CIA Protects Al-Qaeda Group From Extradition, group says they have Israeli, US links

Iran claims the militant group, Jundullah, led by Abdel Malik Regi, pictured bottom right, are spies for the CIA.

CIA Protects Al-Qaeda Group From Extradition

The CIA is protecting an Al-Qaeda linked terror group formerly headed by the alleged mastermind of 9/11 from being extradited to Iran according to an ABC News report, which also reveals that U.S. intelligence has been meeting and advising the group that has been blamed for bombings in Iran.
As the London Telegraph reported last year, "The CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan."
Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot terrorist group formerly headed by the alleged mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, reported the Asia Times in 2004.
The group also produces propaganda tapes and literature for al-Qaeda's media wing, As-Sahab, which is in turn closely affiliated with the military-industrial complex front IntelCenter, the group that makes available Al-Qaeda videos to the western media.
IntelCenter was caught last year adding their logo to alleged Al-Qaeda tapes at the same time as the Al-Qaeda media brand, stoking suspicions that the Pentagon affiliated IntelCenter was directly releasing fake Al-Qaeda videos.
Jundullah has been blamed for a number of bombings inside Iran aimed at destabilizing Ahmadinejad's government and is also active in Pakistan, having been fingered for its involvement in attacks on police stations and car bombings at the Pakistan-US Cultural Center in 2004.

"In another sign of growing tensions with the United States, Pakistan is threatening to turn over to Iran six members of a tribal militant group Iran claims are "spies" for the CIA," reports ABC News.
"The group, Jundullah, operates in Baluchistan on both sides of the border between Iran and Pakistan and has carried out a number of violent attacks on Iranian army facilities and officers inside the country."
"The CIA has denied any direct ties with the group, but U.S. officials tell ABC News U.S. intelligence officers frequently meet and advise Jundullah leaders, and current and former intelligence officers are working to prevent the men from being sent to Iran."

The fact that the highest echelons of the U.S. intelligence apparatus are meeting, advising and funding Sunni Al-Qaeda groups as a means of facilitating terrorist bombings and regime change in Iran completely invalidates the "war on terror" as a fabled fraud and renders ludicrous Bush administration rhetoric about fighting Al-Qaeda cells in Iraq.
Neo-Cons drooling at the prospect of an invasion of Iran have hardly been shy about their support of terror attacks aimed against Iran by means of Jundullah, MEK and other groups listed as terror organizations by the State Department.
Ret. Gen. Thomas McInerney, who was part of the Pentagon's "message force multipliers" propaganda program, recently called for the Bush administration to commit acts of terror in Iran on Fox News.
In November 2007, Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade openly called for US support for acts of terrorism, such as car bombings, in Tehran. Colonel David Hunt, who has over 29 years of military experience including extensive operational experience in Special Operations, Counter Terrorism and Intelligence Operations, agreed with Kilmeade, stating "absolutely" in response to Kilmead's question about whether cars should start blowing up in Tehran.
Last weekend, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry busted a CIA-backed terror group that was planning to bomb scientific, educational, and religious centers, and carry out assassinations in Iran, according to a report in the Tehran Times.

RELINKED: C.I.A. "No al-qaeda ever existed" - BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares"
Top CIA officials openly admit, Al-qaeda is a total and complete fabrication, never having existed at any time.
The Bush administration needed a reason that complied with the Laws so they could go after "the bad guy of their choice" namely laws that had been set in place to prosecute "criminal organizations" such as the Mafia.
They paid Jamal al Fadl, hundreds of thousands of dollars to back the U.S. Government's story of Al-qaeda, a "group" or criminal organization they could "legally" go after.

CIA Boss Says New Al-Qaeda Are White Westerners
Citing absolutely no evidence whatsoever, CIA boss Michael Hayden told NBC's Meet The Press yesterday that Al-Qaeda is training new fighters that "look western" and could easily cross U.S. borders, in the latest attempt to re-focus the mammoth apparatus of anti-terror against the American people. Iran mosque blast plotters admit Israeli, US links

Iran's chief prosecutor said bombers who caused a deadly blast at a mosque in Shiraz had confessed of links to Israel and the United States, the ISNA student news agency reported on Friday.

Mukasey: Fighting War On Terror Means Pushing To The Limits Of Law

In describing the post-9/11 mindset at the Department of Justice which included the promotion of such methods as waterboarding during interrogations and domestic surveillance via wiretapping, Attorney General Michael Mukasey stressed the need to be "more aggressive" and "to push to the limits of the law" during a speech at Boston College Law School's graduation ceremony today

FBI Evidence that Indicts George W. Bush for Mass Murder, War Crimes and Torture

A 370-page report by the Justice Department Inspector General references an FBI investigation of US torture that accuses the Bush White House, the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the Justice Department with 'ordering and planning' torture, including 'procedures' that resulted in death to 'detainees'. In other words --murder!
The report details how the US began torturing captives in 2002. 'Attempts to stop it ... were systematically suppressed', evidence of criminal activity by the Bush administration covered up. Bush's cover up of torture is itself a crime for which he should be impeached, tried and prosecuted.

Ancient City of Babylon Destroyed by US Occupation Base
Iraqi archaeologist Hadi Mussa Qataa, who guided an AFP reporter through the fragile ruins, said helicopter take-offs and landings, along with the tremors from the heavy rumble of armored vehicles had damaged the city's historic monuments.

