Nuke Look: 'If Strangled, Iran Will Retaliate'

Source: RT

UN nuclear inspectors have started a three-day mission to examine Iran's atomic activities. Tehran says it's certain the talks - the first in more than three years - will prove its program's purpose is purely peaceful. The IAEA visit comes at a time when tensions between Iran and the West are approaching crisis level. On Monday, EU nations adopted an unprecedented set of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, which include a complete embargo on oil supplies from Iran. That comes into force in July, but Iran is considering an immediate halt of oil sales to Europe in retaliation. RT discusses the latest development around the Iranian crisis with Seyed Mohammad Marandi, who's a professor at the University of Tehran.

Beyond SOPA: The Past, Present and Future of Internet Censorship

Source: Corbett Report and Global Research
James Corbett

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

When legislators in the US abandoned their support of SOPA and PIPA in the wake of mass popular protest earlier this month, many of those who had been mobilized by the legislation–which would have granted the US government almost total power to block access to foreign websites accused of so much as linking to copyrighted material–did not have long to enjoy their “victory.” The very next day the New Zealand police swooped in to the million-dollar estate of MegaUpload.com founder Kim Dotcom, arresting him and three others at the US government’s request for alleged racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering. The Department of Justice is now seeking the MegaUpload CEO’s extradition to the US.

ACTA is Worse than SOPA, Here's What You Need to Know

Source: Natural News

As a warrior for Internet freedom, you helped defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA by supporting Web black outs by sites like Wikipedia and by contacting your lawmaker to voice your displeasure. So loud was your voice that even the president of the United States sided with you in opposing it.

But don't take a deep sigh of relief because, after all, we're talking about a merger of Washington, D.C., and Hollywood here, as well as global interests. After the motion picture industry, its subsidiaries and all "interested parties" have spent nearly $150 million lobbying for some sort of Internet-centric "anti-piracy" bill, you should have known the powers that be would return.

And they have, only this time they are pushing something far more onerous: ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

"Although the proposed treaty's title might suggest that the agreement deals only with counterfeit physical goods (such as medicines) what little information has been made available publicly by negotiating governments about the content of the treaty makes it clear that it will have a far broader scope and in particular will deal with new tools targeting 'Internet distribution and information technology'", says an assessment of ACTA by the watchdogs at the Electronic Freedom Foundation.

"ACTA has several features that raise significant potential concerns for consumers' privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet [regarding] legitimate commerce and for developing countries' ability to choose policy options that best suit their domestic priorities and level of economic development," says EFF's assessment.

As is usually the case with dubious, rights-stripping legislation, ACTA - which Forbes.com reports was signed by the U.S. in 2011 and has already been sanctioned as well by Japan, Switzerland and many European Union nations - has largely been negotiated in the shadows and, thus, has largely been devoid of scrutiny... until now.

While the Obama administration was shying away from SOPA, it has been aggressively pursuing ACTA (full disclosure: the process was started under the Bush administration). Critics say it is much more far-reaching than SOPA, bypassing "the sovereign laws of participating nations" and "forcing ISP's across the globe to act as internet police," Forbes said.

Flash-grenades and Tear Gas: 300 Arrested at Occupy Oakland

Source: RT

Police in Oakland, California, have used tear-gas and flash-grenades as a 2,000-strong Occupy Oakland march turned violent, with some protesters claiming that rubber bullets were also fired into the crowd. At least 300 people were arrested.

The demonstrators had attempted to take over vacant buildings to use as their headquarters, they also broke into City Hall and tried to occupy a YMCA. Police spokesman Jeff Thomason told media most of the arrests came around 8 pm local time. Police took many protesters into custody as they marched through the city's downtown area, with some entering a YMCA building.

Officials say, at one point protesters began tearing down perimeter fences around the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, as some attacked police officers, throwing rocks, bottles and other objects. Police declared an unlawful assembly and used force, according to the Oakland Tribune newspaper.

While police were taking people into custody near the YMCA, about 100 officers surrounded City Hall, while others swept the inside of the building for protesters who had broken in. Inside the building, protesters burned flags, broke into an electrical box and damaged several art structures, according to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan.

“The City of Oakland welcomes peaceful forms of assembly and freedom of speech, but acts of violence, property destruction and overnight lodging will not be tolerated,” the press release by city officials stated. “The Oakland Police Department is also committed to facilitating peaceful forms of expression while protecting personal safety and property through ethical and constitutional policing.”

At the moment, the Occupy crowd in the city’s central square is being monitored by dozens of police officers.

