Italian PM May be Drawn Into CIA Abduction Case!

An Italian judge could decide on Wednesday to make Silvio Berlusconi the first head of a government to testify in criminal proceedings over secret CIA transfers of terrorism suspects.

Judge Oscar Magi is expected to announce his decision on whether to call Berlusconi and other politicians when he resumes a trial at 4 a.m. EDT against 26 Americans and seven Italians accused of carrying out a transfer or "rendition" in 2003.

Prosecutors say a CIA-led team kidnapped a Muslim cleric off the streets of Milan and secretly flew him to Egypt.

There, the terrorism suspect, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, says he was tortured under questioning and held for years without charge before being released in 2007.

"I was tortured for 14 and a half months ... I suffer now from heart and kidney problems. I have psychological problems. My family is scattered," Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, told Reuters at his apartment in the Egyptian city of Alexandria.

Berlusconi, who began his third term as premier last week, was prime minister when Nasr disappeared and has defended the Italian spy agency against accusations of wrongdoing.

A strong ally of U.S. President George W. Bush, Berlusconi denied knowledge of any kidnapping plan. He has also opposed the trial, arguing it could hurt Italy's reputation in the global intelligence community.

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Federal Contract Abuse in Iraq Results in High Cost to U.S. Taxpayers

Companies working on Iraq reconstruction have been accused of padding their profits through an insurance scam, leading to a criminal probe and hurried changes in the way many contracts are handled by the U.S. Army, according to internal military documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The investigation of two companies located in Tikrit — Sakar al-Fahal and al-Jubori — led the Army Corps of Engineers to scour its records for evidence of fraud by other contractors hired with billions of U.S. dollars to help rebuild Iraqi infrastructure devastated by the war, the documents reveal.

Whether Sakar al-Fahal and al-Jubori were paid for insurance they never obtained is a matter now being examined by the Army Criminal Investigation Command. The documents don't state the total amounts in question.

Congress is looking into the problem, too. Concerned that the U.S. is footing the bill for phony or overstated insurance payments, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to hold a hearing Thursday with witnesses from the Corps of Engineers, the Pentagon and the State Department.

The session will examine allegations of abuse and waste in the procurement of insurance for federal contracts, says committee chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

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Emails From U.S. Secret Service Ridicule Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson has demanded to see all US Secret Service documents about him dating back to the 1980s after a court heard how the black civil rights leader had been ridiculed in allegedly racist emails.

According to an internal Secret Service email disclosed in a federal court in Washington, supervisors with the service - which protects senior politicians - shared crude sexual jokes and racially derogatory banter about black people.

In a message from March 2003, Mr Jackson was described as the “Righteous Reverend”. The email, which was about a missile hitting a plane in which Mr Jackson and his wife were travelling, concluded that it “certainly would’t be a great loss and it probably wouldn’t be an accident either”.

The emails have been disclosed as part of a protracted discrimination lawsuit brought by 10 black Secret Service agents.

Last month, the court heard how a noose was found in a room used by a black Secret Service instructor at the organisation’s training centre in Maryland.

Mr Jackson, a Congressman, was protected by the service during his two campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 1980s.

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MoD Launches Inquiry into Iraqi's Death in Army Custody

The Ministry of Defence has announced a public inquiry into one of the most notorious episodes involving British soldiers in Iraq: the death of Baha Mousa, a hotel receptionist, and the abuse of other civilians in Basra in September 2003.

The unexpected move was announced in a written statement to the Commons this afternoon by Bob Ainsworth, the armed forces minister.

After months of bitter argument in the courts and a court martial that failed to get close to the full story of what happened, the government has decided the issue will not go away and was persuaded that an open inquiry was the best answer.

"Someone died, we must find out what happened and in what circumstances," a well-placed official told the Guardian.

Mousa, 26, died while being held for a weekend in a British detention centre. He had 93 identifiable injuries on his body and had suffered asphyxiation. Eight other Iraqis were inhumanely treated.

Six soldiers of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, including Colonel Jorge Mendonca, the commanding officer, were acquitted of negligence and abuse. A corporal admitted inhumane treatment. No one was convicted of killing Mousa.

Des Browne, the defence secretary, admitted in March to "substantive breaches" of the European convention on human rights, specifically articles two and three of the convention, which guarantee the right to life and prohibit torture.