Business As Usual in the U.S. Justice Department's Revelations on Torture
The cover on the U.S. as the world's beacon of morality has long since been blown, yet Mr. Bush and his cohorts continue to act as if it were a reality, and many Americans, like lemmings, follow his lead. The facts that are such an anathema to Mr. Bush seem to receive the same reaction from many U.S. citizens. Yes, they might say, the U.S. invades sovereign nations; indiscriminately slaughters the men, women and children of those nations; tortures their captured prisoners; ignores the needs of its own soldiers and their loved ones, often causing their families at home to live in poverty, and discarding wounded soldiers to a more or less indifferent veterans' health care system; bankrupts the nation as it destroys another one, but it is still the greatest country in the world.

The Worst War Crime Yet? Bush's War on Children in Iraq

Surely nothing that President Bush has done in his two wretched terms of office--not the invasion and destruction of Iraq, not the overturning of the five-centuries-old tradition of habeas corpus, not his authorization and encouragement of torture, not his campaign of domestic spying--nothing, can compare in its ugliness as his approval, as commander in chief, of the imprisoning of over 2500 children.

Israeli siege leads to soaring anemia in Gaza newborns

The Israeli siege of Gaza that has restricted access to food, water, and medicine is beginning to cause serious problems for newborn babies and pregnant mothers. "Many babies are born suffering from anemia that they have inherited from their mothers," said Dr. Salah al-Rantisi, head of the women's health department at the Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza. The mothers are becoming anemic because they do not get enough nutrition during pregnancy due to the Israeli blockade that has choked the supply of food and medicines.



Spooks Promise Terror Attack For New President
National intelligence spooks are all but promising that history will be repeated for a third time running, and the new President of the United States - likely Barack Obama or John McCain - will be welcomed into office by a terror attack that will occur within the first year of his tenure.
"When the next president takes office in January, he or she will likely receive an intelligence brief warning that Islamic terrorists will attempt to exploit the transition in power by planning an attack on America, intelligence experts say," according to a report in the Washington Times.
"Islamic terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in February 1993, in Mr. Clinton's second month as president. Al Qaeda's Sept. 11 attacks came in the Bush presidency's first year....The pattern is clear to some national security experts. Terrorists pay particular attention to a government in transition as the most opportune window to launch an attack."
Naturally, the Washington Times article makes out as if a terror attack within the early stages of a new presidency is a bad thing, but both Clinton and Bush exploited terror in America to realize preconceived domestic and geopolitical agendas.
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was an inside job from start to finish - it did not come as a "surprise" to the U.S. government since they ran the entire operation, having cooked the bomb for the "Islamic terrorists" that they had groomed for the attack.
In 1993 the FBI planted their informant, Emad A. Salem, within a radical Arab group in New York led by Ramzi Yousef. Salem was ordered to encourage the group to carry out a bombing targeting the World Trade Center's twin towers. Under the illusion that the project was a sting operation, Salem asked the FBI for harmless dummy explosives which he would use to assemble the bomb and then pass on to the group. At this point the FBI cut Salem out of the loop and provided the group with real explosives, leading to the attack on February 26 that killed six and injured over a thousand people. The FBI's failure to prevent the bombing was reported on by the New York Times in October 1993.
The attack, coupled with the Oklahoma City bombing less than two years later, enabled Bill Clinton to whip up support for the passage of a plethora of unconstitutional legislation, including the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the Brady Bill, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, and a $100 million dollar grant to Israel for "counter-terrorism" purposes.
By the time Clinton left office, the Patriot movement - which before the OKC bombing had grown in leaps and bounds, spurred on by the atrocities committed by the federal government at Waco - was effectively dead.

Few need reminding of George W. Bush's agenda before he took office. The ideological framework that would shape his presidency - encapsulated by the goals of the Neo-Con Project For a New American Century - required a "new Pearl Harbor" to get things started, which is exactly what they received on September 11, 2001.
Furthermore, the attacks enabled Bush to pursue an invasion of Iraq that he had dreamed of achieving as early as 1999, according to the ghostwriter of Bush's autobiography Mickey Herskowitz.
"One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade---if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency," Bush told Herskowitz.
That "chance to invade" arrived on the morning of 9/11, within hours of which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "Was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks."


A Congressional Research Service report last month stated, "Whether an incident of national security significance occurs just before or soon after the presidential transition, the actions or inactions of the outgoing administration may have a long-lasting effect on the new president's ability to effectively safeguard U.S. interests and may affect the legacy of the outgoing president."
The government seems pretty certain that McCain or Obama will be presented with a terror attack early on in their presidency and is giving them ample time to prepare the best method of exploiting it, but only to "safeguard U.S. interests," naturally.
The pattern is clear - each time a new President takes office they have a mandate to act as a torch bearer for the same agenda - domestic repression and foreign invasion. A terror attack provides the perfect pretext to realize those goals.
Whether it be Barack Obama or John McCain, we can expect a new crisis to conveniently arrive shortly after they take office, enabling them to pursue the same tyrannical blueprint followed by their predecessors.



Military Officers Challenge Official Account of September 11th

Twenty-five former U.S. military officers have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation. They include former commander of U.S. Army Intelligence, Major General Albert Stubblebine, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Col. Ronald D. Ray, two former staff members of the Director of the National Security Agency; Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, PhD, and Major John M. Newman, PhD, and many others.
They are among the rapidly growing number of military and intelligence service veterans, scientists, engineers, and architects challenging the government's story.

