Rothschild Australia at forefront of global carbon credit trading framework

Rothschild Australia and E3 International to take the lead in the global carbon trading market

PRNewswire

Sydney, Australia – Rothschild Australia and E3 International are set to become key players in the international carbon credit trading market, an emerging commodity market that analysts estimate could be worth up to US$150 billion by 2012.

In a move that will re-shape the fledgling emissions trading market, Rothschild Australia and E3 International today announced their intention to launch the Carbon Ring Consortium — an investment vehicle that will provide companies in the Asia Pacific Region with an innovative way of learning about and understanding their risks in the new carbon market.

The Carbon Ring Consortium is the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific Region, and is the first in a series of private investment vehicles that Carbon Ring Pty Ltd will launch in coming years.

Richard Martin, the chief executive officer of Rothschild Australia said, “With recent developments in international climate change policy, the question is no longer if, but when the global carbon trading market will emerge. Rothschild Australia, through Carbon Ring, intends to be at the forefront of this market, providing private investment vehicles to companies seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions liabilities.”

The Carbon Ring Consortium allows companies with a future carbon liability to purchase a range of carbon credits and obtain a practical insight into the operation of this new market. Carbon credits will be bought from domestic and international projects that achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. These carbon credits will be distributed pro rata to Consortium investors.

“The Carbon Ring Consortium is an important first step for Rothschild and for our clients,” said Mr. Martin.

“The Consortium should appeal to companies that are faced with a greenhouse liability and are significant users or producers of energy, such as electricity generators, heavy industrials, oil companies, major manufacturers or airlines, amongst many others.

“It provides investors with an opportunity to learn about the market through an investment in a low risk, low cost investment vehicle, created specifically to acquire a diverse range of carbon credits. Participants will also share in significant knowledge and intellectual property,” Mr. Martin said.

During its life, the Carbon Ring Consortium intends to purchase a range of carbon credits, in a range of jurisdictions and from a range of sources. In the process, the Consortium will expose investors to many of the most pressing issues that corporations will have to address if they are to participate in the emerging carbon market. It will also give investors a practical insight into the buying and selling of carbon credits in the present market, without the need to invest in significant trading infrastructure or to assume undue risk.

Mr. Martin believes that there are many reasons why an organisation would invest in the Consortium: gaining practical experience in an emerging market; offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions; hedging their investments in new infrastructure; or in response to the expectations of the public, customers or shareholders.

Craig Windram, the director of E3 International and a partner in Carbon Ring, said, “A carbon liability brings with it considerable financial risk for organisations, and early planning to deal with this risk will add to an organisation’s competitive advantage — that’s where Carbon Ring comes in.

“Few companies have developed a practical understanding of the emerging carbon market. For companies on either side of the equation, as either buyers or sellers, the Carbon Ring Consortium will provide the opportunity to ‘learn by doing’. This experience will be vital in assisting businesses to formulate policy, to understand and identify their risks, and to demonstrate leadership in an area of growing public concern,” Mr. Windram said.

The Carbon Ring Consortium is an unregistered, managed investment scheme. Designed to be a tailored, limited-life vehicle, it will document the legal and accounting process involved in the purchase, settlement and distribution of various carbon credit assets.

Requiring an investment of US$100,000, with a portion returned to investors in the form of carbon credits, the Consortium is intended to provide investors with a low cost, low risk and structured entry into this new market.

  • About Rothschild

N M Rothschild & Sons has been at the centre of the world’s financial markets for more 200 years. Today, the firm is a global investment bank, which provides independent and quality advice to governments, corporations and individuals worldwide through a network of professionals in 40 offices across more than 30 countries. The firm employs 2,500 employees worldwide.

  • About E3

The E3 Group is a hybrid organisation dedicated to making the business case for sustainable development. It is part strategic management consultancy, part environmental think tank, part project developer and part investment manager.

The E3 Group comprises a number of companies that have developed around the business of sustainability. The Group includes a conventional consulting business, an environmental software company, a dedicated renewable energy project promoter and the Carbon Ring Consortium. The principal operating company in the group is E3 International Pty Limited, which is headquartered in Australia.

Distributed by PR Newswire on behalf of N M Rothschild and Sons

Two handlers of mind controlled slaves exposed, more gang stalking tactics revealed

By Stefan Fobes

People have asked in my previous articles why would they devote all these resources for me, just one person. It would take someone extremely abnormal to do something like that, and also like this.

callboys-washingtontimes

As I’ve said, my mother was mind controlled and perhaps she has passed some programming functions down to me through genetics that I may not know of. I won’t rule that out. The Fobes family claims descent from many British and Scottish royals, such as Robert the Bruce. They are of the Illuminati Bruce bloodline, one of the real 13. So I’m not surprised that so many resources can be deployed in my case.

There is information locked in the minds of programmed people about Illuminati black projects, sexual perversions on their part, and rituals that would blow the agenda sky high if it ever got out. Look at the gigantic military type convoy which was described by CBS News as nearly the size of a football field headed to programming factory UCLA Neuropsychiatric Medical Institute for blatantly programmed Britney Spears when she had what was called her breakdown. Yes, her programming breakdown. If she ever got to a good deprogrammer and publicly talked about what she has been through…..wow. It’d rock this world. This is why they use everything they have. It is a desperate struggle for survival in their part. And with circumstances and the world going the way it is, there is only one inevitable ending now.

Yet, there are several key players in every intelligence agency operation whom without they cannot be truly effective. In this article I will expose one critically important class of agent — the tactical predictor.

As I’ve written in two previous articles, I have been gang stalked for months. After some digging around, I have come up with a name and with that, a photo. This man is Simon Keith Wheeldon. He lives down the hall from the apartment I live in with his partner.

He has multiple functions — pun intended. He is not only fully mind controlled, as is his partner, it seems that he is a handler for a lot of programmed individuals also.

msimonwheeldon11-l-s

Sad, in pain, hurting inside. Whenever you see people who have this look, you are looking at a mind controlled individual.

Unfortunately, this can only be really written at this point to people who understand what government mind control operations are, but for those who do not, take a look at the pictures included in their books of people who claim to have been subjected to these torturous procedures of them during the time they claimed to be mind controlled. Then take a look at some pictures of schizophrenics, abuse victims, bipolar individuals, murderers, and others with common mental illnesses. For those that have, they will see that people claiming to have been mind controlled have a unique look found nowhere else in the spectrum of mental disorders. Their eyes appear like their spirit has literally been turned into a block of ice.

