Israel Kidnaps Cynthia McKinney, Human Rights Workers

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. 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.”

German court halts ratification of Lisbon Treaty

KARLSRUHE, Germany (AFP) – The EU’s Lisbon Treaty may not be ratified in Germany until legislation has been put in place to safeguard national parliamentary powers, the country’s top court ruled on Tuesday.

In a keenly-awaited decision, the Federal Constitutional Court said the document “may not be adopted until the sufficient legal groundwork for parliamentary participation as foreseen in the constitution has been laid.”

“If one wanted to summarise this result, one could say: the constitution says ‘yes’ to the Lisbon Treaty but demands that parliament’s right to participation be strengthened at the national level,” the court said.

“The court is confident that the last barrier for adopting the ratification document will be cleared.”

Following the court’s judgement, a spokeswoman for the centre-left Social Democrats announced that Germany’s parliament would hold special sessions on August 26 and September 8 to debate a law allowing the treaty to pass.

A German member of the European Parliament, Jo Leinen, told AFP: “The political will is there, there will be no delay.”

Joachim Fritz-Vannahme, a European affairs analyst at the Bertelsmann Foundation, agreed.

“I can well expect this to happen as quickly as possible so that the ratification … is not slowed down any more,” he said, adding that the exact time-frame was still unclear.

“There is enough time. There are enough legal experts in both parliamentary chambers to be able to find the correct formulation … the Bundestag and the Bundesrat now have to sit down and get down to work,” he said.

Read full article

Iconic photo of Iranian protester is faked: reveals Italy’s most conservative mainstream paper

There is a picture circulating on the web, framed perfectly. It depicts an Iranian girl doing an unlikely American gesture, a striking parallel to the picture of a solitary Chinese youth standing in front of tanks at Tienanmen Square in Beijing. We can expect to see this picture soon everywhere on Internet.

None other than Corriere della Sera, Italy’s major mainstream newspaper, and one that is quite conservative regarding anything with the Middle East – says the picture is a photo montage, and shows the original picture: a picture of a girl standing in front of Ahmadinejad’s car, date and reason unknown, with an open hand, perhaps simply greeting Ahmadinejad. They even comment on the smiling face of the Iranian leader. http://www.corriere.it/esteri…

The fake picture was put on Youtube by Secondoprotocollo, which appears to be a very active Italian NGO, with offices in several countries. However, to get to the bottom of things, sometimes all it takes is to look a notch farther down the pole. Just a regular web search engine will lead one to find a critical site, which claims that Secondoprotocollo is a one-man job, entirely run by a certain Franco Londei, and which accuses Secondoprotocollo of having repeatedly made false reports and claims, especially taking photos at random from the web and claiming they represent activists of Secondoprotocollo in dangerous parts of the world.

The critical site appears to be well documented, and I have come across no systematic refutation of the accusations made by the critical site. Others have written (in Italian) about him in the past, and this is the site that seems to know quite a lot about his activities: http://primoprotocollo.altervista.org/ . Obviously, I’m not a researcher, and I leave all of that to those who have the time and the expertise, but it certainly does make one wonder. I know nothing of the person, his “movement” nor his aims, and if there is something that people could share to in one way or another bring more light to this strange situation, we welcome the information.

Source: http://palestinethinktank.com/

Call off your attack dogs – Cynthia McKinney

Written by Free Gaza Team

We just spoke to the passengers. Everyone is OK, but the situation is still very tense. They continue to be surrounded by Israeli warships which are threatening to open fire. The Israeli Navy is actively jamming all navigation systems in violation of international maritime law, endangering the people on board.

Former U.S. Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, speaking from on board the SPIRIT, stated, “I am extremely angry. We demand that the Israeli government call off their attack dogs. We are unarmed civilians aboard an unarmed boat delivering medical and reconstruction aid to other human beings in Gaza. Why in God’s name would Israel want to attack us and threaten our safety and welfare. I call on President Obama and the international community to intervene now to prevent this situation from escalating with potentially drastic results to the civilians on board.”

Since the boat’s navigation equipment is being jammed, it has turned westward in order to stay in international waters.The Captain and crew are working from the most ancient of navigation equipment…the compass to stay clear of Israeli waters.

CALL or FAX Major Liebovitz from the Israeli Navy at:
Tel + 972 5 781 86248 or +972 3737 7777 or +972 3737 6242
Fax +972 3737 6123 or +972 3737 7175

CALL Mark Regev in the Prime Minister’s office at:
Tel +972 2670 5354 or +972 5 0620 3264
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

CALL Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence at:
Tel +972 3697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
mediasar@mod.gov.il

Related Link: www.freegaza.org

Pirate Bay Unveils YouTube-Like Site

www.wired.com

This is VideoBay, a YouTube-like service without the worries and hassles of those annoying copyright takedown notices.

