Bahrain royal family orders army to turn on the people

As protesters attempted to converge on Pearl Roundabout, a landmark in the capital Manama that has become the principal rallying point of the uprising, soldiers stationed in a nearby skyscraper opened fire.

Since they took to the streets, Bahrain's protesters have come to expect violence and even death at the hands of the kingdom's security forces. At least five people were killed before yesterday's protests.

But this was on a different scale of magnitude.

As they drew near, they were met first with tear gas and then with bursts of live ammunition.

Many fled the first salvoes, scrambling down empty streets as the shots rang out behind them.

As they ran, terror and disbelief flashed across their faces. One man shouted: "They are killing our people! They are killing our people."

Cowering behind a wall, a woman wept, her body shaking in fear.

But many refused to run, initially at least, determined to defy the violence being visited upon them. Some held their hands in the air and shouted "Peaceful! Peaceful!".

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US vetoes United Nations resolution on Jewish settlements

TELEGRAPH

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, was the sole member of the 15-member council to raise her hand in opposition to the draft resolution, which called on Israel to stop settlement construction in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights.

The resolution, she said, by involving the UN, would have "hardened the positions of both sides" and complicated peace efforts.

However, she said: "Our opposition to this resolution should not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity. On the contrary we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity."

Mr Obama has made clear he views the settlements in Palestinian territories as a serious obstacle to peace in the long-running conflict, but faced with an awkward choice he decided against abandoning America's traditional support for Israel at the UN.

US-sponsored peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians broke down last year when the Israelis refused to stop construction work on settlements.

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Gadhafi rallies supporters amid widening protests

Libyan leader Colonel Gadhafi drove through his nation's capital in a motorcade, drawing a cheering crowd as the long-time ruler tried to rally support amid reports of widening anti-government protests. 

Protests have erupted in several cities in Libya this week, especially in the east, and the US-based Human Rights Watch said today that 24 people were killed in unrest on Wednesday and Thursday.

Gadhafi's open-roofed car slowly made its way through the streets of the capital Tripoli late Thursday. In footage broadcast by Libyan TV, the motorcade was thronged by cheering supporters. Some pushed toward the car to try to reach Gadhafi and shake hands. "We do not want any other leader but Gadhafi!" one woman shouted. 

In the eastern city of Benghazi, hundreds of protesters camped out today in the centre of the city. Calls to join funeral processions for those killed in clashes with pro-government forces spread on Facebook and websites. 

One of the protesters, Nizar Jebail, owner of an advertising company, said he spent the night in front of the city's court building. He said he wants not just reforms, "but freedom and equality." 

"There are lawyers, judges, men and some women here, demanding the resignation of Gadhafi. Forty-two years of dictatorship are enough," he told The Associated Press by phone. 

"We don't have tents yet but residents provided us with blankets and food. We learned from Tunisia and Egypt," he said. 

The wave of protests that has swept across the Middle East has brought unprecedented pressure on leaders like Gadhafi who have held virtually unchecked power for decades. 

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60 Lab Studies Now Confirm Cancer Link to a Vaccine You Probably Had as a Child

BY DR. MERCOLA

The video above has circulated for awhile, and some of you may already have seen it. But I think it's important to revisit and remember history when it comes to vaccines, especially in light of current developments.

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TSA Agents Busted for Stealing from Passengers at JFK

Two TSA agents at New York's Kennedy International Airport were busted for stealing cash from checked luggage at the airport, prosecutors told AOL Travel News.

Persad Coumar, 44, and Davon Webb, 30, were arraigned last night on a slew of charges relating to the alleged heists, says Queens County District Attorney Richard Brown. They are both being held on $15,000 bail.

Coumar allegedly X-rayed a piece of baggage bound for Argentina on January 30 and spotted a bag of money, according to a criminal complaint. He called Webb, who was assigned to a baggage belt area for American Airlines in building 56 at JFK and alerted him about the bag with the money, indicating that it probably belonged to a drug dealer, prosecutors said.

