Volunteers for Planetary Climate Action (VPCA) – October 8, 2014

Share

Volunteers for Planetary Climate Action (VPCA)
+  Resolving the Atmospheric Emergency  +
October 8, 2014 
 
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
     Please see directly below.
     I don’t trust Alex Jones enough to accept this without more evidence–but certainly let’s all watch carefully the day-to-day developments of Ebola in the US so we can determine whether indeed the rogue organizations CDC and FEMA are deliberately spreading Ebola as part of a broader strategy of population reduction.  Please send me anything you find which has strong implications either way.
     If they are deliberately spreading it, let’s remember that there’ve been at least two major practice runs for this.
     The first was Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the other was the Boston Marathon False Flag in April of last year.  
     From Katrina they learned that, yes, they can get away with martial law because the people are too frightened and disorganized to put up more than token resistance.
     And in Boston they learned that they can lock down all the inmates of an entire large American city as long as they continue to feed them their usual huge video doses of commercial corporate competitive sports.
     So probably in this current Ebola instance they’ll combine martial law and lockdown, using the euphemism “quarantine” for the latter.
     As for their first practice run, let’s always remember that evidently Hurricane Katrina was artificially intensified and steered.  It originated in an area of the Caribbean which rarely spawns hurricanes and then moved north to the southern tip of Florida where it did an amazing unnatural ninety-degree turn and proceeded westward till south of New Orleans where it did another amazing unnatural ninety-degree turn and moved north again to smash New Orleans.  
                                                                 Power to the Flora,
                                                                 
                                                                 Keith Lampe, Ro-Non-So-Te, Ponderosa Pine
                                                                 Volunteer
http://www.infowars.com/emergency-manager-calls-federal-ebola-response-a-stand-down/

Emergency Manager Calls Federal Ebola Response a Stand-Down

Feds are avoiding their own disease protocols, says emergency responder

by KIT DANIELS | INFOWARS.COM | OCTOBER 6, 2014
The numerous violations of disease protocol surrounding the Dallas, Texas Ebola case are intentional, according to an emergency response manager.

The manager, who was involved in the emergency response to both Hurricane Katrina and Rita in addition to planning for smallpox outbreaks, said the official response to the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States purposely avoided the basic actions the government would take to prevent a virus from spreading.

“The reason I know the Ebola outbreak is being conducted on purpose is because it violates all protocol,” he said.

The violations of protocol are almost too numerous to mention. For one thing, government officials were slow to decontaminate the apartment of Thomas Eric Duncan, the 40-year-old Liberian national who was the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the U.S.

Before the apartment was sanitized, however, five Dallas Co. sheriff’s deputies were ordered to enter the unit without protective gear to remove Duncan’s family members who were placed under quarantine.

Dallas Co. Sheriff’s Association President Christopher Dyer said the deputies were uncomfortable with the order.

“They’re very concerned,” Dyer said to WFAA 8. ‎”Their families are concerned. You’ve got to go home and tell your spouse, ‘Hey, I was just inside this house where a guy had Ebola.’”

The workers who were ordered to clean the sidewalk where Duncan vomited were also not wearing protective clothing, despite the fact that Ebola spreads through bodily fluids.

And, like Duncan’s apartment, officials were slow to decontaminate the ambulance which transported Duncan to the hospital, meaning that the homeless man who was transported in the ambulance after Duncan was potentially exposed to the disease.

The Obama administration also refused to ban travelers from Ebola-stricken African nations from entering the U.S., which allowed Duncan to fly to Dallas.

“The fact that [Ebola] being allowed to travel into the United States is insane and the fact that emergency operations have not been activated is insane and this is on purpose and by design,” the emergency response manager stated. “There are many competent people in the CDC, the military and emergency management officers who need to blow the whistle.”

“They’re being ordered to stand down from the top.”

A former CIA officer, Robert David Steele, warned of an Ebola false flag a few weeks before Duncan’s diagnosis.

***

http://www.infowars.com/there-will-be-pestilences-why-are-so-many-deadly-diseases-breaking-out-all-over-the-globe-right-now/

There Will Be Pestilences: Why Are So Many Deadly Diseases Breaking Out All Over the Globe Right Now?

So why is this happening?

by MICHAEL SNYDER | ECONOMIC COLLAPSE | OCTOBER 7, 2014

Ebola, Marburg, Enterovirus and Chikungunya – these diseases were not even on the radar of most people coming into 2014, but now each one of them is making headline news.  So why is this happening?  Why are so many deadly diseases breaking out all over the world right now?  Is there some kind of a connection, or is the fact that so many horrible diseases are arising all at once just a giant coincidence?  And this could be just the beginning.  For example, there are now more than a million cases of Chikungunya in Central and South America, and authorities are projecting that there will be millions more in 2015.  The number of Ebola cases continues to grow at an exponential rate, and now an even deadlier virus (Marburg) has broken out in Uganda.  We have gone decades without experiencing a major worldwide pandemic, and many people believed that it could never happen in our day and time.  But now we could potentially see several absolutely devastating diseases all racing across the planet at the same time.

On Monday, we got news that the first confirmed case of Ebola transmission in Europe has happened.  A nurse in Spain that had treated a couple of returning Ebola patients has contracted the disease herself

A nurse’s assistant in Spain is the first person known to have contracted Ebola outside of Africa in the current outbreak.

Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato announced Monday that a test confirmed the assistant has the virus.

The woman helped treat a Spanish missionary and a Spanish priest, both of whom had contracted Ebola in West Africa. Both died after returning to Spain.

Health officials said she developed symptoms on September 30. She was not hospitalized until this week. Her only symptom was a fever.

How many people did she spread the virus to before it was correctly diagnosed?

Meanwhile, Ebola continues to rage out of control in West Africa.  It is being reported that Sierra Leone just added 121 new Ebola deaths to the overall death toll in a single day.  If Ebola continues to spread at an exponential rate, it is inevitable that more people will leave West Africa with the virus and take it to other parts of the globe.

In fact, it was being reported on Monday that researchers have concluded that there is “a 50 percent chance” that Ebola could reach the UK by October 24th…

Experts have analysed the pattern of the spread of the disease, along with airline traffic data, to make the startling prediction Ebola could reach Britain by October 24.

They claim there is a 50 percent chance the virus could hit Britain by that date and a 75 percent chance the it could be imported to France, as the deadliest outbreak in history spreads across the world.

Currently, there is no cure for the disease, which has claimed more than 3,400 lives since March and has a 90 percent fatality rate.

I have written extensively about Ebola, but it is certainly not the only virus making headlines right now.

Down in Uganda, a man has just died from a confirmed case of the Marburg Virus…

A man has died in Uganda’s capital after an outbreak of Marburg, a highly infectious haemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, authorities said on Sunday, adding that a total of 80 people who came into contact with him had been put under quarantine.

Marburg starts with a severe headache followed by haemorrhaging and leads to death in 80% or more of cases in about nine days. It is from the same family of viruses as Ebola, which has killed thousands in West Africa in recent months.

There is no vaccine or specific treatment for the Marburg virus, which is transmitted through bodily fluids such as saliva and blood or by handling infected wild animals such as monkeys.