A handler of mind controlled slaves is inevitably wildly paranoid due to what they do and this Simon Wheeldon is no different. This is how his personality is. A constant expression of rage and/or suspicion on his face and filled with constant fear, a prime one being his fear of his posessions being stolen. His blue car on the block where I and he live has a little sign on one of the windows with NO STEREO in big black caps on it. His female partner, apparently, is deathly afraid of being robbed and raped. These are echoes of the initial abuse that formed their alter system. I do not hate them for what they do, but nor do I pity them for their condition. And I obviously cannot allow them to continue what they have been sent in to do, yet it is my deep wish that they and a skilled deprogrammer do some healing work together.

Daily, this Simon Wheeldon individual clop-clop-clops up and down the stairs, making the arrangements for spotters to be placed at points around the neighborhood, increasing or decreasing numbers depending on their state of desperation on a given day to observe my route and destination. An example from last Tuesday: Six people sitting in cars near no school or event taking place at about 4PM. Since he is aware of the information I reveal here and tactics will change accordingly, I will simply lay out the prime script-program that the intelligence agencies work by.

- Ex-government mind control subject Stewart Swerdlow talks in his Blue Blood, True Blood: Conflict and Creation book of watchful eyes positioned in Black communities to scope out the most amoral individuals who will do anything for profit and get them recruited. These people are actually in every single community in America. In apartment buildings, music schools, public schools, convenience stores, luxury apartment building doormen, hot dog vendors, building superintendents, janitors. Every single ethnicity and race has a minute portion of these spies and these are the people who have been put out to spy on me.

- Two astounding examples I have found are one Black plumber who works at New York’s Central Synagogue and a White woman who works at the Austrian Consulate General’s Office not too far from there. They are all trained and used for a wide array of purposes.

- They try to use a point to point relay system by which they keep one person behind, (to try to keep wise of any doubling back by someone they are spying on) one person ahead. In the intelligence agency spnsored movies, they usually depict operatives as following someone on foot from behind. In reality operatives are instructed to run ahead of the person they are following as this is never known of or expected by anyone, much like 99.9% of people never look up. The person ahead looks over their shoulder quickly and repeatedly to try to make sure of things.

- They are assisted in this by people who look down in their government paid for apartments as backup eyes.

- For burglaries, the general policy is never come in unless they are absolutely sure that it is safe to do so. This isn’t set in stone, though.

- Place at least one person on the block of someone they try to spy on to obtain the exact time they leave, after which their Matrix-style operator is notified and the next person down the line afterwards is robotically activated to keep their eyes open. This occurs assembly line style.

- If you know you are being followed and you think it is just one group of spies with one operator and you can just evade, this is not the case. There are always at least two operators (some are multillingual) and as soon as one spotter notifies their operator as to your position, it is a definite that the spies living on your block all have been notified.

- Use spies working at stores to try to do psychological probes via conversation or try to keep an eye on people they are spying on. An example in my case is a Black woman operative working at the copy department on the first floor of the Staples at 87th and 3rd in New York who were doing some sort of pretend theater involving some pictures that were “to be developed”. When I talked to her she just responded in total agency lingo.

- Openly try to take pictures with mobile devices or cameras. Operatives are instructed to try to use them for intimidation when cognizance of their activities is seen as a concern.

- Paranoid and cowardly as they are, if awareness is reached of their presence they will call backup who are dispatched to observe the situation.

- Increasing the manpower occurs when too many gaps in information gathering capability appear.

- Any form of physical transportation is used to get on scene or off scene.

- Entrapment, through offering of drugs or attempts to trick someone into other criminal endeavors is used.

- Female or male honeypots are used. Some even get jobs at the places where the person they are spying on works at and even try to marry them in cases. Which shows a victim mentality on the Illuminati’s part because they use their own family members for this without hesitation. And a big victim like they are is due to attract a mighty big oppressor.

- Extensive acting and theater is used for operatives to cloak themselves in public. If a spy is living in the same home as someone they are spying on, this can include anything from pretending to type all day to setting up a false business with “payments” from other operatives. It is very sophisticated.

- If a person comes from a background of heavy abuse and/or mind control, extensive psychological probes will be attempted to be used such as asking for directions , openers such as “hi” and “how are you?” by random people will be used to determine how well adjusted socially the person is, their mental, emotional, energetic potency, and most importantly to them, exactly how dissociative they are. Physical strength tests are also used such as asking to a person to help carry items, to see how well the person can handle themselves physically.

- Mobile devices such as TomToms with their map function are used for on the go tracking and navigation across a city or town. If you see a hell of a lot of people in your neighborhood standing around at odd hours, or even not so odd hours with a mobile device just staring at it for a long time — these guys are on duty.

- On the web, they resort to connecting directly through to the servers and intercepting emails that way. I have stefobes@gmail.com,  stefobes@yahoo.com, and dukecrass@yahoo.com where I cannot send anyone emails because they are not recieved. Even emails sent to myself take an hour to be recieved on these accounts. Forging email addresses, spambots, the tactic is to interfere with clean electronic communication flows. Simon Wheeldon is pretty proficient with those computers he has. I wonder what type of software he has on them, eh?

- Kidnapping is also attempted for young children. When I was in the second grade, a man came up to me while I was sitting on the steps of the apartment building I live in now and tried the old “you wanna make three bucks and help me carry this painting?” These are the people who do this. Kidnappers, thieves, burglars, cold blooded killers, rapists, terrorists.

- Physical attacks are used, but if they cannot sucessfully beat a person down physically, they then switch to guile and subtlety, such as trying to spread rumors such as guns, drug involvement, anything to discredit. Strangely enough, at least in my case, they only try to spread rumors around saying that I do what they themselves are doing. This can backfire though.

- There was a man called John Todd back in the 80s who talked about his experiences with the Illuminati. who claimed he was from the Collins bloodline, and one of the most remarkable things he said was that they had a special computer system whereby they could run a check and see whether they have operatives placed at certain areas in certain positions or not. Judging by the manner and speed at which certain dirty trick attempts have happened in my life, such as messing around with a birth certificate application (this is documented) as well as deleting my “father’s” name from my birth certificate permanent record from the computer system itself, I believe that this computer system does exist — and needs to be brought to light fast.

Another person has also been involved in this who is another handler. His name is Ronald Zeck. He is another handler who has been around for a long while. I remember always thinking, this guy looks like he’s CIA. And it turns out he is a fed. He is also mind controlled with deep abuse issues from childhood which causes him to drink. He is very emotionally unstable.

ronzeck2

From all the handlers I have seen it seems to be a constant that they are always filled with rage. I suppose this is intentional, the better to keep their handlees in line. Sitting in a public atrium near the Lehman Brothers Bank building I observed one handler with a look of barely suppressed rage on his face and the mind controlled woman he was handling just sitting there looking at me, her with her frozen eyes.

The Satanic network and the secret government are one and the same, and members even work together regularly on missions with zero discomfort on their part whatsoever.

