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Video of anti-Assad 'rebels' using chemical weapons
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  Source: Northeast Intelligence Network
  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 13:22
  By Douglas J. Hagmann
  4 September 2013: The fact that we're being lied to is beyond debate. Here is a 45-second video of one of the ''freedom fighters'' supported by the U.S. explaining to a cohort with a video camera the launching of a chemical weapon into a hospital'... Allah willing, of course.
  Is this ''proof positive'' of the rebels using chemical weapons in Syria? Alone, it is not. But it is consistent with the August 21 chemical attack in many ways.
  Additionally, it is consistent with information I obtained from my source within the intelligence community that there would be a chemical weapons attack as the basis for war against Assad in Syria'... almost a year ago: All that is needed now is for a dutiful media to present one image, a video, or some other ''proof'' that Assad or someone else is using, or has their hands on, unconventional weapons.
  We are at the precipice of World War III. Like all previous wars, our entry is based on a lie that's being rammed down the throat of a fact-challenged populace pummeled daily by a media fully complicit with the power-brokers and architects of the death and destruction that is about to take place.
  For insight into our present day situation described last October, please read or re-read my article titled: Lemmings at the Precipice of WW III.
  To view the video, CLICK HERE (opens in a new window). We are running out of time.
  Click here to save this article in PDF format
Bashar al-Assad -9-11
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  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 13:09
  Bashar Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: Ø¨Ø´Ø§Ø± Ø­Ø§ÙØ¸ Ø§ÙØ£Ø"Ø¯'ŽBaÅÅÄr á¸¤Äfiáº' al-Ê¾Asad, Levantine pronunciation:[baÊƒËÊƒaËr ËÄ§aËfezË¤ elËÊ--asad]; born 11 September 1965) is the President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Syrian-led branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He has served as President since 2000, when he succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad, who led Syria for 30 years prior to his death.
  Al-Assad graduated from the medical school of the University of Damascus in 1988, and started to work as a physician in the army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital, in London, specializing in ophthalmology. In 1994, after his elder brother Bassel, the heir apparent to their father, was killed in a car crash, Bashar was promptly recalled to Syria to take over Bassel's role. He entered the military academy, and took charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1998. In December 2000, Assad married Asma Assad, n(C)e Akhras. Al-Assad was reconfirmed by the national electorate as President of Syria in 2000 and 2007, after the People's Council of Syria had voted to propose the incumbent each time.[1][2]
  Initially seen by the domestic and international community as a potential reformer, this expectation ceased when he ordered a mass crackdown and military sieges on pro-rebel protesters amid recent civil war, described by some commentators as related to the wider "Arab Spring" movement. The domestic Syrian opposition, the United States, Canada, the European Union states and the members of the Arab League have subsequently called for al-Assad's resignation from the presidency.[4][5] 137 different nations have voted in the UN general assembly to condemn Assad and the Syrian government.[6]
  Early lifeBashar al-Assad was born in Damascus on 11 September 1965, the son of Aniseh and Hafez al-Assad. His father, Hafez al-Assad, born to a poor family of Alawite background, rose through the Party ranks to take control of the Syrian-led branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in the 1970 Corrective Revolution, culminating in his rise to the Syrian presidency.[citation needed] Hafez al-Assad promoted his supporters within the Ba'ath Party, many of whom were of also Alawite background.[8] His last name in Arabic means "the lion".
  Unlike his brothers, Bassel and Shabbih Maher, and sister, Bushra, Bashar was quiet and reserved and says that he lacked interest in politics or the military. He later said that he only entered his father's office once while he was in power and he never spoke about politics with him.[11] He received his primary and secondary education in the Arab-French al-Hurriya School in Damascus. In 1982, he graduated from high school and went on to study medicine at Damascus University.
  In 1988, Bashar Assad graduated from medical school and began working as an army doctor in the biggest military hospital, "Tishrin", on the outskirts of Damascus.[13][14] Four years later, he went to the United Kingdom to begin postgraduate training in ophthalmology at the Western Eye Hospital, part of the St Mary's group of teaching hospitals in London. Bashar at the time had few political aspirations. His father had been grooming Bashar's older brother Bassel as the future president, but he never declared this intent. Bashar, however, was recalled in 1994 to the Syrian Army, after Bassel's death in a car accident.
  Rise to powerSoon after the death of Bassel, Hafez Assad made the decision to make Bashar the new heir-apparent. Over the next six and half years, until his death in 2000, Hafez went about systematically preparing Bashar for taking over power. Preparations for a smooth transition were made on three levels. First, support was built up for Bashar in the military and security apparatus. Second, Bashar's image was established with the public. And lastly, Bashar was familiarized with the mechanisms of running the country.
  To establish his credentials in the military, Bashar entered in 1994 the military academy at Homs, north of Damascus, and was propelled through the ranks to become a colonel in January 1999.[13][21] To establish a power base for Bashar in the military, old divisional commanders were pushed into retirement, and new, young, Alawite officers with loyalties to him took their place.
  Parallel to his military career, Bashar was engaged in public affairs. He was granted wide powers and became a political adviser to President Hafez al-Assad, head of the bureau to receive complaints and appeals of citizens, and led a campaign against corruption. As a result of his campaign against corruption, Bashar was able to remove his potential rivals for president.[13]
  In 1998, Bashar took charge of Syria's Lebanon file, which had since the 1970s been handled by Vice President Abdul Khaddam, one of the few Sunni officials in the Assad government, who had until then been a potential contender for president. By taking charge of Syrian affairs in Lebanon, Bashar was able to push Khaddam aside and establish his own power base in Lebanon. In that same year after minor consultation with Lebanese politicians, Bashar installed Emile Lahoud, a loyal ally of his, as the President of Lebanon and pushed former Lebanese Prime MinisterRafic Hariri aside, by not placing his political weight behind his nomination as prime minister.
  To further weaken the old Syrian order in Lebanon, Bashar replaced the long serving de facto Syrian High Commissioner of Lebanon, Ghazi Kanaan, with Rustum Ghazali.
  Presidency: 2000''presentWhen the elder Assad died on on 10 June 2000,[citation needed] Bashar was appointed leader of the Ba'ath Party and the Army,[citation needed] and was elected president unopposed in what the government claimed to be a massive popular support (97.2% of the votes), after the Majlis al-Sha'ab (Parliament) swiftly voted to lower the minimum age for candidates from 40 to 34 (Assad's age when he was elected).[citation needed] On 27 May 2007, Bashar was approved as president for another seven-year term, with the official result of 97.6% of the votes in a referendum without another candidate.[26]
  In his foreign policy, Al-Assad is an outspoken critic of the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.[27] The Ba'ath Party remains in control of the parliament, and is constitutionally the "leading party" of the state.[citation needed] Until he became president, Bashar al-Assad was not greatly involved in politics; his only public role was head of the Syrian Computer Society, which introduced the Internet to Syria in 2001.[citation needed] Al-Assad was confirmed as president by an unopposed referendum in 2000.[citation needed] He was expected to take a more liberal approach than his father. In an interview he stated that he saw democracy in Syria as 'a tool to a better life' but then argued that it would take time for democracy to come about and that it could not be rushed.[citation needed]
  Politically and economically, Syrian life has changed only slightly since 2000.[citation needed] Immediately after he took office a reform movement made cautious advances during the Damascus Spring, which led al-Assad to shut down Mezzeh prison and release hundreds of political prisoners.[citation needed] However, security crackdowns commenced again within the year.[28][29] By July 2012, according to analysts, Assad had amassed for himself, his family and associates a fortune of perhaps $1.5bn, which is held in Russia, Hong Kong and offshore tax havens to spread the risk of seizure.[30]
  EconomyEconomic liberalization in Syria has been limited, with industry still heavily state-controlled. However some changes have occurred including the introduction of private banking and the encouragement of foreign involvement, most notably in the oil sector. The need for a diversification of the economy has been pressed for by some[31] as it has been predicted that Syria will change from exporting to having to import oil by 2015. The reliance upon oil is reflected by manufacturing exports representing only 3.1 percent of Syria's GDP.[32] These issues are especially relevant as Syria's population is predicted to more than double to over 34 million by 2050.[33] There have been mild economic sanctions (the Syria Accountability Act) applied by the United States which further complicate the situation. Of major importance are the negotiations for a free trade association agreement with the European Union.
  Human rightsA 2007 law required internet cafes to record all the comments users post on chat forums.[34] Websites such as Wikipedia Arabic, YouTube and Facebook were blocked intermittently between 2008 and February 2011.[35][36][37]
  Human Rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have detailed how Bashar's government and secret police routinely tortured, imprisoned, and killed political opponents, and those who speak out against the government.[38][39] Since 2006 it expanded the use of travel bans against dissidents. In that regard, Syria is the worst offender among Arab states.[40]
  In an interview with ABC News in 2007 he stated: "We don't have such [things as] political prisoners," yet the New York Times reported the arrest of 30 political prisoners in Syria in December 2007.[who?][41]Foreign Policy magazine editorialized on his position in the wake of the 2011 protests:[42]
  "During its decades of rule... the Assad family developed a strong political safety net by firmly integrating the military into the government. In 1970, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, seized power after rising through the ranks of the Syrian armed forces, during which time he established a network of loyal Alawites by installing them in key posts. In fact, the military, ruling elite, and ruthless secret police are so intertwined that it is now impossible to separate the Assad government from the security establishment.... So... the government and its loyal forces have been able to deter all but the most resolute and fearless oppositional activists. In this respect, the situation in Syria is to a certain degree comparable to Saddam Hussein's strong Sunni minority rule in Iraq."Foreign relationsAssad's first official foreign trip was to meet Jacques Chirac in France, who had warm relations with him.[citation needed] The Middle East Quarterly noted that "As in the case of Iraq, there are lingering questions of Syrian payments to French politicians. Many French politicians join associations and charitable boards both for financial and political gain."[43][clarification needed]
  The United States, European Union, the March 14 Alliance, Israel, and France accuse Assad of providing practical support to militant groups active against Israel and against opposition political groups. The latter category would include most political parties other than Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.[44] According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, Assad claimed the United States could benefit from the Syrian experience in fighting organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood at the Hama Massacre.[45]
  Assad opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq despite a long-standing animosity between the Syrian and Iraqi governments. Assad used Syria's seat in one of rotating positions on the United Nations Security Council to try to prevent the invasion of Iraq.[46] Following the Iraq invasion by US and allied forces, Assad was accused of supporting the Shia insurgency in Iraq. A US general accused him of providing funding, logistics, and training to Iraqi and foreign Shia fundamentalists to launch attacks against U.S. and allied forces occupying Iraq.[47]
  The accusation of Syrian involvement in the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and support for anti-Israeli groups precipitated a crisis in relations with the United States.[citation needed] Assad was criticised for Syria's presence in Lebanon which ended in 2005, and the U.S. placed sanctions upon Syria partly because of this.[citation needed] At Pope John Paul II's funeral in 2005, Assad shook hands with the Israeli president Moshe Katsav.[citation needed]
  In the Arab world, Assad mended relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization but relations with many Arab states, in particular Saudi Arabia, have been deteriorating.[citation needed] This is in part due to Assad's continued intervention in Lebanon and his alliance with Iran. Around the time of the 2008 South Ossetia war, Assad made an official visit to Russia. In an interview with the Russian TV channelVesti, he asserted that one cannot separate the events in the Caucasus from the US presence in Iraq, which he condemned as a direct threat to [Syria's] security."[citation needed]
  After the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime MinisterRafik Hariri, many media outlets accused Syria of being involved[citation needed] as Hariri was anti-Syrian. However, Assad argued that Syria's gradual withdrawal of troops from Lebanon, beginning in 2000, was precipitated as a result of the event and ended in May 2005.[48]
  In 2011, Assad told the Wall Street Journal that he considered himself "anti-Israel" and "anti-West", and that because of these policies he was not in danger of being overthrown.[27]
  Involvement in LebanonDespite gaining re-election in 2007, al-Assad's position was considered by some to have been weakened by the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon following the Cedar Revolution in 2005. There has also been pressure from the U.S. concerning claims that Syria is linked to terrorist networks, exacerbated by Syrian condemnation of the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah military leader, in Damascus in 2008. Interior Minister Bassam Abdul-Majeed stated that, "Syria, which condemns this cowardly terrorist act, expresses condolences to the martyr family and to the Lebanese people.''[49]
  Arab-Israeli conflictIn a speech about the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict in August 2006, Bashar al-Assad said that Hezbollah had "hoisted the banner of victory," hailing its actions as a "successful resistance."[50] He claimed that Arab resistance was growing stronger, and warned Israel that "your warplanes, rockets, and your atomic bomb will not protect you in the future." He called Israel an enemy with whom no peace could be achieved as long as they and their allies (especially the U.S.) support the practice of preemptive war. In the same speech, he also called Arab leaders that have criticized Hezbollah "half-men."
  In April 2008, Assad told a Qatari newspaper that Syria and Israel had been discussing a peace treaty for a year, with Turkey as a go-between. This was confirmed in May 2008, by a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. As well as a peace treaty, the future of the Golan Heights is being discussed. Assad was quoted in The Guardian as telling the Qatari paper:
  . . . there would be no direct negotiations with Israel until a new US president takes office. The US was the only party qualified to sponsor any direct talks, [Assad] told the paper, but added that the Bush administration "does not have the vision or will for the peace process. It does not have anything."[51]According to leaked American cables, Bashar al-Assad called Hamas an "uninvited guest" and said "If you want me to be effective and active, I have to have a relationship with all parties. Hamas is Muslim Brotherhood, but we have to deal with the reality of their presence," comparing Hamas to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood which was crushed by his father Hafez al-Assad. He then claimed Hamas would disappear if peace was brought to the Middle East.[52][53]
  Assad has indicated that the peace treaty that he envisions would not be the same kind of peace treaty Israel has with Egypt where there is a legal border crossing and open trade. In a 2006 interview with Charlie Rose, Assad said ''There is a big difference between talking about a peace treaty and peace. A peace treaty is like a permanent ceasefire. There's no war, maybe you have an embassy, but you actually won't have trade, you won't have normal relations because people will not be sympathetic to this relation as long as they are sympathetic with the Palestinians: half a million who live in Syria and half a million in Lebanon and another few millions in other Arab countries.''[48]
  During the visit of Pope John Paul II to Syria in 2001, Bashar al-Assad requested an apology to Muslims for the medieval Crusades and criticised Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Comparing their suffering to that endured by Jesus Christ in Palestine, Assad claimed that followers of Judaism "tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad."[54][55][56][57][58] Responding to claims that his comment was antisemitic, Assad said that whereas Judaism is a racially heterogeneous religion, the Syrian people are the core of the Semitic race and therefore are opposed to the term antisemitism. When offered to retract his comment implying that the Jews were responsible for Jesus' suffering, Assad replied, "As always, these are historical facts that we cannot deny," and stressed that his remarks were not anti-Jewish.[59] In February 2011, Bashar backed an initiative to restore 10 synagogues in Syria, which had a Jewish community numbering 30,000 in 1947 but has only 200 Jews today.[60]
  International public relationsIn order to promote their image and media-portrayal overseas, Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad hired American-based PR firms and consultants.[61] Notably, these liaised with, and secured, photoshoots for Asma al-Assad with fashion and celebrity magazines. Firms such as the Bell Pottinger Group were also hired and helped to advise them on how to shape their image.[61]
  In January 2012, UK paper The Guardian wrote an article titled: ' Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western media '[62]
  Honours and awardsSyrian civil warFollowing anti-government demonstrations in some other Middle Eastern countries, protests in Syria started on 26 January 2011. Protesters called for political reforms and the re-instatement of civil rights, as well as an end to the state of emergency which had been in place since 1963.[72] One attempt at a "day of rage" was set for 4''5 February, though it ended uneventfully.[73] Protests on 18''19 March were the largest to take place in Syria for decades and the Syrian authority responded with violence against its protesting citizens.
  On 18 May, U.S. President Barack Obama signed an Executive order putting into effect sanctions against Bashar al-Assad in an effort to pressure his government "to end its use of violence against its people and begin transitioning to a democratic system that protects the rights of the Syrian people."[74] The sanctions effectively freeze any of the Syrian President's assets either in the United States proper or within U.S. jurisdiction.[75] On 23 May, EU Foreign ministers agreed at a meeting in Brussels to add President Assad and nine other officials to a list affected by travel bans and asset freezes.[76] On 24 May, Canada imposed sanctions on Syrian leaders, including President Assad.[77]
  On 20 June, in a speech lasting nearly an hour, in response to the demands of protesters and foreign pressure, al-Assad promised a national dialogue involving movement toward reform, new parliamentary elections, and greater freedoms. He also urged refugees to return home from Turkey, while assuring them amnesty and blaming all unrest on a small number of saboteurs.[78]
  In August, Syrian security forces attacked the country's best-known political cartoonist, Ali Farzat, a noted critic of Syria's government and its five-month crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators and dissent. Relatives of the severely beaten humorist told Western media that the attackers threatened to break Farzat's bones as a warning for him to stop drawing cartoons of government officials, particularly the President, Bashar al-Assad. Ferzat, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, was hospitalized with fractures in both hands and blunt force trauma to the head.[79][80]
  By the end of January 2012, it was reported that over 5,000 civilians and protesters (including armed militants) had been killed by the Syrian army, militia (Shabeeha) and security agents, while 1,100 people had been killed by the anti-government forces.[81]
  On 10 January 2012, Assad gave a speech in which he accused the uprising of being plotted by foreign countries and claimed that "victory [was] near". He also said that the Arab League, by suspending Syria, revealed that it was no longer Arab. However, al-Assad also said the country would not "close doors" to an Arab-brokered solution if "national sovereignty" was respected. He also said a referendum on a new constitution could be held in March.[82]
  On 27 February, Syria claimed that a referendum on an update to the nation's constitution, hailed as 'a showpiece of reform' received 90% support. The referendum imposes a fourteen-year cumulative term limit for the president of Syria. The referendum has been claimed as meaningless by foreign nations including the US and Turkey, and the European Union announced fresh sanctions against key government figures.[83] On 16 July 2012, Russia voicing concern at the blackmail on Syria by the western nations, laid to rest any speculations that it was distancing itself from Bashir Al-Assad. Moscow also vowed not to allow a UN resolution pass that aims at sanctions against Syria.[84]
  On 15 July, the International Committee of the Red Cross had officially declared Syria to be in a state of civil war,[85] as the nationwide death toll for all sides was reported to have neared 20,000.[86]
  President Assad gave several TV interviews during the Syrian crisis. He had appeared on Syria TV, Addounia TV, Syrian News Channel, Russia Today, Rossiya 24, ABC, ARD and Ulusal Kanal.
  On 6 January 2013 President Bashar al-Assad, in his first major speech since June, said that the conflict in his country was due to "enemies" outside of Syria who would "go to Hell" and that they would "be taught a lesson". However he said that he was still open to a political solution saying that failed attempts at a solution "does not mean we are not interested in a political solution."[87][88]
  Personal lifeAssad speaks fluent English and basic conversational French, having studied at the Franco-Arab al-Hurriyah school in Damascus.[citation needed] In December 2000, Assad married Asma Assad, n(C)e Akhras,[89] a British citizen of Syrian origin, from Acton, London.[90] On 3 December 2001, they became the parents of their first-born child, named Hafez after the child's grandfather Hafez al-Assad. Zein was born on 5 November 2003, and Karim on 16 December 2004.[citation needed]
  See alsoReferences^"Syrians Vote For Assad in Uncontested Referendum". The Washington Post. Associated Press. 28 May 2007. ^"Syria's Assad wins another term". BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). 29 May 2007. ^Bassem Mroue (18 April 2011). "Bashar Assad Resignation Called For By Syria Sit-In Activists". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 12 May 2011. Retrieved 20 April 2011. ^http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/22/world/meast/syria-unrest^http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/ga11207.doc.htm^Patrick Seale (15 June 2000). "Hafez al-Assad". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 19 March 2011. ^"Syria". National Geographic. November 2009. p. 9. Retrieved 24 November 2011. ^ abc"ÐÑÐ°Ð´ Ð‘Ð°ÑÐ°Ñ : Ð±Ð¸Ð¾Ð"ÑÐ°ÑÐ¸Ñ" [Bashar Assad: A Biography]. Ladno (in Russian). Retrieved 23 September 2011. ^Beeston, Richard; Blanford, Nick (22 October 2005). "'We are going to send him on a trip. Bye, bye Hariri. Rot in hell'". The Times (London). Retrieved 26 April 2010. ^"CNN Transcript - Breaking News: President Hafez Al-Assad Assad of Syria Confirmed Dead". CNN. 10 June 2000. Retrieved 3 August 2010. ^"Syria". United States Department of State. 26 January 2012. Retrieved 4 March 2012. ^ abIssacharoff, Avi (1 February 2011). "Syria's Assad: Regime strong because of my anti-Israel stance". Haaretz (Tel Aviv). Retrieved 6 February 2012. ^"Syria: 'A kingdom of silence'". Al Jazeera English. Retrieved 6 February 2012. ^Ghadry, Farid N. (Winter 2005). "Syrian Reform: What Lies Beneath". Middle East Quarterly. ^Inman, Phillip (19 July 2012). "Bashar al-Assad has amassed fortune of up to £950m, analysts estimate". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 20 July 2012. ^"Syria's economy requires broader reforms to reach and sustain higher growth". 1stjordan.net. 1 October 2006. Retrieved 3 August 2010. ^Meir Javedanfar; Tal Gurevich. "Syria '' Economic Snapshot". meepas. Retrieved 3 August 2010. ^"Syria". Population Reference Bureau. Retrieved 3 August 2010. ^"Bashar Al-Assad, President, Syria". Reporters Without Borders. Retrieved 26 October 2012. ^"Red lines that cannot be crossed '' The authorities don't want you to read or see too much". The Economist. 24 July 2008. ^Jennifer Preston (9 February 2011). "Syria Restores Access to Facebook and YouTube". The New York Times. ^"Internet Enemies - Syria". Reporters Without Borders. Retrieved 29 April 2011. ^"A Wasted Decade". Human Rights Watch. 16 July 2010. p. 8. ^"2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - Syria". United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 8 April 2011. ^"How Syria controls its dissidents '' Banning travel". The Economist. 30 September 2010. ^Cambanis, Thanassis (14 December 2007). "Challenged, Syria Extends Crackdown on Dissent". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 April 2010. ^Michael Br¶ning (7 March 2011). "The Sturdy House That Assad Built". Foreign Affairs. ^Olivier Guitta (Fall 2005). "The Chirac Doctrine". Middle East Quarterly. ^"Assad sets conference conditions". BBC News (British Broadcasting Corporation). 1 October 2007. Retrieved 26 April 2010. ^"Bashar Assad Teaches Visiting Members of U.S. Congress How to Fight Terrorism". Middle East Media Research Institute. 16 January 2002. Retrieved 3 August 2010. ^"Iraq war illegal, says Annan". BBC News (British Broadcasting Corporation). 16 September 2004. Retrieved 26 April 2010. ^Thomas E. Ricks (17 December 2004). "General: Iraqi Insurgents Directed From Syria". The Washington Post. Retrieved 3 August 2010. ^ ab"An hour with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad". Charlie Rose. 27 March 2006. Retrieved 5 February 2011. ^"Bomb kills top Hezbollah leader". BBC News (British Broadcasting Corporation). 13 February 2008. Retrieved 26 April 2010. ^Rogers, Paul (11 October 2006). "Lebanon: the war after the war". openDemocracy. Retrieved 3 August 2010. ^Walker, Peter; News Agencies (21 May 2008). "Olmert confirms peace talks with Syria". The Guardian (London). Archived from the original on 21 May 2008. Retrieved 21 May 2008. "Israel and Syria are holding indirect peace talks, with Turkey acting as a mediator..." ^Roee Nahmias (30 November 2010). "Assad: Iran won't attack Israel with nukes". Ynetnews. Retrieved 12 December 2010. ^Meris Lutz (2 December 2010). "Syria's Assad seems to suggest backing for Hamas negotiable, leaked cables say". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 12 December 2010. ^"Syria and Judaism: The disappearance of the Jews". The Economist. 10 May 2001. Retrieved 1 June 2011. "The pope's pilgrimage in the steps of St Paul was widely seen as a success, even if it did not elicit an apology to the Muslim world for the medieval crusades. Syria's president, Bashar Assad, basked in international praise for his religious tolerance. But, notably, this tolerance was not extended to Judaism. Welcoming John Paul, Assad compared the suffering of the Palestinians to that of Jesus Christ. The Jews, he said, ''tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad.'' The pope was taken on a detour to the town of Quneitra, flattened by the Israelis in their partial withdrawal from the Golan Heights, and called upon to bless the president's vision of a Christian-Islamic alliance to vanquish the common threat of colonising Jews." ^"Polish experience shaped Pope's Jewish relations". CBC News. April 2005. Retrieved 7 May 2011. "The decision to beatify Pius IX, the pope who kidnapped a Jewish child in Bologna and who put Rome's Jews back in their ghetto, was one question mark. John Paul's silence in 2001 when Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said Jews had killed Christ and tried to kill Mohammad was another." ^"Pope appeals for Mideast peace". Damascus: CNN. 5 May 2001. Archived from the original on 29 May 2011. Retrieved 7 May 2011. ^Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 107th Congress, First Session. Government Printing Office. May 2001. p. 7912. Retrieved 7 May 2011. ^"ADL Urges World and Religious Leaders to Denounce Syrian President's Anti-Jewish Diatribe Delivered in Presence of the Pope". Anti-Defamation League. New York. 6 May 2001. Archived from the original on 8 April 2011. Retrieved 7 May 2011. ^"'Scharon plant den Krieg'" ['Sharon is planning the war']. Der Spiegel (in German). 9 July 2001. Retrieved 23 June 2011. "Was soll denn das? Wir Araber sind doch selbst Semiten, als Nachfahren von Sem, einem der drei S¶hne Noahs. Kein Mensch sollte gegen irgendeine Rasse eingestellt sein, gegen die Menschheit oder Teile von ihr. Wir in Syrien lehnen den Begriff Antisemitismus ab, weil dieser Begriff diskriminierend ist. Semiten sind eine Rasse, wir geh¶ren nicht nur zu dieser Rasse, sondern sind ihr Kern. Das Judentum dagegen ist eine Religion, die allen Rassen zuzuordnen ist." ^Derhally, Massoud A. (7 February 2011). "Jews in Damascus Restore Synagogues as Syria Tries to Foster Secular Image". Bloomberg. Retrieved 8 May 2011. "The project, which began in December, will be completed this month as part of a plan to restore 10 synagogues with the backing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and funding from Syrian Jews." ^ abBill Carter; Amy Chozick (10 June 2012). "Syria's Assads Turned to West for Glossy P.R.". The New York Times. ^Jonathan Steele (17 January 2012). "Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western media". The Guardian. ^"President al-Assad- Duke and Duchess of Calabria". Arabicnews.com. 22 March 2004. Retrieved 22 June 2013. ^President Bashar al-Assad of Syria becomes first Muslim Head of State to be invested into the Order of Francesco I. Duke of Calabria receives highest Syrian decoration on behalf of the Constantinian Order. Damascus '' March 2004. Constantinian.com^SYRIA-ASSAD-BOURBON Mediafaxfoto.ro, 21 March 2004^ATTO CAMERA INTERROGAZIONE A RISPOSTA SCRITTA 4/17085 Banchedati.camera.it (Italian)^Al-Assad S.E. Bashar Decorato di Gran Cordone Presidenza della Repubblica (Italian)^"Gobierno Nacional condecor" al Presidente sirio con Orden del Libertador". El Correo del Orinoco. 29 June 2010. Retrieved 6 June 2013. (Spanish)^President Michel Suleiman hosts Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz Marada-news.org, July 31, 2010^"Iran Awards Syrian Leader Highest Medal of Honor". Voice of America. 1 October 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2013. ^"Syrian President Awarded Iran's Medal of Honor". CBN News. 4 October 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2013. ^"Q&A: Syrian activist Suhair Atassi". Al Jazeera. 9 February 2011. Archived from the original on 12 February 2011. Retrieved 13 February 2011. ^"'Day of rage' protest urged in Syria". MSNBC. Retrieved 3 February 2011. ^"Administration Takes Additional Steps to Hold the Government of Syria Accountable for Violent Repression Against the Syrian People". United States Department of the Treasury. Retrieved 18 May 2011. "Today, President Obama signed an Executive Order (E.O.) imposing sanctions against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and six other senior officials of the Government of Syria in an effort to increase pressure on the Government of Syria to end its use of violence against its people and to begin a transition to a democratic system that protects the rights of the Syrian people." ^Oweis, Khaled Yacoub (18 May 2011). "U.S. imposes sanctions on Syria's Assad". Reuters. Archived from the original on 18 May 2011. Retrieved 18 May 2011. "The U.S. move, announced by the Treasury Department, freezes any of the Syrian officials' assets that are in the United States or otherwise fall within U.S. jurisdiction and generally bars U.S. individuals and companies from dealing with them." ^"EU imposes sanctions on President Assad". BBC News (BBC). 23 May 2011. ^"Canada imposes sanctions on Syrian leaders". BBC News (British Broadcasting Corporation). 24 May 2011. ^"Speech of H.E. President Bashar al-Assad at Damascus University on the situation in Syria". Syrian Arab News Agency. 21 June 2011. ^Nour Ali (25 August 2011). "Syrian forces beat up political cartoonist Ali Ferzat". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 4 March 2012. ^"Prominent Syrian Cartoonist Attacked, Beaten". Voice of America. 25 August 2011. Retrieved 4 March 2012. ^Khaled Yacoub Oweis (13 December 2011). "Syria death toll hits 5,000 as insurgency spreads". Reuters. ^"Syria's Assad blames 'foreign conspiracy'". BBC News (BBC). 10 January 2012. Retrieved 10 January 2012. ^Martin Chulov in Beirut (27 February 2012). "Syria claims 90% of voters backed reforms in referendum". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 4 March 2012. ^Aneja, Atul (17 July 2012). "Russia backs Assad as fighting in Damascus escalates". The Hindu (Chennai). ^"Syria in civil war, Red Cross says". BBC News (BBC). 15 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012. ^"Syrian death toll tops 19,000, say activists". The Guardian (London). 22 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012. ^"Al-Assad: Enemies of Syria 'will go to hell'". CNN. 6 January 2013. Retrieved 25 January 2013. ^Listening Post (6 January 2012). "Syrian Live Blog". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 25 January 2013. ^"The road to Damascus (all the way from Acton)". BBC News (British Broadcasting Corporation). 31 October 2001. Retrieved 26 April 2010. ^"Syria factfile: Key figures". The Daily Telegraph (London). 24 February 2003. Retrieved 26 April 2010. BibliographyHoughton Mifflin (2003). The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography. ISBN 978-0-618-25210-7. Blanford, Nicholas (2006). Killing Mr Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and Its Impact on the Middle East. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-202-8. Lane, Jan-Erik; Redissi, Hamadi (2004). Religion And Politics: Islam And Muslim Civilisation. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7546-4167-4. Leverett, Flynt L. (2005). Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial By Fire. Brookings Institution. ISBN 978-0-8157-5204-2. Lesch, David W. (2011). Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18651-2. Minahan, James (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: A-C. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-32109-2. Ma'oz, Moshe; Ginat, Joseph; Winckler, Onn (1999). Modern Syria: From Ottoman Rule to Pivotal Role in the Middle East. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 1-898723-83-4. Tucker, Spencer C.; Roberts, Priscilla (2008). The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-841-5. Zisser, Eyal (2007). Commanding Syria: Bashar Al-Asad And the First Years in Power. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-153-3. Further readingSyria: The Fall of the House of Assad by David W. Lesch (Yale University Press; 2012) 275 pages, scholarly accountBashar Al-Assad (Major World Leaders) by Susan Muaddi Darraj, (June 2005, Chelsea House Publications) ISBN 0-7910-8262-8 for young adultsSyria Under Bashar Al-Asad: Modernisation and the Limits of Change by Volker Perthes, (2004, Oxford University Press) ISBN 0-19-856750-2 (Adelphi Papers #366)Bashar's First Year: From Ophthalmology to a National Vision (Research Memorandum) by Yossi Baidatz, (2001, Washington Institute for Near East Policy) ISBN B0006RVLNMSyria: Revolution From Above by Raymond Hinnebusch (Routledge; 1st edition, August 2002) ISBN 0-415-28568-2Bashar al-Assad and John F. Kennedy, Forward Magazine (Syria) Scott C. Davis (18 May 2008). "Bashar al-Assad and John F. Kennedy". Forward Magazine. Retrieved 3 August 2010. Assad: We too were not very happy with Annapolis, Forward Magazine (Syria) "Assad: We too were not very happy with Annapolis | Forward Magazine". Fw-magazine.com. 4 June 1967. Retrieved 3 August 2010. Seven years of Bashar al-Assad's rule 2000''2007, Forward Magazine (Syria) [1]External linksArticlesSyria's Proxy Forces in Iraq, Al-Hayat (London), 12 April 2003 at Middle East Intelligence BulletinProfile: Syria's Bashar al-AssadBBC News, 10 March 2005Bashar al-Assad's Lebanon Gamble, William Harris, Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2005Assad on the Brink, David Hirst, The Nation, 21 November 2005Syria's Leaders, Esther Pan, Council on Foreign Relations, 10 March 2006Connecting the dots in Lebanon, Omar Raad, Ya Libnan Volunteer, 2 December 2006The Assad Dynasty in Syria: From Father to Son, Kristin Helberg, Deutsche Welle, 2009 at qantara.deInterview With Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, The Wall Street Journal, 31 January 2011Profile: Bashar al-Assad, Al Jazeera English, 25 March 2011PersondataNameAssad, Bashar al-Alternative namesØ¨Ø´Ø§Ø± Ø§ÙØ£Ø" (Arabic); BaÅÄr al-Asad (strict transliteration)Short descriptionSyrian presidentDate of birth11 September 1965Place of birthDamascus, SyriaDate of deathdiePlace of deathfreedom
Rutte: nog geen onomstotelijk bewijs Syri - Binnenland | Het laatste nieuws uit Nederland leest u op Telegraaf.nl [binnenland]
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UPDATE 2-Gazprom, Gasunie to explore Nord Stream expansion to Britain
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  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 12:52
  UPDATE 2-Gazprom, Gasunie to explore Nord Stream expansion to BritainTop News
  UPDATE 2-Gazprom, Gasunie to explore Nord Stream expansion to Britain
  Mon, Apr 08 14:29 PM EDT
  By Alexei Anishchuk
  AMSTERDAM, April 8 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom and Dutch Gasunie signed a letter of intent on Monday to explore the potential expansion of the Nord Stream pipeline to Britain, one of several deals signed during President Vladimir Putin's visit to the Netherlands.
  If the project comes through, the extended arm of Nord Stream would give Gazprom greater access to Britain, which has an annual demand of 100 billion cubic metres (bcm).
  For the Netherlands, long-term cooperation with Gazprom would secure gas flows as its gas reserves dwindle and the country is expected to become a net importer of gas in 2025.
  Alexei Miller, head of Gazprom, said the two companies discussed the possibility of increasing the Nord Stream pipeline with a line that will go to the United Kingdom. He said the capacity of the new pipeline would be about 27.5 bcm, the same as the capacity of each of the two existing pipelines.
  "The key issue is to sign a long-term contract with our British partners to supply gas to the British market," Miller told reporters in Amsterdam.
  Nord Stream has annual capacity of 55 bcm, enough to supply around 10 percent of the EU's annual gas needs. The pipeline makes landfall in Lubmin, northeast Germany.
  Because of rules limiting the market share of individual distributors within the European Union, Gazprom has been unable to use the pipeline at maximum levels.
  "The infrastructure in northwestern Europe can be improved a little bit further so they (the Netherlands) need support (from Russia) for investment," said Hans Van Cleef, an ABN Amro energy economist.
  "Russia would of course like to benefit from this hub in the future."
  GREATER COOPERATION
  Gazprom and its oil arm Gazprom Neft signed two deals with Royal Dutch Shell - one for joint shale oil exploration and drilling, the other for joint exploration and drilling of hydrocarbons on Russia's continental shelf.
  The deals underscore the Kremlin's drive to open up access to Russia's trove of hard-to-recover energy reserves to international energy firms with the expertise needed to secure its position as a leading global oil and gas producer.
  "Strong Russian-Dutch energy relations are of great importance to both our economies," said Henk Kamp, Dutch minister of economic affairs, during Putin's visit.
  "We value them even more today, as they stimulate economic growth and enhance energy security."
  In recent years, the two countries have stepped up cooperation in the energy sector to include projects such as pipelines and gas and oil storage.
  Gazprom will secure cushion gas for Europe's biggest natural gas open access storage to be built in the Netherlands in exchange for nearly 2 bcm of capacity.
  Once it is completed in 2015, Gazprom will gain nearly half or 1.9 bcm of gas in Bergermeer storage, which is 20 kilometres away from the BBL pipeline that takes gas from the Netherlands to the Britain.
  A consortium of Vitol Tank Terminals International (VTTI) and Russian investment group Summa will invest $1 billion in a new terminal in Rotterdam port.
  Once it is fully operational in 2016, the terminal will have the capacity to handle 2 million tonnes of crude oil and 1 million tonnes of refined oil products, taking significant share in global oil trade.
  UPDATE 2-Gazprom, Gasunie to explore Nord Stream expansion to BritainTop News
  UPDATE 2-Gazprom, Gasunie to explore Nord Stream expansion to Britain
  Mon, Apr 08 14:29 PM EDT
  By Alexei Anishchuk
  AMSTERDAM, April 8 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom and Dutch Gasunie signed a letter of intent on Monday to explore the potential expansion of the Nord Stream pipeline to Britain, one of several deals signed during President Vladimir Putin's visit to the Netherlands.
  If the project comes through, the extended arm of Nord Stream would give Gazprom greater access to Britain, which has an annual demand of 100 billion cubic metres (bcm).
  For the Netherlands, long-term cooperation with Gazprom would secure gas flows as its gas reserves dwindle and the country is expected to become a net importer of gas in 2025.
  Alexei Miller, head of Gazprom, said the two companies discussed the possibility of increasing the Nord Stream pipeline with a line that will go to the United Kingdom. He said the capacity of the new pipeline would be about 27.5 bcm, the same as the capacity of each of the two existing pipelines.
  "The key issue is to sign a long-term contract with our British partners to supply gas to the British market," Miller told reporters in Amsterdam.
  Nord Stream has annual capacity of 55 bcm, enough to supply around 10 percent of the EU's annual gas needs. The pipeline makes landfall in Lubmin, northeast Germany.
  Because of rules limiting the market share of individual distributors within the European Union, Gazprom has been unable to use the pipeline at maximum levels.
  "The infrastructure in northwestern Europe can be improved a little bit further so they (the Netherlands) need support (from Russia) for investment," said Hans Van Cleef, an ABN Amro energy economist.
  "Russia would of course like to benefit from this hub in the future."
  GREATER COOPERATION
  Gazprom and its oil arm Gazprom Neft signed two deals with Royal Dutch Shell - one for joint shale oil exploration and drilling, the other for joint exploration and drilling of hydrocarbons on Russia's continental shelf.
  The deals underscore the Kremlin's drive to open up access to Russia's trove of hard-to-recover energy reserves to international energy firms with the expertise needed to secure its position as a leading global oil and gas producer.
