February 27, 2008 Wikileaks Case Due Back in Court
SAN FRANCISCO -- An effort at damage control has snowballed into a public relations disaster for a Swiss bank seeking to crack down on a renegade Web site for posting classified information about some of its wealthy clients.
Documents from Bank Julius Baer containing information about several bank clients, including San Diego venture capitalist Jonathan Lampitt, were posted last month on Wikileaks.org. The site purports to discourage unethical behavior by corporations and governments by putting leaked documents online.
The Web site claimed the documents showed tax evasion and money laundering schemes at the bank's Cayman Islands branch. Lampitt's lawyer says his client was interviewed and cleared of any wrongdoing by the FBI in 2005 after a former Bank Julius Baer employee allegedly circulated the same documents that appeared on Wikileaks.
The lawyer, Jim Ellis, said he initially received a call from a bank executive alerting him to the Wikileaks posting and saying the leak was the work of the same disgruntled former employee. Ellis was assured the bank would do everything possible to remove the sensitive documents.
In federal court in San Francisco, the bank asked a judge to take down the site. Much to the outrage of free speech advocates and others, the judge did.
But instead of the information disappearing, it rocketed through cyberspace, landing on other Web sites and Wikileaks' own ''mirror'' sites outside the U.S. The digerati call the online phenomenon of a censorship attempt backfiring into more unwanted publicity the ''Streisand effect.''
Techdirt Inc. chief executive Mike Masnick coined the term on his popular technology blog after the actress Barbra Streisand's 2003 lawsuit seeking to remove satellite photos of her Malibu house. Those photos are now easily accessible, just like the bank documents.
Masnick said the bank's lawsuit demonstrates the ineffectiveness of such legal actions in the Internet age, when anyone with a computer and online connection can thumb his nose at a judge's ruling and resurrect the ''banned'' information elsewhere.
''It's a perfect example of the Streisand effect,'' Masnick said. ''This was a really small thing that no one heard about and now it's everywhere and everyone's talking about it.''
The case has also become the latest anti-censorship cause celebre, drawing legal filings from the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and several media organizations, including The Associated Press. Those arguments will be heard Friday when the bank presses on with its efforts to have Wikileaks permanently barred from posting the documents.
The legendary Swiss bank has a lot at stake. It has catered to the world's super wealthy for more than 100 years with guarantees of discretion and privacy that are the bedrocks of the Swiss banking system.
''It's a good bank,'' said Ellis, who said Lampitt has nothing to hide and abides by all the country's tax laws. ''But we'll see. My client may get tired of this.''
The bank says its lawsuit against Wikileaks and the San Mateo-based company Dynadot that sold the site its U.S. domain name has nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with protecting the privacy of bank customers.
''This action has been brought solely to prevent the unlawful dissemination of stolen bank records and personal account information of its customers,'' the bank's lawyers argued in court papers filed Wednesday. ''Many of those documents have also been altered and forged.''
The bank chastised the ACLU, press organizations and the other groups who have come to Wikileaks' defense this week.
''Quite obviously there will be harm from the widespread dissemination of private and confidential banking information, including account numbers, personal identification numbers, account transactions and history, and account balances,'' the bank stated. ''Wikileaks has laid bare a road map for the unsavory to engage in identity theft and electronic theft of account balances.''
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, who made the ruling taking down Wikileaks.org, has drawn widespread criticism for ordering the disabling of the entire site rather than issuing a narrowly tailored order to remove the bank's documents.
''Blocking access to the entire site in response to a few documents posted there completely disregards the public's right to know,'' said Ann Brick, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.
The lawsuit and the judge's order also thrust the obscure Web site into prominence. The site claims to have been launched by Chinese dissidents and other activists who encourage the posting of leaked documents that show unethical behavior of governments and corporations. It says it has posted 1.2 million documents, including a 2003 operation manual for the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Wikileaks has so far not shown up in court nor has it responded to court orders for legal filings stating its position. Organization representatives have not responded to e-mail inquiries into whether they or their lawyer plan to show up for the court hearing Friday.
''If they defy the court and refuse to participate, Wikileaks will have crossed a very serious line,'' said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C. ''They are basically functioning as an anarchist entity, not a protest group.''
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Swiss Banks Wins Injunction against Whistleblower Site
http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks
Swiss bank Julius Baer has obtained an injunction in a Californian court against a whistleblowers website that published details of its financial activities in the Cayman Islands. Wikileaks was founded in 2006 by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and startup company technologists from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.
Wikileaks aims to offer a platform for whistleblowers to expose malpractice by governments and firms across the globe in the name of transparency and freedom of speech. The site claims to contain 1.2 million documents, including confidential briefing notes on Northern Rock and the UK's identity card plans.
The site has previously published confidential documents relating to the US army's rules for engagement in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, the Chinese government and Thailand's military junta. Users can post documents anonymously on the site, which looks like Wikipedia.
Intermediary firm
In order to deal with Chinese censorship, Wikileaks has many backup sites such as wikileaks.be (Belgium) and wikileaks.de (Germany) which remain active. The injunction, therefore, focused on the use of the domain address instead.
Unable to lawfully attack the site's servers based in several countries, the order was served on the intermediary firm through which Wikileaks purchased the 'Wikileaks.org' name, California registrar Dynadot.
District court judge Jeffery White ordered Dynadot on 15 February to use its access to the internet website name registration system to delete the records for 'Wikileaks.org' and to replace the site's content with a blank page. The court's total of six orders also prevented anyone aware of the injunction from linking to the site's content.
"Dynadot shall immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court," the judge ruled.
The firm was told to hand over all administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account plus the IP addresses of anyone who had accessed the site's admin system.
Wikileaks said it never expected to be using the alternative servers to deal with censorship attacks from the United States.
Suspicious transactions
The Cayman Islands are located between Cuba and Honduras. In July 2000, the US Department of the Treasure Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said that there were "serious deficiencies in the counter-money laundering systems of the Cayman Islands".
"Cayman Islands law makes it impossible for the supervisory and regulatory authority to obtain information held by financial institutions regarding their client's identity," according to the Network.
It warned that failure of financial institutions in the Cayman Islands to report suspicious transactions was not subject to penalty and that these deficiencies, among others, had caused the Cayman Islands to be identified by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (The 'FATF') as non-cooperative in the fight against money laundering.
As of 2006 the US State Department listed the Cayman Islands in its money laundering "Countries of Primary Concern".
Wikileaks said the order was written by Julius Baer's lawyers and was accepted by judge White without amendment, or representations by Wikileaks or its solicitors.
Polygraph test
The case is over several Wikileaks articles, public commentary and documents dating prior to 2003. The documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.
The bank alleges the documents were disclosed to Wikileaks by offshore banking whistleblower and former vice president of its Cayman Island's offshoring operation, Rudolf Elmer.
Initial research easily turned up that 2002/03 some sensitive documents had slipped out of the Swiss banks office in the Cayman Islands, apparently reaching US tax investigation units.
They were eventually sent to the Swiss financial magazine CASH, which reported on the disclosure, but possibly due to an injunction or Swiss banking law, not the details.
When the leak of trust structures was discovered in 2003, Bank Julius Baer initiated legal investigations on the Caymans, involving the search of the home of each employee and when not gaining any insights from that, undertaking a lie detector test on the employees.
It still remained unclear where the data went. The group of people having legitimate access to these documents was small.
Sick leave
Elmer, who was BJB Caymans deputy head and chief operating officer at that point in time also fulfilled the position of Hurricane Officer, whose duties included keeping backups.
Elmer, facing a spinal surgery coming up in a few days time, was on sick leave and had some trouble scheduling the test. He thus became a suspect.
He complained to the American Polygraph Association (APA), the institution his interrogator works for, the Cayman Prime Minister and other entities about the conduct of the test.
Normally sick people would not be interviewed, but the APA's Ethics Commission, stated in a letter that the ethical rules for polygraphing do not apply to the Cayman Islands, and that, as the test had not been fully carried out, most of the APA rules would not apply anyway.
He was informed there were no regulations on the Caymans for polygraph tests as in the United States. After the test Bank Julius Baer laid off Elmer as an employee and the family decided to move back to Switzerland.
Permanent observation
Bank Julius Baer, not being able to substantially prove anything, but still investigating into him, allegedly hired different private investigators to track him.
According to Elmer's assertions, he was threatened not to go to the police verbally by officials of the bank, most of them composing the boards of directors and similar entities within the various distributed BJB companies and holdings.
According to Elmer's December 2007 court documents, he was subject to more or less permanent observation, as was his family.
His then 6-year old daughter was followed on her way to school, while his wife and daughter claim to have been engaged in a chase on a Swiss autobahn by the private detectives, which police confirmed to have intercepted.
Elmer said that cars driving in the dead-end street he lived in at night annoyed his neighbours and put further pressure on him.
He also was offered CHF 500,000 by the bank, according to his statement, in an effort to buy his silence. He turned down the offer and asked the bank to be charged with bribery, but was told the police found no law against bribing private persons.
Legal denial notice
Bank Julius Baer also started claims against Elmer in Switzerland. These could not be followed by prosecution as BJB refused to give out information on its activity on the Cayman Islands that would provide a basis for investigation and Elmer's defence.
Elmer wrote a letter to the newly appointed CEO of Bank Julius Baer in Switzerland, Johannes de Gier, in which he explained his position.
He hinted that he was in possession – lawfully - of information on the bank's Cayman Islands operations, to make sure nothing would happen to him or his family.
Wikileaks said the document was submitted in a bundle with the legal denial notice issued by the prosecutor in Zurich after Elmer launched claims against the bank.
The prosecutor's office of Zurich-Sihl ruled that stalking can not be substance of a criminal prosecution in Switzerland, a land where no free person is restricted to move the same way as another in public space.
Acknowledging the car pursuit, the prosecutor only mentioned they were able to verify that a private investigator agency had been engaged by BJB, but did not comment any further on this incident at all.
The prosecutor's office stated that while there could be moral claims towards someone ordering such an observation, the actions did not break criminal law.
Regarding the bribery claims that Elmer had made towards the bank, the prosecutor further ruled that bribery was not applicable to a private person but only to a state entity.
The prosecutor said he did not understand Elmer's motivation for these claims, stating the whistleblower should be happy about the money and the bank dropping its complaint.