ONE NATION, UNDER SURVEILLANCE
James Comey testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee

The Last Roundup

Is the government compiling a secret list of citizens to detain under martial law?
Few Americans—professional journalists included—know anything about so-called Continuity of Government (COG) programs, so it's no surprise that the president's passing reference received almost no attention. COG resides in a nebulous legal realm, encompassing national emergency plans that would trigger the takeover of the country by extra-constitutional forces—and effectively suspend the republic. In short, it's a road map for martial law.
While Comey, who left the Department of Justice in 2005, has steadfastly refused to comment further on the matter, a number of former government employees and intelligence sources with independent knowledge of domestic surveillance operations claim the program that caused the flap between Comey and the White House was related to a database of Americans who might be considered potential threats in the event of a national emergency. Sources familiar with the program say that the government's data gathering has been overzealous and probably conducted in violation of federal law and the protection from unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, "There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived 'enemies of the state' almost instantaneously." He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.


New Poll Finds Big Shift Toward Obama

A new poll released today in California finds political momentum shifting dramatically toward Barack Obama--and away from both Hillary Clinton and John McCain--in the nation's most populous state.
According to a survey conducted over the past 10 days by the Public Policy Institute of California, 59 percent of likely voters here now have a "favorable" impression of Democrat Obama, while a majority view both of the other candidates unfavorably. In a state whose Democratic primary Clinton won in February, 51 percent of voters now say they have an unfavorable opinion of her; 53 percent of voters feel the same way about Republican McCain.

Obama, meanwhile, seems to be making strides across nearly every constituency. If the general election were held today, 54 percent of Californians say they would vote for him, compared with 37 percent for McCain. That gap has widened by 8 points since March. Obama enjoys the support of more than 80 percent of Democrats here, along with over half (55 percent) of independents. He leads McCain among men and women and is viewed favorably by nearly 70 percent of Latinos—a powerful political group, experts note, not just in California but in several other western states, including Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada.

Fox News Guest Openly Calls For Obama Assassination

The Neo-Cons' sick obsession with assassinating Barack Obama took another bizarre turn yesterday when Fox News guest Liz Trotta openly expressed a desire to see someone "knock off" the Democratic candidate.

The Assassination Of Barack Hussein Obama...Can It Be Stopped?

Were Hillary's recent comments concerning Robert Kennedy's assassination wishful thinking? No doubt others are having similar thoughts as his nomination is all but certain and they perceive their interests threatened.

Nobel winner Lessing: Obama would be killed if elected

Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing believes Barack Obama would be assassinated if he were elected U.S. president, the British writer said in a newspaper interview.

Hillary's Bizarre RFK Comment

Though she has now apologized for that very strange and tasteless comment to the Argus-Leader, this was not the first time she's said it.

Former Bush aide Rove again subpoenaed in probe

The former deputy White House chief of staff quickly indicated through his attorney he would again refuse, citing executive privilege that protects conversations between a president and his staff.

There is no such law.

Conyers subpoenas Karl Rove over Justice Department scandal

Reacting to the news on NBC, correspondent Pete Williams said that the Justice Department most likely won't enforce the subpoena.

It's Not an Oil Crisis It's a Dollar Crisis

The reality is that after years of reckless consumption and dollar debasement, Americans are now being priced out of markets over which they formerly held unchallenged title. As more affluent foreigners consume more of the resources and products they previously supplied to us, Americans are being forced to cut back. The rising dollar-based price of gasoline is simply an illustration of this global trend.

War Abroad, Poverty at Home

The US Senate has voted $165 billion to fund Bush's wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq through next spring.
As the US is broke and deep in debt, every one of the $165 billion dollars will have to be borrowed. American consumers are also broke and deep in debt. Their zero saving rate means every one of the $165 billion dollars will have to be borrowed from foreigners. The "world's only superpower" is so broke it can't even finance its own wars.

Pesticides: Germany bans chemicals linked to honeybee devastation

Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.
The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.
"It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."
Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field. The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air. Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC's Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. "It is an extremely rare event and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe," he said.
Clothianidin, like the other neonicotinoid pesticides that have been temporarily suspended in Germany, is a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency it is "highly toxic" to honeybees.
This is not the first time that Bayer, one of the world's leading pesticide manufacturers with sales of €5.8bn (£4.6bn) in 2007, has been blamed for killing honeybees.
In the United States, a group of beekeepers from North Dakota is taking the company to court after losing thousands of honeybee colonies in 1995, during a period when oilseed rape in the area was treated with imidacloprid. A third of honeybees were killed by what has since been dubbed colony collapse disorder.
Bayer's best selling pesticide, imidacloprid, sold under the name Gaucho in France, has been banned as a seed dressing for sunflowers in that country since 1999, after a third of French honeybees died following its widespread use. Five years later it was also banned as a sweetcorn treatment in France. A few months ago, the company's application for clothianidin was rejected by French authorities.
Bayer has always maintained that imidacloprid is safe for bees if correctly applied. "Extensive internal and international scientific studies have confirmed that Gaucho does not present a hazard to bees," said Utz Klages, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience. Last year, Germany's Green MEP, Hiltrud Breyer, tabled an emergency motion calling for this family of pesticides to be banned across Europe while their role in killing honeybees were thoroughly investigated. Her action follows calls for a ban from beekeeping associations and environmental organisations across Europe.
Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the German-based Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, said: "We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now. This proves without a doubt that the chemicals can come into contact with bees and kill them. These pesticides shouldn't be on the market."



U.S. rice farmers want class action against Bayer

Germany's Bayer AG (BAYG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) is battling to keep thousands of U.S. rice farmers from becoming part of a massive class-action lawsuit over the contamination of commercial rice supplies by a Bayer biotech rice not approved for human consumption.