  "Strong Russian-Dutch energy relations are of great importance to both our economies," said Henk Kamp, Dutch minister of economic affairs, during Putin's visit.
  "We value them even more today, as they stimulate economic growth and enhance energy security."
  In recent years, the two countries have stepped up cooperation in the energy sector to include projects such as pipelines and gas and oil storage.
  Gazprom will secure cushion gas for Europe's biggest natural gas open access storage to be built in the Netherlands in exchange for nearly 2 bcm of capacity.
  Once it is completed in 2015, Gazprom will gain nearly half or 1.9 bcm of gas in Bergermeer storage, which is 20 kilometres away from the BBL pipeline that takes gas from the Netherlands to the Britain.
  A consortium of Vitol Tank Terminals International (VTTI) and Russian investment group Summa will invest $1 billion in a new terminal in Rotterdam port.
  Once it is fully operational in 2016, the terminal will have the capacity to handle 2 million tonnes of crude oil and 1 million tonnes of refined oil products, taking significant share in global oil trade.
Revealed: UK Government let British company export nerve gas chemicals to Syria - UK Politics - UK - The Independent
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  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 12:41
  The Government was accused of ''breathtaking laxity'' in its arms controls last night after it emerged that officials authorised the export to Syria of two chemicals capable of being used to make a nerve agent such as sarin a year ago.
  The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, will today be asked by MPs to explain why a British company was granted export licences for the dual-use substances for six months in 2012 while Syria's civil war was raging and concern was rife that the regime could use chemical weapons on its own people. The disclosure of the licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride, which can both be used as precursor chemicals in the manufacture of nerve gas, came as the US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had evidence that sarin gas was used in last month's atrocity in Damascus.
  Mr Kerry announced that traces of the nerve agent, found in hair and blood samples taken from victims of the attack in the Syrian capital which claimed more than 1,400 lives, were part of a case being built by the Obama administration for military intervention as it launched a full-scale political offensive on Sunday to persuade a sceptical Congress to approve a military strike against Syria.
  The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills insisted that although the licences were granted to an unnamed UK chemical company in January 2012, the substances were not sent to Syria before the permits were eventually revoked last July in response to tightened European Union sanctions.
  In a previously unpublicised letter to MPs last year, Mr Cable acknowledged that his officials had authorised the export of an unspecified quantity of the chemicals in the knowledge that they were listed on an international schedule of chemical weapon precursors.
  Downing Street insisted today that Britain's system for approving arms exports to Syria is working even though licences for two chemicals capable of being used in making nerve gas were approved by the Government and blocked only by EU sanctions.
  The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: ''You see the system working, with materials not exported. The facts are that the licences were revoked and the exports did not take place. The Prime Minister's view is that that demonstrates that the system is working. There is a sanctions regime, which is a very active part.''
  Critics of the Business Secretary, whose department said it had accepted assurances from the exporting company that the chemicals would be used in the manufacture of metal window frames and shower enclosures, said it appeared the substances had only stayed out of Syria by chance.
  The shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna told The Independent: ''It will be a relief that the chemicals concerned were never actually delivered. But, in light of the fact the Assad regime had already been violently oppressing internal dissent for many months by the beginning of 2012 and the intelligence now indicates use of chemical weapons on multiple occasions, a full explanation is needed as to why the export of these chemicals was approved in the first place.''
  The Labour MP Thomas Docherty, a member of the Commons Arms Export Controls Committee, will today table parliamentary questions demanding to know why the licences were granted and to whom.
  He said: ''This would seem to be a case of breath-taking laxity '' the Government has had a very lucky escape indeed that these chemicals were not sent to Syria.
  ''What was Mr Cable's department doing authorising the sale of chemicals which by their own admission had a dual use as precursors for chemical weapons at a time when the Syria's war was long under way?''
  The licences for the two chemicals were granted on 17 and 18 January last year for ''use in industrial processes'' after being assessed by Department for Business officials to judge if ''there was a clear risk that they might be used for internal repression or be diverted for such an end'', according to the letter sent by Mr Cable to the arms controls committee.
  Mr Cable said: ''The licences were granted because at the time there were no grounds for refusal.''
  Although the export deal, first reported by The Sunday Mail in Scotland, was outlawed by the EU on 17 June last year in a package of sanctions against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the licences were not revoked until 30 July. Chemical weapons experts said that although the two substances have a variety of uses such as the fluoridation of drinking water, sodium and potassium fluoride are also key to producing the chemical effect which makes a nerve agent such as sarin so toxic.
  Western intelligence has long suspected the Syrian regime of using front companies to divert dual-use materials imported for industrial purposes into its weapons programmes. It is believed that chemical weapons including sarin have been used in the Syrian conflict on 14 occasions since 2012.
  Mr Cable's department last night insisted it was satisfied that the export licence was correctly granted. A spokesman said: ''The UK Government operates one of the most rigorous arms export control regimes in the world.
  ''The exporter and recipient company demonstrated that the chemicals were for a legitimate civilian end-use '' which was for metal finishing of aluminium profiles used in making aluminium showers and aluminium window frames.''
Claim that Rupert Murdoch's Ex-wife Wendi Deng is a Chinese Spy - China Gaze
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  Archived Version
  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 12:38
  News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch filed for divorce from his wife of 14 years Wendi Deng on June 13'--a Chinese blog has now revealed that she may be a Chinese spy. The PanChinese blog claims Wendi has connections to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and its General Political Department (GPD).
  On June 17, the PanChinese blog cited insider news from Beijing that Deng was contacted by the GPD of the Guangzhou branch in her freshman year of college to be trained as a spy in Hong Kong.
  At that time, China had just regained control of Hong Kong from the U.K. The GPD was directly overseeing Phoenix Television, and also controlled Hong Kong newspapers by controlling their stock shares. She easily got an internship and later became the only woman in top management.
  Suspicious tuition source for Yale University
  According to the PanChinese blog's investigation, Deng's tuition source at Yale University is not clear. Her huge MBA tuition was provided by her boyfriend of five years. But he was not considered a wealthy man.
  Wendi Deng's economics professor at the University of California, Ken Chapman, said: ''She used a computer which was more advanced than any we'd seen. She went to very exotic places for vacation'...'' (David Shankbone/Wikipedia)
  The PanChinese blog raises some questions: Why was it necessary for a Yale MBA student to cross the ocean to Hong Kong for an internship? The strangest thing was that she was able to afford a first class ticket in 1996, considering she was not a rich, second-generation Chinese.
  Tracing Deng's activities when she first lived in the U.S. produced even more mysteries.
  Deng's economics professor at the University of California, Ken Chapman, said: ''She is an unusual woman, and her background information has never been clear-cut.
  ''She used a computer which was more advanced than any we'd seen. She went to very exotic places for vacation, and she traveled a lot during university holidays. She obviously had a lot of money.''
  In 2008, The Washington Post quoted a U.S. official describing the espionage network of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which usually consists of professors, students, and academics, as a ''smart vacuum cleaner.'' It gathered a broad collection of information and confidentiality from the United States.
  Media reports hidden reason for Murdoch's divorce
  In June 1999, Rupert Murdoch married Wendi Deng in New York after divorcing his wife of 32 years, Anna, which stunned everyone. Sixteen months later, The Wall Street Journal published an article documenting Wendi's previous marriage and how she got her green card. Her marriage of 2 years and 7 months to Jake Cherry granted her access to the United States and ended soon after she gained her green card. According to the reporters, Rupert Murdoch was shocked by this article. One of The Wall Street Journal reporters said: ''He didn't know half of this stuff.''
  In 2007, freelance reporter Eric Ellis interviewed insiders across three continents, reporting that Wendi Deng was born in Shandong province of China and grew up in city of Xuzhou. Her father was a mid-level cadre at the People's Machinery Works. After graduating from high school, Wendi was admitted to the Guangzhou Medical College, where she met the Cherry couple. Jake tutored her in English, later divorced his wife and married Wendi. One part was the story was how Wendi first encountered Mr. Murdoch; she crashed a party in Hong Kong where Rupert was attending and intentionally spilled her glass of red wine on him to start a conversation. This is the most widely spread story of how they have met.
  The earliest significant and public conflict in the 14-year marriage happened in 2006, when Murdoch announced that the two daughters he had with Deng (from artificial insemination) would not have the same company holdings and decision-making power as the other children from his previous two marriages.
  Michael Wolff, Murdoch's biographer, also revealed that Murdoch doubted the marriage, which had a 37-year age difference. Murdoch's eldest son, Lachlan, says his father thinks marrying Wendi Deng was a mistake. They had been living separately for some time.
  Wendi crashed a party in Hong Kong where Rupert was attending and intentionally spilled her glass of red wine on him to start a conversation. (Leshaines123/Flickr)
  'The Sydney Morning Herald': Murdoch's China dream shattered
  For the past 20 years, Murdoch has been fascinated by China's market potential. Media reports say that he has injected more than 20 billion dollars into China, but has lost at least half.
  An article by The Sydney Morning Herald points out that China played a key role in Murdoch's global strategy. To get benefits from CCP officials, he used his generosity in a speculative way, and even married a much younger Chinese woman. Murdoch has described his wife as ''a huge help and advisor'' in his business with China.
  Even with his wife's help in Murdoch's business ventures in China, even though they had top connections and many privileges, their dream to build a media empire in China was a complete failure. Murdoch made money in the rest of world'--but not in China or Hong Kong. His Chinese wife even played a crucial role in those investments.
  Bruce Dover, the ex-vice president of News Corporation Beijing, disclosed some inside information in his 2008 book Rupert Murdoch's China Adventures: How the World's Most Powerful Media Mogul Lost a Fortune and Found a Wife.
  Dover said that Murdoch asked for a progress report from the Beijing headquarters almost every other day on the phone.
  Beijing permitted Murdoch to invest in the Internet and programming market, as well as in groundbreaking television production. Nevertheless, he did not gain any editorial privileges for himself.
  Murdoch's charm has captivated senior government officials in Australia, the U.S., and the U.K., but he believes he failed in China. In 2005, a frustrated Murdoch announced that he had hit a ''brick wall'' in China.
  Many Internet users also believe that the breakdown of his marriage is a result of his failed China dream.
  To get benefits from the Chinese Communist Party's officials, he used his generosity in a speculative way, and even married a much younger Chinese woman. (Screenshot)
  Liked this article? Subscribe to our weekly email or RSS feed for more!
  Article Source: http://www.secretchina.com/news/13/06/20/501641.html
Australian tycoon Clive Palmer threatens to sue Rupert Murdoch - Telegraph
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  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 12:34
  Mr Palmer, best known for his plan to builda replica of the Titanic and who is running for election in Australia on Saturday, was enraged by a comment piece in the Australian newspaper that questioned his wealth and whether he was indeed a university professor and a mining magnate, as he claims.
  Mr Murdoch's flagship The Australian ran the story on its front page under the headline "Why we need to worry about the real Mr Palmer", alleging he was "a man with a history of peddling fantasies that often morph into a unique version of 'reality'".
  According to the latest polls, the Palmer United Party is on track to win a Senate seat in his home state of Queensland and the daily said it would allow him to "exert his unsubtle influence in Canberra".
  "Contrary to the flim-flam and spin, Clive Frederick Palmer is not a professor, not an adviser to the G20, not a mining magnate, not a legal guru and not an advocate for freedom of speech. He's probably not a billionaire," the newspaper said.
  Mr Palmer, who says he has made his money in mining and is also a real estate developer and tourism resort operator, was a long-time supporter of Abbott's Liberal-National coalition. He tore up his membership last year after a bitter, public dispute and set up his own party.
  In an angry response to the Australian story, Mr Palmer accused Australian-born Mr Murdoch, now a US citizen, of telling his reporters what to write and said he needed to be brought to account.
  "Murdoch will be sued by me today and will be brought to Australia to answer these questions in the Supreme Court," he told the Seven Network.
  "It's time this fellow was brought to account, this foreigner who tries to dictate what we do."
  Edited by Bonnie Malkin
Swedish Reporter Actually Confronts Obama on His Nobel Peace Prize | Video | TheBlaze.com
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  Archived Version
  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 12:19
  A Swedish reporter confronted President Barack Obama about reconciling a pending attack on Syria with his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize that he won almost immediately after taking office.
  US President Barack Obama (L) answers a question on Syria during a joint press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt following their bilateral meeting at the Rosenbad Building in Stockholm on September 4, 2013. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
  Obama and Sweden's Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt held a joint press conference Wednesday in Stockholm as part of the first ever bilateral meeting between the nation's two top leaders.
  The reporter asked, ''I was wondering, could you describe the dilemma to being a Nobel Peace Prize winner and getting ready to attack Syria?''
  Obama first referred the reporter to look at his speech accepting the prize, in which he said he was undeserving compared to past recipients but also said the use of military force is sometimes necessary.
  ''What I also described is the challenge all of us face, when we believe in peace but we confront a world that is full of violence,'' Obama said. ''The question then becomes what are our responsibilities. So, I've made every effort to end the war in Iraq, to wind down the war in Afghanistan, to strengthen our commitment to multilateral action, to promote diplomacy as a solution to problems. The question though, that all of us face as political leaders: At what point do we need to confront actions that are violating our common humanity?''
  Answering his own question, Obama said, ''I would argue when I see 400 children subjected to gas, over 1,400 civilians dying senselessly in an environment where you already have tens of thousands killed, and we have the opportunity to take some action that is meaningful even if it doesn't solve the entire problem, may at least mitigate this particular problem, then the moral thing to do is not to stand by and do nothing.''
  According to U.S. intelligence, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against his own people on Aug. 21, killing 1,429, of whom 426 were children.
  Obama went on to reference how much of the world is critical of the United States, but expects them to step up during an international crisis.
  ''As much as we are criticized, when bad stuff happens around the world, the first question is, what is the United States going to do about it?'' Obama said. ''That's true on every issue. It's true in Libya. It's true in Rwanda. It's true in Sierra Leon. It's now true in Syria. That's part of the deal.''
  Most of the Nobel prizes are awarded in Stockholm. The Nobel Peace Prize, however, is awarded in Oslo, Norway.
  ''
The Tense Moment When a GOP Congressman Challenged John Kerry With Benghazi Questions During Syria Hearing | Video | TheBlaze.com
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  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 12:18
  Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) during the House Foreign Affairs Committee's hearing on Syria Wednesday got into a tense back and forth with Secretary of State John Kerry after the congressman brought up last year's deadly Benghazi terror attack to question the White House's credibility on foreign affairs.
  Congressman Jeff Duncan (Getty Images)
  ''The administration has a serious credibility issue with the American people,'' Duncan said, ''due to unanswered questions surrounding the terrorist attack in Benghazi almost a year ago.''
  He went on to mention some of the other major scandals that have plagued the Obama administration, including the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups and the Department of Justice's monitoring of the Associated Press.
  ''Bottom line is there's a need for accountability and trust-building from the administration,'' he said. ''The administration has a credibility issue.''
  ''Mr. Kerry, your predecessor asked, 'What difference does it make now?''' he continued, referring then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's infamous hearing outburst earlier this year. ''Well, this is the difference, Mr. Secretary.''
  ''These issues call into question the accountability of this administration,'' Duncan said. ''Its commitment to the personnel on the ground, and the judgment that it uses when, making these determinations. The American people deserve answers before they move forward talking about military involvement in Syria.''
  Duncan then produced a small photo of U.S. Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, one of the four Americans killed Sept. 11, 2012 at the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
  ''America deserves answers before we send another man or woman the caliber of Ty Woods in harm's way especially in another country's civil war,'' the congressman said.
  He continued, directly addressing Secretary Kerry.
  ''Mr. Kerry, you have never been one that has advocated for anything other than caution when involving U.S. forces in past conflicts. The same is true for the president and the vice president,'' he said. ''Is the power of the executive branch so intoxicating that you would abandon caution in favor for pulling the trigger on a military response so quickly?''
  Duncan then asked Kerry whether the White House has been involved in any way in arming Syrian rebels and whether it has transferred arms to Syria via Libya.
  Secretary Kerry was not amused with Duncan's line of questioning and responded by citing his and his colleagues' (i.e. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey) service records.
  Rep. Duncan tried to respond to Kerry's initial response, but the Secretary of State was determined: ''I'm going to finish, congressman! I am going to finish!''
  ''When I was in the United States Senate,'' Kerry continued, ''I supported military action in any number of occasions, including Grenada, Panama, I can run a list of them. And I'm not going to sit here and be told by you that I don't have a sense of what the judgment is with respect to this.
  He added, visibly annoyed: ''We're talking about people being killed by gas and you want to go talk about Benghazi and Fast and Furious!''
  The South Carolina congressman interjected to clarify that he has ''sympathy'' for those who have been hurt in the Syrian civil war, but repeated his point that the U.S. should move forward cautiously.
  Kerry said he disagreed with the congressman's characterization of the White House's approach to the Syrian conflict.
  ''This is not about getting into Syria's civil war,'' Kerry later added. ''This is about enforcing the principle that people shouldn't be allowed to gas their citizens with impunity!''
  ''Let's draw the proper distinction here, congressman,'' Kerry said, ''we don't deserve to drag this into yet another Benghazidiscussion when the real issue here is whether or not the Congress is going to stand up for international norms!''
  ''
  Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter
  Featured image AP photos.
VIDEO- Russian Leader Putin Calls John Kerry a Liar | The Tea Party News Network | TPNN.com
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  FOX News' James Rosen reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin flatly called Obama Secretary of State John Kerry a liar for telling Congress on Tuesday that al Qaeda enjoys less sway over the Syrian rebel forces than it used to (see video below).
  PUTIN: ''We communicate with U.S. officials and assume that they are decent people. Kerry lies openly and he knows that he lies. This is sad.''
  Loading...
  Matthew Burke is a former Financial Advisor/Planner for 24 years. He was a 2010 Constitutional Conservative candidate for U.S. Congress in Washington State. View all posts by Matthew Burke '†'
Anthony Weiner Explodes In Shouting Match With Jewish Voter - YouTube
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Quants-R-Us? Algorithmic Trading Trickles Down To Individual Investors. - Forbes
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Here's why we should speed up U.S. natural gas exports | TribLIVE Mobile
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  Here's why we should speed up U.S. natural gas exportsBy John BarrassoPublished: Monday, June 17, 2013, 9:00 p.m.Updated: Monday, June 17, 2013
  The sluggish process for approving natural gas exports in the U.S. is affecting our economic and national security. While Russia continues to export natural gas and dominate the European market, the United States continues to slow-walk approval for natural gas exports.
  Russia's control of the natural gas market and prices results in some of our allies paying exorbitant rates. Expensive energy limits their economic competitiveness and their citizens' quality of life.
  The high prices Russia receives for exported energy also strengthen Russian President Vladimir Putin at home. And a stronger Putin and a dominant Russia do little to advance U.S. interests.
  The United States has a rare opportunity to simultaneously help its allies, strengthen its foreign policy hand and create much-needed jobs at home '-- all by exporting plentiful American natural gas. The question is whether the Obama administration will allow it.
  U.S. producers can export liquefied natural gas (LNG), but the process often involves years of delay by the Energy Department.
  Our booming oil and gas industry has been a bright spot in the U.S. economy over the past four years, as entrepreneurs have discovered new ways to tap hidden natural gas reserves. The energy boom has created thousands of good jobs at a time when our country has desperately needed them. Even more jobs can be created by exporting LNG.
  Russia continues to tighten its grip on Europe's energy market. Canada and Australia are building robust export programs with regulations that are much more streamlined than the obstacle course that Washington requires U.S. producers to navigate.
  The most recent export application approved by the Energy Department, in May, took 29 months. It was the first request the department had approved in two years. A few days later, newly appointed Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz delayed indefinitely all 20 of the remaining applications awaiting department consent.
  An April study for the Energy Department found that natural gas exports would be a boon for the U.S. economy. A study published last June predicted that increased exports could create 25,000 new jobs in the gas industry and 40,000 jobs along the supply chain.
  Opponents of increased exports include extreme environmentalists who balk at nearly all U.S. energy development. They have joined forces with a few big businesses worried that a larger export market might raise natural gas prices in the United States. But the Energy Department study found that any price increases would be more than offset by broader economic gains.
  In his second State of the Union address, Obama said that he would double U.S. exports by 2015. ''If America sits on the sidelines while other nations sign trade deals, we will lose the chance to create jobs on our shores,'' he warned.
  If the president is serious about doubling our exports, his administration will follow the facts presented in the Energy Department study. If he is serious about strengthening U.S. foreign policy and helping our allies, he will act to undermine Russian dominance in global energy markets. If he is serious about creating good jobs, he will tell his energy secretary to approve the 20 remaining applications to export liquefied natural gas.
  We cannot let this opportunity pass us by while Washington dithers.
  John Barrasso, a Republican of Wyoming, is a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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Bill Text - 113th Congress (2013-2014) - THOMAS (Library of Congress)
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  THIS SEARCH THIS DOCUMENT GO TONext Hit Forward New Bills SearchPrev Hit Back HomePageHit List Best Sections Help Contents Display {title: 'THOMAS - Bill Text - H.R.2771', link: 'http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c113:H.R.2771.IH:/' }
  H.R.2771 -- Expedite Our Economy Act of 2013 (Introduced in House - IH)
  HR 2771 IH
  113th CONGRESS
  1st Session
  H. R. 2771
  To repeal the requirements under the Natural Gas Act for obtaining authorization for the exportation or importation of natural gas, and for other purposes.
  IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
  July 22, 2013
  Mr. POE of Texas (for himself, Mr. CARTER, and Mr. OLSON) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
  A BILL
  To repeal the requirements under the Natural Gas Act for obtaining authorization for the exportation or importation of natural gas, and for other purposes.
  Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
  SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.This Act may be cited as the `Expedite Our Economy Act of 2013'.
  SEC. 2. EXPORTATION OR IMPORTATION OF NATURAL GAS.(a) Repeal- Subsections (a) through (c) of section 3 of the Natural Gas Act (15 U.S.C. 717b) are repealed.
  (b) Conforming Amendment- Section 3 of the Natural Gas Act (15 U.S.C. 717b) is amended in the section heading by striking `exportation or importation of natural gas;'.
  SEC. 3. REPORT ON GLOBAL EXPORTS OF NATURAL GAS PRODUCTION.Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State shall submit to Congress a report on the following:
  (1) The economic policies of foreign countries with natural gas resources and reserves as such policies relate to the development and production of their natural gas resources and reserves and the extent and status of their natural gas resources and reserves.
  (2) The potential to export the natural gas production of such foreign countries to the global market and the impact of the export of such natural gas production on the global market.
  (3) A description of actions taken by the United States Government to foster natural gas exports to foreign countries that may have an interest in importing natural gas from the United States.
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LNG Law Blog | Liquefied Natural Gas law and news on federal regulation, regasification, environmental, safety and security issues
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  Bill Introduced to Repeal Import and Export Provisions from the Natural Gas ActPosted: July 26, 2013U.S. Representative Ted Poe (R-Tex.) has introduced the "Expedite Our Economy Act of 2013" (H.R. 2771), which would "repeal the requirements under the Natural Gas Act for obtaining authorization for the exportation or importation of natural gas." The bill, cosponsored by John Carter, Ralph Hall and Pete Olson, all Republicans from Texas, was introduced July 22, 2013 and referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
What impact would a US-EU free trade agreement have on the natural gas sector?
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  July 25th, 201312:20amPosted In: Natural Gas, LNGThe United States and the European Union have begun preliminary negotiations in Washington on a potentially historic free trade deal. Known variously as the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) or the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), an agreement could boost economic growth on both sides of the Atlantic. In particular, it could have a significant impact on the global energy landscape, leading to increased gas exports from the US to the EU and domestic development of shale in Europe.
  The prospect of lowering tariffs and boosting trade between the world's two largest economies has generated optimism on both sides of the Atlantic that a deal can be reached. It is possible that an agreement could be reached by the second half of 2014. If a deal is achieved, it could be one of the most ambitious economic enterprises since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement in December 1993. It is estimated that a transatlantic free trade agreement could result in an additional US$160bn to the EU economy annually, US$120bn to the US economy, and US$85bn for the rest of the world.
  US natural gas exports to Europe could help alter the strategic energy landscape
  Energy companies will be watching the outcome of negotiations closely. It is likely that the terms of any agreement could provide Europe with increased access to US natural gas. At a time of mounting energy bills across much of Europe, an influx of cheaper gas from the US will be welcomed by European consumers. A recent report commissioned by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change suggested that US imports could help bring about a 12% fall in British gas prices by 2020.
  From a geopolitical and macroeconomic standpoint, greater access to US gas will also reduce dependency on energy supplies from Russia, which has increasingly been seen as expensive, unreliable, and subject to inefficiency, corruption and arbitrary political interference. There has already been a move away from Russian oil and gas to cheaper, more reliable and less politically controversial sources. As European demand decreases, Russia will increasingly reorientate its energy exports to Asian markets, as illustrated by a recent agreement finalised by Rosneft to supply US$270bn of oil to China or the deal reached between Novatek and China National Petroleum Corp to supply 3m tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China annually.
  Gas exports to Europe could rebalance US trade deficit with EU
  From an American standpoint, increased gas exports to the European market will be a welcome boost to trade and help rebalance the US$107bn trading deficit with the EU. It would also lead to an expansion of existing gas installations on the eastern seaboard of the United States. For example, in anticipation of increased gas exports to European markets, Dominion is proposing to construct liquefaction facilities for exporting LNG at its Dominion Cove Point Terminal on Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. Dominion Cove is already one of the largest LNG facilities in the United States and will play an increasingly critical role in coming years.
  A transatlantic free trade agreement (FTA) would certainly speed up the process of exporting gas to Europe. Whereas the Department of Energy currently has to formally approve energy exports to non-FTA countries, exports to FTA- participating nations are typically rubber-stamped as a matter of procedure.
  However, a cautionary note should be struck. Firstly, it is not clear whether companies seeking backing for export projects to Europe can convince investors that the ventures will be profitable. Given the higher price of natural gas in Asian countries like Japan and South Korea, many investors feel that focusing on this market would be a wiser strategy. Secondly, American companies which currently enjoy a competitive edge over their European counterparts, due to the recent glut of cheap domestic natural gas, are loathe to give up this advantage.
  Investor-state dispute resolution may challenge opposition to fracking
  The proposed trade deal is also being closely monitored by public interest groups, especially from the environmental lobby, who have expressed misgivings that an agreement could open the door to an expansion of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in Europe. In particular, there are concerns that EU states could soon find domestic laws subject to challenges in tribunals where national legislation has little weight.
  A proposal for greater investor-state dispute resolution in the free trade negotiations could enable US companies investing in Europe to avoid European courts and directly challenge EU governments at supranational tribunals. The same right would of course apply to European companies investing in the US, something that European lobbying groups, such as the German Bund der Deutschen Industrie (BDI), have also campaigned hard for.
  A concerted campaign by powerful lobbying groups such as Business Europe, the US Chamber of Commerce, AM Cham EU, and the Transatlantic Business Council is already underway to give energy companies the ability to mount legal challenges to regulations both at home and abroad. There is also considerable precedent for this. For example, on the basis of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico, the US company Lone Pine Resources Inc. is demanding US$250m in compensation from Canada following Quebec's moratorium on fracking in response to environmental concerns.
  On 14 July, Francois Hollande stated that there would be no shale gas production in France during his administration. However, despiteHollande's declared hostility to fracking, governmental opposition to shale gas extraction may not be so straightforward in the event of a free trade deal. The proposed investment chapter in the EU-US trade agreement could empower energy companies to challenge measures undermining and obstructing profitable business operations.
  Shifting sands
  A trade deal between the EU and the US could be a powerful new ingredient in the shifting sands of the global energy landscape. There will certainly be no overnight surge in American gas exports to Europe. However, in the medium term, a free trade agreement will certainly make a significant increase in gas exports to Europe both easier and more likely, and could have serious geopolitical implications for Europe's own relationship with Russia and the Middle East. In addition, the provision for more investor-state arbitration in the proposed deal may also make it easier for energy companies to circumvent opposition to fracking in the EU, opening up new and potentially lucrative markets.
  Author Trevor Slack is a Senior Analyst for Europe and Central Asia at Maplecroft.
  The article is provided by Maplecroft, a Natural Gas Europe Industry Partner. For more information on Maplecroft's latest in-depth Country Risk Report - Russia, please email at info@maplecroft.com or call +44 (0)1225 420000
US Liquid Natural Gas Exports Facilitated by House Bill H.R. 247 | voices.mydesert.com
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  A prospective Congressional initiative, submitted by U.S. House Representative Ted Poe (R-TX) would remove the White House-dominated U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) from the approval process for expediting the production of new liquefied natural gas and the development of export terminals.
  The proposed bill would transfer the regulatory authority covering LNG exports directly to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This would remove the DOE as a stumbling block from a government agency that could greatly lengthen the approval process when the current massive LNG generation makes fast approval extremely urgent. There are already several LNG projects, concentrated on the Gulf Coast, awaiting DOE approval.
  This circumvention of the Department of Energy hurdle would put into play both new liquefaction projects, as well as export terminals. Awaiting such U.S. liquid natural gas capabilities are Japan, the United Kingdom, and Western and Central Europe, whose imported costs per million British thermal units far outweigh America's price of less than $4 per million BTU's. European nations are at the mercy of Russian pipelines, where LNG prices are as high as $15 per the U.S. equivalents.
  Unlike the rest of the world's competing LNG exporters, the U.S. places no taxes on exports of any kind under the aegis of constitutional law. The timing of a massive U.S. LNG thrust is also outstanding, as Qatar, Norway, Algeria, and Australia among the world's LNG exporters are using increasing amounts domestically, as their internal usage switches from coal to natural gas.
  The available supply of U.S. natural gas to LNG conversion is practically unlimited, even if natural gas for domestic use is doubled or tripled in the foreseeable future. Based on current estimates of ultimate LNG potential, these could indicate clear sailing for the U.S. for the next 100 years. Furthermore, the U.S. is also strategically located between Europe on the one hand, and the Far East on the other. This would keep transit costs throughout the world at a moderate level, no matter how high the potential shipments climb.
  The success of the pending House Bill could unlock nearly $100 billion in capital value over 800 miles of coastline, from Texas's Southern tip to Pascagoula, Mississippi. The genesis of billions of dollars worth of these embryonic projects are already at $60 billion. They will also eventually require thousands of workmen, turning a current unemployment glut into a subsequent labor shortage.
  This is only the beginning of realistic and impressive job and revenue-producing opportunities. These will only be impeded by the infernal stubbornness of government agencies that are not particularly intent on alleviating the hurdles or facilitating America's growth opportunities.
  For future easy access to my blogs, please use the link below, and bookmark it to your desktop. The old link you may be using is still available. However, an alternate link is: http://mydesert.com/beschloss
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Natural Gas Exports: A Geopolitical Game Changer? - US News & World Report
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  Natural gas exports could represent a real boon to national security.
  The discovery of massive deposits of natural gas in shale formations across the United States has turned the nation's energy discussion on its head'--policymakers are no longer frantic to find new import sources, but instead are now mired in heated controversy over what to do with all the excess supply.
  But beyond the economic benefits touted by domestic gas producers'--job creation, improvement of the trade balance'--there are also broader national security and climate benefits to large-scale exports of natural gas, according to a study released by the American Security Project.
  For starters, a more diverse pool of natural gas export sources has the potential to reframe many of the tenuous geopolitical relationships across the globe centered on energy supply. Europe remains highly dependent on Russia for its natural gas, a country that is no stranger to using energy as a political tool, says Nick Cunningham, policy analyst and author of the ASP report.
  [READ: Infrastructure Upgrades Needed to Fuel Domestic Energy Boom]
  "Over the past couple of years, Russia has shut off pipelines to Europe several times ostensibly over pricing disagreements," Cunningham says. "But the underlying motive is to send a signal to Europe that [Russia] has leverage over them."
  Essentially, European countries are more or less beholden to a key energy supplier that can be described as unreliable at best, Cunningham adds.
  But if the U.S. is allowed to export to Europe, that dynamic could change as countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Greece gain access to alternate, more stable sources of natural gas, loosening Russia's vice grip on the European natural gas supply. Incidentally, the U.S. has already played a role shifting the relationship between energy suppliers and importers in Europe, according to Cunningham. The shale gas revolution, which has dramatically increased domestic supplies of natural gas in the United States has all but eliminated the need for imports. That, in turn, has rerouted supplies originally headed for U.S. ports to Europe, helping to ease price pressures there.
  [REPORT: U.S. Will Be Energy Self-Sufficient By 2030]
  U.S. exports of natural gas could also play a role in increasing the bite of sanctions levied on Iran over its nuclear program. Turkey currently depends on Iran for 20 percent of its natural gas imports. But as with Europe, if new sources of gas imports are made available, Turkey could reduce its reliance on Iran. That would, in turn, cut into the revenues reaped by the Iranian regime.
  In Asia, exporting natural gas to energy hungry allies such as Japan and South Korea could help solidify diplomatic relations. In the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Japan'--already the top importer of natural gas'--has shut down nearly all of its reactors, making the country much more dependent on fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gas. With high natural gas prices in Asia, Japan is looking for anything cheaper. At rock bottom prices at home, U.S. suppliers can beat the international prices and make a good profit even with expensive liquefaction and shipment, says Dr. Jack Rafuse, principal of the Rafuse Organization, which advises government agencies, policy centers, and businesses on energy, trade, and national security issues.
  "Japan stands out very clear'--we can obviously help a major trade ally while exporters make a good profit," says Rafuse, also a former White House energy adviser.
  [ALSO: Energy Industry Says Obama's EPA Pick 'Not So Bad']
  The climate benefits of greater natural gas exports are a little foggier. A greater supply of natural gas could help push down high prices in Asia and Europe, making cleaner natural gas more competitive with cheap but dirty fuels such as coal.
VIDEO- "This Is REALLY A Test Run For Stopping The Iranian Nuclear Program!" Senator Lindsey Graham - YouTube
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'Quarter of UK' put up with coldness
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  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 02:52
  4 September 2013Last updated at20:56 ETA quarter of people have put up with "unacceptably cold" homes in the past year as they struggle to pay bills, a BBC Radio 5 live survey has suggested.
  More than a third also said they were concerned about how they will pay their heating bills this winter.
  Some 63% of the 1,035 UK adults surveyed said they had cut their energy use because of rising costs.
  Almost three-quarters believe the UK's energy costs are unreasonable, and 69% said the firms should be nationalised.
  While there was support for renewable energy resources in principle - 84% would welcome more solar panels in their area - the prospect of reducing energy prices was also important.
  Sixty-seven percent of people said they would support more coal, oil and gas stations being built in the UK if it brought energy prices down.
  ComRes interviewed 1,035 UK adults by telephone between the 30 August and 1 September 2013.
  'Hard-working family'Jean Clements, from Denton, Greater Manchester, said she has struggled to pay the "spiralling" energy bills since her mechanic husband took a pay cut.
  The 39-year-old, who gave up work to look after their five-year-old son, said they got into debt with British Gas at Christmas and they have since installed payment meters.
  "It took three months to install them, so we ended up about £700 in debt. At the moment, we are having to pay about £40 a week, £20 in each meter, and it's difficult to maintain.
  "Pre-paid meters are about 7% dearer but the benefit is you are not going to get any scary quarterly bill or a bounced direct debit."
  She is worried about the onset of winter, especially if it is a harsh one.
  "The government needs to be able to work a bit more with Ofgem to regulate the prices and the profits the energy suppliers are making," she said.
  "I don't expect handouts. We are a hard-working family but it would be nice if we could get the energy bills reduced."
  Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint told BBC Radio 5 live the government's energy strategy was a "disgrace".
  She says the government's own figures on the fuel poverty gap - the difference between what households with high energy bills pay out for gas and electricity and the official poverty line - show it has increased by more than 12% in the last two years.
  "This is yet more evidence that David Cameron's failure to get tough with the energy giants has pushed millions of vulnerable households even deeper into fuel poverty," she said.
  "It is a disgrace that this government has cut help for people in fuel poverty at the same time as giving millionaires a tax cut."
  The Department of Energy and Climate Change said it was determined to tackle what it called the "scourge" of fuel poverty.
  "Two million households received cuts to their bills last winter under the Warm Home Discount and the budget will continue to increase each year, up to £320m for 2015/16," a spokesman said.
  The government was also pressing the energy firms to make sure low-income households were not stuck on high tariffs, he added.
U.S. resolution on Syria strike passes first hurdle in Senate | Reuters
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  1 of 14. (L-R) U.S. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry testify at a U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Syria on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 4, 2013. The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee struggled on Wednesday to reach agreement on a resolution authorizing military strikes in Syria, but scheduled a vote for later in the day as Obama administration officials pressed for action in Congress.
  Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed
  By Patricia Zengerle and Khaled Yacoub Oweis
  WASHINGTON/AMMAN | Wed Sep 4, 2013 9:15pm EDT
  WASHINGTON/AMMAN (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama's effort to win legislative backing for military strikes against Syria passed its first hurdle on Wednesday when a Senate committee voted in favor, but the narrow margin of victory showed the depth of U.S. caution.
  In a possible sign of internal unrest in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's ruling Alawite sect in the shadow of a likely U.S. intervention, Syrian opposition figures said General Ali Habib, a former defense minister, had defected. Syria denied the report.
  Washington and Syria's main backer, Russia, remained publicly at odds as Obama tried to build his case for military action over chemical weapons before flying to Russia for a G20 summit hosted by President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
  Putin said U.S. congressional approval without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be an act of aggression, and accused U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry of lying by playing down the role of the militant group al Qaeda with rebel forces.
  With Obama focused on building international support, administration officials kept up their campaign of persuasion in Congress, where deep U.S. skepticism about going to war was reflected in a House of Representatives hearing.
  Still, after much jockeying over the exact wording, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution authorizing the use of military force in Syria in a vote that avoided party lines, with Democrats and Republicans on both sides. The action cleared the way for a vote in the full Senate, likely next week.
  The committee voted 10-7 in favor of a compromise resolution that sets a 60-day limit on any engagement in Syria, with a possible 30-day extension, and bars the use of U.S. troops on the ground for combat operations.
  The administration is trying to balance the views of many in Congress who want a narrowly defined resolution against hawks such as Senator John McCain, who has pushed for a broader resolution that would allow direct U.S. support for rebels.
  The Senate committee adopted amendments proposed by McCain with policy goals of degrading Assad's ability to use chemical weapons, increasing support for rebel forces and reversing battlefield momentum to create conditions for Assad's removal.
  The authorization still faces significant resistance in Congress, where many lawmakers fear it could lead to a prolonged U.S. military involvement in Syria's civil war and spark an escalation of regional violence.
  The full Senate is expected to vote on the resolution next week. The House of Representatives also must approve the measure.
  RUSSIAN TENSIONS
  Obama said he would continue to try to persuade Putin of the need for punitive strikes on Assad for using chemical weapons when the two meet in St. Petersburg.
  In Stockholm en route to Russia, Obama said the credibility of America and of the world was at stake. He appeared to take umbrage at a reporter's question about the "red line" he set for Assad at an August 2012 White House news conference.
  "I did not set a red line. The world set a red line," Obama said, referring to bans on chemical weapons use.
