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Archive for February, 2011

China’s hostile space capabilities worry US: official

February 9, 2011 Comments off
by Karin Zeitvogel Karin Zeitvogel

WASHINGTON (AFP) – China is developing “counterspace” weapons that could shoot down satellites or jam signals, a Pentagon official said Friday as the United States unveiled a 10-year strategy for security in space.

“The investment China is putting into counterspace capabilities is a matter of concern to us,” deputy secretary of defense for space policy Gregory Schulte told reporters as the defense and intelligence communities released their 10-year National Security Space Strategy (NSSS).

The NSSS marks a huge shift from past practice, charting a 10-year path in space to make the United States “more resilient” and able to defend its assets in a dramatically more crowded, competitive, challenging and sometimes hostile environment, Schulte said.

 

“Space is no longer the preserve of the US and the Soviet Union, at the time in which we could operate with impunity,” Schulte said.

“There are more competitors, more countries that are launching satellites… and we increasingly have to Read more…

Israel’s Chief of Staff urges readiness for all-out war

February 9, 2011 Comments off

Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi
The Israeli army chief has urged Tel Aviv to make preparations for an all-out war over the recent developments across the Middle East, a report says.

Israel’s Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi has said that given the recent revolution protests across Middle East, Israel must prepare for a battle in several theaters, Ynetnews quoted him as saying on Monday.

The outgoing military chief also said, “The connection between the different players requires us to contend with more than one theater.”

Ashkenazi warned of the transpiration of a “radical camp” in the Middle East, adding that “the moderate camp among the traditional Arab leadership is weakening.”

“Because of this spectrum, we must prepare for a conventional war…it would be a mistake to prepare for non-conventional war or limited conflicts and then expect that overnight the forces will operate in an all-out war,” he went on to say.

In December 2010, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom threatened Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with a new war, saying that Tel Aviv would have to “respond and respond with all our force” if the Palestinian resistance fighters did not stop firing their home-made rockets into Israel.

In late December 2008, Israel launched a devastating war against the coastal Palestinian territory where more than 1,400 Palestinians — mostly civilians — were killed in three weeks of relentless Israeli land, sea and air strikes.

Cables say Israel favours Suleiman

February 9, 2011 Comments off

Preference for Egypt’s new vice-president to succeed Mubarak disclosed by leaked documents obtained by WikiLeaks.

Mounting protests against Mubarak’s rule prompted the Egyptian leader to appoint Suleiman as vice-president [AFP]

Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s recently appointed vice-president, has long long seen by Israel as the favoured successor to Hosni Mubarak, the current president, according to a leaked diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website, and published by the UK daily, The Telegraph.

The August 2008 cable said David Hacham, a senior adviser at the Israeli ministry of defence (MoD), told US officials the Israelis expected Suleiman, spelt Soliman in some cables, to take over.

“Hacham noted that the Israelis believe Soliman is likely to serve as at least an interim president if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated,” the cable sent from the US embassy in Tel Aviv said.

“We defer to Embassy Cairo for analysis of Egyptian succession scenarios, but there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Soliman,” the memo cited US diplomats as saying.

The cable said Hacham was full of praise for Suleiman, even noting that Read more…

Obama Seeks $53 Billion To Fund ‘Secretly’ Bailed Out GE For High-Speed Rail Construction

February 9, 2011 1 comment

 

 

obama high speed rail system promise to take money from people sad hill news

After secretly bailing out GE and forcing the use of its mercury-laced light bulbs on American citizens, then calling on GE’s chief Jeffrey Immelt to head the president’s economic recovery advisory panel, Obama is going to make sure his bankrupt partners in crime fully benefit from the $53 billion collected from taxpayers by subsidizing GE to build a high-speed-money-burning rail system that no legitimate private sector business would ever touch.

With US Government hemorrhaging $ trillions each year and US Government-run Amtrak hemorrhaging $ billions, what could possibly go wrong?

I’ll answer that. Spending money we don’t have is putting America on the fast-track to global servitude.

(Bloomberg) President Barack Obama will ask Congress next week to Read more…

US unable to account for Iraq funds

February 8, 2011 Comments off
The US Defense Department cannot account for how it spent funds that belonged to the reconstruction of war-torn Iraq due to poor record keeping, a report says.

The Pentagon, entrusted with spending $9.1 billion on reconstruction projects in 2011, has failed to elucidate the whereabouts of this year’s money, a Press TV correspondent reported on Monday.

The US military agency has also refused to send any representatives to Iraq’s Supreme Audit Court to explain such an inappropriate use and undetected loss.

“The Pentagon must take immediate steps to address this issue. These funds are specifically to be used for the reconstruction of the country. And if such a huge amount is not accounted for, then it implies that some of it has been Read more…

Global Effort To Outlaw Vitamins Now Underway

February 8, 2011 Comments off

(NaturalNews) The global effort to outlaw herbs, vitamins and supplements is well under way, and in just four months, hundreds of herbal products will be criminalized in the UK and across the EU. It’s all part of an EU directive passed in 2004 which erects “disproportionate” barriers against herbal remedies by requiring them to be “licensed” before they can be sold.

