked at his home in East Sussex.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5065CCj1CAQ

Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4eXg4mvhRM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-11599687
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5065CCj1CAQ

Mike Leigh explains refusal to visit Israel

2010-10-21T04:46:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjOkY0HrTyg

18th October 2010

Mike Leigh cancels Israel trip over loyalty oath

The British film-maker Mike Leigh has cancelled a visit to Israel in protest against controversial plans to compel non-Jewish new citizens to swear loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. The director, 67, had been due to spend a week at a film school in Jerusalem in late November. But in a letter to the school's director, he said Israel's government had gone "from bad to worse". He called the loyalty oath "the last straw".

Speaking on Monday at the London Film Festival, where he is showing his new film Another Year, Leigh said he wanted to send Israel "a very clear message".

The bill, which has been approved by Israel's cabinet but still has to be passed by the Israeli parliament the Knesset, would add a phrase to the citizenship oath taken by non-Jews, requiring them to pledge allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state". Critics say the move is discriminatory and would largely target Palestinians marrying Israelis. Some suggest that there is a contradiction in describing the Israeli state as both Jewish and democratic.

'Uncomfortable'

Leigh said on Monday: "When the time comes that Israel behaves respectably, and when there is a just peace for the Palestinians, and when Gaza is returned to humanity, then I will be first in line to go and share anything that anyone wants to with my colleagues, the Israeli filmmakers and other artists. "But until that happens I think it's appropriate for all of us to leave a very clear message that we shouldn't and can't do that." Leigh's letter to Renen Schorr, the director of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, and Mr Schorr's response have been published on the school's website.

In it, Leigh - himself Jewish - cites the Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May and the recent resumption of settlement-building on the West Bank as factors in his decision. "I have become ever-increasingly uncomfortable about what would unquestionably appear as my implicit support for Israel were I to fulfil my promise and come," he writes. "I have absolutely no choice. I cannot come, I do not want to come, and I am not coming," writes the award-winning director of Naked and Secrets & Lies. The move is regretted by Mr Schorr, who in his response says "the academic-cultural boycott of Israel... does not arouse the Israeli public... Boycotts and ostracism are the antithesis of dialogue".

Letter Sent by Mike Leigh

Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjOkY0HrTyg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11566956

http://www.jsfs.co.il/images/pdf/ml.pdf

Tax payers in Europe, Unite!

2010-10-20T09:37:00.000+01:00

Say No to EU Tax

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESZbDBE7OZY

PETITION AGAINST EU TAX

At a time when the citizens of Europe need to tighten their belts, the European Union wants to increase its spending.

The EU budget for 2010 amounts to 141 billion Euros. Many European politicians and senior EU officials consider this a "paltry sum". They want to boost the EU budget by introducing indirect European taxes, such as a higher contribution from national VAT, a tax on CO2 emissions and charges on banking and electronic communications.

If Brussels itself gets its own tax-rising powers, there will be no way back. Once the tax is introduced, the tariff will go up gradually. The bureaucracy decides what the taxpayer pays. For the taxpayer himself, it's checkmate.

Let the European Union focus on its core tasks, such as the internal market, the euro zone or a common policy on environment, transportation, immigration and energy independence. But there is no need for a huge subsidy system, financed through an EU tax.

The EU is already unable to spend the full budget of the European Social Fund, the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund, due to lack of convincing projects. Therefore the EU budget should be no more than 1 per cent of European Gross National Income (GNI).

Main elements:

No introduction of direct EU taxes or increase in national VAT contributions to the EU !

Restrict the EU budget to no more than 1 percent of European GNP, so more efficient use of the existing means.

Click here to sign »»

EU considers levying taxes directly

The European Commission wants EU member states to consider allowing it to levy direct taxes - a move that could ease the burden on national budgets. The EU's Budget Commissioner, Janusz Lewandowski, said he would present some options next month for direct EU taxes. Taxes on aviation, financial transactions and CO2 emission permits are all possibilities, he told the daily Financial Times Deutschland. However, the UK promptly rejected the idea. Historically, national governments levy taxes in the EU.

"I'm hearing from a number of capitals, including important ones like Berlin, that they would like to lower their contributions [to the EU]," Mr Lewandowski said. The 27 EU member states pay a fixed contribution to the EU budget, based on their gross domestic product and a percentage of their sales tax (VAT). This year Germany's transfer to the EU budget - the largest contribution - is about 21bn euros (£17.5bn). Pressure on budgets "Many countries want to be unburdened. In this way, the door has been opened to think about revenues that are not claimed by finance ministers," the commissioner said.

