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Revealing News For a Better World

News Articles
Excerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media


Below are key excerpts of little-known, yet highly revealing news articles from the media. Links are provided to the full news articles for verification. If any link fails to function, read this webpage. These articles are listed by order of importance. You can also explore these articles listed by order of the date of the news article or by the date posted. By choosing to educate ourselves, we can build a brighter future.

Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


Where did that bank bailout go? Watchdogs aren't sure
2009-08-09, Sacramento Bee/McClatchy News
http://www.sacbee.com/838/story/2094756.html

Although hundreds of well-trained eyes are watching over the $700 billion that Congress last year decided to spend bailing out the nation's financial sector, it's still difficult to answer some of the most basic questions about where the money went. Despite a new oversight panel, a new special inspector general, the existing Government Accountability Office and eight other inspectors general, those charged with minding the store say they don't have all the weapons they need. Ten months into the Troubled Asset Relief Program, some members of Congress say that some oversight of bailout dollars has been so lacking that it's essentially worthless. "TARP has become a program in which taxpayers are not being told what most of the TARP recipients are doing with their money, have still not been told how much their substantial investments are worth, and will not be told the full details of how their money is being invested," a special inspector general over the program reported last month. The "very credibility" of the program is at stake, it said. The program was controversial from the start. Critics say it's unfairly rewarded the big banks and Wall Street firms that pushed the economy to the brink.

Note: For many revealing reports from reliable sources on the hidden realities of the Wall Street bailout, click here.


Taking Charge Taking Charge
2009-08-08, Sydney Morning Herald (One of Australia's leading newspapers)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/motoring/news/taking-charge-taking-charge/2009/08/...

Once upon a time, you needed a crystal ball to see the future. Now all you need is a powerpoint. This week in Japan, Nissan unveiled the future of motoring, the production-ready, plug-in, electric family car. Called the Leaf, this spacious five-door hatch promises to usher in a new paradigm of motoring. Its name was chosen to indicate clean air, or, as the company said, because it "purifies air by taking emissions out of the driving experience." It's not a far-off dream of engineers, either. The Leaf will be on the roads in Japan and the US next year. And Nissan has two more EVs (electric vehicles) that are "imminent," as one senior company executive [said]. Simple in concept yet sophisticated in its execution, the car plugs into regular powerpoints to charge its onboard batteries. Unlike hybrids such as Toyota's Prius, Honda's Insight and the forthcoming Holden Volt, the Leaf doesn't require any petrol. It's 100 per cent electric. So far, Nissan, in its alliance with Renault (the two companies share the one chief executive but have separate boards), has signed understandings or agreements with 27 governments around the world to bring in electric cars. For consumers, though, the biggest hurdle will be its price. Rival Mitsubishi has its first all-electric car, the iMiEV, on the cusp of entering Japanese showrooms but, contrary to its diminutive size, it carries a big price tag there -- nearly $60,000 [Australian]. But Nissan is working on the financing details of the Leaf so it costs less to own and run than a comparable petrol car. It's Nissan's EV strategy to take the technology to the masses.

Note: For more reports from reliable sources on exciting new automotive technology and energy developments, click here.


How Gary McKinnon became a cause celebre
2009-08-04, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8181100.stm

British computer hacker Gary McKinnon's fight against extradition to the US has drawn support from a large and diverse range of influential people. How did his case become such a cause celebre? Mr McKinnon has become Britain's best-known conspiracy theorist. Mr McKinnon does not deny he hacked into Pentagon systems, but claims he was searching for evidence of a UFO cover-up. The American authorities see it differently. The 43-year-old is a wanted man in the US, where he has been accused of "the biggest military computer hack of all time". For the past five years he has been fighting an extradition request from the American authorities which want to try him on US soil. If convicted there he faces up to 60 years in prison. Along the way he has amassed a legion of supporters, as diverse in their make up as they are distinguished in their own fields of achievement. They include novelist Nick Hornby, film critic Barry Norman, Emma Noble, the ex-glamour model and former daughter-in-law of John Major, Sting, his film producer wife Trudie Styler and actress Julie Christie. Politicians of all hues have also leapt on Mr McKinnon's case. And pop stars Chrissie Hynde and Sir Bob Geldof have teamed up with Gilmour to record a song of support. In the past six weeks his cause has been further bolstered by a high-profile campaign in the Daily Mail newspaper.

