Batten warning on EU police state

ukip.org
Saturday, 4th September 2010

UKIP’s London MEP Gerard Batten was joined by those who have suffered at the hands of the EU’s police state ambitions as he delivered his speech at Torquay’s annual conference.

Here is that speech in full:

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your warm welcome. I am not going to use this opportunity to promote my candidature for UKIP’s leadership. As most of you will know I stood in last year’s contest and I came second after Lord Pearson. I have declared my intention to stand this time and I will tell you my programme at the appropriate time and place.

What I will do now is to tell you about how the European Union is creating its own system of criminal law. The EU is in the process of creating its own police-state.

Some people on our side of the anti-EU argument sometimes see Britain as a hapless victim of the European Union. The EU does bad things to Britain and our Governments are somehow hoodwinked or outwitted by perfidious EU officials at each new stage of the integration process.  This is simply not true. Successive British governments have been willing participants, and indeed prime movers in driving forward the whole process of creating what is effectively a United States of Europe.

I won’t detail here the betrayal of Britain by every Conservative Government since 1972 in moving forward the EU’s agenda while pretending to do the opposite.  Let it suffice to say that at any stage of the process Conservative Governments could have withheld their consent from the Treaties and prevented the massive transfer of powers to the EU. They could have stopped the EU in its tracks. Instead they oiled tracks pointing in the direction of ever closer political union.

The Labour Governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown merely carried forward the process mapped out by the Tories to its intended and logical conclusion. Under Labour giant strides were made to transfer more powers under the Amsterdam and Nice Treaties and pave the way for a final European Constitution.

We all know what happened to the Constitution and it was replaced by a 99% the same, but somehow different, Lisbon Treaty.  Our current situation is of course that over 80% of our new laws now originate in the institutions of the EU, it controls most of the major areas of policy, and Britain is well on the way to its intended status of a mere Region of the European Union.

There is a process of harmonisation and integration at work in every important area of policy. In my first term as an MEP I sat on the European Parliament’s Security and Defence Committee. I opposed and warned against how our armed forces are being gradually subsumed into what is eventually intended to become common European armed forces under the direction of the Lisbon Treaty’s, Common Foreign Security and Defence Policy.

In my second term I am a member of the misnamed Civil Liberties Justice and Home Affairs Committee. Here we see clearly how a common European system of criminal law is being created and how our ancient and precious freedoms and protections under English law are being destroyed.   Again, I shall oppose it at every step of the way and in the near future I intend to publish a booklet detailing exactly what is happening.

The process of creating a common European legal system is of course long and complex and I can give only a brief overview and summary here.

In October 1999 in Tampere in Finland a summit of the European Council decided to create an area of so-called ‘freedom, justice and security’. The British Government’s representative might have pointed out that we already enjoyed one, but never mind nothing was to stand in the way of the harmonisation of our legal systems.

The Tampere summit decided the milestones needed to create an EU system of criminal law. Key to this is, was the doctrine of ‘mutual recognition’ of judicial decisions. This is the fiction that says that all the judicial and legal systems of member states are equally valid merely by virtue of their being members of the European Union. So a decision taken by a court in Romania or Bulgaria for example is as equally trustworthy as one taken in the Old Bailey. To deny it would probably result in an accusation of xenophobia.

The Tampere programme also set up mechanisms for greater so-called ‘co-operation’ between member states in criminal matters; to extend the powers of Europol, the EU’s nascent police force; and to abolish formal extradition between member states and fast-tack the extradition of criminal suspects.

Interestingly one of the bodies set up under Tampere was a European Police College, situated in Hampshire, to train senior European law enforcement officers. The new Director of the College is a Hungarian, Mr Ferenc Banfi. He reportedly wants to see the creation of a European-wide FBI style police force.

Mr Banfi was a member of the Hungarian Communist Party and a policeman under their murderous communist regime. Speaking of Europol he reportedly told the Daily Express on 29th August that, “It is only a question of time before Europol will have executive powers; it maybe five or ten years but it will happen”.   Europol doesn’t yet have the power to arrest anyone directly but Mr Banfi thinks they soon will, and he’s an expert so we should pay attention. Remember that under Europol’s legal basis its officers have almost complete immunity from anything they do or say in the course of their duties. A privilege not even extended to the Soviet Union’s NKVD during the height of Stalin’s terror.

The excuse given for all this is the need to combat the ever present threats of terrorism and organised crime. These threats exist of course but our vulnerability to them is often in no small way a consequence of our membership of the European Union. The loss of control of our own borders has resulted in an influx of vicious organised criminal gangs from Eastern Europe and elsewhere. We now have slavery on British soil for the first time in more than two hundred years because we cannot exclude people smugglers slave-masters from entering Britain. If they are EU citizens they have a perfectly legal right to come.

But is it typical of the European Union that having created a problem it says that the only way to solve it is to give itself even more power.

Now let me tell you how the creation of this now system of criminal law affects us directly.  First there is one important point to emphasise in comparing English and continental legal systems. Under the English system sufficient evidence has first to be gathered by the police before a charge can be laid. And under Habeas Corpus the accused must be brought before an open court to be committed for trial.

Under continental systems a Magistrate may remand a defendant in custody on the strength of an accusation alone while an investigation is carried out. This investigation may take months or years while the accused languishes in prison. It may or may not even result in a charge being made, let alone a trial.

The European Arrest Warrant became law in January 2004. I wrote a short pamphlet about this in 2005, and I am sorry to say all the dangers I warned of have been exceeded in practice.

Under a European Arrest Warrant the extradition of a British subject has been reduced to a mere bureaucratic formality.  Under an EAW there are thirty-two categories of offence. Some of these are not even specific offences under English law. For example you can be accused of corruption and swindling. Well many of us might take the view that many members of both Houses of Parliament are corrupt swindlers but under English law unless they are charged with a specific offence they are safe from prosecution.

Not so under an EAW. Provided that the paperwork has been correctly completed and minimal information given about the alleged offence, then no prima facie evidence can be considered by the court requested to rubber-stamp extradition.

This Ladies and Gentlemen is the crux of the matter. The court granting extradition has no right or power whatsoever to consider the evidence against the accused person and in order to satisfy itself that there is a proper case to answer. They have almost no power to refuse extradition. Indeed even the Home Secretary has no power to intervene, as they once had, even if it is glaringly obvious that a grave injustice is being done. Extradition has been reduced to the mere export of the carcases of accused persons.

And there is much more to come. On the 27th July the Coalition Government announced that it was opting-in to the European Investigation Order. This new measure is intended to allow any EU member police force to require a British police force to investigate and gather evidence against a British citizen on its behalf, even if the alleged offence is not a criminal matter in the UK.

The British police could be required to carry out surveillance, interview suspects or witnesses, obtain information or intercept telephone and email communications and monitor bank accounts; they could be required to obtain and analyse DNA or fingerprints and send the information to foreign police forces. The British police would have no power to refuse.

The current Coalition Government could easily have declined to opt-in to the European Investigation Order but instead they heartily embraced it.  The Home Secretary, Theresa May said that the Government had opted-in because, “we have the opportunity to influences its precise outcome”. This is not true. We cannot precisely influence the outcome because it will be decided by a Qualified Majority Vote and we cannot then opt-out even if we want to.

The next step on the agenda is that of Trials in Absentia.  Under an EU Framework Decision Trials in Absentia must be transposed into UK law by 2011, or 2014 at the latest.  This will mean that a British citizen can be tried in their absence in another EU country and if found guilty the British police will have to arrest them so they can be dispatched to the member state concerned.

