Vieques Island riddled http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/contexto/1702/vieques-la-isla-acribillada/

The 75 percent of the population of Vieques promotes a lawsuit to be compensated by the U.S. government for damages caused by using that territory of Puerto Rico as a bombing range for 62 years. For more than 200 days each year from 1941 to 2003, the Navy used  this tiny Caribbean island for military training exercises and testing ammunition without the consent of the local population, which was infected with its natural resources and the health of their impoverished inhabitants.

The Navy has refused to disclose the full list of the quantities of materials used on the island and at sea during war weapons tests of all kinds. Only between 1984 and 1998 it dropped more than 80 million pounds of bombs there.Prestigious academic  Yale University, Puerto Rico, the College  of engineers of  San Juan and the College of Physicians and Surgeons who presented their findings to the NBC and CNN have shown that water, land, air and food are in contact with high levels of heavy metals and other pollutants.

On this island, which is the most contaminated of them all in the Caribbean Basin, there is a 30 percent greater incidence of cancer diseases and 25 percent higher infant mortality, said in an extensive interview on CNN television. They also have a 60 per cent more metal poisoning, 95 percent higher for liver cirrhosis, a 381 per cent higher for hypertension and 41 percent higher for diabetes, said Dr. Carmen Ortiz Roque, an epidemiologist at Harvard University . 

History of a tragedy. The city occupies an island of Vieques east of Puerto Rico and was inhabited by indigenous South American groups over a thousand 500 years before the arrival of Spanish colonization. Since 1514 the Taino genes aborଠresisted Spanish rule in 1811 and founded the town of Vieques, which prospered greatly during decades with the establishment of six major sugar mills. In 1939, U.S. expropriated 72 percent of Vieques territory to establish a military base and thereafter the Navy used the eastern part of the island as a site for military exercises. 

The western part is also intended as a secret store of war materials imported from the United States without the consent or oversight of the local population. The people of Vieques were forced to live in a strip of land in the central part of the island and its main livelihood, fishing was restricted by the constant and damaging war exercises.In 1947, half of Vieques has been forced to migrate to Puerto Rico or the U.S.. For many years various studies have documented the presence of organic contaminants, inorganic and radioactive such as arsenic, aluminum, boron, cadmium, lead and mercury, among others, according to a 1999 study. 

The Navy, in February 1999, admitted to using radioactive materials,''such as depleted uranium,''as has been documented for radioactive levels exceeded normalcy  by 200 percent. Also tested with highly toxic weapons as napalm, Agent Orange defoliated, white phosphorus and various types of explosives and pesticides. Dr. Jorge Colon, University of Puerto Rico in 1999 found that 34 percent of the population had toxic blood mercury levels, 55 percent were contaminated with lead, 69 percent arsenic and cadmium, 90 with aluminum and antimony 93. 

 Milivy Adams, only five years old, died of neuroblastoma, a malignant disease that occurs in the U.S. only one in every 100 thousand inhabitants. When they get sick, Vieques residents have to travel several hours by boat and bus to Puerto Rico to receive chemotherapy because there are no clinics in Vieques that offer this treatment. The newspaper El Nuevo Dia reported that the Pentagon admitted that it had secretly used the substance''''trioctilo phosphate on its own troops to know their effects in humans.

The health situation of Vieques and its legal claims were also the focus of an extensive article in Time magazine in September 2009 which states that the military practices have caused serious destruction to the''mangroves, lagoons, beaches, coconut palms and other natural resources.'' Professor Joseph Seguinot Barbosa, Director, Department of Geography, University of Puerto Rico, in his study entitled,''Vieques, of an Island Under Siege,''argues that''the tip of the island where the Navy conducts its practice of indiscriminate bombing constitutes a region with more craters per square kilometer than the moon.'' 

