Bank of America sees US double-dip danger from `fiscal chicken'

Ethan Harris, the bank's chief North American economist, said early data for August suggest that "an already weak recovery is getting weaker" with a rising risk of a relapse into recession, yet the two parties seemed determined to outbid each other with austerity measures.

First US soldier killed in Iraq since withdrawal of combat troops

An American soldier was killed by a rocket strike near Basra today, in the first US fatality since the last combat troops left Iraq.

The announcement came amid growing concern that the withdrawal of combat forces will allow security in Iraq to further deteriorate. The past three months have seen a spate of bombings and shootings in the centre and north of the country .

Details of the incident were not released, but Basra airport base, which is still home to about 4,000 US forces, had experienced increased numbers of rocket attacks in recent weeks as the deadline drew near for the withdrawal of combat troops. Two soldiers suffered minor wounds in a rocket strike early last week, and rockets have hit the Green Zone in Baghdad almost daily for the past month.

Around 5,000 US troops will stay in the country until next year, focusing mainly on training Iraqi security forces, but the top US military commander in Iraq said today they could return to combat operations if needed.

General Raymond Odierno told CNN the remaining troops could move back to combat if there was "a complete failure of the security forces", or if political divisions split the Iraqi security forces. "But we don't see that happening," Odierno said.

The last US combat brigade in Iraq crossed the border into Kuwait on Thursday, fulfilling President Obama's pledge to end combat operations by the end of this month.

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Priest's link to IRA bombings covered up

A Catholic priest directed devastating IRA car bomb attacks in the Northern Irish village of Claudy in 1972 and his role was covered up by senior police officers, government ministers and the Catholic hierarchy, an official investigation has revealed.

The government said today it was "profoundly sorry" about the cover-up, while Northern Ireland's Catholic church said it accepted the findings, calling them "shocking".

Nine people were killed and more than 30 were injured when three vehicles exploded on the main street without warning on 31 July. It was one of the worst atrocities of the bloodiest year of the Troubles.

Three of the dead caught up in the mid-morning blast were children. No one was ever charged with the killings, and the IRA at the time denied responsibility.

The long-awaited report by the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland, published today, confirms suspicions that Father James Chesney, a priest in the nearby village of Bellaghy, was directly involved in the IRA operation, and suggests his involvement was even greater than previously assumed.

Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) detectives who investigated the attack, the report says, concluded "that the priest was the IRA's director of operations in South Derry and was alleged to have been directly involved in the bombings and other terrorist incidents".

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Government funding for stem cell research blocked by US court

US government funding for research using embryonic stem cells has been thrown into disarray after a judge ruled that it violates laws prohibiting the destruction of human embryos.

The effect of the temporary injunction, by district court judge Royce Lamberth, bars federal funding for studies on stem cells derived from human embryos that are later discarded, which had been allowed by President Obama's executive order last year.

The judge ruled that the research violated the Dickey-Wicker amendment first passed by Congress in 1995, which outlawed the use of taxpayer funds to carry out any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed".

The New York Times reported that the ruling came as a shock to scientists at the National Institutes of Health and at medical research universities across the US: "Scientists scrambled Monday evening to assess the ruling's immediate impact on their work."

The injunction appears to set the scientific clock back to President Bush's executive order restricting federally-funded research to stem cells already in existence by August 2001. But some scientists fear that the scope of the latest ruling may even prohibit research on that basis, since the limited lines of stem cells allowed under the Bush regulations were also derived from human embryos.

The Bush-era policy was overturned by President Obama's executive order in 2009, allowing government funding for research on stem cells produced by privately-funded labs and derived from embryos that would otherwise have been disposed of after IVF treatment.

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N. Korean military exposed in document leak

WTOP

WASHINGTON - A confidential military manual has leaked out of North Korea for the first time, and it's exposing the inner-workings of one of the world's most dangerous rogue regimes.

According to South Korean media outlet Chosun Ilbo, the manual contains instructions on how to make and apply stealth paint that absorbs radar waves so that North Korean military assets can avoid detection during operations.

The 80-page handbook, printed in 2005, was recently smuggled out of the country and acquired by a religious organization.

It instructs infantry to move at one kilometer per hour or slower, and keep a distance of five meters between each other while moving in order to deceive South Korean ground-based radar in frontline areas.

The manual also says North Korea has created fake entrances that are 500 to 1,000 feet away from the actual entrances of its artillery positions.