Banking transparency
Wikileaks said the prosecutor's verdict posed important questions on how much Switzerland would be able to harmonise with the EU on the issue of banking transparency in order to stop illegal money flows.
Following the subsequent Californian injunction obtained by Bank Julius Baer, Wikileaks vowed to continue publishing details of alleged money laundering by banks though its alternative sites and servers.
It has the help of six pro-bono attorney's in San Francisco but claims it was given only hours notice by email prior to the hearing.
Wikileaks pre-litigation California council Julie Turner attended the start of hearing in a personal capacity but said she was then asked to leave the court room.
Elmer to this day claims he has not leaked any documentation related to Bank Julius Baer in order to harm anyone, only set up insurance for his and his family's personal safety.
Wikileaks said, "Whether this assertion was true, technically true or untrue, or whether Elmer had been driven a bit batty by the pressure should not distract from the actions of Bank Julius Baer in its attempts to silence its former high-level employee or the role it plays in supporting ultra-rich's offshore tax avoidance, tax evasion, asset hiding and money laundering."
As of Friday 15 February those going to Wikileaks.org have been shown "Server not found" messages.
Also appears as: http://dofonline.co.uk/governance/swiss-bank-obtains-injunction-against-whistleblower-site5352.html
Swiss bank Julius Baer has obtained an injunction in a Californian court against a whistleblowers website that published details of its financial activities in the Cayman Islands. Wikileaks was founded in 2006 by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and startup company technologists from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.
Wikileaks aims to offer a platform for whistleblowers to expose malpractice by governments and firms across the globe in the name of transparency and freedom of speech. The site claims to contain 1.2 million documents, including confidential briefing notes on Northern Rock and the UK's identity card plans.
The site has previously published confidential documents relating to the US army’s rules for engagement in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, the Chinese government and Thailand’s military junta. Users can post documents anonymously on the site, which looks like Wikipedia.
Intermediary firm
In order to deal with Chinese censorship, Wikileaks has many backup sites such as wikileaks.be (Belgium) and wikileaks.de (Germany) which remain active. The injunction, therefore, focused on the use of the domain address instead.
Unable to lawfully attack the site’s servers based in several countries, the order was served on the intermediary firm through which Wikileaks purchased the 'Wikileaks.org' name, California registrar Dynadot.
District court judge Jeffery White ordered Dynadot on 15 February to use its access to the internet website name registration system to delete the records for 'Wikileaks.org' and to replace the site’s content with a blank page. The court's total of six orders also prevented anyone aware of the injunction from linking to the site’s content.
“Dynadot shall immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court,” the judge ruled.
The firm was told to hand over all administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account plus the IP addresses of anyone who had accessed the site's admin system.
Wikileaks said it never expected to be using the alternative servers to deal with censorship attacks from the United States.
Suspicious transactions
The Cayman Islands are located between Cuba and Honduras. In July 2000, the US Department of the Treasure Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said that there were "serious deficiencies in the counter-money laundering systems of the Cayman Islands".
"Cayman Islands law makes it impossible for the supervisory and regulatory authority to obtain information held by financial institutions regarding their client's identity,” according to the Network.
It warned that failure of financial institutions in the Cayman Islands to report suspicious transactions was not subject to penalty and that these deficiencies, among others, had caused the Cayman Islands to be identified by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (The 'FATF') as non-cooperative in the fight against money laundering.
As of 2006 the US State Department listed the Cayman Islands in its money laundering "Countries of Primary Concern".
Wikileaks said the order was written by Julius Baer’s lawyers and was accepted by judge White without amendment, or representations by Wikileaks or its solicitors.
Polygraph test
The case is over several Wikileaks articles, public commentary and documents dating prior to 2003. The documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.
The bank alleges the documents were disclosed to Wikileaks by offshore banking whistleblower and former vice president of its Cayman Island's offshoring operation, Rudolf Elmer.
Initial research easily turned up that 2002/03 some sensitive documents had slipped out of the Swiss banks office in the Cayman Islands, apparently reaching US tax investigation units.
They were eventually sent to the Swiss financial magazine CASH, which reported on the disclosure, but possibly due to an injunction or Swiss banking law, not the details.
When the leak of trust structures was discovered in 2003, Bank Julius Baer initiated legal investigations on the Caymans, involving the search of the home of each employee and when not gaining any insights from that, undertaking a lie detector test on the employees.
It still remained unclear where the data went. The group of people having legitimate access to these documents was small.
Sick leave
Elmer, who was BJB Caymans deputy head and chief operating officer at that point in time also fulfilled the position of Hurricane Officer, whose duties included keeping backups.
Elmer, facing a spinal surgery coming up in a few days time, was on sick leave and had some trouble scheduling the test. He thus became a suspect.
He complained to the American Polygraph Association (APA), the institution his interrogator works for, the Cayman Prime Minister and other entities about the conduct of the test.
Normally sick people would not be interviewed, but the APA's Ethics Commission, stated in a letter that the ethical rules for polygraphing do not apply to the Cayman Islands, and that, as the test had not been fully carried out, most of the APA rules would not apply anyway.
He was informed there were no regulations on the Caymans for polygraph tests as in the United States. After the test Bank Julius Baer laid off Elmer as an employee and the family decided to move back to Switzerland.
Permanent observation
Bank Julius Baer, not being able to substantially prove anything, but still investigating into him, allegedly hired different private investigators to track him.
According to Elmer's assertions, he was threatened not to go to the police verbally by officials of the bank, most of them composing the boards of directors and similar entities within the various distributed BJB companies and holdings.
According to Elmer’s December 2007 court documents, he was subject to more or less permanent observation, as was his family.
His then 6-year old daughter was followed on her way to school, while his wife and daughter claim to have been engaged in a chase on a Swiss autobahn by the private detectives, which police confirmed to have intercepted.
Elmer said that cars driving in the dead-end street he lived in at night annoyed his neighbours and put further pressure on him.
He also was offered CHF 500,000 by the bank, according to his statement, in an effort to buy his silence. He turned down the offer and asked the bank to be charged with bribery, but was told the police found no law against bribing private persons.
Legal denial notice
Bank Julius Baer also started claims against Elmer in Switzerland. These could not be followed by prosecution as BJB refused to give out information on its activity on the Cayman Islands that would provide a basis for investigation and Elmer's defence.
Elmer wrote a letter to the newly appointed CEO of Bank Julius Baer in Switzerland, Johannes de Gier, in which he explained his position.
He hinted that he was in possession – lawfully - of information on the bank’s Cayman Islands operations, to make sure nothing would happen to him or his family.
Wikileaks said the document was submitted in a bundle with the legal denial notice issued by the prosecutor in Zurich after Elmer launched claims against the bank.
The prosecutor's office of Zurich-Sihl ruled that stalking can not be substance of a criminal prosecution in Switzerland, a land where no free person is restricted to move the same way as another in public space.
Acknowledging the car pursuit, the prosecutor only mentioned they were able to verify that a private investigator agency had been engaged by BJB, but did not comment any further on this incident at all.
The prosecutor's office stated that while there could be moral claims towards someone ordering such an observation, the actions did not break criminal law.
Regarding the bribery claims that Elmer had made towards the bank, the prosecutor further ruled that bribery was not applicable to a private person but only to a state entity.
The prosecutor said he did not understand Elmer's motivation for these claims, stating the whistleblower should be happy about the money and the bank dropping its complaint.
Banking transparency
Wikileaks said the prosecutor’s verdict posed important questions on how much Switzerland would be able to harmonise with the EU on the issue of banking transparency in order to stop illegal money flows.
Following the subsequent Californian injunction obtained by Bank Julius Baer, Wikileaks vowed to continue publishing details of alleged money laundering by banks though its alternative sites and servers.
It has the help of six pro-bono attorney's in San Francisco but claims it was given only hours notice by email prior to the hearing.
Wikileaks pre-litigation California council Julie Turner attended the start of hearing in a personal capacity but said she was then asked to leave the court room.
Elmer to this day claims he has not leaked any documentation related to Bank Julius Baer in order to harm anyone, only set up insurance for his and his family's personal safety.
Wikileaks said, “Whether this assertion was true, technically true or untrue, or whether Elmer had been driven a bit batty by the pressure should not distract from the actions of Bank Julius Baer in its attempts to silence its former high-level employee or the role it plays in supporting ultra-rich's offshore tax avoidance, tax evasion, asset hiding and money laundering.”
As of Friday 15 February those going to Wikileaks.org have been shown “Server not found” messages.
CHICAGO (Feb. 4) - Baby shampoos, lotions and powders may expose infants to chemicals that have been linked with possible reproductive problems, a small study suggests.
The chemicals, called phthalates, are found in many ordinary products including cosmetics, toys, vinyl flooring and medical supplies. They are used to stabilize fragrances and make plastics flexible.
In the study, they were found in elevated levels in the urine of babies who'd been recently shampooed, powdered or lotioned with baby products.
Phthalates (pronounced thowl-ates) are under attack by some environmental advocacy groups, but experts are uncertain what dangers, if any, they might pose. The federal government doesn't limit their use, although California and some countries have restricted their use.
Animal studies have suggested that phthalates can cause reproductive birth defects and some activists believe they may cause reproductive problems in boys and early puberty in girls.
Rigorous scientific evidence in human studies is lacking. The current study offers no direct evidence that products the infants used contained phthalates, and no evidence that the chemicals in the babies' urine caused any harm. Still, the results worried environmental groups that support restrictions on these chemicals.
"There is an obvious need for laws that force the beauty industry to clean up its act," said Stacy Malkan of Health Care Without Harm.
The study's lead author, Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana, a University of Washington pediatrician, said, "The bottom line is that these chemicals likely do exist in products that we're commonly using on our children and they potentially could cause health effects."
Babies don't usually need special lotions and powders, and water alone or shampoo in very small amounts is generally enough to clean infant hair, Sathyanarayana said.
Concerned parents can seek products labeled "phthalate-free," or check labels for common phthalates, including DEP and DEHP.
But the chemicals often don't appear on product labels. That's because retail products aren't required to list individual ingredients of fragrances, which are a common phthalate source.
The Food and Drug Administration "has no compelling evidence that phthalates pose a safety risk when used in cosmetics," spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek said. "Should new data emerge, we will inform the public as well as the industry."
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the health effects in humans are uncertain.