In the same study proposes that''the destruction of natural and human resources is carried out in violation of basic norms of international law and human rights and that federal and state laws are violated in coastal zone management , water quality, noise, and underwater archaeological resources and land use, among others.'' The engineer Rafael Cruz Pérez, in an article entitled, Contamination Produced by Explosives and Residuals of Explosives in Vieques, describes the situation of the Cerro Matias was the main area of the Marine shooting a battlefield during the First World War, where soil and much of the topsoil has been reduced to dust, where projectile fragments are visible, like projectiles failed to explode and says that this place can be considered a giant deposit of hazardous solid waste. 

He adds that, according to information given by the Navy this material is never removed, but it is detonated or simply covered with earth and under the effects of subsequent explosions, sea breezes and natural weathering, the metals are oxidized to become products that pass to pollute the environment. In 2003, after strong public pressure the Navy left Vieques while today the government of President Barack Obama, through the Department of Justice, has called''immunity''to try to terminate a lawsuit that could cost you prestige and many millions of dollars. ''No peace without health,''said Robert Rabin,  spokesman for the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques.

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AMERICAN MILITARY RESPONSIBLE FOR TERRORISM IN PAKISTAN? http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2010/02/american-military-responsible-for.html

At least 12 American soldiers have been killed in Pakistan in recent years. On 3 February 2010 three American Special Operations soldiers were killed in Lower Dir, in Pakistan. (Soldiers' Deaths in Pakistan Raise Questions on US Presence)

The three American soldiers were wearing disguises. They were dressed in Pakistani baggy trousers and long tunics, according to a Pakistani officer. (Soldiers' Deaths in Pakistan Raise Questions on US Presence) Reports from Pakistani security officials said the soldiers were killed by an explosive device.

Next the explosion site is a school.Most of the 131 people who were wounded were girls who were pupils at the school. Three of the Pakistanis who were killed were schoolgirls.The soldiers were reportedly en route to the opening of the girls' school.Why might American special forces, wearing disguises, want to visit a school in a volatile area?

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Problems of Transhumanism: Liberal Democracy vs. Technocratic Absolutism http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes20100123/

In fact, Enlightenment philosophers were intensely conflicted about the virtues of powerful monarchies and technocratic elites versus popular democracy. Some believed an absolute state was the best form of governance. Thomas Hobbes argued that political absolutism was necessary to prevent the war of “all against all.” Voltaire said that he “would rather obey one lion, than 200 rats of [his own] species.”

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Three Tory councillors revealed as Freemasons http://www.ryeandbattleobserver.co.uk/news/Three-Tory-councillors-revealed-as.6044960.jp

Three Hastings councillors have been revealed as Freemasons – including the head of planning and the man driving the £100million link road scheme.

Conservatives Terry Fawthrop, Matthew Lock and John Wilson are all members of the clandestine organisation which has at its heart a pledge to help out other masons.

The Observer made the discovery after trawling through council records at the town hall – records which carry details of councillors’ outside interests.

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Americans Helped Corrupt African Leaders Spend Their Money in the U.S. http://www.allgov.com/US_and_the_World/ViewNews/Americans_Helped_Corrupt_African_Leaders_Spend_Their_Money_in_the_US_100209

The U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations latest report (Keeping Foreign Corruption Out of the United States: Four Case Histories) details the lives of rich African despots who have funneled huge sums into the country, all with the help of morally-flexible Americans.  

There’s Omar Bongo, president of Gabon, who was aided by lobbyist Jeffrey Birrell in his purchase of American-built armored vehicles and military cargo aircraft, and who stashed more than $100 million into offshore shell companies. Bongo also transported $1 million into the U.S., right past customs, by using his diplomatic status and gave it to his daughter for her to deposit into an American bank.

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Host First Nations Bite the Olympic Hand http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/3139

Hard on the heels of Indigenous protests during the Olympic Torch Relay, the Four Host First Nations (FHFN) surprised the province and its international partners with an announcement in January. Chief Bill Williams, chair of the FHFN, declared they will use the power of international media to shame the province into honouring its commitments to economic development.  Thomas Leonard, president of the BC First Nations Forestry Council, fired the first shot. In a letter to BC Forests Minister Pat Bell last December, he wrote, "The fact that your government and its federal partner are spending $3 billion to stage the Winter Olympics is merely exacerbating the frustration and anger felt by our communities as they continue to be told that there is no money in the pot to address their situations, which, as you are fully aware, are of a most desperate nature."