This Simon Wheeldon and his female partner are responsible for the prediction aspect, where they use deductive reasoning based on where I’ve been in the past to make a guess when I’ll be out and make the call to put the spotters out in advance of the guessed time. They just sit there in that apartment, reclining with their mobiles and computers. Due to their programming, sleep is not really much of an issue and in Robert Fobes’s case, his alter system has been programmed to keep the body awake for, except for a few minutes, nearly 24/7. These other two, will be up as early as 6AM and as late as 3AM. Yet there is one thing they can never predict, even if they do have psychics. Consciousness. The real, all-knowing power even beyond what the energetic computer known as the mind can ever access.

20 Things the Illuminati Can Teach You

By Stefan Fobes

Today I again, write here about a vast, sprawling movement which comprises a dedicated part of the population who work day in, day out to bring great changes to this world. In this arena, the majority does not see intelligence, courage, honor, decency, skill, as great things. They speak of these in glowing terms, yes, but the reality is just the opposite. Your worth is decided strictly, by most people comprising this “underground”, by the resources you have at your beck and call, and how many worshippers, clones and mindless thralls you have sloshing saliva in your path at the moment. The naive neophytes are fed upon by hungrier, slicker fish who lie, and think of nothing other of their own self-aggrandizment, no matter what the cost to anyone else. Who will take them for everything they are worth and go home and eat fabulous dinners and sleep quite well. Independently creative thought is generally at a minimum. Raw recruits sit back, read their prepared daily briefs, and follow the included orders from the bigger fish. The reptilian brain by and large, runs the show here.

I’m talking about the malevolent, cutthroat world of Illuminati rituals and their secret society network?

No. I write of the conspiracy research arena.

I see this grotesque attitude permeating what should be the nexus point for the kindest, the wisest, the toughest. What really should be a gathering place for the best of the best. But instead I see constant desperate struggles, by the so-called awakened just as in the world of so-called sheeple, to try to grab power over others and see themselves as better than everyone else around them. The reptilian brain rules.

I see instead of dynamic individual minds who are so in speech and in deed, joining ideas instead of easily infiltratable groups, just innocent lambs waiting to be eaten by the next Illuminati agent with a fancy, cleverly worked out website and a loud enough voice booming with fake intensity.

I see penis measuring contests on who has the biggest hits on Alexa instead of brainstorming on what actually works and then simply going out and doing it.

And so, from a guy who comes from an Illuminati family himself, here are 20 things the Illuminati can teach you. This is not an endorsement of them.

1. They are voracious in their infoseeking. If it takes all night long, or weeks, or years, they will look and look till they get what they have been looking for.

2. Whenever one of their associates or slaves needs something for a mission, Illuminati members make sure this person or persons get the material resources they need to get the job done, whether it be by contributions or whatever. Even if the person is disliked, all that is necessary is that the person has the skills for the job and the plan be workable. No whining on forums, no silly speeches, just gets done.

3. They know how to conserve their resources. They do not throw out all their chips all in on one go.

4. They trust their instincts.

5. If they see an opening, they do not hesitate to take advantage and exploit it.

6. They do not go into deep dark depressions just because they had one minor setback. They use everything they have to find out exactly what went wrong, and correct the problem.

7. They know how to organize themselves.

8. Among them, concepts of color, sexual orientation, and fame are meaningless. The goal goes first.

9. They know what TV is and does — they introduced it, you know! The goal comes before the TV or any of their other mind control devices, such as video games. Watching all those hours every day and being “awake” are like matter and anti-matter. They cannot be in the same place at the same time.

10. They know to not let anyone take what they have. If someone tried to CPS their kids there’d be hell on all involved in trying, even the person who made the call. Literally.

11. You can insult them all you want, call them anything, and they do not take it like Joe and Jane Public would. This is because they have absolutely no pride or morals, but anyone who does with intelligence can easily integrate this into their minds.

12. They would NEVER, under any circumstances, sell out themselves out by giving their family secrets out to the public for peanuts, like so many of the commoners do by selling out their countries and spying on and black opping their fellow humans.

13. In the public eye, wanting a lot of material resources is seen as something to be ashamed of. It is a damn good thing! Everyone should have all the material items they need to do everything they need to do, and should feel pride in having the self-love for holding that perspective and moving with it. This is the mindset the leadership of the Illuminati hold.

14. When information is placed before them that is obviously a threat to their well-being, they immediately take action about it and do not go rushing to drown life circumstances in a TV or bag of takeout, even if they do not know precisely what to do at the moment.

15. Even if all hope seems lost, and the odds are against them, they still keep on working at it 110%.

16. They know the value of building up networks.

17. They feel no guilt about defending themselves from legal, physical, or other attacks. At times I read about people I see acting nice to their agents, saying sorry to them, when it was the agent who had infringed upon their rights. Never be sorry and apologetic to them. It’s a clear cut sign of victim mentality and is asking for trouble.

18. They are flexible, to an extent, and do not work with the controlled by them mainstream science and know the reality and value of homeopathy, energy and herbal healing, and do not hesitate to take full advantage of these using all the resources they have at their disposal.

19. They have always understood that they have their livelihood to defend, which is their pyramidal control system and all the luxury that comes with it. Humanity will learn from this,  whether it be gently through information like this article, or the hard way. Everyone must understand that their livelihoods are also being threatened, and act upon this via exposure of the agenda.

20. They know to set aside their petty differences when business needs to be taken care of.

The Iranian soft coup, under the microscope

By Stefan Fobes

If anyone wants to understand how it’s all done, a five minute walk in a big city will do. With the instant just about everything now available, the way people are packed like sardines in a can in the cities, it just knocks people into a “get the hell out of my way!” mode and results in people seeing instead of other people, just too many bodies that are in the way. Such a state creates a mind programmer’s paradise. Just send the stress machine into spin cycle and it’s a walk in the park as far as the control system is concerned. This is but one of many of the basic tools and causes for why the so called sheeple are so “dumb”. It isn’t necessarily an issue of dumb or smart, but actually degrees of programming. Otherwise the hypocritical way the Iranian elections have been covered would have been met with a bullshit call day one. So yes, focus is the beginning of the way out.

As soon as I heard a newsdroid say the first couple of sentences about the Iranian presidential elections and what was supposedly going on there I was calling it.

It is laughable to paint the Iranian system as anything resembling democracy. By law, Mr. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s twelve member Guardian Council has the exclusive right to select candidates, and then the people place their ballots. That this has not even been addressed when it is a matter of public record, is suspect. Will of the people, schmeple. Last year during the American presidential election it was reported that Barack Obama got no votes in New York’s Harlem and other historically Black American districts. This was quickly marginalized in the mainstream media and has never been brought up again since, just as the obvious Bush election steal was before it.