Family seed business takes on Goliath of genetic modification

Since the dawn of civilization, farmers have saved seeds from the harvest and replanted them the following year. But makers of genetically modified (GM) seeds -- introduced in 1996 and now grown by some 70,000 Canadian farmers, according to Monsanto, the world's largest seed company -- have been putting a stop to that practice.
The 12 million farmers worldwide who will plant GM seeds this year sign contracts agreeing not to save or replant seeds. That means they must buy new seeds every year.
Monsanto promises the GM seeds will produce a larger yield to offset the costs of buying the seeds, but studies have shown that yields era actually lower with GM seeds.

Field studies find lower productivity with GM seeds

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study - carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt - has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Privatisation Making Seeds Themselves Infertile
Seeds were once for ever. After harvest, a few from the crop would be planted for the following year, and so it went on. Now, biochemical industry giants are making seeds themselves infertile. You sow them this year, and that's it. For next year's crop, you need brand new seeds -- you would have to buy them, of course. Twenty-five years ago, there were at least 7,000 seed growers worldwide, and none of them controlled more than one percent of the global market.
Today, after a takeover spree, 10 major biochemical multinationals, including Monsanto, DuPont-Pioneer, Syngenta, Bayer Cropsciencie, BASF, and Dow
Agrosciences, control more than 50 percent of the seeds market.

Patent For a Pig

As a powerful corporate giant attempts to patent living genetic material, this film asks what the consequences are for mankind.
Diet Coke to drop additive in DNA damage fear | Mail Online Diet Coke to drop additive in DNA damage fear

Coca-Cola is phasing out a controversial additive that has been linked to damage to DNA and hyperactivity in children. Sodium benzoate, also known as E211, is used to stop fizzy drinks going mouldy. Coca-Cola said it had begun withdrawing the additive from Diet Coke in January in response to consumer demand for more natural products.

Drug taken to stop smoking is linked to traffic mishaps

The nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices last week linked Chantix to more than two dozen highway accidents reported to the Food and Drug Administration, saying the mishaps may have resulted from such drug side effects as seizures.
The FDA had earlier issued a warning about suicidal thoughts and suicides among patients taking Chantix and is now evaluating whether it needs to expand and strengthen that precaution.

Chicago Citizens Reject Terror Drill Fearmongering

Chicago Citizens Reject Terror Drill Fearmongering
Authorities practiced processing citizens through the de facto internment camp and giving them mandatory pharmaceutical products.
Perhaps the people of Chicago's lack of enthusiasm for the drill can be explained by them waking up to the fact that these exercises are nothing more than an excuse for fat enforcers to practice shoving people around in internment camps while the local TV news shows images of people being rounded up and processed by men with big guns - all part of the conditioning for an attack we are constantly assured is "inevitable".

Rumsfeld On '06 Loss To Dems: 'The Correction For That...Is An Attack'
"That's what I was just going to say. This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in
Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack."

Neo-cons still running the show, with help from Sheldon Adelson. Beware false flag incidents!

Sheldon Adelson flew with Pres. Bush this week on his trip to Israel. I wondered what promises or threatens were given to Bush, motivating him to follow the Likud/Labor/Kadima lines that, Iran is next on the agenda.



Rove refuses call to testify under oath
The committee is investigating whether Rove and Republican appointees at the Justice Department influenced Siegelman's prosecution to kill his chances for re-election. It is part of a broader inquiry into whetherU.S. attorneys were fired for not aggressively pursuing cases against Democrats.


Bush warns of Iraq disaster
In an Oval Office interview with Politico and Yahoo News, the president said his doomsday scenario for a premature withdrawal "of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States."
For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families: He has given up golf.

Congress to Saudis: Give Us Oil or No Guns
A group of Democratic senators wants to make a massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia contingent on getting cheaper oil, reports AFP. "We are saying to the Saudis that, if you don't help us, why should we be helping
you?" says Chuck Schumer, a Democratic senator from New York. "We are saying that we need real relief, and we need it quickly. You need our arms, but we need you to cooperate and not strangle American consumers."
Memo to Chuck Schumer: it's not Saudi oil that's killing us; it's the US dollar having fallen off a cliff, courtesy of this country's Federal Reserve, the Federal deficit, and the trade deficit. Unlike Kuwait, Saudi Arabia has yet to de-link its currency, the rial, from the dollar. Were that to happen, it would be a real nail in the coffin of this country's economy, as would their dumping of US dollar holdings. The Saudis aren't the bad guys here at all.

JPMorgan Chase CEO: Recession Just Beginning
JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s chief executive said Monday that while the crisis in the credit markets appears to be three-quarters over, he believes a U.S. recession is just beginning.

U.S. Foreclosures Rise 65 Percent as Vacated Homes Add to Glut
U.S. foreclosure filings climbed 65 percent and bank seizures more than doubled in April from a year earlier as rates on adjustable mortgagesincreased and vacated homes added to a glut of unsold homes.

Report: About Half Of Cleveland's Subprime Loans Ended In Foreclosure
The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting that about half of the city's subprime mortgage loans written by top lenders in 2005 ended in foreclosure filings.

Feds: Drugs made at kosher meat plant
Federal authorities charged that a methamphetamine laboratory was operating at the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse and that employees carried weapons to work.

Immigration raid: biggest kosher meatpacker started by Jews in 1987
The plant has been cited for health and safety violations over the years. At the end of March, the Iowa Division of Labor Services cited the company for 39 workplace safety and health standards and fined the
company $182,000.