Note: For more on Gary McKinnon's fascinating reasons for hacking into US military computer systems, click here and here.


Thimerosal and the Swine Flu Vaccine
2009-07-29, ABC News blogs
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/07/thimerosal-and-the-swine-flu-...

Today at the CDC in Atlanta, health officials are huddled, trying to game plan the best way to dole out a vaccine for swine flu. But what about the vaccine preservative thimerosal? Here is what the CDC says about Thimerosal: "There is no convincing evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site." Thimerosal is no longer used in all child vaccines made in the US except for the flu vaccine. Here is the CDC on Thimerosal and flu shots: "Yes, the majority of influenza vaccines distributed in the United States currently contain Thimerosal as a preservative. However, some contain only trace amounts of Thimerosal and are considered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be preservative-free." It would seem likely that the new Swine Flu vaccine therefore would contain some amount of Thimerosal. It would also seem likely that will give some parents pause.

Note: For a powerful article on a major cover-up around thimerosal written by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., click here. For many powerful reports from reliable sources on the dangers of vaccines, click here.


Power Shifts in Plan for Capital Calamity
2009-07-28, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/us/politics/28continuity.html

A shift in authority has given military officials at the White House a bigger operational role in creating a backup government if the nation’s capital were “decapitated” by a terrorist attack or other calamity, according to current and former officials involved in the decision. The move ... was made in the closing weeks of the administration of President George W. Bush. Officials said the Obama administration had left the plan essentially intact. Under the revamped structure, the White House Military Office, which reports to the office of the White House chief of staff, has assumed a more central role in setting up a temporary “shadow government” in a crisis. And the office, a 2,300-person outfit best known for flying Air Force One, has taken on added responsibilities as the lead agent in shepherding government leaders to a secure site at Mount Weather in rural Virginia, keeping classified lists of successors and maintaining computer systems, among other operational duties. Many of these types of tasks were previously handled by civilians at other agencies, led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Officials at other agencies that have traditionally played critical roles expressed concern that the new structure placed too much power in the hands of too few people inside the White House. They also saw the move as part of the Bush administration’s broader efforts to enhance the power of the White House. Though the office reports to the White House, many of its employees are uniformed soldiers, and it has sometimes been led by a military officer. While Obama administration officials would not discuss details of their continuity plan, they said the current policy was “settled,” and they drew no distance between their own policies and those left behind by the Bush administration.

Note: For more on the Shadow Government, click here. For lots more on government secrecy from major media sources, click here.


CIA committed fraud in court, judge rules
2009-07-21, San Francisco Chronicle/Associated Press
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/21/MNPA18S5DU.DTL

A federal judge has ruled that CIA officials committed fraud to protect a former covert agent against an eavesdropping lawsuit and is considering sanctioning as many as six who worked at the agency, including former CIA Director George Tenet. According to court documents unsealed Monday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth referred a CIA attorney, Jeffrey Yeates, for discipline. Lamberth also denied the CIA's renewed efforts under the Obama administration to keep the case secret because of what he calls the agency's "diminished credibility" in the case. The eavesdropping lawsuit was brought by a former agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency, Richard Horn, who says his home in Rangoon, Burma, was illegally wiretapped by the CIA in 1993. He says Arthur Brown, the former CIA station chief in Burma, and Franklin Huddle Jr., the chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Burma, were trying to get him relocated because they disagreed with his work with Burmese officials on the country's drug trade. Horn sued Brown and Huddle in 1994, seeking damages for violations of his civil rights because of the alleged wiretapping. Tenet filed an affidavit in 2000 asking that the case against Brown be dismissed because he was a covert agent whose identity must not be revealed in court. Lamberth granted the CIA's request and threw out the case against Brown in 2004. But Lamberth found out last year that Brown's cover had been lifted in 2002, even though the CIA continued to file legal documents saying his status was covert. The judge found that the CIA intentionally misled the court and reinstated the case against Brown.

Note: This may not seem like big news, but the fact that the CIA is facing court opposition is quite significant. In the past this never would have happened, much less have made it into a newspaper.