Oakland has seen one of America’s largest and most vocal Occupy protests, with thousands of people attending since the demos started in October. Some 300 people have been arrested since then. The Occupy Wall Street movement started in September in New York and claims to represent the 99 per cent of Americans, who suffer from corporate greed and economic injustice.

Language Imperialism, Concepts and Civilization: China versus The West

Source: Global Research
Dr. Thorsten Pattberg

If you are an American or European citizen, chances are you've never heard about shengren, minzhu and wenming. If one day you promote them, you might even be accused of culture treason.

That's because these are Chinese concepts. They are often conveniently translated as "philosophers," "democracy" and "civilization." In fact, they are none of those. They are something else. Something the West lacks in turn. But that is irritating for most Westerners, so in the past, foreign concepts were quickly removed from the books and records and, if possible, from the history of the world, which is a world dominated by the West. As the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once remarked, the East plays no part in the formation of the history of thought.

But let us step back a bit. Remember what school told us about the humanities? They are not the sciences! If the humanities were science, the vocabularies of the world's languages would add up, not overlap. Does that surprise you?

I estimate that there are over 35,000 Chinese words or phrases that cannot properly be translated into the English language. Words like yin and yang, kung fu and fengshui. Add to this another 35,000 Sanskrit terminology, mainly from India and Buddhism. Words like Buddha, bodhisattva and guru.

In a recent lecture at Peking University, the renowned linguist Gu Zhengkun explained that wenming describes a high level of ethics and gentleness of a people, while the English word "civilization" derives from a city people's mastery over materials and technology.

The correct Chinese translation of civilization should be chengshijishu-zhuyi. Wenming is better, but untranslatable. It has been around for some thousand years, too, while Europe's notion of "civilization" is a late 18th-century "invention."

Tourists and imperialists do not come to be taught. They call things the way they call things at home. Then they realize that the names are not correct.

Corbett Report Episode 216 - Who's Gaming Who?

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

Science-fiction fantasy is becoming mundane reality and video games are increasingly merging with 21st century combat. The DoD recruits youth through traveling arcade exhibitions and new recruits are just as likely to end up behind a keyboard as behind enemy lines. What does this mean for the future of our predictively programmed world, and should we be worried. Find out more in this week’s edition of The Corbett Report.

Documentation

Nation of 65 Million Gets Lesson on Globalist Agenda

Source: Land Destroyer Report
Tony Cartalucci

Local media mogul gives 2 hour talk exposing CFR, NED, and global-corporate meddling in Thailand.

Media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul of ASTV, a popular news and media outlet in Thailand, gave a 2-hour talk on Friday night (in Thai) regarding the corporate-funded Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Amnesty International amongst others and their role in destabilizing nation states around the world and in particular their unfolding plot in Thailand itself.

Image: Sondhi Limthongkul - media mogul turned infowarrior - goes from rallying crowds to informing them. Malaysia has used this tactic to great effect against globalist meddling in their sovereign affairs - one can only hope Thailand is starting down a similar path. 

No punches were pulled, and the talk was accompanied by a news story on the ASTV website, Manager.co.th (in Thai), complete with graphics illustrating the documented ties between foreign corporate-financier interests and seditious elements within Thailand working with them.

 

Image: From Manager.co.th illustrating the globalist tentacles reaching into Thailand and their willful Thai helpers. (click image to enlarge) 

Sondhi's narrative encapsulates the underlying cause of over 6 years of political instability plaguing Thailand and focuses on Wall Street and London's proxy of choice, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Pentagon Wants Commando "Mothership" in Middle East

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

The Pentagon is now pushing to send a massive floating base which will serve as a staging point for commando squads in the Middle East, a move which I think can be easily traced back to the constantly rising tensions with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz and their alleged nuclear weapons program.

Of course, they only say that this is part of the reason, just like they claim that the massively increased American presence in the region is nothing to be concerned about while obviously it is.

The other threats they claim justify this move are al Qaeda in Yemen, Somali pirates, and more.

This move is supposedly being made at the behest of United States Central Command (CENTCOM) which is at the helm of all of the military operations going on throughout the Middle East.

The Navy will be converting an old warship which was going to be decommissioned into a floating staging base for commando operations.

This makes me wonder, why the emphasis on the fact that it is an aging vessel that was going to be decommissioned? Could this perhaps be a set up for a false flag to be blamed on Iran? The possibility is there and should be considered.