The Marburg Virus is an absolutely horrible disease, and many consider it to be even more deadly than Ebola.  But the fact that it kills victims so quickly may keep it from spreading as widely as Ebola.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, a disease that sounds very similar to Ebola and Marburg has popped up in Venezuela and doctors down there do not know what it is…

“We do not know what it is,” admitted Duglas León Natera, president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation.

In its initial stages, the disease presents symptoms of fever and spots on the skin, and then produces large blisters and internal and external bleeding, according to data provided by the College of Physicians of the state of Aragua, where the first cases were reported.

Then, very quickly, patients suffer from respiratory failure, liver failure and kidney failure. Venezuelan doctors have not been able to determine what the disease is, much less how to fight it.

Why aren’t we hearing more about this in the mainstream news?

Here in the United States, enterovirus D-68 has sickened hundreds of children all over the country.  So far cases have been confirmed in 43 different states, several children have been paralyzed by it, and one New Jersey boy has died

Parents in New Jersey are concerned after a state medical examiner determined a virus causing severe respiratory illness across the country is responsible for the death of a 4-year-old boy.

Hamilton Township health officer Jeff Plunkett said the Mercer County medical examiner’s office found the death of Eli Waller was the result of enterovirus D-68. Waller, the youngest of a set of triplets, died in his sleep at home on Sept. 25.

The virus has sickened more than 500 people in 43 states and Washington, D.C.— almost all of them children. Waller is the first death in New Jersey directly linked to the virus.

The CDC seems to have no idea how to contain the spread of enterovirus D-68.

So why should we be confident that they will be able to contain the spread of Ebola?

Last but not least, the Chikungunya virus is at pandemic levels all over Central and South America.

We aren’t hearing that much about this disease in the U.S., but at this point more than a million people have already been infected…

An excruciating mosquito-borne illness that arrived less than a year ago in the Americas is raging across the region, leaping from the Caribbean to the Central and South American mainland, and infecting more than 1 million people. Some cases already have emerged in the United States.

The good news is that very few people actually die from this disease.

The bad news is that almost everyone that gets it feels like they are dying.

In a previous article, I wrote about the intense suffering that victims go through.  According to Slate, the name of this virus originally “comes from a Makonde word meaning ‘that which bends up,’ referring to the contortions sufferers put themselves through due to intense joint pain.”

Right now, the number of cases of Chikungunya is absolutely exploding.  Just check out the following excerpt from a recent Fox News report

In El Salvador, health officials report nearly 30,000 suspected cases, up from 2,300 at the beginning of August, and hospitals are filled with people with the telltale signs of the illness, including joint pain so severe it can be hard to walk.

“The pain is unbelievable,” said Catalino Castillo, a 39-year-old seeking treatment at a San Salvador hospital. “It’s been 10 days and it won’t let up.”

Venezuelan officials reported at least 1,700 cases as of Friday, and the number is expected to rise. Neighboring Colombia has around 4,800 cases but the health ministry projects there will be nearly 700,000 by early 2015.

So why is this happening?

Why are so many absolutely horrible diseases emerging all at once?

Please share what you think by posting a comment below…

***
Ebola ‘a deliberate attack on Africa’?

By: Ken Onodjayeke
2014-08-11 

Those of you who know about the outbreak of
the Ebola virus in the 1970’s, will agree with
me that it was in Central Africa that it first
broke out. it was contained and it was rested.
How many years from that time until now? No
sign of it until now.

Suddenly it resurrected from West Africa which
was not it’s primary source and it even has a
new strain and nobody is seeing anything
wrong with the picture?
The bats and primate theory didn’t come up
when it started in the 70’s. So where did they
get that from when the whites are busy using
pigs and primates to experiment on the virus?

One thing is clear to me: this new outbreak is
a deliberate attack on Africa, be they the big
pharmaceutical giants who are currently
holding the antidote, be they their military
harnessing it as a bioweapon or be they their
crazy scientists always playing god with their
experiments and it went out of control.

For what is worth, African leaders should come
together to investigate the source of it with a
view to trace it back to the people responsible
for this onslaught and drag them to the ICC
for prosecution for crimes against a continent.

http://m.news24.com/nigeria/MyNews24/Ebola-a-deliberate-attack-on-Africa-20140811

***

Texas Ebola Spread Deliberate! Man with Ebola Virus Flew Roundabout to US

——- ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
October 6, 2014
Above combination-image illustrates some of the wild temperature swings that are taking place on the Northern Hemisphere. While the average temperature anomaly on the Northern Hemisphere may not differ much between the two dates (+0.95°C versus +1.07°C), huge temperature swings can occur locally, as is the case in Greenland.

Note that the overall temperature anomaly for the Arctic is +2.16°C and +3.34°C, respectively, but it can be much more locally. What contributes to these high temperatures in the Arctic is that heat from the Arctic Ocean is entering the atmosphere where there still is open water, while large emissions of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean are exercizing their high immediate local warming potential.

On the Southern Hemisphere, things aren’t much different, as illustrated by the combination-image below.

The two images show that, while the average anomaly for the Southern Hemisphere and for the Antarctic may not differ much between the two dates, temperature anomalies locally may go from one end of the scale to the other.

And it’s not merely temperatures that seem to have gone wild. Winds have strengthened, which can push sea ice far out into the sea surrounding Antarctica, while the resulting open water quickly freezes over. The result is expanding sea ice that traps heat in the ocean, as discussed in an earlier post. It appears that much of the extra energy trapped by greenhouse gasses becomes manifest as kinetic energy, in the form of stronger winds, storms and ocean currents.

In conclusion, these huge temperature swings combine with pressure swings and storms, and with swings between expansion and contraction of soil and ice, resulting in severe shocks to ecosystems and infrastructure.

The threat is that infrastructure will increasingly come under stress. Infrastructure that was built up over hundreds, if not thousands of years, is not easily replaced with more durable alternatives. Parts of infrastructure such as roads, buildings, railways, storm water and drainage systems, water supply, dams, levees and power poles may collapse without much scope for repair.

Furthermore, soil degradation will increase, as in some areas storms grow stronger and run-off causes more erosion, while other areas may be hit by more severe droughts and dust-storms. In both cases, ecosystems will suffer and can go into shock, bringing food supply and habitat progressively and possibly abruptly under threat.

As more and deeper cracks and fractures appear in sediments and soils, more methane may start entering the atmosphere. Indications that the integrity of the permafrost is breaking up under the stress of such swings were discussed in earlier posts such as this one and this one. The extra methane can constitute a powerful additional feedback loop, causing strong additional warming locally.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed at the Climate Plan blog.

References and Related Posts

– Climate Plan
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-plan.html

– Antarctica linked to Arctic
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/09/antarctica-linked-to-arctic.html

– What’s wrong with the weather?
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/07/whats-wrong-with-the-weather.html

– Is Global Warming breaking up the Integrity of the Permafrost?
http://methane-hydrates.blogspot.com/2013/05/is-global-warming-breaking-up-the-integrity-of-the-permafrost.html

– Earthquakes in the Arctic Ocean
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/04/earthquakes-in-the-arctic-ocean.html

– Ten Dangers of Global Warming (written March, 2007)
http://samcarana.blogspot.com/2007/03/ten-dangers-of-global-warming.html

Posted by 
***
http://aircrap.org/swiss-govt-media-refuse-acknowledge-chemtrails/339370/

Swiss Gov’t – Media refuse to acknowledge CHEMTRAILS

Posted by  Chemtrail EvidenceFeaturedSwitzerland Monday, October 6th, 2014

CHEMTRAILS: Swiss Gov’t and Swiss Media refuse to acknowledge their roles in the CHEMTRAIL depopulation agenda despite massive evidence!