The convicted person cannot argue that they did not return to the relevant country because they did not trust the legal system, in let’s say Romania or Bulgaria, to give them a fair trial, or that the charges against them lack evidence, or were fabricated or corruptly laid. Under the principle of mutual recognition all EU legal systems The British court will have no power to protect them.

Now I may appear to be picking on Romania and Bulgaria but with the best will in the world we cannot accept that their police, judicial and legal systems are up to same standard as ours. Bulgaria is widely accepted as being institutionally corrupt and where the government is largely in the hands of organised crime.  But never mind, they are an EU member and they have signed the European Convention on Human Rights so as far as our Government is concerned everything must be OK.

Lastly we have the Framework Decision on the mutual recognition of Financial Penalties and Confiscation Orders. This means that member states can impose fines on other states citizens, and the fine will have to be collected by the home state of the offender.  The offences include road traffic offences down to a level of €70. So our old friends the Bulgarians, or any other EU state, can require the British authorities to collect fines from British citizens, and again and it’s no use appealing to a British court if an injustice is being done.

The creation of a European system of criminal law is well under construction. It is taking shape with: a European Public Prosecutor; Europol, its own police force; the Euro Gendarmerie, its own paramilitary police force; the European Investigation Order compelling British police to investigate their own citizens on behalf of foreign states; the European Arrest Warrant enabling citizens to be transported across borders with the minimum of fuss; and the ability of one state to collect fines and confiscate assets across borders. If this doesn’t look like the creation of a police state then I don’t know what does.

Let me return to the European Arrest Warrant. Since 2004 there have been over 1,100 people extradited from the UK. Most were foreign citizens being returned to their own countries. Over 100 were British citizens. We know the stories of some of them. They were the ones with articulate and vocal family and friends to speak up for them. What of the ones who had no such champions in their cause? What was the justice of their case? What was their fate? Who knows? The British courts were forced to wash their hands of them. They were consigned like parcels to foreign prisons.

Now let me make it plain that I do not want to protect genuine criminals from justice. But the function of the law and the courts is as much to protect the innocent as convict the guilty. Consigning someone from their own country to face justice in a foreign country is not something that should be done lightly but only where our courts are convinced there is a proper case to answer. They no longer have that power.

I worked closely on the case of Andrew Symeou a 19 year old London man accused of manslaughter in Greece. I was the only London MEP that responded to his family’s pleas for help. I sat in the court listening to his appeal. It was obvious to the Appeal Court Judges that there was no real evidence against him and what there was appeared to be fabricated by the Greek police. But they were powerless to consider it.

They did the only thing that they could which was refer the appeal to the House of Lords on the basis of asking if the apparent fabrication of evidence  amounted to an abuse of process of the EAW. The House of Lords, in what must be one of the most despicable decisions in its long history, refused to even hear the case on the grounds it “did not have an arguable point of law of general public interest”.  So it became official. The highest court in the land did not think it of general public interest if one of our citizens is consigned to a foreign prison system on trumped up charges.

Mr Symeou was then extradited to Greece where he spent eleven months in remand in the hell-hole prison of Korydallos. A prison cited by Amnesty International as one of the worst in the world for its inhumane conditions.  He was only given bail when his trial began and the incompetent Greek court had forgotten to summon the prosecution witnesses. He still awaits trial.

But there is a positive message here as well. UKIP MEPs have been championing these cases and gaining some publicity for them as a result. For example I have also been involved with the case of the so-called Crete Five, five young men accused of serious assault with no real evidence against them. We could not stop extradition but at least they have been bailed rather than consigned to a Greek prison I believe as a result of the publicity and mounting pressure that has been exerted.

Opposition to the European Arrest Warrant and the other legal measures of the EU criminal law system is a concrete way in which UKIP can demonstrate to the public how the membership of the European Union is destroying our country and way of life.

In particular my colleague William Lord Dartmouth has been closely involved with a number of cases in his region and has worked tirelessly on their behalf. Even going so far as to visit two in Hungary and help secure their release of two accused persons.

At this point I want to introduce some victims of the European Arrest Warrant to give first hand testimony.

I would like to invite to the platform, William Dartmouth, Mike Turner, his son Mark Turner and Jason McGoldrick.

http://ukip.org/content/latest-news/1839-batten-warning-on-eu-police-state

Pentagon ignores staff child porn

www.presstv.ir
Sun Sep 5, 2010

The US Department of Defense has reportedly refused to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography by its personnel.

According to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the Pentagon identified over 260 employees who purchased child porn in 2006, The Upshot news blog reported on Friday.

The purchases were uncovered in a larger civilian investigation conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). An investigative arm of the United States Department of Defense then cross-checked the names against military databases to generate the list of Defense Department employees.

The names included staffers for the secretary of defense, contractors for the ultra-secretive National Security Agency, and a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

This is while Pentagon investigated only 52 of the cases and prosecuted just a handful of the identified people.

Among those charged were Gary Douglass Grant, a captain in the US Army Reserves and a military prosecutor. He pled guilty to child porn charges in California in 2009 after investigators discovered child pornography on his computer.

Others charged in similar cases were several contractors for the National Security Agency with Top Secret clearances, one of whom fled the US after being indicted and is believed to be in Libya, the report added.

However, the vast majority of those investigated were never charged and 212 people on ICE’s list were never investigated at all.

A source familiar with the investigations, who requested anonymity, confirmed that departmental resources, and priorities, were decisive factors in letting inquiries lapse.

“We were stuck in a situation where we had some great information, but didn’t have the resources to run with it,” the source told The Upshot.

Pro-Palestine Activist Makes Citizen’s Arrest on Tony Blair in Eason’s as over 1,000 protest outside

www.ipsc.ie
Saturday September 04, 2010

Today Kate O’Sullivan, an activist from the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), made a citizen’s arrest on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a book signing in Eason’s. However the Gardaí refused to act on the arrest, preferring instead to detain Ms. O’Sullivan for half an hour in a stairwell. At the protest outside Eason’s, where over 1,000 people gathered to protest the presence of Mr Blair in Ireland, at least three arrests of peaceful protesters where carried out, including that of a secondary school student. All have subsequently been released and are due in court on 30th September.

Kate O’Sullivan, the Cork woman who made the citizen’s arrest, after her release said: “After I went through airport-like security to get to Mr Blair, I told him I was there to make a citizen’s arrest on him for war crimes committed in Iraq. Mr Blair looked down and I was immediately grabbed by five security men and dragged away. As I was being dragged I cried out that there is half a million people dead in Iraq, that he had broken the Fourth Geneva Convention and that he was a war criminal. Mr Blair refused to even look at me. After that I was detained for about half an hour in a stairwell without being charged with anything. I believe that all war criminals that come to this country should be prosecuted under Universal Jurisdiction, and if the police are unwilling to act then it is up to ordinary people to make citizen’s arrests”

Speaking at the demonstration outside Eason’s, IPSC National Chairperson Freda Hughes said: “The IPSC supported today’s demonstration because we believe that Mr Blair, a war criminal, is unfit to hold the role of the Quartet’s Middle East Envoy. The idea that this man, who claims that ‘when it comes to security, I am 100% on Israel’s side”, could be an impartial peace-broker is absurd. Mr. Blair is also on record as recently saying the Apartheid state of Israel is “a remarkable example for the rest of us”, a shocking statement to make in light of the tentative peace talks which began last week. If negotiations have taught us anything, it is that there is a time to stand your ground and a time to walk away. Now is clearly the time for Mr Blair to walk away and allow genuine voices of solidarity to be heard.”

