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November 14, 2011

Worldwide $1 Trillion Spending Spree On Nuclear Weapons Amidst Economic Crises

US to spend £700bn in next decade while Russia and Pakistan among those assigning roles to weapons beyond deterrence

The world’s nuclear powers are planning to spend hundreds of billions of pounds modernising and upgrading weapons warheads and delivery systems over the next decade, according to an authoritative report published on Monday.

Despite government budget pressures and international rhetoric about disarmament, evidence points to a new and dangerous “era of nuclear weapons”, the report for the British American Security Information Council (Basic) warns. It says the US will spend $700bn (£434bn) on the nuclear weapons industry over the next decade, while Russia will spend at least $70bn on delivery systems alone. Other countries including China, India, Israel, France and Pakistan are expected to devote formidable sums on tactical and strategic missile systems.

For several countries, including Russia, Pakistan, Israel and France, nuclear weapons are being assigned roles that go well beyond deterrence, says the report. In Russia and Pakistan, it warns, nuclear weapons are assigned “war-fighting roles in military planning”.

The report is the first in a series of papers for the Trident Commission, an independent cross-party initiative set up by Basic. Its leading members include former Conservative defence secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Liberal Democrat leader and defence spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell and former Labour defence secretary Lord Browne.

There is a strong case, they say, for a fundamental review of UK nuclear weapons policy. The Conservatives in Britain’s coalition government say they want to maintain a Trident-based nuclear weapons system. However, they have agreed to a “value for money” audit into a Trident replacement as four new nuclear missiles submarines are alone estimated to cost £25bn at the latest official estimate. The Lib Dems want to look at other options. The paper, by security analyst Ian Kearns, is entitled Beyond the United Kingdom: Trends in the Other Nuclear Armed States.

Pakistan and India, it warns, appear to be seeking smaller, lighter nuclear warheads so they have a greater range or can be deployed over shorter distances for tactical or “non-strategic” roles. “In the case of Israel, the size of its nuclear-tipped cruise missile enabled submarine fleet is being increased and the country seems to be on course, on the back of its satellite launch rocket programme, for future development of an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM),” the report notes.

A common justification for the new nuclear weapons programmes is perceived vulnerability in the face of nuclear and conventional force development elsewhere. For example, Russia has expressed concern over the US missile defence and Conventional Prompt Global Strike programmes. China has expressed similar concerns about the US as well as India, while India’s programmes are driven by fear of China and Pakistan.

Pakistan justifies its nuclear weapons programme by referring to India’s conventional force superiority, the report observes.

In a country-by-country analysis, the report says:

• The US is planning to spend $700bn on nuclear weapons over the next decade. A further $92bn will be spent on new nuclear warheads and the US also plans to build 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines, air-launched nuclear cruise missiles and bombs.

• Russia plans to spend $70bn on improving its strategic nuclear triad (land, sea and air delivery systems) by 2020. It is introducing mobile ICBMs with multiple warheads, and a new generation of nuclear weapons submarines to carry cruise as well as ballistic missiles. There are reports that Russia is also planning a nuclear-capable short-range missile for 10 army brigades over the next decade.

• China is rapidly building up its medium and long-range “road mobile” missile arsenal equipped with multiple warheads. Up to five submarines are under construction capable of launching 36-60 sea-launched ballistic missiles, which could provide a continuous at-sea capability.

• France has just completed deployment of four new submarines equipped with longer-range missiles with a “more robust warhead”. It is also modernising its nuclear bomber fleet.

• Pakistan is extending the range of its Shaheen II missiles, developing nuclear cruise missiles, improving its nuclear weapons design as well as smaller, lighter, warheads. It is also building new plutonium production reactors.

• India is developing new versions of its Agni land-based missiles sufficient to target the whole of Pakistan and large parts of China, including Beijing. It has developed a nuclear ship-launched cruise missile and plans to build five submarines carrying ballistic nuclear missiles.

• Israel is extending its Jericho III missile’s range, and is developing an ICBM capability, expanding its nuclear-tipped cruise missile enabled submarine fleet.

North Korea unveiled a new Musudan missile in 2010 with a range of up to 2,500 miles and capable of reaching targets in Japan. It successfully tested the Taepodong-2 with a possible range of more than 6,000 miles sufficient to hit half the US mainland. However, the report, says, “it is unclear whether North Korea has yet developed the capability to manufacture nuclear warheads small enough to sit on top of these missiles”.

Iran’s nuclear aspirations are not covered by the report.

 

 

Source: https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/30/nuclear-powers-weapons-spending-report

Who Is Waging The War On Terra?

This is about as creepy as it gets.

Our planet is clearly under attack. Anyone even half awake can see the world today is careening towards disaster when there is no reason for it. Our resources are plentiful, and the vast majority of people on earth are loving, ethical and well meaning individuals.

However, those in places of authority and economic power appear to be maniacal psychopaths constantly scheming for new ways to use and abuse humanity and its beautiful home called Earth, or Terra.

You name it. Politically, economically, socially, environmentally. It appears we’ve been literally invaded by something foreign to our world and are being systematically abused, dismantled and destroyed.