And if you haven’t guessed by now, behind the service is The Pirate Bay. The new site, according to its operators, is in “beta extreme.”

“Don’t expect anything to work at all,” a message on the site reads.

The announcement of the “beta extreme” version of VideoBay comes as the four founders of the Pirate Bay face a year in prison following their April convictions for facilitating copyright infringement at the world’s most notorious BitTorrent tracker. The Pirate Bay told TorrentFreak “that there is still a lot of work to do behind the scenes. The encoder is not finished yet and the design is also a work in progress.”

Notwithstanding the convictions and likely appeals, The Pirate Bay site continues to operate with more than 20 million users. Instead of licking their wounds, the operators instead are flipping a bird of sorts to prosecutors and the content industry.

Two weeks ago, they launched a VPN service promising to make file sharers and other internet users more anonymous online. About 180,000 people have signed up for the $7 monthly service.

In addition to jail time, the defendants in April were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to a handful of entertainment companies, including Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Bros, EMI and Columbia Pictures for facilitating copyright infringement.

Pirate Bay administrators Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde were found guilty in April, along with Carl Lundström, who was accused of funding the five-year-old operation.

The April verdicts were on appeal amid allegations the judge who presided over the case was biased because he was a member of pro-copyright groups. That appeal was rejected, however, and the operators are expected to appeal the case on a host of other grounds.

The biggest contention concerns claims by the site’s operators that they cannot be guilty of infringement because Pirate Bay points the way to where copyrighted music, movies, games and software can be had for free, but does not physically host the content.

Read full article

German ruling on Lisbon due today

THE LISBON Treaty faces its final hurdle in Germany this morning when the country’s highest court rules on constitutional challenges that have held up ratification.

Expectations are high that the constitutional court in Karlsruhe will dismiss the challenges and clear the way for ratification but, in line with earlier EU rulings, it may be a qualified Yes.

Germany’s highest court may use the ruling to warn Berlin about the direction or pace of European integration or revive its role as a watchdog over Berlin’s relationship with Brussels.

The German complainants told the court in February that the treaty, once in force, will dilute parliamentary power and curtail constitutional rights. Foreign minister Frank Walter Steinmeier, expected in Karlsruhe this morning, dismissed those claims during oral arguments, saying that “member states remain the masters of the treaties”.

With no tradition of ratification by referendum in Germany, and parliamentary ratification usually a given, Karlsruhe is the final instance on European treaties.

Speculation is high that today’s verdict may join the ranks of two previous landmark verdicts that defined Germany’s relationship with the EU. The constitutional court ruled in 1974 that it was entitled to examine all incoming European regulations and rule inapplicable anything it viewed as a violation of German law.

The ruling, euphemistically named after the qualifier “solange” (as long as), said that as long as the EU did not have codified fundamental rights, Karlsruhe viewed German fundamental rights as supreme.

Read full article

Innoculations: True Weapons of Mass Destruction

‘The basic truth that served as the foundation for the mountain of lies known as vaccinations was the observation that mammals who recover from infection with microorganisms acquire natural immunity from further infections. Whenever T cells (the little packman cells which kill viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells, thus conferring cellular immunity) and B cells (antibody producing cells which confer humoral immunity) are activated by various substances foreign to the body called antigens, some of the T and B cells become memory cells. Thus, the next time the individual meets up with that same antigen, the immune system can be quickly triggered to demolish it. This is the process known as immunity.’

Read more…

Obama Administration Shuts Down 9/11 Families Lawsuit

Court case aimed at revealing Saudi Royal family links to
attacks quashed after pressure from government.

Steve Watson
Infowars.net

The Obama administration has effectively ended the efforts of families of victims of the September 11th attacks to bring lawsuits against members of the Saudi Royal family for financial links to the conspiracy.

The Supreme Court today ruled that it will not allow any lawsuits to go ahead, just a few weeks after the government filed a court brief asking that the case be quashed.

The court, in an order Monday, is leaving in place the ruling of a federal appeals court that the country and the princes are protected by sovereign immunity, which generally means that foreign countries can’t be sued in American courts, reports the Associated Press.

In late May, the Justice Department had sided in court with the Saudi monarchy in seeking to halt further legal action to hold it liable for the attacks.

The move came less than a week before Obama was scheduled to meet Saudi King Abdullah as part of his “rebuilding” trip to the Middle East.

More than 6000 family members denounced the move as an “apparent effort to appease a sometime ally” in a public statement.