Interview With Kate O’Sullivan after making Citizen’s Arrest on Tony Blair

Government: Mozambique lost $3M because of riots

By EMANUEL CAMILLO (AP)
Fri Sep 3, 2010

MAPUTO, Mozambique – Mozambique’s economy has lost more than $3 million because of deadly riots over the rising prices of food and other goods, the government said Friday, as state media reported new protests in two other towns.

Those losses include damaged property and lost production, state radio reported citing a government report. Computers, chairs and other equipment were looted from bank branches during riots, and loads of corn and cement were taken from railway cars.

Mozambicans have seen the price of a loaf of bread rise 25 percent in the past year — and fuel and water costs also have gone up. The increases have had a dramatic effect in the southeastern African nation where more than half the population lives in poverty.

Among those who have been hardest hit by the violence are the thousands of hawkers who make their living on the streets of the capital, said Antonio Fernando, the minister of trade and industry. Mozambique can only solve its economic woes if people are working, he said.

“These kinds of things can drive away foreign investors,” Fernando said of the deadly riots.

On Wednesday, protesters threw stones, burned tires and looted shops, and police opened fire on them. The death toll increased to at least 10 after three more people died Friday in a Maputo hospital from injuries sustained in the two previous days, Health Minister Ivo Garrido said. Scores of others were wounded.

Traffic was returning to normal Friday, and it appeared few people were responding to calls for more protests.

State radio and TV reported police scattered protesters in two provincial towns Friday. Six injuries were reported. Read more…

Norway backs Iran’s nuclear program

www.presstv.ir
Sat Sep 4, 2010

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store has voiced his country’s support for Iran’s nuclear program, emphasizing Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy.

Store made the remarks at a meeting in Oslo with Iranian Ambassador Seyyed Hassan Rezvani, Press TV reported.

The Norwegian minister of foreign affairs expressed hope that Iran and the P5+1 group would continue nuclear talks and find a peaceful solution.

The P5+1 group consists of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States — plus Germany.

Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and thus has the right to enrich uranium to produce fuel.

And the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

Building 7 Implosion: The Smoking Gun of 9/11

Richard Gage, AIA, Gregg Roberts, and David Chandler
Infowars.com
September 3, 2010

Shortly after the explosive destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers, a third high-rise building was destroyed. It wasn’t hit by an airplane. The characteristic signs of controlled demolition were everywhere.

Although it received little media attention at the time, the third-worst structural building failure in modern history occurred on September 11, 2001. World Trade Center (WTC) Building 7 was a 47-story, steel-framed, fire-protected, high-rise office building located about a football field’s length from the WTC North Tower. Unlike its two taller cousins, WTC 7 was never hit by an aircraft, yet it fell to the ground suddenly, displaying the classic signatures of explosive controlled demolition.

A careful examination of this evidence shows why more than 1,200 architects and engineers are demanding a new and open investigation into all the crimes of 9/11, starting with this aspect, which is most obviously inconsistent with the official account. The evidence discussed in this article was ignored, mishandled, and/or covered up by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal agency last tasked with explaining the unprecedented destruction of the World Trade Center high-rises.

A mysterious catastrophe

Although Building 7 was never hit by an airplane and had only isolated pockets of fires on about 10 floors, it suddenly imploded – coming down neatly, symmetrically, and completely at 5:20 p.m. The official story, according to NIST, is that WTC 7 collapsed due to “normal office fires” which created a “new phenomenon” in high-rise fires: destruction due to thermal expansion of steel beam, leading to the progressive collapse of nine floors. This ultimately caused the failure of column #79 – which was followed within seconds by all the rest.

Could all 24 core columns have been “removed” within a fraction of a second of each other, on each floor successively, by fire alone?

Some observers had speculated that stores of diesel fuel inside the building might have produced exceptionally intense fires leading to the unusual collapse. However, NIST has officially acknowledged that diesel fuel was not involved. NIST also ultimately concluded that the impact of debris from the North Tower was not a significant contributor to the collapse, although it was blamed for starting the fires. What NIST’s top engineers failed to explain – and often even to acknowledge –in their Final Report were the many features of the building’s destruction that are normally seen only in explosive controlled demolitions.

Evidence for Controlled Demolition

After an embarrassing series of questions from AE911Truth petition signers, NIST’s top engineers ultimately acknowledged some of the key facts surrounding the building’s destruction. However, NIST still refuses to seriously examine the hypothesis of explosive demolition, even though demolition is the only thing that has ever caused structural failure and exhibited the characteristics of Building 7’s destruction. WTC 7’s failure was indistinguishable from a classic controlled implosion.

Let’s consider the evidence:

Speed of Collapse

As documented by video footage, Building 7 began its collapse at free-fall acceleration for over 2 seconds over a distance of more than 100 feet – equal to at least eight stories.

WTC 7 free-falls through 40,000 tons of structural steel

NIST initially denied Building 7’s free-fall in its Draft Report released in August 2008. In the technical briefing that followed, NIST’s lead investigator, Dr. Shyam Sunder explained, “A free-fall time would be an object that has no structural components below it.” He claimed that WTC 7 took 40 percent longer than “free-fall time” to collapse, “and that is not at all unusual because there was structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had a sequence of structural failures that had to take place and everything was not instantaneous.”

However, physics instructor David Chandler had used the existing network television videos to carefully measure and document the acceleration of the building during its fall. His published analysis A had shown conclusively that a significant period of free-fall was an indisputable fact. He publicly challenged NIST’s claims at the technical briefing. Along with several others, he filed formal requests for corrections during the public-response period.

Having been cornered, NIST reversed its initial denial of free-fall in its Final Report. However, it couched its revised position in deceptive language, and failed to explain how freefall could be compatible with its fire-induced-progressive-collapse theory. For the observed straight-down collapse to happen, an immense network of heavy steel columns and beams would have had to be forcibly removed and more than 400 structural-steel connections would have had to fail every second, evenly, all across each of the eight floors involved. These failures had to occur ahead of the collapsing section – and could not be caused by it – because a freefalling object cannot exert force on anything in its path without slowing its own fall.

WTC 7: In freefall for eight stories

Yet NIST’s admission of the fact of freefall, together with Sunder’s previous acknowledgment of the simple meaning of that fact, led to no reconsideration of its fire-induced, single-column-initiated, progressive-collapse hypothesis. Moreover, in what looks like an attempt to bury the discussion, its change of stance on the question of freefall was omitted from the list of changes accompanying its Final Report.

Symmetry of Collapse

The overall building mass fell uniformly and with almost perfect symmetry through what should have been the path of greatest resistance – some 40,000 tons of structural steel. According to structural engineer Kamal Obeid, this requires a precisely-timed, patterned removal of critical steel columns – which office fires, a gradual organic process, simply cannot achieve.

Only a carefully engineered series of explosions (or incendiaries) could cause a steel-framed skyscraper to collapse in on itself – and land mostly within its own footprint. After all, demolition companies are paid large sums to accomplish this extremely difficult feat, and only a few can do it with tall buildings. Also, the destruction was complete. This building had been built especially strong so that alternate floors could have been removed in case a tenant needed an extra-tall space. Yet, its forty-seven stories were reduced, in less than seven seconds, to about four stories of debris – having fallen like a house of cards – with the almost complete dismemberment of the braced and welded moment-resisting (bend-resistant) frames. Again, this is something fire, could not have, and has never, achieved.