Just Look at the Nuclear Nightmare No One Notices

Nuclear radiation is showing up everywhere! Never mind the constant death-dealing spray of radiation from Fukus-up-shima, humanity’s being dosed from every which way on this insane planet.

Leftover radiation from decades of nuclear bomb tests, Fukushima showers, cell phones, TSA checkpoints, medical offices, irradiated food, depleted uranium used in the war forum and elsewhere, leaking nuclear reactors…it’s pathetic. And that’s all we know about.

And that doesn’t include the chemtrails and other insane geoengineering “experiments”, managed mega oil disasters and the toxification of our water table via gas fracking and other means, never mind the mad wars being waged worldwide, etc.

Why Are They Doing It?

To reduce the population? Alter our genetic make up? Produce a morphed human race only capable of subservient tasks to please a master race immune or protected from these mutative influences on a deliberately morphed planet?

I know, pretty freaky. But all actually plausible.

Know Your Enemy.

David Icke’s recent interview on InfoWars was just terrific. Follow along when you get a moment as he outlines the potential for just such a scenario. It spurred me to finish this essay which I started over a year ago, but now is clearly the time for it.

How CAN it be!

Personally I like to think how can things like this be true, and not how they’re NOT possible. When it comes to strangeness we need not look beyond our current world.

We just need to look deeper at what’s right before our eyes.

The Terraforming and Depopulation Agenda

Fundamentally this is at the core of much of what we’re witnessing in today’s world. This transformation has been afoot for centuries, drugging and altering and culling the herd to keep it manageable while the would be Controllers attempt to create their perfect, illuminated utopian world…with us as their slaves.

And we’re witnessing a whole new beyond-Orwellian stage now in their war to change and control humanity.

If you’re following the trends and social memes that have surfaced over the past few years, an accelerating pattern unfolds. While our skies are sprayed with chemicals creating a consistent metallic haze worldwide, blocking the sun and poisoning our population, plants, animals, water and soil for future generations, our food chain is also being genetically modified with such reckless state-sponsored abandon it makes your head spin.

On top of that, while more and more chemical toxins are added to our food and water, our population is given vaccines and pharmaceuticals to further alter our natural make up and behavior. The media and science promote our ‘embracing” of new exponentially increasing technological changes and to eventually literally accept chips in our bodies for social and economic control. If you watch closely you’ll see an onslaught of propaganda encouraging us to become “transhuman”, a concept heavily promoted in the music industry and Hollywood.

Why Are They Doing This?

This battle for Earth and the seeming preparation by covert powers for these esoteric plans and purposes has been unfolding for millennia. Let’s look at a few aspects of this struggle for dominion by generations of power mongers a little deeper.

The Front Men Set the Stage

Following is perhaps the most ominous speech in recent history. If you can stomach it, George W. Bush lays down the boundless terms for an international assault on…an emotion. This is straight out of Orwell’s 1984 where the world is continually fighting far away wars with constantly shifting evil-doing fictitious enemies.

At just before 4 minutes in you’ll hear the ultimate false choice of our age, that sets the stage for the coming war to fully control humanity and usher in the New World Order they’re hoping this will lead to:

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

Not a lot of wiggle room there. And since then that’s exactly what we’ve gotten-less freedoms, more restrictions imposed by the metastasized US State and its internationalist minions. And if you buck it or dare to criticize the State of ‘US’, from the invasive TSA to our Gestapo Homeland Security, you’re gonna see consequences become ‘grave’.

“W” Spells Out the War on “Terra”

One last thing before the script for world domination is dutifully read by Aleister Crowley’s retarded inbred grandson George Jr. Listen carefully to the very beginning of this speech, and tell me if W doesn’t seem to deliberately over Texan-ize the first use of the majorly important word terror to sound eerily like Terra, as in Earth.

Deliberate? Wouldn’t put it past them…one bit. As he goes on he pronounces the word just fine.

Oh how they love to flaunt their program to the “initiated brethren”. (Fine to just listen to the beginning, the rest is nauseating..)

War On Terra? Yup. Worldwide Dominion Is Their Goal

The Illuminati elite and their minions clearly seek to subdue all peoples of the earth in a great culmination of thousands of years of planning, manipulation and wicked social engineering. As we know, true history has been buried, twisted and rewritten by not just the victors, but the Controllers who play both sides.

However, there is a growing awakening sweeping our planet, and as a result essential facts have been coming to light for some time now. Their once secret (or occult) plans and methods are being exposed and brought to light for all to see.

As evidence to the above, I came across this in my research on the War on Terra by passionate researcher and Truth activist Ian Crane..perfect.

This is a DVD where….

“Ian R. Crane links the trauma of contrived oil and food shortages with the plan to introduce GM foods, not only to maximize the profitability of a mature oil & gas industry but also to provide a source of additional taxation for the primary purpose of funding an increasing number of illegal preemptive wars.

As the British Government signs legislation legalizing “scientific research” into far-reaching aspects of Genetic Engineering and Trans-Genetics, the author presents the ever increasing evidence to support his hypothesis that Humanity is under attack by those who believe that they are the rightful rulers of a global dominion.”

