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Oct 5, 2010

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French police arrest 11 Islamic terrorist suspects

Security at the Eiffel Tower
France steps up security around the Eiffel tower as a precaution against a terrorist strike. Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/REUTERS

Saudi prince beat servant to death in London hotel, court hears

Bandar Abdulaziz death
Bandar Abdulaziz, 32, who the prince initially claimed had been attacked in the street. Photograph: Metropolitan police/PA

Israel expels Nobel peace laureate over Gaza protest

Mairead Corrigan Maguire
The Irish Nobel peace laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire at the Israeli supreme court yesterday. Photograph: Bernat Armangue/AP

Low blow Morales: Bolivian president knees football opponent in groin

Bolivian president, Evo Morales, knees an opposition player in the groin during a football match
Bolivian president, Evo Morales, knees La Paz town hall player, Daniel Cartagena, in the groin during a football match. Photograph: Martin Alipaz/EPA

Owner of Claridges in Dublin court battle over Ireland's 'toxic bank

Anglo Irish headquarters in Dublin
Anglo Irish headquarters in Dublin. McKillen objects to his loans from Anglo Irish and the Bank of Ireland being transferred to Nama. Photograph: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images

Hungary declares a state of emergency after sludge disaster

Tunde Erdelyi saves her cat from toxic sludge in Hungary
Tunde Erdelyi clings to her cat after toxic sludge from an alumina plant flooded her home in Devecser, Hungary. Photograph: Bela Szandelszky/AP

French trader guilty over Société Générale scandal

Jérôme Kerviel jailed after being found guilty of all charges in scandal that cost Société Générale bank €4.9bn Link to this video

US midterms set to become most expensive elections in country's history

Supporters attend at a Tea Party rally in Beverly Hills, California.
Supporters attend a Tea Party rally in Beverly Hills, California - the movement may have a significant effect on the midterms. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

The Peoples Voice News

10/04/10

Permalink DOJ Urges Citizens to Report “Extremists” Handing Out Literature

If you posted an Obama Joker poster or Tea Party literature on a public bulletin board, the Justice Department is warning you are a possible terrorist. According to a hand-out distributed by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, a component of the Justice Department, “extremist literature distributed at the mall or posted on public bulletin boards” is suspicious and a potential indicator of terrorist activities.

Permalink Germans killed in Pakistan strike

Officials say five Germans among eight fighters killed in drone strike in North Waziristan. A suspected US drone strike has killed eight fighters in northwest Pakistan, with Pakistani intelligence officials saying that at least five of the the men were Germans. They also said that the eight men, killed in the raid on a mosque in Mir Ali in North Waziristan on Monday, were members of a group called Jihad Islami. But independently confirmed details of the incident were unavailable, and both the US and German governments have yet to comment on the strike.

Permalink Losing our religion

A survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveals some alarming results about religious knowledge in the US.Say Amen! Well, maybe not so much. This week the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a poll showing that Americans arguably know less about various world religions than they do about who won the disco ball on the last season of Dancing With the Stars. This shouldn’t be hugely surprising.

Permalink Birth of the National Security State

It is not far fetched to speculate that the United States has, over the past ten years, been sliding into a form of authoritarianism that retains only some aspects of the constitution and a limited rule of law. America’s president can, for example, commit soldiers to combat overseas without a constitutionally mandated declaration of war by congress while it is quite possible to be detained by the authorities and locked up without any prospect of trial or opportunity to defend oneself. The government even believes it can kill American citizens based only on suspicion. I prefer to think of this transformation as the National Security State because it rests on a popular consensus that liberties must be sacrificed in exchange for greater public safety from various threats, international terrorism being the most prominent. It might just as well be called the National Warfare State as it also requires constant conflict to justify its existence.

10/03/10

Permalink Gilad Atzmon Talking to Jumoke Fashola BBC Radio London - Music

I was talking this morning to Jumoke Fashola, BBC Radio London. We discussed music, Gaza, Jazza, OHE's new album, Robert Wyatt, Israel, Palestine and life in general. You may find it interesting.

Permalink Killing each Taliban soldier costs $50 Million

"Killing 20 Taliban costs $1 Billion / Killing all the Taliban would cost $1.7 Trillion" The Pentagon will not tell the public what it costs to locate, target and kill a single Taliban soldier because the price-tag is so scandalously high that it makes the Taliban appear to be Super-Soldiers. As set out in this article, the estimated cost to kill each Taliban is as high as $100 million, with a conservative estimate being $50 million. A public discussion should be taking place in the United States regarding whether the Taliban have become too expensive an enemy to defeat.

Permalink We've Got to Stamp Out Modern Slavery

Workers are powerless against the contractors used by multinationals who relocate to wherever production is cheapest. The re-emergence of slavery on ships off West Africa is profoundly shocking but it is not a surprise. Last week slavery its modern form came to light in cases of forced labour uncovered on trawlers fishing for the European market. In a haunting echo of the 18th century triangular trade, west African workers were found off the coast of Sierra Leone on board boats where they lived and worked in ships' holds with less than a metre of head height, sometimes for 18 hours a day for no pay, packed like sardines to sleep in spaces too small to stand up, with their documents taken from them and no means of escape.