Webb searched the bag, found the cash, and marked the bag with tape. He called Coumar and confirmed the cash was inside. The men then met in the baggage area, found the bag wrapped in tape, and "observed what appeared to be approximately $170,000 in the bag,'' the complaint states.

Coumar allegedly grabbed $40,000 in cash, stuffed the money into his clothing and met Webb in an airport bathroom where they divvied up the proceeds of the swiped loot.

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US rep says agents ambushed by Zetas in Mexico

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Members of Mexico's ruthless Zetas gang carried out a highway ambush that killed one U.S. federal agent and wounded another this week, a Texas congressman said Thursday.

Michael McCaul said Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata, 32, was killed by members of the Zeta cartel after a group of 10 to 15 armed men in two vehicles forced Zapata's Chevy Suburban off a highway in San Luis Potosi on Tuesday afternoon. ICE Agent Victor Avila was shot twice in the leg.

McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said the agents identified themselves as U.S. diplomats before being shot.

"This was a complete ambush," he said, adding that investigators recovered least 90 bullet casings from the scene.

The Texas Republican said Zapata and Avila identified themselves as U.S. diplomats "hoping they (the Zetas) would honor the long-standing tradition that they don't (target) U.S. law enforcement."

"This is a complete game changer," he said. "They are changing the rules."

He said while the motive for the attack remains unclear, one thing is certain: "There's no case of mistaken identity."

Authorities have said the agents were likely in the wrong place at the wrong time and that their SUV is of a kind coveted by drug cartels in the area.

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Obama budget plan shows interest owed on national debt quadrupling in next decade

WASHINGTON POST

Interest payments on the national debt will quadruple in the next decade and every man, woman and child in the United States will be paying more than $2,500 a year to cover for the nation's past profligacy, according to figures in President Obama's new budget plan.

Starting in 2014, net interest payments will surpass the amount spent on education, transportation, energy and all other discretionary programs outside defense. In 2018, they will outstrip Medicare spending. Only the amounts spent on defense and Social Security would remain bigger under the president's plan.

The soaring bill for interest payments is one of the biggest obstacles to balancing the federal budget, pushing the White House and Congress to come up with cuts deeper than previously imagined. Unlike with discretionary spending or even entitlement programs, the line item for interest payments cannot be altered except through other budget cuts.

The phenomenon is a bit like running up the down escalator. Without interest payments, the president's plan would balance the budget by 2017. But net interest payments that year are expected to reach $627 billion, up from $207 billion in the current fiscal year.

"This goes to the heart of why we have to address our fiscal problems," said Mark Zandi, co-founder and chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "If we don't, we're going to get swamped by our interest payments."

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Curveball doubts were shared with CIA, says ex-German foreign minister

Germany's former foreign minister Joschka Fischer has accused the former head of the CIA George Tenet of making implausible claims about the handling of the Curveball case by the US.

On Wednesday Tenet, the director of central intelligence between 1997 and 2004, issued a statement on his website saying he discovered "too damn late" that Curveball – the Iraqi defector who became a key source for the CIA and the German secret service (BND) – might be a fabricator.

Reprinting an extract from his autobiography, Tenet claimed he only found out in 2005, two years after the Iraq invasion, that the BND had doubts about Curveball's claims to have witnessed first-hand Saddam Hussein's bio-weapons programme.

Asked by the Guardian whether Tenet's claims were plausible, Fischer said: "No. I don't think so."

Fischer said the BND realised some time before the war that Curveball was not a watertight source, and passed on his testimony to the CIA with warnings attached.

"Our position was always: [Curveball] might be right, but he might not be right. He could be a liar but he could be telling the truth," said Fischer at a press conference in Berlin to promote his memoir about the Iraq war.

Fischer said Germany was put in a "very difficult position" when the CIA asked whether they could "have" Curveball, or at least use his evidence to justify a war in Iraq. Germany's official position was that it would not join the coalition of the willing. Fischer himself famously told Donald Rumsfeld in February 2003 that he was "not convinced" about the case for war.