Hello all,

I am the author of “They are killing us with chemtrails in Switzerland” and I recently sent out an email to All Swiss Federal government officials, as well as to all the so-called “journalists” at our local newspaper, the Nouvelliste.

This email was also sent simultaneously to some 3000 Swiss citizen/witnesses.

In this email, I accused both members of the Swiss government and the Swiss media of being complicit to the criminal and INTENTIONAL act of spraying heavy metal laden aerosols and other toxic concoctions from planes over the Swiss population, farm land and waterways, in a very obvious fashion and on a DAILY basis!

FOR EXAMPLE:

In this email, I accused both members of the Swiss government and the Swiss media of being complicit to the criminal and INTENTIONAL act of spraying heavy metal laden aerosols and other toxic concoctions from planes over the Swiss population, farm land and waterways, in a very obvious fashion and on a DAILY basis!

FOR EXAMPLE:

OR YET:

This email contained irrifutable evidence, dozens of photos, videos, whistleblower testimonies and links.

It also included the results of a rainwater analysis (below) I had done of our local rainwater, which showed a 30’000 ug/liter (38mg/l) concentration of aluminum instead of the accepted 50 ug/liter we should have seen. That is 700 times over normal limits!

Barium and strontium concentrations where also off the charts when, in fact, none should have been detected AT ALL!

rainwater analysis Swiss

Neurologist Warns Aluminum in Chemtrails Could Cause “Explosive Increase in Neurodegenerative Diseases”

by the Board Certified Neurosurgeon, Dr Russell Blaylock

Original Source: http://chemtrailsplanet.net/2013/06/20/aluminum-in-chemtrails-linked-to-rapid-increase-in-neurogenic-disorders/

Nanoparticles of aluminum are infinitely more reactive and can easily penetrate the brain

The internet is littered with stories of “chemtrails” and geoengineering to combat “global warming”; and, until recently, I took these stories with a grain of salt. One of the main reasons for my skepticism was that I rarely saw what they were describing in the skies. But over the past several years I have noticed a great number of these trails and I have to admit they are not like the contrails I grew up seeing in the skies. They are extensive, quite broad, are laid in a definite pattern, and slowly evolve into artificial clouds. Of particular concern is that there are now so many – dozens every day are littering the skies.

My major concern is that there is evidence that they are spraying tons of nanosized aluminum compounds. It has been demonstrated in the scientific and medical literature that nanosized particles are infinitely more reactive and induce intense inflammation in a number of tissues. Of special concern is the effect of these nanoparticles on the brain and spinal cord, as a growing list of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) are strongly related to exposure to environmental aluminum.

Nanoparticles of aluminum are not only infinitely more inflammatory, they also easily penetrate the brainby a number of routes, including the blood and olfactory nerves (the smell nerves in the nose). Studies have shown that these particles pass along the olfactory neural tracts, which connect directly to the area of the brain that is not only most affected by Alzheimer’s disease, but also the earliest affected in the course of the disease. It also has the highest level of brain aluminum in Alzheimer’s cases.

The intranasal route of exposure makes spraying of massive amounts of nanoaluminum into the skies especially hazardous, as it will be inhaled by people of all ages, including babies and small children for many hours. We know that older people have the greatest reaction to this airborne aluminum. Because of the nanosizing of the aluminum particles being used, home-filtering systems will not remove the aluminum, thus prolonging exposure, even indoors.

In addition to inhaling nanoaluminum, such spraying will saturate the ground, water, and vegetation with high levels of aluminum. Normally, aluminum is poorly absorbed from the GI tract; but nanoaluminum is absorbed in much higher amounts. This absorbed aluminum has been shown to be distributed to a number of organs and tissues including the brain and spinal cord. Inhaling this environmentally suspended nanoaluminum will also produce tremendous inflammatory reaction within the lungs, which will pose a significant hazard to children and adults with asthma and pulmonary diseases.

I pray that the pilots who are spraying this dangerous substance fully understand that they are destroying the lives and health of their families as well. This is also true of our political officials. Once the  soil, plants, and water sources are heavily contaminated there will be no way to reverse the damage that has been done.

Steps need to be taken now to prevent an impending health disaster of enormous proportions if this project is not stopped immediately. Otherwise we will see an explosive increase in neurodegenerative diseases occurring in adults and the elderly in unprecedented rates as well as neurodevelopmental disorders in our children. We are already seeing a dramatic increase in these neurological disorders and it is occurring in younger people more than ever before.

I then followed up by sending out a worldwide “call to arms” in a post I published on beforeitsnews.com and picked up by aircrap.org, asking all “chemtrail truthers” to use the email addresses supplied of the Swiss government officials, to voice their disgust and demand an IMEDIATE HALT to all aerosol spraying over Switzerland as well as a TRANSPARENT INVESTIGATION into the practice.

My thought was…”First we will rid Switzerland of chemtrails…then the World“

I have since removed the “Call to arms” post from the net due to dismal response…

And what was the response of the Swiss government and their puppet media to my accusations, you might ask?

Simply nothing…no response.

Not a peep.

No denials, no interest in my rainwater results, no acknowledgement of any kind.

Nada.

The Swiss government did however respond to a friend of mine who wrote them demanding answers: he was told the same old dis-info…that “there is nothing to worry about”…that “they are just water vapor condensation trials”… “altitude this”…”atmosphere that”…bla, bla, bla!

What broke my heart is that this friend chose to believe the BS rather than to accept the truth along with all it’s implications. He chose to believe the stale, old “official” government explanation over the mountains of evidence, over his better judgment, over his own eyes, over his own intellect, over our friendship…

MORE EVIDENCE of them killing us with CHEMTRAILS over Switzerland:

These are today’s chemtrail shots… Sunday morning, oct 5th 2014.

They started before I woke up…1st photos at at 7:30 am…and went on ALL DAY LONG!

The Swiss government would expect you to believe that this is normal airline traffic for a Sunday morning! They are either fools, blackmailed or paid off!

Either way, they are complicit in these crimes against the naive and trusting Swiss citizens and against humanity!

***

Something in the Water’s Spreading! Expert – Newsweek: Millions Dead – MSNBC: Largest Epidemic Ever

Wednesday, October 8, 2014 5:01

(Before It’s News)

The headline from this ENENews story sounds like something straight out of a horror movie: “MSNBC: Largest epidemic ever; Emergency legislation proposed in US Congress; Newsweek: Millions dead, researchers have lost count — Experts: It’s beyond anything I ever imagined… Disintegrating before our eyes…”.  

Unfortunately, this story is all too real and unfolding upon our West Coast and Pacific Ocean at this very moment…and according to Dr. Benjamin Miner, “there’s something in the water that might be spreading!” According to Dana Durnford after a ride up and down the West coast as shared in the brand new video below with from Dr. Scott David Shute, “the Pacific Ocean is dead from Japan to BC Canada, get out now!”