UK Supermarket Chain Bans Aspartame From Own-Label Products; Japanese Manufacturer Ajinomoto Sues!
Can this company be so stupid? World's largest manufactuer of two neurotoxic carcinogens, Aspartame & MSG, should accept responsibility for causing spike in Neurodegenerative Illnesses: Tumors, MS, ALS, Migraines, Seizures, all recognized by USA FDA

House Approves New Property Seizure Law
If you boil it down to brass tax, this legislation allows the U.S. government to lawfully seize your computer if it has one unauthorized mp3 file on its hard drive. It also provides the authorization for the
creation of offices within the executive branch to enforce a law that is impossible to enforce.

Italian Trial of C.I.A. Operatives Begins With Torture Testimony
The cleric's wife, Ghali Nabila, said her husband, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, was taken from Italy and transferred to a prison in Egypt, where, she said, he was repeatedly tortured. While acknowledging a program of "extraordinary rendition," or abducting terrorism suspects outside the United States, the Bush administration claims that no one is sent to nations that torture.


"20th hijacker" blows up torture argument
Most Americans don't know the name of Mohammed al Qahtani, the so-called "20th hijacker" who was snagged at the Orlando International Airport in 2001 before he could have allegedly taken part
in the 9/11 attacks.
Al-Qahtani -- a seeming poster child for al-Qaeda terrorismagainst the United States -- has never been brought to justice, despite nearly seven years in custody, most of those at Guantanamo Bay. And nowthere are questions over whether he will ever be tried.
What happened? It's not clear, but there is increasing evidence that the prosecution of Mohammed al-Qahtani has been fouled up beyond repair...because he was tortured at Gitmo:

The former head of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay found that records of an al-Qaida suspect tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain's top human rights lawyers.
Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared.
Saudi-born al-Qahtani was sexually taunted, forced to perform dog tricks and given enemas at Guantánamo.
The CIA admitted last year that it destroyed videotapes of al-Qaida suspects being interrogated at a secret "black site" in Thailand. No proof has so far emerged that tapes of interrogations at Guantánamo were destroyed, but Sands' report suggests the US may have also buried politically sensitive proof relating to abuse by
interrogators at the prison camp.

Maliki Stalls US Plan to Frame Iran
Early this month, the George W. Bush administration's plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.

US cuts ties with Chalabi over Iran
The US military officials have cut ties with former US-favored Iraqi politician, Ahmad Chalabi over his alleged relations with Iran.

FLASHBACK: McCain Called Chalabi 'A Patriot' With Iraq's 'Best Interests At Heart'
Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi was one of the most sordid figures in the run-up to the Iraq war. Paid by the Bush administration to muster pre-war intelligence, Chalabi drummed up claims that Saddam Hussein had WMD, helping lead the United States into war. More recently, he promoted the "surge" to the Iraqi government.
A new book by Aram Roston reveals that Chalabi supported John McCain (R-AZ) for president in 2000, believing that the senator would be the most receptive to his agenda.

SISMI's War in Iraq: The Iranian Connection
In each and every one of these interchangeable frames for the meeting, Manusher Ghorbanifar claims he played the leading role. Iranian by birth and residing as far as we know between Paris and Geneva, Ghorbanifar does not have a good reputation. For some, he is an arms trafficker. For others, an expert in forgery. For civilian Italian intelligence, Ghorbanifar is a secret agent for Tehran. For a certain US intelligence agency, he is a Mossad agent. For yet others he is a clever bullshitter.

Swiss bank sued for $500m over Iran links

US victims of attacks in Israel and their families are suing Swiss bank UBS for 500 million dollars, alleging it financed terrorism by doing business with Iran, their lawyer told AFP Tuesday.

McCain Adviser: Christian Right a "Serious Problem"
"The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel," Lewis said. "It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties."

Feith's denials of reality "Israel didn't push for Iraq War"
If we are to believe Doug Feith, Israel didn't push for Iraq War. If this is true, then I must have been living in a parallel universe over the last two decades, and I only dreamt of an Israeli attack on Iraq's nuclear power station, and Israel's assassination of those involved with Iraq's super-gun project.



Sixty Years of Bloodshed, Treachery and Terror.
Today is supposed to be the big day when Ben Gurion declared Israel's independence. I thought the link was appropriate. I don't know why he declared independence because there was no Israel to liberate from whatever forces of darkness they conjured out of their manipulated histories. But declare he did and today we celebrate 60 years of genocide against the Palestinian people who were living on the land-- and had been for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years-- and whom they murdered, exiled and slandered without pause until this day.
In the process they wiped out all signs of Palestinian occupancy and changed the names of all of the towns.

A celebration that ignores the plight of Palestine
Though some Zionist apologists have insisted that Israel did not practice a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing, the displacement of the Palestinians was an indispensable part of the Zionist dream.

A NOT SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY ~~ THE NAKBA AT 60

Sixty years ago, with Israel's establishment, Palestinians entered a nightmare from which they have never awoken. By joining Israel's celebration of its sixtieth anniversary, President Bush neglects this crucial reality, and underscores our government's insensitivity to Palestinian rights.

Canada's Ignorant Prime Minister

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently made outrageously ignorant comments on the plight of the Palestinian people.

Blast kills Gaza teacher in front of her children
The UN is demanding an investigation into how the Israeli military killed one of its Palestinian school teachers by blasting open the front door of her Gaza home with explosives in the presence of three of her
children.
Wafer Shaker al Daghma, 34, a teacher at a local UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) elementary school, was killed last Wednesday as she stood preparing to open the wooden door of her home to the troops.
According to UNRWA and relatives who found her body, the military used an explosive device on the door which blew most of her head from her body.

DEATH BEFORE BIRTH IN PALESTINE TODAY

The Israeli siege of Gaza that has restricted access to food, water and medicine is now beginning to hit unborn children and newborn babies.