Traditionally taxes are seen as a prerogative of nation states and any move by the commission to levy taxes directly is likely to be opposed by Eurosceptics wary of Brussels's powers. A British treasury minister, Lord Sassoon, said the British government "is opposed to direct taxes financing the EU budget. The UK believes that taxation is a matter for member states to determine at a national level and would have a veto over any plans for such taxes."

France and Germany are pushing for a financial transaction tax in the EU, but the UK argues that any such tax must apply globally and be co-ordinated by the International Monetary Fund. However, all three countries are introducing separate bank levies, which will not affect smaller banks and building societies. The UK levy is expected to raise more than £8bn over four years. The EU's budget for this year is 122.9bn euros (£110bn) - nearly half of which is allocated to agriculture and natural resources. It is 6% bigger than the 2009 budget.

Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESZbDBE7OZY
http://www.noeutax.info/uk/index-uk.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10912754

Harry Whittington Still Waiting For Apology, 4 Years After Dick Cheney Shooting

2010-10-18T17:38:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCDqUurj-EA

It has been almost five years since Harry Whittington took an errant blast from then-Vice President Dick Cheney's shotgun while on a quail hunting trip in Texas. The pellets perforated his face, neck and chest, causing health complications for the Texas trial lawyer both in the immediate wake of the incident and in the period after. A total of 200 bits of lead shrapnel entered Whittington's body that February evening in 2006 -- 30 still remain -- and out of it, he's never even gotten a personal apology from Cheney.
The Washington Post interviewed Whittington recently, a man still marked by birdshot, but who seems remarkably at peace with the fateful episode.
The Post reports:

Despite his scars, Whittington bears no ill will toward Cheney. He calls him "a very capable and honorable man" and adds, "He's said some very kind things to me."

Those "kind things" don't amount to an apology, however, not even one like Whittington delivered to the public and the White House after being discharged from the hospital in 2006.
"My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week," Whittington said at the time.
In an interview with Fox News around the time of the shooting, Cheney said that the image of Whittington falling is something he'll "never be able to get out of [his] mind" and that it was "one of the worst days of [his] life."
Many unanswered questions arose after the 2006 shooting, including the puzzling fact that it took 18 hours for the incident to be reported. Karl Rove's connection to the series of events following the shooting provided another intriguing element to the sensational story.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCDqUurj-EA
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/14/harry-whittington-dick-cheney_n_762418.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/13/AR2010101307173.html?sid%3DST2010101307297
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/13/AR2010101307173.html?sid%3DST2010101307297
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11409731/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-cheney-shooting-a-few_b_15898.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-cheney-shooting-a-few_b_15898.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/cheney-talks-the-coverup-_b_15761.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/karl-roves-connection-to-_b_15750.html

Egypt urged to let Viva Palestina Activists pass through to Gaza

2010-10-18T17:22:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoISX_0BSzI

The Gaza aid convoy, with 40 survivors from the Mavi Marmara massacre, has been delayed departing Latakia, Syria for Gaza. Last minute complications over entry requirements by the Egyptian authorities are responsible for the postponement. Convoy organisers are confident these problems will be quickly resolved and the convoy will be on its way tomorrow morning (Monday).

Due to futher complications, the convoy is still stranded in Latakia. More info when it comes through....... - (18th October 2010)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6_m3ZkIBfM

AJE's Sohail Rahman reports and discusses Egypt's decision to block the Viva Palestina Convoy from entering Egypt at Nuweiba. Includes commentary from Institute of Palestinian Studies' Mouin Rabbanu and a live(ly!) phone interview with George Galloway at the Jordan/Syria Jaber border crossing.The Viva Palestina aid convoy to Gaza which left London on December 6th has been blocked from entering Egypt, they were held at the Jordanian port of Aqaba. The Convoy, which is made up of more than 200+ vehicles, planned to reach Rafah on December 27th but has now re-routed back to the Syrian port of Lattakia and will sail to Egypt's Mediterranean port of El-Arish. - (29 December 2009)

Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoISX_0BSzI
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Viva-Palestina/117840051594002#!/pages/Viva-Palestina/117840051594002?v=wall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6_m3ZkIBfM

Iran to hold Opec presidency for first time in 36 years

2010-10-15T07:34:00.001+01:00

Iran will assume the presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) for the first time in 36 years. The country's oil minister was elected as Opec president at a one-day meeting of the group, which is made up of 12 oil producing states. Iran, which takes over from Ecuador, is Opec's second-largest oil producer and holds about 10% of world oil reserves. At the meeting in Vienna, Opec also agreed to keep its oil production target unchanged at about 24.8 million barrels a day.