Assassinations anyone? CIA claims of cancelled campaign are hogwash
2009-07-19, Toronto Sun
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/07/19/1018410...

CIA director Leon Panetta just told Congress he cancelled a secret operation to assassinate al-Qaida leaders. The CIA campaign, authorized in 2001, had not yet become operational, claimed Panetta. His claim is humbug. The U.S. has been trying to kill al-Qaida personnel (real and imagined) since the Clinton administration. These efforts continue under President Barack Obama. Claims by Congress it was never informed are hogwash. The CIA and Pentagon have been in the assassination business since the early 1950s, using American hit teams or third parties. Assassination was outlawed in the U.S. in 1976, but that did not stop attempts by its last three administrations to emulate Israel's Mossad in the "targeted killing" of enemies. The George W. Bush administration, and now the Obama White House, sidestepped American law by saying the U.S. was at war, and thus legally killing "enemy combatants." But Congress never declared war. Washington is buzzing about a secret death squad run by Dick Cheney when he was vice-president and his protege, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. This gung-ho general led the Pentagon's super secret Special Operations Command, which has become a major rival to the CIA in the business of "wet affairs" (as the KGB used to call assassinations) and covert raids. America is hardly alone in trying to rub out enemies or those who thwart its designs. Britain's MI-6 and France's SDECE were notorious for sending out assassins. U.S. assassins are still at work. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. drones are killing tribesmen almost daily. Over 90% are civilians. Americans have a curious notion that killing people from the air is not murder or even a crime, but somehow clean.

Note: For more revealing information on this, click here. For more on assassination as a tool of state, click here.


Swine flu tally halted as school year fears loom
2009-07-17, MSNBC News
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31962005/ns/health-swine_flu

Worldwide cases of the new H1N1 swine flu virus are spreading so fast that overwhelmed global health officials have stopped counting and officials with the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they'll soon follow suit. "We don't know the extent of the challenges that we'll face in the weeks and months ahead," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for the Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. Schuchat did not elaborate on how the CDC would inform the public about the extent of the outbreak, which has been confirmed in more than 40,600 people and implicated in 263 deaths in the United States. WHO had reported nearly 95,000 cases including 429 deaths worldwide. Earlier Friday, WHO officials said tracking individual swine flu cases is too overwhelming for countries where the virus is spreading widely. WHO will no longer issue global totals of swine flu cases, although it will continue to track the global epidemic.

Note: Why would they stop counting cases? The numbers have always at best been estimates. Millions died in the 1918 flu epidemic and they have counted and reported those numbers extenstively. Could it be someone or some group does't want us to know how few are actually dying? For several other revealing articles which suggest an dangerous agenda with the swine flu vaccine, click here.


White House Weighs Order on Detention
2009-06-27, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/26/AR20090626033...

Obama administration officials ... are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations. Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. In a May speech, President Obama broached the need for a system of long-term detention and suggested that it would include congressional and judicial oversight. "We must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can't be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone," he said. A senior Republican [Congressional] staff member said that senators have yet to see "a comprehensive, detailed policy" on long-term detention from the administration. "They can do it without congressional backing, but I think there would be very strong concerns," the staff member said, adding that "Congress could cut off funding" for any detention system established in the United States. Concerns are growing among Obama's advisers that Congress may try to assert too much control over the process. "Legislation could kill Obama's plans," said one government official involved. The official said an executive order could be the best option for the president at this juncture. Under one White House draft that was being discussed this month, according to administration officials, detainees would be imprisoned at a military facility on U.S. soil, but their ongoing detention would be subject to annual presidential review.

Note: Again the Obama administration is following in the footsteps of the Bush administration, despite prior promises not to do so. For more on threats to civil liberties from reliable sources, click here.


'We are fighting for our lives and our dignity'
2009-06-13, The Guardian (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/13/forests-environment-oil-com...