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Bahrain crushes protest camp, locks down capital

MANAMA, Bahrain – Troops and tanks locked down the capital of this tiny Gulf kingdom after riot police swinging clubs and firing tear gas smashed into demonstrators, many of them sleeping, in a pre-dawn assault Thursday that uprooted their protest camp demanding political change. Medical officials said four people were killed.

Hours after the attack on Manama's main Pearl Square, the military announced a ban on gatherings, saying on state TV that it had "key parts" of the capital under its control.

After several days of holding back, the island nation's Sunni rulers unleashed a heavy crackdown, trying to stamp out the first anti-government upheaval to reach the Arab states of the Gulf since the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. In the surprise assault, police tore down protesters' tents, beating men and women inside and blasting some with shotgun sprays of birdshot.

It was a sign of how deeply the Sunni monarchy — and other Arab regimes in the Gulf — fear the repercussions of a prolonged wave of protests, led by members of the country's Shiite majority but also joined by growing numbers of discontented Sunnis.

Tiny Bahrain is a pillar of Washington's military framework in the region. It hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which is a critical counterbalance to Iran. Bahrain's rulers and their Arab allies depict any sign of unrest among their Shiite populations as a move by neighboring Shiite-majority Iran to expand its clout in the region.

But the assault may only further enrage protesters, who before the attack had called for large rallies Friday. In the wake of the bloodshed, angry demonstrators chanted "the regime must go" and burned pictures of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa outside the emergency ward at Salmaniyah hospital, the main state medical facility.

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McGovern Bloodied and Arrested at Clinton Speech

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her speech at George Washington University yesterday condemning governments that arrest protestors and do not allow free expression, 71-year-old Ray McGovern was grabbed from the audience in plain view of her by police and an unidentified official in plain clothes, brutalized and left bleeding in jail. She never paused speaking.

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Support Bradley Manning - Sign the petition to Senator Cardin

I am writing you to urge you to sign the petition below to support PFC Bradley Manning, accused of leaking documents to WikiLeaks concerning the U.S wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as about U.S. foreign policy.

The petition, developed by colleagues who share my concern for Manning's conditions of confinement, is to Senator Ben Cardin who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  It seeks to have his prolonged pre-trial detention, in isolation, investigated.  This cruel and unusual pre-trial punishment, Manning has not been convicted of any crime, needs to stop.

For more on Bradley Manning's case and why I view him as a patriot and not a traitor, see this article, Bradley Manning and the Rule of Law.  In short, Manning is not accused of giving or selling documents to a foreign enemy, he is accused of leaking them to the media so that Americans could be told the truth about U.S. foreign policy and to start a debate to ensure our country acts within the law and not as a rogue superpower.

You can sign the petition by clicking here.

Thank you,

Kevin Zeese
Executive Director
Voters For Peace

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Colin Powell demands answers over 'Curveball'

Powell's landmark speech to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, cited intelligence about Iraq leader Saddam Hussein's bioweapons programme gained from a defector, code-named Curveball.

But he has now admitted that he lied to topple the dictator, in an interview with the Guardian.

"It has been known for several years that the source called Curveball was totally unreliable," Mr Powell said.

"The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) as to why this wasn't known before the false information was put into the (report) sent to Congress, the president's state of the union address and my 5 February presentation to the UN."

The defector, real name Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, admitted for the first time this week that he lied to the BND, Germany's secret service, by claiming in 2000 that Iraq had mobile bioweapons trucks and had built clandestine factories.

During Mr Powell's speech, Mr Janabi was described as "an Iraqi chemical engineer" who "supervised one of these facilities."

"He actually was present during biological agent production runs and was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998," Mr Powell told the UN.

Mr Janabi was exposed as an unreliable source when the BND visited Bassil Latif, his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, who said there were no trucks or factories.