NIST Withheld Evidence

Had officials taken all the relevant evidence into account and provided a superficially coherent explanation, it would at least make sense to entertain the idea that: (1) fire might have acted in ways that it had never acted before, (2) modern structural steel might have acted in ways that it had never acted before, and (3) that this all just happened to occur on a day when terrorists did something they had never done before. Yet, officials have not taken all the relevant evidence into account and they have not provided even a superficially coherent explanation. What is the missing evidence?

Evidence of Thermitic Incendiaries

Prior to the NIST investigation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), had conducted a preliminary, cursory, underfunded investigation and produced a Building Performance Assessment Report. In Appendix C of that report, FEMA described its analysis of two steel samples, one thought to be Building 7 and the other from Tower 1 or 2. The analysis of the WTC 7 sample showed “evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel, including rapid oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent intergranular melting….”

“A liquid eutectic mixture containing primarily iron, oxygen, and sulfur formed during this hot corrosion attack on the steel.”… “No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified.” The New York Times called this “perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation.” What did NIST say about this mystery described by FEMA? Nothing – there was no mention of this crucial report at all.

Neither jet fuel nor office fires can reach anywhere close to steel’s melting point, much less its evaporation point, even if those critical temperatures had been lowered by the presence of free sulfur. So what could have caused this “high temperature corrosion attack?”

Thermite is a mixture of powdered iron oxide and elemental aluminum which, when ignited, reacts violently at 4,000-4,500° Fahrenheit (F) – well above iron’s melting point of 2,800° F, producing aluminum oxide and molten iron. When free sulfur is added to the mixture, the iron melts at a lower temperature. Thermite with sulfur added is called thermate. Structural steel in contact with ignited thermate also melts at a lower temperature. Contrary to what NIST and others have claimed, the sulfur could not have come from gypsum wallboard, where it is an inert, chemically “locked” ingredient.

1. Extreme Hot Spots

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) used NASA thermal imaging of the WTC rubble pile surface to document hot spots with extreme temperatures of almost 1,400° F. These temperatures are hotter than most office fires produce, and there were no fires on the surface of the WTC 7 pile following the collapses.

The detected surface temperatures indicate much higher temperatures deeper within the pile. These extreme temperatures persisted for several weeks, despite the continuous spraying of millions of gallons of water onto Ground Zero – so much water that one worker described the result as “a giant lake.” Thermite contains its own source of oxygen and burns just as well under water.

Summary

The collapse of WTC Building 7 represents one of the worst structural failures in modern history. The official story suggests that fires weakened the structures, resulting in a gravitational collapse. The evidence, obvious to so many researchers but omitted from NIST’s Final Report, supports a very different conclusion – one that points squarely to explosive controlled demolition.

If WTC 7 was intentionally brought down, then clearly it becomes a ‘smoking gun” that must be investigated. Who were the terrorists that had access to this highly secure building, occupied in part by the CIA, FBI, Dept of Defense, IRS, SEC, and others, and the technology required to prepare it for demolition? The 1,200 Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth present the scientific forensic data, evidence, and eyewitness and video testimony. We do not speculate as to who might have been responsible or how they have, so far, gotten away with the crime of the century. The destruction of the Twin Towers must be re-evaluated as well in light of the WTC 7 revelation. We therefore call for an unimpeachable investigation with subpoena power into the destruction of all three WTC skyscrapers. We ask you to do your part as a citizen to join us in making it happen. Find out how you can help at AE911Truth.org.

Vermilion 380 oil rig leaking after Gulf blast; mile-long sheen spotted on water: Coast Guard

By Corky Siemaszko
Daily News Staff Writer
Thursday, September 2nd 2010

Oil appeared to be leaking into the snakebit Gulf of Mexico from a rig that exploded Thursday and hurled a dozen workers into the drink.

The disturbing report from the Coast Guard came less than an hour after the owners of the damaged rig insisted that the crude was contained and posed no danger to the Gulf.

The mile-long oil sheen was about 100 feet wide and was spreading from the still burning platform, which is located west of where a BP rig explosion caused the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Mariner Energy, the Houston-based owner of the platform, has dispatched three firefighting vessels to the site some 80 miles south of the Louisiana coast and one was already battling the blaze, the feds said.

Earlier, a company spokesman tried to damp down fears that a region in recovery might have a relapse due to a fresh outbreak of oil pollution.

“In an initial flyover by company personnel over the site, there was no hydrocarbon spill that was reported,” Patrick Cassidy said. “Everything appears to be contained.”

Cassidy said the blast and subsequent fire “occurred away from the well.”

“It wasn’t involved in the area where they had oil producing wells,” he said. Read more…

Afghan war unwinnable quagmire, ex-CIA man says

Dylan Welch
theage.com.au
September 2, 2010

THE war in Afghanistan is an unwinnable quagmire and poor US intelligence is leading to the deaths of Australian soldiers, a visiting former CIA officer says.

Robert Baer, a decorated CIA field officer of two decades experience who had spent years in the Middle East, said any chances the US and its allies had of defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan had already been squandered. The Coalition was fighting an unwinnable war, he said, and this was the case because victory required reliable intelligence.

”[US intelligence agencies] have the same problem they had before 9/11. It is a system that doesn’t work.”

That system sees CIA operatives and allied intelligence officers unable to gather reliable information because security concerns do not allow them to travel widely. And most do not speak the local language. ”They’re all stuck behind the wire; they don’t get out … it’s like the crusades where you’re stuck on your castle imagining what the natives are doing,” he said.

Describing Washington DC as a ”blank spot on the map”, he said that despite the massive growth of the intelligence agencies post September 11, 2001, there remained systemic failings.

”American intelligence after 9/11 has been unable to co-ordinate … the FBI will not share with the CIA. CIA has operational databases which they won’t share with even others inside the CIA.”

All of this led to a dysfunctional intelligence community unable to provide reliable, contemporary intelligence that could allow the Coalition to win in Afghanistan.

”Twenty-two American soldiers have been killed since Friday, and Australia has lost 21 men … Afghanistan is a quagmire and it can only be fought with an effective counter-insurgency. It cannot be fought with Abrams tanks and F16s,” he said. Read more…

Discovery Channel HQ hostages freed as gunman shot dead

www.bbc.co.uk
1 September 2010

Police chief Thomas Manger: “There are other suspected devices in the building”

A gunman who took three hostages at the Discovery Communications headquarters in the US has been shot dead by police and his captives have been set free.

The man had metallic canisters strapped to his chest and a handgun when he entered the building near Washington DC, police said.

Officers opened fire because they thought the gunman was about to detonate his explosives, they added.

The police had held several hours of talks with the man.

Discovery employees were evacuated from the building shortly after the incident began at about 1700 GMT.

The area around the building in Silver Spring, Maryland, was sealed off as police negotiated with the man. After several hours, police began to fear for the safety of the hostages, said Montgomery County Police Chief J Thomas Manger.

He said a man had entered the Discovery headquarters through the main entrance wearing what appeared to be “metallic canisters” on his clothes.

The man then pulled out a handgun and told everyone to remain still.

Unnamed police officials quoted by the US media named the gunman as James Jay Lee, a man in his 40s known for protesting outside the building.