Psycho-Social Control - The Illuminati Hegelian Dialectic

First, it’s important to understand how they can subjugate whole nations and populations. This is obviously a huge subject as they use many methods including fear, intimidation, outright fabrications, phony suppositions and even witchcraft and literal mind control techniques in addition to their drugging and food altering technologies.

We watch helplessly as governments rise and fall, markets are manipulated to benefit the same greedy Illuminati robber barons, and society gets shredded with an incessant bombardment of mind-numbing hedonist media confusion.

Push Me, Pull Me: The constant stress of continual cognitive dissonance.

  • Violence, sex, and rebellion are condemned while being fiercely promoted and popularized at the same time.
  • In the name of so-called freedom, restraints from political correctness and phony “security” concerns shackle whole populations, which they accept gladly in the face of threats of phony external threats such as “terrorism”.
  • Supposedly representative politicians make sweeping promises and habitually proceed to do the opposite.
  • Religions clearly manipulate and easily sway huge masses of fabricatedly insecure people, subjected to an authoritarian hierarchy and told to love a god who will send them to hell if they get out of line.
  • Child abuse is condemned while it’s known to be rampant and unprosecuted amongst the elite and religious orders.
  • etc!…

Wecome to dystopia.

Anyone paying attention can see they’re hitting us from all sides. And that’s on purpose…it drives us to a desired place through the use of what’s called the Hegelian Dialectic. In simple practical terms David Icke explains the Hegelian Dialectic as Problem-Reaction-Solution.

Another Example: The environment is under deliberate attack, while they pretend to champion its preservation.

Just observe the deliberate poisoning of our atmosphere with chemtrails and pollutants and unnecessary fossil fuel use, while the Sierra Club condemns us for driving cars or exhaling CO2. Tell me that’s not madness. Then there’s the medicating of our drinking water through fluoride, chlorine, metals and other additives while we’re excoriated for challenging the government’s divine wisdom in doing so. Look at the restrictions imposed on natural medicines and supplements while they peddle dangerous drugs to the tune of multi-billions of dollars. And most horridly perhaps, the genetic modification of the very food we ingest for sustenance-while they outlaw home gardening, seeds and small farms!! Hard to consciously digest, so to speak….

The Truth of the Matter

The world doesn’t have to be the way it is-it’s the mess it’s in because that’s how the manipulators want it.

If Earth’s rightful inhabitants were left to natural and conscious laws of Universal design, we’d have plenty of food, free energy, rational and loving public discourse and happy interaction, and great intuitive conscious awareness where we would naturally align with the energy enhancing laws of the Universe…much like iron filings align and get charged by naturally occurring magnetic energy.

But worst of all for the Controllers or “powers that be”, we’d be empowered, and they’d be out of a job- and no longer able to literally suck our energy and life forces like the vampires that they are.

But Who’s Behind the Illuminati? What’s the Plan?

Researchers have been digging, tracing, connecting dots, speculating and formulating for a long time. Truth has intrinsic power and value, much more powerful than the opposing sorcery that tries to usurp everything for itself.

And the Truth is coming out!

That they could be an alien race of trans-dimensionals, or demon-possessed wicked Satanists out to do their master’s bidding is up for grabs. It could be both. But rather than give you a false choice in the matter, why don’t you figure it out?

Serious Questions Here

Is there a conspiracy and hidden agenda by powerful entities, or is it all just a coincidence and convergence of essentially accidental and random evolution of influences and events? Would powerful people actually meet together and plan or “conspire” for a self-serving elitist agenda toward their idea of utopia that may not be to the liking of the world’s inhabitants? Could they be influenced or controlled to a large degree by powerful alien, trans-dimensional or spiritual entities attempting to execute some esoteric plan?

Hey, who knows for sure. But ancient history from several cultures repeatedly tells the same story of a primordial invasion of earth by another species who interbred with early hominids to create what is now known as homo sapiens. How you gonna deal with that? With religious myths again to keep it at arms length through hierarchical rigmarole?

Time to get conscious. If we really believe we are all consciousness and essentially parts of an infinite Universe, maybe we better start listening to our hearts, challenging the party line and doing some serious research.

Because we are under attack.

Conclusion

The earth and humanity are clearly being transformed, and it’s not by accident and definitely not with our consent, except through our ignorance. If indeed we know the rulers of this world are up to a plan, which you’d be crazy not to believe, then our task is to see what that plan is and do our part to expose and stop it.

The earth is not slowly, but quickly being converted into something other than what it is naturally. The design apparently is that those who survive these manipulated changes will be the support team for these wicked trans-dimensional controllers who can survive just fine in the atmosphere they’re creating. In fact, it will probably support their life form better than the current natural earth does.

A very sci-fi sounding plot?

Actually it’s not that far from many religious teachings. The problem there is manipulated religions keep the masses transfixed on a very narrow, detached narrative, wholly dependent on a self-appointed hierarchy as they wait for the cavalry to save them. While there’s clearly truth mixed in with religious teachings, the paradigms are usually limiting and disempowering.

Meanwhile the Controllers literally get away with murder.

Any way you look at it, humanity is under attack, and they’re pulling out the stops. The more people who wake up to this heinous plot, however you see it, and take conscious action accordingly, the less power they have to execute it.