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Senate Passes Short Term Extension Of Troublesome Patriot Act Provisions

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted this evening to extend troublesome Patriot Act provisions through May 27, 2011. The provisions are set to expire at the end of this month. The House passed a ten-month extension of the provisions earlier this week and is expected to vote on the Senate’s shorter extension later this week.

 

The provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire are the John Doe roving wiretap provision, which allows law enforcement to conduct surveillance without identifying the person or location to be wiretapped; Section 215, or the “library records” provision, which allows the government to gain access to “any tangible thing” during investigations; and the “lone wolf” provision, which permits surveillance of non-U.S. persons who are not affiliated with a terrorist group. All three provisions lack proper and fundamental privacy safeguards.

 

The following can be attributed to Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office:

 

“Every day that Congress continues to push back the February expiration deadline, the Patriot Act continues to erode one of Americans’ most basic rights – the freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into their privacy. If there has to be an extension of this law, we urge Congress to use the time well to finally rein in the pernicious impact of the intrusive provisions at stake.”

Curveball's admission 'raises questions about CIA'

A senior aide to Colin Powell at the time of his pivotal speech to the United Nations said on Tuesday that Curveball's admission raised questions about the CIA's role.

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to the then US secretary of state Powell in the build-up to the invasion, said the lies of Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, also known by the codename Curveball, raised questions about how the CIA had briefed Powell ahead of his crucial speech to the UN security council presenting the case for war.

In particular, why did the CIA's then director George Tenet and his deputy John McLaughlin believe the claim by Curveball, "and convey that to Powell even though the CIA's own European chief Tyler Drumheller had already raised serious doubts.

"And why did Tenet and McLaughlin portray the presence of mobile biological labs in Iraq to the secretary of state with a degree of conviction bordering on passionate, soul-felt certainty?"

Richard Perle, a prominent neocon who chaired the Pentagon's advisory board under the Bush administration at the time of the invasion, said the Janabi admission pointed to a clear failure in intelligence vetting. "It's the job of intelligence agencies to distinguish between defectors who claim to have something to say and defectors who are lying and they obviously didn't do their job. The Germans didn't, and we didn't."

Perle said that Janabi wrote to him directly shortly before the invasion, setting out his claims about weapons of mass destruction and bemoaning that he wasn't being taken seriously by the US.

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Fox News Caught In Shocking Dirty Tricks Stunt Against Ron Paul

In a shocking act of mass public deception, Fox News attempted to skew Ron Paul’s 2011 CPAC straw poll win by representing it with footage from the previous year’s CPAC event, at which Mitt Romney supporters had loudly booed the result, another example of the continuing dirty tricks campaign being waged against Paul by the establishment media.

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9/11: WAC Confronts Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney (CPAC 2011)

The smirk on Cheney's face, after he got in the elevator, was disgusting! They destroyed the USA with their Nazi-like attack and all he could do was smile like the Cheshire cat!? I surmise that Cheney's smirk is really a defense mechanism masking frustration. Cheney initially seemed stunned and shocked by Luke's question! That was priceless!

Critics: Goldman should give back $2.9 billion to taxpayers

WASHINGTON — Irked that Goldman Sachs appears to have reaped a $2.9 billion taxpayer-aided windfall on an investment of a mere $20 million, some experts and watchdogs say the Wall Street giant should return the money to the U.S. Treasury.

"It's a very simple call to make," said Sylvain Raynes, a frequent Goldman critic who's an expert in the kinds of deals in which the investment bank landed an apparent jackpot. "They should never have been given this money, and they should give it back."

The assessment by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission also exposed a potentially huge regulatory omission in the rescue of the insurance giant American International Group, which was the conduit for more than $90 billion in tax dollars to U.S. and European banks.

It's now clear that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which quarterbacked the hurried, $182 billion bailout of AIG to avoid a meltdown of global financial markets, did little to guard against windfalls for major banks and investment banks.