The makeshift base has been unofficially dubbed a “mothership” and is capable of launching smaller high-speed boats and the types of helicopters which are typically utilized by the Navy SEALs according to procurement documents brought to my attention by The Washington Post.

This new move is being chalked up to the shift in military focus under the Obama administration’s “new” strategy – which many have rightly pointed out is not actually that new and in fact contains some major contradictions – to a heavier reliance on Special Forces operations in order to make the American military “leaner and more agile” in the face of at least $487 billion in spending cuts at the Pentagon over the next ten years.

I think that this latest deployment should be emphasized because the military refuses to discuss where exactly this new “mothership” will be deployed in the Middle East.

Update on the Unexplained Object at the Bottom of the Baltic Sea

Source: Yahoo News
Eric Pfeiffer

A team of salvage divers has discovered an unexplained object resting at the bottom of the Baltic Sea near Sweden.

"This thing turned up. My first reaction was to tell the guys that we have a UFO here on the bottom," said Peter Lindberg, the leader of the amateur treasure hunters.

Sonar readings show that the mysterious object is about 60 meters across, or, about the size of a jumbo jet. And it's not alone. Nearby on the sea floor is another, smaller object with a similar shape. Even more fascinating, both objects have "drag marks" behind them on the sea floor, stretching back more than 400 feet.

"Could this be the Star Wars Millenium Falcon, a plug to an inner world or a marine version of Stonehenge?" asks CNN's Brooke Bowman:

Well, it could just be another shipwreck. Or, mud.

But Lindberg says the ship theory doesn't really hold up because of the unusually large size of the objects. "Of course it would be something from another ship but it's quite big," he told CNN. Lindberg notes that some observers have speculated that the objects may be Russian warships built around the end of the 1800's. However, Lindberg points out that not only were those ships much smaller, they were not patrolling the Baltic during that era.

Corbett Report Radio - Solutions: Monetary Reform

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

In search of solutions to our economic woes, tonight we dip into the corbettreport.com archives for past interviews, episodes and videos of The Corbett Report featuring ideas for getting out of this economic mess. From the Cook plan to public banking, the gold standard and the demystification of sound/fiat money, tonight’s broadcast looks at competing answers to our money problems.

Works Cited:

Homepage of Richard C. Cook
Richard C. Cook on The Corbett Report
Sound Money vs. Fiat Money – Bob Chapman on Economics 101
The Public Banking Institute
Finance Capital vs Public Banking

How Ron Paul Could Win

Source: Institute For Political Economy
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

In the Soviet Union common criminals were punished less harshly and received better treatment than political prisoners. A person who had committed a violent crime had more rights than someone who expressed criticism of the government and could be portrayed as having acted against the government. We now have the same situation in the US.

In a recent case the Supreme Court overturned the sentence of a drug dealer who was convicted on the basis of a warrantless 28-day search by having a GPS device affixed to his car. In other words, a common criminal still has privacy rights under the Constitution, but not US citizens who are suspected of vague and nebulous “terrorist support.”

Both Republicans and Democrats have demonstrated disregard for the civil liberty protections guaranteed by the US Constitution. Among the visible candidates for president, only Ron Paul has respect for the Constitution. As it is now possible for the executive branch to take away the life and liberty of a US citizen without due process of law, the Constitution is for all practical purposes lost. Tyranny looms, and Ron Paul is the only candidate who stands against tyranny.

This is why I have written that Ron Paul is our last chance and encouraged his libertarian handlers to be flexible enough for the electorate to elect Ron Paul. I agree that Ron Paul, if elected president, would be hamstrung by the Establishment, but the other candidates offer no hope whatsoever.

What is at stake is not libertarianism, but the US Constitution. Unfortunately, not many libertarians see that. Neither do many progressives. If truth be known, Americans are too divided and in opposition to one another to be able to unite against tyranny.

War vs. Education: Obama's Promise for Educational Funding is Double-speak

Source: Global Research
Kevin Afanasiff

Education in America desperately needs funding, and Obama, despite his words, will not solve the problem.

In a speech at Ann Arbor, Michigan, Obama proposed to increase the Perkins loan program from $1 billion to $8 billion, create a $1 billion grant competition, and a $55 million competition. Obama promised to make the pricing of school more transparent and to cap student loan payments at 10% of a student's monthly income after graduation.

In theory, these things sound good and Obama was understandably met with large rounds of applause. In reality though, they will create more problems than they will do good.

The most significant promise is the $7 billion dollars in more student loans. America is in the biggest credit bubble since the Roaring 20s, leading to this most inequality in decades, and more loans are not going to help the problem, regardless of the seemingly favorable terms.