The North has apparently set up various kinds of fake facilities, including command posts, foxholes, runways and fighter jet and naval bases.

Military ray gun to be tested on inmates

A military grade, high-tech ray gun that fires an invisible heat beam for unbearable pain will be tested on inmates in the sheriff's detention facility in Castaic, California officials said Friday. All military weapons must be tested on humans. Major loopholes exists that allow the U.S. government to run experiments on individual and populated geographical areas.

"The 'Assault Intervention System' (AIS) developed by the Raytheon Co., could give the Sheriff's Department 'another tool' to quell disturbances at a 65-inmate dormitory at the Pitchess Detention Center's North County Correctional Facility, said Cmdr. Bob Osborne, head of the technology exploration branch of the sheriff's Department of Homeland Security Division," reports Blacklisted News..

Osborne said, "We're looking to see if we can exploit this science for the benefit of the Corrections Department."

"Sheriff's Deputy David Judge manned the controls and fired the beam, using a joystick and a monitor, not unlike a video game, to aim the ray gun's camera."

On Mar 2, 2008,  60 Minutes on CBS News repored on the ray gun in its program, The Pentagon's Ray Gun reported by David Martin.

The new technology is under the misnomer, non-lethal weapons. As William Thomas revealed in 2005, the so-called non-lethal weaponry has also been tested and used on Iraqi civilians.

A US army veteran told the Examiner that the new weaponry burns holes straight through Iraqis, killing them, remotely, without bloodshed. Civilians on a bus were killed that way.

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A Retired FBI Agent Tells Ohio Reporter Lee Harvey Oswald Did Not Kill JFK

Fox 8

Ron Paul Backs "Ground Zero Mosque," Splitting with Son Rand

Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul is breaking with many of his fellow Republicans - among them his son Rand - to support the creation of the planned Islamic cultural center near the former site of the World Trade Center that has come to be known as the "ground zero mosque." 

In a statement decrying "demagogy" around the issue, the former Republican presidential candidate wrote late last week that "the debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque."

"Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be 'sensitive' requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from 'ground zero,'" Paul continues. 

He goes on to argue that "the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia...never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars." 

Adds Paul: "It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don't want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators." 

"This is all about hate and Islamaphobia," he argues. 

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The world is running out of helium: Nobel prize winner

Professor of physics, Robert Richardson from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, won the 1996 Nobel prize for his work on superfluidity in helium, and has issued a warning the supplies of helium are being used at an unprecedented rate and could be depleted within a generation.

Liquid helium is vital for its use in cooling the superconducting magnets in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners. There is no substitute because no other substance has a lower boiling point. Helium is also vital in the manufacture of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and fiber optics.

In MRI scanners the helium is recycled, but often the gas is wasted since it is thought of as a cheap gas, and as such is often used to fill party balloons and as a party trick distorting people's voices when it is inhaled.

Professor Richardson warned the gas is not cheap because the supply is inexhaustible, but because of the Helium Privatisation Act passed in 1996 by the US Congress. The Act required the helium stores held underground near Amarillo in Texas to be sold off at a fixed rate by 2015 regardless of the market value, to pay off the original cost of the reserve. The Amarillo storage facility holds around half the Earth's stocks of helium: around a billion cubic meters of the gas. The US currently supplies around 80 percent of the world's helium supplies.

Richardson said it has taken 4.7 billion years for the Earth to accumulate our helium reserves, which we will have exhausted within about a hundred years of the US's National Helium Reserve having been established in 1925. The reserve is a collection of disused underground mines, pipes and vats extending over 300 km from north of Amarillo into Kansas. He warned that when helium is released to the atmosphere, in helium balloons for example, it is lost forever.

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Researchers Zero in on Protein that Destroys HIV

The finding could lead to new TRIM5a-based treatments that would knock out HIV in humans, said senior researcher Edward M. Campbell, PhD, of Loyola University Health System.

Campbell and colleagues report their findings in an article featured on the cover of the Sept. 15, 2010 issue of the journal Virology, now available online.

In 2004, other researchers reported that TRIM5a protects rhesus monkeys from HIV. The TRIM5a protein first latches on to a HIV virus, then other TRIM5a proteins gang up and destroy the virus.

Humans also have TRIM5a, but while the human version of TRIM5a protects against some viruses, it does not protect against HIV.

Researchers hope to turn TRIM5a into an effective therapeutic agent. But first they need to identify the components in TRIM5a that enable the protein to destroy viruses. “Scientists have been trying to develop antiviral therapies for only about 75 years," Campbell said. "Evolution has been playing this game for millions of years, and it has identified a point of intervention that we still know very little about."