In Iran, the heist is of the country and of minds. Chris Floyd of Empire Burlesque writes:

Similarly, the Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi is universally depicted as a “moderate.” Yet, as Professor As’ad AbuKhalil points out, when Moussavi was Iran’s prime minister under Ayatollah Khomeini, he “presided over a regime far more oppressive than Ahmadinajad’s.” AbuKhalil’s take on the hypocrisy of the Western media coverage on Iran is worth quoting more fully:

…there is so much hypocrisy in the Western coverage and official reactions to the developments. Most glaring for me was the statement by the secretary-general of the UN who insisted on the respect of the will of the Iranian people. Would that US designate utter such words, say, about Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and other dictatorships that are approved by the US? …I am in no way sympathetic to Moussavi. He is a man who suddenly discovered the virtues of democracy. When he was prime minister back in the 1980s, he presided over a regime far more oppressive than Ahmadinajad’s. And why has no Western media really commented on his rhetoric during his own campaign: the man kept saying that he wants a “return” to the teachings of Khomeini. I in no way support a man who wants a “return” to the teachings of Khomeini.


Of course, Moussavi — like some other politicians we could mention — has now become, for millions of people, an emblem for genuine changes and reforms that he probably has no desire or intention to enact, even if given the chance. Like Barack Obama, he is of the power structure, and would, in end, no doubt act for the power structure. (Albeit with minor mitigations which, as we’ve often noted in regard to American politics, can also mean real differences in the lives of many individuals, and thus are not to be airily dismissed — although such an acknowledgement in no way requires an endorsement or acceptance of the overall power structure in which these mitigations occur, or of any particular mitigator in that system.)

Whenever the mainstream newsdroids keep on repeating go give to this organization or do this, I always sit up in my seat. For example, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the levees breaking, it was, give to the Red Cross, a great place to give is to the Red Cross. And Bush said to give cash donations. On the Northern Vermont Red Cross chapter’s website, it is stated:

The Board of Governors of the American Red Cross delegates authority and responsibility to the Board of Directors of each chapter for governance of the chapter; delivery of authorized serv-ices in the chapter’s jurisdiction; and meeting corporate obligations to comply with corporate regulations.

The Board of Governors is composed of fifty people selected from volunteers affiliated with lo-cal chapters across the United States. The President of the United States, who acts as honorary chairman of the Red Cross, appoints eight of the Board’s members and selects the chairperson. Thirty members are elected by local chapters. Twelve members are chosen by the Board of Governors.

The IRS classes it as a government instrumentality, which means that it is run by a branch of the US government. A big scandal broke out after 9/11 when the Red Cross kept hundreds of millions of dollars of donations meant for families. They blamed Bernadine Healy, the American Red Cross President, but who was really responsible for handling the instrument then? Somehow I think it a no-brainer.

And now Twitter and social networking sites are also being promoted. Paul Joseph Watson of PrisonPlanet.com in his MySpace Is The Trojan Horse of Internet Censorship, says of MySpace:

MySpace has been caught shutting down blogs critical of itself and other Murdoch owned companies. They even had the audacity to censor links to completely different websites when clicking through for MySpace. When 600 MySpace users complained, MySpace deleted the blog forum that the complaints were posted on. Taking their inspiration from Communist China, MySpace regularly uses blanket censorship to block out words like ‘God’.

Earlier this week Rupert Murdoch sounded the death knell for conventional forms of media in stating that the media elite were losing their monopoly to the rapid and free spread of new communication technologies. Murdoch stressed the need to regain control of these outlets in order to prevent the establishment media empire from crumbling.

MySpace is Rupert Murdoch’s trojan horse for destroying free speech on the Internet. It is a foundational keystone of the first wave of the state’s backlash to the damage that a free and open Internet has done to their organs of propaganda. By firstly making it cool, trendy and culturally elite for millions to flock to establishment controlled Internet backbones like MySpace, Murdoch is preparing the groundwork for the day when it will stop being voluntary and become mandatory to use government and corporate monopoly controlled Internet hubs.

This is supported by this well done short video showing the links between Facebook, the CIA, and DARPA. Facebook, Digg, reddit, Wikipedia, and MySpace have faced devastating blows to their credibility over the past few years, and now here’s the chance to slap the blinkers back on the herd once again and put them back in the “trendy” pen where their minds can be picked and programmed. Barack Obama and his wrecking crew took a big gamble admitting the CIA’s role in overthrowing the Iranian government in 1953. So covert ops are now being taken to a whole new level of subtlety. It has always come out every time that these social networking sites are owned by the people at the hidden tables. I have no doubt that the same is the case with Twitter.

Playing on the public’s lack of knowledge and overloaded memory queue, this Mir Hussein Moussavi is being cast somewhat in the mold of a Middle East Martin Luther King Jr., a dogged man fighting against the odds, trying to rise up against a tyrannical, primitive, repressive regime when in fact he represents the very continuance of such.

The severe Internet and freedom of speech restrictions are also ripe for classic good cop/bad cop MSM theater, and of course, this is what we have here. The Iranians are seen as even more naive because of these overt restrictions. To add in an extra layer of manipulation agents are no doubt being activated, like in so many South and Central American nations with Communism, to try and steer their emotions in a way that they themselves give the consent for yet another round of dictatorship. Paul Craig Roberts, writing for Infowars.com notes:

Today the street demonstrations in Tehran show signs of orchestration. The protesters, primarily young people, especially young women opposed to the dress codes, carry signs written in English: “Where is My Vote?” The signs are intended for the western media, not for the Iranian government.

iransign2

More evidence of orchestration is provided by the protesters’ chant, “death to the dictator, death to Ahmadinejad.” Every Iranian knows that the president of Iran is a public figure with limited powers. His main role is to take the heat from the governing grand Ayatollah. No Iranian, and no informed westerner, could possibly believe that Ahmadinejad is a dictator. Even Ahmadinejad’s superior, Khamenei, is not a dictator as he is appointed by a government body that can remove him.

The demonstrations, like those in 1953, are intended to discredit the Iranian government and to establish for Western opinion that the government is a repressive regime that does not have the support of the Iranian people. This manipulation of opinion sets up Iran as another Iraq ruled by a dictator who must be overthrown by sanctions or an invasion.

On American TV, the protesters who are interviewed speak perfect English. They are either westernized secular Iranians who were allied with the Shah and fled to the West during the 1978 Iranian revolution or they are the young westernized residents of Tehran.

And no one would ever think that here in America, independent inventors, doctors and scientists who work so hard to bring ways of health and life freedom to the public are being viciously raided by the FDA. That elderly and pregnant women aren’t being tasered by some of the more bloodthirsty cops who should be sitting with the criminals they bust. You’d think that vote fraud didn’t happen with the Bushes. You’d think that the Obama administration wasn’t trying to introduce legislation that was opposed by pretty much everyone. It only happens in countries with guys with names you can barely pronounce, right?