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Feds to Collect Millions of DNA Profiles Yearly, Stay Out if You Can!

The feds will soon be collecting about one million DNA samples a year under a new program that lets federal agents collect cheek swabs from citizens merely arrested for any federal crime or from any non-citizen detained by federal agents -- including visitors to the country who have visas.

The intent is build a massive database of DNA samples (.pdf) that police can use to catch rapists and murderers, but even the innocent should fear being in the database, due to the vagaries of how cold case DNA searches can easily pinpoint an innocent person.

Thanks to an amendment in the Violence Against Women Act of 2005 that was sponsored by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), the feds now have the authority to immediately take DNA from any arrestee or 'detained' non-citizen and immediately upload it to the FBI's CODIS database.  That database is currently fed by federal law enforcement agencies and all 50 states, a few of which collect and upload DNA samples from people arrested, but not convicted of a crime. 

DNA profiles are composed of 13 genetic markers that are meant not to reveal genetic makeup or disease. Like fingerprints, DNA are very powerful and scientifically sound evidence, when used to connect a known suspect to evidence found at the scene of the crime. Jurors are easily persuaded to accept the DNA link for someone who had already been suspected of a crime scene when told the odds against a false identification are 1 in millions or billions.

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Big Pharma Has Over Half of Insured Americans on Prescription Meds

By Linda A. Johnson / AP

For the first time, it appears that more than half of all insured Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic health problems, a study shows.

The most widely used drugs are those to lower high blood pressure and cholesterol — problems often linked to heart disease, obesity and diabetes.

The numbers were gathered last year by Medco Health Solutions Inc., which manages prescription benefits for about one in five Americans.

Experts say the data reflect not just worsening public health but better medicines for chronic conditions and more aggressive treatment by doctors. For example, more people are now taking blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering medicines because they need them, said Dr. Daniel W. Jones, president of the American Heart Association.

In addition, there is the pharmaceutical industry's relentless advertising. With those factors unlikely to change, doctors say the proportion of Americans on chronic medications can only grow.

"Unless we do things to change the way we're managing health in this country ... things will get worse instead of getting better," predicted Jones, a heart specialist and dean of the University of Mississippi's medical school.

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U.S. Government Using Food Crisis to Boost Bio-Engineered Crops!!

The Bush administration has slipped a controversial ingredient into the $770 million aid package it recently proposed to ease the world food crisis, adding language that would promote the use of genetically modified crops in food-deprived countries.

The value of genetically modified, or bio-engineered, food is an intensely disputed issue in the U.S. and in Europe, where many countries have banned foods made from genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Proponents say that GMO crops can result in higher yields from plants that are hardier in harsh climates, like those found in hungry African nations.

"We certainly think that it is established fact that a number of bio-engineered crops have shown themselves to increase yields through their drought resistance and pest resistance," said Dan Price, a food aid expert on the White House's National Security Council. Opponents of GMO crops say they can cause unforeseen medical problems. They also contend that the administration's plan is aimed at helping American agribusinesses.

"This is a hot topic now with the food crisis," said Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association. "I think it's pretty obvious at this point that genetically engineered crops—they may do a number of things, but they don't increase yields. There are no commercialized crops that are designed to deal with the climate crisis."

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Immigrants Drugged by U.S. Government Without Medical Reason!!!

By Amy Goldstein and Dana Priest / Washington Post

The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

The government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

"Unsteady gait. Fell onto tarmac," says a medical note on the deportation of a 38-year-old woman to Costa Rica in late spring 2005. Another detainee was "dragged down the aisle in handcuffs, semi-comatose," according to an airline crew member's written account. Repeatedly, documents describe immigration guards "taking down" a reluctant deportee to be tranquilized before heading to an airport.

In a Chicago holding cell early one evening in February 2006, five guards piled on top of a 49-year-old man who was angry he was going back to Ecuador, according to a nurse's account in his deportation file. As they pinned him down so the nurse could punch a needle through his coveralls into his right buttock, one officer stood over him menacingly and taunted, "Nighty-night."

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Bush Operative Pushes Voter-ID Law

Mark “Thor” Hearne, Bush-Cheney’s national counsel in 2004 and now a partner in the St. Louis, Missouri, firm of Lathrop & Gage, has been collaborating with Missouri’s Republican state Rep. Stanley Cox, the sponsor of the constitutional amendment, Cox’s office confirmed this week.

For years, Hearne has been a leading Republican figure demanding stricter voter-identification laws and popularizing claims about widespread voter fraud, although many election experts dismiss such alarms as hyperbole.

During the 2004 campaign, Hearne reportedly worked with White House political adviser Karl Rove on “voter fraud” issues and spearheaded GOP efforts to challenge voter-registration drives by pro-Democratic groups.

According to a posting at his law firm’s Web site, “Hearne traveled to every battleground state and oversaw more than 65 different lawsuits that concerned the conduct of the election.”

Hearne also has shown up as a background figure in the Bush administration’s scandal that erupted over the firing of nine federal prosecutors, some of whom came under White House criticism for not seeking pre-election voter fraud indictments in 2006.

More recently, Hearne has been instrumental in pushing state lawmakers to pass strict voter identification laws in Missouri, New Mexico, Indiana and other states.

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Why has the U.S. dropped 9/11 charges?

By Adam Brookes / BBC

Mohammad al-Qahtani has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, following his detention in Afghanistan.

In February, he was charged with conspiracy, terrorism, and murder in violation of the laws of war, among other offences.

The US alleges he attempted to come to the United States in order to take part in the 9/11 attacks, but was stopped at the airport on his arrival. An immigration officer suspected he intended to stay in the US illegally, and refused him entry.

The charges were dropped "without prejudice" - which means they could be brought again at a later date. Five other men were charged alongside Mr Qahtani.

They include Khaled Sheikh Mohammed - the man accused of organising the 9/11 attacks.

Their trials before military commissions - the special military courts in Guantanamo Bay - are sheduled to go ahead.

Torture claims

As well as his military lawyer, Mr Qahtani is represented by a civilian lawyer from the Center for Constitutional Rights - a New York-based legal rights organisation.

The CCR said in a statement it believed the charges against him had been dropped because Mr Qahtani had been tortured.

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The Zionist Money Behind 9-11

By Christopher Bollyn

One of the most peculiar things about investigating 9-11 is that a whole slew of Zionist criminals, a group of people which is evidently involved in the terror attacks in one way or another, is completely ignored by the controlled media.

The accepted history of 9-11, based as it is on the controlled media's interpretation of events, completely ignores the evidence that Israelis and high-level Zionists in the United States played key roles in the terror attacks.

As George W. Bush travels to Israel to meet with the nuclear and real terrorists Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert, I feel compelled to point out a few of the most obvious and basic connections between the Zionist criminal network I call the "Elders of Zion" and the terror attacks of 9-11.

ROMAN PRECEDENT

The Roman senator Cornelius Tacitus, the historian of the 1st Century A.D., realized that most of the contemporary history of Rome was propagandist. As a senator and governor of Asia he certainly knew what he was writing about.

"His task, it seemed to him, was to denounce implicitly or explicitly the grosser lies of partisan historians," Kenneth Wellesley, the Latin scholar, wrote in his introduction to The Histories by Tacitus.

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Attacks Persist Despite Cease-Fire

Iraq Shi'ite gunmen are continuing to attack U.S. and Iraq's security forces in Sadr City despite the announcement of a new cease-fire agreement between the government and the militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

U.S. authorities said troops killed three gunmen in clashes late Sunday and early yesterday. Most of the fighting was along the 3-mile barrier American soldiers are building along al-Quds Street, which separates the southern Jamilla and Tharwa neighborhoods of Sadr City from northern sectors.

"It doesn't look like a cease-fire to me," said Maj. Kyle Ferger, executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment. "Just last night there were more than a dozen [incidents] along the wall." The wall, made of 12-foot-high concrete slabs, was begun in mid-April to block Shi'ite extremists from infiltrating the two neighborhoods using cross streets along al-Quds to fire rockets at the Green Zone, the seat of the Iraqi government, U.S. military and diplomatic headquarters. Citizens can still travel between the southern and northern sections of Sadr City, but would have to use three main roads where Iraqi soldiers search vehicles for weapons and munitions.

Despite weeks of daily attacks by members of Mr. al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and so-called special groups — rogue militia influenced by Iran — the wall was 75 percent complete as of yesterday and will be finished by the end of the week, Maj. Ferger said.