TRIM5a consists of nearly 500 amino acid subunits. Loyola researchers have identified six 6 individual amino acids, located in a previously little-studied region of the TRIM5a protein, that are critical in the ability of the protein to inhibit viral infection. When these amino acids were altered in human cells, TRIM5a lost its ability to block HIV-1 infection. (The research was done on cell cultures; no rhesus monkeys were used in the study.)

By continuing to narrow their search, researchers hope to identify an amino acid, or combination of amino acids, that enable TRIM5a to destroy HIV.

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Palestinian kids allegedly tortured by Israeli military

Australian Herald

Israeli human rights organizations have joined with Defense for Children International to complain of routine torture of Palestinian children in Israeli prisons.

DCI have filed two official complaints over the alleged treatment of a 15-year old boy earlier this year. The boy from the village of Beit Ummar, near Hebron, was arrested at the end of May on a charge of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. He denied the charges.

After five days of what the human rights organizations described as “cruelty and torture,” the boy then confessed. He appeared in court and was remanded despite his lawyer telling the court the boy had been sexually abused and tortured.

The judge of the military court at the time, Lt. Col. Avshalom Meushar, said "The substance of the confession made by the suspect, and the detailed nature of his answers, constitute evidence that the answers he gave were not provided under pressure or torture, but of his own free will.” Lt. Col. Meushar added there was no evidence to support the boy’s claim of abuse.

The human rights organizations investigating the case said the boy had told them how he was abused, laughed at by other soldiers watching, handcuffed in a humiliating position, and was stripped naked and had an electric cable attached to his genitals. He says he was told he would be given an electric shock unless he confessed that he was throwing stones at the time of his arrest.

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PRIVACY: New Logan Searches Blasted By ACLU

Boston Herald

Logan airport security just got more up close and personal as federal screeners launched a more aggressive palms-first, slide-down body search technique that has renewed the debate over privacy vs. safety.

The new procedure - already being questioned by the ACLU - replaces the Transportation Security Administration’s former back-of-the-hand patdown.

Boston is one of only two cities in which the new touchy-feely frisking is being implemented as a test before a planned national rollout. The other is Las Vegas.

“We’re all for good effective security measures,” American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts spokesman Christopher Ott said. “But, in general, we’re concerned about this seemingly constant erosion of privacy, and we wonder whether or not it’s really going to be effective.

“Accepting these kinds of searches may keep people safer in some situations, but not in every situation, and we’re encouraging people to stop and think about what is the right balance between privacy and security,” Ott said.

A TSA spokeswoman yesterday confirmed the switch to what the agency calls an “enhanced patdown.”

“TSA is in the process of implementing an enhanced patdown at security checkpoints as one of our many layers of security,” said Ann Davis, TSA spokeswoman for the Northeast region. “Patdowns are designed to address potentially dangerous items, like improvised explosive devices and their components, concealed on the body."

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Prosecutors withdraw warrant for WikiLeaks founder Assange

Swedish prosecutors have withdrawn an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying the rape suspicions against him are unfounded.

In a brief statement Saturday, chief prosecutor Eva Finne says: "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape."

Social Security Cuts Weighed by Panel

WSJ

A White House-created commission is considering proposals to raise the retirement age and take other steps to shore up the finances of Social Security, prompting key players to prepare for a major battle over the program's future.

The panel is looking for a mix of ideas that could win support from both parties, including concessions from liberals who traditionally oppose benefit cuts and from Republicans who generally oppose higher taxes, according to one member of the commission and several people familiar with its deliberations.

In addition to raising the retirement age, which is now set to reach age 67 in 2027, specific cuts under consideration include lowering benefits for wealthier retires and trimming annual cost-of-living increases, perhaps only for wealthier retirees, people familiar with the talks said.

On the tax side, the leading idea is to increase the share of earned income that is subject to Social Security taxes, officials said. Under current law, income beyond $106,000 is exempt. Another idea is to increase the tax rate itself, said a Democrat on the commission.

Even before the commission settles on a plan, many liberals are vowing to block any cut in retirement benefits. But the White House and the powerful senior group AARP appear open to a deal.

Republicans on the commission have mostly held their fire. One of them, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) said Thursday he opposes tax increases but wouldn't rule anything out at this stage in the discussions. Otherwise, he said, "the thing blows up before it has a chance to work."