Newsweek, Oct. 2, 2014: A grisly horror show is playing out along the West Coast… millions of dead and dying sea stars…  victims of a swift and brutal illness… organs rupture… arms fall off. Ultimately, the sea star dissolves, as if melted by acid… This summer, the outbreak morphed into a full-scale epidemic… so bad that researchers have lost count of how many stars are lost. They estimate millions… food webs are being upended…  (Have we forgotten we are merely a strand within the web of life?)

SOMETHING IN THE WATER IS SPREADING!!! Dr. Benjamin Miner, Western Washington University: (Q: Are Atlantic starfish affected?) Wasting syndrome… has just been along the West Coast… It’s kind of slowly progressing northward, which… certainly suggests there’s something in the water that might be spreading.

PBS (Oregon), Oct. 1, 2014: Program Coordinator Samantha Ferber… estimates that more than 90 percent of the total sea stars in the lower intertidal…  succumbed to the disease… “There has never been an event this dramatic… dying rapidly… degrading before our eyes.”

Dr. Drew Harvell, Cornell University, Sept. 19, 2014: “Unprecedented… largest marine wildlife outbreak ever recorded in terms of number of species, and spread… [It] has big implications for humans… (are we REALLY that clueless that the masses DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS?) this epidemic is an emergency… If they disappear… we cannot repopulate them.”

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

UN: 3,660 killed, 8,756 wounded in Ukraine conflict since April

Published time: October 08, 2014

Kiev doesn’t have full control of its military and paramilitary forces, who continue to violate the principles of international humanitarian law, highlights the latest UN report on the human rights situation in Ukraine.

The UN has stated that at least 3,660 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since April – including 330 since the ceasefire brokered on Sept. 5.

A total of 8,756 people have been wounded since April, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said.

The UN statement notes in particular that, despite the ceasefire, “in some areas artillery, tank and small arms exchanges have continued on an almost daily basis, such as in Donetsk airport, in the Debaltseve area in Donetsk region, and in the town of Shchastya in Luhansk region.”

“While the ceasefire is a very welcome step towards ending the fighting in eastern Ukraine, I call on all parties to genuinely respect and uphold it, and to halt the attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure once and for all,” Zeid said in the report.

“For almost half a year, residents of the areas affected by the armed conflict have been deprived of their fundamental rights to education, to adequate healthcare, to housing and to opportunities to earn a living. Further prolongation of this crisis will make the situation untenable for the millions of people whose daily lives have been seriously disrupted,” he added.

The 37-page report covers the period from August 18 to September 16 and contains testimonial evidence of cases of violation on behalf of Ukrainian military units.

“During the reporting period, international humanitarian law, including the principles of military necessity, distinction, proportionality and precaution continued to be violated by armed groups and some units and volunteer battalions under the control of the Ukrainian armed forces,” the report reads.

Specific evidence of “beatings, poor nutrition and lack of medical assistance” are also mentioned in the report, RIA reports. The UN expressed special concern over the “enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and ill-treatment allegedly perpetrated by members of the volunteer battalions,” in particular Aydar, Dnepr-1, Kiev-1 and Kiev-2.

“In spite of a fragile ceasefire over the past month in the east of Ukraine, the protracted conflict continues to kill and wound civilians, and deprive the more than 5 million residents in   areas directly affected by the violence of their basic human rights,” Zeid said.

The UN in its report urges the Ukrainian authorities to exercise greater control over their own army and groups of armed volunteers, as since the beginning of the so-called “anti-terrorist” operation on August 25 according to the Ukrainian Security Service, over 1,000 people have been detained on suspicion of being “militants and subversives.”

The report also highlights that the civilian population is suffering, in particular, because of the bombing of densely populated neighborhoods with heavy artillery. “Some of the reported cases of disproportionate use of fire in residential areas are committed by Ukrainian armed forces,” stated the document.

“After the announcement of the ceasefire on September 5, the scope and intensity of military operations decreased sharply, but not completely,” the document says, adding that civilians“continue to fall under the cross-fire and cross-bombing.”

The UN also reported an increase of “foreign mercenaries” in the ranks of the armed forces of   self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics, “including citizens of Russia.”

READ MORE: 4th mass grave found in E. Ukraine, self-defense forces report

Meanwhile the issue of mass graves recently found near Donetsk was not reflected in the document, TASS reports, as they were discovered outside the period under review and formally not subject to consideration by the rights monitoring mission of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

***

Ukraine: Nazis in Plain Sight

Global Research, October 07, 2014
In-depth Report: 

The Western press recently reported the destruction of a Soviet-era statue of Vladimir Lenin in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. The Washington Post would claim in its report, “Ukrainians just pulled down a massive Lenin statue. What does that signal for Russia?,” that:

Anti-Russian protesters in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, pulled down a massive statue of Vladimir Lenin late Sunday, a sign of hardening anger toward the Kremlin in an eastern Ukrainian area where sympathies are split between Kiev and Moscow.

The pro-European protests that swept Ukraine in the winter were accompanied by a wave of Lenin statues being pulled down, eliminating symbolic vestiges of the Soviet Union that had endured after its 1991 breakup. But few such statues were toppled in eastern Ukraine, which has long been a bastion of pro-Russian sentiment and where separatists have embarked on an insurgency that has cost thousands of lives.

As usual with reports from the Western press, the deception can manifest itself just as much from what is omitted as from what is actually said. The Washington Post maintains that those who destroyed the statue were merely “anti-Russian protesters.” In reality, it was a mob led by literal Neo-Nazis of the notorious Azov Battalion – fielded and directed by Kiev’s Interior Ministry itself.

While the Washington Post attempts to claim the statue’s destruction was a manifestation of the people’s will in eastern Ukraine, it was in reality a stunt pulled by some of Kiev’s most vicious, ultra-right, and illegitimate supporters – supporters the West works continuously to obfuscate from public view.

Azov’s role in the Kharkiv incident was revealed not by the Russian media, but instead by the European Union and NATO’s own Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitors on the ground in Ukraine. Submitting daily reports often ignored by the Western press, the OSCE stated in its September 29, 2014 briefing that (emphasis added):

On 28 September, at 14:30hrs, the SMM observed in Kharkiv a large demonstration of some 2,000 pro-Ukraine supporters gathering in front of the Opera house. The crowd, composed of men and women of different ages and including children, was led by members of the “Azov” volunteer battalion, as well as young men and women with masks. Some of the demonstrators marched towards Liberty Square, where Lenin’s monument was located. There, the SMM observed a group of young men with masks trying to climb on top of Lenin’s statue, while the crowd present on the square had increased to approximately 5,000 people. The demonstrators who had climbed up to the statue began using an electric cutting instrument to dismantle the base of the statue. Whilst not visible on the square, the SMM observed the police deploy and set up an outer perimeter cordon around the square and three buses of police behind the regional administration building. At 22:40hrs Lenin’s Statue was pulled down by the demonstrators. As the SMM left the scene, it did not observe any further incident.

While Azov’s role in much of Ukraine’s daily violence goes unreported, the Western media has tentatively reported on the group in the past. The Telegraph in one article titled, “Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists,” reported that:

As Ukraine’s armed forces tighten the noose around pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, the western-backed government in Kiev is throwing militia groups – some openly neo-Nazi – into the front of the battle.