  Putin again questioned Western evidence. He accused Kerry outright of lying when, in urging Congress to approve strikes on Syria, Kerry played down the role of al Qaeda in the rebel forces. "Al Qaeda units are the main military echelon, and they know this," Putin said.
  "He is lying and knows he is lying. It's sad."
  Earlier, Putin had said in a pre-summit interview with the Associated Press that he could not absolutely "rule out" Russia supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution to punish Assad - if it could be proved he had used poison gas.
  Briefing members of Congress in Washington, Kerry said those comments were "hopeful" and "there may be a road forward where Russia would consider not blocking action."
  Kerry played down concerns that any U.S. military strike over chemical weapons might provoke a clash with Russia.
  "Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov has made it clear ... Russia does not intend to fight a war over Syria," Kerry told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
  A senior Western official said that while Moscow was unlikely to say so in public, there were signs Russian officials believe Assad was responsible for the deaths on August 21 and that it had strained Russian support for him - providing an opening for a new, concerted drive to end the conflict.
  However, Putin's characteristically blunt tone towards the U.S. position appeared to limit prospects for a breakthrough in a stalemate that has prevented international action to rein in a conflict that has killed more than 100,000 Syrians and left millions homeless but which neither side has been able to win.
  "DEFECTION"
  Numerous defections over the past two years by senior commanders, either to the rebel Free Syrian Army or into exile abroad, have not led to a collapse of Assad's defenses.
  Habib, the former defense minister, had been under house arrest since he resigned in protest at Assad's crackdown on demonstrators in 2011. He managed to reach the Turkish border late on Tuesday with Western help, Kamal al-Labwani of the Syrian National Coalition told Reuters.
  Other sources also said Habib had fled but Syrian state television denied he had left his home. Turkey's foreign minister said he could not confirm the general had defected.
  The flight of Habib, if confirmed, would lend credibility to suggestions that parts of the Alawite community may be turning against Assad. Previous high-level defections have generally involved Sunni officers.
  "Ali Habib has managed to escape from the grip of the regime and he is now in Turkey, but this does not mean that he has joined the opposition. I was told this by a Western diplomatic official," Labwani said from Paris.
  A Gulf source told Reuters that Habib had crossed the Turkish frontier late on Tuesday with two or three other people. He was taken across the border in a convoy of vehicles.
  Kerry said he did not know if the report of Habib's defection was correct but "there are currently defections taking place. I think there are something like 60 to 100 in the last day or so, officers and enlisted personnel."
  In an interview on Britain's Sky News, Bouthaina Shaaban, a senior adviser to Assad, made no mention of the defection. She said the world should wait for the outcome of a United Nations investigation into the use of chemical weapons and blamed groups linked to al Qaeda for the alleged gas attack last month.
  MILITARY PLANS
  Following the failure of British Prime Minister David Cameron to win parliamentary backing for air strikes last week, Washington has been struggling to build an international coalition for action in the absence of a U.N. resolution.
  Kerry told lawmakers that at least 10 countries had pledged to participate in a U.S. military intervention in Syria, but he did not identify them nor say what roles they might play.
  France and Turkey are the most significant military powers lining up behind Obama. The French parliament debated Syria on Wednesday, though President Francois Hollande does not need approval for action.
  French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told parliament that failure to strike Assad would send a message to the likes of Iran and North Korea that they could defy Western powers with impunity, notably over concerns about their nuclear programs.
  Obama has won the backing of key figures in the U.S. Congress, including among his Republican opponents.
  But in a sign of the tough road still ahead, Democrats and Republicans took both sides in the Senate committee vote. Two Democrats, Tom Udall and Chris Murphy, joined Republicans Marco Rubio, John Barrasso, James Risch, Ron Johnson and Rand Paul in voting no.
  In the Senate, Democratic leader Harry Reid is guardedly confident that a majority of the 100 members will vote yes, but is still unsure if he can get the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican procedural roadblocks, aides said.
  In the 435-member House, a senior Republican aide predicted that most of the 50 or so Republicans backed by the anti-big government Tea Party movement will vote no. A number of Democratic liberals are also expected to vote against a resolution, placing the final outcome in doubt.
  (Additional reporting by Laila Bassam, Yara Bayoumy and Erika Solomon in Beirut, Paul Taylor and John Irish in Paris, Alexandra Hudson in Berlin, Thomas Grove and Darya Korsunskaya in Moscow and David Alexander, John Whitesides and Susan Cornwell in Washington, Steve Holland and Matt Spetalnick in Stockholm, Michael Holden in London; Writing by Alastair Macdonald and Claudia Parsons; Editing by Giles Elgood and Jim Loney)
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BBC News - Graphic images 'don't deter young smokers'
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  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 02:40
  4 September 2013Last updated at21:13 ETPicture warnings on cigarette packets depicting the dangers of smoking make little impact on teenage smokers, a study suggests.
  The UK introduced the images, which depict things such as diseased lungs and heart surgery, in 2008.
  But the Stirling University study found the images have had almost no effect on deterring 11 to 16-year-old smokers.
  However, they have had an effect on non-smokers and experimental smokers.
  The study - published by the Tobacco Control journal - looked at data from the Youth Tobacco Policy Survey before and after the introduction of the images. Before the introduction of the images only text warnings were used.
  In total, nearly 2,800 children were questioned.
  One in 10 was a smoker, while the others were either non-smokers or children who had just experimented with smoking.
  While the proportion of youngsters who thought the warnings were capable of putting them off increased after the introduction of the images among both non-smokers and experimenters, the number of smokers who were put off remained almost constant - it went up from 13% to only 14%.
  Lead researcher Dr Crawford Moodie said that while it was disappointing that the images did not seem to have an impact on smokers, the rise in the numbers of non-smokers and experimenters being deterred was a "really positive" result.
  But he said there was also a risk of people becoming desensitised - the images and text warnings have not changed since they were introduced in 2003 and 2008 respectively.
  "Other countries regularly change their warnings. I think if we rotated them here they would have more impact."
Just Putting in the T-TIP-Joint Statement by Kingdom of Denmark, Republic of Finland, Republic of Iceland, Kingdom of Norway, Kingdom of Sweden, and the United States of America | The White House
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  Archived Version
  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 02:13
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  September 04, 2013
  The Kingdom of Denmark, Republic of Finland, Republic of Iceland, Kingdom of Norway, Kingdom of Sweden, and the United States of America reaffirm our deep partnership based on shared fundamental values including our commitment to democracy, human rights, respect for the rule of law, and economic freedom. We continue to deepen our collaboration on important shared global priorities, including climate change and clean energy, the Arctic, a strong, open multilateral trading system, emerging security challenges, global development and humanitarian assistance, and Europe's regional economic and security environment. This evening, we have come together at a defining moment in the transatlantic relationship to discuss our long-term goals in each of these areas and agree to take concrete steps to achieve those goals.
  United on Global Issues
  The United States and the Nordic countries share the goal of a stable and peaceful Middle East. We agree that all relevant parties must work urgently for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East. We are determined to work together to promote respect for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Egypt. With regard to the situation in Syria, we strongly condemn any and all use of chemical weapons, and we are convinced a strong international reaction is required. Those responsible for the use of chemical weapons must be held accountable.
  We recognize the importance of cooperation between our countries in building comprehensive security and addressing security issues in the 21st century, including terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, illicit international arms trade, and threats to cyber security. We also recognize that we must address these challenges in a manner that respects our most cherished values and protects universal human rights and fundamental freedoms, which are at the foundation of all flourishing democracies. We note the need to continue to strengthen our countries' important contributions to regional, transatlantic, and international forums, including in the EU, NATO, and NATO Partnership context. We recommit to continuing and expanding our security, recognizing that this cooperation '' with and among the Nordic countries, with other regional partners, including especially the Baltic states, and in transatlantic and international fora '' will be crucial to our success.
  To complement our already robust bilateral and regional security cooperation, we agree to launch a U.S.-Nordic Security Dialogue, which will meet annually to discuss opportunities for collaboration on global and regional security issues, focusing primarily on issues arising in the United Nations, including an integrated approach to preventive diplomacy, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and atrocity prevention. Another stream of work will include joint capacity building efforts to promote stabilization in fragile and conflict affected states '' linking up security and development efforts, and civilian and military partners.
  Recognizing that we still have work to do closer to home, we agree on our mutual commitment to deepening regional cooperation and continuing to pursue our common vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace.
  We underscore the importance of actions that can support a global economic recovery, including the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) currently being negotiated between the European Union and the United States. T-TIP aims to boost economic growth in the United States and the EU and add to the more than 13 million American and EU jobs already supported by transatlantic trade and investment. We also look forward to exploring ways we can bolster trade and investment between the United States and Norway and Iceland. We also emphasize our commitment to achieving significant and substantive outcomes at the 9th World Trade Organization Ministerial.
  We agree that the fight against tax avoidance and evasion should be a top priority in all relevant international fora. We support the work of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) and automatic exchange of information as the new global standard. The engagement of the G-20 in these issues is important. The misuse of shell companies can be a severe impediment to sustainable economic growth and sound governance. We will make a concerted and collective effort to tackle this issue and improve the transparency of companies and legal arrangements.
  Partnering on Climate Change and the Arctic
  Climate change is one of the foremost challenges for our future economic growth and well-being. We underscore the importance of continuing to encourage innovative approaches to promoting energy efficiency and clean energy, including renewables, and of taking action on climate change, domestically and internationally. This requires mobilizing scaled up climate finance. We agreed on the importance of reaching an ambitious, comprehensive, fair, and inclusive climate agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2015 that is consistent with science, mindful of the two degree target, and applicable to all.
  As part of our commitment to accelerating the transition to low-carbon energy systems worldwide, the leaders of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden will join the United States in ending public financing for new coal-fired power plants overseas, except in rare circumstances. We will work together to secure the support of other countries and multilateral development banks to adopt similar policies. The Nordic countries and the United States agreed to continue their work, in all appropriate channels, to reduce the use of domestic fossil fuel subsidies globally. The United States also agrees to join with the Nordic members of the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform to undertake peer reviews of domestic fossil fuel subsidies.
  Recognizing the rapid growth of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition over its first 18 months, we note the potential of the Coalition to catalyze significant global reductions of short-lived climate pollutants, which have major impacts on climate change and public health. The U.S. and Nordic members of the Coalition agree to intensify our efforts and invite others to join to take full advantage of the Coalition's potential.
  The United States and Nordic members of the Clean Energy Ministerial continue to support various ministerial initiatives, including the 21st Century Power Partnership, which brings together government and private sector actors to help identify and promote successful technical, policy, and financial pathways to cleaner and more efficient power systems in both developed and developing countries. Additionally, the United States and Nordic countries expressed our support for the ''Sustainable Energy for All'' initiative of the UN Secretary-General.
  We recommit to protecting the Arctic environment, working to improve living conditions and encouraging sustainable development in the Arctic region, particularly with respect to indigenous peoples, and ensuring that the Arctic remains a peaceful region of cooperation. We will pursue opportunities in future Arctic Council meetings and other international fora to promote prosperity, foster scientific cooperation, and reduce emissions of black carbon in the Arctic region, as agreed upon in the Kiruna Declaration.
  Advancing Global Development
  As leaders in providing development assistance, we agree on the strategic, economic, and moral imperative of global development and humanitarian aid. We are committed to aggressive efforts to accelerate achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs continue to be a symbol of our common humanity and a statement of the world's commitment to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, combating disease, achieving gender equality, free quality education for all, and environmental sustainability, thus extending hope and opportunity to billions across the world. We note the opportunities for using trade to boost economic growth and reduce poverty in developing countries, as well as the importance of promoting human rights and gender equality. In addition, we agree that vaccination through GAVI represents one of the most cost-effective approaches to save children's lives and that with enhanced efforts, polio can be eradicated within this decade. Together, we envision a unified post-2015 agenda that addresses poverty, inclusive growth, and sustainability in clear, ambitious, and measurable goals.
  The United States and Nordic countries are critical donors in fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria worldwide. We commend the reforms and results achieved by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria and will work together to ensure a successful replenishment. In a demonstration of strong leadership, a number of Nordic countries are together pledging $750 million, with over $150 million in increased funds, for the Global Fund replenishment, subject to parliamentary approval. This funding will leverage $375 million from the U.S. challenge pledge of $1 for every $2 donated. These historic multilateral investments will work to turn the tide against these three devastating diseases.
  Access to electricity continues to be one of the most significant hurdles to economic growth and development. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, more than two-thirds of the population is without access to power. To support a doubling of electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa the United States and Nordic countries have expressed our support for the Power Africa initiative and agree to work together to provide technical assistance, financing, and other support to enable additional investment in energy projects throughout the region.
  In support of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), we agree to promote transparency and accountability of expenditures and revenues related to the extraction of natural resources, including through support to the multi-donor trust fund for EITI or the EITI Secretariat. EU member states Denmark, Finland, and Sweden intend to quickly transpose the EU Accounting and Transparency Directive, which requires mandatory disclosures of payments made to governments for extractive and logging projects.
  Protecting Human Rights and Strengthening Governance
  We will work together to eradicate poverty, promote good governance and human rights, combat all forms of trafficking in persons, and strengthen gender equality and the rights of women and girls, including sexual and reproductive health and rights.
  We agree to make real our respective obligations and commitments to promote and protect women's human rights and fundamental freedoms as outlined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Platform for Action, the United Nations resolutions on Women, Peace and Security, and other international instruments and agreements on women's rights. We note in particular the importance of empowering women as equal partners in preventing conflict and building peace and ensuring their protection from violence, and of our continued bilateral and multilateral engagement to this end in such countries as Afghanistan and Pakistan and in the Middle East. In Afghanistan, for example, we endorse such flagship initiatives as PROMOTE, UNWomen's Elimination of Violence against Women Special Fund, the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund's EQUIP, and the National Solidarity Program's Community Development Councils, which together empower a critical mass of Afghan women to fully participate in Afghan society.
  We strengthen our commitments to advance equality and dignity for LGBT persons through the Global Equality Fund. This commitment reflects an increasingly growing global sentiment that all persons should be treated equally and with dignity regardless of who they are or who they love.
  The United States and Nordic members of the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative that asks governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and strengthen governance, agree to redouble our efforts to develop ambitious ''Race to the Top'' commitments for the October 31 Open Government Partnership Ministerial.
  Working together, we have a historic opportunity to make progress on issues of global significance, and we remain steadfast in our dedication to the pursuit of these goals.
US Senate panel approves Syria strike
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  Source: AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 20:13
  The foreign relations committee of the US Senate has approved a resolution authorising the use of force against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad for its alleged use of chemical weapons.
  The committee on Wednesday approved a resolution 10-7, with one senator voting "present". The vote by the panel clears the way for a vote on the resolution in the full Senate, likely next week.
  Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, said the approval was a boost for the US president, Barack Obama, as he sought to gain congressional approval for the use of force.
  However, she added that the vote was delayed by about two hours, suggesting some disagreements. The full senate vote could also prove problematic, she added, with senator John McCain, a leading Republican, saying he could not vote for the resolution as it stood as it did not go far enough.
  The Democratic Chairman of the Committee, Bob Menendez, and the panel's top Republican, Bob Corker, drafted the resolution.
  It would allow Obama to order a limited military mission against Syria, as long as it does not exceed 90 days and involves no US troops on the ground for combat operations.
  Obama had asked the US Congress to sanction his plan to launch military strikes against the Syria regime of President Bashar al-Assad in response to its use of chemical weapons in a Damascus suburb on August 21.
  Assad has denied responsibility for the attack, instead pinning the blame on rebels fighting to topple him.
  The US says the attack left over 1,400 people dead while aid groups said more than 300 were killed.
  More soon...
  268
Steve Holland | Journalist Profile | Reuters.com
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  Archived Version
  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 01:52
  Sep 4, 2013
  STOCKHOLM (Reuters) '' President Barack Obama issued a blunt challenge to skeptical U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday to approve his plan for a military strike on Syria, saying otherwise they would put America's international prestige and their own credibility at risk.
  Using a visit to Sweden to build his case for limited military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Obama insisted that the international community could not remain silent in the face of the ''barbarism'' of the August 21 chemical weapons attack he blamed on Syrian government forces.
  Sep 2, 2013
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) '' President Barack Obama and his aides pressed U.S. lawmakers on Monday to approve military force against Syria but many members of Congress were worried that an attack would only drag America into another Middle Eastern conflict with no end in sight.
  Obama's abrupt decision to halt plans for a strike against the government of President Bashar al-Assad and instead wait for congressional approval has generated a raging debate just as the president prepares to go to Sweden and Russia this week.
  Aug 31, 2013
  WASHINGTON/PARIS (Reuters) '' The United States made clear on Friday that it would punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the ''brutal and flagrant'' chemical weapons attack that it says killed more than 1,400 people in Damascus last week.
  ''We cannot accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale,'' President Barack Obama told reporters at the White House.
  Aug 30, 2013
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) '' The Obama administration made a forceful case on Friday for limited U.S. military action against Syria, releasing evidence the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against civilians several times during the past year and saying the ''indiscriminate, inconceivable horror'' of a deadly attack last week could not go unpunished.
  In separate statements, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry harshly condemned the Syrian government but said any military response by the United States would be measured to avoid open-ended commitments '' a nod by the White House to most Americans' reluctance to engage in another war.
  Aug 30, 2013
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) '' President Barack Obama said on Friday the chemical weapons attack in Syria threatened U.S. allies Israel, Turkey and Jordan and that while ''nobody ends up being more war weary than me'' he is considering a narrow, limited U.S. response.
  Obama, speaking to reporters at a meeting he held with Baltic leaders, said the United States must be prepared to act unilaterally if necessary to uphold what he called an international norm against the use of chemical weapons as part of U.S. obligations as a world leader.
  Aug 30, 2013
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) '' The Obama administration made a forceful case for limited U.S. military action against Syria on Friday, releasing evidence the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against civilians multiple times in the past year and saying the ''indiscriminate, inconceivable horror'' could not go unpunished.
  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ''a thug and a murderer'' but said any military response by the United States would be carefully measured to avoid open-ended commitments.
  Aug 30, 2013
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) '' A Syrian chemical weapons attack killed 1,429 Syrian civilians, including 426 children, an unclassified report by U.S. intelligence agencies concluded on Friday.
  President Barack Obama is using the report to make the case for retaliation against the Syrian government.
  Aug 30, 2013
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) '' The White House said on Friday it would release an intelligence assessment of the apparent chemical weapons attack in Syria, as President Barack Obama faced growing pressure to win support for military action from a war-weary public, skeptical lawmakers and international allies.
  The unclassified assessment, expected to be released later on Friday, could give more details about last week's chemical attack that killed hundreds and provide more insight into why administration officials have said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government was responsible.
  Aug 30, 2013
  PARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) '' France said on Friday it still backed military action to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government for an apparent poison gas attack on civilians and Washington pushed ahead with plans for a response despite a British parliamentary vote against a military strike.
  An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a close Assad ally, seized on Thursday's British ''no'' vote which set back U.S.-led efforts to intervene against Assad, saying it reflected wider European worries about the dangers of a military response.
  Aug 30, 2013
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) '' Susan Rice is facing her first key test as President Barack Obama's national security adviser as she helps lead a White House effort to convince a skeptical Congress that the United States must respond to Syria's apparent use of chemical weapons.
  Rice has made an abrupt transition from a high-profile and sometimes combative U.S. ambassador, who scolded the U.N. Security Council for failing to agree on Syria sanctions, to a behind-the-scenes power player at the White House.
Joint Statement by President Obama and Prime Minister Reinfeldt of Sweden
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  Archived Version
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 01:10
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  September 04, 2013
  Sweden and the United States are very special friends. Today we reaffirmed the dedication of the Kingdom of Sweden and the United States of America to enhance our cooperation across the full range of shared economic, environmental, and security challenges. We agreed that our close cooperation, both bilaterally and in multilateral fora, is derived from shared values such as democracy, the respect for human rights, and the rule of law.
  This is a special year in the relationship between Sweden and the United States, as it marks 375 years since the establishment of the first Swedish settlement ''New Sweden'' in the United States and 230 years since the first free trade agreement between our countries was signed. Today over four million Americans claim Swedish heritage. Business ties flourish between our countries. And our work together around the world magnifies the positive impact we can have when facing common challenges in pursuit of our shared agenda.
  We confirmed our determination to continue to promote growth and jobs, counter climate change and accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy future, expand trade and investment, work for international peace and security, and promote global development, conflict prevention, and disarmament. President Obama expressed his appreciation to the Prime Minister for arranging the dinner with regional leaders, allowing for consultations with Nordic colleagues on a number of shared challenges.
  We looked forward to the opportunity to commemorate Raoul Wallenberg this afternoon and pay tribute to a man who chose not to be indifferent and to rise to a higher moral calling. We remember and revere Raoul Wallenberg and his courageous deeds saving thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust.
  We noted that climate change and its consequences are defining challenges of our time. The United States and Sweden are determined to take actions to counter climate change and promote clean energy, domestically and internationally, including through the UN climate negotiations, while driving continued economic growth.
  Today we reinforced our support for the efforts of the Swedish-American Green Alliance (SAGA) to further enhance our cooperation to enable the transition to a sustainable energy future. The priorities of SAGA are developing smart grids to ensure efficient transmission of electricity, developing renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency, developing sustainable cities, and cooperation to facilitate innovation and commercialization of sustainable energy technologies. As founding members of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, Sweden and the United States are pleased that the Coalition, as a complement to the work on long-lived climate pollutants, is already working to catalyze significant global reductions of short-lived climate pollutants. We agreed to redouble our efforts and invite others to join to take full advantage of the Coalition's potential, including through innovative approaches to financing methane abatement.
  Sweden and the United States share a commitment to promoting growth and jobs through actions to strengthen global demand. Fiscal strategies should be adapted to economic conditions and to available fiscal space. We share a commitment to advancing financial reform to build a more resilient global financial system.
  We discussed the significance of the launch of the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). T-TIP aims to boost economic growth in the United States and in the EU and add to the more than 13 million American and EU jobs already supported by transatlantic trade and investment. We also reaffirmed our support for the multilateral trading system through our efforts within the WTO to liberalize trade in services and environmental goods and to strengthen trade facilitation. This will not only bring new jobs and growth to both continents, but also even further strengthen the political and economic partnership. Global economic recovery, growth, and combatting poverty are shared goals. To achieve these goals, Sweden and the United States agree on the importance of further trade liberalisation and opening of markets.
  Sweden and the United States stress the importance of the work of the Arctic Council. We look forward to increasing our cooperation to protect and conduct research on the Arctic environment, improving living conditions, and encouraging sustainable development in the Arctic, particularly with respect to indigenous communities.
  We reiterated our determination to continue working together to promote peace and security around the world. Our cooperation within the United Nations on peacekeeping, as well as partnership in NATO-led missions such as ISAF and KFOR, contribute to a more peaceful, secure world. We are committed to developing the relationship between NATO and Partner countries further. Sweden and the United States are leaders in advancing the critical role of women in achieving international peace and security. Sweden has generously offered the Nordic Center for Gender in Military Operations for NATO use, and the United States has committed to provide support for the center's training and education efforts.
  We reaffirmed our commitment to seeking a world without nuclear weapons, supporting ongoing efforts on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. We welcome the achievements made through the Nuclear Security Summits to secure nuclear material and reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism.
  We agreed that development and humanitarian aid are strategic, economic, and moral imperatives. We are committed to aggressive efforts to accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals before 2015. Achieving real results in people's lives constitutes our greatest chance to make a difference. We will reinforce our efforts to improve child and maternal health. We recognize that the eradication of extreme poverty is the core of our future global development. We envision a common post-2015 agenda that sets clear, ambitious, and measurable goals to meet the social, economic, and environmental needs of the eight billion people who will inhabit the planet by 2030.
  We affirmed our joint commitment to protect the human rights of LGBT persons globally through support to the Global Equality Fund. Launched in 2011, the Fund assists civil society organizations in over 25 countries worldwide. The United States and Sweden are each preparing a $6 million contribution of new resources to support the Fund over three years, totaling a $12 million commitment.
  We emphasized our support for the EU's Eastern Partnership as a means to help address economic challenges in the region, promote the EU integration of the Eastern European partner countries, and develop democracy, respect for human rights, and rule of law.
  We recognized the importance of regional cooperation, including with the Baltic states.
  Sweden and the United States are continuing our collaboration on other common foreign policy areas. Today we have, among other things, discussed the situations in Syria and Egypt. We are determined to work together to promote respect for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Egypt. With regard to the situation in Syria, we strongly condemn any and all use of chemical weapons. Those responsible for the use of chemical weapons must be held accountable.
  We share the goal of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, resulting in two independent and democratic states living side by side in peace and security. Sweden and the United States welcome and support the decision by Israel and the Palestinians to resume final status negotiations, and encourage the parties to continue engaging in good faith negotiations towards this shared goal.
  We remain gravely concerned about Iran's nuclear program and urge Iran to comply with all its international obligations, including full implementation by Iran of UN Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors resolutions. We reaffirm our commitment to work toward a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue in accordance with the dual track approach.
  We urge North Korea to deescalate tensions on the Korean peninsula, commit to irreversible steps leading to denuclearization, and comply with all relevant UN Security Council resolutions and other international agreements. President Obama expressed his gratitude to the Kingdom of Sweden for serving as the United States' protecting power in North Korea.
  This historic first bilateral visit of an American president to Sweden underscores not only the importance of the U.S.-Sweden relationship, but also the bonds between the United States and all the Nordic countries and the globally significant relationship between America and Europe.
VIDEO- Fukushima aftermath: Radiation 18 times higher than previously thought - YouTube
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  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 00:33
VIDEO- Ocean Radiation 1,800 Times Above Normal Offshore At Japanese Fukushima Nuclear Power Complex - YouTube
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  Thu, 05 Sep 2013 00:30
Another update on "highly radioactive" water leaks at Fukushima - Atomic Insights
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  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 12:57
  The media frenzy about the detection of water leaks from the vast tank farm that Tokyo Electric Power Company has been forced to build to store water used to cool the three damaged cores at their Fukushima Daiichi power station continues to sizzle, even in the face of the potential for US attack on Syria. (A more rational solution to building an ever-increasing number of water tanks is to use a tanker to move the treated water a few miles out into the Pacific Ocean for safe disposal.)
  The latest media discovery was that the reading that was initially reported as 100 mSv/hour was really 1,800 mSv/hour because the detector that produced the 100 mSv/hour reading had a range that maxed out at 100 mSv/hour. What few, if any, media reports include is an explanation that the measured dose rate is nearly 100% beta radiation and that it was measured at a distance of just 70 micrometers from the radioactive material. Beta radiation can be shielded by a single sheet of paper and will only travel about 1-2 meters in dry air.
  Someone needs to help journalists understand that there is no way that a beta-emitting radiation source can cause a deadly dose to a human being unless it is ingested in a concentrated form. Even if it is in direct contact, about the worst it can do is cause a skin burn; I would also not recommend using water contaminated with a beta emitter for eye wash. I suppose I have volunteered for that educational task.
  As some of the more informative initial reports stated, the gamma radiation from the leaked water measured 1.5 mSv/hour. That number is still valid; it was well within the accurate measuring range of the instrument used. In one of my previous updates on this topic, I postulated that the measurement was an outlier that might have used an unrepresentative sample of water.
  According to an anonymous comment I received this morning that has the ring of truth from someone who knows what he is talking about, that postulate was wrong. Apparently, the concentrated waste water used for core cooling before going through the treatment facilitygenerally has a high beta dose rate when measured at a distance of a 70 micrometers.
  After treatment, the concentration of beta emitters that are not tritium gets reduced by a factor of 4,000. (All Beta radiations entry in column 7 versus column 8 in ''Nuclide Analysis Results of Water at Water Treatment Facility''.)
  Since tritium is an integral part of water '-- H2O where the H-3 is inseparable from the normal H-1 and H-2 '-- it makes it through all water treatment. It is the isotope that causes any water used to cool a nuclear reactor to be called ''controlled pure water'' (CPW). The amount of tritium in this water is not a health concern, especially if diluted into the ocean.Here is the comment provided by the commenter who self identified as ''no name no country''.
  The numbers for ''leaked water'' in TEPCO's August 19, 2013 document are consistent with the numbers for the water stored in these tanks.
  These tanks store waste water after the reverse osmosis treatment (desalination). The treated water goes back into the reactors for cooling, and the waste water is stored in these tanks. Since the water also goes through cesium absorption treatment (by SARRY) before it goes through reverse osmosis, it is low in cesium and other gamma nuclides.
  The beta radiation from this water is about 2,000 mSv/hr at 70 micrometer dose equivalent.
  The ''leaked water'' in August 19 document is this waste water itself. Measurements in August 23 documents are about water in the drains nearby, diluted with running water there.
  For your info, the most recent nuclide analysis by TEPCO of water at various stages of treatment. The concentrated, post-RO waste water inside these tanks are No.8:
  http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2013/images/water_130809-e.pdf
  That this water is somehow leaking is a fact, but to say that this water is uncontrollably leaking into the Pacific Ocean is, as you say, worst fear-mongering. There is no evidence so far that this water is even reaching the ocean.
  What is worse is this global frenzy on ''1,800 (or 2,200) mSv/hr radiation that kill people in 4 hours'' detected at Fukushima. It is not just people like Chris Busby but all mainstream media (including NYTimes, BBC, etc) and many alternative media who thrive on wrong information and fear repeat this completely erroneous information.
  From the beginning, TEPCO has said this is dose equivalent at 70 micrometer to show the effect on skin and eye lens '' i.e. beta radiation, not gamma. It is completely consistent with the radiation measurement of this waste water, whose leaks happened before (no one paid any attention to those). But the media, through amazing ignorance after more than 2 years or willful ignorance to get eyeballs, has glossed over this important detail.
  Japanese people who fear radiation are shell-shocked, and people outside Japan who do not have access to the primary information (in this case, information provided by TEPCO in Japanese) fear (some cheer) the end of the world or something catastrophic as such. I am thoroughly disgusted with this, and frankly I don't know what to do to educate people. I'm at the point of giving up.
  Needless to say, I responded to this comment. After putting in the effort to compose that response, I figured I would use it as part of today's post.
  @No name no country
  Don't give up. Get mad and engage your questioning attitude. Do you really believe that ''the media'' makes much money by inflating this particular story to attract eyeballs as opposed to any one of dozens of other ways to get the attention of viewers and readers. Heck, we are at the edge of a new war; surely people would tune in for more updates on that topic.
  If the media does not have a very strong direct motive in terms of gaining viewer/reader attention for spreading this particular story, it is time to look for people, organizations and perhaps even countries with stronger motives.
  As John Tucker pointed out in an earlier comment (http://atomicinsights.com/update-fukushima-water-leaks-unrepresentative-sample-used-support-fear-mongering/#comment-61989) RT '-- aka Russia Today '-- has been particularly creative in making up additional fear mongering stories and inviting people like Chris Busby to spin tales that increase the shell-shocked attitude of the Japanese people. Russia has been hugely dependent on exporting oil and gas for a major portion of its national income for many years; it is making billions more every year that Japan keeps its functional nuclear plants shut down.
  There are plenty of other actors with influence in the media that are engaged in the business of finding, extracting, processing, financing, and transporting oil and natural gas that are also benefiting hugely from the fear that people have about harmless ''leaks'' of ''radioactive'' water at Fukushima.
  Aside: I used quotes around radioactive not because I believe it is NOT radioactive, but because fear stories never put the word into any context or tell anyone any useful information about how radioactive the water is. Without any quantification, it would not be a lie to say that ALL sea water is ''radioactive''. End Aside.
  Teaching the public to fear ''leaks'' of water containing minuscule quantities of radioactive material (measured in grams) also distracts them from the enormous DUMPS called smokestacks that push many billions of tons of combustion waste products '-- some of which are carcinogenic or toxic in concentrated form '-- into our shared atmosphere.
  Some worry that we are doomed to fail when I point out that the real opposition to the vastly increased use of nuclear energy instead of fossil fuel wherever it makes sense is the global fossil fuel industry and its courtiers. It is an extremely wealthy, savvy and politically powerful foe. However, I like to remind people that there are far more energy consumers in the world than energy producers; many of them are also rich and powerful. Few fossil fuel consumers bear any love for Big Oil. Its booms and busts have had a large negative effect on their ability to prosper and live secure, comfortable lives.
  I came of age during the 1970s. Because I like to use gasoline powered machines (cars, boats, planes, etc) Big Oil became one of my lifelong foes during the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo. I turned 14 during the period when my dad had to get up at ''oh dark thirty'' in order to get in line to fill up his gas tank so he could commute to his job 40 miles from our suburban home.
  I hated the thought that I would get my driver's license at a time when everyone was worried that the price of oil and its availability would continue to be a major issue. It is hard to explain how depressing that thought was to a guy who had dearly loved the experience of being able to freely travel a great country like the United States in large, comfortable station wagons and campers.
  As a career officer in the US Navy who attended the Navy War College's course of for national strategy and policy, I spent a lot of time learning the vital nature of reliable petroleum supplies and the way that single group of products has influenced our history as a nation '-- including numerous wars and lesser conflicts, some of which resulted in millions of casualties.
  When I announced to my colleagues that I was resigning my commission in the US Navy in 1993 to found Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. to design and build small, simple, economical nuclear-heated gas turbines, one colleague make a prescient comment. He said, ''Good luck Rod, but the oil companies will never let you succeed.''
  I've spent the last 20 years figuring out how to make a liar out of him. It has been quite a struggle, but I think I am getting closer to a successful strategy.
  I hope you agree that it is time to fight FUD with information and to fight concentrated power and wealth with the distributed power and wealth of information-enabled, free-thinking people who have nothing to fear.
  On a separate topic, I am looking forward to the House Oversight Committee hearing that is scheduled for September 10. It will be interesting to find out how the NRC is going to respond to the mandamus ruling directing them to finish their evaluation of the DOE's Yucca Mountain licensing evaluation.
Patenting everyday life: ''Business method'' lawsuits are growing fast | Ars Technica
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  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 23:59
  Increasingly, the very way a business operates can be the subject of a patent lawsuit.
  Some of the patents that have generated the most outrage in recent years are patents that make claims about everyday business practices: using online shopping carts, scanning documents to e-mail, tracking a vehicle, or using online ads to pay for content.
  Using a gift card? Finding real estate online? Automatic online bidding? All have been patented, and all by so-called "patent trolls" with no business other than suing over their patents.
  Defenders of current patent law tend to portray these situations as outliers. But trolls asserting patents on business practices is increasingly becoming the norm. That's the finding of a new study (PDF) on business method patents published today by PatentFreedom, a defense-oriented patent analytics company. The study focused only on business method patents asserted by trolls, which PatentFreedom more diplomatically calls non-practicing entities, or NPEs.
  To conduct the study, PatentFreedom first had to sift through the database it maintains of more than 3,700 patents that have been litigated by NPEs. It isolated a set of 1,990 patents that had some type of indicator that they might be business method patents'--for example, fitting into certain "classes" in the US Patent Office's classification system. Then it did a manual review of those patents to find 954 patents that fit the definition of business method patents'--that is, they claim methods used in "the practice, administration, or management of an enterprise, the processing of financial data, or the determination of the charge for goods and services."
  The study produced several notable findings.
  First, lawsuits over business method patents are becoming more common. Such lawsuits are growing in general, and they're growing when measured as a proportion of all NPE litigation. The number of companies facing business method patent lawsuits brought by NPEs has grown at 28 percent per year since 2004. While NPE lawsuits in general have grown during that time, business method lawsuits have grown faster. The share of NPE lawsuits that involve business method patents went from 27 percent in 2005-06 to 41 percent in 2011-12.
  PatentFreedom 2013
  Business method patents are mostly used against non-tech companies. It's no surprise that this is the year that retailers, supermarkets, and restaurants have started pushing for patent reform. Of the troll suits brought against retailers in 2005-06, 27 percent were on business method patents. By 2011-12, a majority (51 percent) of the suits were based on business method patents.
  PatentFreedom
  Business method patents are increasingly being used against small and medium-sized companies. In 2012, companies with less than $100 million in annual revenue faced 43 percent of all NPE business method litigation.
  PatentFreedom
  Texas is the most popular venue for trolls to pull out their business method patents. East Texas has been a legendary locale for patent-holders for some years now, but this study shows that it seems to be particularly receptive to these types of patents on business practices. In Texas, 52 percent of NPE litigation involved business method patents. In Delaware, 41 percent did, whereas in California, only 26 percent of NPE suits were over business methods.
  PatentFreedom
  Business method patents are already getting special attention. There's a special review process for some business method patents at the Patent Office now as a result of the America Invents Act. Some patent reform advocates believe that the review process should be expanded, and there is proposed legislation to do so.
  One thing that has always struck me about PatentFreedom is the company's elegant and sensible definition of what a "non-practicing entity," or troll, really is. The company's definition of an NPE is "any entity that earns, or plans to earn, the majority of its revenue from enforcing patents." That's really the only definition that makes sense. It emphasizes the true innovation of trolling, which is the invulnerability to counter-suit. Emphasizing whether or not an inventor is involved, as some have, has always seemed like an irrelevant distraction. The PatentFreedom definition dispenses with other distracting arguments, like the idea that universities are NPEs. None of that is to say that universities or operating companies can't abuse the patent system in other ways, as they certainly can.
  "Our definition actually includes my great-grandfather, who was an inventor," said PatentFreedom President Chris Reohr, who spoke with Ars about the results of the study. "One of his patents clearly is a business method patent. I have no objection to someone who invests time and money and takes some risk trying to use a patent. I think it's the nature of the conduct which can sometimes be reprehensible."
  Reohr is steadfastly neutral on the patent debate, never using the word "troll" and seeing his role as an information provider to PatentFreedom clients. However, the finding that business method patents are increasingly being used to attack small companies was striking to him. He acknowledged that the increase in litigation against small companies "really gets me angry sometimes."
  If one excludes NPE litigation, patent litigation would have been essentially flat since 2004, notes Reohr. And now there does seem to be a shift in exposure to business method patents, he said.
VIDEO-Obama Secures Key Support, but Still Faces Fight Over Military Strike in Syria | PBS NewsHour | Sept. 3, 2013 | PBS
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  JUDY WOODRUFF: President Obama won key support today as he stepped up his courting of Congress to back military action against Syria. He and his top lieutenants lobbied for punishing the Damascus regime over the use of chemical weapons.
  PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I want to thank the leaders of both parties for being here today.
  JUDY WOODRUFF: The president called in House and Senate leaders this morning, plus key committee chairs, in part to reassure them that he has no intention of overreaching in Syria.
  BARACK OBAMA: I want to emphasize to the American people, the military plan that has been developed by the Joint Chiefs and that I believe is appropriate is proportional. It is limited. It doesn't involve boots on the ground. This is not Iraq and this is not Afghanistan.
  JUDY WOODRUFF: Moreover, Mr. Obama said, he is willing to work with Congress to adjust the resolution's language authorizing the use of force.
  BARACK OBAMA: So long as we are accomplishing what needs to be accomplished, which is to send a clear message to Assad, degrading his abilities to use chemical weapons, I'm confident that we're going to be able to come up with something that hits that mark.
  RELATED INFORMATION
  Obama Meets Congressional Leaders to Discuss Syria
  JUDY WOODRUFF: Afterward, it appeared the president had hit his mark with the lawmakers. House Speaker John Boehner backed the call for military strikes on Syria.
  REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-Ohio: This is something that the United States as a country needs to do. I'm going to support the president's call for action. I believe my colleagues should support this call for action.
  REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-Calif.: Good morning.
  JUDY WOODRUFF: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi agreed. But she also said the administration does need to win over the public.
  REP. NANCY PELOSI: I am hopeful, as the American people are persuaded that this action happened, that Assad did it, that hundreds -- hundreds of children were killed. This is the behavior outside of the circle of civilized human behavior. And we must respond.
  JUDY WOODRUFF: Later, Secretary of state John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel took the administration's pitch directly to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
  SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: I will tell you there are some people hoping that the United States Congress doesn't vote for this very limited request the president has put before you. Iran is hoping you look the other way.
  Our inaction would surely give them a permission slip for them to at least misinterpret our intention, if not to put it to the test.
  JUDY WOODRUFF: Hagel suggested a U.S. failure to act would also embolden the Syrian government.
  DEFENSE SECRETARY CHUCK HAGEL: The Assad regime, under increasing pressure by the Syrian opposition, could feel empowered to carry out even more devastating chemical weapons attacks without a response.
  JUDY WOODRUFF: Both men played down fears of a wider war. Kerry agreed the language of the resolution could rule out any use of U.S. ground troops.
  At one point, the proceedings were interrupted by anti-war protesters. And Kerry reached back to his early years opposing the war in Vietnam.
  JOHN KERRY: You know, the first time I testified before this committee when I was 27 years old, I had feelings very similar to that protester.
  And I would just say that is exactly why it is so important that we are all here having this debate, talking about these things before the country, and that the Congress itself will act representing the American people.
  JUDY WOODRUFF: Kerry and Hagel, both former senators, generally got a supportive reception. But Idaho Republican James Risch made clear it wasn't unanimous.
  SEN. JAMES RISCH, R-Idaho: Are we really going to be giving them credibility if we go in with a limited strike, and the day after or the week after or the month after, Assad crawls out of his rat hole and says, look, I stood up to the strongest power on the face of this earth and I won, and so now it's business as usual here?
  JOHN KERRY: There is no question that whatever choices are made by the president, that he and his military effort will not be better off, number one, and the opposition will know that and the people in Syria will know that.
  JUDY WOODRUFF: At the end of the day, the president still faced a fight, with a number of conservative Republicans and some liberal Democrats opposing any action in Syria. And a new Washington Post/ABC News poll found broad public opposition as well.
  Meanwhile, the United Nations' secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, warned against any American attack without the approval of the U.N. Security Council.
  Also today, Russia criticized the deployment of U.S. warships near Syria, complaining it's only aggravating tensions. And illustrating those tensions, a U.S.-Israeli joint missile exercise in the Mediterranean sparked a brief overnight flurry of alarm in the region.
  GWEN IFILL: As the Syria debate unfolds in Congress, we will be talking to lawmakers from both parties as they decide what comes next.
  Tonight, we get the view from one senator who supports the president, but believes the U.S. should be doing even more. Michigan Democrat Carl Levin is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
  I spoke with him a short time ago.
  Senator Levin, thank you for joining us.
  First of all, I want to ask you, where do you stand tonight on the president's authorization request?
  SEN. CARL LEVIN, D-Mich.: I think we should authorize the use of force. And in order for it to be most effective, that means that we have got to do a couple of things besides authorize it.
  We have got to help the Syrian people who are resisting Assad to have the weapons to fight for themselves. So far, certain weapons which would be very helpful in that respect have not been provided for them, and particularly in response to a chemical attack. If they had anti-tank weapons to go against the tanks which protected the launchers which launch the chemical weapons, for instance, that would show that this is not just an American fight, that this is a fight that the Syrian Free Army is right in the middle of and is willing to fight, but they need the weapons.
  We ought to help get those weapons to them. And, secondly, it seems to me it's important that, when we do strike, that we have other countries with us for it to be effective, and that includes a number of Arab countries. We were assured today there will be a number of company -- countries that would join with us. And that's very important for the effectiveness of any action on our part.
  GWEN IFILL: Let's talk about one thing at a time.
  The first part, with is arming the rebels, which you have been arguing on behalf of for the better part of this year, is that something which you understand will become part of the authorization request as redrafted in Congress?
  SEN. CARL LEVIN: I would like to see it as part of the authorization of Congress.
  But whether it's part of the authorization or not, if the administration does move in that direction -- and I am more confident now than I was before the meeting this morning that there will be that kind of an effort -- then it has the same effect.
  So, one way or another, it seems to me, we have got the Syrian people who hate this dictator. We have got a Free Syrian Army which is willing to take him on every day, take him on, but right now they don't have the kind of weapons that would allow them to respond to a chemical attack inside of a city. For that, they need, for instance, to go after the tanks and the artillery which are protecting the rocket launchers which are the ones that launched those chemical attacks.
  GWEN IFILL: And the second part, point you made was that you had been assured this morning that there would be support from Arab nations in this enterprise. What kind of assurance did you get?
  SEN. CARL LEVIN: Well, we got assurance that there will be at least some nations that are willing to speak out. I think almost all of the Arab nations want us to do it, but there will be a few, we will be assured, and they weren't named, and that is appropriate.
  But, nonetheless, we were assured that there would be some Arab nations that would actually participate with us, and a number of additional nations, both Arab and non-Arab, that would be publicly supportive of this action. It's important that this be viewed not as just an American effort to
  keep a red line which the world has drawn against chemical weapons intact, but that in fact it is an international effort.
  And not every other -- not every country may join us. But providing there are a number of countries that do, it will send the same signal.
  GWEN IFILL: Back to this issue of arming rebels, we have had this conversation before. In fact, last time we talked about red lines, I think the president said he would do it. If it hasn't happened, why not? And what certainty do you have that it will happen this time?
  SEN. CARL LEVIN: Well, because I heard some things this morning that reassured me that it's going to happen, that they now have a greater comfort level with certain parts of the opposition, so that we can make sure, to the extent that is humanly possible, that the weapons do not fall into the wrong hands, because there are parts of the opposition to Assad that are not people that we want to provide weapons to, because they could use them for the wrong purpose.
  It's a very complex situation. The Free Syrian Army is led by a person who we know is a moderate, that we know will, when they succeed, help the Syrian people and the Free Syrian Army move Syria in the right direction. But there are other elements such as al-Qaida. We surely do not want to do anything which could help them get the kind of weapons that they would use.
  GWEN IFILL: And you are reassured that this plan, whatever plan that you have been briefed on, would assure that these weapons didn't end up in the hands of jihadists, the Al-Nusra Front, and that there wouldn't be a vacuum that followed as a result?
  SEN. CARL LEVIN: Well, there is greater assurance now than there was months ago that we have -- that we can identify the groups that should have the weapons to take on Assad and that it can be done safely.
  It's not a perfect deal. There's no guarantee that some of these weapons wouldn't fall into the wrong hands, but there's greater confidence level. Now, one other thing, particularly as it relates to the anti-tank weapons, these are tanks which are protecting Assad rocket launchers, for instance.
  Those tanks are -- can only be knocked off with anti-tank weapons. And those anti-tank weapons are useful only against Assad's tanks because there are no other tanks in Syria beside Assad tanks. So those kind of weapons, it seems to me, can be safely provided to the vetted components of the Syrian opposition.
  GWEN IFILL: Secretary Kerry said today there would absolutely, positively no way would be boots on the ground and that he would be open to this being included as part of the war authorization.
  Do you think it's a good idea to draw that line?
  SEN. CARL LEVIN: I do.
  GWEN IFILL: Why?
  SEN. CARL LEVIN: Because I think it's important that the American people know we're not going to get dragged into a civil war, that there are ways of taking action against the use of chemical weapons which needs to be taken, if countries such as Syria and Iran understand that the transfer, for instance, of weapons of mass destruction or the use of weapons of mass destruction will precipitate a response on our part, because if those are transferred, such as chemicals going to terrorist groups, they could end up attacking us.
  This is in our interest. And Congress has voted that it's in our interest that chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction not be used, and -- because they are so readily transferred to terrorist groups which are targeting us. So I think it is very important that the steps be taken that I have outlined, but also that we not be dragged into a civil war.
  We can act against the use of weapons of mass destruction and help others, like the Syrian Free Army, to act against the use of chemical weapons, without being dragged into a civil war ourselves.
  GWEN IFILL: Senator, how do you reassure your constituents and others around the country who look at this and see echoes of the arguments which were made for Iraq or Afghanistan that this is not going to drag us into a wider war or that even these chemical weapons are the reason to act now?
  SEN. CARL LEVIN: Well, I don't -- I, first of all, distinguish Iraq from Afghanistan, for a lot of reasons.
  But going back to Iraq itself, what has changed now is that there is a global terrorist network now which is much more threatening now to us than it was five or 10 or 15 years ago. And so the possibility that weapons would be transferred to a terrorist group now with a global reach is a very different and more threatening situation to us than it was before.
  That doesn't defend our failures before, particularly to the use of chemical weapons by Iraq, but I am saying that it is a much different situation now than it was 10 or 15 or 20 years ago.
  GWEN IFILL: Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, thank you very much.
  SEN. CARL LEVIN: It's good being with you, Gwen.
VIDEO-Presidentbrunch med systrarna Eisenman - TV4 Play
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  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 23:36
  Med det kommande presidentbes¶ket i ¥tanke lagar Monica och Lisa Eisenman en brunch som faller Barack Obama i smaken. Det blir hans eget recept p¥ chiligryta, en hawaiiansk dessert, pepparkaksv¥fflor och s¥ klart macaroni and cheese. Recepten hittar du p¥ recept.nu.
  I TV4 Play fr¥n och med:s¶ndag 12:49Gratis:Mer ¤n 30 dagar tillOm programmet: Nyheter, sport och v¤der varje halvtimme samt lokala nyheter. Dessutom aktuella g¤ster och musik samt trisskrap.
  Tillg¤ngligt (antal dagar efter s¤ndning):Det h¤r programmet ¤r gratis i 30+ dagar efter s¤ndning. Programmet kan ses fr¥n hela v¤rlden.
HAYDEN Speaks-Chertoff group-MIRcon 2013: New Keynote Speaker Announced
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  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 22:35
  About MIRcon®MIRcon is the premiere industry conference for security incident response management professionals. The two-day conference is designed to inform executives, practitioners and innovators who are on the front lines every day battling cyber attackers.
  General Michael Hayden to Deliver Keynote AddressGeneral Hayden, formerly served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), as well as the first Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. His keynote address to MIRcon attendees will include a range of issues in cybersecurity, from the current threat landscape to promising developments in technology and policy. He will also discuss policy developments and technology innovations that have the potential to make it easier to secure the cyber domain.
  MIRcon Agenda PostedSessions for both the Management and Technical tracks have been posted!
  Register to attend MIRcon and hear from industry leaders about:
  Performing rapid incident response and staying one step ahead of the cyber intrudersThe art and science of gathering threat intelligence and assigning attributionHow other nations defend against state-sponsored attacks and much more!
VIDEO-Ron Paul Gets Cut Off During Interview With Wolf Blitzer - YouTube
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VIDEO-LiveLeak.com - Rep. Eliot Engel calls for cruise missile assault with out congressional vote (comments)
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  Rep. Eliot Engel calls for cruise missile assault with out congressional vote
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  Prison Planet NewsTop Dem: We Will Ignore Congress on Syria Attack
  Rep. Eliot Engel calls for cruise missile assault with out a vote.... he says they can vote after the fact.
  Paul Joseph WatsonPrison Planet.comAugust 26, 2013
  Calling on President Obama to launch a cruise missile attack on Syria, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee, told Fox News that Congress would not be consulted on the move and that lawmakers would have to ''assent'' to it at a later date.
  Appearing on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Engel disagreed with his counterpart Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who said Obama should seek Congressional authorization before any military action.
  ''I do agree with Senator Corker that I think Congress needs to be involved, but perhaps not initially,'' said Engel, adding, ''Perhaps the president could start and then Congress needs to resolve it an''and assent to it.''
  In other words, Engel wants Obama to launch the attack on Syria with complete disregard for the War Powers Resolution, which states that military action must be preceded by Congressional approval, and then only use Congress later as a rubber stamp.
  ''I certainly would do cruise missile strikes,'' added Engel, throwing his support behind military intervention that would likely see rebel fighters who are being led by Al-Qaeda terrorists seize power.
  Engel's rhetoric is identical to that which surrounded the military attack on Libya, which was also green lighted without Congressional approval after the Obama administration ludicrously termed the assault a ''kinetic military action.''
  When Obama faced criticism from Congress over the 2011 attack, he churlishly dismissed the issue, remarking, ''I don't even have to get to the Constitutional question,'' before claiming that his authority came from NATO and the UN.
  According to Congressman Walter Jones, this amounted to ''an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.''
  Passed after the Vietnam War, the War Powers Resolution states that the President's powers as commander-in-chief should be ''exercised only pursuant to a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization from Congress, or a national emergency created by an attack upon the United States.''
  Following last week's alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus, the United States and Britain have begun to make preparations for cruise missile attacks on Syria that are expected to take place within days, despite Bashar Al-Assad's government agreeing to a United Nations-led inspection of the areas where the incident occurred.
ENGEL AUTHOURED THIS-Syria Accountability Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 21:55
  The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SALSRA) is a bill of the United States Congress passed into law on December 12, 2003.
  The bill's stated purpose is to end what the United States sees as Syrian support for terrorism, to end Syria's presence in Lebanon, which has been in effect since the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 1990, to stop Syria's alleged development of WMDs, to cease Syria's illegal importation of Iraqi oil and to end illegal shipments of military items to anti-US forces in Iraq.
  The bill was sponsored by Representative Eliot L. Engel (D) from New York and was introduced April 12, 2003.
  In response to the use of chemical weapons against civilians during the 2013 Ghouta attacks, President Barak Obama asked Congress to authorize the use of military force against Syria. An early draft of that authorization cites the Syria Accountability Act, saying:[1]
  Whereas in the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, Congress found that Syria's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction threatens the security of the Middle East and the national security interests of the United States.
Updates: news releases and updates
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  Posted May. 27, 2013 / Posted by: Bill Waren
  ''Chevron has acquired exploration acreage in Eastern Europe offering prospects for production of natural gas located in shale beds.'' ---Chevron statement of support for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
  ''We can't let little countries screw around with big companies like this '' companies that have made big investments around the world.'' '' Unnamed Chevron lobbyist, quoted by Michael Isikoff in Newsweek
  Chevron and other transnational corporations are lobbying for a trade deal between the United States and the European Union -- the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), also often referred to as the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA).[i] At bottom, the negotiating objectives for a TTIP agreement and its all-important investment chapter have little to do with free trade. Tariffs are already low between the United States and Europe, and the exchange of goods and services is robust. The United States already has free trade with Europe, and vice versa. But, the TTIP has everything to do with corporate power and confining the authority of democratic government and an independent judiciary -- most prominently in the area of environmental policy.
  The U.S. Trade Representative's office has confirmed press reports that it will seek to include investor-state arbitration in the TTIP, presumably based on the template of the U.S. Model Bilateral Investment Treaty, which Friends of the Earth believes to be flawed. Under the U.S. model, investors may seek awards of money damages, of unlimited size, in compensation for the cost of complying with environmental and other public interest regulations, including climate change measures. A large portion of suits under existing trade agreement investment chapters and bilateral investment treaties that involve challenges to environmental policy are brought by oil and gas companies. Coal mining concerns have also sued.
  Investment chapter is a corporate power tool
  Chevron and other giant energy companies are demanding a TTIP investment chapter that will allow them to sue governments if environmental or other regulations interfere with their expected future profits by, for example, restricting oil and gas drilling, imposing pollution and oil spill controls or constraining the use of hydraulic fracking techniques to extract natural gas and oil from shale formations.
  Chevron sees a TTIP investment chapter as necessary not only to protect its current activities across Europe, including Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania and the United Kingdom, but also future activities. This is totally unnecessary given that the United States and Europe have well developed court systems providing generally fair '' even corporate friendly - venues for resolving investment disputes.
  Furthermore, Chevron hopes a TTIP investment agreement will be extended over time to set a global standard in future agreements. In the interim, Chevron calls for the inclusion of an ''umbrella clause''[ii] in the TTIP investment chapter, which along with standard U.S. model language on a ''most favored nation''[iii] obligation could give the company ''access'' to litigate on oil concession contract and other disputes by way of 1,557 bilateral investment treaties concluded by European nations. The United States, by contrast, has only 48 ''BITs.''
  This is worrisome because Chevron and its peers have a record of using international investment agreements to retaliate against governments, particularly in the developing world, that attempt to hold these companies accountable, for example by ordering them to pay the cost of environmental cleanups and the public health measures resulting from their reckless drilling and toxic waste dumping.
  That said, an even more significant threat is posed to measures urgently needed to wind down the ''carbon economy'' and address the climate crisis. Dirty energy lobbyists, including those of Chevron, could effectively use hypothetical arguments of TTIP illegality to chill government action on both sides of the Atlantic to curtail hydraulic ''fracking'' for natural gas, deny permits for liquefied natural gas export terminals, close coal-fired power plants, and prohibit new coal mining, oil drilling, and oil/gas pipeline operations, among others. The TTIP investment chapter could provide cover for U.S. and European officials who are indebted to Big Oil, Big Coal and the LNG lobby for political support or campaign contributions. In light of the consequences that runaway global warming poses to human civilization and life in all forms on the planet, this is unconscionable.
  The U.S. model for investment agreements & Chevron's recommendations
  It is not hard to see why the U.S. model for a TTIP investment chapter is in Chevron's economic interest:
  An investment chapter on the U.S. model creates a separate ''court'' for foreign capital. Foreign investors can bypass domestic courts and bring suit before special international tribunals designed to encourage international investment.The tribunals are biased. An arbitrator serving on one of these tribunals is likely to be an international commercial lawyer who may alternately serve as ''judge'' one day and return as corporate counsel the next.Corporate and individual investors are granted property and due process rights that are more broadly defined than in U.S. constitutional law or the practice of nations, generally.Investors may seek awards of money damages, of unlimited size, in compensation for the cost of complying with environmental and other public interest regulations. They may even seek compensation for lost future profits. Damage awards can be large enough to severely stress the public budgets of both small and large countries. The fear of such ruinous judgments can force a country to settle unjust investor claims and to back away from protecting the environment and the public interest.Chevron in its Federal Register comments to the U.S. Trade Representative elaborates on the advantages of this model and calls for even more stringent investor protections. The company says it ''was heartened by the April 2012 joint U.S.-E.U. announcement of ''Shared Principles for International Investment.'' These principles include ''fair and binding dispute settlement, including investor-state dispute settlement.'' The Chevron document explains that ''[it] invest[s] billions of dollars each year at home and abroad, investments that require the strongest possible protections.'' Michael Isikoff's quote, from a Chevron lobbyist noted above, says the same thing in less euphemistic terms: ''We can't let little countries screw around with big companies like this -- companies that have made big investments around the world.''
  As just one example of its overreaching demands, Chevron calls for a definition of a ''covered investment'' that includes ''both existing and future investments, which is critical to sectors, such as energy, with a long investment timeline and an enormous existing investment.'' The company also calls for an obligation on ''fair and equitable treatment''' including protection for ''legitimate investment-backed expectations.'' Translated from legalese to plain English, Chevron's demands would operate as an insurance policy against evolving environmental and climate regulations. It would be totally unreasonable for governments to have to freeze public policy in place or risk compensating Chevron or other investors for policy changes necessitated by new scientific findings or public expectations for reform. Particularly with respect to climate policy, policy space for governments should be preserved in the TTIP investment chapter to allow bold action as the effects of global warming become more manifest.
  The Rainforest Chernobyl
  Chevron knows how to use this kind of investment agreement to serve its interests.
  In the 1960s, Texaco, before it was bought out by Chevron, discovered oil under the rainforest of eastern Ecuador. The indigenous people who live in the Amazon region say that over a more than 20-year period, the oil giant intentionally dumped billions of gallons of poisonous waste onto the soil and surface waters and abandoned hundreds of unlined waste pits that leaked chemical toxins and heavy metals into the groundwater. The oil spill was almost twice as large of the 1989 Exxon Valdezincident in Alaska.
  The indigenous people and poor settlers of Oriente suffered an epidemic of cancer and other illness that they say resulted from Texaco's dumping. Death, miscarriages and birth defects cut a swath through communities, threatening some indigenous groups with extinction. The destruction of the rainforest environment, noted for its biodiversity, was similarly devastating. A court-appointed independent expert in Ecuador found that damages from the dumping amounted to $27 billion. Legal consultants to the indigenous community have called the destruction in an area the size of Rhode Island a ''Rainforest Chernobyl.''
  In January 2012, an Ecuadorian court found Chevron financially responsible for the environmental and public health costs of the dumping and ordered the company to pay $18 billion in damages in order to pay for a clean up and to attend to the people's health care. Chevron responded by seeking the intervention of an international investment tribunal, claiming the Ecuadorian court decision violated the terms of the investment treaty between the United States and Ecuador. The next month, the tribunal accepted jurisdiction and ordered the government of Ecuador to suspend enforcement of the judgment against Chevron in any court in the world. This was a brazen act, but not a final disposition of the case. The tribunal continues to consider Chevron's claims for an award of money damages against Ecuador. (For more information on this case, watch the short Friends of the Earth film, Peril in the Pacific, available at this link: http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2013-03-new-video-peril-in-the-pacific )
  Chevron cashes in
  In an investment suit brought by Chevron against Ecuador that preceded the separate-but-related Rainforest Chernobyl litigation described above, an international investment tribunal in March of 2010 awarded the oil giant $700 million in compensation for delays by Ecuadorian courts in resolving claims that the government violated oil contract terms. The award constitutes 1.3 percent of Ecuador's gross domestic product.
  Contracts between Chevron/Texaco and the Ecuadorian government, dating from the 1970s, stated that the state could buy oil at a reduced price if it was to be used in the domestic market. Chevron claimed that the oil was, then, diverted to the international market and resold at a higher price. In the 1990s, Chevron/Texaco brought seven suits in Ecuadorian courts seeking $1.6 billion, but for a decade there was no resolution of the cases. Necessary reforms of the Ecuadorian court system had resulted in an avalanche of litigation, overwhelming the system. Six of the seven lawsuits were ultimately resolved and Chevron won only one case. But, the international investment tribunal meeting in the Netherlands, refused to take this into account on the technical grounds that the cases were resolved after the ''notice of arbitration'' was filed in the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The tribunal made no finding that the Ecuadorian courts were biased or unfair.
  Nonetheless, ''[t]he tribunal regrettably did not afford the traditional deference one expects to be given to the decisions of domestic courts,'' says Eric Bloom, Ecuador's lawyer. The tribunal even failed to give weight to Chevron's submissions in U.S. courts attesting to the fairness of Ecuador's courts when the indigenous people of the Amazon sued Chevron in the United States, in a precursor suit related to the Rainforest Chernobyl case described above.[iv].
  Fossil fuel corporations pile on
  Chevron is not alone in cashing in. A report of the Institute for Policy Studies shows that of 169 cases pending before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes at the World Bank, 23 related to oil, 13 related to natural gas, and 5 related to combined oil and gas projects. For example:
  Lone Pine Resources v. Canada: Lone Pine has filed a ''notice of intent'' to sue Canada under NAFTA's investment chapter for a reported $250 million in compensation for action by the Quebec National Assembly to place a moratorium on hydraulic fracking for shale gas and allegedly for revoking permits for oil and gas drilling under the St. Laurence River.Churchill Mining v. Indonesia: Under the provisions of the Indonesia-United Kingdom bilateral investment treaty, the British firm, Churchill Mining, is suing Indonesia for $2 billion for allegedly revoking a license to mine coal on the island of Borneo. Occidental Petroleum v. Ecuador: In October 2012, Occidental Petroleum was granted a $2.5 billion award in compensation for Ecuador's cancelation of its oil concession for violation of contract terms (plus interest). This outrageous award has created a firestorm in Ecuador where Occidental has been said to be responsible for environmental destruction and implicated in human rights abuses.[v] The threat to rule of law
  Environmental protection depends on the rule of law: it establishes the legal principles, unbiased courts and enforcement mechanisms that make pollution and climate regulation work. Many jurists and legal scholars have been dismayed by the advent of investor-state arbitration, which is intended to circumvent and, in some cases, trump domestic law and domestic courts. For example, a statement signed by a long list of eminent jurists objecting to investor-state arbitration has been transmitted to Trans Pacific Partnership trade negotiators.
  Chevron takes the opposite view: "A strong investment protection regime within the TTIP would allow us and other U.S. businesses to better mitigate the risks associated with large-scale, capital intensive, and long-term projects overseas'... Investments, such as developing shale gas and tight resources in the United States and Europe, involve long-term commitments and substantial private capital. Robust investment protections enable Chevron, and companies like us, to put our capital at risk in order to provide the energy required to fuel economic growth and energy security."
  Stuart Trew of the Council of Canadians has accurately interpreted the Chevron comments to mean that: ''Chevron doesn't want to take any risk when it invests in fracking or controversial offshore energy projects in Europe. Providing for the world's fossil fuel needs (or perpetuating our reliance on dirty oil and gas, depending on your perspective) is a public service, according to'... [Chevron]. If a community, including countries that are banning fracking for environmental or public health reasons, wants to get in the way of Chevron's projects, it should have to pay the company for lost business opportunities.''
  Sir Edmund Thomas, a former New Zealand Court of Appeal judge sums up the issue in more general terms. Investor-state dispute arbitration provisions, he says, '''... have been used to override the jurisdiction of domestic legal systems; have failed to meet accepted perceptions of the rule of law and the separation of powers; have undermined the basic principle of judicial independence; and have created a significant inequality or imbalance between foreign investors and domestic investors and producers. No sovereign, self-respecting state should accept the dispute arbitration provision in its present form.''
  [i] Generally, we prefer to call the agreement TAFTA, but because this blog post quotes from documents that refer to it as TTIP, we will refer to it here as TTIP to avoid confusion.
  [ii] An ''umbrella clause'' typically requires a country that is party to an investment agreement to honor any obligation related to other investment commitments.
  [iii] A ''most favored nation'' obligation, in this context, entitles a plaintiff bringing an international investment suit to be accorded the same treatment by the defendant country as it would accord to a national of a third country, with which the defendant country has concluded an international investment agreement.
  [iv] The indigenous people of the Amazon initially brought their claim for damages resulting from toxic dumping in Oriente province in U.S. federal courts: a case that was dismissed on the grounds that the Ecuadorian courts were the appropriate forum and led eventually to the $17 billion judgment by an Ecuadorian court against Chevron.
  [v] Ecuador believes it was within its rights to cancel the contract because Oxy: (1) was fined six times for exceeding extraction limits; (2) invested less in the project than contract terms required; (3) failed to provide information on new wells and transfers of crude oil as required by law; and (4) failed to submit required reports on its investments and inventory.
  Categories: Advocacy, Blog, Climate and Energy, Economics for the Earth / Tags: Bill waren
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Not So Fast: Conflicting Deadlines for the TPP and US-EU FTA '-- The American Magazine
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  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 21:33
  After a fallow first four years, President Obama has suddenly embraced an ambitious '-- but highly problematic '-- trade agenda for his second term. First, he has adopted the goal of completing the hugely complex and politically difficult 11-member Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) in the next 12 months. Second, in his State of the Union address the president gave the go-ahead for negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU) by the end of 2014.
  The administration is misguided in bowing to the EU's frantic plea for a crash, two-year timetable for FTA negotiations. Such a course will fail '-- and of much greater significance, it may well imperil a successful conclusion of the strategically and economically vital TPP negotiations.
  Challenges to the TPP
  The TPP negotiations have emerged as the central symbol of the U.S. diplomatic and economic ''pivot'' to Asia. Over the past three years, in ever more expansive language, President Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton underlined the strategic importance of Asia. The president averred, ''In the Asia Pacific in the twenty-first century the United States of America is all in.'' National security adviser Michael Froman explicitly tied the TPP to U.S. economic and security goals: ''This really embeds us in the fastest-growing region of the world, and gives us a leadership role in shaping the rules of the game for that region.''
  Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations have emerged as the central symbol of the U.S. diplomatic and economic 'pivot' to Asia.
  The Obama administration has touted the TPP agreement as a model for ''twenty-first century'' trade pacts. If successful, it will establish rules to curtail or eliminate domestic barriers to trade in such areas as services, competition with state-owned enterprises (SOEs), health and safety, and government procurement. For the most part, these issues represent new and uncharted territory for trade agreements, and arriving at solutions will be a complicated process. The next nine months will be crunch time for the TPP. Detailed negotiations began in early 2010, and since then there have been 16 rounds of talks. Having missed one deadline in November 2012, the 11 participating nations have now set the fall of 2013 as a goal for conclusion of the new trade pact. According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other trade diplomats, much of the technical work in the 29 TPP chapters has been completed. But there are at least a dozen substantively complex and politically difficult decisions that must be made over the next several months at the highest national level in order to achieve a final agreement that can be sold in the 11 national polities.
  The United States has yet to determine on which interests it can compromise '-- for instance, can it lower barriers on sugar, cotton, and dairy products, as variously demanded by Australia, Vietnam, and New Zealand? Will it agree to less restrictive rules of origin, which seriously impede international supply chains? Will it allow more imported clothing and shoes from Peru and Vietnam? Will it attempt to force TPP partners to accept onerous, intrusive new labor and environmental rules?
  For the United States, the TPP endgame will command full White House attention and a strong mobilization of political resources to deal with, and mediate among, competing (and often conflicting) private interest groups, congressional committees, and individual members of Congress.
  In sum, fashioning a balanced agreement that can be defended domestically by all 11 TPP nations is an enormous task, both substantively and politically. The distraction of a second, equally complicated and possibly intractable set of negotiations with the European Union will badly undercut the Obama administration's ability to bring the TPP to a successful conclusion over the next year.
  Challenges to the US-EU FTA
  This brings me to independent reservations about near-term success for the US-EU FTA. First, given the continuing dire economic prognosis for Europe, the next several years will be an extremely difficult time to advance trade liberalization in the 27 EU member states or through the increasingly fractious European parliament. In recent weeks, a steady drumfire of bad economic news has battered the continent. The eurozone is in recession: GPD fell 0.6 percent in 2012, and the European Commission has recently projected that it will fall another 0.3 percent in 2013. Next year the unemployment rate for the region will rise above 12 percent. Currently, youth unemployment rates alone exceed 50 percent in Spain and Greece, and are around 40 percent in Italy and Portugal and 25 percent in France and Ireland.
  There are at least a dozen substantively complex and politically difficult decisions that must be made over the next several months at the highest national level in order to achieve a final agreement.
  This has given a surreal quality '-- and underlying desperation '-- to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's and British Prime Minister David Cameron's effusive cheers for the agreement (significantly, France's Francois Hollande has curbed his enthusiasm). With the dismal prospects for internal economic salvation, many European leaders have seized upon the US-EU FTA as key to externally led economic growth. This is illusory, at least in the short- to medium-term. EU politicians endlessly repeat the prospect of 0.5 to 1 percent additional growth from a completed US-EU agreement. But these (quite modest) projections are for 15 years down the road, not the immediate future.
  More to the point, the United States and the European Union have been at odds for decades on many of the issues identified as key to a successful FTA negotiation. Given that tariff rates between the two economies are quite low (an average of around 3 percent), the real payoffs must come from so-called nontariff barriers (NTBs), such as differing regulations and warring standards in the areas of health and safety, data privacy, cultural diversity, competition policy, services regulation, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), agricultural subsidy and protection, aviation subsidies, labor and environmental rules, and geographical indicators in trademarks. Beginning with former president Clinton, however, and continuing through the Bush and Obama administrations, special White House''appointed business coalitions have attempted (without notable success) to achieve some convergence or even mutual recognition on these issues. Opposing interest groups and domestic regulators, jealous of their authority, have stymied forward progress at almost every turn. For the purposes of this article, two illustrative examples of the difficulties ahead will suffice.
  First, service sectors '-- financial, telecommunications, legal, insurance, architectural, medical '-- have been cited as a top priority for bilateral regulatory liberalization. Both economies have started down this road in the World Trade Organization and in FTAs, but deeper integration, particularly in the near term, is going to be difficult for the European Union. In 2006, the European Commission mandated future internal regulatory liberalization among all 27 EU member nations. To date, it is widely conceded that this goal has not been met and large obstacles remain. For instance, Germany, while a manufacturing power, retains highly anticompetitive services regulations. It still requires domestic diplomas to work in diverse professions, from boat builders to painters and ski instructors. Legal fees are set by the state, not by the market. In Italy, studies have shown that at least two dozen service sectors '-- lawyers, pharmacists, accountants, and even taxi drivers '-- maintain licensing restrictions that severely limit competition (both at home and abroad). And the protectionist shoe is not all on one foot: Will the Obama administration, for instance, finally take on the maritime unions and open coastal shipping to foreign companies and workers?
  Second, there is the deep divide between Americans and Europeans on risk acceptance. Europeans are risk averse, while Americans tend to be more daring. Thus, in a number of areas, the European Union has pushed to have the precautionary principle accepted as the standard for public international law. Invoking the precautionary principle (admittedly a protean concept), the European Union has mandated that risk assessment not be bounded by science but also take into account outside factors such as consumer sentiment and social mores. This contrasts greatly with the U.S. demand that regulations be limited to a science-based approach. The differences are starkly illustrated in specific policies toward food and drug regulation, new chemical production, and GMOs. Popular sentiment, particularly in Europe, will not move quickly (if at all). Further, European and U.S. regulators certainly will not change their stances on these issues in the timeframe posited for US-EU FTA negotiations '-- and in most cases cannot do so because of binding legislative mandates. The end result will be watered-down regulatory provisions, continued stalemate, or leaving such areas out of the agreement altogether.
  Given the continuing dire economic prognosis for Europe, the next several years will be an extremely difficult time to advance trade liberalization in the 27 EU member states.
  In a letter to the Obama administration, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana) and ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) warned that GMOs and other agricultural barriers must be liberalized as a condition of congressional support; and subsequently, Baucus has warned that European pressure to pursue ''a limited agreement that would set aside tough issues in order to conclude a quick deal on the easier ones'' would doom the negotiations.
  The U.S. legislators' intransigence is matched by members of the newly empowered European parliament, which to the consternation of European leaders (and the fury of the U.S. music and film industries) last year flatly vetoed an international anti-counterfeiting agreement. In comments on the proposed US-EU FTA, Martin Schulz, president of the European parliament, stated candidly: ''We have differing takes on food safety, consumer protection, and environmental standards that are deeply rooted in our cultures.'' But he has also said that the proposed pact must put ''the European model at the core '-- labor unions, social rights.''
  Resolution of these ''deeply rooted'' economic and societal mores will not come quickly '-- and certainly not in the short timeframe the Obama administration has proposed for US-EU FTA negotiations. One overly enthusiastic U.S. commentator proclaimed several weeks ago: ''Forget Asia '-- Time to Pivot to Europe.'' The more cautionary note espoused here would be that for the next several years, ''Forget Europe '-- Time to Wrap Up the TPP.''
  Claude Barfield is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
  FURTHER READING: Barfield also writes ''Why Does the United States Bar Mexican Tomatoes and Vietnamese Shoes? And What Does This Portend for TPP Negotiations?'' ''Crunch Time for the Trans-Pacific Trade Pact,'' and ''Heat without Light.'' Michael Auslin discusses ''Getting It Right: Japan and Trans-Pacific Partnership.'' Daniel Hanson explains ''Missing the Slow Pitch on Free Trade.''Image by Dianna Ingram / Bergman Group
VIDEO Obama calls for US-EU free trade agreement - YouTube
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 21:31
Exxon, Qatar Petroleum sign deal for $10 billion LNG export plant - Energy Ticker - MarketWatch
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 21:17
  By Claudia AssisExxon Mobil Corp. /quotes/zigman/203975/quotes/nls/xomXOM and Qatar Petroleum International have signed an agreement to sell liquefied natural gas from a planned export plant in Sabine Pass, Texas.
  The subsidiary, Golden Pass Products LLC, has Department of Energy authorization to export to countries with free trade agreements with the U.S. but not to countries without a FTA. Golden Pass would invest about $10 million to build the plant, but that investment is contingent to permits and whether it would be allowed to export to non-FTA countries.
  More than a dozen planned plants planned LNG export terminals are also waiting for that green light. The U.S. has FTAs with 20 countries, none of which are particularly large LNG buyers. Non-FTA countries include several Asian and European nations that are keen on LNG, such as Japan and Spain.
  Only one, Cheniere Energy Inc.'s Sabine Pass plant, is approved to export to both FTA and non-FTA countries. Cheniere's plant is expected to operate by the end of 2015. The company filed a request in early March to expand its planned facility.
  Golden Pass' planned LNG export plant would be added to an existing import terminal, as it is also common in the industry '-- the glut in natural gas in the U.S. has made these import facilities all but idle. Golden Pass expects to ship up to 15.6 million metric tons of natural gas per year from the facility.
  ''This agreement sets out a highly competitive commercial blueprint for Golden Pass Products, with a commitment that builds on the unique combined strengths of QPI and ExxonMobil throughout the global downstream LNG value chain,'' Bill Collins, president of Golden Pass Products, said in a statement.
  Follow Claudia Assis on Twitter @ClaudiaAssisMW
  Follow Energy Ticker on Twitter @EnergyTicker
Officers Arrest Suspect With A Cache Of Weapons : Press Releases - Arizona Department of Public Safety
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 19:59
  On August 27, 2013, at approximately 8:57 p.m. a DPS Officer stopped a vehicle after seeing it weaving and nearly colliding with a cement barrier wall near US 60 and 91st Avenue.Upon contact with the driver, 30 year old Michael James Doyle, the officer saw that Doyle was wearing a ballistic vest and had large bulges in his pockets. A records check showed Doyle's license was suspended. An inventory of the vehicle revealed a fully loaded AK-47 Rifle, Pipe bombs and bomb components, a steel plate converted into a shield, a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook as well as a copy of the Improvised Munitions Handbook. A machete was also discovered in the vehicle. Both Doyle and his passenger, 26 year old Christopher G. Dewey were placed in handcuffs and searched. Officers found a set of handcuffs in Doyle's back pocket, a pipe bomb with a red fuse in his front pants and a ballistic vest. In total 7 complete Improvised Explosive Devices were discovered and rendered safe by the State (DPS) Bomb Squad.
  In addition, detectives found 5 Magazines with a total of 159 rounds of ammunition. They also discovered a steel shank. With the cooperation of the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office, and the Northern Narcotics task force, detectives were able to locate Doyle's estranged wife. During the interview, she stated that Doyle considers himself a Sovereign Citizen. During a search of the residence, detectives found a cassette tape with Doyle talking about killing and doomsday. They also found Molotov cocktail devices and a 30-06 scoped rifle.
  Both Doyle and Dewey face 14 counts of misconduct with explosives, two counts of misconduct with a weapon, use of body armor during commission of a felony. Both were booked into the Maricopa County Jail.
