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This message is available online at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060327newsarticles
Dear friends,
Below are one-paragraph excerpts of important
news articles you may have missed. Each excerpt is taken verbatim
from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any
link fails to function,
click
here. These news articles include
revealing information on Iraq: Playing Football with bricks of $100
Bills, Criminal Negligence on 9/11, the Israel lobby, IRS Releases
Your Data, the GAO report condemning government accountability,
inspiring clips on MTV, and more. Key sentences are
highlighted for those with limited time.
For those interested in CNN's claims
of a government cover-up of 9/11, CNN again gave prime time coverage
Friday, March 24th. See
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/24/sbt.01.html
to read the CNN program
transcript.
Fox News
also had a six-minute 9/11 debate. And the
sophisticated weekly magazine
New
York carried a very
long, excellent 9/11 piece, of which you can
find excerpts below. For more on CNN's groundbreaking 9/11 coverage
from an earlier message:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060324cnnquestions911.
By choosing to educate ourselves and to
spread
the word, we can and will
build a
brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents Bush
and Clinton
'Iraq was awash
in cash. We played football with bricks of $100 bills'
March 20, 2006, The Guardian
(one of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1734939,00.html
At the start of the Iraq war, around $23bn-worth
of Iraqi money was placed in the trusteeship of the US-led coalition by
the UN. The money...was to be used in a "transparent manner"...for
"purposes benefiting the people of Iraq". For the past few months we
have been working on a Guardian Films investigation into what happened
to that money. A great deal of it has been wasted, stolen or frittered
away. Over the first 14 months of the occupation, 363 tonnes of new $100
bills were shipped in - $12bn, in cash. "Iraq was awash in cash - in
dollar bills. Piles and piles of money," says Frank Willis, a
former senior official with the governing Coalition Provisional
Authority. "We played football with some of the bricks of $100 bills
before delivery. It was a wild-west crazy atmosphere". The
environment created by the coalition positively encouraged corruption.
"American law was suspended, Iraqi law was suspended, and Iraq
basically became a free fraud zone," says Alan Grayson, a Florida-based
attorney who represents whistleblowers now trying to expose the
corruption. One CPA official was given nearly $7m and told to spend it
in seven days.
Note: I highly recommend this
entire article to understand some of what happens in war. For lots more
on war-related corruption written by a highly decorated US general, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/warisaracket
The Ground Zero
Grassy Knoll
March 27, 2006, New York Magazine
http://www.nymetro.com/news/features/16464
Why, if the impact destroyed the planes’
supposedly crash-proof flight-recorder black boxes, was the FBI able to
find, in perfect condition, the
passport of
Satam al Suqami, one of the...Flight 11
hijackers? How could they, an hour after the first World Trade Center
crash, allow an obviously hostile airplane to smash into the Pentagon,
headquarters of the entire military-industrial complex?
A
story in Newsweek...said these generals were
told earlier that week not to fly.
[On 9/11 a] fireman indicated the building in front of us. “That
building is coming down,” he said. At 47 stories, it would be a
skyscraper in most cities. Five minutes later, at 5:20, the
building, 7 World Trade Center, crumbled. What happened at 7
WTC might be the key to the entire mystery. The $500 million insurance
profit made by Larry Silverstein [and] the
list of 7 WTC
tenants sets conspiracy heads spinning: The
IRS, the Department of Defense, and the CIA kept offices on the 25th
floor. The Secret Service occupied the ninth and tenth. The Securities
and Exchange Commission (home to vast records of bank transactions) was
on floors 11 through 13. The 23rd floor was home to Rudy Giuliani’s
Office of Emergency Management, his crisis center. Central to the
scenario is a comment made by Silverstein in a
2002 PBS
documentary. “We’ve had such a terrible loss
of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.” “Pull it”...is the
term usually used for controlled demolition. 7 WTC is not even mentioned
in The 9/11 Commission Report.
Election
Whistle-Blower Stymied by Vendors
March 26, 2006, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032500805.html
Among those who worry that hackers might sabotage
election tallies, Ion Sancho is something of a hero. The maverick
elections supervisor in Leon County, Fla., last year helped show that
electronic voting machines from one of the major manufacturers are
vulnerable...and would allow election workers to alter vote counts
without detection. Now, however, Sancho may be paying an unexpected
price for his whistle-blowing: None of the state-approved companies here
will sell him the voting machines the county needs. "I believe I'm being
singled out for punishment by the vendors," he said. The trouble began
last year when Sancho allowed a Finnish computer scientist to test Leon
County's Diebold voting machines, a common type that uses an optical
scanner to count votes from ballots that voters have marked.
Some tests...showed that elections workers could alter the vote tallies
by manipulating the removable memory ca! rds in the voting machines, and
do so without detection. Last month, California elections
officials arranged for experts to perform a similar analysis of the
Diebold machines and also found them vulnerable -- noting a wider
variety of flaws than Sancho's experts had. A spokesman said Diebold
will not sell to Sancho without assurances that he will not permit more
such tests, which the company considers a reckless use of the machines.
Who's afraid of
the 'Israel Lobby'?