Williams explained the consequences for ignoring the FHFN's ultimatum. "There's going to be some 14,000 media people running around [at the Olympics]," he told the Globe and Mail. "Some of them are already contacting us. They want to know, ‘What's it like to be an Indian in today's world? How do you live?' We are going to start letting those reporters know the reality of the poverty we face."

The host nations—the Squamish, Musqueam, Tsleil Waututh, and Lil'Wat Nation bands—signed partnership agreements with VANOC years ago, and until now, they've submitted to the demands of the international committee on everything from cutting old-growth forests to wearing faux regalia. Some, like Kwakwaka'wakw activist Gord Hill, have accused the FHFN of selling out, and cheaply.

Raising the price at this late date doesn't make it right, and Hill calls the latest move an "attempted cash grab" by "native sell-outs.""What is truly hypocritical is for Williams to now raise the issue of Native poverty, or to express concerns about the social conditions for Native people, after several years collaborating with VANOC and the 2010 Olympics," Hill told The Dominion.

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Missionaries Murdered for Helping Amazon Indigenous  http://www.impunitywatch.net/impunity_watch_south_amer/

PARÁ, Brazil-The landowner accused of ordering the murder of Sister Dorothy Stang in the Amazon in 2005 has been ordered back to jail. Sister Dorothy Stang worked on behalf of the indigenous community and for rainforest preservation. Vitalmiro Bastos Moura "Bida" was originally convicted for the killing in 2007. The verdict was overturned a year later and he is now facing a retrial

Sister Dorothy Stang was seventy-three and had lived in Brazil for thirty years when she was shot six times as she walked along a muddy rainforest trail. She was left to die in the mud. Estimates are that hundreds of people have been killed in land disputes in the state of Pará in the last few decades, with few prosecutions. Despite the international outrage, missionaries who campaign on behalf of the poor in the Amazon region face death threats and reportedly need police protection to do their work.

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Oil, gas, gold, copper, etc., in Haiti equals US occupation http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5558.shtml

In fact, there’s always been oil in Haiti. US/USAID actually guaranteed an oil contract for a US businessman named Charles C. Valentine as far back as November 1962, curiously a year before the JFK assassination, one of the things on JFK’s plate back then being the cancelation of oil-depletion allowances. Meanwhile, US/USAI gave Valentine’s company monopoly control over pretty much everything to do with oil in Haiti.

Then the agency paid him to take a walk. He claimed $327,304 from the agency, which was itself able to “extract” it from the Haitian government, plus $4,398 in interest charges. So there’s a not to pretty a picture here of what was going on then and, most probably, now.Danto provides material from the Haitian scholar Dr. Georges Michel, who claims the US knew about oil and natural gas reserves back in 1908 and began explorations in the 1950s, locking up “strategic gas reserves for the US,” to be tapped when Mid-East oil became less valuable.

The unspoken rule here is that hyped scarcities of oil keep prices high. Yet, oil companies have to have a full tank somewhere in case Mid-East supplies diminish sharply, raising prices, for whatever reasons, the War on Terror, hostilities in Iraq, embargos on Iran, to mention a few.But the US still needed to keep dictatorial governments in power in Haiti as its ace in the hole, and try to overthrow any duly elected democratic governments from 1991 on, for fear some popular president might want to nationalize oil and gas reserves for the benefit of the bitingly poor Haitian people as Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela. Ms. Danto points us to an article by Ginette and Daniel Mathurin that says there’s more oil in Haiti than in Venezuela.