Across the globe, as mining and oil firms race for dwindling resources, indigenous peoples are battling to defend their lands – often paying the ultimate price. It has been called the world's second "oil war", but the only similarity between Iraq and events in the jungles of northern Peru over the last few weeks has been the mismatch of force. On one side have been the police armed with automatic weapons, teargas, helicopter gunships and armoured cars. On the other are several thousand Awajun and Wambis Indians, many of them in war paint and armed with bows and arrows and spears. The Indians this week warned Latin America what could happen if companies are given free access to the Amazonian forests to exploit an estimated 6bn barrels of oil and take as much timber they like. After months of peaceful protests, the police were ordered to use force to remove a road block near Bagua Grande. In the fights that followed, at least 50 Indians and nine police officers were killed, with hundreds more wounded or arrested. The indigenous rights group Survival International described it as "Peru's Tiananmen Square". "For thousands of years, we've run the Amazon forests," said Servando Puerta, one of the protest leaders. "This is genocide. They're killing us for defending our lives, our sovereignty, human dignity." Peru is just one of many countries now in open conflict with its indigenous people over natural resources. Barely reported in the international press, there have been major protests around mines, oil, logging and mineral exploitation in Africa, Latin America, Asia and North America. Hydro electric dams, biofuel plantations as well as coal, copper, gold and bauxite mines are all at the centre of major land rights disputes.

Note: Click on the link above to read this important article in its entirety. It reports on numerous struggles around the world by indigenous people to protect their livelihoods and traditions from corporate and governmental predation.


Military Covering Up Fireballs From Space
2009-06-11, Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525832,00.html

For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth's atmosphere — but no longer. A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released. The satellites' main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists. The upshot: Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified. Scientists say not only will research into the threat from space be hampered, but public understanding of sometimes dramatic sky explosions will be diminished, perhaps leading to hype and fear of the unknown. "The fireball data from military or surveillance assets have been of critical importance for assessing the impact hazard," said David Morrison, a Near Earth Object (NEO) scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center. He noted that his views are his own, not as a NASA spokesperson. "These fireball data together with astronomical observations of larger near-Earth asteroids define the nature of the impact hazard and allow rational planning to deal with this issue," Morrison said.

Note: For lots more on government secrecy from major media sources, click here.


Military spending sets new record
2009-06-08, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8086117.stm

Global military spending rose 4% in 2008 to a record $1,464bn (Ł914bn) - up 45% since 1999, according to the Stockholm-based peace institute Sipri. "The global financial crisis has yet to have an impact on major arms companies' revenues, profits and order backlogs," Sipri said. Peace-keeping operations - which also benefit defence firms - rose 11%. Missions were launched in trouble spots such as Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "Another record was set, with the total of international peace operation personnel reaching 187,586," said Sipri. As the world's aerospace and defence industry prepares for next week's Paris air show centenary, it seems much of the focus is set to shift away from troubled civilian aircraft makers, which are struggling with reduced orders from recession-hit airlines, towards the companies that make fighter jets and other military hardware. In total, the 100 leading defence manufacturers sold arms worth $347bn during 2007, the most recent year for which reliable data are available. Almost all the companies were American or European. "Since 2002, the value of the top 100 arms sales has increased by 37% in real terms," Sipri said. US military spending accounted for 58% of the total global spending increase during the decade, with extra funds set aside to fight the "war on terror". "The idea of the 'war on terror' has encouraged many countries to see their problems through a highly militarised lens, using this to justify high military spending," said Sam Perlo-Freeman, head of the military expenditure project at Sipri.

Note: With all of the government cost-cutting in so many sectors, why aren't more people calling for military cutbacks? For a top U.S. general's insight into the profiteering that drives war (and "peacekeeping" operations as well), click here.


Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation
2009-05-24, Times of London
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350303.ece

Some of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population. Described as the Good Club by one insider, it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey. They gathered at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and president of the private Rockefeller University, in Manhattan on May 5. The informal afternoon session was so discreet that some of the billionaires’ aides were told they were at “security briefings”. Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the summit was unprecedented. “We only learnt about it afterwards, by accident. Normally these people are happy to talk good causes, but this is different – maybe because they don’t want to be seen as a global cabal,” he said. Some details were emerging this weekend, however. Taking their cue from Gates they agreed that overpopulation was a priority. [A] guest said there was “nothing as crude as a vote” but a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat. “This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers,” said the guest. “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.” Why all the secrecy? “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government,” he said.

Note: This very secret private meeting of billionaires planning to "solve" the world's "overpopulation" problem occurred just a few days before the latest Bilderberg meeting. For an ABC article on the same, click here. Is this a more positive twist on the Bilderberg Group of the worlds' power elite, or more of the same?