"Although several studies in people have explored possible associations with developmental and reproductive outcomes (semen quality, genital development in boys, shortened pregnancy, and premature breast development in young girls), more research is needed," a 2005 CDC report said.
The new study, which appears in February's issue of the journal Pediatrics, involved 163 babies. Most were white, ages 2 to 28 months and living in California, Minnesota and Missouri.
The researchers measured levels of several phthalates in urine from diapers. They also asked the mothers about use in the previous 24 hours of baby products including lotions, powders, diaper creams and baby wipes.
All urine samples had detectable levels of at least one phthalate, and most had levels of several more. The highest levels were linked with shampoos, lotions and powders, and were most prevalent in babies younger than 8 months.
John Bailey, chief scientist at the Personal Care Products Council, questioned the methods and said the phthalates could have come from diapers, lab materials or other sources.
"Unfortunately, the researchers of this study did not test baby care products for the presence of phthalates or control for other possible routes of exposure," Bailey said.
Iran opens first space centre, launches rocket by Aresu Eqbali
TEHRAN - Iran on Monday fired a rocket into space to mark the opening of its first space centre, hailing the base's inauguration as a step forward in its battle against Western dominance.
The space centre, located in the remote desert of northern Iran, will be used to launch Iran's first home-produced satellite "Omid" (Hope) in May or June this year, officials said.
"We witness today that Iran has taken its first step in space very firmly, precisely and with awareness," declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he gave the order for the rocket's launch.
"The evil and dominant system's most important instrument is humiliating people and nations by making them think that they are incapable," he said in a reference to the West.
The rocket launch is believed to be the second time Iran has attempted to put an object into space after it claimed the successful firing of a missile above the atmosphere in February 2007.
The new space centre includes an underground control station and launchpad which will be used to fire Omid into space, followed by other planned satellites in the future, state media said.
"Building and firing a satellite is a major and valuable achievement," said Ahmadinejad, who gave the order from the headquarters of Iran's space organisation in Tehran.
The opening of the space centre comes as Iran has been trumpeting its progress in its nuclear programme, which the West fears could be used to make atomic weapons.
The emphasis on Iran's development of its own domestic space technology is highly reminiscent of its insistence on developing its nuclear capabilities, which has led it into a four-year standoff with the West.
Ahmadinejad has made Iran's scientific development one of the main themes of his presidency, asserting the country has reached a peak of progress and no longer needs to depend on foreign states for help.
"No power can overcome the Iranian nation's will," said Ahmadinejad.
"The world must know that the Iranian nation will preserve the principles and ideals of the Imam (revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini) until the end."
State television made great play of the opening of the space centre, which came just days after the annual holiday marking the Islamic revolution, repeatedly showing pictures of the launch and playing patriotic music.
Iran has been pursuing a space programme for the past few years and in October 2005 a Russian-made Iranian satellite was put into orbit by a Russian rocket.
But Omid would be Iran's first domestically manufactured probe and the first to be launched in Iran.
State television broadcast pictures of the launch of the rocket, which resembled Iran's longer-range missile Shahab-3, which has a range of 1,300 to 1,600 kilometres (800 to 1,000 miles).
The rocket blasted off after a countdown to cries of "Allahu Akbar!" (God is Greatest), from the space centre in a desert region in the northern Semnan province.
The pictures showed the rocket heading out towards space but no information was given on what height it reached. A small probe was seen falling back to earth on a parachute but it was not clear what it contained.
State media said the rocket was a sounding probe sent to conduct experiments to pave the way for the launch of the Omid satellite.
Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency that the satellite would be launched in the Iranian month of Khordad, which begins on May 21.
The Russian-launched satellite Sina-1 was Iran's first -- and so far only -- probe to be launched into space, and was described by the Iranian press at the time as being for research and telecommunications.
Iran has said it plans to construct and launch several more satellites over the next three years.
From Skull and Bones and stealing Geronimo's bones to selling tires, marrying well, financing Hitler, fathering Satan and buying two presidencies with money from the Holocaust, I give you the Master of Disaster, Prescott Bush. From: Greyson® Date: Feb 4, 2008 4:09 AM
Mississippi Legislature Introduces Bill that Would Ban Restaurants from Serving the Obese
With nearly one-third of the population of Mississippi now classified as "obese", the state is understandably concerned about encouraging its residents to start shedding some pounds. A group of legislators in Mississippi have introduced a new bill that takes aim at solving this issue - HB 282, which would make it illegal for restaurants to serve fat people.
According to HB 282, the health department could revoke the health dept. license of any restaurant, fast-food or otherwise, if it is caught serving food to anyone who meets the department's criteria of being "obese."
The specifically states:
"Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor."
The bill would also require the State Department of Health to distribute materials to dining establishments that would define what an obese person is. The US Government defines an obese person as someone with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or above, although it is not yet clear whether Mississippi would use that as their template for what defines "obese".
Societe Generale is facing more trouble as a trial begins in Paris over a huge money laundering scam between France and Israel.
Four banks, including Societe Generale, and 138 people, including the bank's chairman Daniel Bouton, will go on trial on Monday over the multi-billion dollar scam that allegedly began in the late 1990s, according to TODAY.online.
The other banks include Societe Marseillaise de Credit, Barclays France and the National Bank of Pakistan.
This is while Societe Generale had just revealed late last month, that it had lost an amazing $7.1 billion in the biggest rogue trading scandal in history and is currently facing a takeover bid.
Claims of a money laundering network stretching between France and Israel first surfaced during an investigation into a separate fraud involving companies in the Sentier garment-making district of Paris.
Checks trafficked from France were allegedly cleared in money exchange offices or banks in Israel, where a third party can clear a check by paying a cash sum, therefore making it difficult to trace the origin of the funds. The sums were then sent back to French banks.
Among those charged in the France-Israel scam include six rabbis, a former French prosecutor and 57-year-old Bouton, along with other banking managers.
All four banks are charged with contributing to money laundering and profiting from the deals. All deny the charges.
Excerpts below from an article in Business Week, makes the case for at least a 25% drop in the price of homes over the next few years. The article gives a similar but different look at the housing market then one commonly sees in the financial press. Allow me to go one step further and state that at the end of the current housing crisis, assuming no free money give away by Uncle Sam, the housing market that we have known since the end of WWII will have fundamentally changed. Houses will be judged on a cost basis compared to rent and will no longer be viewed as a wealth builder or an investment vehicle. Text in bold is my emphasis. By the way, the original article has an excellent slide show, so I encourage you to visit the Business Week article.
As Washington policymakers struggle to keep the U.S. out of recession, the swirling confusion over the housing market is making their job a lot tougher. Will American consumers keep shopping or be forced to pull back? Will banks lend freely or be hamstrung by mortgage defaults? What are the best policy options right now? Those and other important questions simply can't be answered without a good idea of whether home prices will rise, flatten out, or keep dropping.
Some experts have begun to suggest that a bottom is in sight. Pali Research analyst Stephen East wrote in a research note to his firm's clients on Jan. 25 that "the sun is not shining very brightly, but at least the worst of the storm has likely passed." With optimism budding, Standard & Poor's beaten-down index of homebuilder stocks soared 49% from Jan. 15 through Jan. 29.
But it's considerably more likely that the storm is still gathering force. On Jan. 30 the government said annual economic growth slowed to just 0.6% in the fourth quarter as home construction plunged at a 24% annual rate. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index fell 7.7% in November from the year before, the biggest decline since the index was created in 2000.
And that could be just the start. Brace yourself: Home prices could sink an additional 25% over the next two or three years, returning values to their 2000 levels in inflation-adjusted terms. That's even with the Federal Reserve's half-percentage-point rate cut on Jan. 30.
While a 25% decline is unprecedented in modern times, some economists are beginning to talk about it. "We now see potential for another 25% to 30% downside over the next two years," says David A. Rosenberg, North American economist for Merrill Lynch, who until recently had expected a much smaller slide.
Shocking though it might seem, a decline of 25% from here would merely reverse the market's spectacular appreciation during the boom. It would put the national price level right back on its long-term growth trend line, a surprisingly modest 0.4% a year after inflation. There's a recent model for this kind of return to normalcy after the bursting of a financial bubble. The stock market decline that began in 2000 erased most of the gains of the boom of the second half of the 1990s, leaving investors with ordinary-sized returns.
Why might housing prices plunge violently from here? Remember the two powerful forces that pushed them up: lax lending standards and the conviction that housing is a fail-safe investment. Now both are working in reverse, depressing demand for housing faster than homebuilders can rein in supply. By reinstituting safeguards such as down payments and proof of income, lenders have disqualified thousands of potential buyers. And many people who do qualify have lost the desire to buy. "A down market is getting baked into expectations," says Chris Flanagan, head of research in JPMorgan Chase's asset-backed securities group. "People say: I'm not buying until prices are lower.'" He predicts prices will fall about 25%, bottoming in 2010.
Nobody can be sure how far prices will decline. Still, if prices drop that much, it could mean big trouble for the U.S. economy, which is already on the brink of recession. It would blow a hole in the balance sheets of banks and households, slicing more than $5 trillion off household wealth. That's roughly the size of the drop in stock market wealth from the peak in early 2000, a big reason for the recession of 2001. Yale economist Robert J. Shiller, a longtime housing bear, points out that a housing decline that started in 1925 and ran until 1932 weakened banks and contributed to the Great Depression, which started in the U.S. in 1929.
. . . . The second shock to the economy from the housing bust will come from the financial sector, which has been weakened by losses on mortgages as well as mortgage-backed securities and more exotic derivatives. Banks borrow so much money to fund their investments that if a loss on some holding reduces their capital by $10, they have to reduce their lending by $100 to avoid exceeding their self-chosen leverage targets, calculates Goldman Sachs chief U.S. economist Jan Hatzius. He estimates that banks and other financial institutions will suffer about $200 billion in real estate losses and respond by cutting their lending by $2 trillion, or about 5% of total lending. The cutback could be even more extreme if they react to the turmoil by lowering their leverage ratios, he says, rather than keeping them intact. Banks have already begun tightening lending standards. In the third quarter, mortgages were harder to get than at any time in the 17-year history of the Federal Reserve's survey of senior loan officers.