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Anglo-American Ascendancy Lost in Unnecessary Wars

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

In a new book that will infuriate the fake conservatives who inhabit the Republican Party, Patrick J. Buchanan documents how British self-righteousness, delusion, and hubris destroyed both the British Empire and Western ascendancy in two unnecessary wars launched by a small cabal of morons that ruled Britain!

Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War shows that the two world wars that destroyed European civilization began when England declared war on Germany, thus dragging in the Empire, Commonwealth, and United States.  This was a strategic blunder unparalleled in history.  Mighty Britain emerged from World War II as an American dependency.

Buchanan cites such British notables as F.J.P. Veale, B.H. Liddell Hart, and C.P. Snow to document that it was Winston Churchill who committed, in Veale’s words, “the first deliberate breach of the fundamental rule of civilized warfare that hostilities must only be waged against the enemy combatant forces.”  It was Churchill, not Hitler, who first targeted civilian populations in World War II and caused the structure of civilized warfare to collapse in ruins.

The Americans quickly adopted Churchill’s criminal policy of attacking civilians, culminating in the outrageous use of nuclear weapons against two Japanese cities, the slaughter of Vietnamese civilians, and the ongoing slaughter of Afghan and Iraqi civilians.  

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U.S. Should Go on Diet of its Own, India Says

Instead of blaming India and other developing nations for the rise in food prices, Americans should rethink their energy policy and go on a diet, say a growing number of politicians, economists and academics here.

Criticism of the United States has ballooned in India recently, particularly after the administration of President George W. Bush seemed to blame India's increasing middle class and prosperity for rising food prices. Critics from India seem to be asking one underlying question: "Why do Americans think they deserve to eat more than Indians?"

The food problem has "clearly" been created by Americans, who are eating 50 percent more calories than the average person in India, said Pradeep Mehta, the secretary general of CUTS Center for International Trade, Economics and Environment, a private economic research organization based in India with offices in Kenya, Zambia, Vietnam and Britain.

If Americans were to slim down to even the middle-class weight in India, "many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates," Mehta said. The money Americans spend on liposuction to get rid of their excess fat could be funneled to famine victims instead, he added.

Developing nations like China and India have long been blamed for everything from the rising cost of commodities to global warming, because they are consuming more goods and fuels than ever before.

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Iran to Offer Solution to Nuke Dispute

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Tuesday that the Islamic Republic will put forward proposals this week in order to solve the dispute with Western countries over its nuclear program.

"There are various concerns in the world which big powers have no solutions for those international challenges but Iran has solutions," Ahmadinejad said during a news conference.

"We have prepared a package which will soon be offered," he added.

"What does incentives mean?" he asked. "Iran is a big power and wants nothing more than its legal right to nuclear technology. Nothing can persuade us to abandon our right."

Delegates from Russia, France, Germany, the UK, the US, China and the EU took part in a six-nation meeting on Iran's nuclear program last month, which yielded no clear result.

The chair of the talks, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister He Yafei, had said that the diplomatic efforts would continue.

Also Tuesday, Ahmadinejad said the Saudi foreign minister's claims of Iranian support for Hizbullah's recent actions in Lebanon were made in anger.

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You Can't Obliterate the 'Will of the People'

By Alicia Hope / GangsterGovernment

This may be a startling revelation to some but you can't bomb the will of the people! The will of the people is untouchable, primordial, and divine in essence! Some U.S. government officials seem to think that if you win the battle, you will win the war! Nothing could be farther from the truth!

So much damage has been done to the image of the U.S., it may be irreversible! The internet has really given the power back to the people! Images of tortured Iraqi's travelled all over the world faster than the speed of light! The power of the world wide web quickly unravelled the 9/11 hoax and exposed the world to the evil of the NWO! The Pentagon even thought they could brainwash the public with their full frontal assault on the American psyche by using the media as it's mouthpiece!

The people of the world want change and they will not bend their will to accommodate a few greedy satanists that want to dominate the Earth and micro-chip the population!

Are we going to see the Predator flying in the U.S. soon?

Hellfire missiles can't lock on to ideas or values! When they talk about the exemplary human spirit, they talk about that combination of hope, faith, resilience, patience and related qualities which give the individual the strength to get himself out of, or through hard times.