It’s called the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD), Directive 2004/24/EC.

The licensing requirements, however, were intentionally designed to make sure that virtually no herbs could ever meet them. It costs from $125,000 to $180,000 to license a single herb with the EU, and since herbs cannot be patented and don’t have the monopolistic pricing found in pharmaceuticals, there’s simply not enough profit margin in most herbs to justify such huge expenditures from any one company.

But that’s sort of the point. Governments of the world have been conspiring with the pharmaceutical industry for decades to destroy the competition by outlawing nutritional supplements, herbal remedies and many other forms of natural medicine.

They really are coming for your natural medicine

Some people in the USA are still skeptical that Read more…

Einstein was right – honey bee collapse threatens global food security

February 8, 2011 Comments off

The bee crisis has been treated as a niche concern until now, but as the UN’s index of food prices hits an all time-high, it is becoming urgent to know whether the plight of the honey bee risks further exhausting our food security.

Almost a third of global farm output depends on animal pollination, largely by honey bees.
These foods provide 35pc of our calories, most of our minerals, vitamins, and anti-oxidants, and the foundations of gastronomy. Yet the bees are dying – or being killed – at a disturbing pace.
The story of “colony collapse disorder” (CCD) is already well-known to readers of The Daily Telegraph.
Some keep hives at home and have experienced this mystery plague, and doubtless have strong views on whether it is caused by parasites, or a virus, or use of pesticides that play havoc with the nervous system of young bees, or a synergy of destructive forces coming together.
The bee crisis has been treated as a niche concern until now, but as the UN’s index of food prices hits an all time-high in real terms (not just nominal) and grain shortages trigger revolutions in the Middle East, it is becoming urgent to know whether the Read more…

Astronomy: “The Taurid Stream: A Cosmic Trail With Destruction In Its Wake”

February 8, 2011 2 comments

by Nick Nuttall

“Over the next few weeks the Taurid stream, a procession of vast cosmic rubble and dust that snakes around the Sun and out towards Jupiter, will swing through Earth’s orbit for the first of its bi-annual crossings. Within the stream are probably thousands of bodies including asteroids, mountain-and island-sized boulders, smaller meteoroids, Encke’s Comet and assorted fragments of celestial refuse.

The exact number, size and location of objects, however, remains a mystery and according to Dr. Mark Bailey, research Fellow in astronomy at Manchester University, it is likely that for every object which is confirmed, there are nine others that have so far eluded detection. All that is certain is that the rubble, believed by some astronomers to have been formed by a collision in the asteroid belt of a defunct comet which was captured by the solar system up to 30,000 thousand years ago, will bisect Earth’s orbit in late June and again in November. 

According to astronomers such as Dr. Victor Clube, of Oxford University’s Department of Astrophysics, the coming and goings of the Taurid stream should be a source of concern to politicians, planners and anyone who cherishes life on Earth. A ”catastrophist”, Dr. Clube is one of many astronomers who are convinced that Read more…

Iran unveils missiles, satellites as warning to foes

February 8, 2011 Comments off

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran showed off new missile and satellite technology on Monday, and told its enemies it had “complete domination” of the entrance to the oil-rich Gulf.

As part of Iran’s annual revolution celebrations, a time traditionally marked by new technological and military advances, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled locally-made satellites while a senior commander showed off mass produced missiles.

“We should reach a point where we will be able to provide our knowledge and technology in the aerospace field to other countries,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech, unveiling the satellites he said were for scientific purposes, and showing film of a satellite-carrier rocket.

Although Iran is not engaged in any military conflict, it is on constant alert against possible attacks from the United States and Israel which have not ruled out possible pre-emptive strikes to stop Tehran getting nuclear weapons.

Iran says it has no intention of making nuclear bombs and that its atomic programme, which is the subject of U.S., European and U.N. sanctions, is entirely peaceful.

In 2009, Iran launched a domestically-made satellite into orbit for the first time, a step that increased the Read more…

Egypt: What’s Really Happening? Listen to The Globalists

February 8, 2011 Comments off

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

A great debate is going on amongst honest commentators over what is actually happening in Egypt. The debate stems from the horribly inaccurate information being supplied by the globalist owned mainstream media. A superficial look at AlJazeera, BBC, and CNN reveals that even their concerted efforts to build up public opinion behind the protesters are inconsistent. There is no better example than AlJazeera’s 2 million man march, BBC’s 100’s of thousands man march, and CNN’s tens of thousands man march.

Accomplished historian and unparalleled researcher Dr. Webster Tarpley outright calls AlJazeera a British intelligence operation, noting that Hahrir Square had at best 50,000 protesters at the height of the “march of millions.” He attempts to point out that the protesters lack any pragmatic solutions amongst their demands.

The protesters’ demands indeed lack any pragmatic, technical solutions for the myriad of problems that face Egyptian society, but their demands do become very specific regarding the changes in the system they Read more…