US light crude ended Thursday trading down 32 cents to $82.69. Brent crude finished 11 cents lower at $84.53. Iran will assume the presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) for the first time in 36 years. The country's oil minister was elected as Opec president at a one-day meeting of the group, which is made up of 12 oil producing states. Masoud Mir-Kazemi will hold the presidency from 1 January 2011.

Iran, which takes over from Ecuador, is Opec's second-largest oil producer and holds about 10% of world oil reserves. At the meeting in Vienna, Opec also agreed to keep its oil production target unchanged at about 24.8 million barrels a day. US light crude ended Thursday trading down 32 cents to $82.69. Brent crude finished 11 cents lower at $84.53.

Link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/us_and_canada/

JFK State of the Union Address (1963)

2010-10-09T10:38:00.000+01:00

Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0-zaiVuR5o

Part 2

Part 3

9 11 Prior Knowledge Able Danger Hearing for Lt Col Anthony Shaffer in Congress C SPAN

2010-10-08T00:26:00.003+01:00

9 11 Prior Knowledge Able Danger Hearing for Lt Col Anthony Shaffer in Congress C SPAN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJvABLaMUT8

Minetta tells 9/11 Commission Cheney knew exact flight path

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO-9LQDFE2Y&NR=1

Examples of criminal cases involving Rights

2010-10-07T16:19:00.002+01:00

Davis v Lisle [1936] 2 ALL E.R. 213

HEARING-DATES: 2, 3, 17 October 1963

HEADNOTE:

A motor car belonging to W. and driven by L. ran into a wall. The police were anxious to examine the car in order to obtain evidence of its collision with the wall in connexion with a prospective charge of dangerous driving. In the evening, when the car was parked in a market place and L. had got into the driving seat, B., one of two constables on duty there, told L. that the police sergeant wanted to examine the car and that it was to remain where it was. L. asked who was going to stop him if he wanted to go, and B. replied that he was. Meanwhile W. arrived, told the constables they could not impound his car, and advised L. to drive it away. Neither L. nor W. had been charged or arrested. L. started the engine. The second constable went to the front of the car and raised his hand as a signal to L. to stop, whilst B. went to the rear of the vehicle. L. reversed and came into slight contact with B., who immediately went round to the driver's seat to get the ignition key. He was unsuccessful. W. told L. to drive at the constable in front, who umped aside as L. drove forward. On appeals against convictions, under s. 38 * of the Offences against the Person Act, 1861, of assaulting the constable at whom the car had been driven when the constable was in due execution of his duty, and of procuring the assault,

* Section 38, so far as material, reads "Whosoever shall... assault, resist, or wilfully obstruct any peace officer in the due execution of his duty... shall be guilty of [an offence]..."

Held: the convictions must be quashed because in attempting to detain the car, B. and the second constable were not acting in the due execution of their duty at common law (see p. 662, letter D, post); moreover s. 223 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, did not confer statutory power to detain a motor vehtcle in such circumstances as the present, where a constable would not have had power, under the common law, to do so (see p. 662, letter G, post).

http://www.hrcr.org/safrica/arrested_rights/R_Waterfield.htm

The above case was quashed since the Peace Officer (Police Constables) did not have authority under Common Law to prevent W or L from leaving in their motor vehicle and that a Peace Officer takes a oath to the Queen and promises to uphold the Law of the Land (Common Law).

Rice v Connolly [1966] 2 All E.R.649

HEARING-DATES: 3 May 1966

HEADNOTE:

The appellant was seen by police officers in the early hours of the morning behaving suspiciously in an area where on the same night breaking offences had taken place. On being questioned he refused to say where he was going or where he had come from. He refused to give his full name and address, though he did give a name and the name of a road, which were not untrue. He refused to accompany the police to a police box for identification purposes, saying, "If you want me, you will have to arrest me". He was arrested and charged with wilfully obstructing the police contrary to s. 51 (3) * of the Act of 1964. On appeal it was conceded that "wilfully" imported something done without lawful excuse.