Obama is the fresh shill on the block, the perfect guy to sweet talk the Iranians. Dark skin coloration just like them, Arab middle name for the ambiguous “he’s probably a secret Muslim that needs to lay low” cover. Just as in feudal Japan or China, there are factions of the hidden hand as well. One is the Zbigniew Brzezinski/Barack Obama/global warming group, and the other seems to be the war on terror/Zionist/neocon group. The information in this article seems so on the mark, especially in light of recent events, such as John Kerry and Obama coming out and saying it’s ok for Iran to have nuclear power.

According to investigative researcher Webster Tarpley, power in Washington has shifted away from the neocon “rogue” faction of the elite to the Trilateral faction that stands behind Obama (”US Policy Shift On Iran-Iraq Again Shows Brzezinski Rules In Washington”). This faction seeks to redirect the American Empire’s hostilities away from Iran and focus them on Russia and China (ibid). Such a plan requires that Iran be transformed into an asset, which means that Tehran’s efforts to procure nuclear weapons may even be tolerated, so long as Iran is willing to act as a nuclear proxy of the American Empire (ibid). Iran has long desired to revive the Persian Empire, and Trilateralists such as Carter’s former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski believe that they can insure that a revived Persian Empire is merely an extension of the American Empire.

Unless the Iranians wake up and start seeing that West is not always best, I see myself shaking my head in sorrow for the millionth time.

Israeli forces have abducted Gaza aid ship with ex-Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney on board

ISRAEL ATTACKS JUSTICE BOAT; KIDNAPS HUMAN RIGHTS WORKERS; CONFISCATES MEDICINE, TOYS AND OLIVE TREES

Free Gaza Team / 6.30.09 / FreeGaza.org

For more information contact:

Greta Berlin (English)

tel: +357 99 081 767 / friends@freegaza.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Caoimhe Butterly (Arabic/English/Spanish):

tel: +357 99 077 820 / sahara78@hotmail.co.uk This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

www.FreeGaza.org

[23 miles off the coast of Gaza, 15:30pm] – Today Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (see below for a complete list of passengers). The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel.

“This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip,” said Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate. “President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that’s exactly what we tried to do. We’re asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey.”

According to an International Committee of the Red Cross report released yesterday, the Palestinians living in Gaza are “trapped in despair.” Thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed earlier during Israel’s December/January massacre are still without shelter despite pledges of almost $4.5 billion in aid, because Israel refuses to allow cement and other building material into the Gaza Strip. The report also notes that hospitals are struggling to meet the needs of their patients due to Israel’s disruption of medical supplies.

“The aid we were carrying is a symbol of hope for the people of Gaza, hope that the sea route would open for them, and they would be able to transport their own materials to begin to reconstruct the schools, hospitals and thousands of homes destroyed during the onslaught of “Cast Lead”. Our mission is a gesture to the people of Gaza that we stand by them and that they are not alone” said fellow passenger Mairead Maguire, winner of a Noble Peace Prize for her work in Northern Ireland.

Just before being kidnapped by Israel, Huwaida Arraf, Free Gaza Movement chairperson and delegation co-coordinator on this voyage, stated that: “No one could possibly believe that our small boat constitutes any sort of threat to Israel. We carry medical and reconstruction supplies, and children’s toys. Our passengers include a Nobel peace prize laureate and a former U.S. congressperson. Our boat was searched and received a security clearance by Cypriot Port Authorities before we departed, and at no time did we ever approach Israeli waters.”

Arraf continued, “Israel’s deliberate and premeditated attack on our unarmed boat is a clear violation of international law and we demand our immediate and unconditional release.”

###

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

CONTACT the Israeli Ministry of Justice

tel: +972 2646 6666 or +972 2646 6340

fax: +972 2646 6357

CONTACT the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs

tel: +972 2530 3111

fax: +972 2530 3367

CONTACT Mark Regev in the Prime Minister’s office at:

tel: +972 5 0620 3264 or +972 2670 5354

mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

CONTACT the International Committee of the Red Cross to ask for their assistance in establishing the wellbeing of the kidnapped human rights workers and help in securing their immediate release!

Red Cross Israel

tel: +972 3524 5286

fax: +972 3527 0370

tel_aviv.tel@icrc.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Red Cross Switzerland:

tel: +41 22 730 3443

fax: +41 22 734 8280

Red Cross USA:

tel: +1 212 599 6021

fax: +1 212 599 6009

###

Kidnapped Passengers from the Spirit of Humanity include:

Khalad Abdelkader, Bahrain

Khalad is an engineer representing the Islamic Charitable Association of Bahrain.

Othman Abufalah, Jordan

Othman is a world-renowned journalist with al-Jazeera TV.

Khaled Al-Shenoo, Bahrain

Khaled is a lecturer with the University of Bahrain.

Mansour Al-Abi, Yemen

Mansour is a cameraman with Al-Jazeera TV.

Fatima Al-Attawi, Bahrain

Fatima is a relief worker and community activist from Bahrain.

Juhaina Alqaed, Bahrain

Juhaina is a journalist & human rights activist.

Huwaida Arraf, US

Huwaida is the Chair of the Free Gaza Movement and delegation co-coordinator for this voyage.

Ishmahil Blagrove, UK

Ishmahil is a Jamaican-born journalist, documentary film maker and founder of the Rice & Peas film production company. His documentaries focus on international struggles for social justice.

Kaltham Ghloom, Bahrain

Kaltham is a community activist.

Derek Graham, Ireland

Derek Graham is an electrician, Free Gaza organizer, and first mate aboard the Spirit of Humanity.

Alex Harrison, UK

Alex is a solidarity worker from Britain. She is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Denis Healey, UK

Denis is Captain of the Spirit of Humanity. This will be his fifth voyage to Gaza.

Fathi Jaouadi, UK

Fathi is a British journalist, Free Gaza organizer, and delegation co-coordinator for this voyage.

Mairead Maguire, Ireland

Mairead is a Nobel laureate and renowned peace activist.

Lubna Masarwa, Palestine/Israel

Lubna is a Palestinian human rights activist and Free Gaza organizer.

Theresa McDermott, Scotland

Theresa is a solidarity worker from Scotland. She is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Cynthia McKinney, US

Cynthia McKinney is an outspoken advocate for human rights and social justice issues, as well as a former U.S. congressperson and presidential candidate.

Adnan Mormesh, UK

Adnan is a solidarity worker from Britain. He is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Adam Qvist, Denmark

Adam is a solidarity worker from Denmark. He is traveling to Gaza to do human rights monitoring.

Adam Shapiro, US

Adam is an American documentary film maker and human rights activist.

Kathy Sheetz, US

Kathy is a nurse and film maker, traveling to Gaza to do human rights monitoring.

###

Are you at risk of getting the deadly new dog flu?

The Dog Flu Virus: Are You or Your Pet at Risk?