The Azov battalion has the most chilling reputation of all. Last week, it came to the fore as it mounted a bold attack on the rebel redoubt of Donetsk, striking deep into the suburbs of a city under siege.

The Telegraph would also report in the same article that:

Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics”, proclaimed in eastern Ukraine in March, should send a shiver down Europe’s spine. Recently formed battalions such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often alarming.

The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites.

If this is who is tearing down statutes across Ukraine, including now eastern cities like Kharkiv, then to answer the Washington Post’s question as to what it “signals for Russia,” is a Nazi threat openly backed by the European Union, NATO, and the United States, lurking once again along its borders just as it did in the 1930′s and in immediate need of being addressed. This threat goes unnoticed to most among Western audiences primarily because of dishonest reporting from papers like the Washington Post as well as the West’s continuous campaign to defame and undermine Russian media who has apparently been accurately reporting the growing Nazi threat in Ukraine for some time.

So large has this threat the Western press previously was adamant did not exist, that the Western press itself has begun reporting in articles like, “Azov fighters are Ukraine’s greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat – The battalion’s far-right volunteers’ desire to ‘bring the fight to Kiev’ is a danger to post-conflict stability,” published in the London Guardian, that:

…there is an increasing worry that while the Azov and other volunteer battalions might be Ukraine’s most potent and reliable force on the battlefield against the separatists, they also pose the most serious threat to the Ukrainian government, and perhaps even the state, when the conflict in the east is over. The Azov causes particular concern due to the far right, even neo-Nazi, leanings of many of its members.

As usual, while the Western press invents an impressive cast of villains for Western regimes to intervene against, it is their own proxies who often pose the greatest threat to global peace and stability. Nazis ravaging not only the West’s enemies in eastern Ukraine, but now threatening their own proxy regime in Kiev is just one of many examples.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
From: La Vía Campesina <via-info-en@viacampesina.org>
Date: Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 4:52 AM
Subject: [Info EN] Mozambican Peasants vs. the Great African Land Grab

Mozambican Peasants vs. the Great African Land Grab

Maputo — With a shimmering coastline stretching for more than 1,500 miles along the Indian Ocean, heartland game parks rivaling the Serengeti and a cornucopia of natural resources — located mostly in land used by humble farming communities — Mozambique is getting quite a lot of attention these days as one of Africa’s most upcoming investment hubs and in vogue destinations. Investors have not wasted any time in carving out their stake in the country two decades into the relative stability following a 16-year civil war on the heels of independence.

The cash-strapped Mozambican state technically owns all of the land within its borders, offering leases that are renewable up to 99 years to foreign governments and corporations for agribusiness or extractive industrial megaprojects. One such example is ProSavana, a Japanese and Brazilian-led development project with the blessing of the Mozambican government. ProSavana has earmarked land in the Nacala Corridor spanning three provinces and affecting 19 districts for monocrops such as soy for export.

ProSavana, not unlike related land deals for coal and gas extraction, comes with hefty promises of economic growth marked by mass job creation and export potential. But under the surface, investments all too often uproot lives and livelihoods for those who depend on small-scale farming, fishing and pastoralism — more than 70 percent of the population in the case of Mozambique. Many point to these projects as undisputed resource grabs woven into the fabric of a greater neocolonial project in Mozambique and throughout Africa.

“The idea of mass job creation is a myth,” said Vicente Adriano, staff researcher for the Mozambican Peasant’s Union (UNAC), “The bottom line is that these projects create dependency within the class that has been historically, and continues to be, neglected by government policies and development plans.” As a social movement, UNAC members pride themselves on being a revolutionary bunch. “Mobilization through resistance creates alternative forms of political sovereignty,” Adriano offered.

It was in that spirit that UNAC brought both its lead organizers and vulnerable farmers from each of Mozambique’s ten provinces together in Maputo on October 1st and 2nd for its third annual peasant-led international conference on land. The conference came as the culmination of a series of regional Mozambican gatherings, where delegates shared concerns and discussed crosscutting strategies as means of opposition to land and resource grabs.

“Our land is being occupied without our consultation,” shared Helena Terra, a peasant from the central region, an area marked by small-scale vegetable and grain production that is now threatened by massive foreign-owned eucalyptus crops and coal exploration in residential areas. Terra explained that the once potable water in her village was now polluted by industrial activity, and unsafe for consumption. Water is not her only concern. In 2015, new coal projects seek to displace at least a hundred families — but with the help of fellow UNAC organizers, Terra is undertaking legal measures to attempt to recover the land.

“United as farmers, we have to solve these problems ourselves, and not wait for outsiders,” said Augusto Mafigo, UNAC’s president. The agricultural group’s tactics — from agroecology for food sovereignty to agrarian reform — are grounded in political education and horizontal learning exchanges among its members, as well as with other African and international movements. Last week’s conference featured a presentation from the Venezuelan ambassador, representing a country that has been working to radically reorient its food system to serve its poor majority. Another example was an intervention on seed saving and agrarian transformation from neighboring Zimbabwe Small Holder Organic Forum (ZIMSOFF), which UNAC works closely with through their joint participation in Via Campesina.

Now the largest transnational agrarian movement in the world, Via Campesina has member organizations in 73 countries — representing over 250 million peasants — that fight for access to and control over land and its resources. “Via Campesina is a connection to what people want, as opposed to the very different reality of what is happening on the ground,” said Renaldo Chingore, a leader in both UNAC and Via Campesina at the Africa regional level. Ten years ago, UNAC became Via Campesina’s first African member. Today it plays a headlining role in supporting its regional and global growth, at a time when Africa is a priority for outreach and expansion — due in large part to land and resource grabs such as those in Mozambique redefining the norm.

Against such policies and sizeable odds, peasants throughout Africa are determined to hold onto — quite literally — the roots of their ancestors. UNAC’s experience in the Mozambican field may just provide a game plan for doing so.

First published on: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/salena-tramel/mozambican-peasants-vs-th_b_5943776.html

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Published on
Wednesday, October 08, 2014
by

Clashes Erupt at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem

Dozens reportedly injured in violent scuffle between police and Palestinian worshipers
A day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told police chiefs and the Shin Bet security service to crack down on Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem, clashes werereported outside that city’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Dozens were said to be injured as Palestinian worshipers on Wednesday morning were stopped from entering a mosque by Israeli police, who then escorted a right-wing Jewish group inside to observe the holiday of Sukkot.

According to the Ma’an news agency, security guards witnessed officers “forcibly” removing worshipers, “attacking some of them with clubs,” which led to a violent scuffle:

As worshipers threw stones, soldiers fired tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets, injuring dozens of Palestinians, Al-Aqsa Mosque director Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani said.

Some of the stun grenades were fired into the Al-Aqsa Mosque itself, causing a fire to break out, and fire fighters were not immediately allowed access to the area, al-Kiswani added.

Luba Samri, an Israeli police spokeswoman, told Al Jazeera that police “chased the demonstrators towards the mosque, where they barricaded themselves inside and continued hurling objects… There was no immediate information on whether anyone was hurt among the Palestinian protesters.”

Al-Asqa mosque is a contentious area, as it is considered the holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam. Its status often finds the mosque as the backdrop for demonstrations in the occupied territory.