A man called James Lee of San Diego, California, was arrested outside Discovery’s headquarters in 2008 after throwing thousands of dollars into the air in protest against the network, according to The Gazette, a local newspaper. Read more…

Barroso blames capitals for plunge in EU popularity

VALENTINA POP
euobserver.com
1 Sept, 2010

Faced with a plunging popularity of the EU institutions, European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has blamed national capitals for not defending the European project during the economic crisis.

The devastating results of a Eurobarometer published last week showing that support for EU institutions is waning across the continent are due to the economic crisis, argued Mr Barroso in an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. He said it is “normal” that citizens’ confidence is dropping during such times.

According to the survey carried out in May and published last week, fewer than half of Europe’s citizens (49 percent) think that their country’s membership of the EU is a “good thing” – a seven-year low – while trust in the bloc’s institutions has dropped to 42 percent, six points down compared to autumn 2009.

“I admit that we should do more together in order to give confidence to citizens and consumers. But I also want to tell the truth: We won’t solve the problems unless each nation sees the European project as its own,” the Portuguese politician said.

“In fact this is not the case now. When things go well it’s their merit and when they go wrong it’s Brussels’ fault,” he added.

The commission chief defended the euro as an “extraordinary success” and pointed to the fact that none of the EU countries could have weathered the financial crisis with their national currency alone.

“Without the euro and the internal market none of the member states would have managed to get out of the crisis … all governments should now defend the euro,” he said.

With US president Barack Obama also calling for a stronger Europe, Mr Barroso noted: “It is very important that this request comes from abroad, from one of our most important partners.”

“Imagine if France, Germany or Italy would have to move on their own in a globalised world. They would not be able to protect their interests.” Read more…

Military officers cancel trip after humiliation at US airport

By Anwar Iqbal
www.dawn.com
Wednesday, 01 Sep, 2010

WASHINGTON: A Pakistani military delegation became the latest victim of the paranoia permeating US airports on Monday night, when US security officials detained a brigadier at Washington’s Dulles airport on a complaint by a passenger who said he did not feel safe sharing the flight with the delegation.

The brigadier was removed from the United Airlines flight, and others in this eight-member delegation were also detained after they disembarked. They were later released.

The dispute became a major diplomatic row as the delegation, offended by this treatment, decided to cancel an important meeting at the headquarters of the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday, and return home.

By the time the US Department of Defence apologised to the delegation, their leader, a two-star naval officer, had already informed Islamabad where officials approved his decision to return home on Tuesday night.

The delegation included senior officials from all three services, the army, the navy and the air force.

Dawn contacted the US Transport Security Administration, whose officials had detained the brigadier, and the Department of Homeland Security but failed to get a response.

Mathew Chandler, a DHS spokesman, and Lauren Gaches of TSA, however, asked Dawn to contact the airline.

United Airlines officials, however, told the US media that the brigadier, whose name was not disclosed, had misbehaved with a stewardess and told her that “this would be her last mission”.

Information collected by Dawn showed that the incident that led to the cancellation of the meeting happened at Washington’s Dulles airport on Monday night when a passenger on the flight to Tampa complained that a Pakistani brigadier, while talking to his colleagues, had made remarks that he found threatening.

Officials of the airline informed the Transport Security Administration who detained the brigadier and later other officials as well.

A Pakistani official, when asked to comment on the airline’s claim, said: “This is a delegation of senior officials, led by a two-star officer, not unit captains and majors. Such responsible officers do not indulge in such behaviour.”

Information collected by Dawn also confirmed the Pakistani claim as the plane was delayed for 40 minutes before the airline’s mentioned the alleged altercation between the brigadier and the stewardess.

Later, an official of the airline came with a TSA security officer and asked the brigadier to disembark. She gave no reason.

The head of the delegation asked the brigadier to get down and cooperate with the TSA. The brigadier disclosed his identity.

There was no response for about 15-20 minutes and then the airline and security officials asked the entire delegation to get off the plane.

The leader of the Pakistani delegation showed TSA officials an invitation letter from the Centcom, confirming that they were going to Tampa for a meeting. He also showed them all the passports that identified the delegation as senior military officers.

He then requested to talk to a senior TSA official or the person in-charge of security at the airport but his request was turned down.

“They did not let them speak and treated them like terrorists,” said a Pakistani official. “The investigators were unprofessional, junior officials.”

The official said that the TSA and airlines officials kept telling the delegation that a passenger found the brigadier’s remarks threatening but did not say what those remarks were. Read more…

Crocodile tears – and STILL no apology: Tony Blair’s memoirs go on sale pushing his self-serving justification of the Iraq War

By James Chapman
www.dailymail.co.uk
1st September 2010

Tony Blair will today outrage families of victims of the Iraq War by claiming to have shed many tears for the dead.

In his massively-hyped memoir, the former prime minister admits failing to foresee the ‘nightmare’ that unfolded in the country.

But despite vowing to dedicate his efforts to trying to ‘redeem something from the tragedy’ he again refuses to apologise for the 2003 invasion.

Mr Blair says ‘tears, though there have been many’ do not encompass his feelings of anguish.

‘I feel desperately sorry for them, sorry for the lives cut short, sorry for the families whose bereavement is made worse by the controversy over why their loved ones died, sorry for the utterly unfair selection that the loss should be theirs,’ he declares.

Reg Keys, whose son Tom was killed in Iraq, accused Mr Blair of shedding crocodile tears over a war that wrecked his political reputation.

‘The tears he claims to have shed are nothing like the tears I and my wife have shed for our son,’ he said. ‘They are nothing like the tears that tens of thousands of Iraqis have shed for their loved ones.

‘They don’t even come close to it. They seem to me like crocodile tears. It is a cynical
attempt to sanitise his legacy.’

The former prime minister has been accused of trying to ease his conscience by giving to the Royal British Legion the £4.6million advance and any profits from his book, A Journey.

Since leaving Downing Street three years ago he has amassed a fortune put as high as £60million.

His book, published around the world today, lifts the lid on the titanic feuding between Mr Blair and Gordon Brown that dogged Labour’s years in power.

Mr Blair says his chancellor subjected him to such relentless personal pressure that he repeatedly considered sacking him.

And he claims that his rival would have led a left-wing putsch from the backbenches had he been dismissed.

His memoir trashes Mr Brown’s record in Number 10, accusing him of losing the last election by abandoning New Labour’s modernising political agenda.

But it is his claim to be seeking redemption over Iraq that will prove most controversial, risking an angry backlash from the families of the fallen.

In the book, Mr Blair suggests he was wrong not to express remorse for the lives cut short when he appeared before the Iraq inquiry earlier this year.

Despite the deaths of up to 700,000 Iraqis – a figure he disputes – and 179 British troops, he insisted that he felt ‘responsibility but not a regret’ during his six hours of evidence. Read more…

Blair secretly courted Mugabe: papers

www.newzimbabwe.com
30 August 2010

FORMER British Prime Minister Tony Blair was prepared to ignore concerns about human rights abuses against President Robert Mugabe in pursuit of increased trade with Zimbabwe, according to freshly-released official documents.

Blair secretly courted Mugabe in an effort to win lucrative trade deals for Britain soon after the Labour party swept to power in1997 , Foreign Office and Downing Street correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act showed on Monday.

The UK Independent newspaper reports that just weeks after Blair unveiled his government’s ethical foreign policy in May 1997, he wrote a personal letter to Mugabe congratulating him on his role in unifying Africa and helping to improve relations between the continent and Britain.