The financial crisis panel's final report late last month found that Goldman's $2.9 billion payout came on "proprietary" trades — investments in which the firm used its own money rather than the more typical deals completed on behalf of clients.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/15/108802/critics-goldman-should-give-back.html#ixzz1E5fmWXN9

Judge rejects suit for more info on 'torture memos' probe

A federal judge has rejected a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking additional details about a Justice Department investigation into legal opinions prepared in connection with the enhanced the aggressive interrogation program authorized under former President George W. Bush.

In a ruling Monday, Judge Rosemary Collyer said the Justice Department was not obligated to release any additional details of the Office of Professional Responsibility report beyond those made public last February after the report was submitted to Congress. Her decision, viewable here, came in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Collyer specifically upheld the right of the Obama administration to use the presidential communications privilege, a form of executive privilege, to withhold details about contacts between the Bush White House and other government officials. She said the privilege was not overcome by the ACLU's arguments of compelling need.

"While the Court recognizes the public’s interest, this interest does not overcome the need for frank discussions on serious issues that confront a President. Without a free and candid dialectic, the President cannot be properly armed with the tools required to make difficult decisions on consequential issues," she wrote.

Collyer also noted that all information withheld under executive privilege was also considered classified and therefore could be withheld on that basis as well.

Justice Department investigators concluded that the legal advice providing by former DOJ lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee amounted to professional misconduct, but a senior career official overrode that decision, downgrading the conclusion to one of poor judgment.

Poll: 51 percent of GOP primary voters think Obama born abroad

In a shocking finding, more than half of GOP primary voters believe President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, according to a new poll.

Fifty-one percent of 400 Republican primary voters surveyed nationwide by Public Policy Polling said they ascribe to the controversial birther conspiracy theory — despite the fact that the state of Hawaii has posted Obama’s certificate of live birth.

Only 28 percent said they think the president was born in the United States — a constitutional requirement to be president. Twenty-one percent said they were “not sure.”

“Any thought that the birther theory has been put to rest can be thrown out the window,” said Dean Debnam, the president of the Democratic-leanign polling firm. “That view is still widely held in Republican circles.”

Even a number of Republicans officials have said they believe Obama was born in the US and have called for an end to the debate

Among those who do not believe Obama was born in the United States, Mike Huckabee is their first choice for president, followed by Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and then Mitt Romney.

Those who do think the president is a citizen favor Romney over the rest of the field. Huckabee, Palin and Ron Paul trail Romney among believers in Obama’s birth in Hawaii.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49554.html#ixzz1E5dheBEQ

Anthrax report casts doubt on scientific evidence in FBI case against Bruce Ivins

Editor's Note: We know that the anthrax attacks were done by the secret government in order to force the passage of the Patriot Act. The anthrax attacks were concurrent with the debate of Bush's Patriot Act by Congress and the media. The Senators who received anthrax letters were trying to amend the Patriot Act to protect civil liberties and the innocent. Two Senate democratic leaders received anthrax letters mailed the same day that Senator Feingold blocked an attempt to rush the bill through without discussion or amendments. And on that very same day, the FBI told the Iowa state lab to destroy the original batch of the Ames strain, making tracing the anthrax type more difficult. And for the record, the 911 commission was not independent! An anthrax investigation would be another whitewash!

WASHINGTON POST

Agents thought they had solved the puzzle last year when they pinned the 2001 attacks on a deceased Fort Detrick scientist. But yet another new wrinkle emerged Tuesday, with a panel of prominent scientists casting doubt on key FBI scientific evidence.

A report from the National Research Council questioned the strength of genetic testing that the government said had conclusively linked the anthrax-infested letters that killed five people to a flask of lethal bacteria belonging to Bruce E. Ivins. The Justice Department closed the probe last year after concluding that Ivins, an Army researcher who killed himself in 2008 as investigators closed in on him, had single-handedly prepared and mailed the anthrax spores, terrorizing the nation just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It was another turn in a tumultous investigation that initially focused on the wrong man, then fingered Ivins even as some of his fellow scientists expressed doubts about his guilt. Those doubts were reignited Tuesday, with three members of Congress calling for a review of the FBI's investigation along the lines of that by the independent commission that probed Sept. 11.

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