Save the Children? Not if they're Palestinian
The British government, which along with the U.S. has been unswerving in its support for the devastating collective punishment of Gaza since Hamas took office in February 2006, continues to facilitate the Israel isiege and oppose political engagement with Hamas. Where Miliband criticised the "malign neglect" of the Burmese junta in preventing aid agencies from functioning properly, he failed to condemn the Israeli government for doing - as he himself acknowledges - exactly the same thing. As a result the people of Gaza continue to suffer and die.

Emotional Bush pledges support to Israel
An emotional President George W. Bush pledged that America would remain"Israel's best friend in the world" on Wednesday during a celebratoryvisit to Jerusalem to mark the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state.

Bush: Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaida are all the same

You mean they are ALL Mossad fronts???????

Report reveals how Syria concealed nuclear reactor

US experts to issue report detailing methods employed by Damascus to hide reactor eventually
bombed by Israel, warn it may be more difficult than previously thought to secure intel on similar operations in other countries.

Translation: if at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again.



Ehud Olmert is 'honest', says George W Bush
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is under investigation for bribery, was an "honest man", President George W Bush said yesterday, on the eve of his visit to the Middle East. Mr Bush's comments came as police raided Jerusalem's city hall in search of evidence to be used in the bribery case which could force Mr Olmert from office.
Well, he is "honest" by Bush's standards.

Anger after apparent U.S. missile strike in Pakistan
Angry residents of a Pakistani village on the Afghan border stopped government officials on Thursday from approaching the ruins of a housestruck by missiles suspected to have been fired by a U.S. drone.


Adding shame to humiliation
Of all the depravity associated with the Bush administration's war in Iraq, nothing has shown this administration's moral bankruptcy and callousness more than its treatment of those ordinary Iraqis fleeing
anarchy for any pocket of civility they can find. Almost three million Iraqis find themselves internally displaced, many of them women and children. The UN estimates that another 500,000 Iraqis have fled to
Jordan, while 1.2 million Iraqis have crossed over Syria's border for protection.
In March 2007, Bush did acknowledge this crisis indirectly by promising to resettle 12,000 Iraqi refugees inside the United States in fiscal year 2008. The result: only 2,627 Iraqis have found new homes in the US since the end of March.

Gates: U.S. Should Engage Iran With Incentives, Pressure
"We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us."

Life-threatening Pneumonia Caused by Pneumonia Vaccine
Prevnar, an anti-pneumonia vaccination given in the United Kingdom, likely causes a significantly worse form of pneumonia to develop. This life-threatening lung disease, called Serotype 1, has become ten times
more prevalent in ten years.
Serotype 1 pneumonia causes the pleura, the lining of the lungs, to become infected. The disease is suffered
primarily by children, who experience fear from difficulty breathing and severe pain. Treatment consists of surgical debridement, that is, scraping, of the pleura to remove the noxious material.

Wayne Madsen Interrogated, Harrassed At Airport After DC Madam Controversy

Ants swarm over Houston area, fouling electronics
In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

This Is an Ex-Candidate
A steep descent brings Clinton's plane to Charleston's hilltop airport. After an appropriate wait, she steps from the plane and pretends to wave to a crowd of supporters; in fact, she is waving to 10 photographers underneath the airplane's wing. She pretends to spot an old friend in the crowd, points and gives another wave; in fact, she is waving at an aide she had been talking with on the plane minutes earlier.

She won't go easy
Surely, given Hillary's claim of expertise on the basis of her service as first lady, every major or ambiguous episode in her husband's two presidencies should have been systematically reexamined by the media. I for one have renewed questions about the 1993 suicide of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, Hillary's former law partner and longtime friend, whose files were purged by Hillary's staff before they could be
examined for evidence.

Monsanto's Harvest of Fear, cartoon roundup

No thanks: An anti-Monsanto crop circle made by farmers and volunteers in the Philippines.

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.

Monsanto portrays its move into G.M. seeds as a giant leap for
mankind. But out in the American countryside, Monsanto’s
no-holds-barred tactics have made it feared and loathed. Like it or
not, farmers say, they have fewer and fewer choices in buying seeds.
And controlling the seeds is not some abstraction. Whoever provides the world’s seeds controls the world’s food supply.

Barack Obama 'has enough super-delegates to win Democratic nomination'

Barack Obama 'has enough super-delegates to win Democratic nomination'

Barack Obama believes he has already secured the private support of enough super-delegates to beat Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic White House nomination, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

Obama Now Takes The Lead in Superdelegates Too

ABC News' Karen Travers Reports: For the first time this campaign season, Barack Obama has surpassed Hillary Clinton's support among superdelegates, according to the ABC News delegate estimate.
Sen. Obama, D-Ill., picked up two superdelegates this morning giving him a new metric to tout in addition to his current commanding leads in pledged delegates, popular votes, states won, and money raised.

FLASHBACK: Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena. The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.

Discount grocers discover new customers as prices rise

As food prices have reached historic highs, a growing number of shoppers are flocking to discount grocery stores to buy basic staples such as milk and tomatoes and purchase more private-label items.

Find your local farmer's markets and buy your produce from your local community.

Americans unload prized belongings to make ends meet

Struggling with mounting debt and rising prices, faced with the toughest economic times since the early 1990s, Americans are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates.

History repeats: Weimar Republic 1922

Wall Street fears the light

The fear in Wednesday's stock decline was palpable. Wall Street was responding to the specter of transparency the way it always does -- with alarm. Big brokerage firms, led by Merrill Lynch and Lehman Bros., plunged after the nation's top securities cop called for more disclosure of Wall Street's finances. The decline was the biggest in two months for financial stocks.