No Agenda Films: Hollywood Propaganda Alert I
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 19:10
  There are a few upcoming films that have all the tell tale signs of Hollywood propaganda - especially from a No Agenda point of view. Here are three to keep an eye on:The first one is Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. This is a fiction film that looks primed to cash in on John's prediction of Nelson Mandela passing away any day now. The release date has moved twice that I know of and is now set to come out at the end of November. The second and third films are related to the Clinton's. Clinton film #1: Rodham is still in production and is gearing up to film this winter/spring - so when will this one will hit theatres? I'm guessing it's just in time to have Hilary run for president. This film focuses on the early part of her political career (without Bill) when she was working with the House Judiciary Committee to impeach Nixon. So, a fictional account of Hilary's early political career without Bill will hit theatres in time for her to run for president, possibly as a recently widowed candidate if the NA red book predictions are correct.Clinton film #2: Untitled Bill Clinton Documentary This one pains me to type since it is directed by Martin Scorsese and I've been a fan of his for decades. He's been making documentaries for years now, mainly with a focus on music (The Rolling Stones, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, etc.), but this is his first political documentary. This looks to come out around the same time as the above mentioned Rodham fiction film, possibly as an "in memorium" film for the recently deceased Bill - again, if the NA red book predictions are correct.
lbdb and mutt - Bart's Blog
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  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 18:59
  Tagsabiwordadamandroidaptasmataaudiobaculabashbiosboard-gamebootbugbusyboxbzrccodeconferencedebiandebugdesktopdeveldiskdnsdpkgdreamemailembeddedfirefoxfontfsfung1gdbgeodegitgit scmgit-findgit-graftgogooglegpggrubhardwarehtmlhwinkscapeion3ipsecipv6ipv6summit.caircirssijokekdbkernelklipskqemukvmlaptoplastfmldaplighttpdlinuxlualvmmailmakemetammcmouse-freemp3mpdmusicmuttnetnexusonenfsoclugogreolsoomOOoopenswanopteronosxottawaperlphotographypowerpxeqemuraidredhatrogersrubysatasbcscmscreenscriptscsisecuritysheevashellskypespamsquidssdsshsusesvntagstalkthinkpadubuntuumlunixurxvtusbuzblvivideovimvimgitvirtvpnvserverwebweechatwifiwindwmiiwmiirc-luaworkxx86x86emuxenxen-box-setupxfsxtermzsh
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Is The United States Going To Go To War With Syria Over A Natural Gas Pipeline? | MND - Your Daily Dose of Counter-Theory
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 18:35
  Why has the little nation of Qatar spent 3 billion dollars to support the rebels in Syria? Could it be because Qatar is the largest exporter of liquid natural gas in the world and Assad won't let them build a natural gas pipeline through Syria? Of course. Qatar wants to install a puppet regime in Syria that will allow them to build a pipeline which will enable them to sell lots and lots of natural gas to Europe. Why is Saudi Arabia spending huge amounts of money to help the rebels and why has Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan been "jetting from covert command centers near the Syrian front lines to the ‰lys(C)e Palace in Paris and the Kremlin in Moscow, seeking to undermine the Assad regime"? Well, it turns out that Saudi Arabia intends to install their own puppet government in Syria which will allow the Saudis to control the flow of energy through the region. On the other side, Russia very much prefers the Assad regime for a whole bunch of reasons. One of those reasons is that Assad is helping to block the flow of natural gas out of the Persian Gulf into Europe, thus ensuring higher profits for Gazprom. Now the United States is getting directly involved in the conflict. If the U.S. is successful in getting rid of the Assad regime, it will be good for either the Saudis or Qatar (and possibly for both), and it will be really bad for Russia. This is a strategic geopolitical conflict about natural resources, religion and money, and it really has nothing to do with chemical weapons at all.
  It has been common knowledge that Qatar has desperately wanted to construct a natural gas pipeline that will enable it to get natural gas to Europe for a very long time. The following is an excerpt from an article from 2009...
  Qatar has proposed a gas pipeline from the Gulf to Turkey in a sign the emirate is considering a further expansion of exports from the world's biggest gasfield after it finishes an ambitious programme to more than double its capacity to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG).
  "We are eager to have a gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey," Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the ruler of Qatar, said last week, following talks with the Turkish president Abdullah Gul and the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the western Turkish resort town of Bodrum. "We discussed this matter in the framework of co-operation in the field of energy. In this regard, a working group will be set up that will come up with concrete results in the shortest possible time," he said, according to Turkey's Anatolia news agency.
  Other reports in the Turkish press said the two states were exploring the possibility of Qatar supplying gas to the strategic Nabucco pipeline project, which would transport Central Asian and Middle Eastern gas to Europe, bypassing Russia. A Qatar-to-Turkey pipeline might hook up with Nabucco at its proposed starting point in eastern Turkey. Last month, Mr Erdogan and the prime ministers of four European countries signed a transit agreement for Nabucco, clearing the way for a final investment decision next year on the EU-backed project to reduce European dependence on Russian gas.
  "For this aim, I think a gas pipeline between Turkey and Qatar would solve the issue once and for all," Mr Erdogan added, according to reports in several newspapers. The reports said two different routes for such a pipeline were possible. One would lead from Qatar through Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq to Turkey. The other would go through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey. It was not clear whether the second option would be connected to the Pan-Arab pipeline, carrying Egyptian gas through Jordan to Syria. That pipeline, which is due to be extended to Turkey, has also been proposed as a source of gas for Nabucco.
  Based on production from the massive North Field in the Gulf, Qatar has established a commanding position as the world's leading LNG exporter. It is consolidating that through a construction programme aimed at increasing its annual LNG production capacity to 77 million tonnes by the end of next year, from 31 million tonnes last year. However, in 2005, the emirate placed a moratorium on plans for further development of the North Field in order to conduct a reservoir study.
  As you just read, there were two proposed routes for the pipeline. Unfortunately for Qatar, Saudi Arabia said no to the first route and Syria said no to the second route. The following is from an absolutely outstanding article in the Guardian...
  In 2009 - the same year former French foreign minister Dumas alleges the British began planning operations in Syria - Assad refused to sign a proposed agreement with Qatar that would run a pipeline from the latter's North field, contiguous with Iran's South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, with a view to supply European markets - albeit crucially bypassing Russia. Assad's rationale was "to protect the interests of [his] Russian ally, which is Europe's top supplier of natural gas."
  Instead, the following year, Assad pursued negotiations for an alternative $10 billion pipeline plan with Iran, across Iraq to Syria, that would also potentially allow Iran to supply gas to Europe from its South Pars field shared with Qatar. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the project was signed in July 2012 - just as Syria's civil war was spreading to Damascus and Aleppo - and earlier this year Iraq signed a framework agreement for construction of the gas pipelines.
  The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline plan was a "direct slap in the face" to Qatar's plans. No wonder Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, in a failed attempt to bribe Russia to switch sides, told President Vladmir Putin that "whatever regime comes after" Assad, it will be "completely" in Saudi Arabia's hands and will "not sign any agreement allowing any Gulf country to transport its gas across Syria to Europe and compete with Russian gas exports", according to diplomatic sources. When Putin refused, the Prince vowed military action.
  If Qatar is able to get natural gas flowing into Europe, that will be a significant blow to Russia. So the conflict in Syria is actually much more about a pipeline than it is about the future of the Syrian people. In a recent article, Paul McGuire summarized things quite nicely...
  The Nabucco Agreement was signed by a handful of European nations and Turkey back in 2009. It was an agreement to run a natural gas pipeline across Turkey into Austria, bypassing Russia again with Qatar in the mix as a supplier to a feeder pipeline via the proposed Arab pipeline from Libya to Egypt to Nabucco (is the picture getting clearer?). The problem with all of this is that a Russian backed Syria stands in the way.
  Qatar would love to sell its LNG to the EU and the hot Mediterranean markets. The problem for Qatar in achieving this is Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have already said "NO" to an overland pipe cutting across the Land of Saud. The only solution for Qatar if it wants to sell its oil is to cut a deal with the U.S.
  Recently Exxon Mobile and Qatar Petroleum International have made a $10 Billion deal that allows Exxon Mobile to sell natural gas through a port in Texas to the UK and Mediterranean markets. Qatar stands to make a lot of money and the only thing standing in the way of their aspirations is Syria.
  The US plays into this in that it has vast wells of natural gas, in fact the largest known supply in the world. There is a reason why natural gas prices have been suppressed for so long in the US. This is to set the stage for US involvement in the Natural Gas market in Europe while smashing the monopoly that the Russians have enjoyed for so long. What appears to be a conflict with Syria is really a conflict between the U.S. and Russia!
  The main cities of turmoil and conflict in Syria right now are Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo. These are the same cities that the proposed gas pipelines happen to run through. Qatar is the biggest financier of the Syrian uprising, having spent over $3 billion so far on the conflict. The other side of the story is Saudi Arabia, which finances anti-Assad groups in Syria. The Saudis do not want to be marginalized by Qatar; thus they too want to topple Assad and implant their own puppet government, one that would sign off on a pipeline deal and charge Qatar for running their pipes through to Nabucco.
  Yes, I know that this is all very complicated.
  But no matter how you slice it, there is absolutely no reason for the United States to be getting involved in this conflict.
  If the U.S. does get involved, we will actually be helping al-Qaeda terrorists that behead mothers and their infants...
  Al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Syria have beheaded all 24 Syrian passengers traveling from Tartus to Ras al-Ain in northeast of Syria, among them a mother and a 40-days old infant.
  Gunmen from the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant stopped the bus on the road in Talkalakh and killed everyone before setting the bus on fire.
  Is this really who we want to be "allied" with?
  And of course once we strike Syria, the war could escalate into a full-blown conflict very easily.
  If you believe that the Obama administration would never send U.S. troops into Syria, you are just being naive. In fact, according to Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School, the proposed authorization to use military force that has been sent to Congress would leave the door wide open for American "boots on the ground"...
  The proposed AUMF focuses on Syrian WMD but is otherwise very broad. It authorizes the President to use any element of the U.S. Armed Forces and any method of force. It does not contain specific limits on targets '' either in terms of the identity of the targets (e.g. the Syrian government, Syrian rebels, Hezbollah, Iran) or the geography of the targets. Its main limit comes on the purposes for which force can be used. Four points are worth making about these purposes. First, the proposed AUMF authorizes the President to use force ''in connection with'' the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war. (It does not limit the President's use force to the territory of Syria, but rather says that the use of force must have a connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian conflict. Activities outside Syria can and certainly do have a connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war.). Second, the use of force must be designed to ''prevent or deter the use or proliferation'' of WMDs ''within, to or from Syria'' or (broader yet) to ''protect the United States and its allies and partners against the threat posed by such weapons.'' Third, the proposed AUMF gives the President final interpretive authority to determine when these criteria are satisfied (''as he determines to be necessary and appropriate''). Fourth, the proposed AUMF contemplates no procedural restrictions on the President's powers (such as a time limit).
  I think this AUMF has much broader implications than Ilya Somin described. Some questions for Congress to ponder:
  (1) Does the proposed AUMF authorize the President to take sides in the Syrian Civil War, or to attack Syrian rebels associated with al Qaeda, or to remove Assad from power? Yes, as long as the President determines that any of these entities has a (mere) connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war, and that the use of force against one of them would prevent or deter the use or proliferation of WMD within, or to and from, Syria, or protect the U.S. or its allies (e.g. Israel) against the (mere) threat posed by those weapons. It is very easy to imagine the President making such determinations with regard to Assad or one or more of the rebel groups.
  (2) Does the proposed AUMF authorize the President to use force against Iran or Hezbollah, in Iran or Lebanon? Again, yes, as long as the President determines that Iran or Hezbollah has a (mere) a connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war, and the use of force against Iran or Hezbollah would prevent or deter the use or proliferation of WMD within, or to and from, Syria, or protect the U.S. or its allies (e.g. Israel) against the (mere) threat posed by those weapons.
  Would you like to send your own son or your own daughter to fight in Syria just so that a natural gas pipeline can be built?
  What the United States should be doing in this situation is so obvious that even the five-year-old grandson of Nancy Pelosi can figure it out...
  I'll tell you this story and then I really do have to go. My five-year-old grandson, as I was leaving San Francisco yesterday, he said to me, Mimi, my name, Mimi, war with Syria, are you yes war with Syria, no, war with Syria. And he's five years old. We're not talking about war; we're talking about action. Yes war with Syria, no with war in Syria. I said, 'Well, what do you think?' He said, 'I think no war.'
  Unfortunately, his grandmother and most of our other insane "leaders" in Washington D.C. seem absolutely determined to take us to war.
  In the end, how much American blood will be spilled over a stupid natural gas pipeline?
Iran-Iraq-Syria Pipeline Must Tempt Europe
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 18:28
  Bottom Line: As Iraqi, Syrian and Iranian oil ministers meet in southern Iran to sign an MOU for the construction of the tri-country gas pipeline; a new picture emerges from the rubble of the Syrian conflict.
  Analysis: On 25 July, Iran, Iraq and Syria signed a deal for the construction of what would end up being the largest gas pipeline in the Middle East, running gas from Iran's South Pars field to Europe, via Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Iraqi Oil Minister Abdelkarim al-Luaybi, Syrian Oil Minister Sufian Allaw, and Iranian caretaker Oil Minister Mohammad Aliabadi in Assolouyeh, southern Iran. The deal will see Iranian gas transited to Greece and elsewhere in Europe via a 6,000-kilometer pipeline that traverses Iraq, Syria and Lebanon under the Mediterranean. The project will cost around $10 billion and will take between 3 and 5 years to complete. Right now it's in the feasibility study stage, with a final agreement hoped for by the end of this year. Once complete, it should be able to handle about 110 million cubic meters of natural gas per day.
  Recommendation: We have stressed numerous times that this is one of the main reasons for the conflict in Syria. Right now there is a race on to get gas through this region, to Europe. This was Qatar's main goal of meddling in Syria'--and now Qatar has been largely sidelined having extended its reach a bit too far. (Qatar shares the Pars'...
Implementing ObamaCare by Outsourcing Illinois Jobs to India
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 18:20
  CHICAGO- While everyone debates the policy points of ObamaCare, few understand that billions of dollars in IT contracts are wrapped inside the law. To meet federal mandates, states must upgrade their legacy Medicaid Management Information Systems (MMIS). These IT contracts are some of the largest awards in state history.
  Last week, Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn became national news for circumventing a three year procurement process on up to $190 million in no-bid IT contracts. Now we find that one of the largest bid-contract MMIS awards will outsource state jobs to India.
  In June, Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn's administration awarded a ten year $71.4 million staffing contract to Cognizant Technology Solutions. Cognizant ranks in the national top 10 for procuring H-1B visa workers. Evidence shows that the company is staffing operational headquarters in Chennai and Bangalore, India for the Illinois work.
  Our research at openthebooks.com highlights an issue that will be hotly debated in the contested Democratic primary for governor. How will Governor Quinn justify the outsourcing of state jobs to India at a time when Illinois has the second highest unemployment in the country?
  State employees and managers willing to blow the whistle point out that these are not IT experts on H-1B visas coming in to save Illinois, but that "recent college graduates from India are very unlikely to be experts in Illinois-Medicaid."
  Former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, who is challenging the incumbent governor, is likely to make an issue of Quinn's ten year plan to replace Illinois-based workers with permanent H-1B visa contractors and using off-shore facilities for additional work.
  According to federal planning documents, Cognizant is set to charge Illinois up to $109.28/ hour, or $218,560 per position per year, for the work. This far exceeds the $75/ hour, or $150,000 annual cost, of even the most senior state experts- even after accounting for health insurance and pension costs.
  Business model uses H-1B visas and off-shoring facilities For many years, Cognizant has been a national leader in the procurement of H-1B visa approvals and use of off-shore facilities. Currently, it is ranked 7th nationally according to myvisajobs.com. Since 2000, Cognizant was approved for 10,014 H-1B visas and 4,661 green cards as compiled by visasquare.com.
  This business model off-shores labor to fulfill contracts. In Alaska, Neha Anand, a business manager with Cognizant Technology Solutions since December 2011, is a "business analyst for Alaska Medicaid. According to his LinkedIn page, Anand is based in Chennai, India.
  For the Illinois work, many Cognizant consultants, coders, architects, MBA's and programmers will be based at Cognizant's facilities in India. Currently, Cognizant is recruiting in India for candidates with "working knowledge of Medicaid and MMIS." When the jobs are filled, the employees will work in Chennai and Bangalore, India. In mid-July, Cognizant Technology Solutions India Ltd based in Chennai held "open interviews" for applicants with the computer language skills needed for the Illinois work. Cognizant's recruiting agency has posted jobs in India looking for medical billing specialists and system programmers with knowledge of Medicaid and the privacy HIPPA laws.
  As of June of this year, Cognizant posted positions for over 41 new Illinois Medicaid "Subject Matter Expert" (SME) positions in India. These new SME's are in addition to the existing Illinois team, according to planning documents filed by Illinois. The present Illinois SME's have between 5-15 years of experience with deep knowledge of building and running the existing Illinois Medicaid system- but are not being used to design or build the new systems.
  Displacing state employees at a higher cost Cognizant is handling critical implementation responsibilities such as quality assurance; verification and validation tasks; building and maintaining the MMIS (which is currently done by qualified state employees). It will also function in an expert services consulting role, and have access to the patient records and up to 81,000 Illinois medical payments to hospitals, doctors, and services providers each day from India through the cloud.
  Illinois state employees threatened with displacement have identified up to 60 state specialists whose jobs will be cut - some with up to 8 years' experience. According to state salary data online at openthebooks.com, Danny Tribble, a Health and Family Services Specialist, started working on the Illinois MMIS system in 2005. After eight years, Tribble's 2012 salary was $58,604. James Gamble is an MMIS Expert and after seven years makes $97,322. Both employees and many others like them will have their jobs cut, while contracts call for Cognizant to be paid more for the same work.
  $71.4 million contract fight with union expected Replacing state workers with independent firms could run afoul of the union collective bargaining agreement. In Illinois, unions have aggressively contested the use of outside contractors with work projects longer than 90 days. Recently, an administrative judge ruled that privatization agreements contract violate collective bargaining agreements.
  Quinn administration cloaks MMIS upgrade Our OpentheBooks.com Freedom of Information Act requests for transparency, including official planning, cost benefit analysis, key emails and implementation documents, were rejected by the Illinois Department of Health & Human Services. Fortunately, we were able to procure the information by other means.
  In the case of ObamaCare implementation in Illinois, H-1B workers are replacing state employees and other state positions are being outsourced to Cognizant facilities in India. If this saved taxpayers money for better outcomes, Governor Quinn might have an argument. But at $218K of spending to replace $50K Illinois state jobs, it doesn't look that way.
  Adam Andrzejewski is the founder of www.openthebooks.com and a former candidate for Governor of Illinois.
VIDEO-Obama on Syria: 'We May Not Be Directly Imminently Threatened' in Short-Term | The Weekly Standard
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 18:01
  'But our long-term national security will be impacted in a profound way and our humanity's impacted in a profound way.'
  President Obama, speaking earlier today in Sweden about America's proposed intervention in Syria:
  "We may not be directly imminently threatened by what's taking place in a Kosovo or a Syria or a Rawanda in the short-term but our long-term national security will be impacted in a profound way and our humanity's impacted in a profound way."
VIDEO-Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran - YouTube
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:53
Pelosi to TheBlaze: Obama Can Still Go in Syria if Congress Says No | TheBlaze.com
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:52
  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) doesn't believe President Barack Obama needs congressional approval to strike Syria, citing President Bill Clinton's action in Kosovo, when Congress considered and did not approve action.
  ''So I don't think congressional authorization is necessary,'' Pelosi said outside the White House Tuesday after she and colleagues met with Obama. ''I do think it's a good thing and I do feel we can achieve it.''
  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks with reporters outside the White House after a meeting with President Barack Obama, Sept. 3, 2013. Obama told reporters at the beginning of the meeting that he was confident he could get enough votes for his plan for military action against the Bashar Assad regime in Syria. (Getty Images)
  Obama seemed poised to take action but surprised much of the country announcing on Saturday he would seek congressional authorization before striking in response to Syrian President Bashar Assad's use of chemical weapons on Aug. 21 that killed 1,429 people, 426 of whom were children, according to U.S. intelligence.
  Obama met with congressional leaders Tuesday in the White House.
  TheBlaze asked Pelosi during a press gaggle after the meeting whether the president can proceed if Congress rejects his plan.
  Pelosi said presidents have precedent to act even if Congress considers and doesn't approve.
  ''I don't think Congress will reject, but I do want to remind you I have been reading what some of you have written and saying a president has never gone forward if Congress has not approved when it has taken up the issue,'' Pelosi said. ''I would remind you in 1999, President Clinton brought us all together over a period of time to talk about going into the Balkans and the vote was 213 to 213, 187 Republicans voted no, 180 Democrats voted yes, about 30 on each side went in a different way than a majority of their party.''
  ''That was when the planes were really ready to go. He went, and you know what happened there,'' Pelosi continued. ''So I don't think congressional authorization is necessary. I do think it's a good thing and I do feel we can achieve it. I feel pretty confident on the evidence, the intelligence and the national interest that is at stake we have a good conversation to have with our members.''
  Obama met with Pelosi, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Majority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Eliot Engle (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), House Minority White Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Melendez (D-N.J.).
  Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Adviser Susan Rice were also in attendance.
  After the meeting, several members of Congress spoke to the press outside the White House.
  ''That was probably one of the most effective bipartisan meetings that I've been a part of since I've been in Congress. Democrats and Republicans working on an issue that is important not only to America, but to the world,'' Rogers told reporters. ''The first issue is clear throughout the world, you have the Assad regime using chemical weapons to kill his own people, including 400 children.''
  Rogers added that the United States would not be going it alone.
  ''The United States has resources no other country has, but we can't be a sheriff for the whole world either. We are now a coalition of countries coming together that understand how serious this issue is,'' he said.
  Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who also attended the meeting, said outside the White House it was important that the U.S. respond by also supplying weapons to ''vetted'' rebels, meaning rebels would not turn on the United States.
  ''My plea to the president, and to Secretary Hagel and others is that we facilitate a vetted opposition to help to degrade Assad's capability to use chemical weapons,'' Levin said.
  ''
VIDEO-Obama: 'I Didn't Set a Red Line' on Syria | The Weekly Standard
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  President Obama said in Sweden today that he personally "didn't set a red line" on Syria:
  "First of all, I didn't set a red line," said Obama. "The world set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98 percent of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are [inaudble] and passed a treaty forbidding their use, even when countries are engaged in war. Congress set a red line when it ratified that treaty. Congress set a red line when it indicated that in a piece of legislation entitled the Syria Accountability Act that some of the horrendous things happening on the ground there need to be answered for. So, when I said in a press conference that my calculus about what's happening in Syria would be altered by the use of chemical weapons, which the overwhelming consensus of humanity says is wrong, that wasn't something I just kind of made up. I didn't pluck it out of thin air. There's a reason for it."
VIDEO-Debbie Wasserman Schultz: 'Dozens' of Countries Back Obama in Syria'...I Just Can't Tell You Who They Are | Video | TheBlaze.com
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  Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on Monday said there are ''dozens'' of countries ready to support U.S. intervention in Syria '-- she just can't say who they are.
  ''There are dozens of countries who are going to stand with the United States, who will engage with us on military action and also that back us 100 percent,'' Wasserman Schultz said during an interview on CNN.
  Pressed for specifics, Wasserman Schultz said the information is ''classified.''
  Asked whether the support would come in the form of military or diplomatic action, congresswoman said it would be a combination of the two
  ''The important thing is we need military and moral leadership here,'' she said.
  Wasserman Schultz also said she believes Congress will ultimately sign off on the president's call to action in Syria.
  ''President Obama and, I think, the Congress will make a very strong signal that this conduct '-- murdering your own people mercilessly '-- is unacceptable,'' she said.
  ''
  (H/T: NRO). Featured image Getty Images.
  Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter
Getting revenge via promoted tweets, $1,000 ... embrarassing British Airways for losing luggage, priceless
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  Getting revenge via promoted tweets, $1,000 ... embrarassing British Airways for losing luggage, priceless
  I wrote yesterday about what Twitter user Hasan Syed did when British Airways lost his luggage on Monday: He turned to Twitter to vent but he also reached into his pocket and had Twitter promote his tweets to all BA followers. The cost: $1,000 ...
  Hasan wound up addressing almost 77,000 Twitter users and being interviewed by CNN.
  It will be interesting to see how B.A. handles this or, if their past performance is anything to go by, how they don't.
  Cheer below or to gearhead@gibbs.com and follow Gibbs on Twitter, App.net, and Facebook.
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'It's Explicit': Rand Paul Battles John Kerry Over the Constitution, Syria in Tense Senate Showdown | Video | TheBlaze.com
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  During a Tuesday Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had a tense exchange with Secretary of State John Kerry over the finer points of the Constitution.
  ''Make me proud today, Secretary Kerry,'' the Kentucky senator began after voicing his concerns over reports President Barack Obama may act on Syria even if Congress disapproves. ''Stand up for us and say you're going to obey the Constitution and if we vote you down '-- which is unlikely, by the way '-- you would go with what the people say through their Congress and you wouldn't go forward with a war that your Congress votes against.''
  Sen. Paul then asked Secretary Kerry to be more specific on what the White House plans to do if Congress votes against intervening in Syria.
  ''I don't know what the decision is,'' Kerry answered, ''but I'll tell you this '... [President Obama] still has the Constitutional authority and he would be in keeping with the Constitution.''
  Paul disagreed, saying he doesn't believe the president has the authority to order military action in a foreign country '-- especially after Congress votes against it:
  ''[James] Madison was very explicit when he wrote the Federalist Papers,'' Paul said. ''He wrote that '... the Constitution supposes what history demonstrates. That the executive is the branch most likely to go to war and therefore the Constitution vested that power on the Congress.''
  ''It's explicit and runs throughout all of Madison's writings,'' he continued. ''This power is a congressional power and is not an executive power.''
  During Sen. Paul's remarks, Secretary Kerry largely avoided eye contact and instead scribbled on a nearby notepad.
  ''If we do not say that the Constitution applies, if we do not say explicitly that we will abide by this vote,'' the senator lectured, ''you're making a joke of us. You're making us into theater. And so we play Constitutional theater for the president.''
  Secretary Kerry became visibly agitated.
  ''If this real, you will abide by the verdict of Congress,'' Paul said.
  ''Senator,'' Kerry said, ''I assure you there's nothing meaningless and there's everything real.''
  ''Only if you adhere to what we vote on,'' Paul responded. ''Only if our vote makes a difference.''
  ''And I will leave to the man who was elected to be the President of the United States the responsibility for telling you what his decision is if and when that moment came,'' Kerry said. ''But the president intends to win this vote and he's not going to make prior announcements.''
  WASHINGTON, DC '' SEPTEMBER 03: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry answers a question from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the topic of 'The Authorization of Use of Force in Syria' September 3, 2013 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty Images
  Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., listens as Secretary of State John Kerry answers Paul's question on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013, as Kerry testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria. Credit: AP
  The Kentucky senator and the Secretary of State continued, debating the merits of the White House's proposed plan to intervene in Syria.
  ''
  Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter
  Featured image screen grab. This post has been updated.
McCain playing poker on his iPhone
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  After weathering a barrage of criticism from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Kerry turned the tables and demanded to know whether or not he believed that air strikes would make Assad more or less likely to use chemical weapons again.
  ''It's unknown,'' Paul replied.
  Jabbing his finger, Kerry disagreed, saying it was guaranteed that Assad would use chemical weapons again if the U.S. doesn't act.
  Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, reminded Paul that ''you've got three of us here who have gone to war'' and that they know what it involves.
  ''The president is not asking you to go to war,'' he said, urging Paul to go to a classified briefing ''and learn that.''
  Concluding his comments, Kerry turned to Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for back-up, asking if he wanted to ''weigh in on this.''
  ''No, not really,'' came the reply, prompting laughter from the panel.
BBC - Blogs - Adam Curtis - THE BABY AND THE BAATH WATER
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  What is happening in Syria feels like one of the last gasps of the age of the military dictators. An old way of running the world is still desperately trying to cling to power, but the underlying feeling in the west is that somehow Assad's archaic and cruel military rule will inevitably collapse and Syrians will move forward into a democratic age.
  That may, or may not, happen, but what is extraordinary is that we have been here before. Between 1947 and 1949 an odd group of idealists and hard realists in the American government set out to intervene in Syria. Their aim was to liberate the Syrian people from a corrupt autocratic elite - and allow true democracy to flourish. They did this because they were convinced that "the Syrian people are naturally democratic" and that all that was neccessary was to get rid of the elites - and a new world of "peace and progress" would inevitably emerge.
  What resulted was a disaster, and the consequences of that disaster then led, through a weird series of bloody twists and turns, to the rise to power of the Assad family and the widescale repression in Syria today.
  I thought I would tell that story.
  In 1968 a CIA agent called Miles Copeland wrote a book called 'The Game of Nations' that revealed what went on in 1947. Back then Copeland was part of a mangement consulting team in Washington who were working out how America should contain the threat of communism in the Middle East, now the old European Empires had gone. This was before the CIA existed, and Copeland describes how they got together an odd group of diplomats, secret agents left over from the war, advertising men from Madison Avenue, and "pipe-smoking owls" (which is what intellectuals were called in those days).
  Copeland describes an impassioned lecturer telling this group that their aim should be to change the leadership in the countries in the Middle East:
  "Politicians in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt seem to have been elected into power, but what elections! The winners were all candidates of foreign powers, old land-owners who tell their tenants and villagers how to vote, or rich crooks who can buy their votes. But peoples of these countries are intelligent, and they have a natural bent for politics. If there is a part of the world which is crying for the democratic process the Arab World is it."
  They decided to start with Syria.
  Compared to what was to come, it was all very sweet and innocent. Elections were due in Syria in 1947, and the Americans decided to give "a discreet nudge here and there". This involved warning landowners, employers, ward bosses and police chiefs not to intimidate the voters. The American oil companies were paid to put up big posters telling the Syrians to "vote for the candidate of your choice" (apparently this baffled all the Syrians because the posters didn't mention any candidates by name). Hundreds of taxis were hired to take voters to the polls free of charge. And the Americans brought in automatic, tamper-proof voting machines.
  It didn't go as expected. The landowners and other elites ignored all the warnings and intimidated everyone. There were massive gun fights and scores of people were killed. The taxi-drivers bonded together and sold themselves to different candidates - promising to make their passengers vote the "right" way. The voting machines didn't work properly because of irregularities in the electric current, or were sabotaged. Two did work - but the losing candidates refused to accept the verdict of "imperialist technology" - and got recounts by hand, which strangely made them win.
  And worst of all, most of the pro-American candidates defected to other foreign powers. The Americans had nobly refused to give them any money - so the Russians, the French and the British stepped in and bribed them - and the candidates changed their allegiances.
  The Americans were upset. So they decided they would have to go further. The chief diplomat in Damascus was called James Keeley. The solution he said was to find a way of "quarantining" the Syrians from the corrupting forces that had wrecked the election so they would become more self-confident. More "naturally democratic". Here is a picture of James Keeley.
  And the way to create this "quarantine" was by engineering a military coup. According to Copeland, Keeley believed that America should get rid of the present elected leaders, bring in a short period of dictatorship which would protect the Syrian people and thus allow them to develop self-confidence and stronger personalities, and within a few years a real independent democracy would emerge.
  And that is what the Americans did. In 1949 a "Political Action Team" was set up that went and made friends with the head of the Syrian army, Husni al-Za'im. Copeland was part of the team and he is completely open about what they did.
  "The political action team suggested to Za'im the idea of a coup d'etat, advised him how to go about it, guided him through the intricate preparations in laying the groundwork for it...Za'im was 'the American boy'. "
  Here is a picture of the American boy - General Za'im and his limousine.
  And Za'im promised the Americans he would throw all the corrupt politicians in jail, reform the country, recognise the new state of Israel, and then bring in proper democracy. All the Americans were convinced that it was a brilliant plan - except for one man, a young political officer called Deane Hinton. Copeland describes a moment when they were out in Damascus planning the coup when Hinton turned to the rest of the group and said:
  "I want to go on record as saying that this is the stupidest, most irresponsible action a diplomatic mission like ours could get itself involved in, and that we've started a series of these things that will never end."
  Deane was promptly kicked out of the group and ostracised. The coup happened in March 1949. It was the first post-war military coup in the Middle East. It was a great success and the American celebrated "opening the door to Peace and Progress"
  But then Za'im immediately went back on all his promises and turned into a violent tyrant. He got so bad that five months later a group of his subordinates surrounded his house and shot him to bits. And then they mounted another violent coup, this time with no promises. As Copeland noted - Hinton had been right. The Americans had started something - they had "opened the door to the Dark Ages" in Syria.
  Here is Copeland interviewed in 1969. He is reflecting ruefully on the disaster they had created in Syria. His is the voice of a generation of Americans who had tried to intervene to bring democracy to the Middle East - not just in Syria but later in Iran and in Nasser's Egypt. The "Game" he refers to is a management game-playing exercise the CIA did in the 1950s when planning the interventions. It's aim was to predict how all the "players" in the country would behave.
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  As a result Syria was torn apart by miltary coups throughout the early 1950s. Then in 1954 the parliamentary system was restored. The politicians - and most of the Syrian people - were now terrified of America, not just because of the interventions and the coup, but also because of their support for Israel. In response the new government turned to the Soviet Union for economic aid and friendship.
  Here is a fascinating film made in 1957. The BBC reporter, Woodrow Wyatt, goes to Syria with the aim of proving that everyone there is a communist. But repeatedly they tell him that this is not true. Both students and millionaire businessmen insist they are not a Soviet satellite, that they like capitalism. They just fear America because of its plots - and they have turned to the Soviets as a message to America. They also see Israel as America's agent.
  Just before Woodrow Wyatt arrived the Syrians had uncovered yet another CIA plot to overthrow the government. Three CIA men had been expelled, and even Wyatt has to admit in the commentary that the evidence for the plot is strong.
  In fact it was true. The Americans had been planning another military coup, code-named Operation Wappen. The CIA man in charge was called Howard "Rocky" Stone, and he terrified the Syrians because he always stared intensely at them. But Stone did this because he was almost completely deaf - and he was trying to read their lips.
  But while all the Syrians interviewed in the film dislike America, they also all have a hero. He is President Nasser of Egypt. What inspires them is Nasser's dream of a united Arab world that would be strong enough to challenge America and the western powers.
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  But Syria also had its own fast-growing version of Nasser's Pan-Arabism - and it was even more epic in its vision. It was called the Baath party. It had been started by a Syrian Christian called Michel Aflaq - and Aflaq's dream was to rouse the Arabs from what he considered a living death. To free them from the shackles of tribalism, sectarianism, the oppression of women and the cruel autocracies of landowners. All these made the Arabs feel inferior - and that was then exploited by the Western empires, and now by America. In the process they had turned the Arab people into powerless zombies.
  Here are some pictures of Aflaq.
  Baath meant rebirth - and that was what Aflaq wanted to bring about. His aim was freedom not just from America and the old empires, but he also wanted to bring about personal liberation from mental and social chains that were holding the Arabs back. It was an extraordinary fusion of Arab nationalism, grand ideas from the French Revolution, and modern socialist theories which wanted to transcend the deep sectarian divisions in the Arab world.
  Then, in 1958, Syria and Egypt merged as countries to become the United Arab Republic, led by President Nasser. Aflaq believed that is was the beginning of a united Arab world and under pressure from Nasser he agreed to dissolve the Baath party as a separate entity. But he and the other Baathists quickly discovered that Nasser wanted to use the opportunity to destroy the Baath party because he saw it as a rival to his pan-Arab vision.
  Here is part of a film shot in Syria in 1961 at the very moment when the UAR was falling apart. It records the growing hatred of Nasser among the Syrians. I particularly like the posters of American Hollywood starlets - with Nasser's face stuck on them. He's just as bad as the Americans now.
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  Faced with growing chaos in Syria, five young Baath party members who were also army officers decided they would save the country. They set up a secret committee within the army and planned to bring about the Baath vision in Syria. They would create a united Arab world where Nasser had failed. One of them was a young Hafez al-Assad.
  And the Baath idea was spreading. At the same time, a group of Baathists in Iraq were plotting to bring down the nationalist ruler of the country - General Qassim. And in February 1963 they struck first. But the coup they mounted wasn't all that it seemed - and the reason was that yet again the Americans had got involved.
  The Baath party had emerged and risen to popularity precisely because it promised to liberate the Arab people from foreign intervention and control. But in the strange twists and turns of Middle Eastern power struggles the Baath in Iraq ended up coming to power in a coup that was in large part organised and funded by the CIA. And one of the CIA's "assets" in that coup was a lowly member of the conspiracy - Saddam Hussein.
  The reason the Americans got involved was simple. General Qassim depended on the Iraqi communists for power. The Baath party hated the communists because they saw International Marxism as their biggest rival to their dream of uniting the Arab world. And the CIA wanted to get rid of the communists in Iraq. So Bingo - why not help the Baath party? And that included giving them a list of the communists in Iraq that they should kill. (The elimination list was given to them by a Time Magazine correspondent who was really a CIA agent - and it was out of date)
  This is a photograph of a group of some of the Iraqi Baathists of that time - including a young Saddam.
  Here is a section from the film I made called It Felt Like a Kiss. It tells the story of Saddam's involvement in the Baath-CIA coup of 1963 set to music and images, and also sets it in the wider context of a growing uncertainty within America itself at the time.
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  But the Syrian Baathists weren't going to be outclassed. A month later they mounted their coup, and this time without the CIA's help. Hafez al-Assad was one of the leaders. Everything went fine until Assad arrived outside one of Syria's main airbases to take it over. The officers refused to let him in because they said he wasn't really a Baathist, he was a Nasserist. Assad stood for hours shouting "I'm not a Nasserist, I'm a Baathist" at the airmen. The revolution was held up as they argued over the niceties of Pan-Arab theory.
  But it succeeded. And it now looked as if the Baath vision might really spread across the Arab world. Nasser was furious - he used everyone's favourite political insult. He called them "fascists".
  Here is a comedy sketch the BBC programme That Was The Week That Was did two days after the 1963 coup in Syria. It's not very funny, but it is interesting because of the prism through which it sees the coup. The "joke" is that the coup will only happen when the western media arrive. The plotters are waiting for the Panorama reporter to turn up because they know that coup will not be real until it is reported by the west.
  It is an early example of the techno-orientalism that is being repeated today in the media's firm belief that it is the western social media networks that made possible the rebellions in Tunisia and Egypt.
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  The dream of Baathism was to overcome the sectarianism that had always riven the Arab world, to create a secular society in which everyone was included. But now, as Assad and his four friends on the secret committee took power, that sectarianism rose up to possess and distort their revolution.
  Of the five conspirators, three of them - including Assad - came from the Alawite sect. They were a Shia sect who lived in the western mountains of Syria. The two others were Ismailis - another branch of Shia Islam. Traditionally power in Syria had resided with the old Sunni landowning and merchant class of the plains who also made up the bulk of the population. The seizing of power by Assad and his conspirators was a dramatic reversal. It was the triumph of a low-class peasant population and lower middle class urbanites against the old metropolitan elites. And the Sunnis hated it.
  The hatred went deep because when the French ruled the country they had practiced a programme of divide and rule which deliberately fomented and exaggerated the sectarian divisions in the country. Faced with this, Assad began to follow a logic that would destroy the very core of Michel Aflaq's dream of a united Arab world. Assad wasn't a sectarian, but he moved through the army and the institutions of state ruthlessly installing those he trusted into positions of power - while removing, often bloodily, Sunnis, Druze and other members of the old elite Syrian class. And many of those he installed were Alawites, like him.