* Section 51 (3), so far as material, provides: "Any person who... wilfully obstructs a constable in the execution of his duty... shall be guilty of an offence..."

Held: although every citizen had a moral or social duty to assist the police, there was no relevant legal duty to that effect in the circumstances of the present case, and the appellant had been entitled to decline to answer the questions put to him and (prior to his arrest) to accompany the police officer on request to the police box to establish identity; accordingly, in the circumstances, "wilful obstruction" by the appellant was not established, although he had been obstructive, because no obstruction without lawful excuse had been established (see p. 652, letters D and I, post).

http://www.hrcr.org/safrica/arrested_rights/Rice_Connolly.htm

The above case was an appeal against a conviction of Obstructing a Constable by refusing to give the constable his full name and address and for refusing to accompany the constable anywhere. The Appeal was allowed since the Peace Officers did not establish that any crime had been committed.

Court Case dismissed by Common Law

2010-10-06T00:08:00.000+01:00

English Freemen Standing In Court - Council Tax Hearing - The Takedown Begins! from Rebel Leader on Vimeo.

Stop and search powers illegal, European court rules

2010-10-03T20:47:00.001+01:00

Stop and Search

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPotA5jqqQU

The ability of

police to use "arbitrary" counter-terror stop and search powers against peace protesters and photographers lay in tatters today after a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights. The Strasbourg court ruled it was unlawful for police to use the powers, under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, to stop and search people without needing any grounds for suspicion.

The widely-drawn ruling said that not only the use of the counter-terror powers, but also the way they were authorised, were "neither sufficiently circumscribed, nor subject to adequate legal safeguards against abuse". The use of these powers has grown fourfold, from 33,177 times in 2004 to more than 117,200 in 2008. The Metropolitan police have used them most, but 11 other forces in England and Wales also make routine use of them. A political furore ensued when it was disclosed that the whole of Greater London had been secretly designated for stop and search without suspicion since 2001.

The case ruled on today was brought by Kevin Gillan and Pennie Quinton, who were stopped by police while their way to a demonstration outside the annual arms fair at the Excel centre, in London's Docklands, in September 2003. Quinton, a journalist, was ordered to stop filming the protest despite showing her press card, while Gillan, who was riding his bicycle, was only allowed to go on his way after 20 minutes. They were awarded €33,850 (£30,400) in costs and expenses.

The European judges said the power to search a person's clothing and belongings in public included an element of humiliation and embarrassment which was a clear interference with the right to privacy. But they also criticised the way in which the police use of stop and search powers was authorised. There is no requirement that the powers be considered "necessary" – only "expedient". The use of the powers is subject to confirmation by the home secretary within 48 hours, renewable after 28 days, but the European court said there was no real check on authorisations by parliament or the courts.

Testing the Terrorism Act

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxoJu3C0J54

This was demonstrated by the continuous renewal, every 28 days, of the use of the powers in London since their first introduction, the judges added. They said they were further concerned that the decision to stop and search somebody was "based exclusively on the 'hunch' or 'professional intuition' of the police officer". The sole condition was that the search had to look for articles used in connection with terrorism – but this covered many things commonly carried by people in the street.

Police did not even have to have grounds for suspecting such articles were present.

The judges said that, because of this, there was a "clear risk of arbitrariness in granting such broad discretion" to a police officer. Their concerns were compounded by the fact that black and Asian people were four times more likely to be stopped under section 44 and there was a risk that the power could be misused against demonstrators. "The absence of any obligation on the part of the officer to show a reasonable suspicion made it almost impossible to prove that the power had been improperly exercised," the judges said in describing the lack of judicial checks.

As such, section 44 was not in "accordance with the law" and amounted to a violation of article eight – the right to respect for private and family life. Quinton told the Guardian she was delighted with the judgment, saying: "There has to be a balance between private life and security. "The court has shown that section 44 is an invasion of people's right to liberty and privacy. Hopefully the government will have to put a fairer law in place to protect us." Gillan hailed the ruling as "fantastic news after a long struggle" and added: "I look to the government for a strong response."

Corinna Ferguson, the legal officer for Liberty and acting for the two, said: "Liberty has consistently warned the government about the dangers of stop and search without suspicion and actively campaigned for the tightening up of the infamous section 44 power. "The public, police and court of human rights all share our concerns for privacy, protest, race equality and community solidarity that come with this sloppy law. "In the coming weeks parliamentarians must finally sort out this mess."

The shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, said: "We have long said that anti-terror laws should not be used as a way of conducting normal day-to-day policing. "The government needs to make sure that the police have the appropriate powers to deal with crime and antisocial behaviour."

The full judgment can be read here.

Israeli Force Prevents Palestinian Ambulances and Sick Women Going Hospital

2010-10-02T21:32:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mpASD-eq4U

Hated checkpoints top list of Palestinian targets

By Phil Reeves in Jerusalem @ Friday, 22 February 2002

Palestinians say that last month, a Palestinian man, Nasar Salim Rantisi, was shot in the leg and bled to death at the checkpoint, near Ramallah, when soldiers denied him medical care. Jihad Yaghi, 23, said this week the soldiers at Ein Ariq tried to force him to crouch and creep beneath a waist-high wire, stretched across the road before allowing him to pass. "They humiliate us," he said. "I am very happy about the attack."

Israeli army checkpoints, universally loathed by the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza as the cause of daily humiliation and economic misery, are at the top of the target list of Palestinian armed groups.

Two days after guerrillas delivered a shattering setback to the Israeli army by killing six soldiers at a West Bank checkpoint, another gunman struck yesterday, serving notice once again that the militias are concentrating attacks on Israel's presence inside the occupied territories. The gunman wounded two soldiers at a checkpoint near Tulkarm and was shot dead, the Israeli army said. A second Palestinian guerrilla escaped in a car.

Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mpASD-eq4U

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/hated-checkpoints-top-list-of-palestinian-targets-661631.htm

Israeli doctors' group wins 'alternative' Nobel prize

2010-10-02T12:55:00.001+01:00

An Israeli doctors' group has been named as one of the four winners of this year's Right Livelihood award - dubbed the alternative Nobel prize. Physicians for Human Rights Israel was recognised for operating mobile clinics in occupied Palestinian territories and campaigning for patients' rights. The Rights Livelihood awards honour the power of grassroots change, the Sweden-based foundation said in a statement.

Four recipients will share the 200,000 euro (£172,000; $273,000) prize. The award was founded in 1980 by Swedish-German philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull to recognise work he felt was being ignored by the Nobel Foundation. Other winners of the 2010 awards include Nigerian and Brazilian environmentalists, as well as Nepalese community activists.

PHR-Israel on Al Jazeera (English) May04 09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voIV6wAtSUg

Campaigning doctors

The prize will be presented to the four recipients in a ceremony at the Swedish parliament on 6 December, four days before the Nobel Prizes are handed out. Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) was included for its "indomitable spirit" in working for the right to health for all people in Israel and the Palestinian territories, the Right Livelihood foundation said in a statement.

The Tel Aviv-based group was founded in 1988 at the start of the intifada by Dr Ruchama Marton and Israeli and Palestinian physicians. It provides healthcare to impoverished Palestinians and migrant workers, and lobbies against what it sees as repressive policies of the Israeli government. In a statement, Dr Marton said that the award strengthens the group's "ongoing struggle against all sources of oppression".

As a result of the blockade of Gaza, hospital facilities are extremely poor, medicines are scarce and dozens of people die each year waiting for permission to be treated in Israel, the UN has said. Although Israel and Egypt have eased the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the movement of Palestinians is still severely restricted.

Israel says the restrictions are necessary to pressure militants to stop firing rockets from the Hamas-run territory.

UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (Richard Goldstone)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njdnBVVx6W0

Links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11445709

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voIV6wAtSUg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njdnBVVx6W0

Pakistan halts NATO supplies after border attack

2010-09-30T23:36:00.000+01:00

By Zeeshan Haider, ISLAMABAD | Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:53pm BST

(Reuters) - Pakistani authorities blocked a vital supply route for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan on Thursday after the killing of three soldiers in two NATO cross-border incursions, officials said.

Trucks and fuel tankers for foreign forces in Afghanistan were stopped at the Torkham border post in the Khyber tribal region near the city of Peshawar, hours after the raid. "Yes, the NATO supplies have been stopped. It has been done locally," a senior security official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Aircraft from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) initially crossed the border in the Kurram region briefly while targeting suspected insurgents who were firing on a coalition base from a position inside Afghanistan, an ISAF statement said. They were then fired on by people in Pakistan, and crossed the border again to target that group. "Operating in self-defence, the ISAF aircraft entered into Pakistani airspace, killing several armed individuals," the statement said.