Why Wall Street, Israel and D.C. need the illegal drug trade

Contributing Editor Catherine Austin Fitts, who was a Managing Director at Dillon Read before becoming Assistant Secretary of Housing under George Bush and who holds an MBA from Wharton makes things very simple. She points out that the four largest states for the importation of drugs are New York, Florida, Texas and California. She then points out that the top four money laundering states in the U.S. (good for between 100 and 260 billion per year) are New York, Florida, Texas and California. No surprise there. Then she rips the breath from your lungs by pointing out that 80 per cent of all Presidential campaign funds come from - New York, Florida, Texas and California.

U.S. House Passes Anti-Foreclosure Bill Facing Bush Veto Threat

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to let a federal agency insure up to $300 billion in mortgages to help homeowners avert foreclosure, a day after the White House threatened to veto the measure.

Recession? Cheney says America's economy is the 'envy of the world'

On Thursday morning, the average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in the region crept to a record $3.67 a gallon, global food prices continued to soar and a Gallup poll showed that 86 percent of Americans believe the economy is getting worse. Yet Cheney said Americans should be "confident of the road ahead."

Cheney defends economy

In Northeast Philadelphia Thursday morning, Vice President Dick Cheney said that America's economy "remains the envy of the world," and that a recent economic "slowdown" could have been much worse without President Bush's economic policies.

Group says North Korea faces massive famine

The food situation was as bad as the famine that hit the country in the mid-1990s, which left as many as 2 million people dead, Seoul-based Good Friends -- a Buddhist-affiliated group that sends food and other aid to the North -- cited an unidentified North Korean official Friday as saying.

US war dead cremated in same facility as pets: Pentagon

An unidentified army officer complained earlier Friday after visiting the military's mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to pay respects to a comrade who had been killed in combat, officials said. He discovered that the soldier was to be cremated at a facility off the base that had a sign outside saying it was a pet crematorium, they said.

U.S. deploys more than 43,000 unfit for combat

More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.

G.I. Joe: The Dark Suit Of Propaganda

Black uniformed death squads seem to be everywhere now, from Peruvian riot police, to SWAT teams, to the Robocop police outfits of the future. The power elite that rule this world want us to indulge in evil and partake in our own destruction, and it would seem that evil is now good and back in black.

F.B.I. Says the Military Had Bogus Computer Gear

The F.B.I. is still not certain whether the ring's actions were for profit or part of a state-sponsored intelligence effort. The potential threat, according to the F.B.I. agents who gave a briefing at the Office of Management and Budget on Jan. 11, includes the remote jamming of supposedly secure computer networks and gaining access to supposedly highly secure systems. Contents of the briefing were contained in a PowerPoint presentation leaked to a Web site, Above Top Secret.

Admiral's affair included sex at White House

A Navy admiral engaged in sexual relations in the White House in 1990 with a federal employee whom he falsely told he was a widower, according to a report released Friday by the Defense Department.

'Deafening' silence on analyst story

Even with countless media outlets available these days, a Sunday New York Times cover story could always be counted on to send a jolt through the television news cycle.
But apparently that's no longer the case. Indeed, reporter David Barstow's 7,600-word investigation of the Pentagon's military analyst program -- whereby ex-military talking heads, often with direct ties to contractors, parroted Defense Department talking points on the air -- has been noticeably absent from television airwaves since the story broke on April 20.

Josef Fritzl blames Nazis for behaviour

Josef Fritzl has blamed the Nazis for fostering the twisted morality that led him to imprison his daughter, Elisabeth, in a cellar for 24 years.

Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 19/2008 (30 April- 07 May 2008)

Israeli PM accused of massive corruption

ISRAELI Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is suspected of taking bribes from a US businessman, the country's judiciary said today in a case that threatens to shake up the political landscape as the country marks its 60th birthday.

Israel's Olmert admits taking cash, won't quit

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted on Thursday taking cash from a U.S. businessman but resisted calls to resign over a police investigation into alleged hefty bribes over almost a decade.

AIPAC Announces Annual Treachery Fest Agenda For...June 2, 2008... Chicago, Illinois

Over half of your Congressional Representatives will be there with feedbags on.

Obliterate

Obama built up his insurmountable lead over Clinton because he was the only candidate for the No More Wars For The Jews Party. Clinton had been able to build a tiny bit of momentum after Pennsylvania. Why then did she court disaster by reminding the voters of North Carolina and Indiana that she was the candidate for the More Wars For The Jews Party by raising the issue of the obliteration of Iran? Suddenly, Americans were reminded of why Obama built up his big lead.

Iraq agrees truce with Sadr bloc
Iraq's government on Saturday agreed a truce with the movement of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to halt weeks of fighting in eastern Baghdad between Shi'ite militia and security forces, officials said. The truce could end violence that has killed several hundred people, trapped the 2 million residents of Sadr City in a battle zone and prompted aid workers to warn of a humanitarian crisis.

The U.S. military said it was not aware of any agreement.

Oil hits record high of $126 a barrel ahead of summer driving season

Oil rose above $126 a barrel for the first time Friday, bringing its advance this week to nearly $10, as investors questioned whether a possible confrontation between the U.S. and Venezuela could cut exports from the OPEC member.
In 2001, when Bush took office, oil was $20 a barrel.

