New York drill for possible nuclear war --US security authorities have conducted a semi-clandestine nuclear fallout drill in the City of New York in order to be prepared "for the worst." 13 Jun 2009 The NYC Police Department (NYPD) in unison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) carried out a massive almost-covert anti-nuclear exercise codenamed 'New York, you have a problem' in order to gauge the metropolitan promptness in responding to such attacks. According to an AP report on Friday, hundreds of NYPD officers and FBI agents participated in the drill that involved the detection of a gamma-ray emitting device concealed in the heart of the urban area. The group was also accompanied by an elite corps of federal weapons specialists who, under a US attorney general mandate, found a simulated "nuclear device" and diffused it.
Why the hell should I feel sorry, says girl soldier who abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison --In this deeply disturbing interview, the trailer trash torturer who appalled the world by appearing in shocking 'souvenir' photographs remains utterly unrepentant and says she has 800 MORE torture photos that could rock the White House By David Jones 13 Jun 2009 One of seven U.S. Army reserves jailed for mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib - including her former lover Corporal Charles Graner, a sadistic, camera-obsessed bully who orchestrated the photo sessions - she has served three years in detention and is now on parole. With a new book to peddle and her appeal against the conviction due to be heard next month, one might have expected the 26-year-old England to express some remorse... When we speak, three things strike me: her breathtaking lack of contrition; her unsuitability to have been a serving soldier and her utter indifference towards the horrifically abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib, 90 per cent of whom were later released without charge.
'Terrorists' can sue Bush legal abusers 14 Jun 2009 A US judge legalizes court actions by alleged 'terror convicts' against the legal advisors from the former administration who authorized their detention and torture. In an unprecedented move, San Francisco District Judge Jeffrey White ruled in favor of the legitimacy of such lawsuits in an attempt to discontinue, what he called, 'using tactics of terror' to fight 'a war against terror', the Associated Press reported on Saturday.
Judge: Ex-Bush lawyer can be sued over torture 13 Jun 2009 A prisoner who says he was tortured while being held for nearly four years as a suspected terrorist can sue former Bush regime lawyer John Yoo for coming up with the legal theories that justified his alleged treatment, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White's decision marks the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially responsible for the abuse of detainees. "Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct," White said in refusing to dismiss Jose Padilla's lawsuit against Yoo. White said. White, an appointee of former President [sic] George W. Bush, noted that Padilla's lawsuit accuses Yoo of helping to design administration policy on detention and torture, and then crafting legal opinions to justify it - stepping outside the usual role of a lawyer.
US rejects Iran's election results 13 Jun 2009 The U.S. on Saturday refused to accept President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim of a landslide re-election victory in Iran and said it was looking into allegations of election fraud. Any hopes by the Obama administration of gaining a result similar to Lebanon's recent election, won by a Western-backed moderate coalition sycophant, appeared to be in jeopardy. [What a shame!] "We are monitoring the situation as it unfolds in Iran, but we, like the rest of the world, are waiting and watching to see what the Iranian people decide," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at a news conference with Canada's foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon. [OMG! The Iranian people *have* decided -- in an *actual* election that uses *paper ballots* -- not Diebold! WHY didn't Hillary and Barack whine about 'election fraud' back in 2000 and 2004, when an unelected dictator and torturer seized and remained in power? --LRP]
U.S. monitors Iran election fallout 13 Jun 2009 The White House said Saturday it was monitoring the aftermath of presidential election in Iran, including allegations of irregularities in the voting. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a written statement: "Like the rest of the world, we were impressed by the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated, particularly among young Iranians. We continue to monitor the entire situation closely, including reports of irregularities." [WHY no monitoring of GOP owned and operated electronic 'voting' software companies, responsible for two US coup d'etats? Hello, Pot? This is Kettle...]
In landslide victory, Ahmadinejad re-elected 13 Jun 2009 The final results of Iran's closely-contested 10th presidential election indicate that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has won a landslide victory. "Of 39,165,191 votes counted (85 percent), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election with 24,527,516 (62.63 percent)," Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli told reporters on Saturday. Mir-Hossein Mousavi came in second with 13,216,411 votes (33.75 percent), he added. [The New York Times is calling the Iranian election outcome a 'tie' and they are showing a photo of the troll that lost. LOL. I love it when the US media spins other countries' elections and calls their processes/results 'corrupt' or 'specious.' These are the same cogs in the machinery that permitted -- nay, facilitated - two US GOP coup d'etats in 2000 and 2004. --LRP]
Iran rejects claims of voter fraud 13 Jun 2009 Iranian Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli says there has been no 'written complaint' about voter fraud. Iranian Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli has declared that the 10th presidential elections were conducted in a manner that ruled out the possibility of voter fraud. In a press conference at the Interior Ministry on Saturday, Mahsouli put the number of the total votes cast in the elections at 39,165,191, suggesting the heavy turnout to be a victory for the nation and not for a specific candidate.