Tensions have been high in Jerusalem since Israel’s 50-day-long offensive against Gaza, which saw more than 2,000 Palestinian and 72 Israeli deaths, came to an uneasy ceasefire in late August.

***

Israel Bars Building Materials from Gaza – 15,671 Housing Units Damaged During Military Assault “Protective Edge”

Global Research, October 08, 2014
Middle East Monitor 7 October 2014

A recent crackdown on the tunnels by the Egyptian army, however, has effectively neutralized hundreds of tunnels, severely affecting Gaza’s construction sector

The Israeli authorities have delayed indefinitely the entry of 60 truckloads of building materials into the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian official said.

“We were notified by the Palestinian National Company that Israel has indefinitely delayed the entry of the 60 trucks into the Gaza Strip,” Mounir al-Ghalban of Gaza’s border authority told our media sources.

The move came despite Israeli “promises” to allow the entry of the construction supplies into the blockaded enclave on Tuesday through Kerem Shalom crossing, he added.

During a recent 51-day onslaught, the Israeli army damaged 15,671 housing units across the Gaza Strip, including 2,276 that were totally destroyed, according to official Palestinian figures.

More than 2,150 Gazans, meanwhile, mostly civilians, were killed – and 11,000 injured – in unrelenting Israeli attacks.

The Israeli offensive came to an end on August 26 with the announcement of an indefinite cease-fire.

The truce deal, brokered by Egypt, calls for reopening Gaza’s border crossings with Israel – effectively ending the latter’s seven-year blockade of the coastal territory – and expanding the area open to Palestinian fisherman to six miles off the Gaza coast.

According to the agreement’s terms, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators will resume indirect talks on other core Palestinian demands – including the release of prisoners and the establishment of a Gaza seaport – later this month.

Israel routinely bars the entry of building materials into Gaza on grounds that Palestinian resistance faction Hamas could use them to build underground tunnels or fortifications.

For years, the Gaza Strip has depended on construction materials smuggled into the territory through a network of tunnels linking it to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

A recent crackdown on the tunnels by the Egyptian army, however, has effectively neutralized hundreds of tunnels, severely affecting Gaza’s construction sector.

In September of last year, Israel allowed the entry of construction materials into the besieged coastal enclave for the first time in six years.

But the following month, Israeli authorities suspended deliveries after the discovery of an underground tunnel extending from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

***

Israel on Trial for its Crimes Against Palestinians: Testimonies of Atrocities in Gaza From The Russell Tribunal

Global Research, October 06, 2014
In-depth Report: 

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine convened an emergency session in Brussels last month to examine whether Israel committed war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip during “Operation Protective Edge,” the summertime military assault that killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, including more than 500 children, and left Gaza in ruins.

After hearing testimony from journalists, eyewitnesses, legal scholars and physicians present during the onslaught, the 12-member jury, made up of world-renowned intellectuals and international law experts, found Israel guilty of “war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of murder, extermination and persecution and also incitement to genocide.”

Though it was virtually ignored by both mainstream and progressive media outlets, the tribunal was significant in that it did what the so-called international community has time and again refused to do. The Russell Tribunal put Israel on trial for its crimes against Palestinians.

Incitement to Genocide

Journalist David Sheen delivered a horrifying presentation on incitement to genocide within Israeli society, which was consumed by genocidal rhetoric from top Israeli government officials to the lynch mobs barreling down the streets of Jerusalem shouting “death to Arabs.”

 

Sheen’s testimony stunned the jury, which concluded that absent outside intervention and accountability, the potential for genocide is likely.

“In light of the clear escalation in the physical and rhetorical violence deployed in respect of Gaza in the summer of 2014, the tribunal emphasizes the obligation of all states parties to the 1948 Genocide Convention ‘to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide,” the judges implored in their final ruling.

“It is recognized that in a situation where patterns of crimes against humanity are perpetrated with impunity, and where direct and public incitement to genocide is manifest throughout society, it is very conceivable that individuals or the state may choose to exploit the conditions in order to perpetrate the crime of genocide,” they warned, adding, “We [sic] have a genuine fear that in an environment of impunity and an absence of sanction for serious and repeated criminality, the lessons from Rwanda and other mass atrocities may once again go unheeded.”

Grisly executions

 

Journalist Max Blumenthal delivered powerful testimony on evidence of war crimes he gathered while in Gaza following a five-day ceasefire in mid-August.

Blumenthal described in vivid detail the grisly executions he documented of civilians, paramedics and fighters carried out by invading Israeli soldiers. He also highlighted several instances of Israeli soldiers summarily executing older men in Gaza after learning they spoke Hebrew, leading to speculation that soldiers were ordered to eliminate anyone capable of understanding their commands.

Blumenthal posted a transcript of his testimony here.

Kidnappings and human shields

Gaza-based journalist Mohammed Omer described to the jury the crimes he witnessed and reported on in Gaza as well as the hardships of daily life under siege (see video of his testimony at the top of this post). He cited summary executions, kidnappings of Palestinian men at gunpoint and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields by invading Israeli soldiers in the now obliterated farming community of Khuzaa.

Omer was the only Palestinian eyewitness that made it out of Gaza to attend the session.

Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and filmmaker Ashraf Mashharawi were scheduled to testify but the Egyptian military regime prevented them from leaving through the Rafah crossing.

Deliberate and systematic

Renowned Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert presented the jury with descriptions and photos of the gruesome injuries he witnessed while working at the overwhelmed al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City at the peak of Israel’s latest bombing campaign, which marked the fourth time since 2006 that Gilbert has operated in Gaza during an Israeli military attack.

Outlining the devastation inflicted on Gaza’s health sector, Gilbert emphasized his admiration for the medical workers who risk their lives repairing the bodily damage caused by Israel’s “deliberate, systematic attack on the Palestinian civilian society.”

 

Taken together, the testimonies presented at the Russell Tribunal (all of which can be viewed here) demonstrate a clear pattern of intentional destruction of Gaza and its people by an increasingly extreme settler-colonial state “primed for genocide,” as Max Blumenthal put it.

Genocide does not happen overnight or in a vacuum. There are warning signs, many of which were raised at the Russell Tribunal.

Israel has been destroying and erasing Palestine for over six decades in an effort to consolidate and maintain a demographically engineered Jewish majority in an area that is historically Palestinian.

As long as countries including the United States continue to unconditionally shower Israel with weapons while shielding its leaders from accountability on the international stage, Israel’s destruction of Palestine will not only continue, it will intensify. So the question becomes, how bad do the atrocities need to get before the world puts a stop to this madness?

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Published on
Wednesday, October 08, 2014
by

Siding With ‘Those Who Defend Mother Earth,’ Chile’s Top Court Halts Mine

New consultation with indigenous community must take place, court finds

by Andrea Germanos, staff writer

Siding with the local indigenous community, Chile’s high court has halted a gold and copper mine.

The ruling issued Tuesday from the nation’s supreme court, which overturns a ruling by a lower court in April, is the latest development in years of legal battles over the El Morro mine.

Canada-based Goldcorp owns 70 percent of the mine. The local Diaguita community has charged that the mine threatens to pollute a river.

For the project to continue, a “fresh consultation, based on an International Labor Organization convention,” must take place with the Diaguita, Reuters reports.