The $1 billion dollars in grants, assuming there are 17.5 million students enrolled in post-secondary education in the US, equals $57.14 per post-secondary student. Let's take a low estimate that the average yearly tuition at an American college is $10,000 (many colleges charge much more), then Obama's grant promises to cover 0.57% of the cost of one year of American college. In this context, the $55 million competition is not even worth mentioning. Funding in the form a competition is a very obvious example of promoting the needs of a few over the needs of many.

The grant funding is a token to please ignorant voters, while avoiding making the needed ethical commitment to deal with one of America's most pressing problems.

Media Monarchy - Episode 248

Source: Media Monarchy
James Evan Pilato

"it's intermission in a minute, so you better get with it" for episode248 from media monarchy w/ culture collapse, psyop saga & repeating reality - demands, awards & the 'what would you do' newspurge - fetal cells & breakfast crowds in food world order - bigger brother, moon memes & stunning solar storms in cyber/space\war - film prophecies, honor killings & paterno instincts on holy hexes + wallflower sounds from polyphonic spree, lana del rey, etta james, al bowlly & much more...

Romney and Gingrich Vent Disinformation as They Compete for Israeli Lobby Support

Source: PressTV

In last night's Republican "debate", establishment candidates Romney and Gingrich vent disinformation to demean the people of Palestine as they vie for Israeli lobby favoritism.

Corbett Report Radio - Presidential Assassinations and Food World Order

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

The Atlanta Jewish Times has published an op-ed suggesting that Netanyahu might have to order the Mossad to kill an “unfriendly” US President…so where’s the outcry? Find out on this episode of Corbett Report Radio as we run down the headlines and traverse the Food World Order with James Evan Pilato.

 

Works Cited:

Israeli Assassinations and American Presidents
Copy of Atlanta Jewish Times op-ed
Shock Docs: Total Federalization of Police Under New Homeland Security Mission
UN asked to probe conspiracy to block investigations into illegal killings and torture
Cocaine “accidentally” sent to UN headquarters
Ex-Stasi “expert” consult with U.S. on homeland security
Fetus to Feed Us? OK Senator Says No to Aborted Fetal Cells In Food
Food Waste Denounced by Ministers as Almost 1 Billion Go Hungry
Wary, Japanese Take Food Safety Into Their Own Hands
1/26 binge & purge: lunch change, single strains

Dan Dicks Interviews James Corbett

Source: Press For Truth
Dan Dicks

James Corbett is an independent journalist and a true champion of alternative media. He has informed and influenced millions of people through his youtube channel and website. In this interview we discuss how James got started and how his hard work and dedication has brought him to the point of doing this work full time. James also gives us his insight on the recent situation involving the PIPA and SOPA bills and the reaction by Anonymous. Considering James was my first subscriber at Press For Truth TV I thought it would be fitting for him to be my first guest.

European Parliament Official In Charge Of ACTA Quits, And Denounces The 'Masquerade' Behind ACTA

Source: Tech Dirt
Mike Masnick

This is interesting. Kader Arif, the "rapporteur" for ACTA, has quit that role in disgust over the process behind getting the EU to sign onto ACTA. A rapporteur is a person "appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue." However, it appears his investigation of ACTA didn't make him very pleased:

I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly.

As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens' legitimate demands.”

Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications.

This agreement might have major consequences on citizens' lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.

Pretty rare to find such direct honesty in political circles. That's quite a direct and clear condemnation of the entire process. In terms of process, it will be interesting to see if this has an impact. While the EU did sign on to ACTA today, it still needs to be ratified by the European Parliament (more on that in a little while). Having Arif quit makes a pretty big statement, and hopefully makes it easier for Parliament Members to speak out loudly against ACTA... Still, this is an uphill battle. The supporters of ACTA have been working to get ACTA approved for years. To them, this is basically a done deal.

Governments Worldwide Raise Acceptable Radiation Levels Based Upon Politics … Not Science

Source: Washington's Blog

 

Instead of Protecting People, Governments Cover Up by Raising “Safe” Radiation Levels 

 

American and Canadian authorities have virtually stopped monitoring airborne radiation.

Neither American nor Canadian authorities are testing fish for radioactivity.

Does that mean that we don’t have to worry about radiation from Fukushima?

It is a little hard to know, given that what is deemed a “safe level” of radiation is determined by politics … rather than science. For example, current safety standards are based on the ridiculous assumption that everyone exposed is a healthy man in his 20s – and that radioactive particles ingested into the body cause no more damage than radiation hitting the outside of the body.