And as this vibrational change toward greater and greater conscious awareness dawns, like the sun rising after a dark night, the shadows of darkness will surely flee away.

Until then we need to light as many torches as we can!

 

Source: https://beforeitsnews.com/story/1364/801/Who_Is_Waging_The_War_On_Terra.html?currentSplittedPage=0

“Experts” Push For Lithium To Be Added To Our Drinking Water

Apparently there are not enough chemicals already added to our drinking water, as there is now a call by “experts” to further poison our water supplies by adding Lithium.

Their main reason is to decrease suicide and violent crime rates.

So it this how we wish to function as a society? Instead of dealing with our issues at hand, let’s drug ourselves so that we don’t have to deal with personal subjects that may be perceived as hard, negative or scary. This is not a time for putting our heads in the sand and pretending or even hoping that an issue will just resolve itself. Where is the personal growth in that? Don’t you feel elated when you resolve a personal issue that no longer hangs over your head or weights on your mind? It is more important than ever to clear ourselves of past issues that we have held onto and allow more room for the new energies coming to earth to take its place within our being.

What is Lithium usually prescribed for?

  • Bi polar disorder
  • Agitation not associated with bipolar disorder
  • Depression and to boost the effect of antidepressants
  • As a mood stabiliser
  • Sever Migraine Headaches

“Much like fluoride, lithium alters the brain’s normal production of serotonin and norepinephrine, which in turn artificially alters the way an individual thinks and how he or she feels about a given situation. Lithium is literally a mind-altering, antidepressant chemical substance that those promoting it openly admit modifies brain function. And yet they purport that forcibly inducing these chemical changes on the unwitting populations of the world is a good and acceptable idea.”

“Lithium has been heralded by some experts as the next potential flouride, after scientists found suicide rates were lower in areas where the drinking water had higher concentrations of the element, reports the Daily Mail”

“Time to supplement? Some scientists believe lithium could reduce suicide rates if traces were added to drinking water. The study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, analysed a sample of 6,460 lithium measurements and then compared suicide rates across 99 districts.”

If anyone still believes that adding fluoride into our drinking water is a good idea.

What are some side effects of Lithium?

  • weakness, fever, feeling restless or confused, eye pain and vision problems;
  • restless muscle movements in your eyes, tongue, jaw, or neck;
  • pain, cold feeling, or discolorations in your fingers or toes;
  • feeling light-headed, fainting, slow heart rate;
  • hallucinations, seizure (blackout or convulsions);
  • fever with muscle stiffness, sweating, fast or uneven heartbeats; or
  • early signs of lithium toxicity, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, drowsiness, muscle weakness, tremor, lack of coordination, blurred vision, or ringing in your ears.

Less serious side effects may include:

  • mild tremor of the hands;
  • weakness, lack of coordination;
  • mild nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, stomach pain or upset;
  • thinning or drying of the hair; or
  • itching skin.

Adding Lithium appears to be yet another way that our population can be “dumbed down”.

Why would governments want to turn our drinking water into a chemical cocktail?

Perhaps this way society we will be more malleable and less people will be concerned about what is really going on in this world.

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/experts-push-for-lithium-to-be-added-to.html

US Supreme Court to Hear Challenges to Obama Health Care

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up cases challenging the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s landmark health care reform.

The court’s decision will likely come in 2012, in the thick of the US presidential campaign in which Obama is seeking re-election, with his health care reform under attack from rival Republicans.

The court said they would consider a request by the Obama administration to declare the measure constitutional, as well as two cases challenging the law, including one case presented by 26 US states.

Opponents say that the most controversial element of the law — mandating that people buy health insurance or face a tax — violates individual rights as set out under the US Constitution.

But the White House said it was satisfied that the issue was being taken up by the nation’s top nine justices.

“We are pleased the court has agreed to hear this case,” said a White House spokesman, Dan Pfeiffer, of the law which extended coverage to an extra 32 million people and was a long-held dream of Democrats.

“We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”

Republican presidential hopefuls have derided the sweeping reforms as “Obamacare” and have vowed to repeal them if elected to office.

The justices are expected to rule by the end of their term in June 2012, in a judgment likely to reverberate before the November 2012 general election.

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/us-supreme-court-to-hear-challenges-to.html

 

Our Brave New World Of Snitches And Surveillance

The tech industry giants continue to dutifully “lead the way” into a suffocating surveillance state in collusion with the nasty likes of the NSA, FBI, CIA, TSA and the DHS..to name a “phew”. (Almost ran out of letters. Notice they’re almost always 3?…hmmm. The Masons wouldn’t have anything to do with all this, would they?)

This time a “non-profit group Parking Mobility, created by George Soros-funded organizations, created the Android, Blackberry and iPhone parking ticket app which encourages cities to adopt the program because they can ‘generate revenue.’”

As if our well-being was the purpose for this indoctrination into self-policing. I mean, c’mon.