The statement did not say if ISAF thought those killed were border guards and when asked for clarification, an ISAF spokeswoman said both sides still were investigating the incident.
"This is the third incident of its kind during the past week," the Pakistani military said in a statement. Three soldiers were wounded, it said. Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan declined to elaborate on the details of the incident but said a Pakistani statement said "their forces used rifle fire at the helicopters as a warning." "You fire at helicopter in a combat zone, they usually take that as hostile and return fire," he said.

CRUCIAL ALLY

Pakistan is a crucial ally for the United States in its efforts to stabilise Afghanistan, but analysts say border incursions and disruptions in NATO supplies underline growing tensions in the relationship.
About half of all cargo for NATO forces in Afghanistan travels through Pakistan, most of it via two main border crossings: Chaman and Torkham, the Pentagon said.

Another third flows into Afghanistan through the northern distribution network across Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Sensitive gear like ammunition, weapons and critical equipment is flown in, the Pentagon said.Lapan said the Torkham border crossing closure had had "no immediate impact" on NATO resupply but its possible effect would depend on how long it remained shut.

He said NATO has a variety of supply routes into Afghanistan, including others in Pakistan that remained open. "We are in discussions with the Pakistani government and hope that we can resolve the issue," Lapan said. The border row occurred as CIA chief Leon Panetta began a previously scheduled visit to Pakistan for talks with top military and political figures. Panetta met President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and the head of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha.

"PROFOUND CONCERN"

Gilani expressed "profound concern" over increasing drone strikes and violations of Pakistan's airspace by NATO forces, he said in a statement.

Citing reports by Western security officials about foiling a militant plot to stage coordinated attacks in Europe, Gilani pledged Pakistan's help to thwart such plans if given "credible information in advance."
Panetta welcomed Pakistan's help in the fight against militants and said the U.S. government would look into its ally's complaints about border violations. A senior intelligence official said border incursions into Pakistan were a "red line" and could lead to a "total snapping of relations." Neither country could afford that, the official said, so it would be a disaster if further incursions took place.

"But we'll live with that or we'll die with that," he said. "We're in a state of war. We've lost more than 30,000 people since 2001. What more can we lose? Another 100,000? These incursions are not something we can tolerate." Pakistan has said it would consider "response options" if NATO forces continued to violate its sovereignty. Washington has stepped up missile strikes by unmanned drone planes in Pakistan's northwest, carrying out 21 in September, the highest for a month since it began such attacks in 2008.

Also Thursday, a video purporting to show Pakistani troops in the northwestern Swat region summarily executing a group of bound and blindfolded young men appeared on the Internet. The military is investigating, the intelligence official said, although he believed it was likely a forgery by the Pakistani Taliban, distributed as propaganda. (Additional reporting by Chris Allbritton, Javed Hussain and Kamran Haider; Editing by Ron Popeski, Philip Barbara and Bill Trott.

Links:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/video/idUKTRE68T1TT20100930?videoId=163759062
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE68T1TT20100930
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE68T1TT20100930?pageNumber=2

Israeli forces 'Tasered' activist on Gaza aid boat

2010-09-30T23:14:00.001+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAusvr4A3ZI

29 September 2010 Last updated at 21:22

Jewish activists who sought to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza say they were treated harshly when Israeli forces seized their vessel. Yonatan Shapira, an Israeli air force pilot turned peace activist, said he was shocked with a Taser gun while passively resisting arrest. And a British journalist said he was "ambushed" and "almost strip-searched" by commandos on board the vessel. Israel's military had said the vessel was seized peacefully on Tuesday. It declined to comment on the activists' accounts. Earlier this year, Israeli commandos killed nine people in clashes on board a Turkish ship trying to reach Gaza. Israel says its blockade is designed to prevent weapons being smuggled to the militant Hamas movement which runs the territory.

Harsh treatment

Yonatan Shapira, a member of left-wing group Combatants for Peace, said he was treated "brutally" by Israeli soldiers when the ship was intercepted some 20 miles (30km) off the coast of Gaza on Tuesday. "After they boarded, I was standing with my hands around Reuven Moskowitz, the 82-year-old holocaust survivor," he told BBC News. "We were trying to protect each other and singing: 'We shall overcome.' "The Israeli navy captain came closer and pulled out his Taser gun and said: 'If you don't let go... it will hurt.' "We continued to hug and he shot me twice on my right shoulder. It was painful, but not as bad as the third shot.