“The Diaguita people are happy that justice is on the side of the humble, of those who defend Mother Earth, our water resources and our indigenous land,” the Associated Pressquotes Diaguita leader Maglene Campillay as saying following the ruling.

A Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal held in Montreal earlier this year found that mining projects are often “undertaken without respect for the right of self-determination of affected peoples and for the right of people to define for themselves their ways of life and their future,” watchdog group MiningWatch Canada noted.

The Tribunal also found that the Canadian state as well as five mining companies, including Goldcorp, were guilty of human rights violations in Latin America for their actions to fuel and protect the mining industry.

==================================================================================

The University of Al-Qaeda?
America’s “Terrorist Academy” in Iraq Produced ISIS Leaders

By Mike Whitney

Isis is a collection of ex Baathists and religious zealots who have been painstakingly gathered to perform the task at hand. Continue

The War on the Islamic State (ISIL) is a Lie
The Anglo-American Empire’s War of Conquest.

By Larry Chin

There is no reasoning with an empire waging a world war of deception. Continue

Biden’s Admission: US Allies Armed ISIS

By Patrick Martin

US Vice President Joseph Biden committed what the US media characterizes as a “gaffe.” In other words, he told an embarrassing truth about US government policy. Continue

After The Bombing, What Then? 

By Robert Fisk

Now we face an exclusive form of nihilism, a cult as merciless as it is morbid. And we bomb and we bomb and we bomb. And then? Continue

Israel Plans to Destroy Surrounding Arab Nations: Analyst

Video

Former US Marine, Ken O’Keefe said that the ultimate plan for Israel is to “destroy all Arab nations” surrounding the entity “by sowing seeds of” sectarianism. Continue

ISIS Document Discloses Plans to Seize Iran’s Nuclear Secrets

By The Times of India

The group urged its members to plan for war with Iran and has ambitions to seize Tehran’s nuclear secrets in a manifesto believed to have been written by, a member of the group’s highly secretive six-man war cabinet. Continue

The Real Status of Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq

By Ron Paul

Will our government ever learn that invasion and occupation are not the solution, but rather the problem? Continue

Can China and Russia Squeeze Washington Out of Eurasia?

By Pepe Escobar

How does full spectrum dominance apply when two actual competitor powers, Russia and China, begin to make their presences felt?  Continue

Sanctions Against Russia
Biden’s Speech Might Backfire on Washington: Paul Craig Roberts

By Liudmila Chernova

“By punishing Russia, the sanctions support Washington’s propaganda that it is Russia that is the aggressor,” Continue

Hubris “Far Beyond” Any Borders

By Moon Of Alabama

How dare these countries to have their borders so very near to U.S. ships and air-planes? Continue

Justice as Farce
The Ordeal of Stanley L. Cohen


By Chris Hedges

“I have always been proud of my relationship with Hamas.” Continue

Why We Allow Big Pharma to Rip Us Off

By Robert B. Reich 

In 2012, Big Pharma shelled out over $36 million, making it the biggest political contributor of all American industries. Continue

How 14 People Made More Money Than the Entire Food Stamp Budget for 50 Million People

By Paul Buchheit:

Who Are These People Taking All the Big Money? 
Continue

Wealth of Richest 400 Americans Surges to $2.29 Trillion

By Andre Damon 

Global social inequality has eclipsed the pre-Great Depression highs during the 1920s, hitting the highest level since the 1870s and 1820s. Continue

Nuland Lands in Kiev as US-backed Regime Tools Up for War

By Finian Cunningham

The long overdue visit to Kiev this week by Victoria Nuland – Washington’s Ukraine hawk – carries the foreboding imprimatur of US-backed war escalation. Continue

Washington Is Destroying The World

By Paul Craig Roberts

The aggressive and mindless stance that Washington’s warmongers have taken toward Russia and China have shattered the accomplishment of Reagan and Gorbachev. Continue

Isis on the Verge of Victory in Kobani as US Strategy Lies in Ruins: 

By Patrick Cockburn

US air strikes turned out to be ineffective in preventing Isis winning an important victory. Continue

Why Obama Must Bomb ISIS

By Steve Breyman 

Americans leaders are always able to find enough money to wage war, but never able to find enough to alleviate misery. Continue

Made In USA
‘US-trained ISIS militants used to reorganize Middle East’

Video

They toppled Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, they set off the wave of Arab Spring color revolutions throughout the Arab world to reorganize the entire structure of the region. 
Continue

All Systems Go
The Elite View of the New Iraq-Syria War

By Chris Floyd 

As our latest temporary manager, Obama, said the other day, it’s how we roll. We exist solely to assert our dominance by violent force anywhere and anyhow we see fit. It is in blood and domination that we live and move and have our being. Continue

Argentina Dares to Call a Spade a Spade
Naming Western Greed Economy As “Economic Terrorism”

By Peter Koenig

A terrorist is whoever does not conform to the western doctrine, whoever insists on national sovereignty – whoever defends their national interests over the voracious interference of Washington and its European puppets. Continue

The United States Empire

By Bruce Fein

We bedeck the presidency with the trappings of a Roman emperor, including a bloated Pretorian Guard and a White House staff approaching 500. Roads are closed and traffic stops whenever the president travels. Continue

ISIS in Washington
America’s Soundtrack of Hysteria 

By Tom Engelhardt

Terror as the preeminent danger to our American world now courses through the societal bloodstream, helped along by regular infusions of fear from the usual panic-meisters. Continue

Postcard from the End of America: Jackson

By Linh Dinh

Older than bad luck, the men in the no-name bar remember only too well the day Medgar Evers was shot in Jackson, and how his fertilizer salesman killer wasn’t convicted until three decades later.Continue

***

October 7, 2014

October 6, 2014

==================================================================================

Libya Takes Goldman Sachs to Court to Recover $1.2 Billion from a Series of Derivatives Trades

Global Research, October 08, 2014

Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman & CEO, Goldman Sachs (AFP)

Libya’s sovereign wealth fund took Goldman Sachs to court in London on Monday to recover $1.2 billion from a series of derivatives trades made during Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

The Libyan Investment Authority claims that its international inexperience and a relationship of trust with the bank was “exploited” by Goldman Sachs, which disputes the allegations.

The Wall Street bank allegedly made $350 million in up-front profits from the trades, although the deals were rendered worthless for the LIA when they matured in 2011.

The LIA is now seeking compensation, with the case expected to start early next year unless a settlement is reached beforehand.

The claim relates to deals made in 2008 under Gaddafi in the few years between the country opening up to Western investments and the dictator’s bloody overthrow in 2011.

The LIA said in court documents seen by AFP that the Wall Street bank used its influence to “drive through a series of complex derivative investments which, whilst extremely profitable for GSI [Goldman Sachs International] were inherently unsuitable for a sovereign wealth fund like the LIA”.

Catherine McDougall, a lawyer from Allen & Overy, who arrived in Tripoli in 2008 to work with the Libyan Investment Authority, also submitted a witness statement which appeared to back up the LIA’s case.

“I asked them [the LIA] where the due diligence was, and they responded ‘due what?’” she said. “They said that they did not ask for any due diligence [adding that] there was no need to since Goldman had advised them to do these trades.”