Prices won't fall uniformly, of course. Once-booming cities such as Las Vegas and Miami and weak economies like Detroit are likely to fare worse than Seattle or Charlotte, N.C. The price decline will be smaller if it's stretched out over longer than, say, two years, because inflation will have more time to do some of the job of eroding the real value of homes. Still, if the national average decline is anywhere near 25%, the entire U.S. economy is in for trouble. Keep in mind, says Merrill's Rosenberg, that the relatively puny price decline to date has already pushed home-loan delinquencies to their highest level in 20 years. The plunge in residential construction reduced the economy's annual growth rate by a full percentage point in the third quarter of 2007. A bigger decrease would wipe out even more jobs—carpenters, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, furniture salespeople.
For American consumers, meanwhile, huge losses would almost certainly undermine the long-held premise that homeownership is the most reliable way to build wealth and a middle-class life. "I know you're not supposed to say I told you so,' but I'm at the age where I can do it: Homeownership was oversold," says 67-year-old House Finance Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
One look at the long-term home price chart (above) tells you all you need to know: Starting in 2000, prices crossed above their trend line and just kept going up. The spike had never happened in modern U.S. history, according to data dating back to 1890 that Shiller painstakingly compiled for the second edition of his book Irrational Exuberance in 2005. Back then he predicted a sharp drop in house prices. Now he says lawyers won't let him publicly forecast home prices because he's involved in preparing the market-sensitive Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price indexes. All he'll say is: "This is a historic turning point."
Optimists point out that the Fed, Congress, and the White House are all committed to keeping housing aloft so it doesn't kill the economy. The Fed reduced the federal funds rate by three quarters of a percentage point on Jan. 22 and followed with a half-point cut on Jan. 30—an extremely rapid move for a major central bank. Homebuilders also are doing their bit to support prices: They've cut production so drastically that even though home sales fell more than expected in December, the backlog of unsold new homes shrank slightly. . . . .
. . . . . Pessimists aren't impressed. One of the first high-profile bears on housing, Ian Shepherdson of consulting firm High Frequency Economics, is looking for a 20% decline in prices from their peak but says 40% wouldn't shock him. "We've never been here before, so there's no road map," he says.
There's even uncertainty about where prices are right now, since many would-be sellers are refusing to cut them enough to make a sale. A Harris Interactive survey for Zillow.com in December found that 36% of homeowners thought their homes had increased in value over the past year, vs. 23% who thought they had decreased. That willful optimism translates directly into the record overhang of unsold existing homes: more than 4 million.
For a truer picture of the market, look at sales by banks and builders, which don't have the luxury to wait things out because they have to worry about cash flow. Deutsche Bank, among other banks, has been slashing prices on repossessed homes to get rid of them. In a recent transaction mentioned on BusinessWeek's Hot Property blog, Deutsche Bank sold a house in Woodbridge, Va., in December for $150,000, less than half its last sale price of $315,000 in the spring of 2005.
In November, Lennar, the big builder, sold 11,000 home sites to a joint venture it formed with Morgan Stanley Real Estate for $525 million, 60% below what they were valued on Lennar's books. That's capitulation, and it's likely to occur more often as sellers get the idea that waiting won't solve their problems.
Plenty of other evidence supports the notion that home prices have further to fall. There's a crisis of confidence in the securitization of mortgages, which pumped up housing demand by giving buyers access to nationwide and even global pools of capital. The loose links in the securitization chain allowed risky loans to be made at low rates. Trust in that system is broken and will not be mended quickly.
Almost the only mortgages being securitized successfully are the ones bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the private companies with implicit government backing. They accounted for about 87% of mortgage securitizations in December, vs. fewer than half in 2005 and 2006, according to the publication Inside MBS & ABS and the investment bank UBS. Subprime lending is nearly shut down, home-equity loans and lines of credit are scarce, and jumbo mortgages (too big for Fannie and Freddie to purchase) command premium rates. A survey of real estate agents found that a third of planned home sales were canceled or delayed last fall because of loan problems.
Even Fannie and Freddie, which style themselves as the last resort of the home buyer, have tightened standards and raised fees. And they remain reluctant to raise funds to buy mortgages if it means lowering returns to shareholders. Fannie Mae Chief Executive Daniel H. Mudd joked to Wall Street analysts in December that the process of cutting the dividend and selling preferred shares to raise money pained him so much that "I wanted to cut off both my arms and both my legs, and my head, and my kidney."
Cheaper mortgages won't necessarily ride to the rescue, either. Thirty-year conventional fixed-rate mortgages failed to fall after the Fed's two January rate cuts, averaging 5.5% on Jan. 30. Financing remains cut off for subprime borrowers and for owners whose home equity has dipped too low to qualify for a new loan. Fed rate cuts will ease, but not eliminate, the pain from resets on adjustable-rate loans.
For another bearish view, there's what economists refer to as the Mankiw paper. In 1989, long before working in the White House as chief economic adviser or writing his best-selling textbook, Principles of Economics, Harvard University economist N. Gregory Mankiw co-wrote a paper that was startlingly negative on housing. He and David N. Weil predicted that home prices would decline by 47% after inflation over the next 20 years, based on a shrinking pool of potential first-time buyers and an expectation that baby boomers as a group would spend less on housing as they grew older.
It could be that Mankiw and Weil were not so much wrong as premature. Although boomers have thwarted expectations by adding on rooms and second homes as they age, they won't thwart nature. "At some point, death or illness will cause baby boomers' houses to come onto the market," observed John Krainer, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, in an in-house publication in 2005. When the huge boomer generation shuffles off, the nation's housing needs will wane. That will create an oversupply unless builders see it coming and reduce construction. Judging from the recent overbuilding binge, though, their forecasting abilities leave a lot to be desired.
Observers with a Calvinist streak see a housing crash as not only necessary but also positive. It will force Americans to live within their means, which will enable the U.S. to work off some of its towering debt, says Peter D. Schiff, president of Darien (Conn.) brokerage Euro Pacific Capital, who was early in predicting the crash. In 2005 the share of gross domestic product devoted to residential construction reached the highest since 1950, when the U.S. was racing to house the baby boom generation and make up for the lack of construction during the Depression and World War II. Now, says Schiff, "if there's any construction, it's going to be factories, oil exploration, mines." He takes almost unseemly delight in predicting tougher times ahead: "Americans are going to have their credit cards taken away from them by the lenders. We're going to turn the American economy into a cash economy."
Foreclosure counselors such as Mildred Wilkins foresee similar changes, except in looking back they put more of the blame for the fiasco on builders and lenders and less on borrowers. "We have been fed the illusion that acquiring a home was a magic key to stability, to wealth-building," says Wilkins, who travels the country advising lawyers and others on how to handle foreclosures. Even though she is president and founder of an Indianapolis company called Home Ownership Matters, which promotes responsible ownership, Wilkins says she never believed the "poppycock" that homeownership was a sure path to wealth, calling it a myth foisted on lower-income Americans by politicians serving the builders and bankers.
The sense of betrayal is probably most intense among the working-class families who were supposed to be the greatest beneficiaries of easy access to low-down-payment mortgages. . . . . . . . . .If home prices really fall an additional 25%, Washington's rescue program is likely to seem seriously inadequate. So far the Bush Administration is pushing two main ideas: FHASecure, which offers new mortgages to certain well-qualified borrowers, and Hope Now, a private-sector program to streamline the modification of unaffordable loans. But FHASecure isn't open to people who are underwater on their mortgages—in other words, those who most need help. And the Hope Now alliance doesn't seem to be coping successfully with the mounting backlog of loan delinquencies. The other big Washington initiative, to crack down on loose lending practices, could be ineffective and even counterproductive, because it's making loan funding less available right when it's needed most.
The next big reform ideas may hark back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Many of the housing market's props today—including Fannie Mae and the Federal Housing Administration—were launched during the 1930s. If things get bad enough, say some analysts, it could raise interest in renewing another innovation of the Depression years, the Home Owners' Loan Corp., which lent money directly to hard-pressed borrowers to prevent foreclosure. If enough banks get into trouble, Congress might even create something roughly parallel to the 1980s-era Resolution Trust Corp., which cleared up the savings and loan crisis by shutting down weak thrifts, thus wiping out the investments of the owners, and then selling off their assets to the highest bidders.
And with homeownership no longer seeming like such a sure thing, national housing policy could become more evenhanded toward renters. Congress is weighing the creation of a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund that would build, rehabilitate, and preserve 1.5 million units of housing for the lowest-income families over the next 10 years. The national homeownership rate has already fallen about one percentage point from its peak, to 68.2% in last year's third quarter. However things unfold, the changes are likely to be wrenching. The bigger the boom, the harder the fall.
So it appears that Arctic ice isn't vanishing after all
There was some coverage of the chaos caused in central and southern China by their heaviest snowfalls for decades - but little attention was paid to the snow that last week carpeted Jerusalem, Damascus and Amman, none of them exactly used to Dickensian Christmas card weather.
Similarly, Saudis last month expressed amazement at their heaviest snow for many years, in Afghanistan snow and freezing weather killed 120 people and large parts of the United States and Canada have been swept by unusually fierce blizzards.
The biologist who took this picture says this pair were within easy swimming distance of the Alaskan coast
If the northern hemisphere's chilliest winter in a long time was bad news for the propagandists of global warming, they also had to face serious questions about some of the most iconic images used to support the claims that the world is hotting up towards disaster.
Last autumn the BBC and others could scarcely contain their excitement in reporting that the Arctic ice was melting so fast there would soon be none left.
Sea ice cover had shrunk to the lowest level ever recorded. But for some reason the warmists are less keen on the latest satellite findings, reported by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on the website Cryosphere Today by the University of Illinois.
This body is committed to warmist orthodoxy and contributes to the work of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yet its graph of northern hemisphere sea ice area, which shows the ice shrinking from 13,000 million sq km to just 4 million from the start of 2007 to October, also shows it now almost back to 13 million sq km.
A second graph, "Global Ice Area", shows a similar pattern repeated every year since satellite records began in 1979; while a third, "Southern Hemisphere Ice", shows that sea ice has actually expanded in recent years, well above its 30-year mean.
Still more inconvenient was the truth about an image that has been relentlessly exploited to promote this panic over the "vanishing" Arctic ice. It is the photograph of two polar bears standing forlornly on the fast-melting remains of an iceberg which has been reproduced thousands of times to show that there will soon be no bears left (ignoring evidence that their numbers have risen recently).