Technology will always succumb to the power of the human spirit!

Gates warns DoD of ‘next-war-itis’

The Pentagon must focus on current war demands, even if it means straining the U.S. armed forces and devoting less time and money on future threats, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

Meeting the war-fighting needs of the troops now and taking care of them properly when they get home must be the priority, Gates said in a speech to journalists at a seminar here sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

“I have noticed too much of a tendency towards what might be called Next-War-itis — the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict,” Gates said.

But in a world of limited resources, he said, the Pentagon must concentrate on building a military that can defeat the current enemies: smaller, terrorist groups and militias waging irregular warfare.

If it means putting off more expensive weapons for the future or adding to the stress on the Army — that is a risk worth taking, he said.

“The risk of overextending the Army is real,” said Gates. “But I believe the risk is far greater — to that institution as well as to our country — if we were to fail in Iraq. That is the war we are in. That is the war we must win.”

In a question-and-answer session with his audience, Gates was asked whether the U.S. would at some point feel compelled to take military action against Iran for its support of Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Gates said the U.S. has a number of activities under way “to deal particularly with what the Iranians were doing in support of the special groups and others in Iraq.” The term “special groups” refers to extremist elements of Shiite militias that U.S. officials say are funded and trained by Iranians.

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Federal Spending Rising Twice as Fast as Taxes

Federal spending is rising more than twice as fast as receipts so far this fiscal year, reflecting the economic slump and the rising costs of the military and other government programs, the Treasury Department reported Monday.

The U.S. government took in a record $404 billion in revenue in April, up 5% from a year earlier, but outlays rose 19% to $244.5 billion, cutting the monthly surplus down to $159.3 billion, the Treasury Department reported Monday.

The surplus in April was close to the $160 billion estimated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The surplus fell from $177.7 billion a year ago primarily because of a shift in the calendar, which affected the timing of some payments. The government also sent out $3.4 billion in tax-rebate checks as part of the economic stimulus program during the month.

Excluding the surplus in Social Security and Medicare, the on-budget surplus was $134 billion in April, compared with $155.2 billion last April.

For the first six months of the fiscal year, the total deficit of $152.2 billion jumped 88% from the $80.8 billion through the first six months of last fiscal year. The on-budget deficit increased 39% to $267.8 billion. For all of fiscal 2008, the Bush administration expects a total deficit of $410 billion, and an on-budget deficit of $602 billion.

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U.S. Infrastructure: Army Corps says Condition of Many Levees Unknown

Across America, earthen flood levees protect big cities and small towns, wealthy suburbs and rich farmland. But the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that oversees levees, lacks an inventory of thousands of them and has no idea of their condition, the corps' chief levee expert told The Associated Press.

The uncertainty, amid an unusually wet spring that has already caused significant flooding across many states, is creating worry even within the corps.

"We have to get our arms around this issue and understand how many levees there are in the country, who's watching over them, what populations and properties are behind them," Eric Halpin, the corps' special assistant for dam and levee safety, said in an interview last month. "What is the risk posed to the public?"

Critics are troubled that the government doesn't know the answer.

Robert Bea, a University of California at Berkeley levee expert, said many levees are old, with rusting infrastructure and built to protect against relatively common floods — not the big ones like the Great Flood of 1993, when 1,100 levees were broken or had water spill over their tops.

"Once they do get an inventory," Bea said, "I think we're not going to like what we find."

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AARP: 1 in 10 Boomers Borrowing for Everyday Expenses

The economic downturn is hitting roughly one in 10 middle-aged and older Americans especially hard, compelling them to borrow money for everyday living expenses and to seek help from family, friends or charities, according to a survey released Tuesday by the AARP.

In the telephone survey of 1,002 adults 45 and older, nearly four in 10 said they had helped a child pay bills or expenses. Among retirees, one-third said they'd helped their children pay bills. Eight percent said they'd helped a parent pay bills or expenses. The survey's margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

One-third of survey participants said they stopped putting money into their 401(k) or retirement account and 14 percent said they had cut back on their medications.

"We have patients coming in fewer times," said registered nurse Tucky Franz of Salisbury, Md. "They'll cut back because of the copay."

The majority of baby boomers said they were finding it more difficult to pay for essentials and utilities, and six in 10 said they had cut back on eating out and entertainment.

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