6.29.09 / New York Times

In today’s Science Times, health reporter Donald McNeil writes about a new flu virus circulating in dogs. Mr. McNeil writes:

While fears of a flu pandemic among humans have shifted from the lethal H5N1 avian flu to the relatively mild H1N1 swine flu, the H3N8 canine flu has been a quiet undercurrent in the United States, rarely discussed except among veterinarians and dog owners in the few areas where it has struck hard: Florida, New York City’s northern suburbs, Philadelphia and Denver.

DESCRIPTION Dr. Cynda Crawford, co-discoverer of the dog flu virus.

This week, Dr. Cynda Crawford, one of the discoverers of the virus and a veterinarian at the University of Florida veterinary school, joins the Consults blog to answers readers’ questions about the dog flu and the first vaccine approved for it.

Read Mr. McNeil’s full story, “New Flu Vaccine Approved — for Dogs.”

Do you have a question about canine flu? Post your questions for Dr. Crawford in the “Add your comments” box below. We will be posting Dr. Crawford’s responses in the coming week. Check back for regular updates.

NAU creeping up: Gun hunt cooperation between Mexico and US feds on the rise

They know where the cartels are really getting their supply of weapons.  This has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with merging the Mexican and American intelligence/police communities under the North American Union. Read my 3 for 1 sale for the New World Order article.

Federal agents hunt for guns, one house at a time

6.30.09 / Dane Schiller / Houston Chronicle

In front of a run-down shack in north Houston, federal agents step from a government sedan into 102-degree heat and face a critical question: How can the woman living here buy four high-end handguns in one day?

The house is worth $35,000. A screen dangles by a wall-unit air conditioner. Porch swing slats are smashed, the smattering of grass is flattened by cars and burned yellow by sun.

“I’ll do the talking on this one,” agent Tim Sloan, of South Carolina, told partner Brian Tumiel, of New York.

Success on the front lines of a government blitz on gunrunners supplying Mexican drug cartels with Houston weaponry hinges on logging heavy miles and knocking on countless doors. Dozens of agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — sent here from around the country — are needed to follow what ATF acting director Kenneth Melson described as a “massive number of investigative leads.”

All told, Mexican officials in 2008 asked federal agents to trace the origins of more than 7,500 firearms recovered at crime scenes in Mexico. Most of them were traced back to Texas, California and Arizona.

Among other things, the agents are combing neighborhoods and asking people about suspicious purchases as well as seeking explanations as to how their guns ended up used in murders, kidnappings and other crimes in Mexico.

“Ever turning up the heat on cartels, our law enforcement and military partners in the government of Mexico have been working more closely with the ATF by sharing information and intelligence,” Melson said Tuesday during a firearms-trafficking summit in New Mexico.

Firearms dealers visited

The ATF recently dispatched 100 veteran agents to its Houston division, which reaches to the border.

The mission is especially challenging because, officials say, that while Houston is the number one point of origin for weapons traced back to the United States from Mexico, the government can’t compile databases on gun owners under federal law.

Agents instead review firearms dealers’ records in person.

People who are legally in the United States and have clean criminal records, but are facing economic problems are often recruited by traffickers to buy weapons on their behalf in order to shield themselves from scrutiny.

Knocks at the door of the shack that looked to be the definition of hard times went unanswered.

“I am out of here,” Sloan said a few moments later, as a pit bull lazily sauntered from the back yard. “I don’t like pit bulls walking up behind me.”

Best information source

On second thought, Sloan switched to Spanish and interviewed a neighbor.

The neighbor said the woman left a month ago after a fight with her husband or boyfriend, who still lived there with what she called “other degenerates.”

“An angry ex-girlfriend or wife is the best person in the world, the greatest source of information,” Sloan said.

The night before, the duo were in a stakeout where they watched a weapons sale.

They also combined efforts with the Drug Enforcement Administration for an aircraft to stealthily follow traffickers to the border.

On this day, agents weren’t wearing raid jackets or combat boots and weren’t armed with warrants.

Guns were hidden under civilian shirts.

Another tip took agents on a 30-minute drive from the shack to a sprawling home with a pool in the back and an American flag out front.

It turned out two handguns, of a type drug gangsters prefer, were bought by a pastor for target practice.

Some stories, they say, are hard to believe.

The lamest so far came from a police officer: He said he bought a few military-style rifles, left them in his car and — on the same night — forgot to lock a door. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t file a police report or why he visited Mexico the day after the alleged theft.

Canadian officials to “decide” who will get swine flu vaccine

Vaccinate Canadians under 40 and natives first: experts

6.21.09 / Sharon Kirkey / Camwest News Service

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq watches researcher George Moussa test flu samples after announcing funding to speed up influenza research and test new vaccines against the H1N1 flu virus, Jun. 5, 2009.

Mike Cassese/ReutersHealth Minister Leona Aglukkaq watches researcher George Moussa test flu samples after announcing funding to speed up influenza research and test new vaccines against the H1N1 flu virus, Jun. 5, 2009.


Five-to-40-year-olds and Canada’s aboriginal communities should be the first to get vaccinated against human swine flu, experts say as Canadian officials decide who gets priority for the flu shots.

Under Canada’s official pandemic plan, the entire population would ultimately be immunized against the H1N1 swine flu.

But the vaccine will become available in batches, meaning the entire population can’t be vaccinated at once. It might take four or five months to get all the vaccine we’re going to get, during which time a second wave of swine flu may well be underway.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is working on a priority list, deciding where the first batches should go, and who should get the injections first. All provinces and territories would be expected to follow the national prioritization scheme.

Unlike normal seasonal flu, the H1N1 virus appears to be disproportionately infecting older children and young adults. So far the largest number of confirmed cases have occurred in people between the ages of five and 24.

“It doesn’t mean they’re all getting sick and need to be hospitalized, but they’re getting significant illness,” said Dr. Noni MacDonald, a leader in pediatric infectious diseases and a professor of pediatrics at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

British researchers reported last week that targeting children first would protect not only them, but also unvaccinated adults.

“Even if you are concerned about the elderly, who are often mentioned as another risk group, their main connection to the big pool of infection is often their grandchildren,” said Dr. Thomas House of the University of Warwick.

But adults older than 64 don’t appear to be at increased risk of H1N1-related complications so far in the outbreak. It’s possible they have some antibodies against the virus.

As well, children “are known to be really important for transmitting flu,” said Earl Brown, executive director of the Emerging Pathogens Research Centre at the University of Ottawa.

“They’re important for the cycle of infection. They tend to be naive as far as not having flu antibodies in their system before. And really young kids, their immune systems aren’t fully mature.

“Children tend to be hit, and they can be hit harder,” Brown said. By immunizing children first, “you get to try to block spread, and protect a vulnerable group.”

Gymnasiums would be used for mass school-based vaccination programs but experts say the harder to reach group will be the 18-to-30-year-olds.