Now, thanks to a Canadian journalist, Carole Williams (on NewsWithViews.com), we can read the story behind this picture, which was taken in 2004 just off Alaska by a marine biologist, Amanda Byrd. As Ms Byrd is happy to point out, the bears were in no danger so close to the coast (they can swim 100 miles). She wanted a photograph more of the "wind-sculpted ice" than of the bears.
The image was copied by another member of the crew and passed on to Environment Canada. Then it was eagerly adopted by the warmist propaganda machine - above all by Al Gore, who used it to powerful effect as an emotive backdrop to his highly lucrative lectures.
"Their habitat is melting," he likes to declaim, "beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet."
As the old joke has it, it seems those famous bears were not drowning after all, they were just waving. But the BBC is no more likely to tell us that than it was to lead the news with last week's snow in Jerusalem.
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Brussels steps in - to stop a wind farm
A delightful row has blown up in Scotland over the plan to erect 181 600ft wind turbines on the Hebridean island of Lewis.
For years we have been told how this largest onshore windfarm in Britain was going to help the UK to meet its now mandatory EU target to produce 20 per cent of our energy from renewable sources by 2020 - even though the 200 megawatts of electricity the turbines would intermittently produce represents only a quarter of the output of a modest-sized gas-fired power station.
But the £500 million scheme, which would involve building 100 miles of new roads, has aroused vehement opposition not only from the majority of the island's inhabitants but from an array of conservation bodies, led by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
They are horrified at the immense damage this vast industrial installation would do to wildlife over a huge area of specially-designated peatland, not least to Scotland's largest population of golden eagles.
Now the "Scottish government" (as it likes to call itself), which was shortly expected to give the go-ahead to this scheme, has been told by the European Commission that this would be in serious breach of various EU environmental directives.
So, on one hand, the EU exhorts us to build thousands more giant turbines, as the only way to fulfil our environmental obligations on renewable energy.
On the other, when a highly unpopular project is proposed to do just that, the EU turns round to say that this would be so environmentally damaging that, if the project goes ahead, the UK could face a colossal fine from the European Court of Justice.
If anyone suggests that, under the EU, you cannot win, who could disagree?
Tory MEP is hoist with his own canard
When smoking was banned in English pubs last July, many landlords realised that the only way to keep a good many of their customers was to install patio heaters.
As the Irish discovered when they introduced a smoking ban, the only pubs that didn't lose business were those that bought heaters, allowing smokers to continue their wicked habit in relative comfort outside. English publicans accordingly spent £85 million following suit.
But then up jumped Friends of the Earth to demand that, since these heaters give off carbon dioxide, they too should be banned. This naturally made a huge impression on the greenie Lib Dems, with the eventual result that last Thursday one of their MEPs moved a motion in the European Parliament calling on Brussels to ban patio heaters.
So imbued are MEPS with a priggish desire to save the planet that 526 voted for the ban, with only 26 against.
In a letter in next day's Daily Telegraph, a Tory MEP, Richard Ashworth, pointed out that the amount of carbon dioxide saved by banning patio heaters in the EU was only slightly less than the amount emitted every year by MEPs themselves, as they engage in the laborious farce of transferring the entire European Parliament every month from Brussels to Strasbourg.
Apart from the car, train and plane journeys of the MEPs, this involves a convoy of some 60 trucks trundling 100 miles between the two cities and back again, loaded with trunks-full of parliamentary papers.
Mr Ashworth will doubtless have won plaudits from Telegraph readers reading his letter over the marmalade, for such a telling comment.
But any who then bothered to examine the list of those 526 MEPs who supported this absurd ban might have been surprised to see among them the name of Mr Ashworth.
Death photo of war reporter Pyle found By RICHARD PYLE NEW YORK - The figure in the photograph is clad in Army fatigues, boots and helmet, lying on his back in peaceful repose, folded hands holding a military cap. Except for a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, he could be asleep.
But he is not asleep; he is dead. And this is not just another fallen GI; it is Ernie Pyle, the most celebrated war correspondent of World War II.
As far as can be determined, the photograph has never been published. Sixty-three years after Pyle was killed by the Japanese, it has surfaced — surprising historians, reminding a forgetful world of a humble correspondent who artfully and ardently told the story of a war from the foxholes.
"It's a striking and painful image, but Ernie Pyle wanted people to see and understand the sacrifices that soldiers had to make, so it's fitting, in a way, that this photo of his own death ... drives home the reality and the finality of that sacrifice," said James E. Tobin, a professor at Miami University of Ohio.
Tobin, author of a 1997 biography, "Ernie Pyle's War," and Owen V. Johnson, an Indiana University professor who collects Pyle-related correspondence, said they had never seen the photo. The negative is long lost, and only a few prints are known to exist.
"When I think about the real treasures of American history that we have," says Mark Foynes, director of the Wright Museum of World War II in Wolfeboro, N.H., "this picture is definitely in the ballpark."
___
"COMMAND POST, IE SHIMA, April 18 (AP) — Ernie Pyle, war correspondent beloved by his co-workers, GIs and generals alike, was killed by a Japanese machine-gun bullet through his left temple this morning ..."
The news stunned a nation still mourning the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt six days earlier. Callers besieged newspaper switchboards. "Ernie is mourned by the Army," said soldier-artist Bill Mauldin, whose droll, irreverent GI cartoons had made him nearly as famous as Pyle.
He was right; even amid heavy fighting, Pyle's death was a prime topic among the troops.
"If I had not been there to see it, I would have taken with a grain of salt any report that the GI was taking Ernie Pyle's death `hard,' but that is the only word that best describes the universal reaction out here," Army photographer Alexander Roberts wrote to Lee Miller, a friend of Ernie and his first biographer.
But Ernie Pyle was not just any reporter. He was a household name during World War II and for years afterward. From 1941 until his death, Pyle riveted the nation with personal, straight-from-the-heart tales about hometown soldiers in history's greatest conflict.
In 1944, his columns for Scripps-Howard Newspapers earned a Pulitzer Prize and Hollywood made a movie, "Ernie Pyle's Story of G.I. Joe," starring Burgess Meredith as the slender, balding 44-year-old reporter.
Typically self-effacing, Pyle insisted the film include fellow war correspondents playing themselves. But he was killed before it was released.
In April 1945, the one-time Indiana farm boy had just arrived in the Pacific after four years of covering combat in North Africa, Italy and France. With Germany on the verge of surrender, he wanted to see the war to its end, but confided to colleagues that he didn't expect to survive.
At Okinawa he found U.S. forces battling entrenched Japanese defenders while "kamikaze" suicide pilots wreaked carnage on the Allied fleet offshore.
On April 16, the Army's 77th Infantry Division landed on Ie Shima, a small island off Okinawa, to capture an airfield. Although a sideshow to the main battle, it was "warfare in its worst form," photographer Roberts wrote later. "Not one Japanese soldier surrendered, he killed until he was killed."
On the third morning, a jeep carrying Pyle and three officers came under fire from a hidden machine gun. All scrambled for cover in roadside ditches, but when Pyle raised his head, a .30 caliber bullet caught him in the left temple, killing him instantly.
Roberts and two other photographers, including AP's Grant MacDonald, were at a command post 300 yards away when Col. Joseph Coolidge, who had been with Pyle in the jeep, reported what happened.
Roberts went to the scene, and despite continuing enemy fire, crept forward — a "laborious, dirt-eating crawl," he later called it — to record the scene with his Speed Graphic camera. His risky act earned Roberts a Bronze Star medal for valor.
Pyle was first buried among soldiers on Ie Shima. In 1949 his body was moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl Crater, near Honolulu.
Roberts' photograph, however, was never seen by the public. He told Miller the War Department had withheld it "out of deference" to Ernie's ailing widow, Jerry.
"It was so peaceful a death ... that I felt its reproduction would not be in bad taste," he said, "but there probably would be another school of thought on this."
___
Eight military museums and history centers queried by AP said the negative and photo were unknown to them. This included the National Archives & Records Administration, the most likely repository.
"Considering all the photo research done on World War II, and thousands of letters requesting information about our holdings, my guess is it would have been `discovered' by a researcher or staff member by now," said Edward McCarter, NARA's top still-photos archivist.
Prints taken from Roberts' negative at the time of Pyle's death "would appear to be the only record that the photo was actually made," McCarter said.
At least two such prints were kept as souvenirs by veterans who served aboard USS Panamint, a Navy communications ship in the Okinawa campaign. Although the two men never met, they came by the photo in similar ways, and both later recognized its importance to posterity.
Retired naval officer Richard Strasser, 88, of Goshen, Ind., who recalls Pyle visiting the ship just before he was killed, said a friend named George, who ran the ship's darkroom, gave him a packet of pictures after Japan surrendered in August 1945.
Months later, back in civilian life, Strasser finally opened the envelope. "I was surprised to find a picture of Ernie Pyle," he said. "At the time, Ernie's widow was still alive and I considered sending the photo to her, but had mixed feelings about it. In the end I did nothing."
Strasser recently provided his photo — a still-pristine contact print from the 4-by-5-inch negative — to the AP. He since has made it available to the Newseum, a $435 million news museum scheduled to open in Washington this year.
Margaret Engel, the Newseum's managing editor, says the photo is "of strong historic interest," and because Pyle died at the height of his fame, "the circumstances of his death ... remain a compelling story for students of journalism and the war."
Ex-Petty Officer Joseph T. Bannan, who joined USS Panamint's crew in May 1945 after his own ship was damaged by a kamikaze, said his Pyle photo came from a ship's photographer he remembers only as "Joe from Philadelphia."
Bannan, 82, of Boynton Beach, Fla., said "Joe" told him he had been ordered to destroy the negative "because of the effect it would have on the morale of the American public."
In 2004, Bannan donated copies of the photo to the Wright Museum, the Ernie Pyle State Historic Site at Dana, Ind., and the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Fla.
Yet another copy was acquired by the Indiana Historical Society at a 1999 auction. Historian Susan Sutton said she had no information on its origin or the seller.
Both Strasser and Bannan assumed a Navy photographer had made the picture. Only Roberts, however, is known to have visited the death scene, and with no Army Signal Corps photo lab nearby, his film went to the nearest ship offshore — USS Panamint.
This was "standard procedure" in the Pacific, says retired AP photographer Max Desfor, 96, who covered Okinawa and later won a Pulitzer Prize in Korea. "No question that's what happened."
In tracing the picture's history, AP learned of a second photo, showing Pyle's body on a stretcher. The fatal wound, unseen in Roberts' photo, appears as a dark spot above his left eyebrow.