Deputizing Citizens As Parking Meter Snitches? There’s An App For That

“Residents of Austin, Texas may soon have the power to issue parking tickets by taking a few photographs of someone else’s car with their smartphones. A unanimous council voted on October 20 to explore the concept of deputizing vigilante meter maids using an iPhone app. Disabled advocates pushed the program at the council meeting in the hopes of guaranteeing easier parking. They were joined by others who were just interested in writing the $511 tickets.

The system requires a person take three photographs of the alleged violator — one of the license plate, one of the windshield and one showing the car and the handicapped parking sign. The software sends the photos and the GPS location to the city so it can issue the expensive ticket.

‘There’s really no better enforcement tool than our citizens policing themselves,’ Councilman Mike Martinez said. ‘I think the merits of this program deserve our support.’”

A New Run At An Old Plan and its Nasty Effects

Since a big run at installing a ramped-up snitch program last year, they seem to have since concentrated on spyware technology due to the blowback they got. But this clever re-introduction via the “handicapped” in an attempt to get it into every city under the guise of an income generator is pretty damn devious.

However it is taking its toll on the innocent. If you follow the news you’ll examples continually of people using the

The Snitch Rollout

If you remember, last December we had a major snitch program roll-out. Walmart started running the DHS “If you see something say something” campaign which continues to leak into the social fabric, YouTube installed a Terror Alert Tag, and then Apple of course joined in as the first to publish this Nazi throwback Patriot App-just as patriotic as its predecessor, the freedom-extinguishing Patriot Act.

This was all on the heels of the first WikiLeaks uproar. Hmm. Funny how they had these programs ready to roll out. Wonder what they’ll use for the next crank up? Watch for it.

This Should Be Fun…Not

With these types of self-policing surveillance tools now anyone and everyone can “become someone” and “make a difference protecting our nation’s security.”

Right.

As these programs continue to escalate they’re eventually going to trigger a firestorm of fear and confusion, all part of the plan. Just imagine how much havoc can be wreaked with false information and random accusations-for which snitchers will be praised for being “great Americans”. With as much TV as most Americans watch, they’re gonna want to be armchair Jack Bauers or CSI agents.

The channel is now wide open. Wanna get back at your boss? Your ex? Your kids’ teachers? Students who don’t like their teachers? Teachers who don’t like their students? Wanna get back at Mom and Dad? How about that long haired protester you keep seeing at the grocery store? Or let’s look around the Internet for views I don’t like or agree with. “It’s payback time for you weirdos! Extremists! Right wing nut job! Left wing wacko! Centrist compromiser! Social deviant! Dirty Occupier” etc. etc.

However it is taking its toll on the innocent. If you follow the news you’ll examples continually of people using the

It’s all fair game in a self-policing police state. And they’re itching to see the snitching fully in place. Remember their motto, “Ordo Ab Chao”. Set confusion afoot and you get your dirty work done in the shadows while they call on you for help to finish it off.

And it’s all at the click of a mouse—or should I say….rat….

Snitching For Fun and Profit

The way the laws have been eroded, you’re now guilty until proven innocent and can be held indefinitely under Patriot Acts 1 and 2 and a host of other anti-Constitutional laws, mandates and executive orders, known and unknown.

On top of that all it takes is an accusation, bona fide or not. How easy is it for virtual agent provocateurs to stir up a storm over anyone they want to target. Once accused, job done. As the world’s economies continue to crumble, they won’t have to pay much to hire a horde of snitches.

Nasty Effects Already Felt - Due Process Almost Gone

All this “rat and snitch” empowerment is taking its toll on the innocent. Besides training people to fear and suspect everyone around them and to toe the line themselves lest they be reported on, if you follow the news you’ll see examples continually of people abusing these new self-policing “tools”.

False accusations are all it takes and everything gets thrown into a frenzy. Google “false rape accusations on facebook” or “FBI investigator informant false statements” and you’ll get pages of incidents.

Our freedoms are being eroded quickly, and all in the name of “security” and by getting us to police each other.

 

Source: https://beforeitsnews.com/story/1361/456/Our_Brave_New_World_Of_Snitches_And_Surveillance.html?currentSplittedPage=0

Undercover Policeman Admits Spying on Danish Environmental Activists

The controversy over the undercover policeman Mark Kennedy has deepened after he admitted spying on and disrupting the work of activists in another European country.

Kennedy has admitted that he infiltrated a Danish community centre that had housed progressive causes for more than a century, obtaining intelligence that helped police to storm it and close it down in violent raids.

He told a Channel Four documentary, to be broadcast on Monday, that he was used by police all over Europe to gather intelligence on activists.

The documentary describes him as the “go-to cop for foreign governments who needed information about their own activists”.

Kennedy said he was “under huge pressure to gather all this intelligence and feed it back” after European governments asked for his help.

Details of his deployment in Germany, Iceland, and Ireland have previously been revealed, leading to criticism that British police were interfering in the democratic affairs of other countries.

Kennedy said he went to 22 countries in total during his seven years under cover, pretending to be an environmental activist. The list also includes Spain, Poland, France, and Belgium.

His unmasking has led to the launch of 12 inquiries this year into a network of police spies that has operated in political movements over the past four decades. The inquiries are examining allegations ranging from alleged lying in court to the use of sexual relationships as a way of gathering information about campaigners.