  In the process Assad also came into conflict with the other four members of the secret committee behind the revolution. So he destroyed them too. Until, by 1969, there were only two men left - Assad and an austere General called Salah Jadid. Assad couldn't get rid of Jadid because he was protected by the ruthless Bureau of National Security. So Assad sent troops to the one petrol station where all the security bureau jeeps refuelled - and grabbed them one by one. When the head of the bureau realised that he was defeated, he rang one of Assad's allies and then shot himself so that his enemy could hear the gunshot.
  Here is some footage - beginning with the celebration from the early days of the revolution among the urban poor - as the Baath party free them from the old bosses. Followed by images of the strange Baath state that Assad then created in Syria. It was centred round countless images of Assad as a the heroic leader of the nation. It is very odd because, unlike Saddam who was doing the same sort of thing in Iraq, in every image and statue Assad looks like a middle manager.
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  Assad believed that this ruthless exercise of power was necessary because of the deep sectarian divisions. It was a strange echo of the American diplomat in 1949 who believed that a military coup was needed to "quarantine" the Syrian people - because Assad believed that the naked exercise of power by an elite was necessary to enforce a genuinely plural society. To quarantine the Syrians from their sectarian past.
  And many Syrians greeted it with a sigh of relief after the relentless chaos and violence of the past twenty years. They welcomed the stable state Assad created for fear of the alternative - and as a result he became popular with millions of Syrians.
  But what he had also created was a repressive state that resorted to violence and fear to maintain its rule.
  Here are some unedited rushes - shot in 1977 - of the city of Hama. They are labelled Stockshots in the BBC archive. But since 1982 they have become more than that. They are one of the few film records that remain of a city that was practically destroyed by Assad as he struggled to put down an uprising by the disgruntled Sunnis, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, who dominated the town. The accepted estimate is that Assad's security forces killed 10,000 people - and bulldozed many of the buildings - to try and wipe away yet more of his enemies.
  But he wasn't successfull, Hama is yet again one of the main centres of the revolt against Assad's son's regime.
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  Nobody knows what is going to happen in Syria today. The optimistic view is that a new generation is emerging who really want a proper representative democracy in which all groups can negotiate with each other without violence. The pessimistic view is that those sectarian divisions, encouraged by the French - and then incubated further by the Assad family - will re-emerge. In truth no-one knows.
  But there is a terrible naivety in the West's view of the ongoing revolt in Syria. It forgets its own history and the role it played in helping create the present situation.
  Back in the 1950s America set out to create democracy in Syria, but it led to disaster. It was by no means the only factor that led to the violence and horror of the Assad dictatorship, but its unforeseen consequences played an important role in shaping the feverish paranoia in Syria in the late 1950s - which helped the Baath party come to power. And while the Western powers no longer remember this history, the Syrians surely do.
  The man who had originally created the Baath vision, Michel Aflaq, was forced into exile in Iraq. He died in 1989 - a sad man, convinced that Assad had destroyed his dream of a united, confident Arab world.
  The Iraqi Baaths hated the Syrian Baaths and they embraced the exiled Aflaq. After he died they built a grand mausoleum for him in Bagdhad. Here is a photo of what had happened to the mausoleum by 2006. It had been turned into a gym for the invading American troops. You can see Aflaq's tomb behind the weights and the table football.
  One idea of personal transformation had been replaced by another.
Interface (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 22:07
  Interface is a 1994 novel by Neal Stephenson and George Jewsbury. It was originally sold with the author pseudonym of Stephen Bury, then reissued as being by Bury and J. Frederick George ,[1] and most recently as being by Stephenson and George.
  Interface is a near-future thriller, set in 1996, in which a shadowy coalition bent on controlling the world economy attempts to manipulate a candidate for president of the United States through the use of a computer bio-chip implanted in his brain.
  In 2007, it was described by writer Cory Doctorow as an "underappreciated masterpiece".[2]
  The novel opens with the governor of Illinois, William Cozzano, suffering a stroke, and in a separate subplot, a trailer park inhabitant, unemployed African-American, Eleanor Richmond, discovering her husband dead after having committed suicide in their repossessed former home.
  As events progress, an underground business coalition, the Network, is arranging for Cozzano to have a biochip implanted and for him to run for President of the United States. The Network is made up of a number of large fictional companies, with parallels in real business entities.
  Eleanor Richmond, after publicly attacking a local cable TVPublic-access television talk show personality who was running for Senate, has since found herself working in the offices of a RepublicanColorado senator, and after an event where she accused the citizens of Colorado of being welfare queens, finds herself in the public eye as one of the candidates for Cozzano's running mate.
  The Network's ability to perceive public opinion, skewed on the night of the vice presidential debate by a twist of fate, makes them select Richmond as vice presidential candidate, and a canny act of public relations work rescues Cozzano's campaign, getting him elected as President.
  However, Cozzano gets shot at his inauguration by a psychotic former factory worker who has somehow figured out the Network's plans almost entirely, killing him almost instantly. Richmond ends up as the first black and first female President of the United States.
  Eleanor Richmond '' unemployed African-American woman, protagonistWilliam Cozzano '' governor of IllinoisMary-Catharine Cozzano '' daughter of governor, neurologistCy Ogle '' campaign managerDr. Radhakrishnan '' neurosurgeon^Stephenson, Neal; George, J. Frederick (2005) [1994]. Interface. Bantam Spectra. ISBN 9780553383430. ^Interface: Neal Stephenson's underappreciated masterpiece
VIDEO-Authorization for Use of Military Force in Syria - C-SPAN Video Library
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  Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Joint Chiefs Chair Martin Dempsey testified on the Obama administrations's case for the use of force against Syria.
  Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Joint Chiefs Chair Martin Dempsey testified on the Obama administrations's case for the use of force against Syria.
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Pentagon staged chemical attack in Syria - Pastebin.com
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  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 21:52
  I've hacked colonel Anthony Jamie MacDonald mail he is intelligence US Army Staff boss. First I hacked his Link3dIn account and got access to his mail through it then.
  Among mail Mayhem like Amazon mails I've found his correspondence with his colleague Eugene Furst. He congratulates Col. with success and gives a link to the Washington Post publication about chemical attack in Syria on August 21. Furst also mentions it was ''well staged''. Holy shit. I was shocked my eyes refused to believe it. Bloody bastards they ''staged'' a chemical attack.
  Then a friend of Anthony MacDonald's wife Jennifer writes she was shocked seeing on TV the children died after chemical attack in Syria. Jennifer answers she saw the story but Tony calm her down saying children were alive and the scene was staged.
  Two best mails I uploaded here
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/3g8rt2l3do33pgr/the-best.rar
  http://www.mediafire.com/download/k3dymq2iz5f8uis/the-best.rar
  http://depositfiles.com/files/30qx9o4wc
  Here you can download MacDonald's mail
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/736xsoir8pjncz7/mcdnlds-l3ak.rar
  http://depositfiles.com/files/se09lc29f
  http://www.mediafire.com/download/p03ywz6t7m6cyp3/mcdnlds-l3ak.rar
  Here is his wife's correspondence
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/8jeqc5lm8w720kb/mary-leak.rar
  http://www.mediafire.com/download/tq38hzdxvbl7427/mary-leak.rar
  http://depositfiles.com/files/vjucpz9el
  I also hacked other Pentagon officers' mail boxes:
  Evans, Anthony O COL USARMY HQDA ASA ALT (US)
  Sims, John D COL USARMY HQDA OCPA (US)
  Griffith, David M COL USARMY (US)
  Bell, Craig A COL USARMY (US)
  Parramore, David J (Dave) COL USARMY MEDCOM HQ (US)
  Morris, Daniel L COL USARMY (US)
  Ellison, Brenda K COL USARMY (US)
  Jennings, Wesley J COL USARMY HQDA DCS G-8 (US)
  Eberle, Brian K COL USARMY HQDA DCS G-3-5-7 (US)
  Bradsher, John M COL USARMY (US)
  Fish, Charles A COL USARMY JS J8 (US)
  Roquemore, Darlene M COL USAF (US)
  Mott, Robert L Jr COL USARMY HQDA OTSG (US)
  Parramore, David J (Dave) COL USARMY MEDCOM HQ (US)
  Weeks, Colin A LTC USARMY (US)
  Reynolds, M Bridget LTC USARMY HQDA DCS G-2 (US)
  Grahek, Christopher J LTC USARMY HQDA OTSG (US)
  Henderson, Valerie D LTC USARMY HQDA OCPA (US)
  I've no time to look through all their mails. A lot of shit to be sure there.
  I will upload their correspondence later.
  '‚¬Wagn3r
Monsanto Insiders Dump Stock as the Truth about GMOs Spreads across Wall Street
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 21:50
  Monsanto executives and insiders are dumping Monsanto stock in record volumes, sending the stock price spiraling downward. CEO Hugh Grant just sold off 40,000 shares at $97.74, and both Janet Holloway and Gerald Steiner '-- both high-level Monsanto executives '-- recently ditched more than 10,000 shares each. Tom Hartley also bailed on another 6,000 shares at $100.15. (See sources below.)
  Hedge funds, meanwhile, are also dumping Monsanto stock, most likely due to sharply increased ''negative sentiment.'' This means people increasingly don't like Monsanto, and that's a direct result of all the growing realizations about the dangers of GMOs, Monsanto's predatory business practices, the company's dangerous experiments that have already unleashed genetic pollution, and the fact that GM corn has been experimentally found to cause widespread cancer tumors in rat studies.
  Just the fact that Monsanto's GE wheat trials got out of control and contaminated a wheat field in Oregon '-- causing Japan and South Korea to ban U.S. wheat imports '-- has resulted in 150 groups now demanding the USDA keep a tighter lid on Monsanto's GMO experiments.
  These groups are fed up with seeing the market value of their crops destroyed by sloppy ''open field'' experiments being conducted by Monsanto that spread genetic pollution across the country and contaminate non-GMO crops. (Monsanto goes even further and actually sues the farmers whose fields they contaminated!)
  Hedge funds dumping MonsantoAs InsiderMonkey.com reports, Monsanto ''has experienced declining interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track.''The report goes on to say: At the top of the heap, Jeffrey Vinik's Vinik Asset Management said goodbye to the largest stake of the 450+ funds we monitor, totaling close to $100.8 million in [Monsanto] stock. Sean Cullinan's fund, Point State Capital, also dropped its [Monsanto] stock, about $54.7 million worth.
  These sales leave Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital with the largest holdings of Monsanto, over $613 million worth of the company's stock. Natural News urges all investors to ditch Lone Pine Capital and take your money somewhere else that doesn't invest in ''the world's most evil corporation.''
  Blue Ridge Capital also owns over $320 million in Monsanto stock and should be immediately abandoned by all investors.
  Monsanto share prices plummeting ever since the March Against MonsantoSo far this year, Monsanto (MON) share prices have plummeted from a high of $109 to a current trading range around $95. That's a drop of nearly 13%, and the bad news for Monsanto just keeps coming.For one, the European Union's new food safety guidelines affirm the methodology and findings of the Seralini GM corn rat study. As much as the biotech industry and all its pimped-out science trolls have attempted to attack the study, the secret is already out: GM corn causes cancer tumors and consumers accurately see GM corn as equivalent to a ''poison'' symbol on foods.
  The Seralini study, by the way, found that:
  Up to 50% of males and 70% of females suffered premature death.Rats that drank trace amounts of Roundup (at levels legally allowed in the water supply) had a 200% to 300% increase in large tumors.Rats fed GM corn and traces of Roundup suffered severe organ damage including liver damage and kidney damage.The study fed these rats NK603, the Monsanto variety of GM corn that's grown across North America and widely fed to animals and humans. This is the same corn that's in your corn-based breakfast cereal, corn tortillas and corn snack chips.Anyone who is still investing in Monsanto is investing in this:All food companies that use Monsanto's corn will be punished in the marketplaceThe future for sales of Monsanto's GM corn look especially bleak due to the simple fact that GMO labeling is now inevitable. The consumer push to know what's in our food is unstoppable, no matter how much lobbying Monsanto conducts in a desperate effort to keep consumers ignorant about what they're eating.Whole Foods, of course, has already announced mandatory GMO labeling on everything it sells by 2018. I believe Wal-Mart and other retailers are also considering a similar move, or they'll lose market share to Whole Foods.
  At the same time, major food manufacturers are realizing they must either get the GMOs out of their products or face a massive consumer backlash. As a result, there is currently a mad rush by food companies to get their products certified by the Non-GMO Project. Across the board, products that achieve Non-GMO Project Verified status experience an almost immediate 30% increase in sales nationwide.
  Do the math: companies that use Monsanto's GM corn are punished and boycotted in the marketplace. Companies that use non-GMO corn experience huge increases in sales. In food company corporate boardrooms all across America, this is a no-brainer: dump GMOs if you want to survive.
  The same is also true for hedge funds and mutual funds: the more they invest in Monsanto, the more they stand to lose from the global outrage against Monsanto, GMOs and GM corn in particular.
  Plus, I also happen to believe there will come a day when many of the top Monsanto executives will be arrested and prosecuted for their role in carrying out crimes against humanity (not just from GMOs but also from glyphosate). When that day comes, Monsanto share prices will obviously fall through the floor. The company may, in fact, implode like a dot-com bubble, leaving investors holding worthless paper instead of valuable shares'... a kind of poetic justice for all those who furthered the means of such a destructive entity in the first place.
  See the funds that still invest in MonsantoThe mutual funds still investing in Monsanto include:Fidelity SelectAmerican CenturyRydex Basic MaterialsHartford GrowthICON MaterialsVanguard MaterialsIf you own any of these mutual funds, sell them now and invest somewhere else. Become an ''activist investor'' and put your money in companies that create a better world, not companies that destroy their world for their own selfish greed. See a more detailed list at morningstar.com.Why humanity will achieve victory against MonsantoMonsanto is at war with humanity and the planet, but humanity will achieve victory against this evil corporate force of death and destruction. It is already happening in the marketplace and across the minds and hearts of millions of activists in stand in solidarity against corporate evil.So spread the word about not just avoiding GMOs but also avoiding owning Monsanto stock in any form. If you have money invested in a mutual fund or hedge fund that owns Monsanto, sell the fund! Don't let anyone use your money to further the profits of the biotech industry. Invest your money in something that helps humanity, not harms it.
  Sources for this story include:- http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/hedge-funds-are-dumping-monsanto-co'...- http://www.insidermonkey.com/insider-trading/company/monsanto+co/1110'...- http://GMOseralini.org- http://www.naturalnews.com/039405_whole_foods_gmo_labeling_monsanto.h'...- http://www.nongmoproject.org- http://farmfutures.com/story-groups-request-enhanced-usda-oversight-g'...- http://www.morningstar.com/invest/categories/funds-holding-monsanto-c'...
  Related:
  Source:Natural News via Real Farmacy
Big pharma accused of mafiaism - dr.dk/Nyheder/Andre_sprog/English
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 21:47
  02. sep. 2013 12.48 EnglishIn a new book, Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime, Professor Peter G¸tzsche, director of the independent research institution the Nordic Cochrane Centre, launches a scathing attack on the pharmaceutical industry.
  ''I have investigated the ten largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and found that their business model satisfies the criteria for organised crime. I've also looked at other companies, and they are committing the same types of crime,'' G¸tzsche told DR News.
  Numerous convictions and settlementsG¸tzsche provides numerous examples of cases, especially in the USA, where pharmaceutical companies have been found guilty of legal violations or have made settlements worth, in some cases, billions of dollars.
  ''These cases involve defrauding of public funds that amounts to huge theft of taxpayers' money. And they often involve unlawful marketing and bribing of doctors,'' says G¸tzsche, who asserts that this type of crime is on the increase. ''The huge fines and multi-billion-dollar settlements are occurring with greater frequency than just ten years ago. We're not talking about a few rotten apples; the whole industry is rotten.''
  Tinkering with researchThe book also criticises the methods used by the pharmaceutical companies to obtain authorisation for their products.
  ''The industry designs its trials to get the results it wants. It also analyses its own data, which means there is widespread manipulation of data. If this doesn't work, it can simply not bother publishing the results of the trial,'' explained G¸tzsche.
  G¸tzsche also accuses the pharmaceutical companies of routinely concealing the deadly effects of medicines once they have come onto the market and of seeking to distribute medicines for treatments other than those for which they are authorised.
  Costing human lives''It's all about revenue. But this organised crime means that hundreds of thousands of patients are dying every year. And many of them did not even need the drugs with which they were treated,'' said G¸tzsche.
  According to G¸tzsche, medicine is the third most common cause of death in the western world after heart disease and cancer.
  No commentThe Danish Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry (LIF) received a copy of the book a few days ago, but, in spite of repeated requests, DR News has failed to obtain any comment on the charges made in the book.
  The English version of the book was published by Radcliffe a few days ago. A Danish version, D¸delig medicin og organiseret kriminalitet, will be published today as an e-book by People's Press, with a print version to be released at a later date.
PETA: Eating Chicken Wings During Pregnancy Could Affect Baby's Penis Size CBS Philly
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 21:33
  PHILADELPHIA '' FEBRUARY 1: Buffalo wings await contestants during Wing Bowl 16 at the Wachovia Center February 1, 2008 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Over 20,000 people came to watch Joey Chestnut win Wing Bowl 16 by eating 241 buffalo wings. (Photo by William Thomas Cain/Getty Images)
  PHILADELPHIA (CBS) '' Eating chicken parts '' or, more specifically, chicken wings '' could shrink your baby's man parts.
  At least, that's what PETA is alleging in advance of the National Buffalo Wing Festival.
  According to a letter from PETA to Drew Cerza, the founder of the festival, ''The latest scientific evidence shows that the sons of pregnant women who consume chicken are more likely to have smaller penises because of a chemical found in the birds' flesh.''
  ''Findings published by the Study for Future Families showed that eating poultry during pregnancy may lead to smaller penis size in male infants,'' the letter, from PETA's Lindsay Rajt, alleges.
  So, in a city where buffalo wings are a game day must and a wing-eating competition draws in thousands every year, we wanted to know: Just how true is PETA's latest claim?
  According to Women's Health Magazine, the answer is not very. The magazine says that the chemical PETA is referring to is phthalate, and while research does show it causes shorter penises in boys born to moms with the highest level of phthalate exposure, poultry isn't even a top ranking offender on the list of foods containing the chemical.
  Furthermore, Women's Health reports that phthalates are in a lot of things we use every day, from plastic containers and personal care products to spices and many foods. Your best bet for limiting your exposure to them during pregnancy is to avoid using plastic containers or consuming very processed foods.
  In conclusion, you can probably relax. Your little buffalo wing habit won't make anything else'... well, little.
VIDEO-Pelosi Uses Conversation With 5-Year-Old Grandson To Push For Attack On Syria | RealClearPolitics
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 21:25
  Please enable Javascript to watch this video
  REP. NANCY PELOSI: I'll tell you this story and then I really do have to go. My five-year-old grandson, as I was leaving San Francisco yesterday, he said to me, Mimi, my name, Mimi, war with Syria, are you yes war with Syria, no, war with Syria. And he's five years old. We're not talking about war; we're talking about action. Yes war with Syria, no with war in Syria. I said, 'Well, what do you think?' He said, 'I think no war.' I said, 'Well, I generally agree with that but you know, they have killed hundreds of children, they've killed hundreds of children there. ' And he said, five years old, 'Were these children in the United States?' And I said, 'No, but they're children wherever they are.'
  So I don't know what news he's listening to or -- but even a five year old child has to -- you know, with the wisdom of our interest has affected our interests or it affects our interests because, again, it was outside of the circle of civilized behavior. It was humanity drew a line decades ago that i think if we ignore, we do so to the peril of many other people who can suffer. (9/3/2013)
BBC News - Diana death: New information assessed by Scotland Yard
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 21:08
  18 August 2013Last updated at10:51 ETThe Metropolitan Police is assessing new information it has recently received about the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed in 1997.
  Scotland Yard said it was "scoping" the information and "assessing its relevance and credibility".
  It said it was "not a re-investigation" into the deaths of the couple in a Paris car crash on 31 August 1997.
  An inquest in 2008 found they had been unlawfully killed, partly due to the "gross negligence" of their driver.
  In a statement on Saturday evening, the Metropolitan Police said the assessment would be carried out by officers from the specialist crime and operations command.
  It added that the deaths had been "thoroughly investigated and examined" by the inquest held at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
  Reports in several British Sunday newspapers suggest there are allegations the military was involved and that information had been passed to the police by an Army source.
  A Met Police spokesman said that the force would "not discuss the source of the information" it was assessing.
  A royal spokeswoman also said there would be no comment on the matter from Prince William or Prince Harry, or from Clarence House.
  A spokesman for Dodi's father Mohamed Al Fayed said he had no comment to make, but said he would be "interested in seeing the outcome", adding that he trusted the Met to investigate the information "with vigour".
  Paparazzi on motorbikesScotland Yard said its assessment did not come under Operation Paget - the police investigation into allegations that the princess and Mr Al Fayed, her boyfriend, were murdered.
  It was a theory endorsed at the time by Mohamed Al Fayed, the then owner of London store Harrods.
  But in December 2006, the report into Operation Paget said it had found no evidence of murder and dismissed all conspiracy theories surrounding the deaths.
  Operation Paget concluded, just like the French investigation in 1999, that driver Henri Paul had been drunk and driving at excessive speed.
  Dai Davies, a former head of royal protection, told ITV news the deaths were "an accident by any definition, and three separate inquiries... have come to the same independent conclusion".
  He added: "I am absolutely convinced this was an accident so I'm mystified, after 13 years, how any new information can possibly allege anything other than that this was a tragic accident."
  Unlawful killingPrincess Diana, the former wife of the Prince of Wales and the mother of Princes William and Harry, was 36 when she died alongside Mr Al-Fayed, 42.
  Mr Paul was driving when their hired Mercedes crashed into a pillar in Paris's Pont de l'Alma tunnel.
  The crash happened after the couple had left the Ritz Hotel and were pursued by paparazzi on motorbikes. Mr Al-Fayed's bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only survivor.
  At the inquest into their deaths, the jury found the couple had been unlawfully killed and the deaths were the result of "gross negligence" on the part of Mr Paul and the paparazzi.
  The paparazzi pursuit, Mr Paul's drink-driving and a lack of seatbelts contributed to the deaths, the jury said.
  The inquest lasted more than three months and heard from 250 witnesses.
  After the hearing it was announced that its cost had reached £4.5m, with a further £8m spent on the Metropolitan Police investigation.
Concert for Sandy Relief's Robin Hood Foundation Sues Patriot Communications Over 'Millions' in Missed Donations | Billboard
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 19:17
  A charity that helped organize last year's star-packed Concert for Sandy Relief says millions of dollars in donations were left on the table due to spotty service from the company tasked with processing the donations.
  In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles superior court, the Robin Hood Foundation alleges Patriot Communications failed to "perform the core services it contracted to provide," which led to "virtually a complete blackout, during a prime portion of the event."
  12-12-12 Sandy Benefit Concert Rocks NYC With Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney,Nirvana; Raised $36 Million Before a Note Was Played
  According to the suit, Patriot's donations website could be accessed only "intermittently" between 8:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. the night of the concert, and lost "virtually all functionality" from approximately 10:06 p.m. to 11:06 p.m. The suit says Patriot processed less than $15,000 in donations during that hour long blackout, despite having processed roughly $2 million in the previous hour.
  Robin Hood alleges Patriot aggressively presented itself as the only company capable of handling the large volume of phone calls and Internet donations that would come during the concert, and exaggerated its ability to provide adequate service.
  "The event eventually raised many millions of dollars for this worthy cause, but it would have raised millions more had the efforts of many potential donors not been stymied by Patriot's gross failure," the lawsuit reads.
  Robin Hood says it paid patriot more than $1.4 million for its services, including an additional $750,000 to ensure "adequate resources" would be allocated for the event.
  The charity says after the concert, Patriot presented it with an invoice seeking an additional sum of more than $410,000 for "donor services and residual activity." Robin Hood maintains donations it missed out on during the blackout should make up for that cost.
  Robin Hood is suing for breach of contract, breach of warranty, negligence and fraud. It seeks damages of at least $5 million.
  The Concert for Sandy Relief, held Dec. 12, 2012 at Madison Square Garden, featured dozens of A-listers, including Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Paul McCartney, The Who, Eric Clapton, Roger Waters, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Billy Joel, Bon Jovi, Eddie Vedder and Dave Grohl. It raised more than $50 million.
  Robin Hood is represented by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
  Patriot did not immediately respond to request for comment.
US Air Force jet lands in Helsinki on eve of Obama visit | Yle Uutiset | yle.fi
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 18:02
  An archive photo of Helsinki Airport.Image: YleA jet identified as a US Air Force Boeing 757 was on the tarmac at Helsinki Airport on Tuesday.
  The civil aviation administration Finavia confirmed the visit but remained tight-lipped.
  ''Yes, this type of plane did make a stop in Finland,'' Finavia communications officer Kirsi Luhta told Yle. She said she could not say more about the stop-off.
  The Foreign Ministry declined comment.
  Since last autumn, the Finnish Parliamentary Ombudsman has been investigating stop-offs by US government planes in Finland. Some were allegedly involved in CIA 'extraordinary rendition' flights during the post-9/11 era.
  One night of Swedish hospitalityObama is scheduled to arrive in Stockholm on Wednesday morning after an overnight flight from Washington. That evening, he is to meet with Nordic leaders, including Finnish President Sauli Niinist¶. They will take part in a dinner hosted by Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
  After an overnight stay at a Stockholm hotel, Obama flies to St Petersburg for a G20 summit on Thursday. Before leaving, he is to meet the Swedish King and Queen '' who on Tuesday announced that their daughter Princess Madeleine is expecting her first child next spring.
  The White House hastily added the Sweden visit to Obama's schedule after he scrapped plans to meet one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow ahead of the G20 meeting. The two-day summit begins on Thursday.
Geen generaal pardon voor Syrische vluchtelingen in Nederland
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: VK: Home
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:54
  03/09/13, 17:56 '' bron: ANP
  (C) ap. Syrische vluchtelingenkinderen in het Turkse vluchtelingenkamp Yayladagi.
  In Nederland verblijven momenteel ruim 900 asielzoekers uit Syri. Die hoeven niet te hopen dat er een soort generaal pardon komt, waardoor ze allemaal kunnen blijven. Dat heeft het ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie dinsdag laten weten. Het ministerie blijft elke aanvraag individueel beoordelen.
  De Zweedse immigratiedienst besloot dinsdag tot een generaal pardon voor ongeveer 4000 Syrische vluchtelingen in het land. Zij hadden een tijdelijke verblijfsvergunning, die nu permanent wordt. Een even grote groep had eerder al een permanente verblijfsvergunning gekregen. Met hun nieuwe status kunnen de Syrirs onder meer familieleden naar Zweden halen.
  Minister Frans Timmermans van Buitenlandse Zaken meldde vandaag dat hij serieus kijkt naar de opname van Syrische vluchtelingen in Nederland omdat 'de situatie is veranderd'.
  Het zal nog een week duren voordat de minister kan zeggen of hier vluchtelingen zullen worden opgenomen. Het kabinet wilde tot dusver niets weten van opvang van vluchtelingen in ons land. Wel hebben 30 Syrirs de mogelijkheid gekregen om een jaar in ons land te studeren.
  Timmermans zal de kwestie van de Syrische vluchtelingen deze week aansnijden tijdens een treffen met zijn EU-collega's in Vilnius. Timmermans meent dat een aantal landen meer kan doen.
Boehner 'Supports' President's Call for Action On Syria
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  Archived Version
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:53
  MRC TV is an online platform for people to share and view videos, articles and opinions on topics that are important to them -- from news to political issues and rip-roaring humor.
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  Copyright (C) 2013, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
Today: Join Activists In 33 Global Cities To Protest Russia's Anti-Gay Human Rights Crackdown
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  Source: 33 World News
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:52
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Background Briefing by Senior Administration Officials on Syria
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:50
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  August 30, 2013
  Via Conference Call
  1:20 P.M. EDT MS. HAYDEN: Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us on what we know is a busy day. We are doing this call on background with senior administration officials to talk to you about the documents you just received -- the U.S. government assessment of the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons on August 21st. The call is on background. There is no embargo. And with that, I will toss it over to our first senior administration official. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks, everybody, for getting on the call. You should have in front of you or you can access an unclassified U.S. government assessment of the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons, as Caitlin said. We should also be releasing, if not already, a map that goes along with that that details some of the places that are discussed in the assessment. I'll just note a few of the points that we draw your attention to in the assessment, and then turn it over to my colleague to discuss a little bit more the process. Importantly, this is a high confidence assessment that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21st, 2013. We draw from all types of information to inform this assessment, including the open-source information we've discussed with you in recent days, which I think makes it undeniable that a mass casualty attack took place, as well as intelligence. And of course, in dealing with intelligence there's declassification procedures and we worked to make available as much information as possible, but clearly for sources and methods purposes, some information remains classified but is being shared with both Congress and international partners. I'd just note a few things -- first of all, that this intelligence assessment as well as a broader assessment draws from multiple streams of information. It includes a preliminary U.S. government assessment that determined that 1,429 people were killed in the attack, including at least 426 children. And again, that's a preliminary assessment. It's certainly plausible that that number could, tragically, rise. Then we provide some background on the Syrian chemical weapons program, which you've heard us talk about frequently over the last several months. I'll just point beyond that background to the discussion of the locations in question. This attack took place in an area where the Syrian regime had initiated an effort to rid Damascus suburbs of opposition forces. The regime had failed to clear dozens of Damascus neighborhoods of opposition elements, and that includes the neighborhoods targeted on August 21st. This is despite the fact that they had employed nearly all of their conventional weapons systems. So an assessed motivation for the regime's use of chemical weapons is their frustration at their inability to clear these neighborhoods. And importantly, the map will show to you that the attack came -- originated from regime-controlled areas and went into 12 neighborhoods, 12 sites that are opposition controlled or contested. Similarly, we have intelligence that leads us to assess that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were preparing chemical munitions prior to the attack. In the three days prior to the attack we collected streams of human signals and geospatial intelligence that revealed regime activities that we assessed were associated with preparations for a chemical attack. So I draw your attention to this section on preparations. That includes discussion of certain precautions that were taken by Syrian regime elements for chemical weapons impact, including the utilization of gasmasks. Then we go through a narrative of our understanding of what took place with the attack. This includes intelligence that indicates the regime executing a rocket and artillery attack against the Damascus suburbs in the early hours of August 21st. Our satellite detections corroborate that attacks came from a regime-controlled area and struck neighborhoods where the chemical attacks reportedly occurred. And we go through those neighborhoods. And then this was followed by the explosion of open-source information about chemical weapons being used in these neighborhoods -- from social media, from a variety of credible international organizations who report thousands of people showing up at hospitals with symptoms of a nerve agent. So, essentially, the sequence is the intelligence that we have from multiple sources on personnel preparing for a chemical weapons attack, rockets leaving from that area -- regime-controlled area -- and going into these opposition neighborhoods or contested neighborhoods, then a very significant preponderance of open-source information that corresponds with a chemical weapons attack.