The lawsuits claimed that Saudi Arabia and four of its princes actively aided in financing the plot through front groups posing as charities.

Last week, the New York Times ran a report highlighting how documents uncovered by lawyers for the 9/11 families “provide new evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family.”

The documents consist of “several hundred thousand pages of investigative material” assembled by the 9/11 families, according to the report.

The families also point to a 28-page, classified section of the 2003 joint congressional inquiry into 9/11 that deals with the Saudi role in the attacks.

Senator Bob Graham, who sat on the 9/11 Commission, has also charged that Saudi involvement in the attacks has been covered up.

As we have previously reported, US authorities, including the FBI, allowed the entire Bin Laden family to fly out of the US, and back to Saudi Arabia, in the days after 9/11, without questioning any of them.

Furthermore, agency documents later revealed that the FBI were aware that Osama Bin Laden himself may have personally chartered one of the flights. They subsequently redacted his name from the records in order “to protect privacy interests.”

The documents provide clear proof that the FBI was protecting the Bin Laden while the rest of the world was being told that he had masterminded the biggest terror attack in history. The FBI then attempted to cover up this fact.

The same documents revealed that the Bureau did not consider a single Saudi national nor any of the Bin Laden family worthy of investigative value.

The protection of Bin Laden by federal authorities has been ongoing since BEFORE 9/11 when agents were told to “back off the Bin Laden family” in order to protect business interests that the Bush family had with the Bin Ladens and other Saudi nationals.

The FBI asserts that no one on the planes that left had any terrorist links, yet documents (specifically FBI document 199I WF213589) uncovered back in November 2001 prove this to be a falsehood.

The Obama administration is now continuing the exact same long running policy as the Bush administration by obediently backing the Saudi monarchy and keeping secret this vital information on 9/11.

How disgustingly ironic it is that “sovereign immunity” is cited in a case relating to 9/11, when the same notion of sovereign immunity is violated on a daily basis as CIA drone delivered missiles rain down on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As pointed out by writer Barry Grey, in his excellent piece on the effort to shut down the lawsuits, any exposure given to the Saudi connection would open the flood gates for more suppressed evidence:

“The revelations would undoubtedly shatter the official explanations of the September 11 attacks and point to complicity on the part of US intelligence and security agencies.” Grey writes.

“Given its longstanding and intimate ties to the Saudi royal family and Saudi intelligence, it is not possible to believe that the CIA would have been unaware of Saudi support for Al Qaeda and at least some of the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals, as they were preparing to carry out the attacks on New York and Washington.”

Again, the mountain of suppressed information regarding the most important event of the century, as well as the continued efforts on the part of the new administration to keep it that way, highlights the need for a new independent investigation into 9/11.

If Iraq was main stream media’s failure, is Iran social network media’s failure?

www.maxkeiser.com

On May 26, 2004, a year after the invasion of Iraq, the New York Times issued an extraordinary apology for their failure in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, The Times and Iraq

. . . we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged or failed to emerge.

Flash forward to June 12, 2009. Thousands of tweets claim the Iranian elections are rigged. Mousavi supporters fill the streets of Tehran. Within 48 hours, hundreds of thousands of retweets echo and amplify the chants and the cries of mostly anonymous twitterers reporting Iranian state violence. The tweets are homepage news on Huffington Post and Drudge Report. All the diaries of leading blogs are further amplifying the information disseminated by the tweets and retweets.

The Twitter Revolution and the Green Revolution were on! The MSM had failed!

But then. Someone from the Main Stream Media actually investigated on the ground in Tehran – Robert Fisk for the UK newspaper, The Independent

At around 4.35 last Monday morning, my Beirut mobile phone rang in my Tehran hotel room. “Mr Fisk, I am a computer science student in Lebanon. I have just heard that students are being massacred in their dorms at Tehran University. Do you know about this?” The Fisk notebook is lifted wearily from the bedside table. “And can you tell me why,” he continued, “the BBC and other media are not reporting that the Iranian authorities have closed down SMS calls and local mobile phones and have shut down the internet in Tehran? I am learning what is happening only from Twitters and Facebook.”

You will recall that the SNM was, of course, buzzing with declarations that the main stream media was failing to report the “truth” as evidenced in the almost entirely unsourceable, unchallengeable tweets. One of the top trending hashtags at Twitter was #cnnfail.

Fisk, however, did what good journalists do, he put on his shoes and went out to investigate. Most of these ‘truths’ circling the socially networked universe, he quickly found were simply untrue. [Read more →]

Arms-body confirms loyalist decommissioning

www.independent.ie

Next Page »