Kennedy transformed himself from an ordinary policeman into a long-haired, tattooed protester who, operating under the fake identity of Mark Stone, spied on environmental, leftwing and anti-fascist groups from 2003.

He become trusted by other campaigners and soon started to become active in European protests. He said he was “getting sent all over the place” after the National Police Order Intelligence Unit, the secretive body he worked for, agreed to loan him out to police forces around Europe.

Police forces have secretive agreements to exchange undercover police officers across their borders.

Kennedy told the documentary-makers that he helped to close down the popular Copenhagen Youth House community centre. Since the late 1890s, the four-storey red brick building had been the base for a variety of trade unions, women’s groups, anarchists, anti-capitalist activists and musicians, and was visited by Lenin in 1910.

But it became the focus of huge controversy after the city council sold it to a rightwing Christian group and needed to evict the tenants. More than 650 people were arrested during three nights of clashes in 2007.

Kennedy said: “In Copenhagen, I got into a house full of squatters and gave the intelligence which allowed the police to storm the place.”

While undercover, he was hired by German police to infiltrate activists between 2004 and 2009, and reportedly committed two crimes including arson. The cases against him were dropped at the urging of the German authorities, who knew his real identity.

Kennedy – who was paid to tell his story in the Channel 4 documentary – said he had no job after leaving the Metropolitan police, nor the prospect of any work. He said: “How can I expect people ever to trust me again?”.

He said his life “is a pretty big negative” as he has left his wife and children and is separated from his girlfriend, who was an environmental activist and who helped to unmask him.

Five of the seven undercover police officers in the protest movement who have been exposed so far have admitted having or have been alleged to have had sexual relationships with activists they were keeping under surveillance, despite claims by senior police officers that this was banned.

 

Source: https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/13/undercover-policeman-admits-spying-danish-activists

Syria faces growing world pressure to halt bloodshed

Syria incurred more European sanctions and criticism from Turkey and Jordan on Monday after a surprise Arab League decision to suspend it for failing to halt months of violence aimed at crushing opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria looks ever more isolated, but still has the support of Russia, which said the Arab League had made the wrong move and accused the West of inciting Assad’s opponents.

Despite the diplomatic pressure, there was no let-up in violence and at least two people were killed, activists said.

The anti-Assad unrest, inspired by Arab revolts elsewhere, has devastated Syria’s economy, scaring off tourists and investors, while Western sanctions have crippled oil exports.

Jordan’s King Abdullah said Assad should quit. “I believe, if I were in his shoes, I would step down,” he told the BBC.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem said the League’s decision, due to take effect Wednesday, was “an extremely dangerous step” at a time when Damascus was implementing an Arab deal to end violence and start talks with the opposition.

Syria has called for an emergency Arab League summit in an apparent effort to forestall its suspension.

The Cairo-based League plans to meet Syrian dissident groups Tuesday, but its secretary-general, Nabil Elaraby, said on Sunday it was too soon to consider recognising the Syrian opposition as the country’s legitimate authority.

Elaraby met representatives of Arab civil society groups on Monday and agreed to send a 500-strong fact-finding committee, including military personnel, to Syria as part of efforts to end the crackdown on demonstrators and dissenters.

“Syria agreed to receive the committee,” said Ibrahim al-Zafarani, of the Arab Medical Union.

Moualem said Syria had withdrawn troops from urban areas, released prisoners and offered an amnesty to armed insurgents under an initiative agreed with the Arab League two weeks ago.

Yet violence has intensified since then, especially in the central city of Homs, pushing the death toll in eight months of protests to more than 3,500 by a U.N. count. Damascus says armed “terrorist” gangs have killed 1,100 soldiers and police.

Syria’s ban on most foreign media makes it hard to verify events on the ground.

SHOOTING, TANK FIRE

In the latest violence, security police shot dead activist Amin Abdo al-Ghothani in front of his nine-year-old son at a roadblock outside the town of Inkhil, a grassroots organisation known as the Local Coordination Committees said.

In Homs, residents said renewed tank shelling killed a teen-ager and wounded eight people in the restive Bab Amro district. Students in the Damascus suburb of Erbin chanted “God is greater than the oppressor,” according to a YouTube video.

Moualem described Washington’s support for the Arab League action as “incitement,” but voiced confidence that Russia and China would continue to block Western efforts to secure U.N. Security Council action, let alone any foreign intervention.

“The Libya scenario will not be repeated,” he said.

It was the Arab League’s decision to suspend Libya and call for a no-fly zone that helped persuade the U.N. Security Council to authorise a NATO air campaign to protect civilians, which also aided rebels who ousted and killed Muammar Gaddafi.

The Arab League made no call for military action, but its disciplining of Syria is deeply embarrassing to a nation touted by its Baathist leaders as the Arab world’s “beating heart.”

Syrian state television said millions of Syrians protested at the League decision in Damascus and other cities Sunday.

Crowds also attacked Saudi, Turkish and French diplomatic missions in Syria after the Arab League announcement.

Moualem apologised for the assaults, which have worsened already tense ties between Syria and its former friend Turkey.

“We will take the most resolute stance against these attacks and we will stand by the Syrian people’s rightful struggle,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the Turkish parliament, saying Damascus could no longer be trusted.