  Then, to conclude, what I draw your attention to on the final page of the document, the paragraph that concludes with ''We have a body of information,'' that includes ''past Syrian practice that leads us to conclude that regime officials were witting of and directed the attack'...We intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were [being] used by the regime on August 21st, and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence.'' And on that afternoon, we also have intelligence that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were directed to cease their operations. In addition, you've heard us discuss the uptick in shelling. We have in our assessment here that the regime intensified the artillery barrage targeting these specific neighborhoods where chemical attacks occurred. And to give an illustration of that, in the 24-hour period after the attack, the indications of artillery and rocket fire were four times higher than the 10 preceding days. And that shelling was sustained for several days afterwards. And you've heard us make the point that a regime that has nothing to hide would not escalate its bombardment by four times of these neighborhoods if they wanted to permit a credible investigation into what took place. So, again, we have a high confidence assessment that a chemical weapons attack took place and that the Assad regime was responsible. I'll now turn it over to my colleague who can walk you through a little bit more the process by which we arrived at this. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'm going to touch on two pieces before we look forward to your questions. One is how was the paper put together, a little bit on the methodology; and then, two, just kind of the broad strokes on how we got to the high confidence assessment. So, first, the paper. It's fully vetted within the U.S. intelligence community. All members of the IC participated in its development. It also is completely sourced. By that, I mean that when the DNI approved our submission to this process, it had to be done so that we could track every statement that we're making here with our core analytic line on the classified line. As my colleague has mentioned, it won't have the detail that we can and do share with our congressional partners as well as our international allies, but I just wanted to reaffirm that the broad and underlying assessment is the same. What goes into that assessment? My colleague talked about the streams. I'm happy to try to answer your questions if you have additional, but first, it's the history of this program. This is not a new program; it's decades old. It's vast. It's extensive. And it's very well run. And so we continue to assess that this program is tightly commanded and tightly controlled. Two is past use. And so we made an assessment in late May and early June that we presented, again with high confidence, that the regime had, in fact, directed small-scale use against the opposition to include in the Damascus suburbs previously. And so there's that history. Three is the effectiveness of the program. I spoke to the control; we do assess that those individuals who are recruited or assigned to this program are carefully vetted and screened for two reasons -- for security and effect. And then there is the instances leading up to the 21st, from the activity that we detected from Sunday through early Wednesday morning Syria time. Those are the preparations that my colleague hit the highlights of. Then there's the activity itself, so this is early Monday morning hours on the 21st through that afternoon cessation of operations that we detected. And then finally, it's the indications that we've seen since the event -- the artillery fire to cover; the inability to gain access to obtain evidence immediately; and then regime precautions vis- -vis the potential for, as I said, the U.N. inspectors collecting said evidence. And I think I'll stop there and see what questions we have. Q I was wondering if you could just explain a little bit the piece that you talked about where the personnel were directed to cease operations -- if you could explain what that means, what that indicates to you other than obviously a certain amount of direction. But what's the broader significance of it? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Sure. To me, it does two things. You spoke to one of them. There's the control, the command-and-control. But it also speaks to I think a level of concern on their part vis- -vis potential detection and attribution. Again, our insight is always limited and so we build upon those pieces. But in this case, it mainly provided us additional confidence that this was a commanded operation. Q And can you say anything -- when you say that we have intelligence that they were directed to cease operations, you right before that referred to intercepts. Should we assume then that it was something other than intercepts? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I guess what I'd prefer you assume is the entire paper is built upon human intelligence, signals intelligence, geospatial intelligence, and open source. And we need to stress that we are leveraging heavily both open social media as well as NGO and medical reporting. In this case, I think I'd be most comfortable staying with the line as it is in the paper. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: But it is intelligence -- SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Absolutely. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: -- again, the open source. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: And can I just add an alibi for my opening? Look, as we enter into this space for the intelligence community, it's not kind of our normal position. So what we have to weigh is how well we can present the case, first, to our customers -- in this case, to the public. At the same time, we've got to balance our ability to do our job tomorrow, and that's the sources and methods piece we seek to protect and that's the balance we seek to find. And so, in this case, I think the paper found the right balance. Q There's been some speculation in response to the question of why the Assad regime would think this was a good thing and something they could get away with, that perhaps there was some miscalculation about the amount of the poison or the target choices. Do you have any indication that that was the case? Or is it your conclusion that what happened was exactly what they intended to happen? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'll just go first. I'd, first of all, point you to -- well, to a number of things -- first of all, the high confidence assessment from earlier in the year that chemical weapons were being used and had been introduced to the battlefield by the Syrian regime, albeit on a much smaller scale than what we saw on August 21st. Secondly, this has been an area that the regime has actively sought to clear and to take control of. And as the map will show you, these were attacks in two neighborhoods that have been contested or that were opposition controlled. And in fact, some of these neighborhoods had been a base of operations for the opposition in the Damascus area. So there was certainly a motivation for the regime. And our intelligence community has assessed in the past that chemical weapons are introduced in order to break that type of stalemate. The only other thing I'd say before turning it over is that I think what you're struck by when you look at this is just how broad this attack was. You're talking about 12 different locations. You're talking about the use of rockets. You're talking about over a thousand dead in that preliminary assessment. So whatever the exact calculation was, there's simply no question that a significant attack was initiated in a regime-controlled area, tracking the intelligence we have in terms of preparations that regime personnel were making, and went into this opposition area. But I turn it over to my colleague for me. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I mean, you spoke to, and we wrote in the paper, about the potential motivation deriving from the frustration they've had with the opposition control of these suburbs. Let me pile on that or add to by saying that -- why now? If indeed, the regime had intentions to make a serious surge and push on Aleppo, they most likely needed to free up resources that were being held down by these opposition areas. So as my colleague mentioned and as we say in the paper and have said before, unfortunately, we assess that the regime considers chemical weapons in its portfolio of military use. It is not considered an extraordinary measure in which it is only used in very particular cases. In this case it appears that they chose to use it in a densely populated area, and obviously had horrendous effects. But again, to go back to the Aleppo case, I think that you can make a case that they were trying to secure their home front, their home capital so they could further invest in a potential push towards Aleppo. Q Just to make sure I understand, you are saying unequivocally that you have no indication that either the scale or the targets of this attack were a mistake? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We have no indication of that. That's correct. Q A question about Assad. Just to confirm, is there any evidence, any solid evidence pointing to Assad directly ordering the attack? And I'm just wondering what your assessment is on how he gives orders for chemical weapons. Does he give -- has he given a blanket order to the commanders that they can use it whenever? Or does he have to approve each one? What is your assessment on his role in these attacks? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: What I'd like to go to is go to the baseline set of fundamentals that I spoke to about what goes into it. And so that's the history of the program and our insights that we've had into how it's run and how it's managed. So we do assess that he's the decision-maker and he's ultimately in charge of employment. I'd rather not speak to, here, particulars about how that's executed on a day-to-day basis. I can just say with confidence that we assess overall use, overall program is firmly under his control. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: And I'd just say one thing to add to that, and the document does point to some chain of command with Assad as the decision-maker -- the SSRC as a subordinate unit of the Syrian Ministry of Defense, and then these specific SSRC personnel who were at and around the site where these rockets were launched from. So we establish to that extent how this works through the chain of command without getting into the types of details that my colleague mentioned. The only other thing I'd say here, though, is that the United States made clear some time ago that President Assad is responsible for the use of chemical weapons by his regime. And there can be no doubt about that. And we made that clear publicly that if the Assad regime employs chemical weapons, he is the responsible party. And that's been our consistent position throughout this. So what we have here is a high confidence assessment that his regime carried out this chemical weapons attack, and that violates a clear international norm -- and also the clear indication that ultimately President Assad is the one who is accountable for what takes place in terms of the employment of the Syrian regime's chemicals weapons stockpile. Q I was wondering if you could talk a little about this map and the number of attack sites that are listed on that map, and what kind of capabilities went into carrying that out and what it says about Assad's overall capabilities. Because one of the questions is about whether or not there's a strike. I think a big question is can a strike of a limited extent really knock out these capabilities, because it seems as if, just judging by that map, that the capabilities are fairly robust. I wanted to get your comment. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: So I'd just offer an initial comment to clarify the map. The map represents the neighborhoods that were attacked by chemical weapons. So these are not neighborhoods where Syrian regime CW is stored; these are areas that were targeted by the Syrian regime in this chemical weapons attack. I will note that in the preparations area we note that the Syrian chemical weapons personnel were operating in the Damascus suburb of Adra from Sunday August 18th until the early morning on August 21st, which is near an area that the regime uses to mix chemical weapons, including sarin. So what the map shows is where the attacks initiated from in terms of regime-held areas and where they went into. To your point about the stockpile and the potential response, first of all, let me begin by saying that the President has not made a final determination about a course of action. What I would say is we'd be focused on the issue of chemical weapons as what the Assad regime needs to be held accountable for. As you've heard us say, we are not contemplating an open-ended military intervention, or a military intervention that is meant to impose regime change. We are contemplating something to make clear that the international norm against the use of chemical weapons and the national security interests of the United States that are implicated by the mass casualty use of chemical weapons must prompt accountability for the Assad regime. In doing that, I wouldn't get into potential options for the United States in carrying out specific targets. But what I would say is our response would be tied to the issue of chemical weapons use. Q Just to follow up, based on just the intelligence assessment and what you gathered about the chemical weapons capabilities of the Assad regime, are they more extensive or less extensive than what was previously known? Does this attack in some way shed some new light on that? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No. I mean, again, our insights into the history and the scope and the prior use of this program is fairly extensive. And so, as we've said, it's a very large program. It's a very capable and it's a very well-run program. So there isn't anything that we learned really new other than, again, their willingness to employ it in greater measure than we had seen in the past. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Just real quick on that, I think that the very significant size of the Syrian chemical weapons program has been evident to the world for a long time. What is different about this, as you look at that map, is the scale of this attack. Earlier in the year, we were looking to piece together an intelligence case -- and we did -- that focused on a small scale of use. And even calculating up the different instances that we were focused on, we settled on 100-150, for instance, as a casualty estimate. This is a much larger scale of use. It's indiscriminate. It's mass casualty. It was immediately apparent to the world. And I don't think there's any doubt to the world that a chemical weapons attack took place, given the thousands of sources -- people on the ground, videos, social media -- that you've heard us reference. But again, I think what's different about this is the scale, indiscriminate nature, and dramatic impact of this CW attack. Q Number one, can you confirm that the President is going to speak on this at 2:15 p.m.? And, second of all, on the question of what was collected the days before the attack, did you actually get samples of the chemicals? And what did you do? Did you evaluate it before the fact, or not until after? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'll just say a couple of things and then turn it over to my colleague. First of all, I'd anticipate that the -- well, I don't want to get ahead of the President. I anticipate that he'll address this to some extent, but he'll be doing so in the context of meeting with three important allies of the United States as well. So I think Secretary Kerry's statement at length lays out where the United States views this issue. And the President will have an opportunity to address it in his comments, just as he was able to address this issue on Wednesday as well. In terms of the second question, I'd say that the intelligence that we're talking about in terms of preparation comes from other sources of collection. And we specify in here that we are dealing with streams of human signals and geospatial intelligence -- so that's rather specific for an unclassified document -- and that that intelligence is what revealed the regime activities that we assess are associated with preparations for a chemical weapons attack. And then, we go on to note the neighborhood and site at which we believe chemical weapons personnel were operating. In terms of physiological samples, we do not -- we have physiological samples from the previous assessment, which you'll remember was informed in part by those samples. But given how shortly ago this attack took place, we have not included physiological samples in this assessment. That would have to be something that has a longer time lag in terms of collecting that type of information. I would note, however, that in the past instances, physiological samples were, of course, very critical to determining the agent used in the previously assessed attacks. Here, the fact of a chemicals weapons attack has not been in question or in doubt in the international community. The overwhelmingly available information -- videos of people clearly suffering from the effects of a nerve agent; the report that we've had from doctors, medical personnel on the ground, both Syrian and international; the reports we've seen and we cite in here from an NGO that speaks to a massive influx of patients in the exact timeframe after these rockets were fired, and the symptoms that people suffered. So we have a significant amount of other evidence that points to a chemical weapons attack, which is why I think you've seen the international community accept the fact that the chemical weapons attack took place. And what we do here is piece together all of the information that we've pulled in about the culpability of the Assad regime in that attack. Q Just to clarify, are you saying he'll speak at the Baltic leaders spray around quarter after 2:00, and then make a further address before a strike, or whatever it is that he's decided to do? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'm not going to get -- no, I was just saying it's likely that he will address Syria in his meeting with the Baltic leaders, including in his public comments. That, obviously, won't be a lengthy presentation. On the second address that you were seeking to have me confirm, we have no additional remarks by the President to preview. The fact of the matter is he'll have to make a decision, but he certainly will keep the American people informed as he does. And I'd also note he also concluded an NSC meeting here at the White House on Syria this morning in which he was able to meet with all of his top national security team to discuss the situation in Syria. I want to see if my colleague has anything on this. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, I don't think so. Q Actually, my question was asked. But let me just ask when Secretary Kerry said that the President will continue talking to the American people and Congress, what does he mean by that? Is this more evidence that he needs to provide, especially to Congress? And also, since Assad used weapons of mass destruction and you already clearly said that he's accused of crime against humanity, would you like to see him tried in The Hague as a war criminal? Thank you. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Let me take your first question. Well, let me take your second question first, actually. As it relates to President Assad, look, what we're contemplating would be a military response that is, as I said, limited and tailored and focused on the issue of chemical weapons -- because it violates a fundamental international norm. It poses a direct threat, of course, to the Syrian people who have suffered so much at the hands of Assad and his regime, and also to the national security of the United States, given our interest in preventing the use or proliferation of chemical weapons; given friends and allies that we have in the region, including neighboring countries like Turkey and Jordan as well as Israel; and given our broader security presence and partners in the region. And fundamentally, as you heard Secretary Kerry say, doing nothing sends a message to those in the future, whether they be dictators or terrorist groups, that you can carry out chemical weapons attacks with impunity. With respect to the future of President Assad, we are not contemplating a military effort aimed at regime change. What we have said, though, and what we will continue to do is pursue a strategy in Syria that seeks to strengthen the opposition, including through the provision of many different types of assistance. And we are coordinating our efforts and providing that assistance with other countries in the region and other allies and partners. It includes significant efforts to deal with the humanitarian crisis, including the many hundreds of thousands of refugees who are currently in neighboring countries like Jordan and Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey. And it also includes a political effort, because we actually don't believe that there's a military solution to the conflict in Syria. So what we would like to see is a situation where there's a political process in which Bashar al-Assad leaves power. Because, frankly, we think he's lost the legitimacy to lead. Anybody who has carried out the attacks he has against his population is not a legitimate leader in our eyes. And, frankly, the use of chemical weapons only reinforces that point. So we will continue to work through the Geneva process to support a future for Syria in which Assad does not play a role. And in terms of accountability, our first order of business is dealing with CW. We're, of course, focused on the broader transition. And we will have to see what form accountability takes for President Assad and other members of his regime. What we've said in the past is people should consider the decisions that they make. To associate with their regime they would commit a violation of international law like the use of chemical weapons. So those around President Assad I think should consider the type of accountability that they will face in the long run from the international community for this use. What was the first question again? Q When Secretary Kerry said that the President will continue to talk to the American people and Congress, what more evidence would he want to present? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, this is something we're doing on a daily basis. And last night, we had a Cabinet-level consultation with the leadership of both houses of Congress and the chairs and ranking members of relevant national security committees. We're going to continue to reach out to Congress on a daily basis. This assessment is being provided to Congress and additional classified assessments are being provided to Congress as well. We take very seriously our responsibility to inform Congress. But the bottom line is we feel like our case is strong, our case is clear that the Assad regime is responsible for this mass-casualty chemical weapons attack. And, similarly, with the American people, we'll continue to speak publicly, as Secretary Kerry did today, as the President has been doing, as other senior members of the administration have been doing, to explain to them how we are viewing the situation, the information that we have that is informing our decisions. And of course, when the President makes a decision, we will communicate that robustly to the American people as well. So this is something that's been an ongoing process and we'll continue to do so, given the seriousness of the issue. Q I have a couple quick questions. Just on logistics, first of all, you said that the classified version or additional classified information is being handed over to leadership in Congress. Has that already happened? Do they have that, or is that happening simultaneous to this release -- would be the first question. And I'll ask the second one now as well, if I could -- more an editorial. When you say that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Army had become just part of their portfolio and that was just another armament in their bag of tricks, does that not in some way say that this could have been a rogue group who has that already ready to use? Does it not layer Mr. Assad from the actual launch control of this weapon? And what is your strongest link to Assad that you have, the actual strongest link? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: On the first question, with respect to provision of intelligence to the Hill, that's been ongoing from day one. They did get our first full classified IC product on the 26th of August. They will receive the update that's being produced today that underlies the unclassified piece that you've had. We're actually having classified briefings for staff members this afternoon. So that's a continual provision of intelligence. On your second question, to answer your question, no, it would not absolve Assad, because it wasn't just the preparations that we detected in those three days in advance of Wednesday; it was also the people that were involved. And they were the people that are responsible for his program. There's a chain of command from him to them. And so we looked at all other explanations and scenarios to test the case, and the scenario that we're presenting here, that this was executed under the command and control of the Assad regime, was strengthened because of the people who were involved. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'd just add to that and just to draw attention on the preparation, we'd note the SSRC personnel who are within the chain of command through the Defense Ministry. And then, on the back end of the attack, you'll note the intercepted communications of a senior official confirming the use of chemical weapons, expressing concern about the U.N. inspectors. And then, you also have Syrian chemical weapons personnel directed to cease operations. So they're different -- or they're multiple points in the document and in this progression of events that implicate different individuals who have a connection to the Syrian regime, and specifically its chemical weapons program. Q You said that the President has not made a final determination on how to proceed. Why has the President not made a decision on how to proceed? Is he waiting for Congress, support from allies? What exactly?
  SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, first of all, it's important for the President to be prudent and careful in his decision-making given the seriousness of the issue. What is clear to us is what happened. And what is clear to us is that there needs to be consequences and accountability for the Assad regime. In terms of the timing of his decision, he is receiving -- has received, I should say, options from the military and also from his broader national security team about potential courses of action. At the same time, we are very aggressively consulting with Congress and providing them with the information that we have as soon as we can related to the intelligence. And we're also reaching out to them for their input about what we should have under consideration as the President makes a decision. So that's a two-way discussion where we provide them with our assessment and our thinking, and we want to hear from them what their thoughts are about the situation. Just to continue, I would note that Congress has been, I think, strong on this set of issues for many years -- the Chemical Weapons Convention, for instance, which undergirds the norm, had strong support in Congress. The Syria Accountability Act and other measures have expressed concern. But given this decision, we very much need to continue to consult with Congress to determine how we are going to go forward and to keep them updated on any decision the President makes. On the international side, I just wanted to add we are consulting with a variety of international partners, and the President is speaking with other leaders. And it's important to do that as well given the expressions of support we've had from many other countries, given the fact that this is rooted in an international norm. So those international consultations are also important to the President's decision-making. But, ultimately, he will make the decision that is in the best interest of the United States on his timeline. Q I'm wondering, you said in the assessment and today on the call that you had signs that the chemical attack was coming, that there were preparations for it. I was wondering if there were any diplomatic avenues that you tried before the attack to prevent this from happening, or were you just not aware -- you didn't anticipate the scale that it was going to be on. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'd just say a couple of things and hand it over to my colleague here. First of all, we have actually pursued diplomatic efforts to forestall the use of chemical weapons. One of the reasons why the President has spoken out publicly about this is to deter the use of chemical weapons. At various junctures over the last year, when we saw particularly concerning things, we were able to demarche diplomatically a variety of different countries so that the Syrian government would get the message that the use of chemical weapons violated a fundamental international norm. That includes, by the way, direct messaging to the Syrian government as well. So that as a general matter, in the last year since the President raised the level of attention on this issue last summer, we have at times pursued diplomatic efforts as well as public efforts to message the Syrian government to understand that it should not employ that use of chemical weapons in violation of international norms. But my colleague can speak to the specific information in question. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: As to the indicators that we have of preparations, let me just say in this forum that timelines for all of our streams of intelligence are different. And so, in some cases, we can and do get something close to real time; and other times, because of the nature of the access or the procedure or the process, there is some built-in delay. And again, I don't want to add more here as to what's on our capability side, but just to say that we feel confident that we can, in fact, identify that those preparations occurred. They were under the regime control and thus implemented from above. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We're going to have to make that the last question. Again, you should have the assessment and the map that accompanies it. And we appreciate the questions and will stay in touch with you as we go forward. MS. HAYDEN: Thanks, everyone. Just a reminder, that was on background with senior administration officials. Thanks. END 2:05 P.M. EDT
Letter from the President -- Authorization for the Use of United States Armed Forces in Connection with the Conflict in Syria
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:48
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  August 29, 2013
  TEXT OF A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
  TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
  AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
  August 31, 2013
  Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)
  I transmit herewith the attached draft legislation regarding Authorization for Use of United States Armed Forces in connection with the conflict in Syria.
  Sincerely,
  BARACK OBAMA
Vermont Yankee is latest victim in Big Oil's price war against nuclear competition
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Atomic Insights
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:45
  This recent interview on Platts Energy Week makes it clear that low natural gas prices in North America are partially responsible for pushing nuclear power plants off of the grid.
  Natural gas prices in the US are about 1/3 of global average prices; in any other commodity market, that would be a clear indication of a practice known as ''dumping''. That practice is often done with the underlying motive of eliminating competition in preparation for later price increases. Since the multi-year US natural gas glut has been assisted by capital injections from multinational oil and gas companies, it seems obvious to me that keeping prices low in North America is part of the petroleum industry's long term growth strategy.
  It is my contention that even small nuclear plants can compete against natural gas when gas is priced at a level that is profitable for the supplier. When some of the suppliers in the market use their immense cash flows from selling oil to drill enough gas wells to keep its price below the actual cost of production, that seems to indicate that there are other strategies in play.
  Feel free to disagree and challenge my logic. It will be an interesting conversation.
  Full disclosure: Since I have a day job on a design team for a small modular reactor, I have a strong vested interest when a financial analyst implies that 560 (Kewaunee) or 620 (Vermont Yankee) MWe nuclear power plants are too small to effectively compete. The plants my employer is designing will produce 360 MWe in a standard two-unit configuration. The thoughts and opinions I express on the Internet is my own and do not necessarily reflect the position of my employer.
HPV Vaccines: Japan requires disclosure of side effects
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: SaneVax, Inc.
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:35
  By Norma Erickson
  Are acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) and Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) adverse reactions to HPV vaccines? Health authorities in Japan are not sure at this point, but they have chosen to apply the precautionary principle and inform medical consumers just in case.
  On March 26, 2013, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare informed GlaxoSmithKline they had 30 days to alter the package insert for Cervarix by adding the following to the Precautions/Adverse Reactions section:
  Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM): Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) may occur. In such cases, pyrexia, headache, convulsion, movement disorder, and disturbed consciousness, etc., generally occur within several days to 2 weeks after vaccination. If ADEM is suspected, diagnosis should be made by MRI etc., and appropriate measures should be taken.
  Guillain-Barre syndrome: Guillain-Barre syndrome may occur. If any symptoms such as flaccid paralysis originating from the distal extremities, decreased or absent tendon reflexes, appropriate measures should be taken.
  The directive was not addressed to Merck because the package insert for Gardasil already had a reference to the risks of ADEM and GBS at the time of the directive's issuance.
  The reason for this action? During the first three years of using HPV vaccines, 3 cases of ADEM and five cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome had been reported after Cervarix injections for which a causality to the drug could not be ruled out.1
  As a point of reference, there have been 31 cases of ADEM and 121 reports of Guillain-Barr(C) Syndrome filed with the United States VAERS (vaccine adverse event reporting system) after HPV vaccinations2 during the last seven years. The FDA has made no request that these conditions be added to the package inserts. What is wrong with this picture?
  How many reports of ADEM or GBS have been filed in your country after HPV vaccinations? Have your government health officials required any modifications to the HPV vaccine package inserts?
  Why did Japan take this bold step?At first glance, the Japanese ministry's action may give the impression that they acted on their belief in the principle of informed consent.
  However, Toshie Ikeda, secretary general of the Nationwide Liaison Association of Cervical Cancer Vaccine Victims and Parents in Japan and Dr. Sotaro Sato, director of the Sato Cardiovascular Internal Medicine Hospital in Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture, believe the ministry's action requires deep analysis. Two motivations appear to be behind their move, with one outweighing the other.
  They said the first possible motive is a sincere desire to make medical doctors and other intellectuals aware of the essential nature of severe adverse effects of the HPV vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, in order to prevent further cases of severe damage to the health of millions of teenage girls who would otherwise be administered injections of the two vaccines during coming years.
  The other possibility is fear of potential lawsuitsbeing filed by the association on behalf of numerous desperate families whose beloved, previously healthy daughters have been seriously impaired, paralyzed or horribly devastated by HPV vaccinations. Japanese courts would be likely to find health bureaucrats responsible for the serious adverse effects inflicted on the girls if they did not take precautionary measures beforehand and leave some evidence that could later be used to prove they had at least tried to do something to block the further spread of health impairments to upcoming generations of teenage girls. This would be a particular problem if the government moves to reinstate their recommendation of these vaccines during the current fiscal year ending on 31 March 2014, due to pressure from politicians and academics with financial ties or other links to the vaccine manufacturers, lobbying activities, and consulting 'experts' hired by the manufacturers.
  You see, under Japanese law bureaucrats found to have neglected their duty to inform medical consumers of serious risks involved with taking medicines, vaccines and other medical products can be prosecuted and severely punished.
  A high-profile precedent was established in 2008, when the Supreme Court upheld a Tokyo High Court ruling imposing a sentence of one year imprisonment on former senior ministry bureaucrat Akihito Matsumura¸ with a two-year stay, for neglecting his obligation to order pharmaceutical companies to stop selling unheated blood coagulants contaminated with the AIDS virus.
  Chief Justice Yu­­­ki Furuta, of the nation's top court, stated in the decision issued on March 3:
  ''Unheated blood products in this case were being used widely at the time of this (infection) incident and the products included a sizable number of products contaminated with the AIDS virus. The accused could have foreseen that if the products were used, numerous people would nearly inevitably get infected with the virus and develop the AIDS, causing many of the users to die eventually.''
  Ikeda, who spearheaded the association, is currently being assisted by some of Japan's best medical scientists, some politicians with strong morals, and intellectuals concerned about the fate of numerous teenage girls who have been victimized, or may be victimized in the future, unless the HPV vaccination policy is discontinued. She stated Saturday:
  ''It is still unknown which motivation was the bureaucrats' primary concern when they demanded the revision of the package insert on March 26. The movements of the association have been closely monitored by the health ministry's bureaucracy.''
  Dr. Sato stated Friday he is also aware of the two possible implications of the directive issued by the ministry. He said:
  ''It is truly commendable that some conscientious bureaucrats at the ministry appear to have made serious efforts to alert relevant people with the directive and instruct pharmaceutical manufacturers to add references to a possible outbreak of ADEM and GBS to their package inserts. But, bureaucrats' desire to avoid being held responsible by courts at a later date for neglecting their supervisory and regulatory duties; thus increasing the number of victims appears to have played a greater part in motivating the ministry to issue the directive.
  The revision to the package inserts would make a meaningful difference, if a lawsuit were filed down the track. With the issuance of the directive, bureaucrats would be able to tell victims, parents and their supporters that the ministry had issued an important warning on possible adverse effects and that the victimized are therefore responsible, as they simply did not notice the reference to the risks thus included in the insert.''
  Dr. Sato called attention to the coincidental dates: with the association holding the first meeting of vaccine victims and their parents on March 25 '' one day before the issuance of the directive. The ministry must have been following a string of events leading to the establishment of the association for which people of good intentions joined forces to free victims from their agony and prevent the drug manufacturers, medical associations and government from producing more victims, whether unintentionally, through half-awareness and knowledge of adverse events, or due to callous indifference to possible serious consequences of HPV vaccines on girls' health.
  Dr. Sato called attention to another key dimension of the HPV vaccination issue now being faced by numerous doctors in Japan and elsewhere, when he stated:
  ''When a doctor sees a girl who developed various symptoms caused by ADEM or GBS following vaccination, he or she would not be able to recognize the symptoms as those resulting from ADEM or GBS unless that doctor had deep knowledge of neurological disorders or diseases. It is not easy for doctors to associate symptoms they are seeing with ADEM or GBS. In Japan, the percentage of doctors who can recognize the symptoms of girls who one day come to see them as consequences of ADEM must be less than 0.1 percent of our doctors' population.''
  Government authorities need to draw up and issue unified diagnostic criteria to help doctors recognize symptoms induced by ADEM and GBS as such and call the attention of doctors to said criteria. Most doctors who may see vaccine-ravaged girls in the future must be made familiar with the symptoms.
  Dr. Sato warned:
  ''Merely getting drug makers to alter the package insert is not adequate to increase the awareness of doctors and medical consumers of the potential risks of these two vaccines. Unless the government makes very serious efforts to direct attention to the possible horrible adverse effects of these vaccines, it is likely many doctors will continue administering injections of the vaccines without being able to pay necessary levels of attention to the causal link between the vaccines and their adverse effects.''
  Japanese politicians speak28 March 2013, a select Committee for Health, Welfare and Labor held a special session so questions about HPV vaccines could be addressed prior to a parliamentary vote on whether to add three diseases, cervical cancer being one of them, to the list of vaccines whose cost should be fully covered by the government under the nation's existing Preventive Vaccination Law.3
  Of the 722 members of Japan's Parliament, two voices have repeatedly questioned the sanity of universal HPV vaccinations in Japan, particularly strongly both on the parliamentary floor and via the mass media. One voice was Ms. Tomoko Hata, Member of Parliament, but not a member of the Committee for Health, Welfare and Labor. The other was that of Mrs. Eriko Yamatani, a former aide to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe's Liberal Democratic Party toppled the leftist-dominated Democratic Party of Japan in a general election for the House of Representatives, the more powerful of Japan's bicameral parliamentary system, only on December 16, 2012, with Abe assuming the premiership on December 26.
  Ms. Hata made sure those present at the question and answer session were made aware of the following facts about HPV and cervical cancer in Japan:
  The proportion of Japanese women who carry HPV types 16/18 is much lower than women in western countries. (0.5% for HPV 16 and 0.2% for HPV 18)More than 99.1% of the carriers of human papillomavirus will not get cancer.90% of those exposed to HPV will discharge/clear the virus in 2 years.90% of those who develop very early signs of cervical cancer (cervical dysplasia) will recover spontaneously.The number of serious adverse effects reported was 52 times greater after Cervarix than reports after flu vaccinations; 26 times higher after Gardasil than after flu vaccinations.The same day, Japan's Parliament voted to include cervical cancer in the list of vaccines that are fully subsidized by the government under the law. Hata voted against the proposed inclusion, while Yamatani and a few others abstained on the vote.
  Four years earlier, on October 16, 2009, the government of Japan, which was still under the control of the leftist DPJ-led government approved the sale of Cervarix in Japan. Then, on February 1, 2011, the government began spending taxpayer money via a partial subsidy program, under which the cost of HPV vaccines was split between the central government and local prefectural governments across the nation. Under this program, the central government put up 15 billion yen under the ''emergency promotion program.'' After the subsidy program was put in place, the marketing of Gardasil was approved on July 1, 2011. The DPJ-led government and the health ministry jointly adopted a policy of fully subsidizing the vaccines on May 23, 2012, despite the fact they were aware of reports of outbreaks of numerous cases of adverse reactions among recipients. This was followed by a change of power last December.
  Since the coalition government of Abe's LDP and the New Komeito Party, as well as opposition parties overwhelmingly voted to start fully subsidizing HPV vaccines on March 28, 2013, the government set aside 100 billion yen for the fiscal year that started on April 1st.
  Because the LDP-led government took over the health ministry's bureaucracy, which had cooperated with the DPJ-led government, it also took over the agreement to fully subsidize HPV vaccine administration. The new administration found it difficult to correct and jettison the wrong policy while the vaccine manufacturers continued to lobby to preserve the full subsidization policy through various channels and connections with powerful political circles.
  Cervical cancer vaccine victims and parents organizeMeanwhile, victims of serious adverse reactions throughout Japan organized under the Nationwide Liaison Association of Cervical Cancer Vaccine Victims and Parents. Through the collection of adverse event reports from individuals (see link to chart below[4]), they began to understand that the officially reported adverse events were merely the 'tip of the iceberg.'
  This organization is currently petitioning government health officials to:
  Ban the use of HPV vaccines in their country and acknowledge HPV vaccine injuriesEstablish treatment for HPV vaccine victimsProvide financial relief for HPV vaccine victimsInvestigate all who have been inoculated with HPV vaccinesInclude the nation's top neurological scientist, who saw dozens of victims, in a health ministry committee on the fate of the vaccinesJapan suspends HPV vaccine recommendationThe Nationwide Liaison Association of Cervical Cancer Vaccine Victims and Parents has apparently made an impression on their government health officials.
  In an unprecedented move, less than three months after pushing legislation through Parliament granting full subsidization of HPV vaccines, government officials in Japan suspended that recommendation pending the outcome of investigations into the safety of Gardasil and Cervarix.5, 6
  On the same day the HPV vaccine recommendation was suspended, 14 June 2013, the health ministry issued another directive to the chairman of the committee on safety of medicines at the Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association of Japan in the name of Tomiko Tawaragi, Director of Safety Division, Pharmaceutical and Food Safety Bureau.7 This letter required the manufacturers of Gardasil and Cervarix to add the following to the 'Precautions' section of their package inserts within the next 30 days:
  ''Although the mechanisms of pathogenesis are unclear, severe pain which is not localized at the injection site (e.g. muscle pain, arthralgia and skin pain, etc.), numbness, weakness, etc., may occur after vaccination and these symptoms may persist for long time. Vaccine recipients and their guardians should be instructed to consult a healthcare provider who can provide appropriate medical care including making neurological and immunological differential diagnosis if any abnormalities are observed after vaccination.''
  Please note, the paragraph above instructs vaccine recipients and/or their guardians to consult a physician if ANY abnormalities are observed after vaccination. Have medical consumers in your country been made aware of these possible adverse reactions?
  Japan's actions raise questions for medical consumers worldwide1) Do your health authorities believe in the right to informed consent?
  2) Will the risks associated with HPV vaccines be explained, as well as the benefits?
  3) Will alternative cervical cancer preventive measures be explained?
  4) Will the risk factors for developing cervical cancer be explained?
  5) Do health authorities in your country understand what adverse effects are possible after HPV vaccines?
  6) Are your healthcare providers trained to recognize these events as possible vaccine reactions?
  7) What happens if you experience an adverse reaction to an HPV vaccine?
  Think about it '' if HPV vaccines are as good as they should be, all of these questions should be easy to answer. You have a right to know. It is called the right to informed consent.
  What is more important to you '' vaccine safety, or vaccine uptake?
Over 50 Percent of Food Stamp Recipients Live in the Suburbs - Matthew O'Brien - The Atlantic Cities
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  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:34
  The housing bust didn't just sink the world economy. It sunk the suburbs too.
  Now, you probably think of white picket fences, big backyards, and perhaps a whiff of existential despair when you think about the suburbs. But you should think of economic despair instead. As Elizabeth Kneebone of the Brookings Institution points out, suburbanites made up almost 50 percent of food stamp recipients back in 2007 -- and 55 percent in 2011.
  This is actually worse than it sounds. Their share of food stamps use only went up 5 percentage points, but suburban households' total food stamp use doubled between 2007 and 2011. By comparison, total food stamp use went up by 69 percent for city households.
  The Great Recession accelerated the rise of a new geography of poverty. Homes that were supposed to be lead to the American Dream lead to financial ruin instead. And, unfortunately, this isn't going away anytime soon -- not if the recovery continues to only be one for the top 1 percent.
  Hows' that for suburban despair.
  This post originally appeared on The Atlantic.
NATO Secretary General Press Conference
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  Archived Version
  Source: DVIDS Unit RSS Feed: Natochannel
  Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:20
  NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen briefs the press about current operations. Also available in high definition
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Ray Lewis'...Conspiracy Theorist? Former Ravens Linebacker Suggests Super Bowl Blackout Was By Design CBS Baltimore
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 02 Sep 2013 20:43
  (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
  BALTIMORE (WJZ) '-- Is former Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis a conspiracy theorist?
  He says something was not quite right when the lights went out at Mercedes-Benz Superdome early in the third quarter of Super Bowl XLVII.
  Lewis gave his opinion in an interview with ''America's Game,'' the NFL Films' special that chronicles the Ravens' 34-31 victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Feb. 3 in New Orleans. Read more here.
  ''I'm not gonna accuse nobody of nothing '-- because I don't know facts,'' Lewis said, according to USA Today. ''But you're a zillion-dollar company, and your lights go out? No. No way.''
  Lewis was reportedly laughing when he said it, but he had more to say.
  ''Now listen, if you grew up like I grew up '-- and you grew up in a household like I grew up '-- then sometimes your lights might go out, because times get hard. I understand that,'' Lewis continued. ''But you cannot tell me somebody wasn't sitting there and when they say, 'The Ravens [are] about to blow them out. Man, we better do something.' '... That's a huge shift in any game, in all seriousness. And as you see how huge it was because it let them right back in the game.''
  The Ravens were up 28-6 and Jacoby Jones had moments earlier taken the opening kickoff of the second half back for an 108-yard touchdown. But the blackout resulted in a 34-minute delay and when play resumed, the 49ers took back all the momentum, scoring 17 straight points.
  The Ravens ultimately needed a late goal-line stand to capture their second Super Bowl.
  City and stadium officials later attributed the blackout to a faulty electrical delay device,.
  Asked about Lewis' conspiracy theory Sunday, quarterback Joe Flacco responded: ''Somebody else just asked me this from Denver. I said, 'Listen, I'm not against conspiracies, but I don't necessarily think that was one of them.' So no, I don't really concur with that.''
  The Ravens will try to defend their title Thursday against the Denver Broncos.
Kerry's cosy dinner with Syria's 'Hitler': Secretary of State and the man he likened to German dictator are pictured dining with their wives at Damascus restaurant before civil war broke out | Mail Online
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 02 Sep 2013 19:47
  Kerry pictured around a small table with his wife and the Assads in 2009Assad and Kerry lean in towards each other, deep in conversation Picture taken in February 2009 when Kerry led a delegation to SyriaKerry yesterdaycompared Assad to Adolf Hitler and Saddam HusseinBy Anthony Bond and David Martosko
  PUBLISHED: 07:53 EST, 2 September 2013 | UPDATED: 14:12 EST, 2 September 2013
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  An astonishing photograph of John Kerry having a cozy and intimate dinner with Bashar al-Assad has emerged at the moment the U.S Secretary of State is making the case to bomb the Syrian dictator's country and remove him from power.
  Kerry, who compared Assad to Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein yesterday, is pictured around a small table with his wife Teresa Heinz and the Assads in 2009.
  Assad and Kerry, then a Massachusetts senator, lean in towards each other and appear deep in conversation as their spouses look on.
  A waiter is pictured at their side with a tray of green drinks, believed to be lemon and crushed mint.
  Cosy: This astonishing photograph shows the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his wife having an intimate dinner with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and his wife in 2009
  Relaxed: A waiter carries over a tray of drinks, which appear to look like cocktails
  The picture was likely taken in February 2009 in the Naranj restaurant in Damascus, when Kerry led a delegation to Syria to discuss finding a way forward for peace in the region.
  While President Barack Obama has softened his military threat against Syria by putting the question to Congress and guaranteeing at least a week's delay, Kerry remains outspoken about the dangers posed by the Syrian regime.
  He said that Assad 'has now joined the list of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein' in deploying chemical weapons against his own people.
  Kerry said Sunday that the U.S. now has evidence that sarin nerve gas was used in Syria and that 'the case gets stronger by the day' for a military attack.
  Speaking out: US Secretary of State John Kerry last week said the U.S. knows 'with high confidence' the Syrian regime used chemical weapons in an attack
  Couple: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is pictured with his British-born wife Asma Assad
  Under pressure: Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, is pictured in a meeting yesterday. Kerry has described him as a 'thug and murderer'
  During a passionate speech in Washington last Friday, he called Assad a 'thug and murderer,' and urged the world to act. 'History would judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turned a blind eye to a dictator,' Kerry insisted.
  The Obama administration has placed the Syrian chemical weapons death toll on the outskirts of Damascus at 1,429 people - far more than previous estimates - including more than 400 children.
  SEVEN MILLION SYRIANS DISPLACEDThe head of the U.N. refugee agency in Syria says seven million Syrians, or almost one-third of the population, have been displaced by the country's civil war.
  Tarik Kurdi said that five million of the displaced are still in Syria while about 2 million have fled to neighboring countries.
  He says two million children are among those directly affected by the war.
  Kurdi says U.N. assistance has been a 'drop in the sea of humanitarian need' and that the funding gap is 'very, very wide.' He says international donors have sent less than one-third of the money needed to help those displaced by the war.
  More than 100,000 Syrians have been killed since an uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad erupted in 2011.
  Kerry has said he is confident that Congress will give Obama its backing for an attack against Syria, but the former Massachusetts senator also said the president has authority to act on his own if Congress doesn't give its approval.
  While Kerry stopped short of saying Obama was committed to such a course even if lawmakers refuse to authorize force, he did say that 'we are not going to lose this vote.'
  Congress is scheduled to return from a summer break on September 9. House Speaker John Boehner has said a vote will likely take place that week.
  Senator John McCain said on Sunday that Assad will be 'euphoric' about Obama's decision to wait for Congress before scrambling his bombers.
  The French parliament could act sooner. A debate is scheduled Wednesday on taking action on Syria, as President Fran§ois Hollande has come under increasing pressure to seek legislative approval for joining the U.S. in any attack.
  On Saturday evening, centrist UDI party leader Jean-Louis Borloo insisted that 'like the U.S. president, who decided to consult the U.S. Congress in the name of democratic principles, the French president must organize, after the debate, a formal vote in parliament.'
  What was once considered a certain three-pronged attack on Syria from the U.S., France and the UK was reduced to a bilateral affair on Thursday, as Britain's parliament shot down Prime Minister David Cameron's request for involvement in a strike against Assad.
  A day later, Kerry began flattering France as America's 'oldest ally,' in hopes of ensuring that Paris didn't follow London's lead. Horrific: Hundreds died in the alleged chemical attacks, including many women and children
  French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault now says he will share top-secret intelligence with his nation's parliament on Wednesday.
  'We are going to give the MPs everything we have '' classified until now '' to enable every one of them to take on board the reality of this unacceptable attack,' he said Monday.
  Elisabeth Guigou, president of the foreign affairs committee in France's National Assembly, said Monday that '' told France info: Ayrault planned to show MPs 'evidence the attack took place and that it could only have been the regime who were behind it.'
  On Sunday a government source told the French news agency Agence France-Presse that the French will soon make public a trove of documents over the years, showing Syria stockpiling chemical weapons.
  One of the loudest critics of the administration's handling of Syria, McCain criticised Obama in an interview on CBS's Face the Nation.
  Referring to Obama's famous statement that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would cross a red line, McCain said: 'He didn't say, "It's a red line - and by the way I'm going to have to seek the approval of Congress." He said it was a red line, and that the United States of America would act.'
  'That's a big difference,' McCain insisted. 'And that's one of the reasons why this is so problematic.'
  The Arizona Republican, whom Obama defeated for the presidency in 2008, said the president asked him to come to the White House on Monday, specifically to discuss Syria.
  Awful: Secretary of State John Kerry said images like these contributed to the U.S. assessment that chemical weapons were used in Syria
  Democrats, too, are expressing frustration at Obama's failure to act decisively after his 'red line' speech.
  Charles Rangel, who represents the Harlem section of New York City, said Monday said 'of course it's embarrassing' that the president didn't act immediately after chemical weapons use was discovered.
  Rangel opposes a Syrian military strike but said Obama's delay on Saturday was also a major embarrassment to Kerry '' who had demanded strong action a day earlier.
  It's 'unheard of,' Rangel said on MSNBC, that a president would allow the world to see him issuing an empty threat.
  'So of course it's embarrassing, I wish it didn't happen, ' he said. '
  'I guess Secretary Kerry is even more embarrassed than me after making his emotional speech that this was urgent.'
  Tension: President Bashar Assad will be 'euphoric' about Obama's decision to wait for Congress over Syria, according to Sen. John McCain
  Firm: Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said evidence of alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime presented to Moscow by the U.S. and its allies is 'absolutely unconvincing'
  Obama is hoping Congress's most intractable foreign policy hawks will help sell the idea of U.S. military intervention in Syria to a nation already deeply scarred by more than a decade of war in the Middle East.
  Having announced over the weekend that he will seek congressional approval for military strikes against the Assad regime, the Obama administration is now trying to rally support among Americans and their elected representatives.
  Obama's meeting with McCain is meant to quell fears that Obama isn't doing enough to punish Assad's government for the presumed sarin gas attack in the Damascus suburbs last month.
  But some Republican and Democratic lawmakers don't want to see military action at all.
  Obama's turnabout on Syria sets the stage for the biggest foreign policy vote in Congress since the Iraq war.
  On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. received new physical evidence in the form of blood and hair samples that shows sarin gas was used in the August 21 attack.
  'We know that the regime ordered this attack,' he said. 'We know they prepared for it. We know where the rockets came from. We know where they landed. We know the damage that was done afterwards.'
  Crisis talks: President Obama and Vice-President Biden meet with Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Advisor Susan Rice to discuss Syria on Sunday
  Debate: The President meets national security advisers to discuss possible military action
  Kerry's assertion coincided with the beginning of a forceful administration appeal for congressional support.
  On Capitol Hill, senior administration officials briefed lawmakers in private to explain why the U.S. must act.
  Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough also made calls to individual lawmakers.
  Classified meetings have been planned for this week. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans a to hear from Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Tuesday.
  Kerry describing Syria's Assad as a thug and murderer
  Share or comment on this article
Has Google's Author Rank Arrived? | Copyblogger
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 02 Sep 2013 17:38
  In this article I am going to provide a short review of the recent events related to Authorship and Google's In-Depth Articles feature, and then provide my analysis as to what this means for Author Rank and the birth of ''In-Depth Article SEO.''
  Back in January of 2013, I predicted that Author Rank would become a real ranking signal during 2013. I wrote in more detail about Author Rank in March of 2013.
  In case you haven't seen Copyblogger's recent articles about Author Rank, it all started to be something people speculated on when Google announced its rel=author intiative back in June of 2011.
  It caused quite a stir in the online publishing world.
  The rel=author tag was a way that authors could tag content that they created, and the short term payoff would be placement of the author's picture in the search results similar to this one:
  The benefits of having the author's picture next to their article were obvious, but it also marked the moment when the world became aware that Google collects behavior on individual authors. People were fast to speculate '-- surely Google wants this information for more than just giving the ability to provide rich markup in the search results?
  Not much was heard after that until Google announced In-Depth Articles. Here is how that looks in the wild:
  What you are seeing is the bottom of the search results page for the search ''US Constitution.'' At the bottom you see a brand new search feature, a highlighted set of articles the address the topic in a comprehensive manner. Finally, there was an additional payoff to rel=author tagging!