Mancow Waterboarded, Admits It's Torture
2009-05-22, NBC Chicago
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Mancow-Takes-on-Waterboarding-and-Loses....

Shock jocks shock. And so it went Friday morning when WLS radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided to subject himself to the controversial practice of waterboarding live on his show. Mancow decided to tackle the divisive issue head on -- actually it was head down, while restrained and reclining. "I want to find out if it's torture," Mancow told his listeners Friday morning, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture. At about 8:40 a.m., he entered a small storage room next to his studio. "The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this." With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up. Turns out the stunt wasn't so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds. "It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

Note: Click on the link above to watch a video of Mancow being waterboarded.


Netherlands to close prisons for lack of criminals
2009-05-20, NRC International (One of the Netherlands' leading newspapers)
http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2246821.ece/Netherlands_to_close_priso...

The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty. During the 1990s the Netherlands faced a shortage of prison cells, but a decline in crime has since led to overcapacity in the prison system. The country now has capacity for 14,000 prisoners but only 12,000 detainees. Deputy justice minister Nebahat Albayrak announced on Tuesday that eight prisons will be closed. The overcapacity is a result of the declining crime rate, which the ministry's research department expects to continue for some time.

Note: Isn't it interesting that this country, which is one of the very few to have legalized marijuana and prostitution, has a shortage of criminals?


UN announces launch of world’s first tuition-free, online university
2009-05-19, UN News Centre
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30848

A leading arm of the United Nations working to spread the benefits of information technology today announced the launch of the first ever tuition-free online university. As part of this year’s focus on education, the UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technology and Development (GAID) presented the newly formed University of the People, a non-profit institution offering higher education to the masses. For hundreds of millions of people around the world higher education is no more than a dream, Shai Reshef, the founder of the University of the People, told reporters. They are constrained by finances, the lack of institutions in their region, or they are not able to leave home to study at a university for personal reasons. Mr. Reshef said that this University opened the gate to these people to continue their studies from home and at minimal cost by using open-source technology, open course materials, e-learning methods and peer-to-peer teaching. Admission opened just over two weeks ago and without any promotion some 200 students from 52 countries have already registered, with a high school diploma and a sufficient level of English as entry requirements. Students will be placed in classes of 20, after which they can log on to a weekly lecture, discuss its themes with their peers and take a test all online. There are voluntary professors, post-graduate students and students in other classes who can also offer advice and consultation. For the University to sustain its operation, it needs 15,000 students and $6 million, of which Mr. Reshef has donated $1 million of his own money.


Health care's enigma in chief
2009-05-15, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/14/EDMF17KIVP.DTL

The most stunning and least reported news about President Obama's press conference with health industry executives this week wasn't those executives' willingness to negotiate with a Democrat. It was that Democrat's eagerness to involve those executives in a discussion about health care reform even as they revealed their previous plans to pilfer $2 trillion from Americans. That was the little-noticed message from the made-for-TV spectacle administration officials called a health care "game changer": In saying they can voluntarily slash $200 billion a year from the country's medical bills over the next decade and still preserve their profits, health care companies implicitly acknowledged they were plotting to fleece consumers, and have been fleecing them for years. With that acknowledgment came the tacit admission that the industry's business is based not on respectable returns but on grotesque profiteering and waste - the kind that can give up $2 trillion and still guarantee huge margins. Chief among the profiteers at the White House event were insurance companies, which have raised premiums by 119 percent since 1999, and one obvious question is why - why would Obama engage those particular thieves? It's a difficult query to answer, because Obama is a health care mystery, struggling to muster consistent positions on the issue. Listening to a 2003 Obama speech, it's hard to believe he has become such an enigma. Back then, he declared himself "a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program" - i.e., one eliminating private insurers and their overhead costs by having government finance health care.

Note: For lots more on health issues from reliable sources, click here.