"He moved the life vest I had on, so he could reach closer to my heart and shot me, which made me lose control of my body. It felt like an epileptic attack or something. At that point I couldn't hold anything and they grabbed me brutally to the boat."

British photo-journalist Vish Vishvanath confirmed that Mr Shapira had been hit by the stun gun. After his deportation to London, Mr Vishvanath said he had been "almost strip-searched" by Israeli special forces, who confiscated all his equipment.

"About three commandos ambushed me and took all my camera gear. They confiscated my cell phone because it had a camera on it," he told the Press Association.

He said the activists put up "a lot of resistance", but that no violence was used.

Activists freed

The Irene, dubbed the Jewish Boat for Peace, was carrying what the activists called a symbolic amount of medicine, a water purifying kit and toys. The Israeli army diverted the boat to the port of Ashdod and said the gifts would be screened and transferred overland to Gaza. All five Israeli activists were questioned and released without charge. Three of the four foreign nationals were deported late on Tuesday. The fourth, a German nurse, would be deported in the next few days, organisers said. Israel and neighbouring Egypt shut down Gaza's border crossings when an Israeli soldier was captured in June 2006, and tightened the blockade further when the Islamist Hamas movement gained control of Gaza a year later.

Israel began allowing consumer goods into Gaza after its May raid on a Turkish aid ship sparked international outrage. Nine activists were killed when Israeli commandos intercepted the ship in international waters. But it still blocks all exports from the territory, imposes a complete naval blockade, and severely restricts the movement of people. Israel says the naval blockade is required to stop arms being smuggled to Hamas, but critics and humanitarian groups say this amounts to collective punishment of the territory's 1.5 million people.

Links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11433836
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAusvr4A3ZI

How I know Blair faked Iran map

2010-09-30T09:18:00.000+01:00

By CRAIG MURRAY, Former Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Head of the Foreign Office's Maritime Section - Last updated at 11:44 01 April 2007

Like most senior Royal Navy officers, Commodore Nick Lambert has great reserves of professional expertise and common sense. The Coalition task force commander was aboard HMS Cornwall when 15 Royal Navy personnel serving on the frigate were seized at gunpoint by Iranian forces on March 23.

The Navy states the 14 men and one woman were on a routine patrol in rigid inflatables off Iraqi shores - Iran insists they were in its waters illegally.

A few hours after the 15 were seized, Cdre Lambert said: 'There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they were in Iraqi territorial waters. Equally, the Iranians may well claim that they were in their territorial waters. The extent and definition of territorial waters in this part of the world is very complicated.'

And his predecessor in command of the task force, Commodore Peter Lockwood of the Royal Australian Navy, said last October: 'No maritime border has been agreed upon by the countries.' Both officers told the truth. It is the burial of this truth by No 10 spin doctors, and Tony Blair's remark that he is 'utterly certain' the incident took place within Iraqi territorial limits, that has escalated this from an incident to a crisis. Blair is being fatuous. How can you be certain which side of a boundary you are when that boundary has never been drawn? I am best known as the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, but from 1989 to 1992 I headed the Foreign Office's maritime section. This included responsibility for territorial sea claims and for negotiating our own maritime boundaries. The expertise of the Royal Navy was invaluable.

For eight months I also worked with Royal Naval and Defence Intelligence Service personnel in the Embargo Surveillance Centre, a secret unit operating 24 hours a day from an underground command centre in Central London to prevent Iraqi attempts at weapons procurement. We analysed information from intelligence and other sources, and could instruct Royal Naval craft in the Gulf to board and inspect individual ships. I was responsible for getting the political clearance for operations just like the one now in question, in this exact location. So I know what I'm talking about. There is no agreed boundary in the Northern Gulf, either between Iran and Iraq or between Iraq and Kuwait. The Iran-Iraq border has been agreed inside the Shatt al-Arab waterway, because there it is also the land border. But that agreement does not extend beyond the low tide line of the coast.

Even that very limited agreement is arguably no longer in force. Since it was reached in 1975, a war has been fought over it, and ten-year reviews - necessary because waters and sandbanks in this region move about dramatically - have never been carried out. But what about the map the Ministry of Defence produced on Tuesday, with territorial boundaries set out by a clear red line, and the co-ordinates of the incident marked in relation to it? I have news for you. Those boundaries are fake. They were drawn up by the MoD. They are not agreed or recognised by any international authority. To put it at its most charitable, they are a potential boundary. It is accepted practice, where no boundary exists, to work by a rule-of-thumb idea of where a boundary, based on a median line between the two coasts, might be.