  A forewarning from Google's ChairmanJust 19 days after my predictions for 2013, the Wall Street Journal published its comments on The New Digital Age, a book written by Google's chairman, Eric Schmidt. These comments included this quote (bold is mine):
  Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.
  This is a powerful statement by one of the most powerful people in Google. Schmidt makes it clear that Authorship will be a very material factor in search ranking.
  AnalysisIn-Depth Articles was the first time Google clearly showed one way that they could potentially leverage Author Rank to impact search results.
  Frankly, I cheered at Google's statement in the announcement of the rationale for this initiative: ''up to 10% of users' daily information needs involve learning about a broad topic.'' Yes, people actually do sometimes want to do real research, not just get a sound bite. Readers of Copyblogger and/or my writings know that we both have always believed that.
  One of the more interesting statements about the initiative is on the Google Webmaster Tools Help page on in-depth articles:
  Authorship markup helps our algorithms to find and present relevant authors and experts in Google search results.
  This is the one statement made by Google in connection with In-Depth Articles that sounds like it is talking about Author Rank. Note though that the orientation of the statement has more of a ''discovery'' flavor to it. I think this is one big key to thinking about the true meaning of the in-depth articles feature.
  From Google's perspective, it is important that we think of in-depth articles as a new search feature, because this is what it truly represents.
  The fact that they see 10% of user's daily information needs demanding in-depth content is huge. How huge? Let's compare that to other types of market segments that people normally think of as huge:
  You can see that many market segments that we think of as having huge volumes (travel, education, insurance, real estate) pale in front of the 10% number. Yet Google has given special treatment to many of these smaller market segments.
  Consider the results for a search on ''rome hotels'':
  This tells us something '-- 10% is a whale of a segment, and Google has ample reason to target it. It is not even out of the question that this was one of the primary initial reasons for creating authorship in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I think they will use it in other ways, but this use is a biggie.
  The current implementation of In-Depth Articles, however, appears to be making more use of the publisher's authority (''PublisherRank'') than AuthorRank. Personally, for a variety of reasons, I expect this to change in the future, but it is not playing a big role just yet. As Per Google's statements, it looks like the current use is discovery oriented.
  What does it all mean?Let's take a look for a moment at the local search segment. Here is an example result for a Google search on ''rental cars'':
  Hopefully, it will strike you the same way it did me. Google designed a unique search experience for local search, you can see that the results look different and where they show up in the overall search results page varies. In addition, what gets shown in the local search results is determined by a unique and different search algorithm.
  Currently, the in-depth articles share all of these same attributes except the fact that they only show up at the bottom of the search page (i.e. their position on the page does not vary as it does with local).
  The birth of in-depth article SEOThis is a new algo, and it looks like PublisherRank is the key to doing well in the rankings for this new category of search, and I would be shocked if Author Rank did not become a big part of the process going forward. That's a mouthful right there, but it's true. Why should you develop this expertise? Whatever market segment you are in, 10% is a huge chunk of it. Not only that, it is the particular chunk that communicates authority.
  Would it be useful for your business, or your author, to be seen as the authority in your market? You bet. My last column here in Copyblogger was 21 Reasons Why You Must Become an Expert so you know where I stand on that question!
  This new type of SEO will be extremely hard to game (hallelujah!). Claiming authorship for your site and establishing yourself as an authority in your topic are essential for success. Having a strong presence on Google Plus will probably also be a factor.
  Google cannot easily pull comprehensive data from other social networks, but they can easily see all the data on Google Plus. Social engagement with content will represent a valuable signal for measuring overall authority of an author.
  I am also going on record here to predict that over time you can expect the placement of in-depth article results to change. They will not always be placed at the bottom. If I am right '-- just like local search '-- you will have a unique type of search result pulled from a different data base, driven by a different algorithm, and with a different look and feel, and its position will be determined by Google's sense as to how important in-depth articles are for that particular search query.
  Consider the search query click through rate data released by Optify in 2012:
  The 2nd postion in this study netted 12.5% of the clicks, and the 3rd position netted 9.5%. Compare that to the 10% figure representing demand for deeper levels of information and you will quickly see what I mean.
  ConclusionTaking Google's statements at face value, Author Rank has indeed been born, albeit in a limited way, as its current application is as a factor for In-Depth Article SEO, but looking at examples of In-Depth Article results, the bigger factor appears to be Publisher Rank. It may be that Author Rank is a key driver of Publisher Rank, but we don't really know.
  As you consider these questions, keep in mind that Google does not rely solely on rel=author tagging to evaluate Authorship, or Author Rank. There is plenty of evidence that they use other sources to determine who authors are. After all, they can't assume that all publishers know how to implement rel=author, or even that they know it exists. Also, keep in mind that Google has never used the term ''Author Rank'' or ''Publisher Rank'', that's a term that we in the industry like to use.
  Over time, we will see Google experiment with the placement and presentation of in-depth articles. We will presumably begin to learn what some of the driving factors are in this type of SEO, but fortunately, these types of signals will be very hard to game.
  Do you want to win at this type of SEO? Become one of the leading authorities in your field, and implement a smart strategy for promoting that expertise.
  Author Rank will probably be used in other ways as well. As Eric Schmidt suggested in The New Digital Age, it may be used to determine who is irrelevant vs. who is not in way that can be a filter in basic search too. We will probably see some of these other applications in the coming months.
  But, for now, know that demonstrating your (or your company's) expertise is more important than ever.
  About the Author: Eric Enge is President of Stone Temple Consulting, a digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) firm. He is also a speaker at industry conferences about SEO and Social Media. Get more from Eric on his blog, Twitter, or Google+.
Radcliffe Health | Supporting Lifelong Learning for Healthcare Professionals
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 02 Sep 2013 14:44
  'The main reason we take so many drugs is that drug companies don't sell drugs, they sell lies about drugs. This is what makes drugs so different from anything else in life...Virtually everything we know about drugs is what the companies have chosen to tell us and our doctors...the reason patients trust their medicine is that they extrapolate the trust they have in their doctors into the medicines they prescribe. The patients don't realise that, although their doctors may know a lot about diseases and human physiology and psychology, they know very, very little about drugs that hasn't been carefully concocted and dressed up by the drug industry'...If you don't think the system is out of control, then please email me and explain why drugs are the third leading cause of death'...If such a hugely lethal epidemic had been caused by a new bacterium or a virus, or even one hundredth of it, we would have done everything we could to get it under control.''‹From the Introduction
  Prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.
  In his latest ground-breaking book, Peter C G¸tzsche exposes the pharmaceutical industries and their charade of fraudulent behavior, both in research and marketing where the morally repugnant disregard for human lives is the norm 1. He convincingly draws close comparisons with the tobacco conglomerates, revealing the extraordinary truth behind efforts to confuse and distract the public and their politicians.
  The book addresses, in evidence-based detail, an extraordinary system failure caused by widespread crime, corruption, bribery and impotent drug regulation in need of radical reforms.
  CPD with Radcliffe.
  This book can be used to achieve CPD (Continuing Professional Development) points through directed reading.We provide a free online form, and downloadable certificate for your appraisal portfolio. For more information and to claim CPD points on this book, visit www.radcliffehealth.com/cpd
  'Most of Peter's book is devoted to building up the case that the drug industry has systematically corrupted science to play up the benefits and play down the harms of their drugs. As an epidemiologist with very high numerical literacy and a passion for detail, so that he is a world leader in critiquing clinical studies, Peter is here on very solid ground. He joins many others, including former editors of the New England Journal of Medicine, in showing this corruption. He shows too how the industry has bought doctors, academics, journals, professional and patient organisations, university departments, journalists, regulators, and politicians. These are the methods of the mob.'Foreword by Richard Smith, Former Editor-in-Chief, BMJ
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The Consortium
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 02 Sep 2013 14:20
  By Gary L. Aguilar
  "Back and to the left, back and to the left."
  Possibly, the most haunting scene from Oliver Stone's movie "JFK" was the repeated description by prosecutor Jim Garrison of President Kennedy's head jerking "back and to the left" as the fatal bullet struck on Nov. 22, 1963.
  For millions of Americans, that image from the Zapruder film raised logical doubts about the Warren Commission's finding that Kennedy had been killed by "lone-gunman" Lee Harvey Oswald firing from the rear.
  Common sense led many to believe that the impact of a bullet from a high-powered rifle would drive the victim's head away from the point of impact, rather than have the head snap back toward the bullet's path.
  In other words, many Americans couldn't understand why a shot from the rear had not forced Kennedy's head forward. What they saw was the head going ''back and to the left.''
  This layman's sense of physics supported a theory that the fatal shot -- by official count the third shot -- had come from the famous Grassy Knoll or another location in front of the president's car and, thus, suggested the presence of another assassin.
  Numerous eyewitnesses also claimed that they heard one or more shots from in front of the limousine.
  The doctors who treated Kennedy at Parkland Hospital in Dallas added more support to the theory of a frontal shot. They believed the hole in Kennedy's throat was an entrance wound and that damage to the back of Kennedy's skull marked an obvious exit wound.
  But federal authorities prevented a state autopsy by seizing Kennedy's body after he was pronounced dead. The body was rushed to Air Force One and returned to Washington. There, a chaotic nighttime autopsy was performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
  Experts would later bemoan the sloppiness of the crowded examination. ''Where bungled autopsies are concerned, President Kennedy's is an exemplar,'' commented New York coroner Michael Baden when he reviewed the work for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the 1970s.
  Nevertheless, the official autopsy proved pivotal, since the Bethesda doctors contradicted the observations of the Parkland doctors.
  The autopsy concluded that the hole in the throat was an exit wound from a non-fatal shot -- not an entrance wound -- and that the fatal bullet entered the bottom of Kennedy's head from behind and blasted off part of his skull as it exited from the right front.
  The conclusion supported the case against Oswald who was located in the Texas School Book Depository, behind the president's limousine.
  But the autopsy itself might have been influenced by the investigative certainty already hardening around the initial reports on the case.
  ''Three shots were heard and the president fell forward,'' the autopsy report stated, drawing from the initial crime-scene accounts. The doctors seemed unaware that Kennedy's head actually had snapped backward.
  The autopsy findings had their own ripple effect, forcing other judgments that were needed to make the facts conform to a "lone gunman" shooting from behind Kennedy's limousine.
  There were bizarre tests with experts firing bullets from Oswald's gun into gelatin-filled skulls to see if they might jump toward the gun. Instead, they flew away from the gun.
  One physicist fired bullets from a hunting rifle into melons and detected a slight reverse jet effect; that is, movement toward the rifle. But when another scientist used bullets and a rifle matching Oswald's, the reaction disappeared.
  The most notorious corollary to the autopsy findings was the ''magic bullet'' propounded by Warren Commission staff investigator Arlen Specter, now a U.S. senator.
  Given the slow reloading time of Oswald's bolt-action rifle, Specter postulated a seemingly implausible path of the second shot, which inflicted the first wound piercing Kennedy's neck. The bullet then supposedly tore through Texas Gov. John Connally's body, smashing a rib, fracturing a wrist and penetrating his thigh.
  There were always doubts about the "magic bullet," however. The Zapruder film showed a perplexing lag between Kennedy clutching his throat and Connally's reaction to having his wrist shattered.
  Connally and his wife both rejected Specter's strained theory and insisted that Connally was hit by a different bullet than the one that pierced Kennedy's throat -- indicating a second gunman. (The first shot is believed to have missed the motorcade altogether, ricocheting off the street and slightly wounding a bystander.)
  So, given the strange path of the "magic bullet" and the troubling backward head snap, the forensic judgment about the location of the head wound was crucial to support the "lone-gunman" solution to the case. The head wound was the hard evidence.
  But with little press attention, that official verdict has come under serious new doubt following the release of documents by the Assassinations Records Review Board. The review ended on Sept. 30 after compiling some 4.5 million pages of government records.
  Yet, perhaps, the most startling discovery became public only on Nov. 9. Douglas Horne, the board's chief analyst for military records, reached a shocking conclusion: that a brain other than Kennedy's had been substituted in the autopsy photos.
  In a 32-page report, Horne contended that a second brain was apparently used in one set of the photos to bolster the case for a shot from behind.
  "I am 90 to 95 percent certain that the photographs in the [National] Archives are not of President Kennedy's brain," Horne told The Washington Post when asked about his report. "If they aren't, that can mean only one thing -- that there has been a cover-up of the medical evidence." [WP, Nov. 10, 1998]
  According to Horne's findings, the second brain -- which showed an exit wound in the front -- allegedly replaced Kennedy's real brain -- which revealed much greater damage to the rear, consistent with an exit wound and thus evidence of a shot from the front.
  Horne, a former Navy officer who also worked as a civilian employee at the Department of the Navy, noted that the second brain in the autopsy photos also revealed far less damage than Kennedy's brain would have sustained.
  Horne's report cited the 1997 testimony of former FBI agent Francis X. O'Neill Jr., who was present for the Bethesda autopsy.
  O'Neill recalled, "there was not too much of the brain left" and that "more than half of the brain was missing" when it was removed from Kennedy's skull and placed in a white jar.
  O'Neill expressed surprise when shown the official autopsy photos depicting a brain with much less damage. "This looks almost like a complete brain," O'Neill stated in amazement.
  O'Neill and funeral home employee Tom Robinson also told the review board that a large amount of tissue was missing from the posterior portion of the brain removed at the autopsy. That again would support the initial opinion of the Parkland doctors who saw evidence of a frontal shot.
  The review board uncovered other evidence pointing to a later brain substitution. A 1965 document written by forensics pathologist, Pierre Finck, stated that the brain he saw at the autopsy looked different from the brain he saw at a later supplementary exam.
  But the review board could not conduct a new examination of Kennedy's brain because it disappeared sometime after the autopsy, one of the assassination's strangest mysteries.
  According to some accounts, the brain was turned over to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy for burial with the dead president at Arlington National Cemetery.
  But other witnesses testified that pathologists retained it for further examination in late November or early December 1963 -- and that it disappeared later. Horne dated the brain's disappearance as sometime between April 26, 1965, and Oct. 31, 1966.
  The records review board discovered other weaknesses in the autopsy record about Kennedy's wounds. As the review progressed, seven witnesses reported that autopsy photographs -- presumably including those of the real brain -- were missing.
  John Stringer, the photographer of record at the autopsy and at a supplementary brain exam, was among those who disavowed the brain photographs that have survived in the official record.
  Forensic pathologist Finck declared, too, that key photographs that he took of the internal and external aspects of Kennedy skull wound never made it into the official inventory.
  Finck had argued the same point in 1978 when he appeared before the House Select Committee on Assassinations which was re-assessing the Kennedy evidence.
  The damage to Kennedy's skull was a central feature of the House investigation as well.
  The House panel listened to a phalanx of Parkland Hospital emergency physicians who reported that Kennedy's skull had suffered serious damage in the lower right rear -- technically known as the "occipital" region which is the part of the head that would rest on a pillow during sleep.
  One account came from neurosurgeon Kemp Clark who examined Kennedy's skull wound before pronouncing him dead. At the time of the exam, Clark noted in writing that the wound was "in the occipital region of the skull. ... There was a large wound in the right occipito-parietal region from which profuse bleeding was occurring.''
  More than 20 other Parkland witnesses, many of them physicians, corroborated Clark's notations about severe damage to the right rear of Kennedy's skull.
  The location of the most severe head wound was important to determine where a likely killer was positioned. If the major damage was to the rear of Kennedy's skull -- as the Dallas doctors said -- that would support a finding that the bullet entered from the front and exited through the rear, with the exit wound causing more severe damage than the entrance wound.
  It is also possible that the bullet struck the side of Kennedy's head and blasted off a back section of the skull. In that case, there might not be an identifiable entry bullet hole. The photos which might have settled that dispute were among those missing.
  In 1978, after re-hearing the conflicting evidence about the head wounds, the House assassinations panel sided with the Bethesda autopsy results -- and with the Warren Commission.
  The existing skull photographs played a big role in the House decision, with House investigators reporting that all the Bethesda doctors had endorsed the primary head wound as being located in front of Kennedy's right ear.
  "It appears more probable that the observations of the Parkland doctors are incorrect," the House panel stated.
  The House committee's conclusion, therefore, supported the notion that Oswald could have shot Kennedy from behind. That finding was a boost to Warren Commission defenders.
  But the proof behind the House conclusion -- the interviews with witnesses to the Bethesda autopsy -- was kept sealed and thus unavailable for independent evaluation. That changed with the records review in the 1990s.
  According to the newly released documents, the House committee misstated the opinions of autopsy witnesses. It is now clear that some Bethesda witnesses never ratified the photos showing the more severe wound in front of the right ear.
  Indeed, some witnesses drew diagrams and made statements that supported the recollections of the Parkland doctors who said the more severe damage to Kennedy's skull was in the back.
  In suppressed testimony, attending radiologist John Ebersole said ''the back of the head was missing.'' FBI agent O'Neill asserted, ''there was a massive wound in the right rear of the head.''
  Philip C. Wehle, commanding officer of the military district in Washington, said, ''the head wound was in the back of the head.''
  During the 1978 review, the full story about the conflicting autopsy testimony was not only kept from the public but from the House committee's forensic consultants. They were not given the actual testimony of Bethesda witnesses who described the severity of the rear head wound.
  So, shielded from suspicions about the photos and denied direct testimony of autopsy witnesses, the House forensic panel reconfirmed the Warren Commission's key finding: that the autopsy fit with Oswald firing the fatal shot.
  That conclusion seems far shakier today, with the disclosure about the "second brain" and the disappearance of many crucial autopsy photos.
  It also remains unclear why the Bethesda autopsy doctors reached a conclusion about a shot from the rear if they, like the Parkland doctors, observed a more severe wound to the back of the head.
  One possible answer is that the doctors were influenced by the early official information that the assassin was situated behind Kennedy. The autopsy might have been just the first step in making the ''facts'' fit with the fast-emerging ''lone-gunman'' theory.
  To support that theory, the Bethesda doctors even drew a diagram which showed Kennedy hunched over in an exaggerated chin-downward position at the moment of the fatal shot. The position conformed with a shot fired from behind, entering the base of the skull and exiting the top right.
  The problem with the diagram, however, was that it did not match Kennedy's actual posture. Based on Kennedy's real position, a shot from the book store depository could not have entered the base of his skull and exited the top of his head.
  Though accepting the Warren Commission's shot-from-the-rear argument, the House committee still concluded that the president's death most likely resulted from a conspiracy involving more than one gunman.
  For that judgment, the panel relied on other evidence, including a police dictabelt of noise during the chaotic assassination events.
  Robert Blakey, chief of the House investigation, stated that he originally had accepted the Warren Commission's findings, but that he had seen too much evidence pointing to a conspiracy to remain a supporter.
  "The final line" on the Kennedy assassination "is conspiracy," Blakey wrote. "On the issue of conspiracy, we have, I believe, drastically altered the verdict of history."
  In the 1980s, however, President Reagan's Justice Department refused to reopen an official investigation of the Kennedy assassination. Some authors mounted well-received attempts to rebuild consensus for the lone-gunman conclusion, but public skepticism grew.
  Then, in 1991, director Oliver Stone brought the issue to a head with his movie, "JFK." The fictionalized account featured the suspicions of a broad government conspiracy propounded by New Orleans prosecutor Jim Garrison, who was played by Kevin Costner.
  The movie provoked howls of protests from the Washington news media, even as a huge national audience flocked to see it. Despite the attacks, the movie gave new impetus to demands that classified documents from the case be opened to the public.
  In response, Congress created the review board that began disgorging millions of pages of new material into the public record. The board, however, was not assigned to re-investigate the murder or to draw specific conclusions about the evidence.
  Still, when the board shut down in September, the national news media was quick to point out that the new documents contained no clear evidence of a second gunmen or a conspiracy to kill the president -- only revelations of bungling, hasty judgments and a cover-up of tangential secrets.
  Then came release of the "second brain" analysis. Not only was the president's brain missing, but a government analyst had concluded that a second brain apparently had been substituted for it to falsify the autopsy records.
  The disclosure had the potential to reshape the understanding of one of the century's most dramatic historical moments. But the major media's reaction to this breath-taking disclosure again was ho-hum.
  The story of the "second brain" was assigned mostly to the inside pages, as in The Washington Post of Nov. 10. There was no serious assessment of what the analysis could mean to the official version of events and no strong demands for a follow-up.
  But the alleged "second brain" cover-up adds to the suspicion that Kennedy's assassin might have escaped and that elements within the government obstructed the investigation.
  Whatever the motives for a cover-up -- whether bureaucratic or more sinister reasons -- the key decisions seemed to have come from high levels of the U.S. military, the FBI and, later, the Warren Commission.
  If the review board's work is followed up, one question should be: who might have introduced a ''second brain'' into the autopsy process -- and why?
  Dr. Gary L. Aguilar was assisted in this article by Dr. Cyril Wecht, Pittsburgh medical examiner.
  Back To Front Page.
Obama Seeks Approval by Congress for Strike in Syria - NYTimes.com
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Mon, 02 Sep 2013 14:13
  WASHINGTON '-- President Obama abruptly changed course on Saturday and postponed a military strike against the Syrian government in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack so he could seek authorization first from a deeply skeptical Congress.
  In one of the riskiest gambles of his presidency, Mr. Obama effectively dared lawmakers to either stand by him or, as he put it, allow President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to get away with murdering children with unconventional weapons. By asking them to take a stand, Mr. Obama tried to break out of the isolation of the last week as he confronted taking action without the support of the United Nations, Congress, the public or Britain, a usually reliable partner in such international operations.
  ''I'm prepared to give that order,'' Mr. Obama said in a hurriedly organized appearance in the Rose Garden as American destroyers armed with Tomahawk missiles waited in the Mediterranean Sea. ''But having made my decision as commander in chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I'm also mindful that I'm the president of the world's oldest constitutional democracy.''
  Although Congressional leaders hailed his decision to seek the permission of lawmakers who had been clamoring for a say, the turnabout leaves Mr. Obama at the political mercy of House Republicans, many of whom have opposed him at every turn and have already suggested that Syria's civil war does not pose a threat to the United States. His decision raises the possibility that he would be the first president in modern times to lose a vote on the use of force, much as Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain did in Parliament last week.
  Video | Obama Speaks on Syria President Obama spoke in the Rose Garden at the White House on Saturday, saying that he would seek Congressional approval for a strike on Syria.
  Mr. Obama overruled the advice of many of his aides who worried about just such a defeat, and Republican Congressional officials said Saturday that if a vote were taken immediately, the Republican-controlled House would not support action. Interviews with more than a dozen members of Congress made clear that the situation was volatile even in the Senate, where Democrats have a majority.
  ''Obama hasn't got a chance to win this vote if he can't win the majority of his own party, and I doubt he can,'' Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a leading Republican, said in an interview. ''Democrats have been conspicuously silent. Just about his only support is coming from Republicans. He is a war president without a war party.''
  Yet the debate may also put on display the divisions in the Republican Party between traditional national security hawks and a newer generation of lawmakers, particularly in the House, resistant to entanglements overseas and distrustful of Mr. Obama.
  ''It will be an uphill battle for the president to convince me because I think he has handled this entire situation quite poorly,'' said Representative Tim Griffin, Republican of Arkansas. ''And frankly I am reluctant to give him a license for war when, with all due respect, I have little confidence he knows what he is doing.''
  President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. before Mr. Obama's remarks Saturday.
  Michael Reynolds / European Pressphoto Agency
  Even Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, two Republicans who have pressed Mr. Obama to intervene more aggressively in Syria, said Saturday that they might vote no because the president's plan was too limited. ''We cannot in good conscience support isolated military strikes in Syria that are not part of an overall strategy that can change the momentum on the battlefield,'' they said in a statement.
  Against that backdrop, the wording of the authorization of force may be critical. White House officials drafted a proposed measure that tried to strike a balance between being too expansive and too restrictive, and sent it to Congress on Saturday evening.
  The proposal would empower Mr. Obama to order military action to ''prevent or deter the use or proliferation'' of chemical or biological weapons ''within, to or from Syria'' and to ''protect the United States and its allies and partners against the threat posed by such weapons.'' Still, White House officials indicated that Mr. Obama might still authorize force even if Congress rejected it.
  As Syrian forces braced for attack, the president's decision effectively put it off for more than a week, since Congress is not due back in Washington until Sept. 9. Mr. Obama did not push for Congress to come back sooner, and House leaders opted to keep to their schedule. Senate leaders set committee hearings to begin on Tuesday with a floor vote ''no later'' than the week of Sept. 9.
  President Vladimir V. Putin, in Vladivostok on Saturday, said it did not make sense that Syria would use chemical weapons.
  Alexei Nikolskyi / RIA Novosti, via Reuters
  In the interim, lawmakers will be in their home states, where polls show their constituents are not eager to attack Syria. ''One constituent said to me: 'It is horrendous that these children were killed, but they are being killed in other ways also. What's the difference?' '' said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine.
  Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said public opinion would pose a challenge for the president and Congress. ''I'd be very surprised if the position of going forward with the strike would reach 50 percent in our state,'' he said. ''I don't think it would get to 50.''
  The move also means that the period of vacillation before a strike will extend until after Mr. Obama travels to St. Petersburg, Russia, for a summit meeting of the Group of 20 nations, a session that now seems certain to be dominated by the question of what to do about Syria. President Vladimir V. Putin, the host of the meeting, not only has effectively blocked United Nations action, but on Saturday he suggested the chemical attack was a provocation by rebels intended to draw the United States into their war against Mr. Assad.
  Presidents in modern times have used military force both with and without Congressional authorization. George Bush and George W. Bush both won votes from lawmakers before wars with Iraq, and Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton launched strikes against Libya, Afghanistan and Kosovo without asking permission.
  United Nations inspectors returned to The Hague on Saturday with samples to test for chemicals from sites in Syria.
  Marten Van Dijl / European Pressphoto Agency
  Although Mr. Obama said as a candidate that a president has no power to launch a military attack except to stop ''an actual or imminent threat to the nation,'' he acted unilaterally in Libya in 2011 and had no plans to act differently in Syria this time. But he found it much harder to proceed alone, given the British vote and polls showing that the vast majority of Americans want Congress to decide.
  Even allies like Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, one of Mr. Obama's earliest supporters for president and his handpicked Democratic Party chairman, publicly argued that he had to go to Congress for permission. ''The worst thing we can do is put people out on that limb and ask them to potentially risk their lives based on equivocal political support,'' Mr. Kaine said.
  In making his request, Mr. Obama argued more forcefully than he ever had for military action against Syria, echoing some of the moral outrage expressed by Secretary of State John Kerry a day earlier. ''What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?'' the president asked.
  Mr. Obama also dispatched Mr. Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and others to brief senators by telephone on Saturday and authorized a classified briefing on Capitol Hill on Sunday. Mr. Kerry was also booked on Sunday television news programs to make the case.
  Aaron David Miller, a longtime Middle East adviser to presidents, said Mr. Obama had made a persuasive case for action even as he jeopardized it. It ''shows just how concerned he is about being alone and his understanding of the realities that even a limited strike can be risky, and he wants to share the responsibility,'' he said.
  A deeply divided Congress was already gearing up for bitter fights this fall over federal spending, the debt ceiling, immigration and government surveillance, and the surprise Syria vote will invite a complicated, multilayered debate crossing party lines and involving other actors like Israel supporters who worry that failure to follow through in Syria will embolden Iran.
  Many lawmakers welcomed the chance to vote. ''At this point in the country's history, it's important that we have this debate, that we take this vote,'' said Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.
  But some argued that Mr. Obama had blinked in the face of a tough choice and possible backlash, and abdicated responsibility. ''I strongly believe that the commander in chief has the absolute right to take military action,'' said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. ''The president seems like he's weak at every level.''
  Jennifer Steinhauer and Jonathan Martin contributed reporting.
Who Told Vermont To Be Stupid? - Forbes
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  Mon, 02 Sep 2013 14:08
  Log in with your social account:Or, you can log in or sign up using Forbes.New Posts+3 posts this hourMost PopularHighest-Paid ModelsListsTop-Earning Tennis StarsVideoVegas' DJ WarsINTRODUCING: Forbes Wine ClubHelp|Connect
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Angus man diagnosed with chronic lateness condition - Local / News / The Evening Telegraph
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 02 Sep 2013 01:05
  Jim Dunbar has been late for everything.
  Late for work, late for football matches, late for holidays.
  He's left women stood waiting on a first date, turned up to meals with friends hours after he should have and even arrived for funerals long after they've begun.
  But the 57-year-old says that it isn't his fault after his poor timekeeping was diagnosed as a medical condition '-- at a Ninewells hospital appointment he was half-an-hour late for.
  Despite his chronic lateness diagnosis, Jim, who has spent most of his life living in Fintry, still struggles to arrive on time as he tackles the incurable condition.
  Recently Jim, who now lives in Forfar, tried to go to the cinema. Knowing that it could be a problem getting to Dundee's DCA for a 7pm show, he gave himself an 11-hour head-start.
  He arrived 20 minutes late.
  Dundee United fan Jim said: ''I got up at 8.15am to go to a David Bowie film at the DCA that started at seven o'clock.
  ''That gave me 11 hours to get ready. I knew I was going there '-- and I was 20 minutes late.
  ''I get down about it and it's disturbing for other folk when you arrive late.''
  In his livingroom, the former Dundee City Council worker has a special clock that uses radio frequencies tuned to a national transmitter to make sure that the time it displays is always exactly right, down to the second.
  It doesn't help.
  He has tried wearing a watch, setting his clocks fast and trying to arrive at places early, but still hasn't found a solution.
  He has had the problem all his life '-- he can remember being late for school at Longhaugh Primary as a five-year-old '-- and, until his diagnosis last year, blamed himself.
  His family still don't believe him. He said: ''My family don't believe it and think I'm making excuses.
  ''I've been late for funerals and slipped in and hid at the back of the hall.
  ''I arranged to pick my friend up at midday to go on holiday and was four hours late. He was furious because we had booked a ferry and everything.
  ''A friend invited me over for a meal and I was more than three hours late. He only lives in Whitfield.
  ''It has affected my entire life.''
  Jim's condition affects the same part of the brain as Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and means that he cannot properly gauge how long things take. He says that consistently being late has caused him to lose dozens of jobs over the years.
  Jim said: ''The reason I want it out in the open is that there has got to be other folk out there with it and they don't realise that it's not their fault.
  ''I blamed it on myself and thought: 'Why can't I be on time?'. I lost a lot of jobs.
  ''I can understand people's reaction and why they don't believe me.
  ''It is really depressing sometimes. I can't overstate how much it helped to say it was a condition.''
Democrats Deserted The Anti-War Movement Collapsed - Business Insider
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 02 Sep 2013 01:03
  Reuters/Jeff Christensen
  There's been a lot of talk about the absence of a strong and visible anti-war movement, the way there was during the George W. Bush Presidency.
  While there are protests against intervention in Syria, in general the movement seems to be a lot weaker under Obama.
  If you guessed that this had something to do with the fact that Obama is a Democrat... you'd be correct!
  In 2011, Professors Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas published a study titled: The Partisan Dynamics of Contention: Demobilization Of The Antiwar Movement In The United States 2007-2009 which looked at nearly 6,000 surveys of anti-war demonstrators between January 2007 and December 2009.
  This one chart basically tells the whole story. The percentage of Democrats attending anti-war protests collapsed at the end of 2008, and in early 2009.
  Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas
  As Democrats are the biggest block of any of these groups, this desertion of the Democratic party was the major blow.
VIDEO- They Want to Blame You - (A21CS Section 1.2) - YouTube
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  Archived Version
  Sun, 01 Sep 2013 22:54
Facebook reportedly considering adding 1+ billion members' photos to facial recognition database >> WTF RLY REPORT
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  Archived Version
  Sun, 01 Sep 2013 22:42
  End The LieBy Madison Ruppert
  A Facebook press conference in 2010 (Image credit: Robert Scoble/Flickr)
  Facebook is considering adding the majority of its over 1 billion members' profile photos to a massive facial recognition database, according to Reuters.
  Though they've considered this move in the past, the process was delayed by a significant amount of outcry from European legislators. That hasn't stopped them from developing the technology, evidenced by their acquisition of Israeli facial recognition company Face.com last year.
  Facebook revealed the possible action in an update to their data use policy on Thursday, Reuters reports, something which they claim is aimed at improving the performance of their ''Tag Suggest'' feature.
  ''Tag Suggest'' uses facial recognition technology to make the process of tagging people in photos posted to Facebook faster and easier. Many privacy advocates voiced concerns about the capability when it was first announced in 2011.
  Currently, Facebook automatically identifies faces in someone's new photos uploaded to the site by comparing them to previous pictures the users were tagged in.
  As Reuters interestingly points out, ''The changes would come at a time when Facebook and other Internet companies' privacy practices are under scrutiny, following the revelations of a U.S. government electronic surveillance program.''
  Indeed, reports revealed that internet giants like Google and Facebook worked directly with the government on the PRISM program, though they issued cleverly worded denials after the reports were published.
  The obvious implication is that this type of information could be used by the government, which would hardly be surprising given the amount of money spent on facial recognition programs.
  Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan claimed that the proposed move would actually give users better control over their personal information by making it easier to identify the photos in which they appear.
  ''Our goal is to facilitate tagging so that people know when there are photos of them on our service,'' Egan said.
  Interestingly, Egan could not deny that the facial recognition technology could be used for other features.
  ''Can I say that we will never use facial recognition technology for any other purposes? Absolutely not,'' Egan said.
  However, she said that Facebook users who are uncomfortable with the idea of their profile pictures being used in a giant facial recognition database will still have the ability to opt-out of the Tag Suggest feature.
  The entire feature is ''not available in Europe due to concerns raised by regulators there,'' Reuters reports.
  While Egan could not say if facial recognition will be used for anything other than Tag Suggest, she claimed ''if we decided to use it in different ways we will continue to provide people transparency about that and we will continue to provide control.''
  Facebook also changed the language contained in its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities in order to indicate that users under 18 have ''indicated that their parent or legal guardian has given Facebook permission to let marketers use 'some' of their personal data in ads. It's unclear what constitutes 'some,''' International Business Times reports.
  Via End The Lie
VIDEO- John Kerry 'This Week' Interview on Barack Obama's Plan for Syrian Military Strike - 9/1/13 - YouTube
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  Sun, 01 Sep 2013 22:29
CURL: Obama's 2014 calculation: Let's have a war - Washington Times
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  Sun, 01 Sep 2013 22:28
  ANALYSIS/OPINION:
  The first rule for President Obama: It's all about 2014. The second rule for President Obama: See Rule No. 1.
  SEE ALSO: John Kerry: Evidence of nerve agent sarin in Syria
  Make no mistake: The president couldn't care less about the plight of Syrians, the 1,500 gassed to death '-- including nearly 500 children. It's all about 2014. Win the House, reign supreme.
  Consider this: Mr. Obama made his dramatic Rose Garden statement on Saturday '-- then headed to the golf course. Congress has no plans to cut short its 30-day vacation, and the president did not call lawmakers back. So much for urgency.
  The conventional wisdom is, as usual, wrong. Losing the congressional vote won't be an embarrassment for the president, as all the talking heads are still parroting. A loss would be a double win. First, because a ''No'' vote would allow the foreign policy neophyte to walk away from his blundering ''red line'' declaration on chemical weapons (''I wanted to go in, but Congress said no''). And second, should Republicans who voted for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars now oppose Syria, the president would be armed with clear ''evidence'' that their opposition is purely political.
  Keep in mind: This president knows no other way to campaign than to blame others. He'll batter Republicans for all of 2014 as obstructionists should they be the reason the effort fails.
  But the bloviating politicos are also wrong that the ''Republican-controlled House'' could reject the plan for partisan reasons. It is Democrats who seem most squeamish '-- and they were the most vocal in demanding their say before intervention in Syria. Remember, two years ago, as the president prepared to bomb Libya, 70 Democrats joined Republicans in voting against military operations. Mr. Obama bombed anyway.
  Still, the entire fiasco has been hard to watch '-- ''Amateur Hour'' indeed. The president declares a ''red line,'' then sees the Syrian dictator cross it again and again. The Nobel Peace Prize winner declares he'll take America to war '-- but only then does he seek partners and only to find a ''Coalition of the Unwilling.'' The United Nations says no, the Arab League says no, China and Russia say no '-- and even the United Kingdom says no (mainly because Brits did not want to have another U.S.-led war jammed down their throats).
  SEE ALSO: Syrian state media call Obama's move a 'retreat'
  Back home, polls find 80 percent of Americans want Congress to decide, and nearly half oppose intervention. So the president '-- hoping to appear magnanimous '-- declares he'll seek authorization (read: Share the blame).
  Still, the president and his secretary of state are absolutely right. ''The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity,'' John F. Kerry said. Mr. Obama, in his most powerful passage, said: ''Here's my question for every member of Congress and every member of the global community: What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?''
  Of course a firm response is the correct action. And Mr. Obama didn't need authority to do so in Syria, just as he didn't in Libya. While Republican support on the Hill now would help Mr. Obama save face after his ''red line'' throw-down, striking Syria with a few cruise missiles '-- however fleeting and ineffectual that would be to the course of its 2-year-old civil war '-- would also send a signal to the real target: Iran. That's why, most likely, Republicans will support the president after rewriting the White House's draft resolution.
  Now, it is up to Mr. Obama's own party: Does he still hold sway over Democrats? Will they bend to his will? Already, many seem to running for the hills. And if they don't, will the president have the temerity to order strikes anyway?
  Whatever happens, this much is clear: We're no longer talking about the IRS targeting tea party groups, the Justice Department tapping reporters' phone lines, the NSA's surveillance programs, Benghazi. The president has smartly changed the subject to the most important decision a commander in chief makes: war.
  And the most presidential. That, he knows, will play better in the midterm elections, whichever way Congress votes.
  ' Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times and is now editor of the Drudge Report. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.
VIDEO- September 1: Kerry, McCain, Kaine, Chambliss - YouTube
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  Sun, 01 Sep 2013 20:57
VIDEO- Chris Wallace Interviews John Kerry on Syria - Fox News Sunday - September 1, 2013 - YouTube
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  Sun, 01 Sep 2013 20:43
George Bush Sr mistakenly announces Nelson Mandela's death - Telegraph
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  Sun, 01 Sep 2013 20:26
  Mr Bush, 89, sent condolences which were picked up by an American newswire, BNO. It was then flashed up by CNN.
  "As President, I watched in wonder as Nelson Mandela had the remarkable capacity to forgive his jailers following 26 years of wrongful imprisonment '' setting a powerful example of redemption and grace for us all. He was a man of tremendous moral courage, who changed the course of history in his country. Barbara and I had great respect for President Mandela, and send our condolences to his family and countrymen."
  "We have no independent verification of events in South Africa," Mr McGrath wrote.
  He later added: "The statement sent this morning was the result of my mis-reading the header on the WaPo news flash. Stupid mistake by me. Apologies to all."
  Nelson Mandela, 95, left hospital in Pretoria on Sunday morning to return to his home in the Johannesburg suburb of Houghton.
  He was taken to hospital on June 8 and spent almost three months in the clinic, suffering from a recurring lung infection.
  The Presidency issued a statement on Saturday, saying that South Africa's first post-Apartheid president remained "in a critical but stable condition."
  It said: "At times his condition becomes unstable, but he responds to medical interventions."