Somali pirates guided by London intelligence team, report says
2009-05-11, The Guardian (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/11/somali-pirates-london-intelligence

The Somali pirates attacking shipping in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean are directed to their targets by a "consultant" team in London, according to a European military intelligence document obtained by a Spanish radio station. The document, obtained by Cadena SER radio, says the team and the pirates remain in contact by satellite telephone. It says that pirate groups have "well-placed informers" in London who are in regular contact with control centres in Somalia where decisions on which vessels to attack are made. These London-based "consultants" help the pirates select targets, providing information on the ships' cargoes and courses. In at least one case the pirates have remained in contact with their London informants from the hijacked ship, according to one targeted shipping company. "The information that merchant ships sailing through the area volunteer to various international organisations is ending up in the pirates' hands," Cadena SER reported the report as saying. This enables the more organised pirate groups to study their targets in advance, even spending several days training teams for specific hijacks. Senior pirates then join the vessel once it has been sailed close to Somalia. Captains of attacked ships have found that pirates know everything from the layout of the vessel to its ports of call. The national flag of a ship is also taken into account when choosing a target, with British vessels being increasingly avoided, according to the report.

Note: The remarkable capability described here -- knowledge of all the details of cargo, ship layout, nationality, and especially position and course -- is one that only national intelligence agencies are likely to have. The positional information would require real-time satellite or drone aircraft surveillance data. Could MI6, the British C.I.A., be running the Somali pirate operations, which have so suddenly spiked up just as the Pentagon's new AFRICOM gets underway?


Osteogenesis imperfecta: Motivational speaker Sean Stephenson uses his disorder to inspire others
2009-05-05, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-sean-stephenson-05-may05,0,976278.story

Born with a disorder that would leave him 3 feet tall and so brittle that coughing could fracture a rib, Sean Stephenson could not walk as a child. He was racked with pain. People stared at him all the time. Except on Halloween. On Halloween, everyone looked different. His distinct physical appearance, the consequence of osteogenesis imperfecta, helped him blend in, and he loved that. But on Halloween morning 1988, he broke his leg after catching it on a door frame. His favorite day became an agonizing one. He was hysterical until his mother asked him the question that would change his life: "Is this going to be a gift or a burden?" Two decades later, the man who at birth was supposed to survive only 24 hours is doing his best to convert what would seem to be an insurmountable challenge into a gift -- to himself and others. Stephenson, who turns 30 on Tuesday, is a psychotherapist and inspirational speaker. His self-help book, Get Off Your 'But' was [just published], and on April 25 he finished filming a TV documentary pilot for A&E. A college graduate pursuing a PhD in clinical hypnosis, he's toying with the idea of running for Congress, after he opens orphanages for kids with disabilities and a summer camp aimed at eliminating "self-sabotage" in children. "I embrace my life," he said one morning from his 17th-floor office in the Oakbrook Terrace Tower. "I've lived the life of a rock star." He ... stresses that "connecting," which he defines as "an exchange of our humanity," is vastly different from communicating, the simple exchange of information. Understanding that difference can be one of the most powerful tools in changing people's lives, Stephenson maintains. "Being 3 feet tall and in a wheelchair is about 2 percent of who I am. I'm more than able. I'm playing large."


'Maverick' DHS Office Issues Glossary of Domestic Extremist Groups
2009-05-05, Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/05/maverick-dhs-office-issues-diction...

The Department of Homeland Security is reining in a "maverick" division of the agency following criticism of a report it issued that details domestic "extremists" ranging from anti-tax movements to pro-environment groups, a DHS official told FOX News on Tuesday. The report, released in March ... was on top of a controversial document the same office produced last month that said U.S. veterans were ripe for recruitment by terrorist groups. The quickly withdrawn report, titled the "Domestic Extremism Lexicon," comes from the department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the same unit that produced the report on right-wing extremists recruiting vets. The document, first uncovered by The Washington Times, uses a broad brush to define terms used when analyzing dozens of supposedly extremist ideologies inside the United States. They cover: Jewish extremists, animal rights extremists, Christian identity extremists, black separatism extremists, anti-abortion extremists, anti-immigration extremists, anti-technology extremists, Cuban independence extremists and tax resistance extremists, to name a few. In addition to the report on right-wing threats issued last month -- for which DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano apologized -- DHS detailed left-wing threats in a similar report released in January. The "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" covers ideologies across the spectrum. The top of the document also defines "alternative media" as something sinister -- though the term is commonly used to describe blogs and popular publications like New York's Village Voice.

Note: How strange that Fox News posted this report, yet other major media largely ignored this important news. Click here to read the extremism report.


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