But Goldman Sachs has denied the allegations, arguing that the LIA representatives knew the risk of the trades, saying in its court filing that the fund included “highly experienced banking professionals”.

“The disputed trades were not difficult to understand,” it said, adding that they had “a clear commercial logic”.

“This claim is a paradigm of buyers’ remorse,” it added, blaming the loss-making trades on the huge disruption on the markets caused by the global financial crisis.

“We continue to believe this case is entirely without merit and intend to contest it vigorously as it moves through the legal process,” Goldman Sachs said in a statement.

Shortly before the financial crisis hit, Libya’s $65 bn sovereign wealth fund was busy building links with different Wall Street banks, including Goldman which was seen to be working hard to win Libyan business.

According to the LIA’s legal team, Goldman first approached the LIA in 2007 and promised to set up a “partnership” with the fund, which would see it train its employees and to provide strategic long-term advice.

Goldman employees also allegedly lavished LIA employees with corporate entertainment, taking them out on wild nights in Morocco and London filled with “heavy drinking and girls”. If the allegations are proven, this behaviour could be deemed a violation of Goldman’s own compliance rules, one witness statement said.

Goldman has countered the claims, insisting that the LIA employees were not duped and understood the deals well enough to make suggestions and amendments to the terms. The hearings continue.

==================================================================================

Oh, deer! Outrage as Zurich zoo puts animals… on menu

Published time: October 08, 2014

Animal lovers are up in arms as a wildlife animal park in Zurich, Switzerland, is killing and serving up its own animals in its on-site restaurant.

“Is this not an April Fool’s joke?” local online news website Der Landbote quoted a visitor to the Langenberg wildlife park in Langnau am Albis, after visitor Suzanne M. saw deer from the park on the restaurant bill.

“I can hardly believe it, this surprised me very much,” she said.

The president of the local animal protection association, Ruth Widmer, said she was “shocked” at the practice and especially worried that so many young animals were killed.

The animal welfare organization “Four Paws” stressed that “many zoos and wildlife parks in Germany and Austria manage their livestock without killing.”

Martin Kilchenmann, a spokesman for the park, confirmed that “guest of the Langenberg and Sihl restaurants can consume wildlife and livestock meat from the park’s animals.”

However, he pointed out that the meat was “very ecological” and shows visitors the animals’ “natural cycle.” It also essential that “the consumer understands the way from animal to meat on the plate,” he said.

In 2012, 49 deer and 10 wild boar were shot dead in the park, Kilchenmann said, Der Landbote reported.
Kilchenmann also claimed that visitors mainly “show goodwill and support our approach.”

About 100 animals are born in the park every year, but due to space restrictions managers say all of them can’t stay there. So, if an animal can’t be transferred elsewhere, they are killed and many are eaten in the restaurant, The Local reported.

On the restaurant’s menu are “deer cutlet” and “braised wild boar roast.”

Neil D’Cruze, from World Animal Protection, told RT that the zoo could see the number of visitors to the park fall dramatically if the practice is not ended.

“It appears that the general public and visitors to the zoo are having the same reaction as World Animal Protection: we are appalled,” he said.

“People go to zoos because they love animals and they want to see them and to know that they are part of an active conservation program, and they are actually helping to protect wild animals in the world,” D’Cruze said. “I’m sure if they are aware that the animals actually ended up on their plates at lunchtime, then they’ll vote with their feet and won’t go to the zoo.”

Other European zoos have been known to serve their animals in restaurants, however. The Bruderhaus Deer Park in the German city of Winterthur serves “two to three red deer, fallow deer, and three to four wild boars” at its restaurant, Beat Kunz, a city forester and director of the Wildlife Park Association, told Der Landbote.

“If the euthanasia of bison or horses is necessary, they will be processed as food for wolves and lynx,” she added.

The practice is also legal, as “it is allowed by general law to kill zoo animals such as deer or pigs and deliver the meat obtained in this way to restaurants,” said Andreas Rüttiman, of the Foundation for the Animal in the Law.

“There is in my opinion no reason why the slaughter of zoo animals should be reprehensible in ethical terms as the slaughter of pigs, cattle or other so-called farm animals,” he added.

=====================================================================================

 News Links, October 7-8, 2014

## Global Ponzi meltdown/House of Cards ##
World Bank Cuts Growth Forecast For East Asian Economies, China
Cut, baby, cut! — RF
The Critical Difference Between Rentier Wealth and Wealth Creation
If you want to understand why our economy is stagnating and wealth inequality is rising, look at the rise of rentier skims and the resulting decline in wealth creation.
Now that’s progress! — RF
What Non-Ticket Fees Mean to Airline Profits

## Fault lines/flashpoints/powder kegs/military/war drums ##

## Global unrest/mob rule/angry people/torches and pitchforks ##
Hong Kong Protests Fizzle Amid Talks Between Demonstration Leaders, Government Officials
## Energy/resources ##
As global oil futures tumble, U.S. cash crude traders ask: What glut?
An unusual disconnect has emerged in the U.S. oil market, with headline futures slumping to levels below $90 a barrel even as traders in the physical crude market report surprisingly robust demand and strong pricing.
Eni Review Raises Questions about ‘Age of Gas’
A review of the global oil and gas industry by Italian oil major Eni has raised a question mark over whether the world is about to enter a  so-called “Age of Gas”, with data showing that growth in oil consumption worldwide far outstripped growth in gas consumption last year.
France to weigh costs of maintaining older plants in nuclear policy
France’s energy minister said on Sunday that the cost of maintaining older reactors would be factored into any decision on the future size of its large and aging nuclear power fleet.
It’s the small farmers who will feed us as industrial agriculture crumbles. — RF
## Lifestyle Solutions ##
‘Green burials’ are on the rise as baby boomers plan for their future, and funerals

## Environment/health ##
First Ebola case contracted outside Africa: Officials
A nurse in Spain has become the first person to contract the potentially deadly Ebola virus outside of West Africa in the latest epidemic, the worst on record, authorities said Monday.

## Intelligence/propaganda/security/internet/cyberwar ##
New York Quickly Nixes Cellphone Tracking Devices in Phone Booths
Vast financial crimes are met with fines. Guilty parties do not go to jail but rather the corporation pays a fine. Billion-dollar crimes are assessed million-dollar fines– a percentage that closely mirrors a Tribute System. The government makes money through enforcement but not prevention. Corporations make illicit fortunes with the confidence that the government will settle for a small slice of the wealth stripmined from the people.
## UK ##
Retirement age to rise by as much as six months per year
The pensions minister, Steve Webb, says Britons must accept dramatically longer working lives to avoid a health care funding crisis
Scotland fires over British energy bow
Scotland’s largest power station is getting “priced out of the market” at a time when power is needed most, the Scottish energy minister said Monday.
National Crime Agency director general: UK snooping powers are too weak
Britons must accept a greater loss of digital freedoms in return for greater safety from serious criminals and terrorists in the internet age, according to the country’s top law enforcement officer.
New Dating App Caters to Rich by Weeding Out the Poor
A new dating app called Luxy matches wealthy singles…to wealthy singles. It describes itself as “Tinder, minus the poor people.”
Repossessions are up 70 percent because people simply can’t make their auto payments. What do you expect when you are pumping out subprime debt trying to churn more sales on marginal buyers?

And finally…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *