Category: Human Rights


Holder says drone strikes since 2009 have killed four U.S. citizens

On the eve of a major address by President Barack Obama on his counterterrorism policy, the Obama administration revealed Wednesday that drone strikes since 2009 had killed four Americans overseas – one of whom, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was targeted in Yemen because he’d planned and was planning terrorist attacks on the United States – principally the plot to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Eve 2009.

Three others who were not “specifically targeted” were killed in circumstances the administration did not explain.

The revelation came in a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to congressional leaders and chairmen of key congressional committees in which Holder said, “the president has directed me to disclose to you certain information” about the number of Americans killed by U.S. counterterrorism operations outside of areas of active combat such as Afghanistan.

Holder said the U.S. government was “aware of three other U.S. citizens who have been killed in such U.S. counterterrorism operations over that same time period (since 2009): Samir Khan, ‘Abd al-Rahman Anwar al-Aulaqi, and Jude Kenan Mohammed. These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States.”

Jude Kenan Mohammed was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and the FBI notice said, “On July 22, 2009, a Federal Grand Jury in North Carolina indicted Jude Kenan Mohammad for conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim, and injure persons in a foreign country. Mohammad is at large and a federal warrant was issued by the United States District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina, for his arrest.”

Read Full Article Here

 

 

 

*********************************************************************************************************

About these ads

Dees Illustration

Stephen Lendman
Activist Post

It’s no surprise. Michael Parenti calls America’s High Court its “autocratic branch.”

It’s notoriously pro-business. It’s longstanding. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway (1886), it granted corporations legal personhood.

More recently, in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes et al (June 2011), it denied longstanding sexual discrimination class action redress. It overruled a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision doing so.

In AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion (April 2011), it did so two months earlier. It blocked class action redress claiming fraud. The company’s wireless subsidiary charged sales tax on cellphones it advertised as free. Two California courts rules for plaintiffs. The High Court overruled them.

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled for money power over democratic governance. One dollar = one vote.

Corporations and PACs can spend all they want. Doing so more than ever lets them control US elections. Voters are effectively disenfranchised. They have no say whatever.

Numerous other rulings show America’s High Court is supremely pro-business. The Roberts Court is more so than previous ones. Even The New York Times noticed.

On May 4, it headlined “Corporations Find a Friend in the Supreme Court.” It rejected an anti-trust class action suit against Comcast. Subscribers sought to prove unfair competition and overcharges. Wrongdoing was dismissed 5 – 4. It didn’t surprise. It’s consistently pro-business. Doing so facilitates corporate empowerment, discriminatory practices, willful fraud, and products harming human health.
Bowman v. Monsanto again showed where America’s High Court stands. Justice again was denied. Corporate interests alone matter. In 2007, Monsanto sued Vernon Bowman. He’s an Indiana farmer. At issue was alleged patent infringement.

He bought mixed soybean seeds. He did so from a grain elevator. He planted them a second time. He supplemented them with soybeans bought from the same source.

Monsanto’s licensing agreement forbids second plantings. It wants seeds sold used only once. It wants farmers to pay each time they plant.

Bowman claimed no patent infringement. It expired on what he first bought. He supplemented with commodity soybeans. They’re usually used for feed.

He said they naturally “self-replicate or sprout unless stored in a controlled manner.” In other words, he planted soybeans, not new seeds. He violated no law.

Justice Elena Kagan delivered the court opinion. She didn’t surprise. She and other justices spurn judicial fairness. They do so in defense of privilege. She rejected what she called “that blame-the-bean defense.”

Bowman had no chance. He was no match against Monsanto. He was ordered to pay nearly $85,000 in damages. He’s a small farmer. Doing so may bankrupt him. Longstanding agribusiness plans call for greater consolidation at the expense of small competitors.

Bowman lost at the district, appellate and High Court levels. They ruled one way. They claimed patent exhaustion doesn’t permit farmers to replant seeds and harvest them without patent holder’s permission.

Generic drug companies freely do it. The Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act permits it. Once patents expire, holders no longer have exclusive rights.

In 2014, the last of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready US patents will expire. Monsanto’s supposed to lose exclusivity. At issue is will or won’t it happen?

Expect Monsanto to press hard to keep it. Earlier it said it wants international regulatory Roundup Ready soybeans support until 2021. It’s unclear if other companies will be able to sell generic versions. Monsanto won’t make it easy to do so.

On May 13, Food Democracy Now (FDN) denounced the Supreme Court ruling. Executive director Dave Murphy accused Washington of complicity in permitting the “corporate takeover of (America’s) food supply.”

“Today,” he said, “the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the corporate takeover of our food supply, in a huge win for Monsanto, and a major loss for America’s farmers and consumers.”

Monsanto has long engaged in an effort to subvert family farmers that do not use their genetically-engineered seeds, and the Court has now handed corporations even more control over what our families eat.

Currently, Food Democracy Now! is a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit in the District Court of Appeals, Organic Seed Associations et Al. v Monsanto to protect America’s farmers from unwanted contamination of their crops by Monsanto’s patented genetically-engineered plants.

Our nation’s family farmers grow our food on farms where cross-pollination between organic, non-GMO crops and Monsanto’s genetically-engineered patented crops is regular and naturally-occurring process.

The Court’s decision to give Monsanto the power to control the future harvest of America’s family farmers and our county’s food supply is deeply troubling, immoral and a very bad sign for the future of our nation’s food.

In March 2013, Obama signed the Monsanto Protection Act.It’s the Farmer Assurance Provision rider in HR 933: Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013. Monsanto lawyers wrote it.

It permits circumventing judicial decisions. If courts rule GMOs unsafe, Monsanto’s free to ignore them. So can the Secretary of Agriculture.

He’s free to ignore food safety. He can let hazardous GMOs poison America’s food supply. Obama’s complicit with giant corporate interests. He’s their man in Washington. He’s beholden to monied interests. They own him.

Read Full Article Here

Revealed Government Documents Show Vaccine Injured Children in Small African Village Used Like Lab Rats

Children vaccinated  in Africa
were severely harmed by vaccines

Christina England
Activist Post

In December 2012, vaccine tragedy hit the small village of Gouro, Chad, Africa, situated on the edge of the Sahara Desert. Five hundred children were locked into their school, threatened that if they did not agree to being force-vaccinated with a meningitis A vaccine, they would receive no further education. These children were vaccinated without their parents’ knowledge. This vaccine was an unlicensed product still going through the third and fourth phases of testing.

Within hours, one hundred six children began to suffer from headaches, vomiting, severe uncontrollable convulsions and paralysis. The children’s wait for a doctor began. They had to wait one full week for a doctor to arrive while the team of vaccinators just carried on vaccinating others from the village. More children became sick.

When the doctor finally came, he could do nothing for the children. The team of vaccinators, upon seeing what had happened, fled the village in fear.

Fifty children were finally transferred to a hospital in Faya and later taken by plane to two hospitals in N’Djamena, the capital city of Chad. After being shuttled around like cattle, these sick, weak children were dumped back in their village without a diagnosis and each family was given an unconfirmed sum of £1000 by the government. No forms were signed and no documentation was seen. They were informed that their children had not suffered a vaccine injury. However, if this were true, why would their government award each family £1000 in what has been described as hush money?

Interestingly, during the time the children spent in the hospital, two more children joined them from another village.

To read the full stories of this tragedy, please see references at the end of this article from previous Vactruth world-exclusive reports. [1,2,3,4]

Since this time, Vactruth has been passed a series of secret documents, which fill in some missing gaps in this story and expose just how corrupt the organizations behind this tragedy really are.
The Exclusive, Heartbreaking Details

On January 14, 2013, arrangements were made for seven female patients between the ages of 8-18 to be evacuated from the Hospital of Mother and Child (HME) and the General Hospital of National Referrals (HGRN) in N’Djamena and transferred by air to a clinic in Tunisia. This was scheduled to take place between January 16 and 22.

The documents in our possession state that the Chadian government arranged for the patients to be accompanied by Dr. Joseph Mad-Toingue, Chief Service of Infectious Diseases of the National General Referral Hospital; Dr. Moumar Mbaileyo, anesthesiologist employee of the National General Referral Hospital; and Mr. Dihoulne Kakiang, state-certified nurse, employee of the National General Referral Hospital.

On January 29, 2013, a letter passed between The Chief Service of Infectious Diseases of HGRN-N’Djaména and Mr. Director General of the National General Referral Hospital, stating:

Mr. Director General,

Herewith I have the honor of putting into your hands the report of the mission completed in Tunisia between 15 and 22 of January 2013 regarding the medical evacuation of 7 patients.

The Chief of Service.

Vactruth now has this report.

A Parent’s Worst Nightmare

The report states that seven female patients between the ages of 8 and 18 had suffered adverse reactions after receiving the meningitis A vaccination during a national campaign, which took place on December 11, 2012, for the prevention of this illness. These patients had originally been taken to the Regional Hospital of Faya, before being transferred on December 26, 2012, to the Hospital of Mother and Child (HME) and the General Hospital of National Referrals (HGRN) in N’Djamena.

Arrangements were later made for a medical evacuation to transfer these patients to Tunisia for further tests and treatment.

According to the report, the departure took place in N’Djaména on January 15, 2013, at 10:50 pm after a long wait at the Hassan airport in N’Djamena because of the late arrival of the plane.

The journey took place on board a Tunisian plane chartered by the International Medical Society (SMEDI). The party consisted of seven patients, three members of the medical team and seven parents (two men and five women) who accompanied the sick children.

Interestingly, the document states that the party did not fly alone.

The government report states that twenty other passengers traveling to Tunisia for the same reason (medical evacuation) also joined the party. Sadly, there were no further details on these patients in the report.

Were these patients also vaccine-damaged by the meningitis A vaccination, and where did these twenty other sick patients come from?

Just before the plane took off, an 18-year-old patient had what the report describes as a ‘shaking episode,’ and was given a 10 mg vial of diazepam before boarding the plane. Other than this incident, the flight went well.

The Specialists Say “Case Closed”

The group arrived in Tunisia on January 16, 2013, and was received by SMEDI agents who took care of the police formalities (entry visa) before dividing the group into three parties. The patients were transported by ambulance to the clinic, the medical staff was taken to a hotel, and the patients’ parents were taken to a center.

On the afternoon of January 16, the three medical staff were introduced to SMEDI’s Director General, M. Ghazi Mejbri, to get acquainted. This was followed by a work session with the medical coordinator, Dr. Folla Amara. In the course of this meeting, the condition of the patients was discussed and plans were arranged for their care.

The patients were taken to the neurological department of SMEDI’s La Sourka clinic. The clinic had received the children’s medical records in advance and was reported to have conducted their own clinical and biological tests on the patients before meeting with the medical team that had accompanied them.

On January 17, a meeting took place with Professor Rachid Namai (“chef de clinique”), Dr. Kefi and Dr. Mabet. It was concluded that the children’s ‘shaking attacks’ or convulsions were of no consequence. On the paraclinical level, the report stated that the liquor tests of five patients did not reveal any anomalies, nor did the EEG of six patients.

The EEG of the seventh patient showed minor anomalies in the immediate post-critical phase, but was reported to have stabilized. An MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) was to take place of all seven patients. After the meeting, the team visited the patients who were all reported to be well, except for one child who had developed tonsillitis and had to receive appropriate treatment.

On January 19, a second meeting took place at the La Soukra Clinic during which they examined the patients’ medical records that gave the results of all the medical tests that had taken place. Among the biological perturbations there was reported to be one case of persistent thrombopenia (a lower than normal number of blood cell fragments called platelets), two cases of of elevated immunoglobulines E (Ig E) and five cases of gram negative bacteria directly upon examination — culturing has not been contributory.

The report stated that, generally speaking, the patients showed a raised tendency for hypoalbuminemia (swelling), hypo creatininemia (renal dysfunction), and hyper glucorrhagia (no definition found).

 

Read Full Article Here

Chinese Quit Communist Party, Heralding a New China

Rally in New York City Supports Peaceful Movement

1 of 2

I have received extensive testimonies underscoring that the situation in China has gotten worse. The crack- down is pervasive and severe.

US Congressman Chris Smith, co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China

NEW YORK—Members of the Chinese Communist Party are leaving the party by the tens of thousands, like the grains of sand slipping through the CCP’s hourglass.

An event to support the 138 million Chinese who have quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations was held in front of the United Nations building in New York City on May 17. Hundreds of people, most of them Chinese, filled Dag Hammarskjold Plaza quietly holding banners, while speakers took turns at the podium, engaging the audience on what the Quitting the CCP movement really means for China today.

The “Tui Dang,” or “Quit the Party” movement is an embodiment of nonviolence and an awakening of conscience that is changing China. Introduced in November 2004 after an editorial series published by the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times revealed an uncensored history of the CCP, people began quitting by the tens of thousands, recording their decisions on a website maintained by supporters of the movement.

“In this way, the communist organization is quietly collapsing,” said Yi Rong, chair of the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP.

Speakers ranged from the heads of several human rights organizations to people who have first-hand experience with the CCP’s system of forced labor camps and prisons, where Falun Gong practitioners are frequently tortured.

Many attendees were practitioners of the Chinese self-cultivation practice Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong), which has been brutally persecuted by the CCP since 1999, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center, the official press office for Falun Gong. The CCP’s crimes—including over a 100 forms of torture—against the group were talked about by the speakers.

 

Read Full Article Here

 

************************************************************************************************

 

 

 

by
May 19th, 2013
Updated 05/19/2013 at 12:14 am

 

monsanto protection act repeal 263x168 Monsanto Protection Act May Soon Be Repealed Thanks to ActivismThe so-called Monsanto Protection Act signed into law earlier this year caused such an outrage that people around the world are planning to protest the biotech company later this month. Now a United States Senator is expected to try and repeal that law after mounting pressure.

The notorious ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ rider stuffed into the non-related Senate spending bill may soon be repealed thanks to the massive amounts of activism and outrage that have now amounted into a legislative charge towards action. Action that has turned into legislation progress through Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who has announced an amendment that would remove Section 735 (the Monsanto Protection Act as its known) from the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 Senate spending bill.

The rider, which almost managed to slip incognito and pass by the alarm system of the alternative media, grants GMO juggernaut Monsanto full immunity from federal courts in the event that one of its genetically modified creations is found to be causing damage to health or the environment. Essentially, it grants Monsanto power over the United States federal government. Thankfully, I was able to get on the subject through news tips and covered the Monsanto Protection Act all the way up until the bill containing it was signed into law by Obama.

Ultimately, as the Monsanto Protection Act became more a hot issue, we had an increasing amount of publicity — but the Senate vote came just too quickly for the attention to put a halt on the rider. But even after its passing, sources like Russia Today, NaturalNews, Infowars, and myself here at NaturalSociety were sounding the alarm big time. Enough so that it even led to an apology from the top Senator who actually ended up approving the bill containing the rider.

 

Read Full Article Here

Flag of U.S. - Israeli - Saudi Allegiance photo Flagofamericanisraelisaudiallegiance_zpsef286a11.jpg

Flag of U.S. – Israeli – Saudi Allegiance  

~Desert Rose~

*****************************************************************************

In Wake of US-Israeli Attack on Syria, UN Reveals Terrorists Not Government Used Sarin Gas

So-called “red line” both drawn and then crossed by US-Saudi-Israeli axis and their terrorist proxies. 

May 6, 2013 (LD) – The reasoning behind recent US-Israeli attacks on Syria has been undermined further as the UN reveals Western-backed terrorists, not the Syrian government, deployed sarin gas during the 2 year conflict. Reuters reported in their article, “U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator,” that:

U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.

The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.

“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.

Why the Small Amounts of Sarin Cited by Washington, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv are a Set Up 

The small amounts of sarin gas reportedly used would defy any tactical or strategic sense had they been deployed by the Syrian government to tip the balance in the destructive 2-year conflict. According to the US military’s own assessments of chemical weapon use during the 1980′s Iran-Iraq War, only under ideal conditions and with massive amounts of chemical agents can tactical and strategic outcomes be achieved – and that conventional weapons were still, by far, superior to chemical weapons of any kind.

A document produced by the US Marine Corps, titled, “Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War” under “Appendix B: Chemical Weapons,” provides a comprehensive look at the all-out chemical warfare that took place during the devastating 8 year Iranian-Iraqi conflict. Several engagements are studied in detail, revealing large amounts of chemical agents deployed mainly to create areas of denial, not mass casualties.

The effectiveness and lethality of chemical weapons is summarized in the document as follows (emphasis added):

Chemical weapons require quite particular weather and geographic conditions for optimum effectiveness. Given the relative nonpersistence of all agents employed during this war, including mustard, there was only a brief window of employment opportunity both daily and seasonally, when the agents could be used. Even though the Iraqis employed mustard agent in the rainy season and also in the marshes, its effectiveness was significantly reduced under those conditions. As the Iraqis learned to their chagrin, mustard is not a good agent to employ in the mountains, unless you own the high ground and your enemy is in the valleys.