Non-Arab Turkey, after long courting Assad, has lost patience with its neighbour. It now hosts the main Syrian opposition and has given refuge to defecting Syrian soldiers.

Turkey’s stance has stung its former friends in Damascus.

“The implementation of the Arab plan must be accompanied by the securing of borders by neighboring countries,” Moualem Said. “I mean here specifically the flow of weapons from Turkey and the transfer of money to the leaders of armed groups.”

EU SANCTIONS

The European Union extended penalties to 18 more Syrians linked with the crackdown on dissent and approved plans to stop Syria accessing funds from the European Investment Bank.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was in touch with the Arab League to work on an approach to Syria, but the 27-nation body appears set against military intervention.

“This is a different situation from Libya,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in Brussels, where EU foreign ministers were meeting. “There is no United Nations Security Council resolution and Syria is a much more complex situation.”

Syria, which borders Israel, is Iran’s main Arab ally and has strong ties with Shi’ite Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and the Islamist Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country joined China to block a U.N. resolution critical of Syria in October, criticised the Arab League’s decision.

Russia, an arms supplier to the Syrians, has urged Assad to implement reforms but opposes sanctions and has accused the United States and France of discouraging dialogue in Syria.

“There has been and continues to be incitement of radical opponents (of Assad) to take a firm course for regime change and reject any invitations to dialogue,” Lavrov said.

The Arab League also plans to impose unspecified economic and political sanctions on Syria and has urged its members to recall their ambassadors from Damascus.

Assad still has some support at home, especially from his own minority Alawite sect and Christians, wary of sectarian conflict or Sunni Muslim domination if he were to be toppled.

Despite some defections, the Syrian military has not emulated its counterparts in Egypt and Tunisia in abandoning long-serving presidents faced with popular discontent.

The government has acknowledged that sanctions are hurting, but it is not clear whether this will force any policy change.

Chris Phillips of the Economist Intelligence Unit in London said Syria’s economy was “slowly bleeding to death.”

 

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/syria-calls-arab-league-meet-avert-suspension-021344525.html

Aspartame has been Renamed and is Now Being Marketed as a Natural Sweetener

Artificial sweeteners especially aspartame has gotten a bad rap over the years, most likely due to studies showing they cause cancer.

But not to worry Ajinomoto the company that makes Aspartame has changed the name to AminoSweet. It has the same toxic ingredients but a nice new sounding name.

And if you or your child happens to be allergic to Aspartame, well don’t take it personally. It’s just business.

Despite the evidence gained over the years showing that aspartame is a dangerous toxin, it has remained on the global market . In continues to gain approval for use in new types of food despite evidence showing that it causes neurological brain damage, cancerous tumors, and endocrine disruption, among other things.

Most consumers are oblivious to the fact that Aspartame was invented as a drug but upon discovery of its’ sweet taste was magically transformed from a drug to a food additive. HFA wants to warn our readers to beware of a wolf dressed up in sheep’s clothing or in this case Aspartame dressed up as Aminosweet.

Over 25 years ago, aspartame was first introduced into the European food supply. Today, it is an everyday component of most diet beverages, sugar-free desserts, and chewing gums in countries worldwide. But the tides have been turning as the general public is waking up to the truth about artificial sweeteners like aspartame and the harm they cause to health. The latest aspartame marketing scheme is a desperate effort to indoctrinate the public into accepting the chemical sweetener as natural and safe, despite evidence to the contrary.

Aspartame was an accidental discovery by James Schlatter, a chemist who had been trying to produce an anti-ulcer pharmaceutical drug for G.D. Searle & Company back in 1965. Upon mixing aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two naturally-occurring amino acids, he discovered that the new compound had a sweet taste. The company merely changed its FDA approval application from drug to food additive and, voila, aspartame was born.

G.D. Searle & Company first patented aspartame in 1970. An internal memo released in the same year urged company executives to work on getting the FDA into the “habit of saying yes” and of encouraging a “subconscious spirit of participation” in getting the chemical approved.

G.D. Searle & Company submitted its first petition to the FDA in 1973 and fought for years to gain FDA approval, submitting its own safety studies that many believed were inadequate and deceptive. Despite numerous objections, including one from its own scientists, the company was able to convince the FDA to approve aspartame for commercial use in a few products in 1974, igniting a blaze of controversy.

In 1976, then FDA Commissioner Alexander Schmidt wrote a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy expressing concern over the “questionable integrity of the basic safety data submitted for aspartame safety”. FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill believed that a grand jury should investigate G.D. Searle & Company for lying about the safety of aspartame in its reports and for concealing evidence proving the chemical is unsafe for consumption.

The details of aspartame’s history are lengthy, but the point remains that the carcinogen was illegitimately approved as a food additive through heavy-handed prodding by a powerful corporation with its own interests in mind. Practically all drugs and food additives are approved by the FDA not because science shows they are safe but because companies essentially lobby the FDA with monetary payoffs and complete the agency’s multi-million dollar approval process.