Lawyers: Israel Used Uranium in Gaza genocide 11 Jun 2009 Lawyers investigating possible war crimes by Israel in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip Thursday said the Jewish state used uranium in recent offensive on the blockaded territory. Findings indicated that Israel heavily used uranium materials in its war in Gaza, Haitham Manna of the International Coalition for Trying Israeli War Criminals told a news conference in Gaza city. At first, a French lab "asked us to obtain license from Ukraine because they believed the samples were obtained from a place hit by Chernobyl accident due to the high amount of Uranium that were found," Manna told Xinhua.
Iraq holds state funeral for murdered lawmaker 13 Jun 2009 Iraq buried a murdered Sunni Muslim leader on Saturday in the first formal state funeral held by the government since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Harith al-Ubaidi, head of the biggest Sunni bloc in parliament and a leading human rights advocate, was shot dead at a mosque in west Baghdad after Friday prayers.
U.S. soldier killed in bomb attack in Iraq 13 Jun 2009 An American soldier was killed in a roadside bomb explosion during combat operations on Friday, the U.S. military said on Saturday. A military statement said the soldier is assigned to Multi-National Corps - Iraq (MNC-I), which is the Tactical Unit responsible for command and control of operations in Iraq.
US Embassy: 2 more US mercenaries released in Iraq 13 Jun 2009 Two more U.S. mercenaries have been released on bond but face an ongoing investigation, the embassy said Saturday. Two other Americans remained in custody while a fifth was freed on bond Thursday. U.S.-backed Iraqi forces detained the five Americans on June 3 in connection with an investigation into the stabbing death of a fellow contractor.
Mercenaries Set Off for Afghanistan 13 Jun 2009 ...Since Barack Obama announced that Afghanistan and Pakistan were the "central front" of the war against al-Qaeda, foreign mercenaries have been arriving... Returning from dinner on May 5, after an automobile accident, four paramilitaries working for an American company unheard of up until then, Paravant, machine-gunned an Afghan car, leaving one person dead and two wounded. The lawyer for the paramilitaries asserts that they were confronted with an insurgent attack, although the police investigation proved that the passengers in the vehicle were unarmed merchants. As in Iraq, as in other incidents in Afghanistan, justice will not be done: the men fled to the United States. However, the episode did reveal that Paravant, which has a contract to train the Afghan police, is a discreet subsidiary of Blackwater, the biggest mercenary company in the world and symbol of the privatization of war during the Bush years, involved in multiple killings and assassinations in Iraq and renamed Xe. It also revealed that these men respected neither the law nor their contract, bearing arms outside of their service, AK-47s that can be purchased in the black market for a few dollars.
Suicide attack on NATO fuel tankers kills 8 Afghans 13 Jun 2009 A suicide car bomber hit a fleet of fuel tankers intended for a NATO base in southern Afghanistan, killing eight Afghans and wounding 21, officials said Saturday. The attack in Helmand province late Friday burned six fuel tankers parked outside the town of Gereshk, said Dawood Ahmadi, the spokesman for the governor of Helmand. The trucks had been headed to a large NATO base that primarily houses U.S. and British troops.
Two British soldiers killed in Afghanistan blasts 13 Jun 2009 Two British soldiers have been killed by bombings in Afghanistan. A soldier from The 2nd Battalion the Rifles was killed as a result of an explosion during an operation near Sangin, northern Helmand Province, Afghanistan on Friday morning.
NKorea warns of nuclear war amid rising tensions 14 Jun 2009 North Korea's government has warned of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new U.N. sanctions. A commentary Sunday in the North's the main state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, claimed the U.S. has 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea. Another commentary published Saturday in the Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the U.S. has been deploying a vast amount of nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan. North Korea "is completely within the range of U.S. nuclear attack and the Korean peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of a nuclear war are the highest in the world," the Tongil Sinbo commentary said.
Sub collides with sonar array towed by U.S. Navy ship 12 Jun 2009 In what a U.S. military official calls an "inadvertent encounter," a Chinese submarine hit an underwater sonar array being towed by the destroyer USS John McCain on Thursday. The array was damaged, but the sub and the ship did not collide, the official said. The incident occurred near Subic Bay off the coast of the Philippines.
US missile shield hurts NATO interests: UK MPs 13 Jun 2009 British members of parliament have expressed concern that plans for a US missile shield in Eastern Europe would jeopardize NATO interests in the region. Moscow has slammed Washington's bid to place the anti-missile system in two ex-soviet states, questioning US claims that the system is a measure against potential attacks from 'rouge states.'