We are uncertain as to the relative effectiveness of nerve agents since those which were employed are by nature much less persistent than mustard. In order to gain killing concentrations of these agents, predawn attacks are best, conducted in areas where the morning breezes are likely to blow away from friendly positions.

Chemical weapons have a low kill ratio. Just as in WWl, during which the ratio of deaths to injured from chemicals was 2-3 percent, that figure appears to be borne out again in this war although reliable data on casualties are very difficult to obtain. We deem it remarkable that the death rate should hold at such a low level even with the introduction of nerve agents. If those rates are correct, as they well may be, this further reinforces the position that we must not think of chemical weapons as “a poor man’s nuclear weapon.” While such weapons have great psychological potential, they are not killers or destroyers on a scale with nuclear or biological weapons.

Clearly, the minute amounts of sarin the West has accused the Syrian government of using, makes no tactical, political, or strategic sense. However, these small amounts of sarin gas, now suspected to be the work of Western-backed terrorists, would have been perfect for establishing a pretext for Western military intervention, and in fact, have been in part cited by the US and Israel in their latest, unprovoked aerial assault on Damascus.

The terrorists operating in Syria possess the means and motivation to carry out such an operation, as do their Western sponsors.

Where Did Western-backed Terrorists Obtain Sarin? 

A number of methods could have lent sarin gas to terrorists operating in Syria – from Turkey, Israel, and the US simply handing select units the chemical agent in a clandestine operation, to Libyan terrorists confirmed to have been flooding into Syria for the past 2 years, bringing looted chemical stockpiles with them after NATO’s disastrous invasion in 2011 left them in the hands of a sectarian extremist regime.

Image: (via the Guardian) “Chemical containers in the Libyan desert. There are concerns unguarded weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants. Photograph: David Sperry/AP”

….

Indeed, Libya’s arsenal had fallen into the hands of sectarian extremists with NATO assistance in 2011 in the culmination of efforts to overthrow the North African nation . Since then, Libya’s militants led by commanders of Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) have armed sectarian extremists across the Arab World, from as far West as Mali, to as far East as Syria.

Libyan LIFG terrorists are confirmed to be flooding into Syria from Libya. In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, “Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group,” would report:

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”

Another Telegraph article, “Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels,” would admit

Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”

Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and have been flooding into the country ever since.

Image: Libyan Mahdi al-Harati of the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf)-listed terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), addressing fellow terrorists in Syria. Harati is now commanding a Libyan brigade operating inside of Syria attempting to destroy the Syrian government and subjugate the Syrian population. Traditionally, this is known as “foreign invasion.” 

….

In Time’s article, “Libya’s Fighters Export Their Revolution to Syria,” it is reported:

Some Syrians are more frank about the assistance the Libyans are providing. “They have heavier weapons than we do,” notes Firas Tamim, who has traveled in rebel-controlled areas to keep tabs on foreign fighters. “They brought these weapons to Syria, and they are being used on the front lines.” Among the arms Tamim has seen are Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, known as the SAM 7.

Libyan fighters largely brush off questions about weapon transfers, but in December they claimed they were doing just that. “We are in the process of collecting arms in Libya,” a Libyan fighter in Syria told the French daily Le Figaro. “Once this is done, we will have to find a way to bring them here.”

democracynow democracynow

Published on Apr 19, 2013

http://www.democracynow.org – In 1982, investigative journalist Allan Nairn interviewed a Guatemalan general named “Tito” on camera during the height of the indigenous massacres. It turns out the man was actually Otto Pérez Molina, the current Guatemalan president. We air the original interview footage and speak to Nairn about the U.S. role backing the Guatemalan dictatorship. Last week, Nairn flew to Guatemala where he had been scheduled to testify in the trial of former U.S.-backed dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, the first head of state in the Americas to stand trial for genocide. Ríos Montt was charged in connection with the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after he seized power in 1982. His 17-month rule is seen as one of the bloodiest chapters in Guatemala’s decades-long campaign against Maya indigenous people, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. The trial took a surprising turn last week when Guatemala President Gen. Otto Pérez Molina was directly accused of ordering executions. A former military mechanic named Hugo Reyes told the court that Pérez Molina, then serving as an army major and using the name Tito Arias, ordered soldiers to burn and pillage a Maya Ixil area in the 1980s.