The signed message, which welcomed Mugabe’s appointment as leader of the Organisation of African Unity, paved the way for an attempt to bring the two leaders together in a face-to-face meeting in Downing Street during the first weeks of the New Labour administration.

Revelations about Labour’s early links with Mugabe come as Blair prepares to publish his autobiography in which he casts himself as a force for good in world affairs.

But the secret documents show how, despite international condemnation of Mugabe’s government, Blair was secretly negotiating to establish close trading and political relations with Zimbabwe.

At this time, Mugabe was under growing pressure to accept responsibility for “crimes against humanity” in which thousands of Matabeleland civilians were killed by the Fifth Brigade in 1983-87.

Mugabe and Blair finally met in October that year at the Commonwealth summit in Edinburgh. Mugabe told Blair that he wanted Britain to fund Zimbabwe’s land reform programme in which half a million hectares of white-owned farmland were to be redistributed among black farmers.

Weeks earlier, a Foreign Office briefing to Blair argued the advantages of meeting the African President outweighed human rights concerns.

In a letter dated June 11, the Foreign Office urged the Prime Minister to accede to Mugabe’s request for an official visit to Downing Street.

The memo reads: “This may be a useful opportunity for an exchange of views in advance of CHOGM [the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting]. After South Africa, Zimbabwe is the most important country in southern Africa to us both commercially and politically. Read more…

GORDON DUFF: AMERICANS BELIEVED INVOLVED IN PAKISTAN AIR CRASH, HIJACKING

CRASH OF AIRBUS 320 OUTSIDE ISLAMABAD NOW BELIEVED HIJACKED, HEADING FOR  NUKE FACILITY

By Gordon Duff
Veterans Today

August 29, 2010 Islamabad, Pakistan (Veterans Today exclusive)  Informed sources in the Government of Pakistan have told Veterans Today that they are developing “hard evidence” indicating  the Jet Blue Airbus 320 that crashed July 28th outside Islamabad was a terrorist hijacking  tied to rogue American security forces operating inside that country.

Sources indicate that the plane crash was an unsuccessful hijacking attempt  intended to crash into the nuclear  weapons facility at Kahuta, outside Islamabad.  Such an attack may have been blamed on India and would likely have led to retaliation which could easily have escalated to a nuclear exchange between these two nations that have spent decades at each other’s throats.

Suspicions were raised inside Pakistan’s military and intelligence organizations when American military contractors employed by Blackwater/Xe showed up on the scene immediately after the crash, seizing the black box and “other materials.”  There is no confirmation that parachutes or electronic equipment had been removed when Blackwater/Xe security relinquished control of the crash scene to Pakistani investigators.

Royal Television in Islamabad, owned by the brother of the head of Pakistan’s powerful JI (Jamate Islami), the Islamic political party, has reported that investigations are underway tying American based contractors to the planning of the attack.

Pakistan’s ISRP (Inter-Services Public Relations) has failed to confirm this but private sources indicate that an active investigation of these allegations is, not only underway but has established ties between an American group and the hijackers.

Military and intelligence officials inside Pakistan, in concert with the American embassy, are withholding all official details of the investigation and are likely to continue doing so.

This same facility had been the subject of an armed penetration by American contractors, believed to be employed by the State Department, in 2009.  Four Blackwater employees, armed and possessing explosives were arrested outside the Kahuta nuclear facility in 2009.  The four, driving a Jeep 4×4 and possessing advanced surveillance and jamming equipment of Israeli manufacture, were intercepted 1.5 miles from the Kahuta nuclear facility.

The four spoke fluent Pushtu and were dressed in a manner as to resemble Taliban fighters.  The order for their release, given by Minister of the Interior Rehman Malik, is an issue of considerable controversy between the civilian government in Pakistan and the powerful military.

The passenger jet with 152 on board slammed into a hillside in what was believed to be Pakistan’s most serious air crash.  At least 2 Americans were believed to be on board but, a month later, the US Embassy in Islamabad has left this unconfirmed.  Reports received today, however, confirm that at least 5 Americans, military contractors said to be employed by Xe, may also have been on the craft but could not be identified as they had been traveling in local garb and had boarded with false identification.

Xe is an American based military and intelligence contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater and has been the subject of considerable controversy for activities inside Pakistan.

Sources indicate that the attackers stormed the cockpit in a hijacking attempt.  The pilot is said to have jammed the flight controls, careening the Airbus 320 and all aboard into a hillside rather than allowing the plane to be used in a “9/11″ type attack inside Pakistan or flown into Indian air space for a repeat of the 2008 Mumbai attack.

Pakistan has, at times in error, referred to American contractors employed by the Departments of Defense, State or the Central Intelligence Agency as Blackwater.  However, it is believed the majority of such employees are, in fact, members of that organization or is derivitive, Xe.

The same group, often criticized for irregularities in Iraq, has been contracted by the  Central Intelligence Agency to operate Predator drones inside Pakistan, operations that have resulted in a significant number of civilian deaths and said by political leaders of several factions to do little but recruit terrorists.

Source: http://www.veteranstoday.com/…americans-believed-involved-in-pakistan…

India Halts Vaccine Programs After Deaths of Four Children

Christina England
Blitz
Sunday, August 29, 2010

Vaccine programmes grind to a halt in India once more, when four children died after they received the measles vaccination in Lucknow. The four children were reported to have fainted soon after they were vaccinated and witnesses reported seeing the children’s eyes roll back as they began to have seizures. All of the children were under the age of two years of age, with the youngest being just six months. Sadly the children died before medical aid workers could reach them.

As news of the deaths spread, immunization drives in 41 villages have been halted until further investigations have taken place.

The Indian Express stated in their article 4 children die within minutes of vaccination – www.indianexpress.com that-

“The immunisation programme was being conducted as part of the government’s Jachha Bachha Suraksha Abhiyan launched on August 15. Minutes after vaccination, the children started gasping for breath.”

NDTV reported that the Health Ministry has ordered an inquiry after the four infants, all believed to be below nine months, died after the vaccine. The inquiry team has yet to reach Uttar Pradesh, however, the Uttar Pradesh government has announced compensation for the families of the victims.

This is not the first report of adverse reactions after the measles vaccination. The measles vaccine has had a dubious and rather tainted history. In the UK, a government report dating back to 1968 , exposed on the website VacTruth.com in May of this year stated:-

Section 6 – Reactions

“Mild febrile reactions and transient rashes may be expected to follow the administration of the vaccine in a substantial proportion of cases. The rise of body temperature which may occur from 5 to 10 days after vaccination – usually about the 8th day – is due to the multiplication of the attenuated virus. This febrile reaction, when it occurs, seldom lasts more than 24 to 48 hours. The Committee on Safety of Drugs has agreed that severe and unusual reactions to measles vaccine should be reported on the yellow card used for reporting adverse reactions to drugs. The Committee does not however, wish to receive reports of mild febrile reactions and rashes associated with the use of this vaccine.” Read more…

London Spy Murder: security services have implicated themselves by using fictitious and scurrilous smear tactics

Editors note: This is a classic dirty trick favoured by the British security services, an attempt to cause enough anguish and/or embarrassment to the victims family so they will not pursue matters further.

Officers who found body of Gareth Williams say it was ‘a neat job’, leading to speculation that it was a professional hit

Helen Carter and Richard Norton-Taylor
guardian.co.uk
Sunday 29 August 2010

Further questions have been raised over the death of an MI6 officer after police confirmed that reports of bondage equipment found at his flat and a “ritualistic” arrangement of his possessions were untrue.

