Eighteen months ago, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney blocked then-British MP George Galloway from Canada, labeling him a terror supporter and a national security risk. At the time, Galloway was scheduled to appear in four Canadian cities on a speaking tour called “Resisting War: from Gaza to Afghanistan.”
As he watched the Iranian President blow kisses to cleaning workers at Beirut’s airport during his departure for Iran early this morning, a Lebanese Christian historian commented “This Persian’s glory at the moment is arguably greater than Caesars following Rome’s second conquest of Britain”.
The French government on Friday ordered CRS riot police to disperse workers occupying the strategic Fos-Lavéra oil depot near Marseille. Similar attacks were carried out at depots in Cournon d’Auvergne in central France and Ambès on the southwestern coast. Port, transport and energy workers, joined by high school students around the country, are striking to oppose the deeply unpopular austerity policies of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
President Harry S. Truman created the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 to ensure that the policy community would have access to independent intelligence analysis that was free of the policy advocacy of the Department of State and the Department of Defense. The CIA's most important analytic mission was the production of national intelligence estimates (NIEs) and assessments that tracked significant political and military developments and provided premonitory intelligence on looming threats and confrontations.
Less than three weeks before California voters hit the polls, the Justice Department issued a preemptive message concerning a ballot measure making worldwide headlines. "Attorney General Eric Holder says the federal government will enforce its marijuana laws in California even if the state's voters approve a ballot measure to legalize the drug," Pete Yost reports for the Associated Press.
On Thursday two passengers told the Guardian that guards placed Mubenga in handcuffs and heavily restrained him while the aircraft was still on the runway. One said Mubenga complained of breathing problems before passing out. Michael said he heard Mubenga complain he was unable to breathe. "I'm pretty sure it will turn out to be asphyxiation," he said. "The last thing we heard the man say was he couldn't breathe. We had three security guards and each one of them looked like they weighed 100kg plus, bearing down and holding him down – from what I could see below the seats." Michael described as "completely false" the official accounts of Mubenga's death, released by the Home Office and G4S on Wednesday.
Rosie Benjamin is just one of over 1.3 million people living in Haiti's 1,354 squalid refugee camps. She and 1,200 others are jammed into 300 tents and plastic tarp-shacks on a soccer field in Grand Goâve. Like about 70 percent of Haiti's refugee camps, the residents here are on their own. Apart from water deliveries, they get nothing from the government and the massive humanitarian apparatus on the ground. No food. No jobs. And no news about their future.
Does anyone remember the “cakewalk war” that would last six weeks, cost $50-$60 billion, and be paid for out of Iraqi oil revenues? Does anyone remember that White House economist Lawrence Lindsey was fired by Dubya because Lindsey estimated that the Iraq war could cost as much as $200 billion? Lindsey was fired for over-estimating the cost of a war that, according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, has cost 15 times more than Lindsey estimated. And the US still has 50,000 troops in Iraq.
With the US Government preparing to seize private and public pensions in order to bankrupt the American People and bring them down into poverty as part of their Full Spectrum Dominance plans, the risk of American society collapsing into anarchy and rioting is extremely high over the next few months. Plans have already been in place for the past twenty-six years with Rex 84 to bring the USA under Martial Law in such an eventuality.
Refinery workers cut off supply to capital's airports as protesters step up action against pension plans. High-school students have joined the protests against the government's pension-overhaul plans. Striking French oil-refinery workers have cut the fuel supply to Paris airports, raising fears of a fuel shortage. Fuel depots were blockaded by protesters on Friday in a bid to reverse the government's plans to raise the retirement age. The pipeline supplying Paris stopped operating because of strikes at northern refineries, a source at the company operating the pipeline said. Fuel distributors said several hundred filling stations had been shut because their supplies had run out, reportedly prompting panic buying among motorists.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves to the crowds from the sunroof of his SUV upon his arrival in Lebanon on Wednesday. Thousands of cheering Lebanese welcomed the Iranian President, throwing rose petals and sweets at his motorcade at the start of his visit. AP
The Obama administration has rejected calls for a moratorium on home foreclosures despite revelations that banks illegally processed mortgage documents to speed up the eviction of families and seizure of their homes. Nothing could more clearly demonstrate the class interests served by the White House. Major banks have systematically broken the law, victimizing an unknown number of families, and the Obama administration responds by shielding the criminals.
The number of Americans filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Jobless claims increased by 13,000 to 462,000 in the week ended October 9, confounding economists' projections that claims would hold at 445,000. The four-week moving average of claims also rose, increasing to 459,000 from 456,750. It was the first rise in the four-week measure since the week ended August 21. Economists consider any figure above 400,000 indicative of an economy that is failing to generate sufficient jobs to reduce unemployment.
US secretary of state says plans to cut the Ministry of Defence budget by 10% concern Washington. The US has made an eleventh hour intervention in the highly charged defence review as Britain's top military brass launched a last ditch attempt to persuade David Cameron to water down the cuts.