And one of the main advisors to the Japanese government on Fukushima announced:

If you smile, the radiation will not affect you.

(Here’s the video.)

In the real world, however, even low doses of radiation can cause cancer. Moreover, small particles of radiation – called “internal emitters” – which get inside the body are much more dangerous than general exposures to radiation. See this and this. And radiation affects small children much more than full-grown adults.

Indeed, instead of doing much to try to protect their citizens from Fukushima, Japan, the U.S. and the EU all just raised the radiation levels they deem “safe”.

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says that high-level friends in the State Department told him that Hillary Clinton signed a pact with her counterpart in Japan agreeing that the U.S. will continue buying seafood from Japan, despite that food not being tested for radioactive materials.

The Geopolitical Stakes in Nigeria—Part I: The Curious Role of the IMF

Source: Boiling Frogs Post

F. William Engdahl

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and its largest oil producer, is from all evidence being systematically thrown into chaos and a state of civil war. The recent surprise decision by the government of Goodluck Jonathan to abruptly lift subsidies on imported gasoline and other fuel has a far more sinister background than mere corruption and the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) is playing a key role. China appears to be the likely loser along with Nigeria’s population.

The recent strikes protesting the government’s abrupt elimination of gasoline and other fuel subsidies, that brought Nigeria briefly to a standstill, came as a surprise to most in the country. Months earlier President Jonathan had promised the major trade union organizations that he would conduct a gradual four-stage lifting of the subsidy to ease the economic burden. Instead, without warning he announced an immediate full removal of subsidies effective January 1, 2012. It was “shock therapy” to put it mildly.

Nigeria today is one of the world’s most important producers of light, sweet crude oil—the same high quality crude oil that Libya and the British North Sea produce. The country is showing every indication of spiraling downward into deep disorder. Nigeria is the fifth largest supplier of oil to the United States and twelfth largest oil producer in the world on a par with Kuwait and just behind Venezuela with production exceeding two million barrels a day. [1]

The curious timing of IMF subsidy demand

Despite its oil riches, Nigeria remains one of Africa’s poorest countries. The known oilfields are concentrated around the vast Niger Delta roughly between Port Harcourt and extending in the direction of the capital Lagos, with large new finds being developed all along the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.  Nigeria’s oil is exploited and largely exported by the Anglo-American giants—Shell, Mobil, Chevron, Texaco. Italy’s Agip also has a presence and most recently, to no one’s surprise, the Chinese state oil companies began seeking major exploration and oil infrastructure agreements with the Lagos government.

Ironically, despite the fact that Nigeria has abundant oil to earn dollar export revenue to build its domestic infrastructure, government policy has deliberately let its domestic oil refining capacity fall into ruin. The consequence has been that most of the gasoline and other refined petroleum products used to drive transportation and industry, has to be imported, despite the country’s abundant oil. In order to shield the population from the high import costs of gasoline and other refined fuels, the central government has subsidized prices.

AMA Paper Proposes Law Forcing People Into Experimental Vaccine Trials

Source: Activist Post
Mike Barrett

How would you react if I were to tell you that you or your child were forced to participate in experimental vaccine trials?

A paper published by the American Medical Association’s Virtual Mentor wants to do just that.

It seems that the amount of current participants in current experimental vaccine trials is a bit too low, so why not create a federal law forcing each person to need to “opt-out” of experimental vaccine trials in an attempt to better society?

AMA Proposes Law ‘Forcing’ Individuals to Participate in Experimental Vaccine Trials

The proposed law is lunacy, to say the least, stating that individuals must make a “mandated choice” to participate in such experimental trials. People shouldn’t be automatically enrolled in experimental trials or need to state in advance their decision to “opt-out”.

Along with the law will come a customer list for big pharma, where each participant’s information will be shared with the pharmaceutical companies in order to gather trial and field test data.

Of course this isn’t so different from how things operate now, where individuals are enrolled into big pharma’s database even if you exempt your child from vaccination. But if big pharma can’t produce enough positive data from those who actually want to volunteer for introducing a new product to the FDA for approval, they may just try to force people to participate or use a segment of the population that is ignorant to the laws surrounding the trials.

What happens if these experimental vaccines cause harm?

There are laws already set in place that essentially give vaccine manufacturers immunity to legal repercussions. That is to say that if your child is harmed from a vaccine, the vaccine manufacturers are not financially or morally responsible. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 protects vaccine manufacturers from any liability.