That photo, of unknown origin, appears to be an amateur snapshot, said Katherine Gould, assistant curator of cultural history at the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis, which acquired it and Bannan's photo last year from the Dana historic site.
As war photographs go, neither could be considered grisly, but they were never displayed at Dana. "We get a lot of kids here," spokeswoman Janice Duncan said.
One who did see the Roberts photo there is Bruce L. Johnson, 84, of Afton, Minn., a nephew and one of the few surviving relatives who knew Pyle.
In April 1945, Johnson was a sailor aboard the seaplane tender USS Norton Sound, which by a quirk of fate was a few miles away when Pyle was killed. In fact, the two had been writing letters home, trying to figure out a way they could rendezvous.
"We were in the mess hall and the news came over the ship's loudspeaker," he recalled. "It was just a shock."
Lottery winner's sweet wish... Thu Jan 31, 1:03 PM ET LONDON - Retired hospital porter Steve Smith, who is suffering from a potentially fatal heart defect, won almost 19 million pounds ($38 million) on Britain's National Lottery -- but said he would give it all up if he could spend a few more years living with his wife Ida.
"I have a one in 10 chance of living. It's like a ticking time bomb," said the 58-year-old Smith, enjoying a bittersweet glass of celebratory champagne with his wife Ida.
Smith, who has an aortic aneurysm, told reporters when collecting his check: "It's Ida I worry for, it's leaving her behind. I would give all that back if I am allowed to still be with her because there are no shops in the cemetery are there?"
Smith landed the giant prize with an extra stroke of luck -- the couple stopped off on the way home from a family visit to buy some lucky dip tickets and it was one of those which hit the jackpot.
Kindness of Strangers homemade pet food recipes Current mood: busy Category: Pets and Animals
Warning for those animal rights purist friends i do suggest feeding companion animals some flesh in this blog, it is not my preference, and many alternatives are also suggested
Thank you Wolfdreamer for this info about pet food companies testing on animals! * Wolfdreamer *
"Hi Nan, Please help me in speaking out against animal testing. Share this information and tell people about the testing and the ongoing pain and cruelty these poor animals go thru. Blessings, Wolfdreamer
Feeding dogs and cats a plant based diet is doable and healthy—there are some problems and naturally i get to experience them! My "companion animal friends" are NOT vegan or vegetarian, as feeding them right and in an environmentally sensitive way can be expensive or time consuming, that is the direction we've been going though. My part pit-bull rescue, Angel has grain allergies and i see from both doggies poop that unless beans, nuts, and veggies are ground up it just goes right through them!
100% Organic dog poop, healthy for the Planet but my wallet says "Ouch"
Since i feed our brood all expensive organic veggies, nuts, fruit, etc i have been trying to grind their food rather than have 100% organic poop! But then i spend more hours in the kitchen cleaning the blender, the majority of my kitchen time already spend caring for them that is not acceptable!
A friend correctly stated "saying feeding dogs and cats raw is dangerous is 'bullshit'" he is right, in nature dogs eat rotten carcasses and really smelly garbage, they are natural scavengers. Cats are too picky to eat meat that is not fresh. i have been feeding my animals mostly a raw meat diet for over twelve years, they do very well on it. However, the "bullshit" part is true for another reason. We animal lovers do not like to think about it—but animal waste from factory farms is the chief culprit in global warming!
Here are alternatives that are more Earth friendly and humane,
The best solution thus far i have found to feed my companion animals a healthy, less meat diet. i will soon do a video with more detail.
1. My pet rescued chickens "Thanks" and "Giving" provide egg yokes and shells for calcium. Although the egg white is toxic and not safe to feed to dogs or cats, the eggshells are easy to handle as i freeze them and grind them in the blender after i have enough to add to the homemade pet food.
2. i have used Feedthis! Inc. raw food for the last nine years, it is convenient for a busy person, delivered, fresh frozen to my door every two weeks. Best of all for a conscientious environmentalist, Feed This Inc. recycles the plastic food containers, coolers, ice packs, boxes and liners in which the food arrives, (if i throughly washed and dried everything.) Eventually i just got tired of washing all those plastic containers so carefully — and with multiple rescued animals it was just too expensive—Angel alone weighs 92 pounds and needs a lot of food. So i stopped having FeedThis! deliver the raw meat mix.
3. Now Feedthis! delivers just the ground 100% organic veggie mix every two weeks. That means a lot less plastic containers filling up my freezer or to wash and dry and it is a lot less expensive to buy my own meat. And it is less work!
4. i purchase the best quality ground meat i can, if it is ground cows i make sure it is grass fed, and if it is chicken or turkey i shop ahead of time to get the best deals on organic meat when available. I mix enough in a big bowl to last a few days, and as much as i hate touching raw meat with my hands that is the best way to really mix it well, otherwise the cats will just eat the meat and leave their vegetables! i have been alternating this with plant based pet foods. And begging my friends who produce pet food to come up with a raw plant based grain free meat substitute like this Raw Organic Homemade Grain-Free Dog Food
5. i now give my old 17 year old Now Brand vegan glucosamine and her limp has gone away
My good friends at David and Darrell of V-Dog are developing three new products;
1. 100% organic vegan dog food
2. Grain free for allergic pets and
3. Vegan cat food
Right now V-dog is close to carrying their products in Whole Foods and all products are in the planning stage—however they will need our support to do as soon as we would all like.
If you are an environmentalist and care about the effects of using products most corn and soy are genetically modified. that are not organic like my family, you can try what my friend Martha of MotherNature researched for us:
I just looked into the V-dog food ingredients...from what I have researched in relation to my pets' health, I have learned that any wheat, corn, or soy product has been linked to cause allergies in animals. My feeling is due to the fact that all these products are now GMO'd these days, and unless they are USDA organic, should NOT be consumed. Here is Holistic Company I found:
Raw Organic Homemade Grain-Free Dog Food
It is a grain-free, meat-free, dehydrated form, which means all the enzymes are intact! They will deliver to your door.
i will be ordering this product and trying it asap however still want to support my friends at V-Dog so they can also go organic, which is very expensive for a small company like them.
How to Avoid Foods Dangerous for Your Dog
The following information is from Feedthis! i do not agree totally with everything they say, i do think a grains can be okay but if you observe your animals poop you can often see that corn and rice are not being digested, why pay for something that is not being digested? And as i said before most corn and soy are genetically modified No grains No animal would ever choose in the wild to eat cooked grains. Grains are a cheap filler to make your pet and the kibble company execs pockets feel full. And like with humans and carbs they become addicted. Also grains plus yeast (see below) equals alcohol.....hmmmm I wonder if this can explain some of the bad behavior we see. Also in large breeds grain will stretch the stomach and loosen the muscles that hold the stomach in place and can cause bloat as well as the stomach or other organs to twist or fold (torsion) Lastly grains deposit a mucous in the intestinal tract...A beautiful environment for parasites to grow and thrive. Sometimes the intestines are so badly coated with mucous your pet may not get most of the nutrients in their food and are begging for more or eating stools that they find a the dog park
No Yeast if you have an itchy dog or a dog with runny eyes or smelly ears this is probably why
No Dairy human dairy products are supplemented with vitamin D which can cause problems. In addition dairy can cause runny stool and most dairy has all sorts of hormones and antibiotics.
No Raw Salmon There is a parasite that can be fatal to dogs found in Pacific salmon [Note from Kindness of Strangers i do not give my animals any fish, the tiny bones are a chocking hazard, have you ever seen a dog eat a fish in nature and the oceans are overfished and we cannot control the heavy metals fish flesh is so high.]
No Grapes or Raisins there are a few considerations. It was thought that it may have been the enormous amounts of pesticides that growers use on their grapes however I have heard that even organic grapes can cause problems. In talking with grape growers, veterinarians and bacteriologists it seems that some of the molds/fungus that grow on grapes that give sweeter wines their nice flavor may be similar or the same as molds that can cause kidney failure in dogs.
No Nightshade Veggies (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, peppers) These foods wont kill your pet but they can trigger arthritis in pets who are prone to that. Also they can trigger autoimmune problems.
No Mushrooms of any kind (some can be eaten by humans but not dogs or cats)
No Preservatives why keep dog poop in the environment for 20 years. A preservative free stool dissipates in 2-4 days naturally.
No Colors come one the colors are for humans not the animals they don't care what color it is.
Graph of Iranian Internet Traffic (Note: It's Zero)
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Middle East Internet Blackouts Spur Geopolitical Suspicions Bloggers says big event could be right around the corner, Iran completely cut off Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Friday, February 1st, 2008
Unprecedented mass Internet outages throughout the Middle East and Asia after no less than four undersea Internet cables were cut without explanation are spurring suspicions that a major event of geopolitical proportions may be just around the corner.
Internet blackouts are impacting large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa after four undersea cable connections were severed. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.
According to InternetTraffic.com, Iran has been completely cut off from the Internet, though Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's blog can still be accessed.
Most notably, Israel and Iraq are unaffected by the outage.
"Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the damaged cables collectively account for the majority of international communications between Europe and the Middle East," reports CNN.
Officials say that the cause behind the severing of the cables remains unknown, but United Arab Emirates' second largest telecom company said the cables were cut due to ships dragging their anchors.
Is this a pre-cursor to throw a veil over an imminent staged event in the Middle East?
"What are the odds? Who benefits? asks the Crimes and Corruptions blog. "Let's see. Iranian rapprochement: "Recent months have brought signs of a growing rapprochement between Iran and Egypt."
"What nation would not like this and has subs which could cut the cables? Why do it? Payback as over the net business is badly damaged. Or is this a setup for more? Note the internet is working just fine in Israel."
Over at WhatReallyHappened.com, Mike Rivero points out that the mysterious cable sabotage could portend another imperial Neo-Con crusade in the works.
"The biggest problem the Bush administration faced during Iraq were images coming over the internet that showed the horrors being visited on the Iraqi people, and exposed the government's lies about Saddam," he writes.
"I am greatly concerned that these undersea cable cuttings are intended to prevent the world from seeing something that is about to happen, other than through the government-controlled propaganda/media."
--
February 4, 2008 -- Middle Eastern submarine cables under attack
Parties, as yet unknown, are subjecting undersea cables that carry Internet and phone traffic to repeated attacks. After three cables were cut, two off of Alexandria, Egypt and a third, the FLAG FALCON ring cable, between Dubai and Oman in the Persian Gulf, a fourth cable cut was reported on January 3 between Qatar's Haloul island and the United Arab Emirates island of Das, also in the Gulf.