Permalink $5,000,000,000,000: The Cost Each Year of Vanishing Rainforest

British scientific experts have made a major breakthrough in the fight to save the natural world from destruction, leading to an international effort to safeguard a global system worth at least $5 trillion a year to mankind. 80 per cent of the world's remaining terrestrial biodiversity live in forests. Groundbreaking new research by a former banker, Pavan Sukhdev, to place a price tag on the worldwide network of environmental assets has triggered an international race to halt the destruction of rainforests, wetlands and coral reefs.

Permalink Court overturns US tycoon's will that left fortune to Panama's poor

It was going to be the largest single charitable donation in Panama's history: more than $50m (£32m) for poor children. Wilson Lucom, a US tycoon, left most of his estate to a foundation to help the neediest people in the country where he lived until his death in 2006, aged 88. Now, four years later, after a bitter legal battle, the fortune is going to one of Panama's most powerful dynasties – including the ambassador to Britain – and the children have been left without a cent.

Permalink Deficit Fraud Rand Paul On Extending Bush's Tax Cuts: "I'm Not Seeing It As A Cost"

Last month, a spokesman for Kentucky Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul said that, if elected, Paul "will vote against and filibuster any unbalanced budget proposal in the Senate." Not only can the budget not be filibustered, but Paul is going to make balancing the budget exceedingly difficult, as he is willing to extend all of the Bush tax cuts - including those for the richest two percent of Americans - without offsetting them with spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere, for a total cost of nearly $4 trillion.

Permalink 15-year-old raped in court: Rapist gets probation, teen gets 12 months

In 2005, 15-year-old Ashley was facing trial in Manhattan Family Court for lying to police after she told officers she didn't know who had assaulted her on the way to school. As she waited in the court's holding area for her court appearance, juvenile counselor Tony "Tyson" Simmons came up to the handcuffed girl, took her in an elevator to the building's basement, and raped her. Moments later, Ashley -- who's withholding her last name for fear of reprisal -- was in the courtroom being sentenced to 12 months in prison...

Permalink Exodus of Jewish Advisors from Obama White House Likely Not an Omen of Good Things to Come

While many–understandably sick to death of watching as powerful Jewish interests voraciously chew their way into the highest centers of power both in America and throughout the world–are no doubt cheering at the announced departure of Rahm Israel Emmanuel as White House Chief of Staff, there is more reason to look at this latest development with a certain amount of apprehension than relief.

Permalink Iran ready to help nab 9/11 perpetrators

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has once again renewed a call for a probe into the 9/11 US terror attacks, insisting that facts about the event must be clearly established. The US and its allies used the September 11 incident as a pretext to come to the Middle East region and carried out whatever they wanted, President Ahmadinejad said on Sunday.

Permalink Coming Soon to You - Massive DNA Destruction

Dr. Popp, founder of the International Institute of Biophysics, at Neuss, Germany, and Dr. Lipton, of the University of Wisconsin, both confirm that modern science now realizes and recognizes that our DNA structures directly reflect our consciousness. This makes it possible for us to willfully activate what science formerly called "junk" DNA, by increasing our individual consciousnesses. By activating dormant DNA, one would likely be able to perceive life beyond the five physical senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell; and one's world of spiritual intuition, discernment, judgment, and wisdom begin to develop.

Permalink Who Pays to Deny Climate Change

European organisations dedicated to challenging scientific warnings about the gravity of climate change have refused to reveal who finances their work.

Permalink China offers to buy Greek debt - Video

Prime minister Wen Jiabao says his country will support Greece and rest of euro zone to overcome financial crisis. China has offered to buy Greek government bonds, in a show of support for the country whose debt burden pushed the euro zone into a crisis. Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, made the offer on Saturday at the start of a two-day visit to Greece, his first stop in a European tour.

Permalink HOMOPHOBIA, RELIGION, AND THE COLLAPSE OF INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION

His face is everywhere-on the internet, on TV, and throughout print media-that gentle, timid, barely-smiling young man with red hair, glasses, and a prodigious talent for playing the classical violin. I'm talking about Tyler Clementi, the freshman student at Rutgers who suicided last week after his roommate video taped him having sex with another man then uploaded the video to You Tube for all the world to see. Four other young people killed themselves in the last three weeks because of wrenching internal conflicts regarding their sexual orientation. Their faces were not as widely seen as Tyler's, but they remain casualties of a culture in which meanness-whether related to homophobia, bullying, or demented religiosity is epidemic.

Permalink Palestinians 'will not resume talks without new freeze on settlements'

The Palestinian leadership confirmed yesterday that it would not return to direct peace negotiations with the Israelis without an extension to the now-expired freeze on settlement construction, amid determined but increasingly frustrated efforts by the Americans to keep the talks alive.

Blumenthal, McMahon trade jabs at Conn. debate