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Ecuador Slates US Newspaper Report http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/february/09/latam-10020903.htm

QUITO - Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino called on Monday a report published by the US ElNuevo Herald daily, which refers to Ecuador as an international center of criminal and drug trafficking activities, as a despicable act.To Patino, the intention is to harm Ecuador's image by means of an evidently biased document, excessively covered by the Ecuadorian media.

"What a rightwing non-governmental organization does to damage the country's prestige is a despicable act. They elaborate a document and publish it on the front page of our papers," the minister commented.Patino said the Ecuadorian ambassador to the US had already presented a reply to the mentioned document.

The Ecuadorian diplomatic statement calls the study biased, lacking impartiality and objectivity, "part of a campaign aimed at discrediting the country's image and the government of President Rafael Correa."Although it lacks the huge resources of Colombia to face drug trafficking, Ecuador is the only country in the Andean region that is free from coca crops, the text said.

comment-Correa accuses U.S. right-wing ‘extremists’ of trying to destabilize Ecuador http://www.examiner.com/x-17196-South-America-Policy-Examiner~y2010m1d4-Correa-accuses-US-rightwing-extremists-of-trying-to-destabilize-Ecuador

Ecuador's president orders U.S. diplomat expelled http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2009/02/ecuadors-president-orders-us-diplomat.html

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Germany speaks out in favour of European army http://euobserver.com/9/29426

German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has said Berlin supports the long term goal of creating a European army, which will bolster the EU's role as a global player.Speaking on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering for high-level discussions on security and defence, Mr Westerwelle said the EU's new institutional rules, the Lisbon Treaty, are "not the end but, rather, the beginning for common security and defence policy."

Westerwelle: "The long term goal is the establishment of a European army" "The long term goal is the establishment of a European army under full parliamentary control," he said, noting that the German government "wants to advance along this path."Mr Westerwelle, who is just a few months into the job as Germany's top diplomat as part of a ruling Christian Democrat and liberal coalition, suggested that moving further on common security and defence will be the "motor for greater European integration."

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VP called to respond to parapolitics allegations http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/8103-vp-called-to-respond-to-parapolitics-allegations.html

A Colombian prosecutor called on the country's vice-President, Francisco Santos, to testify about allegations by a paramilitary boss that he had collaborated with the now-demobilized paramilitary organization AUC.Santos was invited to voluntarily respond to accusations by former paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso that Santos had known of the planning of a paramilitary group in the Colombian capital of Bogota.

The Prosecutor's General's Office is currently investigating these accusations.According to Mancuso, he had met with Santos on several occasions from the end of 2006 to the beginning of 2007 where, according to the former AUC chief, Santos proposed the forming of an AUC-led Capital Bloc that could control Bogota.The meetings were held in an AUC camp, a house in the city of Valledupar and inside the office of El Tiempo newspaper, where Santos at that time was editor-in-chief, said Mancuso.

The paramilitary leader claims paramilitary leaders Freddy Rendon, alias "El Aleman," and Rodrigo Tuvar, alias "Jorge 40", were present at one of the meetings. Jorge 40 recently was reported to have suspended his cooperation with Colombian media following the murder of his brother.Santos and former employees of El Tiempo claim the meetings took place for journalistic purposes. because of this, the Supreme Court suspended an investigation against the current vice-President.

Colombia's Supreme Court and the country's Prosecutor General's Office opened investigations against dozens of government officials and lawmakers with alleged ties to the AUC, guilty of tens of thousands of human rights violations including thousands of cases of murder and rape.

comment-also see...THIS IS A MUST WATCH http://uribewarcriminal.blogspot.com/

RIGTHWING PARAMILITARISM in COLOMBIA 1 URIBE AUC killers COLOMBIA VIDEO TRANSLATED IN ENGLISH PART 1 http://www.jahu.net/videos/video/jAABv-PfTtk/ PART2 http://www.jahu.net/videos/video/Fksf6eqli1Y&feature=youtube_gdata/PARAMILITARISMO_en_COLOMBIA_2_URIBE_BUSH_AUC_asesinos_CIA_US.html PART3 http://www.jahu.net/videos/video/Fgy4PfjGtWE&feature=youtube_gdata/PARAMILITARISMO_en_COLOMBIA_3_URIBE_BUSH_AUC_asesinos_CIA_U