'It's baffling to us why this would suddenly change.' Military Hush-Up: Incoming Space Rocks Now Classified 10 Jun 2009 For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth's atmosphere – but no longer. A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com has learned. The satellites' main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists. The upshot: Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified.
Air France jet sent message on rudder problem 13 Jun 2009 A burst of automatic messages sent by Air France Flight 447 before it crashed includes one about a problem with a rudder safety device but lacks decisive clues as to what sent the jet plunging into the Atlantic Ocean two weeks ago, an aviation expert said Saturday. The industry official, who has knowledge of the Air France investigation, told The Associated Press that a transcript of the messages posted on the Web site EuroCockpit is authentic but inconclusive.
SoCal students quarantined in China over flu scare 13 Jun 2009 A private school in San Diego County says 36 of its students are being quarantined in China while being tested for the swine flu virus. Eileen Mullady, head of Pacific Ridge School in Carlsbad, says the ninth graders were at the end of a 13-day educational tour of the country when a few students developed the sniffles.
Australia Team Quarantined in Korea on Swine Flu Fear 14 Jun 2009 Australia’s under 21 lacrosse team has been quarantined in South Korea after one of the 26 members tested positive for swine flu, in the latest case of the nation exporting the virus to Asia. South Korea has prohibited the Australian team from attending a tournament and will quarantine all members to monitor them for seven days, the health ministry said in a statement late yesterday.
1918 Flu Resulted In Current Lineage of H1N1 Swine Influenza Viruses 01 May 2009 Juergen A. Richt, Regents Distinguished Professor of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology at K-State's College of Veterinary Medicine, studied the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic with colleagues from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Their research supports the hypothesis that the 1918 pandemic influenza virus and the virus causing the swine flu were the same. Richt said the virus was able to infect and replicate in swine and cause mild respiratory disease. The 1918 virus spread through the pig population, adapted to the swine and resulted in the current lineage of the H1N1 swine influenza viruses. [See: Experimental Infection of Pigs with the Human 1918 Pandemic Influenza Virus By Hana M. Weingartl, et al. 18 Feb 2009.]
A.I.G. Balks at Claims From Jet Ditching in Hudson 12 Jun 2009 For the first couple of days after his flight ditched into the Hudson River, Paul Jorgenson was just glad to be alive. But then he started to need his laptop, his wallet, his car keys -- items he had stowed under his seat and left behind in the sinking plane... Then the matter shifted to US Airways’ insurer, the American International Group, operating under government stewardship since its bailout last fall. "Everything went downhill," said Mr. Jorgenson, a software executive in Charlotte, N.C., whose laptop and keys have not been recovered.
Lawmakers Reveal Health-Care Investments --Key Players Have Stakes in Industry 13 Jun 2009 Almost 30 key lawmakers helping draft landmark health-care legislation have financial holdings in the industry, totaling nearly $11 million worth of personal investments in a sector that could be dramatically reshaped by this summer's debate. The list of members who have personal investments in the corporations that will be affected by the legislation includes Congress's most powerful leaders and a bipartisan collection of lawmakers in key committee posts.
Previous lead stories: Kidnapping we can believe in: Feds ask court to reconsider CIA renditions suit 12 Jun 2009 The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a federal appeals court in San Francisco to reconsider its decision to allow a Boeing Co. subsidiary to be sued for allegedly flying terrorism suspects to secret prisons overseas to be tortured. In April, a panel of judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the lawsuit dealing with the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program could proceed.
Obama Administration Seeks to Keep Torture Victims From Having Day In Court --Justice Department Asks Court For Rehearing In Extraordinary Rendition Lawsuit Against Boeing Subsidiary (ACLU) 12 Jun 2009 The Justice Department today argued that the victims of the "extraordinary rendition" program should not have their day in court, asking a federal appeals court to block a landmark case the court had earlier ruled could go forward. In April, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DataPlan Inc., for its role in the Bush administration's unlawful "extraordinary rendition" program could proceed, but today the government asked the appeals court's full panel of judges to rehear that decision.
CIA: Finding bin Laden top U.S. priority 12 Jun 2009 Finding al-Qaida [al-CIAduh] leader Osama bin Laden, believed still in hiding in Pakistan, remains a top priority for the United States, CIA Director Leon Panetta said. Panetta told reporters the United States has people in Pakistan "who are helping us provide targets," the BBC reported Friday. Pakistan's military operation against Taliban militants will improve the chances of locating bin Laden, believed to be hiding out in the rugged region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border [LOL!], Panetta said.
Those who wish to be added to the list can go here: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg and add your name. Those who wish to unsubscribe can go here: http://lists.people-link.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/legitgov. If your email provider has marked this newsletter as spam, please mark it as 'not spam' and do not delete from a spam or 'junk' folder, as such actions trigger false spam complaints against the CLG. If you have any inquiries/issues with your subscription, please write: signup at legitgov dot org.