The body of Gareth Williams was found stuffed in a bag in the bath of an MI6 safehouse in Pimlico, south London, a week ago. Reports have said there was evidence of a break-in, and that sim cards containing the numbers of gay escorts were found at the flat, but police who found the body told Channel 4 News it was “a neat job”, leading to speculation that Williams was killed in a professional hit.

The police and security services seem to disagree over precisely what led to Williams’ death, with Whitehall sources maintaining that his death was “more to do with his private life than his job”.

Claims that 31-year-old Williams was secretly gay appear to be wrong, according to the original police dispatch seen by Channel 4. His family claim Williams has been the victim of a smear campaign to deflect attention from his work within the intelligence service. He is thought to have played a role in gathering intelligence as a code-cracker or cipher, and was seconded to MI6 from GCHQ.

Contrary to some reports, three mobile phone sim cards found in the flat were not arranged in a “ritualistic” manner, a Metropolitan police spokesman told the Guardian.

The police confirmed that Williams was last seen on 15 August, eight days before his body was found. Initial reports said he had not been seen for a fortnight. His body was discovered when police were called to check on him after a GCHQ colleague voiced concerns. Police found no mess and no sign of a struggle.

Williams’s uncle, William Hughes, said it was possible the government or another agency might be attempting to discredit his nephew by orchestrating a smear campaign. He said Williams’s parents, who live on Anglesey, were “very, very angry” about false reports over his private life. He said his nephew’s reputation was being destroyed by the “horrible and completely fictitious accounts”. Read more…

CIA probes British spy murder as it emerges he was sent on frequent missions to Pentagon’s high-security listening post

By Charlotte Gill, Emily Andrews and Liz Hull
dailymail.co.uk
27th August 2010

The CIA was called in to help investigate the murder of an MI6 spy last night as it emerged he was sent on frequent secret missions to the United States.

American intelligence officers are poring over every detail of Gareth Williams’s work and personal life to see if the circumstances of his death endangered U.S. national security.

The Daily Mail can reveal that the 31-year-old codebreaker flew to the National Security Agency, the Pentagon’s listening post and the largest intelligence agency in the world, up to four times a year. He returned from his last trip to America only a few weeks before he was found dead.

Questions also remain over why his body lay undiscovered for up to a fortnight at his£400,000 flat in a Victorian townhouse in Pimlico, central London, half a mile from MI6 headquarters.

Mr Williams worked at the Government’s listening post, GCHQ in Cheltenham, but had been on secondment to MI6 for the past year and was due to return to GCHQ next Friday.

The body of the keen cyclist was found in a sports holdall in the bath on Monday afternoon.

But yesterday his former landlady in Cheltenham insisted he had not been off work, intensifying the mystery surrounding his death.

Security sources could not explain why some one holding such a sensitive post was able to go ‘missing’ for such a long time before police were called.

Officers were last night examining the hard drive of a laptop computer found
in the flat.

Landlady Jenny Elliott said: ‘He definitely wasn’t on annual leave as the security services woman who came to see me after they found his body told me that he wasn’t on holiday.

‘Why did no one notice? It’s disgraceful the police weren’t alerted earlier that he was missing. His murder is devastating and I just hope the person who did it is caught.

Mrs Elliott, 71, who rented Mr Williams a self-contained flat attached to her home in Cheltenham, said he would often travel to America for weeks at a time three or four times a year either with a male colleague or on his own. Read more…

Ukrainian president rejects criticism over censorship

www.expatica.com
28 August 2010

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich defended himself against accusations of declining media freedom by journalists and watchdogs in an interview published on Saturday.

Speaking ahead of a visit to Berlin starting on Monday, Yanukovich told German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung there would be no government interference in the case of a missing journalist and a dispute between public and private TV stations.

“All the disputes must be decided by the courts. I cannot imagine that pressure would be exerted on the courts,” Yanukovich said.

Private channels TVi and Channel 5 are at loggerheads over broadcast frequencies with one of the main national networks, Inter TV Channel.

Inter TV’s owner, Valery Khoroshkovsky, is one of the country’s richest businessmen and also head of the SBU, Ukraine’s main government security agency.

The newspaper reported that the head of TVi had been spied on by intelligence services, which the pro-Moscow Yanukovich denied.

“I can’t imagine that. In any case, I have not been informed of such an activity,” he said.

The newspaper told Yanukovich that its staff in Ukraine had been the subject of attempted intimidation by intelligence services, with Yanukovich saying he was unaware of it. Read more…

Seized documents from Catholic Church’s offices in Belgium declared inadmissible evidence in child sex abuse case

Seized documents can’t be used in investigation

www.deredactie.be
Sat, 28 August 2010

The judicial authorities will not be allowed to use the case files taken during a search of the Church Commission on Abuse by Clergymen. On the 24 June detectives searched a number of premises owned by the Catholic Church including the Commission’s offices in Leuven (Flemish Brabant).

However, “serious procedural errors” were made by detectives that took part in what was called Operation Kelk.”

Consequently, the evidence contained in the 475 case files taken from the Commission’s offices can’t be used in the criminal investigation into child sex abuse by Catholic clergymen.

The decision to declare the evidence inadmissible was taken by Brussels magistrates two weeks ago.

However, it had been kept secret until it was leaked to journalists from the commercial broadcaster VTM.

The material taken during other searches, including the one at the Archbishop’s Palace, will be able to be used in the investigation.

Files to be sealed

The former Head of the Church Commission Peter Adriaenssens told journalists that “This provides recognition that we followed the procedures correctly.

Mr Adriaenssens resigned in protest at the seizure of the documents.

It is not clear what will now happen to the case files.

The Church Commission on Abuse by Clergymen no longer exists.

Mr Adriaenssens says that he has been led to believe that the case files will remain in sealed boxes until the Church decides what to do with them.

Jamaica Gov’t gets $4-billion grant from EU

Jamaica Observer
Friday, August 27, 2010

GOVERNMENT yesterday received a $4-billion grant from the European Union (EU) towards its Debt Reduction, and Sugar Cane Sector budget support programmes.

Of the amount, $1.3 billion is earmarked for the Sugar Cane Sector support initiative.

According to head of the European Union Delegation Ambassador Dr Marco Mazzochi-Alemanni, the grant was made possible following Government’s achievement of several key targets previously outlined by the Union.

“The two programmes are closely linked and the divestment of the loss-making Sugar Corporation of Jamaica is one of the key milestones in the reduction of the country’s public debt,” Mazzochi-Alemanni said at the handing over held at Jamaica House.

“The debt reduction and growth enhancement programme disbursement was decided mostly in consideration of progress in macroeconomics polices, including the finalisation of the stand-by arrangements with the IMF, and the Jamaica Debt Exchange, as well as the improved transparency in the management of public finances,” he continued.

Mazzochi-Alemanni listed Government’s achievements in the divestment of the Sugar Corporation of Jamaica, the establishment of a domestic market for ethanol, and the funding of the Cane Expansion Fund, among the reasons for the allocation of the Sugar Cane Sector Support portion of the funds.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Bruce Golding, in expressing gratitude for the grant, commended the EU on its “flexibility” in the disbursement of the funds. Read more…

Pakistan orders evacuation of southern town

www.dawn.com
Saturday, 28 Aug, 2010

THATTA: Pakistan ordered 300,000 people to evacuate a southern city after waters breached its defences as the United Nations warned Friday the country’s worst humanitarian crisis was deepening.