Contrary to previous reports in the corporate media, Egypt's Communications and Information Technology Ministry said the two cables that were severed near Alexandria last week, FLAG Telecom and SEA-Me-We4, were not cut by the anchors of ships. Egyptian authorities examined photographic footage of the restricted maritime area and no ships were seen 12 hours before and 12 hours after the time of the cable cuts.
Time-domain reflectometers are used to calculate the exact location of cable faults and the times at which they occur.
Only two countries have been unscathed by the four submarine cable cuts: Israel and U.S.-occupied Iraq. Intelligence sources are reporting that Israel and/or the United States are being blamed by Internet users in countries from Egypt to the Gulf and Iran to India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka for committing sabotage against the cables and causing the resulting Internet disruption.
Speculation about an attack on the submarine fiber optics cables has some merit. The Joint Information Operations Planning Handbook, issued by the Joint Command, Control, and Information Warfare School of the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia in July 2003, stated the following about physical destruction of information technology assets:
"In theory, the last resort in the commander’s choice of assets, destruction should be considered, just like the “soft kill” IO [Information Operations] capabilities as a viable choice for conducting IO. Again, ROE (Rules of Engagement] will play a major role in determining if destruction is available during a particular phase of an operation. Destruction must be supported by other capabilities and related activities of IO. At a minimum, IO planners should consider supporting destruction with PSYOP [Psychological warfare Operations] and Public Affairs."
First accounts, reported widely by the global corporate media, that the Mediterranean cuts off Egypt and the cut of the Dubai to Oman cable, were that they were caused by ships' anchors. This now appears to have been a disinformation campaign, one that fits neatly into the Pentagon's information operations doctrine.
The Pentagon's doctrine on spreading false information is stated as follows in the IO Planning Handbook: "Counterpropaganda consists of specific PSYOP and/or Public Affairs activities aimed at countering hostile PSYOP or propaganda directed towards the United States, its allies or coalition partners, their individual and collective military forces, and friendly populations. Counter-propaganda activities must be carefully formulated and closely coordinated between the joint force commander’s PSYOP and Public Affairs organizations."
The following represent the Pentagon's information technology targets. Transmitters, receiver, and antenna are all considered fair game. "Wetware" is the human-IT interface.
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US Crashes Internet In Middle East After Saudi Threat, Russia Responds With Air Forces
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1067.htm
Reports circulating in the Kremlin today are painting a grim picture of just how desperate US War Leaders have become as their economy continues its freefall towards total bankruptcy by their crashing of Global Internet access for the Middle East’s banking centers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Iran, UAR, Turkey and Kuwait.
These reports state that the Americans became ‘enraged’ this past week when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rejected US demands for an immediate increase in oil production.
Further angering the Americans this past week was Turkey’s rejection of US demands for them to sever banking ties with Iran's Bank Mellat, and which allows Iranian continued access to Global banking resources.
But, these reports state, the greatest fears of the United States were raised this past week when Saudi Arabia ‘warned’ the United States to ‘back off’ of its threats against Iran or face the Saudi’s decoupling the US Dollar from its enormous World oil trade transactions.
Though the American President personally went to the Saudi Kingdom to lobby the US’s Middle East allies in agreeing for attacks against Iran for the Iranians decoupling of the US Dollar from its oil trade, Bush was quickly rebuffed.
It should be noted that those Nations who have dared to decoupled the US Dollar from their oil trade, Iraq, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, have come under withering attacks from the Americans, and their Western Allies; none worse than the Iraqis who are reported to have suffered over 1 million deaths since being invaded by the US in 2003.
But, as these reports state, the ‘worst nightmare’ of the Americans appeared to be coming true this past week when their Saudi Arabian allies were reported to have begun the decoupling of the US Dollar from their oil trade with the intention of replacing the rapidly declining American currency with the European Euro.
American War Leaders, though, have had previous warnings of the Saudis growing fears of being the holders of trillions of declining US Dollars with Saudi Arabia, for the first time, refusing to drop their interest rates in ‘lock-step’ with the US Federal Reserve, and leading to fears of a ‘stampede’ by other Middle Eastern Nations out of US Dollar backed assets.
Under such a threat, and with the Saudi King growing closer to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad , Russian Military Analysts state in these reports that the United States invoked one of their so called ‘nuclear options’ by severing the three major undersea cables connecting the Middle East’s major banking centers to their Western, and Global, counterparts.
The significance to the severing of these cables is the Middle East Banking Centers being denied access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), based in Brussels and which carries up to 12.7 million messages a day containing instructions on many of the International transfers of money between banks, lies in Saudi Arabia, or any other Middle East Nation, being unable to change their previously, before loss of communication, encoded currency instructions from being changed.
Moscow’s actions against the West, in the severing by the United States of these cables, was swift as President Putin ordered Russian Air Force Fighters and Bombers to take immediate action to protect the Russian Nations vital undersea cables in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.
To some of the Russian Air Force assets used we can read as reported by the Reuters News Service article titled "Russia sends bombers, fighters to Atlantic, Arctic", and which says:
"Air force pilots will carry out practice in the areas involving reconnaissance, missile-bombing attacks on a navy attack force of a hypothetical enemy, air-to-air combat and refuelling and patrolling," an air force spokesman said. The bomber group included two Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers, codenamed "Blackjack" by NATO, two turbo-prop Tu-95 "Bear" strategic bombers, and eight Tu-22 "Blinder" bombers. MiG-31 and Su-27 fighters were also sent to the region."
To the final outcome of these events it is not in our knowing, other than one Russian Banking Official, wishing to remain anonymous, stating that, “Should the Saudi’s effectively decouple their oil from the US Dollar, the United States, for all practical purposes will cease to be a World power as it economy will collapse completely as the US Dollar has no value in and of itself due to the staggering debt of the Americans. Without oil they are nothing.
---
Three Internet Cables Slashed in a Week: Has Iran lost all Internet Connectivity? by Mike Whitney by Mike Whitney Global Research, February 3, 2008
CNN reports that: “An undersea cable carrying Internet traffic was cut off the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, officials said Friday, THE THIRD LOSS of a line carrying Internet and telephone traffic in three days. The first two cables “account for as much as three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East”, so it is expected that the loss of the third cable will plunge large parts of the Middle East into darkness. According to Mathaba Net, the latest incident took place “two days after the cable cut which “cut off Iran” and affected the rest of the Middle East and West Asia. Internet Traffic Report web site reports that Iran has lost all Internet connectivity. (http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm) Israel and Iraq’s Internet connections are still “intact”. (Mathaba.net http://mathaba.net/news/?x=580589) “Omar Sultan, chief executive of Dubai’s Internet Service Provider “DU”, said that the incident was “very unusual” and that the cause of the incident “had not yet been identified.” From Mathaba News: “The only 2 countries that were unaffected were Israel and Iraq, the only two close Anglo-American allies in the region, both remaining completely unaffected by the cable cuts, leading to theories for the causes of the cuts, which have so far been given as having been caused by ships dragging their anchors across the cables. The fact that two rare incidents have happened in the same week, and both with cables owned by the same company, on either sides of Israel and the importance of the Internet to telecommunications and business, lends suspicion to the events.” (Mathaba.net http://mathaba.net/news/?x=580589) Coincidence or Network Warfare? Recently, a document entitled Information Operation Roadmap was declassified by the Pentagon because of a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The importance of information warfare is clearly laid out in this document. Here is an extended excerpt from an article by Brent Jessop, “Full Spectrum Information Warfare” published by Global Research: “Information, always important in warfare, is now critical to military success and will only become more so in the foreseeable future….. Information operations should be centralized under the Office of the Secretary of Defence and made a core military competency. “Objective: IO [information operations] becomes a core competency. The importance of dominating the information spectrum explains the objective of transforming IO into a core military competency on a par with air, ground, maritime and special operations. The charge to the IO Roadmap oversight panel was to develop as concrete a set of action recommendations as possible to make IO a core competency, which in turn required identifying the essential prerequisites to become a core military competency.”
I can only recommend 'Sorcha Faal' for entertainment purposes, however I do find this interesting...as you can see, there are some submarine cables north of the British Isles....
US Crashes Internet In Middle East After Saudi Threat, Russia Responds With Air Forces
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
Reports circulating in the Kremlin today are painting a grim picture of just how desperate US War Leaders have become as their economy continues its freefall towards total bankruptcy by their crashing of Global Internet access for the Middle East’s banking centers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Iran, UAR, Turkey and Kuwait.
These reports state that the Americans became ‘enraged’ this past week when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rejected US demands for an immediate increase in oil production.
Further angering the Americans this past week was Turkey’s rejection of US demands for them to sever banking ties with Iran's Bank Mellat, and which allows Iranian continued access to Global banking resources.
But, these reports state, the greatest fears of the United States were raised this past week when Saudi Arabia ‘warned’ the United States to ‘back off’ of its threats against Iran or face the Saudi’s decoupling the US Dollar from its enormous World oil trade transactions.
Though the American President [pictured top left with Saudi King] personally went to the Saudi Kingdom to lobby the US’s Middle East allies in agreeing for attacks against Iran for the Iranians decoupling of the US Dollar from its oil trade, Bush was quickly rebuffed.
It should be noted that those Nations who have dared to decoupled the US Dollar from their oil trade, Iraq, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, have come under withering attacks from the Americans, and their Western Allies; none worse than the Iraqis who are reported to have suffered over 1 million deaths since being invaded by the US in 2003.
But, as these reports state, the ‘worst nightmare’ of the Americans appeared to be coming true this past week when their Saudi Arabian allies were reported to have begun the decoupling of the US Dollar from their oil trade with the intention of replacing the rapidly declining American currency with the European Euro.
American War Leaders, though, have had previous warnings of the Saudis growing fears of being the holders of trillions of declining US Dollars with Saudi Arabia, for the first time, refusing to drop their interest rates in ‘lock-step’ with the US Federal Reserve, and leading to fears of a ‘stampede’ by other Middle Eastern Nations out of US Dollar backed assets.