Exclusive: Allan Nairn Exposes Role of U.S., New Guatemalan President in Indigenous Massacres 2 of 2

democracynow democracynow

Published on Apr 19, 2013

http://www.democracynow.org – In 1982, investigative journalist Allan Nairn interviewed a Guatemalan general named “Tito” on camera during the height of the indigenous massacres. It turns out the man was actually Otto Pérez Molina, the current Guatemalan president. We air the original interview footage and speak to Nairn about the U.S. role backing the Guatemalan dictatorship. Last week, Nairn flew to Guatemala where he had been scheduled to testify in the trial of former U.S.-backed dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, the first head of state in the Americas to stand trial for genocide. Ríos Montt was charged in connection with the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after he seized power in 1982. His 17-month rule is seen as one of the bloodiest chapters in Guatemala’s decades-long campaign against Maya indigenous people, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. The trial took a surprising turn last week when Guatemala President Gen. Otto Pérez Molina was directly accused of ordering executions. A former military mechanic named Hugo Reyes told the court that Pérez Molina, then serving as an army major and using the name Tito Arias, ordered soldiers to burn and pillage a Maya Ixil area in the 1980s.

**************************************************************************

Biotech’s next big disaster: seeds that emit multiple pesticides

image source

Jon Rappoport
Activist Post

Tom Laskawy, writing at Grist, points out how the next generation of GMOs is following in the track of present disasters:

“…the growing pest and weed problems for GMOs have caused farmers to turn to seeds that are coated with a different pesticide—a neonicotinoid. If that name rings a bell, it’s because these pesticides… have been implicated in the increasing epidemic of bee deaths.

“And that’s aside from the evidence that biotech’s ‘next big thing’ —seeds that emit multiple pesticides—may be doomed to fail. An international team of researchers, including USDA and biotech scientists, found what they termed ‘cross-resistance’ to these pesticides in [predatory] bugs exposed to the next-generation GMO seeds. Evidence, in other words, that GMO seeds are hitting a bug-covered wall.” The seeds don’t knock out the plant pests.

Yet the venerable journal Nature recently urged patience, because just over the next hill, the biotech giants will surely succeed in bringing us better GMO crops.

This reveals an underlying assumption about technology: when scientists discover a new way of doing things, it can never be retracted; it will eventually work well; improvements will come.

That false assumption sustains a tremendous amount of false science, as well as profits, of course, for the companies involved.

“Wait, better developments are being made.”

If scientists can shoot genes into plants, that’s a step that can never be taken back. It’s automatically a sign of progress. To admit defeat would be equivalent to admitting science can be wrong.

This is the insanity we are dealing with.

We’ve seen it in the field of psychiatric drugs, all of which carry heavy toxicity. If you push a researcher up against the wall, where he has to admit problems with the drugs, he’ll say, “But we’re working on next-generation chemicals. It’ll be different. We’re just starting to understand how the brain really works. Be patient. Help is on the way.”

In recent days, we’ve seen the US National Institute of Mental Health and its British counterpart defect from orthodox psychiatry in the interpretation of what a mental disorder is. Some people have taken this as a positive development. But that’s not the case.

The defectors intend to push brain research to new dangerous heights. Even though they have no baseline for “normal brain activity,” they are racing along the track of discovering “abnormal chemical imbalances.” In other words, their better science is no science at all.

They will invent new names for mental disorders, and there will be more drugs to treat patients, and the whole edifice will be founded on lies.

In the field of gene research, scientists are advancing on a road of manipulation of the human genome. This, they say, is yielding one breakthrough after another. New humans, better humans, more talented and healthy and intelligent humans will be the result.

But really, this translates into: we can shift genes around, we can substitute new genes for old genes, we can silence genes and provoke dormant genes to express themselves—therefore, we have to keep doing it. It’s science. We have to expand our work.

No they don’t. In the same way they don’t have to build even more destructive H-bombs, they don’t have to play roulette with the human body and brain.

Just because medical researchers can come up with new chemo drugs that kill cells and destroy immune systems, it doesn’t mean they have to.

Despite failures along every front of GMO-crop production, despite the fact that predictions of higher crop yields and reduced use of pesticides and herbicides have failed to materialize, Monsanto pushes on.