“Some of them are in school, a lot of them are not,” MacDonald said. “They’re very much living in the moment and don’t necessarily see themselves as being at risk. We need some fast thinking about how to reach those people.”

She suggested booths could be set up outside bars for information and immunization.

“You’ve got to be creative about this and really think out of the box.”

Canada’s aboriginal communities also appear to be getting more serious infections. Crowded, poorly ventilated housing and poor access to high-quality running water and sanitization are some of the factors being blamed. Aboriginals also have higher rates of asthma, chronic lung disease, obesity and diabetes — the very diseases early data suggests puts people at higher risk of life-threatening complications from swine flu.

The H1N1 vaccine will be a separate vaccine from the regular, annual flu shot. People will require two jabs, and possibly three, depending on how effective the vaccine is in producing immunity. The Public Health Agency of Canada says that no decisions have yet been made about who would get priority first.

One of the challenges will be getting people to agree to the shots. There will be limited information about any vaccine’s safety before immunization campaigns are rolled out across the country.

“We usually do research in healthy adults before we do it in children, because this is a new vaccine, and you want to be sure that it’s safe and effective before you give it to vulnerable populations, or populations who don’t have full capacity to make an informed decision about getting it or not,” said Dr. Joanne Langley, of Health Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization.

“There are pros and cons to putting [children] first.”

Babies under six months of age are not vaccinated against flu.

Obama warned Netanyahu not to surprise US with Iran strike

Obama warns Netanyahu: Don’t surprise me with Iran strike

5.14.09 / Aluf Benn & Natasha Mozgovaya / Haaretz

U.S. President Barack Obama has sent a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that Israel not surprise the U.S. with an Israeli military operation against Iran. The message was conveyed by a senior American official who met in Israel with Netanyahu, ministers and other senior officials. Earlier, Netanyahu’s envoy visited Washington and met with National Security Adviser James Jones and with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and discussed the dialogue Obama has initiated with Tehran.

The message from the American envoy to the prime minister reveals U.S. concern that Israel could lose patience and act against Iran. It is important to the Americans that they not be caught off guard and find themselves facing facts on the ground at the last minute.

Obama did not wait for his White House meeting with Netanyahu, scheduled for next Monday, to deliver his message, but rather sent it ahead of time with his envoy.

It may be assumed that Obama is disturbed by the positions Netanyahu expressed before his election vis-a-vis Tehran – for example, Netanyahu’s statement that “If elected I pledge that Iran will not attain nuclear arms, and that includes whatever is necessary for this statement to be carried out.” After taking office, on Holocaust Memorial Day Netanyahu said: “We will not allow Holocaust-deniers to carry out another holocaust.”

Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak do not oppose American dialogue with Tehran, but they believe it should be conducted within a limited window of time, making it clear to Iran that if it does not stop its nuclear program, severe sanctions will be imposed and other alternatives will be considered.

The American concern that Israel will attack Iran came up as early as last year, while president George W. Bush was still in office. As first reported in Haaretz, former prime minister Ehud Olmert and Barak made a number of requests from Bush during the latter’s visit to Jerusalem, which were interpreted as preparations for an aerial attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

‫State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly did not directly address the question of the U.S.’s official stance on an Israeli attack, but said Thursday that “we believe that the multilateral track with Iran is the right way to go.”

“Our goal is to make them abandon their nuclear program in a verifiable way, and we will continue with this track. We decided that we want to let Iran get back to the table, to engage them, because the previous approach of isolating Iran didn?t work. But we don?t have a clear timetable,” he said.

Following the Bush visit to Jerusalem, about a year ago the previous administration sent two senior envoys, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, and the former U.S. national intelligence chief Mike McConnell to demand that Israel not attack Iran.

The previous administration also gave the message greater weight through Mullen’s public statement that an Israeli attack on Iran would endanger the entire region. Since that statement, Mullen has met a number of times with his Israeli counterpart, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

Elite colleges nurture cutthroat, selfish behavior and a sense of entitlement

Elite Colleges Are Promoting a Culture of Selfish, Cutthroat Behavior and We Are All Paying the Price

The results are campus environments where disregard for society is socially accepted, where misguided students are encouraged to become worse.

5.23.09 / Peter Schmidt / Alternet

Like many of us, the nation’s elite colleges and universities have taken a financial beating over the past year.

Among them, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford all watched their endowments shrink by about 20 percent as a result of investment losses.

Despite all their brainpower, such institutions appear to have failed to learn what every simple farmer knows: you reap what you sow. Elite colleges and professional schools bear a share of the blame for the economic crisis that now plagues them, because it is they who educated and bestowed academic credentials upon many of those who got us into this mess.

It should come as no surprise to them that many on Wall Street and in Washington have proven ethically bankrupt and without regard for people of lesser means, because their admissions policies have done much to ensure such a result.

In determining which applicants they will admit and put on the fast track, most elite higher-education institutions systematically favor people from privileged backgrounds who display selfish, cutthroat behavior. The results are campus environments where disregard for society is socially accepted, where bad people are encouraged to become worse.

Consider, for starters, how most such institutions rely on standardized admissions tests such as the SAT, even though they know perfectly well that the nation’s massive test-preparation industry has severely compromised the reliability of such instruments, turning them into tools for measuring, as much as anything, wealth and willingness to seek unfair advantage.

Test-preparation programs make people better test-takers not better prospective students. They raise scores mainly by teaching various test-taking tricks, such as how to quickly spot the “sucker” answers to a multiple-choice question to improve the odds of guessing correctly. Yet many are effective enough to offer those families that can afford their fees — typically, $500 to $1,000 — a chance to buy their children enough extra points to transform many from also-rans into shoo-ins.

In turning a blind eye to the widespread tainting of admissions test scores, higher-education institutions argue that they lack better mechanisms for efficiently judging applicants from high schools of sharply varying quality. But many education researchers disagree and say some alternatives to such tests, such as admissions systems that give substantial weight to class rank or samples of each applicant’s work, are more reliable predictors of applicants’ academic performance.

Moreover, selective colleges have ulterior motives for relying on standardized admissions tests that have nothing to do with academic considerations and everything to do with their bottom lines. The more high-scoring students they admit, the higher their “selectivity” ratings in the college-ranking guides that help determine how many applicants knock on their doors each year.

And not only is sifting through applications based on test scores a lot cheaper than hiring enough people to consider each candidate carefully, but relying on such scores helps skew the process in favor of wealthier applicants, who will not need financial assistance and are likely to donate generously down the road.

If young people find that artificially inflating their test scores isn’t enough to get them into a choice college, they always have the option of having someone bribe their way in with a big donation.