Under such a threat, and with the Saudi King growing closer to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad [both pictured top left 2nd photo], Russian Military Analysts state in these reports that the United States invoked one of their so called ‘nuclear options’ by severing the three major undersea cables connecting the Middle East’s major banking centers to their Western, and Global, counterparts.
The significance to the severing of these cables is the Middle East Banking Centers being denied access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), based in Brussels and which carries up to 12.7 million messages a day containing instructions on many of the International transfers of money between banks, lies in Saudi Arabia, or any other Middle East Nation, being unable to change their previously, before loss of communication, encoded currency instructions from being changed.
Moscow’s actions against the West, in the severing by the United States of these cables, was swift as President Putin ordered Russian Air Force Fighters and Bombers to take immediate action to protect the Russian Nations vital undersea cables in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.
To some of the Russian Air Force assets used we can read as reported by the Reuters News Service article titled "Russia sends bombers, fighters to Atlantic, Arctic", and which says:
"Air force pilots will carry out practice in the areas involving reconnaissance, missile-bombing attacks on a navy attack force of a hypothetical enemy, air-to-air combat and refuelling and patrolling," an air force spokesman said. The bomber group included two Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers, codenamed "Blackjack" by NATO, two turbo-prop Tu-95 "Bear" strategic bombers, and eight Tu-22 "Blinder" bombers. MiG-31 and Su-27 fighters were also sent to the region."
To the final outcome of these events it is not in our knowing, other than one Russian Banking Official, wishing to remain anonymous, stating that, “Should the Saudi’s effectively decouple their oil from the US Dollar, the United States, for all practical purposes will cease to be a World power as it economy will collapse completely as the US Dollar has no value in and of itself due to the staggering debt of the Americans. Without oil they are nothing.]
UPDATE 2-Saudi state bank urges govt to cut dollar exposure By Souhail Karam
RIYADH, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's largest state bank urged the government to reduce the kingdom's exposure to the dolllar by investing more assets outside the United states and gradually changing the riyal's peg to the weak U.S. currency.
National Commercial Bank, Saudi Arabia's biggest by assets, said the world's largest oil exporter should set up a sovereign wealth fund to invest surplus revenues, now partly managed by the central bank, which has $285 billion in foreign assets.
The bank's statement, prepared by its chief economist, is the latest sign of pressure on the government to review exchange rate policy for the first time since 1986. The central bank and officials have repeatedly ruled out any policy shift.
"Time has come to reconsider the continued pegging of the Saudi riyal to U.S. dollar, provided that this is done gradually, taking into account the unfavourable impact on official reserves, which are mostly denominated in dollars," said Said al-Shaikh, National Commercial's chief economist.
The government should set up a sovereign fund to "increase the returns on investment of most government surpluses, which are currently invested in U.S. Treasury bonds", Shaikh said.
The kingdom should "diversify government investments across asset types, countries and different currencies...to reduce risks and increase profitability," he said.
Concerns that state investors, including those in Gulf oil exporters would shift assets away from the dollar helped drive the U.S. unit to record lows on global markets last year.
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Greenback's days in Iran numbered
Sun, 03 Feb 2008
The Iranian Company of Commodities Bourse has been tasked by the government to establish the long-awaited Oil Bourse on Kish Island.
The Cabinet of Ministers on Sunday issued an order to the Oil Ministry, Finance Ministry, Foreign Ministry and Central Bank to implement a plan to set up the Oil Bourse.
The Oil Bourse will serve as a place to trade oil products and crude oil.
The Ministry of Economy will be setting up the petrochemicals section by February 19.
The Oil Bourse is supposed to trade oil products in non-dollar currencies and many analysts hold the opinion that it could deal a blow to the already declining greenback.
The long-awaited Iranian Oil Bourse, a place for trading oil, petrochemicals and gas in various non-dollar currencies, will soon open. Iran's Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari told reporters the bourse will be inaugurated during the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution (February 1-11) at the latest. "All preparations have been made to launch the bourse; it will open during the Ten-Day Dawn (the ceremonies marking the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran)," he said. The Minister had earlier stated that the Oil Bourse is located on the Persian Gulf island of Kish. Some expert opinions hold inauguration of the bourse could significantly devalue the greenback.
Middle East Internet Blackouts Spur Geopolitical Suspicions
February 2, 2008
Unprecedented mass Internet outages throughout the Middle East and Asia after no less than four undersea Internet cables were cut without explanation are spurring suspicions that a major event of geopolitical proportions may be just around the corner.
Internet blackouts are impacting large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa after four undersea cable connections were severed. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.
According to InternetTraffic.com, Iran has been completely cut off from the Internet, though Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's blog can still be accessed.
Most notably, Israel and Iraq are unaffected by the outage.
"Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the damaged cables collectively account for the majority of international communications between Europe and the Middle East," reports CNN.
Officials say that the cause behind the severing of the cables remains unknown, but United Arab Emirates' second largest telecom company said the cables were cut due to ships dragging their anchors.
Is this a pre-cursor to throw a veil over an imminent staged event in the Middle East?
"What are the odds? Who benefits? asks the Crimes and Corruptions blog. "Let's see. Iranian rapprochement: "Recent months have brought signs of a growing rapprochement between Iran and Egypt."
"What nation would not like this and has subs which could cut the cables? Why do it? Payback as over the net business is badly damaged. Or is this a setup for more? Note the internet is working just fine in Israel."
Over at WhatReallyHappened.com, Mike Rivero points out that the mysterious cable sabotage could portend another imperial Neo-Con crusade in the works.
"The biggest problem the Bush administration faced during Iraq were images coming over the internet that showed the horrors being visited on the Iraqi people, and exposed the government's lies about Saddam," he writes.
"I am greatly concerned that these undersea cable cuttings are intended to prevent the world from seeing something that is about to happen, other than through the government-controlled propaganda/media."
US Crashes Internet In Middle East After Saudi Threat, Russia Responds With Air Forces
Reports circulating in the Kremlin today are painting a grim picture of just how desperate US War Leaders have become as their economy continues its freefall towards total bankruptcy by their crashing of Global Internet access for the Middle East's banking centers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Iran, UAR, Turkey and Kuwait.
These reports state that the Americans became 'enraged' this past week when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rejected US demands for an immediate increase in oil production.
Further angering the Americans this past week was Turkey's rejection of US demands for them to sever banking ties with Iran's Bank Mellat, and which allows Iranian continued access to Global banking resources.
But, these reports state, the greatest fears of the United States were raised this past week when Saudi Arabia 'warned' the United States to 'back off' of its threats against Iran or face the Saudi's decoupling the US Dollar from its enormous World oil trade transactions.
Though the American President [pictured top left with Saudi King] personally went to the Saudi Kingdom to lobby the US's Middle East allies in agreeing for attacks against Iran for the Iranians decoupling of the US Dollar from its oil trade, Bush was quickly rebuffed.
It should be noted that those Nations who have dared to decoupled the US Dollar from their oil trade, Iraq, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, have come under withering attacks from the Americans, and their Western Allies; none worse than the Iraqis who are reported to have suffered over 1 million deaths since being invaded by the US in 2003.
But, as these reports state, the 'worst nightmare' of the Americans appeared to be coming true this past week when their Saudi Arabian allies were reported to have begun the decoupling of the US Dollar from their oil trade with the intention of replacing the rapidly declining American currency with the European Euro.
American War Leaders, though, have had previous warnings of the Saudis growing fears of being the holders of trillions of declining US Dollars with Saudi Arabia, for the first time, refusing to drop their interest rates in 'lock-step' with the US Federal Reserve, and leading to fears of a 'stampede' by other Middle Eastern Nations out of US Dollar backed assets.
Under such a threat, and with the Saudi King growing closer to Iran's President Ahmadinejad [both pictured top left 2nd photo], Russian Military Analysts state in these reports that the United States invoked one of their so called 'nuclear options' by severing the three major undersea cables connecting the Middle East's major banking centers to their Western, and Global, counterparts.
The significance to the severing of these cables is the Middle East Banking Centers being denied access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), based in Brussels and which carries up to 12.7 million messages a day containing instructions on many of the International transfers of money between banks, lies in Saudi Arabia, or any other Middle East Nation, being unable to change their previously, before loss of communication, encoded currency instructions from being changed.
Moscow's actions against the West, in the severing by the United States of these cables, was swift as President Putin ordered Russian Air Force Fighters and Bombers to take immediate action to protect the Russian Nations vital undersea cables in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.
To some of the Russian Air Force assets used we can read as reported by the Reuters News Service article titled "Russia sends bombers, fighters to Atlantic, Arctic", and which says:
"Air force pilots will carry out practice in the areas involving reconnaissance, missile-bombing attacks on a navy attack force of a hypothetical enemy, air-to-air combat and refuelling and patrolling," an air force spokesman said. The bomber group included two Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers, codenamed "Blackjack" by NATO, two turbo-prop Tu-95 "Bear" strategic bombers, and eight Tu-22 "Blinder" bombers. MiG-31 and Su-27 fighters were also sent to the region."
To the final outcome of these events it is not in our knowing, other than one Russian Banking Official, wishing to remain anonymous, stating that, "Should the Saudi's effectively decouple their oil from the US Dollar, the United States, for all practical purposes will cease to be a World power as it economy will collapse completely as the US Dollar has no value in and of itself due to the staggering debt of the Americans. Without oil they are nothing.]
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1067.htm
Ships did not cause Internet cable damage
3 February 2008
CAIRO - Damage to undersea Internet cables in the Mediterranean that hit business across the Middle East and South Asia was not caused by ships, Egypt's communications ministry said on Sunday, ruling out earlier reports.
The transport ministry added that footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables showed no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged.
'The ministry's maritime transport committee reviewed footage covering the period of 12 hours before and 12 hours after the cables were cut and no ships sailed the area,' a statement said.
'The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone and it is therefore ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by ships,' the statement added.
Two cables were damaged earlier this week in the Mediterranean sea and another off the coast of Dubai, causing widespread disruption to Internet and international telephone services in Egypt, Gulf Arab states and South Asia.
A fourth cable linking Qatar to the United Arab Emirates was damaged on Sunday causing yet more disruptions, telecommunication provider Qtel said.
Earlier reports said that the damage had been caused by ships that had been diverted off their usual route because of bad weather.
Egypt's communication and information technology ministry said it would report its findings to the owners of the two damaged Mediterranean cables, FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE4.
A repair ship was expected to begin work to fix the two Mediterranean cables on Tuesday.