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Preliminary Colombian press freedom report published  http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/8105-preliminary-press-freedom-report-released.html

The Foundation for the Liberty of the Press (FLIP) Tuesday released a preliminary report on press freedom in Colombia in 2009. The report finds the DAS illegal wire-tappings of journalists to be the greatest obstacle to freedom of the press in the Andean nation.The preliminary report, published today to celebrate the Day of the Journalist, finds that "the state of the liberty of the press in Colombia [in 2009] did not vary significantly in comparison to previous years".

However FLIP recognizes the illegal wire-tappings and tracking of journalists conducted by security agency DAS constitutes a "grave violation" of press freedom in 2009.There were 157 "violations of press freedom" of 258 victims in 2009 compared to 129 cases affecting 180 victims in 2008, according to the report.FLIP cites the 16 cases of wire-tapping admitted to by DAS but believes "the phenomenon is much greater".

"The prosecutor has not yet analyzed all the material seized. The first findings of the prosecution's investigation suggest evidence that DAS not only conducted the illegal interception of communications and monitoring of journalists, but also designed handbooks on how to intimidate, as evidenced by prosecution research in the case of the wire-tapping of journalist Claudia Julieta Duque, a correspondent for Radio Nizkor in Colombia," the report reads.

The report denounces the murder of journalist Jose Everado Aguilar from Radio Super in Cauca. FLIP believes that his investigations into and denouncements of corruption were a motive for his murder on April 24.According to the report, there were 74 threats against journalists in 2009, with the departments of Cauca, Atlantico and Antioquia registering the greatest numbers. The report will be published in its entirety on February 16 following an official launch at the Javeriana University in Bogota.

comment-DAS answers only to URIBE the president,it by passes congress...this is URIBE's agency ,and URIBE  is washingtons main ALLY in  region...also see...This is not the Uribe administration's first DAS scandal http://www.cipcol.org/?cat=57

The new DAS scandal http://www.cipcol.org/?p=752

Colombian parapolitics scandal  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombian_parapolitics_scandal#DAS_scandal

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Subversive activities registration act http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twyjc5N8iGU

SECTION 23-29-10. Short title. This chapter may be cited as the "Subversive Activities Registration Act." SECTION 23-29-20. Definitions.For the purposes of this chapter the following words, phrases and terms are defined as follows:

(1) "Subversive organization" means every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means;

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Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/thinktanks-take-oil-money-and-use-it-to-fund-climate-deniers-1891747.html

An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night.

The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December.

Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.

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REAL UNEMPLOYMENT IS AT 18%!!!! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Real-Unemployment-18-Will-etfguide-45329818.html?x=0&.v=1

Today's headline numbers report was that the unemployment numbers, 'surprisingly fell to a five-month low of 9.7%,' according to today's government report.In reality, unemployment spiked to an all-time high of 18%. Yes, 18%! This is the official number reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).The BLS publishes different sets of data on a regular basis. The main focus tends to be on the U-3 unemployment rate (currently 9.7%, seasonally adjusted).

U-3 is the 'official' unemployment rate and illustrates total unemployed persons as a percentage of the civilian labor force. U-4 is another category that includes unemployed workers plus discouraged workers. A discouraged worker is someone who's available to work but has stopped actively seeking for work.U-5 unemployment includes the number of unemployed workers, plus discouraged workers, plus marginally attached workers. A marginally attached worker is someone who is able and willing to work but is not actively seeking work.

U-6 is as close to the real unemployment figure as government reporting gets. This number includes unemployed workers, plus discouraged workers, plus marginally attached workers, plus workers that are forced to work part-time because they are not able to find a full-time job. Put another way, it's the most realistic picture of today's job market as any.According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of U-6 unemployed workers is 18% (not seasonally adjusted - 16.5%). This is the highest number of record.