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Prosecutors Eye WikiLeaks Charges

Wall Street Journal

Pentagon lawyers believe that online whistleblower group WikiLeaks acted illegally in disclosing thousands of classified Afghanistan war reports and other material, and federal prosecutors are exploring possible criminal charges, officials familiar with the matter said.

A joint investigation by the Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is still in its early stages and it is unclear what course the Department of Justice will decide to take, according to a U.S. law-enforcement official.

He said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had not been identified by the FBI as a target of the probe.

WikiLeaks in late July posted on its website some 76,000 classified military documents, the largest such disclosure since the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. It has promised to publish another 15,000 documents from the cache it obtained. The disclosure infuriated the Pentagon, which warned that the release could endanger allies in Afghanistan and undercut the war effort.

Several officials said the Defense and Justice departments were now exploring legal options for prosecuting Mr. Assange and others involved on grounds they encouraged the theft of government property.

Bringing a case against WikiLeaks would be controversial and complicated, and would expose the Obama administration to criticism for pursuing not just government leakers, but organizations that disseminate their information.

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Is Assange the target of a U.S. smear campaign?

CNN

Reports of the arrest in absentia Saturday of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange brought instant suspicion of a U.S. government-led smear campaign.

Assange, a citizen of Australia, has been charged in Sweden with rape and molestation, or harassment, the Swedish tabloid Expressen reported and a spokeswoman for the Swedish prosecutor's office confirmed to CNN.

Read a rough Google translation of the Expressen report.

WikiLeaks recently published tens of thousands of U.S. documents related to the war in Afghanistan and has said it is preparing to publish another batch of 15,000 documents soon.

"We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks.' Now we have the first one," WikiLeaks' Twitter page said Saturday. 

Blogger Alexander Higgins said the U.S. government "has truly grown into an Orwellian Big Brother regime."

According to the London-based tech blog Thinq, Assange "has become the focus of a smear campaign in what appears to be [an] effort to pile pressure on the whistle-blower ahead of the expected publication of thousands more classified US military documents. The documents are likely to lift the lid on more atrocities committed by forces in Afghanistan in the polluted name of freedom."

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Dirty Tricks: Sweden seeks Wikileaks founder arrest in rape case

AP

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is suspected of rape in Sweden, where authorities have issued a warrant for his arrest, officials said Saturday.

The 39-year-old Australian denied the allegations on WikiLeaks' Twitter page, saying they "are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing."

Assange, who has sought Swedish legal protection for the whistle-blower website, is suspected of molestation and rape in two separate cases, said Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Prosecution Authority.

"He should get in contact with police so that he can be confronted with the suspicions," Rosander told The Associated Press.

She said a prosecutor in Stockholm issued the arrest warrant on Friday. The move means police are ordered to seek his arrest as part of an investigation but doesn't necessarily mean that criminal charges will be filed.

"The next step is that we interrogate him," Rosander said. "Then we'll see what happens."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/08/21/international/i030704D57.DTL#ixzz0xFKlv3xY

Rense and Celente: 'Prepare For The Worst'

Secretly forced brain implants: Explosive court case

Among greatest human rights violations imaginable

Few American doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists will break rank or brave the new world of high-tech electronic abuse some of their patients report but evidence mounts that increasing numbers of innocent citizens targeted for U.S. state-sponsored terror are being secretly brain implanted with U.S. RFID chips without their consent for no-touch torture and mind control plus experimentation. One man evidenced this in court; won his case; and now prepares for a continuationin federal court, due to be equally explosive.

RFID is abbreviation for Radio-frequency Identification, a misnomer due to the device functions consisting of far more than ID. It is used for remote technological harassment, torture and even assassination.

James Walbert, resident of Wichita, Kansas, proved his experience as a Targeted Individual under surveillance includes forcefully implanted RFID chips, including in his brain, and subsequent remote electronic abuse. Walbert told Sedgwick County, Kansas court panel that Jeremiah Redford threatened him with “jolts of radiation.”

On November 25, 2008, the court ordered the associated targeted stalking of Walbert to halt. Walbert then began suffering electric shock sensations and hearing electronically generated tones, including popping and ringing sounds.

On December 30th, Court decided in Walbert’s favor, issuing a first-of-its-kind order of protection, banning Redford from using “electronic means” to injure Walbert. That Order has been violated - including by police Walbert told the Examiner.

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Police State 4: The Rise of FEMA