Monsanto lies and pretends their work is an enormous success. Their researchers, many of whom know the catastrophic failure they are dealing with, nevertheless keep going, keep telling themselves that this is science, and therefore it will ultimately succeed.

Translation: The seven billion people of earth are the guinea pigs in a vast corporate experiment.

Technocrats who envision trans-humans, a combine of brain and computerized brain, pin faith on the idea that, since brains can be hooked up to machines, they should be. It’s “scientific progress,” and therefore it has to happen.

All this used to be called scientism, a massive overreach of misplaced faith, but now the word is largely defunct. It was too accurate. It nailed the obsession and showed how crazy it was.

Years ago, I was invited to give a lecture to an atheist group in Los Angeles. The topic was HIV research, because I had written a book about it, AIDS INC.

I described the line of HIV research, and made a detailed case for the fact that researchers had never proved HIV caused a condition that was being called AIDS.

My analysis was met with strong opposition. The group was unhappy.

No problem. But it turned out their unhappiness was based on the notion that I was attacking science itself. And since they believed that’s what I was doing, they were angry because, get this, if I was against science, I must be for God. And they were atheists.

Therefore, I had to be wrong.

Their reaction mirrored 19th century attitudes about the rise of science. Its proponents felt they’d finally found an antidote to religion, and therefore, anyone who criticized science on any terms (e.g, flawed reasoning, bad data, bogus experiments) must be demanding a return to the Church, the Inquisition, and burning at the stake.

Read Full Article Here

Adam Taylor | May 13, 2013, 5:54 PM
Homs Syria

AP

British Prime Minister David Cameron, in DC to meet with President Barack Obama, told reporters today that Syria’s history was being written in the blood of her people — and that it’s happening on our watch.

It’s hard to argue with the figures — as many as 80,000 people have been killed over 2 years of conflict, the BBC reports.

There’s perhaps no more visceral sign of this destruction than the image at the top of this article from Syrian photographers Lens Young Homsi (which has been authenticated by the Associated Press).

This image is from today, May 13 2013, and shows the level of devastation in the city of Homs. As Max Fisher of the Washington Post notes, it shows a city in “total ruin”.

Here’s another image from today, featuring a destroyed tank:

Homs Syria

AP

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen devastation in the city of Homs, which is now largely in control of the Syrian army after a long and bloody siege.

The city, near the highway that links the capital Damascus with Jordan, has seen extensive shelling and bombing during the Syrian conflict. It was also the city where American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remy Ochelik died in 2012.

This image from 2011, taken at the beginning of anti-Assad protests in the city’s center, Quwatli Street, show what the city looks like full of life:

Homs Syria 2011

Flickr: bTaras Kalapun

See   Full Article Here

***************************************************************************************

DNR Tag photo DNRtag_zps49c48505.jpg
************************************************************************************************************************

Ben Snodgrass

Activist Post

SB 303 empowers doctors to place “Do Not Resuscitate” orders in the files of sickly children and the elderly without their consent. No one, not even the patient or a member of his family can remove this death sentence. No one, that is, except a panel of doctors.

View PDF of State Bill 303 here.

We spoke to Susan King, the House author of SB 303, who said that hospitals have better judgment than parents as to whether their child should continue to receive life-support treatment. This bill takes away the parents’ authority to make important healthcare decisions for their child and gives that authority to a doctor.

SB 303 grants doctors complete immunity from lawsuits from DNRs. Legal liability for DNR orders would hold the doctor responsible for their actions. Removing liability removes accountability.

Doesn’t the bill require notification before a DNR order is placed?

Doctors must give notification of a DNR order unless the patient’s death is considered “imminent,” but notification is not consent. Even if the doctor notifies the parent of the DNR, the parent can do NOTHING.Can the hospital still remove artificially administered food and water?
Yes. SB 303
allows doctors to remove the artificially administered nutrition and hydration from a sick patient if the treatments: [Section 166.046(e)]

  1. Hasten the patient’s death,
  2. “Exacerbate other major medical problems not outweighed by the benefit of the provision of the treatment,”
  3. “Result in substantial irremediable physical pain or discomfort not outweighed by the benefit of the provision of the treatment,” or
  4. Are “Be medically ineffective in prolonging the patient’s life.”

Only the child’s family should have the authority to decide whether to withdraw the life-sustaining nutrition.

Are there beneficial aspects to the bill?

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 730 other followers