Dollar, not supply, causes record oil - Iran offical

The weak U.S. dollar is the main reason behind oil prices rising to record levels, not demand or supply factors, an Iranian Oil Ministry official was quoted as saying on Saturday.
"We must be aware that it is not the price of crude oil that has risen but the dollar value that has weakened," said Mohammad Ali Khatibi, deputy director of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company.
The dollar is worth half of what it was just three years ago. It therefore follows that all imported products (which are most of what we buy) have doubled in price in that time. Every time the Federal Reserve prints up more money with which to prop up the banks, brokerages, and lending institutions, the less the money you have is worth. They are literally stealing wealth from your pocket to save themselves from the fundamental failings of a debt-based monetary system. Rising prices are a symptom, one that is about to get a lot worse.

U.S. declines to help present nuclear deal to Iran

The United States, which is involved with major powers in the negotiations, has made clear it will not join the mission to present the offer, which is expected to be given to Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

US Blames Syria And Iran For Battles

The White House has accused Iran and Syria of fuelling violence in Lebanon by inciting Hezbollah to take up arms against the country's pro-western government.

Backing Into War: Israel's Strike on Syria, a Precursor to Iran Holocaust

The US government has, since 1991, and without regard to party, has shown itself capable of unthinkable crimes against mankind. Are we Americans capable of understanding this without first feeling the impact of a complete collapse in our economy? A certain pastor, who would have once been unassailable by the press because of his profession, his race, and his record of military service, was recently vilified for saying something like this.

Is there anything, short of seeing the church parking lot and the collection plate stand empty, that will arouse "men of God" to demand that politicians respect human life and honor Jesus' call for peace?

Cheney/Bandar/Elliot Abrams Funded Terrorist Group Now At War in Lebanon

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, May 22, New Yorker magazine investigative journalist Seymour Hersh repeated charges he published in that magazine in March, that the Bush Administration has been working with Saudi Arabia to arm Sunni fundamentalist cells, to fight Hezbollah. The recent explosion of violence in northern Lebanon between the Lebanese Army and the previously little-known group Fatah al-Islam, is but the latest example of this rotten collusion, Hersh charged.

Hezbollah fighters sweep over much of Beirut's Muslim sector

Unchallenged by Lebanon's army, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah routed Sunnis loyal to the U.S.-allied government and seized control of large swaths of Beirut's Muslim sector Friday in a telling demonstration of its military prowess.

A Wild Day in Beirut

According to the Hezbollah people manning the berms on airport road, the airport will stayed closed until the 'three conditions" are met; i.e the pro-US government pledges to keep its hands off the optic fiber telecommunication network of the Resistance; the Government reinstates head of Beirut Airport Security General Wafiq Shouqair; and the Majority agrees to a dialogue. Until that happens, West Beirut and the airport will stay closed.

US: Hezbollah must be 'accountable' for Lebanon unrest

The United States has blamed Hezbollah as well as its patrons Iran and Syria for deadly unrest that has pushed Lebanon to the edge of civil war, and warned they must be held "accountable."

More Fake Al Qaeda

It now seems that every enemy of the Neo-cons (whether it is Iran or Hezbollah or the 911 truth movement) is turning out to be also an enemy of "Al Qaeda". If "my enemy's enemy is my friend", then "Al Qaeda" (even if it exists) is back in bed with its creator and financier.

The End of the New Middle East

Now it is clear that Beirut is firmly in the hands of Hizballah and nothing the Americans can do will dislodge or weaken this popular movement, just as they cannot weaken the Sadrists in Iraq or Hamas in Gaza.

Lost E-Mails Obscure 'Plame-gate'

This new gap - from March 1, 2003, to May 23, 2003 - also may have wiped out evidence of how George W. Bush and his top aides reacted to the emerging criticism from former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson that the White House had sold the war using false claims about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger in Africa, an investigation by The Public Record http://www.pubrecord.org has found.

Guantanamo detainees spead word to boycott trials

The message travels among Guantanamo detainees in whispers between recreation areas and shouts through slots in cell doors: Don't trust the Americans. Boycott. Guards call it the Detainee News Network, and it is now prompting inmates to turn their backs on their war-crimes trials at this U.S. Naval station in southeast Cuba.

"Continuity of Government Planning has ... Already Superseded the Constitution as a Higher Authority"

"If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing. To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating DeFazio, then Continuity of Government planning has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority."

Mankiw: Raise Gas Taxes; Tax Harvard, Heaven Forbid

In the latest debate over gas taxes, Harvard Professor and best selling author of economic texts, Greg Mankiw, came out in favor of even HIGHER gas taxes.
This morning the Harvard prof woke up to read that Massachusetts officials are " are studying a plan to levy a 2.5% annual tax on the portion of college endowments that exceed $1 billion."
Mankiw took the whole thing in stride. He proposed that, should the tax be implemented, Harvard should move.

Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower

Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world's other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe.
Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4.00. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the USA will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation's economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making.

Conn. man says police broke into home, ripped out catheter

A man alleges that police entered his home illegally and ripped a catheter from his body during a child pornography investigation that led to the arrest of two neighbors.

Taser win in court puts chill on doctors

A lawsuit by the makers of Taser stun guns has prompted an Ohio court to order a chief medical examiner to delete any reference to the use of a stun gun as a contributing factor in the deaths of three men, a move rebuked as "dangerously close to intimidation" by the National Association of Medical Examiners.

Hospitals struck by new killer bug

A new hospital superbug resistant to all antibiotics could be killing hundreds of patients, experts have warned.
The infection, known as 'Steno', is on the increase and could be harder to tackle than MRSA and C.difficile.
The bug spreads almost exclusively in hospitals through wet areas such as taps and shower heads, and is thought to kill a third of the people it infects after entering the bloodstream.