But to elevate that to a hard and fast boundary, and then base a major international incident on being a few hundred yards one side or the other, is out of order. Negotiating a maritime boundary is horribly complicated. To set a median line you agree a series of triangulation points on both coastlines and do a geometric triangulation exercise to find a line running out from the coast. Of course, both sides will argue about which triangulation points on the coast to use. You are allowed, for example, to draw a line across a bay entrance and use that as the coast, but there is plenty of room for the other side to argue over where that line is drawn.

That is only the start. For territorial seas you start at the low tide mark and uninhabited rocks and sandbanks count. There is huge room for argument - ownership of a useless sandbank is not necessarily a settled thing. Then it really gets complex. What if the sandbank appears only at low tide or moves? In this area of the Gulf, sands shift endlessly. It is, in short, impossible to say where a real, negotiated or adjudicated Iran-Iraq boundary might eventually lie. It is also why the instinct of both the Foreign Office and MoD was to play this quietly and negotiate our people back.

But the No10 spin doctors stepped in, seeing a propaganda opportunity to portray Blair as fighting evil Iranians. Navy and Foreign Office experts were horrified at the notion of publishing that map.
In doing so we entrenched Blair's ridiculous boast that our 15 Navy personnel were definitely in Iraqi territorial seas, and claimed the right to dictate Iran's boundary. It's not surprising Iraq backed British claims - the map is favourable to them. But it makes compromise on the captives very difficult.

Of course, the Iranians equally cannot say unilaterally that these are their territorial waters, and act as if they owned them. In disputed waters it behoves everyone to act with caution and respect. Plainly the Iranians are not doing that. None of this vindicates Iran's aggressive behaviour in holding the captives or the so-called confessions. For Iran to detain the British sailors in these circumstances was rovocative and bellicose. To hold them for a few hours could have been taken as a legitimate, if over forceful way, of indicating their claim to the disputed waters in which the British personnel boarded a neutral vessel.

But Iranian behaviour in the past few days has tipped over into the plain illegal and indefensible.
However I have no doubt Blair is delighted at last to have a Middle East issue with popular support before May's elections. Yes, Iran has a bad government that is behaving stupidly. But perhaps it is not alone. Both sides have to climb down. We have to state that no agreed border exists and that we had no intention of straying into Iranian waters. The Iranian government should let our people go immediately. That is the way out of this mess for both sides.

Links:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-445896/How-I-know-Blair-faked-Iran-map.html#ixzz10zyauz5g

American double standards on Human Rights abuse

2010-09-29T22:53:00.001+01:00

US imposes sanctions on Iranian officials for 'abuses'

"US President Barack Obama has ordered for the first time sanctions against senior Iranian officials for "sustained and severe violations of human rights". The eight men include the head of the Revolutionary Guards, a former interior minister and the prosecutor general. The treasury department said they would face a travel ban and asset freeze. The alleged abuses include the killings and beatings of anti-government protesters after the disputed presidential election in June 2009." - BBC News

American torture

Waterboarding begins by placing a suspect on a table with the suspect's feet slightly elevated, said Kiriakou, who was waterboarded several years ago as part of his CIA training. He said he elected not to learn how to perform the technique, which is designed to emulate the sensation of drowning. Once a suspect is secured on the table, interrogators wrap his or her face in a cellophane-like material, Kiriakou said. Watch journalist undergo, discuss waterboarding. "There is a bladder, or a water source, above the head with water pouring down on the mouth, so no water is going into your mouth, but it induces a gag reflex and makes you feel like you're choking," Kiriakou said. Watch the ex-agent describe the procedure. Kiriakou said he lasted only a few seconds during his training because his body felt like it was seizing up almost immediately. "It's entirely unpleasant," Kiriakou said. "You are so full of tension that you tense up, your muscles tighten up. It's very uncomfortable." - CNN News

UK Govt Cover-Up For U.S Torture of Binyam Mohamed + Former C.I.A Robert Baer Speaks Out

Craig Murray - Torture 1 of 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF9spgagSHI

Craig Murray - Torture 2 of 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG4ey3GtbP8

Craig Murray - Torture 3 of 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4dy9NFL4F4

Craig Murray - Torture 4 of 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enHog8VDyKQ

Craig Murray - Torture 5 of 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS18Y2hgxh4

Craig Murray - Torture 6 of 7