For nearly a month, torrential monsoon rain has triggered massive floods steadily moving from north to south, affecting a fifth of the volatile country — an area roughly the size of England — and 17 million people.

The United Nations estimated that around one million people had been displaced in the southern province of Sindh in 48 hours, where rising waters threatened a string of major towns.

“We ordered people of Thatta city on Thursday night to move to safer places after floods breached an embankment at Faqir Jogoth village,” administration official Manzoor Sheikh told AFP.

About 70 per cent of Thatta’s approximately 300,000 people had so far moved to safer areas and the deluge is bearing down on the city, he said.

“We hope that (army) engineers will be able to repair the breach or otherwise floodwaters will inundate Thatta city,” Sheikh said.

He said the surrounding towns of Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Darro — which had a combined population of 400,000 — had already been evacuated.

People were fleeing Thatta, where streets were deserted and shops shut, to nearby Makli and Karachi with their livestock and luggage as engineers tried to repair the six-metre (20-foot) wide breach, an AFP reporter said.

In Makli, which is a hilly area, devastated people were seen sitting out in the open with their children and cattle.

“It is the worst tragedy…. We are leaving our homes in miserable condition,” said Abdul Karim Palejo, a government schoolteacher in Thatta.

“I leave behind a house which is more than a century old…. My heart bleeds when I think of this house inundating in floodwaters,” he added.

A spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Islamabad estimated that one million people were displaced in a 48-hour period in Sindh alone.

“An already colossal disaster is getting worse and requiring an even more colossal response. The magnitude of this crisis is reaching levels that are even beyond our initial fears,” said the spokesman Maurizio Giuliano.

“The number of those affected and those in need of assistance from us are bound to keep rising.”The orders to evacuate Thatta threw into chaos plans by hundreds of people already on the move, fleeing flooded villages and hoping that the district’s biggest city could provide relief and shelter. Read more…

Watch The Ad One Million New Yorkers Will See!

ae911truth.org

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Mexico to ban payment in cash

presstv.ir
Fri, 27 Aug 2010

Mexico says it is planning to tighten the noose around big-ticket cash purchases to curtail the flow of smuggled dollars and fight money laundering.

President Felipe Calderon put forward the sweeping new measures Thursday to crack down on billions of dollars of the illicit money gained by the drug cartels and spent by them for more profit.

“This illicit money is vital for the criminal. That is what they seek, this money. It is also vital to finance their activities,” said Calderon, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

If approved by the legislature, the legislation would not allow anyone to buy real estate in cash. Neither would it permit anyone to spend more than MXN 100,000 (USD 7,700) in cash on vehicles, boats, airplanes and luxury goods.

Violators of the new legislation would face up to 15 years in prison.

According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, around USD 18 billion to USD 39 billion in drug money is smuggled from the United States into Mexico where it is laundered.

“In the criminal world, cash is king, and in Mexico you have to go after the cash if you want to disrupt their operations,” said Jerry Robinette, a special agent in charge of the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency in San Antonio, wrote the Post.

However, so far very little has been done “to either impede the movement of drug money into the formal economy or significantly reduce the flow of bulk cash across the US-Mexico border,” says Douglas Farah, a consultant for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

US and Mexican agents seize no more than 1 percent of this southbound cash, according to a Washington Post analysis, based on figures provided by both governments.

In Mexico, about three-fourths of all transactions are in cash.

Afghanistan’s puppet government calls for sanctions against Pakistan

www.dawn.com
Friday, 27 Aug, 2010

WASHINGTON: Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta has urged the United States to sanction Pakistan and refuse visas to Pakistani generals, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

In an interview to the Post, the Afghan official claimed that the central issue in the war against terrorists was their ability to take refuge in Pakistan and not the rampant corruption in Afghanistan.

Demanding sanctions against Pakistan, Mr Spanta said “Pakistani generals and others that we know definitely are involved in supporting terrorist activities” should be denied US visas.

“It is my firm belief that we cannot win if we continue business as usual,” he said. “We’ve lost the reality. We’ve lost the focus.”

Mr Spanta said the “central issue is international jihadis” who take refuge in Pakistan and enjoy support and training from Pakistani military and intelligence agencies.

“We will fight corruption,” he said. “But to put this problem and challenge at the top of all the others in Afghanistan, that’s a joke. A bad joke. It’s avoiding responsibility.”

Mr Spanta said the United States needed to redirect its drone war to target Afghan Taliban commanders living in Pakistan. Read more…

Former French President Chirac pays Paris to drop graft charges

Journalists in France have uncovered a deal that would allow Jacques Chirac, former president of France and former mayor of Paris, to escape prosecution on charges of fraud.

www.dw-world.de
26.08.2010

The city of Paris confirmed a press report Thursday that former French President Jacques Chirac and his conservative UMP party have agreed to pay the city to drop its embezzlement cases against him.

Chirac is set to pay 550,000 euros ($698,060) while the party of current President Nicolas Sarkozy would pay an additional 1.65 million euros.

The civil suit had alleged that Chirac and the party created 21 contracts for fake jobs during his tenure as the mayor of Paris between 1977 and 1995.

The contracts were allegedly awarded to Chirac’s political allies and paid out of the city’s coffers to the tune of 4.5 million euros.

Paris City Council was to be legally represented as the injured party in the criminal trial, due to start at the end of the year. But now the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine has revealed a deal which would allow the former president to avoid this humiliation.

In mid-June, Sarkozy, though no friend of Chirac these past few years, organized a dinner at Chirac’s favorite Chinese restaurant in Paris. Here, the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, agreed to withdraw the council’s complaint against his predecessor in exchange for a sum representing the money wrongly paid out by the municipality in salaries, in addition to interest and legal costs.

Payout not popular with everyone

The deal has scandalized some, including Yves Contassot, deputy mayor of Paris and the head of the Socialist Green Party coalition on the city council.

“I find this shocking,” Contassot told French public radio. “Because this affair isn’t only about money which needs to be returned to the City of Paris, it is above all an ethical question. Fictitious employment is cheating. You can’t just wave that to one side.”

Several UMP members in Paris have even found themselves a lawyer and hope to take over the role as the injured party in the trial.

Chirac’s wife Bernadette has made it known that she is against the arrangement because, she says, it is an admission of guilt which would tarnish her husband’s reputation. Read more…

Western media distorting IRGC image

www.presstv.ir
Thu Aug 26, 2010

Some Western media are publishing false interviews with IRGC commanders to distort the true image of the Revolutionary Guards, a top military official says.

“Media controlled by arrogant powers are after creating Iranophobia among regional countries and are trying to mobilize the region’s public opinion against Iran,” Lieutenant General Ramezan Sharif, head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) public relations department said on Thursday.

Sharif explained that these media publish false quotes from IRGC commanders, without citing names or sources, to portrait a threatening image of Iran and IRGC, Fars News Agency reported.

“Iran’s military might is only for protecting the country, not for threatening friendly countries in the region,” the Iranian general said.

Israel and its Western allies accuse Iran of following a military nuclear program and Tel Aviv has repeatedly threatened Tehran with an attack on its nuclear facilities.

Iran rejects the charges, arguing that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has a right to the peaceful application of nuclear technology.

The IRGC commanders have stressed that should the enemies attack Iran, the Revolutionary Guards are prepared to defend the country and its interests.

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