Selective colleges are so happy to have their palms greased in such a manner that some make little effort to hide how much they lower the bar for applicants connected to generous alumni and other contributors. To improve their odds of having favors done for them by people in positions of power, many selective higher-education institutions also admit mediocre applicants at the request of state and federal officials.

They let their professors and administrators in on the game by lowering the bar for the children of employees, as a job perk. Despite all of their talk about operating athletics programs to promote sportsmanship, they assure recruited athletes the playing field will be tilted in their favor in the competition for freshman-class seats.

Through such admissions policies, colleges end up giving the nation’s high school students crash courses in cynicism. They teach young people that money talks, fairness is for losers, who you know matters more than what you know, and some people are simply entitled to what others may never attain, no matter how hard they work.

Considering how much selective colleges and universities favor applicants who take such lessons to heart, should it surprise anyone that about half of all graduate- and professional-school students admit on surveys to having recently cheated?

In Italy, memories of Mussolini Blackshirts churn over legalization of vigilante militia patrols

Fears over fascism as Italy revives ‘Blackshirt’ vigilantes

5.16.09 / Nick Squires / Independent.ie

Italy has sanctioned the creation of vigilante patrols for the first time since Mussolini’s notorious Blackshirt volunteer militia.

A new law gives an official stamp of approval to vigilante groups that have sprung up in several Italian cities, especially in the northern strongholds of the right wing, anti-immigrant Northern League.

The vigilantes can alert police to public order offences or suspected criminals but don’t have the power of arrest.

One group, known as the Italian National Guard, claims to have 2,000 members. It plans to dress its members in khaki shirts, black ties and black armbands bearing a red symbol that critics say resembles a swastika.

The opposition Democratic Party warned that such groups set a dangerous precedent and harked back to Italy’s fascist past.

“There was a period in Italy’s history in which security was entrusted to people who went around in shirts of the same colour and we don’t want to return to that,” its leader, Dario Franceschini, warned.

The accusation prompted an angry response from the government, which said the vigilante patrols were a legitimate means of combating crime.

“Blackshirts? Just the words disgust me,” said Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni.

The law was part of a sweeping security package passed by parliament in response to widespread concerns about crime and immigration. It makes illegal entry or residence on Italian soil an offence punishable by fines of up to €10,000.

Warning

Meanwhile, the United Nations refugee agency warned Italy yesterday that its policy of towing migrant boats back to the Libyan coast broke international conventions, but Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government vowed to continue.

Laurens Jolles, the UNHCR’s representative in Italy, met Mr Maroni to complain about the deportation of migrants intercepted at sea, which began earlier this month amid steadily warming ties with Libya.

Mr Jolles said after the meeting that such repatriations contradicted the 1951 Geneva Convention, which was applicable even in international waters.

The UNHCR says the hundreds of people deported in recent weeks included asylum seekers and it called on Italy to accept them back.

“The repatriations will go ahead, as foreseen in the agreement between Libya and Italy,” Mr Maroni said after the interview.

Smoking gun proof of existence of voice to skull technology from the US Army’s website

Army Yanks ‘Voice-To-Skull Devices’ Site

5.9.08 / Sharon Weinberger / Wired.com Danger Room


Hypno2s The Army’s very strange webpage on “Voice-to-Skull” weapons has been removed. It was strange it was there, and it’s even stranger it’s gone. If you Google it, you’ll see the entry for “Voice-to-Skull device,” but, if you click on the website, the link is dead.

The entry, still available on the Federation of American Scientists‘ website reads:

Nonlethal weapon which includes (1) a neuro-electromagnetic device which uses microwave transmission of sound into the skull of persons or animals by way of pulse-modulated microwave radiation; and (2) a silent sound device which can transmit sound into the skull of person or animals. NOTE: The sound modulation may be voice or audio subliminal messages. One application of V2K is use as an electronic scarecrow to frighten birds in the vicinity of airports.

The U.K.-based group Christians Against Mental Slavery first noted the change (they also have a permanent screenshot of the page). A representative of the group tells me they contacted the Webmaster, who would only tell them the entry was “permanently removed.”

The image above is one person’s self-styled depiction of how a “voice-to-skull” weapon might work.

[Image: Raven1.net]

Robots which can gain power from eating small animals!

Gallery: Domestic robots with a taste for flesh

6.25.09 / Jessica Griggs / New Scientist

Futuristic-looking robots like Honda’s sleek humanoid Asimo don’t cut it for designer James Auger, at the Royal College of Art, London. Believing that they need to fit unobtrusively into the home, he has built robotic furniture. And, believing they need to be useful and entertaining, he has given the furniture an appetite for vermin, like mice and flies.

See a gallery of images of the carnivorous robotic furniture

Auger worked with long time collaborator and fellow designer Jimmy Loizeau to build the five domestic robots. Each can sense its environment, has mechanical moving parts, and can perform basic services for its human hosts, such as telling the time or lighting a room.

‘Game of life’

But the robots also have a taste for flesh. They can gain energy by chomping on flies and mice, an idea inspired by researchers at Bristol Robotics Lab, UK, who built a fly-powered robot and have also suggested that marine robots could feed on plankton.

The pests are lured in and digested by an internal microbial fuel cell. This exploits the way microbes generate free electrons and hydrogen ions when oxidising chemicals for energy. Electronics can be powered by directing the electrons around an external circuit before reuniting them with the ions.

“As soon as there is a predatory robot in the room the scene becomes loaded with potential,” Auger told New Scientist. “A fly buzzing around the window suddenly becomes an actor in a live game of life, as the viewer half wills it towards the robot and half hopes for it to escape.”

Although, for now, the robots rely on mains power, Auger believes they could become truly self-sufficient. “If the system fails, the grid goes down and all humans die, these robots could go on living so long as the flies don’t go with us.”

US troops will not be exiting out of Iraq, will encircle cities & have “noncombat” troops inside Mosul

General: US Troops to ‘Encircle’ Iraqi Cities

June 30 Pullback Troops Won’t Be Going Far

6.26.09 / Jason Ditz / Antiwar.com

The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Iraq and the United States requires that all US combat forces leave Iraqi cities by the end of Tuesday. The US is going to be going along with the requirement, more or less, but those troops won’t be going far.

Major General Robert Caslen

According to Major General Robert Caslen, the commander of US forces in the north, the troops that are being pulled from the cities will be massing along the outskirts of the cities, encircling them in what the general called an attempt to replicate the surge strategy outside of the cities.

Maj. Gen. Caslen expressed concern about the recent spike in massive bombings, and also seemed unsure if the Iraqi government could take over for the US troops inside the cities. He has also reported that the Iraqi government has agreed to keep “non-combat” troops at five locations inside Mosul after the deadline.

Analysts are downplaying the pullback as a change on the ground, noting that US troops will be able to intervene in situations when the Iraqi military requests it. They do, however, see the pullback as a major test to the US-Iraqi relationship.