Changing aspartame’s name to something that is “appealing and memorable”, in Ajinomoto’s own words, may hoodwink some but hopefully most will reject this clever marketing tactic as nothing more than a desperate attempt to preserve the company’s multi-billion dollar cash cow. Do not be deceived.

 

Source: https://healthfreedoms.org/2010/02/15/aspartame-has-been-renamed-and-is-now-being-marketed-as-a-natural-sweetener/

UK Government ‘Puts Thousands of Lives At Risk Over Air Pollution Failures’

THOUSANDS OF LIVES are being put at risk, and the health of many more people damaged, by the UK government’s failure to adhere to strict European Union regulations on air pollution, according to an influential group of MPs.

Influential group of MPs accuse ministers of ‘actively trying to dilute safety standards’ in order to avoid EU fines

Ministers were accused by the environmental audit committee (EAC) of MPs of “actively trying to dilute safety standards”, in order to avoid fines from the EU for breaches of the rules. The government has frequently been criticised for breaches of the air quality regulations, which have led to dangerous quantities of pollutants entering the atmosphere, which can contribute to respiratory problems in vulnerable people and shorten life expectancy.

Joan Walley, the chair of the EAC, which published a report entitled Air Quality – A Follow-Up Report, on Monday morning, said: “It is a national scandal that thousands of people are still dying from air pollution in the UK in 2011 – and the government is taking no responsibility. It is often the poorest people in our cities who live near the busiest roads and breathe in diesel fumes, dangerous chemicals and bits of tyre every day.”

Between January 1 and April 21 this year, at testing points in London the amount of particulate matter in the air exceeded the allowed limits on more than 35 days. Under the EU rules, member states are liable to swingeing fines if particulates exceed the limits on more than 35 days in a whole year. Last year, 40 of the UK’s 43 air quality monitoring zones recorded levels of the pollutant NO2 above the safety limits prescribed. The MPs said the seriousness of the breaches was a matter of grave concern.

The lives of tens of thousands of people were being cut short each year because of the unnecessary pollution, the MPs found. “If you have heart disease, asthma or other respiratory illnesses then living near a congested road [where the regulations are breached] can literally take years off your life,” said Walley.

Despite the threat of fines from the EU, the situation has not significantly improved. An estimated 30,000 deaths in the UK were linked to air pollution in 2008, according to medical experts, with about 4,000 of them in London. Last year, a similar report by the committee found that poor air quality was cutting seven to eight months from people’s life expectancy, and costing the country more than £20bn a year, but in the intervening time ministers have still “failed to get a grip” of the problem, the MPs said. As a result, the lives of as many as 200,000 people could be shortened by about two years.

Instead of tackling the problem, central government is accused by the MPs of trying to pass the buck to local authorities, who will have to pay any EU fines under new requirements in the localism bill. The MPs said there were serious concerns about whether local councils had the ability to deal with the pollution. The causes of poor air quality may be beyond an individual local authority’s control.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has also applied to the European commission to extend the deadline for complying with NO2 targets to 2015.

A new national framework of low-emissions zones would provide one answer, the MPs said, as would a public awareness campaign.

Caroline Lucas, the UK’s only Green party MP, and a member of the committee, said: “Ministers must take urgent action to improve air quality across the UK – and step up efforts towards a greener transport policy to encourage people out of their cars and on to public transport.”

 

Source: https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/14/risk-air-pollution-figures

To Save Europe They Had To Kill Democracy

It’s hard not understand a trend from the political goings on Greece and Italy now.

In both countries, popularly elected leaders are leaving and being replaced by technocrats — stable, competent men well-respected by the rest of Europe.

In Italy, the hard-partying billionaire populist Berlusconi finally lost the support of Parliament, whereas in Greece, a third-generation Greek leader has been replaced with someone who has served both the ECB and the Boston Fed!

The NYT has a piece on the technocrat phenomenon, and whether there the new leaders of Greece and Italy will do any better.

The question now, in both Italy and Greece, is whether the technocrats can succeed where elected leaders failed — whether pressure from the European Union backed by the whip of the financial markets will be enough to dislodge the entrenched cultures of political patronage that experts largely blame for the slow growth and financial crises that plague both countries.

Some said there was cause for optimism. “First, the mere fact that they have been asked in such difficult circumstances means that they have a mandate,” said Iain Begg, an expert on the European monetary union at the London School of Economics. “Granted, it’s not a democratic one, but it flows from disaffection with the bickering political class.”

This point about democracy is dead on. Once you are begging for money from the outside, you pretty much forfeit your right to democracy.

In Greece — which is the birthplace of democracy — Papandreou was forced to scrap his radically democratic attempt to have a referendum on the bailouts.

In Italy, it became pretty clear that as long as Berlusconi was in power, there would be no help from the ECB or Sarkozy or Merkel. So he had to go.

This could presumably go on forever, with the ECB, Merkel, and Sarkozy exerting more and more power until the people explode with resentment over their loss of sovereignty and self-determination.

By the way, in case it weren’t obvious that this was the age of a technocrat, check out the spike in news volume for the word “technocrat” lately.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-the-technocrat-2011-11?nr_email_referer=1&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Europe+Select&utm_campaign=Europe+Select+Mondays+2011-11-15#ixzz1dhasYlQh