March 26, 2006, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-goldberg26mar26,1,301596.story
The idea of a powerful "Jewish lobby" that has its
gnarled fingers in the machinery of the government is an old and
repugnant canard. In the modern era, even to broach the idea of a
"Jewish lobby" is unacceptable. It's just not done in polite
society—even in situations in which there's some truth to it. That's why
it was a bit of a shock last week when a 12,000-word article by
two eminent professors—Stephen Walt, the academic dean of Harvard
University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and John Mearsheimer,
a professor of political science at the University of Chicago—appeared
in the London Review of Books under the title "The Israel Lobby."
According to the two academics, the United States' "unwavering support"
for Israel—including the $3 billion a year we give in direct
assistance—is justified by neither strategic nor moral imperatives.
Despite the common view, Israel is, in fact, the Go! liath in the Middle
East, not the David. It is not a truly democratic country, but an
avowedly Jewish state in which Arabs live as second-class citizens. "The
bottom line is that AIPAC, a de facto agent for a foreign government,
has a stranglehold on Congress," Walt and Mearsheimer contend. Public
reaction has varied. Harvard has reportedly distanced itself from the
original report. It seems silly to deny that a powerful lobby on behalf
of Israel exists. The real question is how pernicious it is. My advice
is to judge for yourself. The full article is available at
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
Note: For information on how
Harvard distanced itself from this paper:
http://www.nysun.com/article/29638. For the
mixed reaction to this paper in Israel:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0324/dailyUpdate.html
Unwelcome
Attention From Moussaoui Trial
March 25, 2006, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/25/politics/25moussaoui.html
The sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui was
supposed to have been the government's best opportunity to hold someone
accountable for the deaths on Sept. 11, 2001. But after federal
prosecutors finished laying out their case this week, even those who
strongly supported an aggressive prosecution may wonder whether the
trial has shed as much light on Mr. Moussaoui's culpability as it has on
the missteps and mistakes by law enforcement agencies. The testimony of
two prosecution witnesses, in particular, has brought renewed and
unwelcome attention to how the [FBI] dealt with early warning signs. Mr.
Moussaoui is the sole person to go to trial in an American courtroom for
the attacks. Under cross-examination...Mr. Samit acknowledged that after
the attacks he had written strongly worded reports saying his superiors
had improperly blocked his efforts to investigate Mr. Moussaoui. He
added that he was convinced that Mr. Moussaoui was a terrorist involved
in an imminent hijacking plot. He offered a devastating comment
from a supervisor who said pressing too hard to obtain a warrant for Mr.
Moussaoui would hurt his career. Mr. Samit also wrote that his superiors
did not act because they were guilty of "criminal negligence" and they
were gambling that Mr. Moussaoui had little to offer. The lost wager,
Mr. Samit said, was paid in many lives.
Researchers Shed
More Light on Bird Flu
March 23, 2006, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/22/AR2006032202043.html
Two research teams have independently discovered
explanations for the chief features of the H5N1 bird flu virus -- its
difficulty infecting humans, and the deadly effects when it does. Unlike
influenza viruses that are passed easily between people, H5N1 has a hard
time attaching to cells in the nose, throat and upper airways. But it
readily attaches to cells deep in the lungs. This suggests that
people need close and heavy exposure to the H5N1 virus for it to get
into the lungs.
Note: Yet governments have
already spent many millions of dollars stockpiling Tamiflu believing
that avian flu will mutate and cause a pandemic killing millions. And
top government officials have already made many millions of dollars on
stocks related to Tamiflu--the drug designed to combat a deadly virus
which hasn't even mutated yet to know if the drug works! Remember that
generating
fear in the public is one of the best ways to
make a profit. For lots more, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/avianflu
IRS plans to
allow preparers to sell data
March 21, 2006, Philadelphia
Enquirer (Philadelphia's leading newspaper)
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/14147002.htm
The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the
once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it
succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to
sell information from individual returns - or even entire returns - to
marketers and data brokers. The change is raising alarm among
consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of
proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS
published...where the official notice labeled them "not a significant
regulatory action." The proposed rules...would require a tax preparer to
obtain written consent before selling tax information. Critics call the
changes a dangerous breach in personal and financial privacy. They say
the requirement for signed consent would prove meaningless for many
taxpayers, especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents
before a filing deadline. The IRS first announced the proposal
in a news release the day before the official notice was published,
headlined: "IRS Issues Proposed Regulations to Safeguard Taxpayer
Information."
FBI Agent Slams
Bosses at Moussaoui Trial
March 21, 2006, CBS News/Associated
Press
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/21/ap/national/mainD8GFLTIGA.shtml
The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in
August 2001 testified Monday he spent almost four weeks trying to warn
U.S. officials about the radical Islamic student pilot but "criminal
negligence" by superiors in Washington thwarted a chance to stop the
9/11 attacks. Samit told MacMahon he couldn't persuade FBI headquarters
or the Justice Department to take his fears seriously.
Samit's complaints echoed those raised in 2002 by
Coleen Rowley, the bureau's agent-lawyer in the Minneapolis office.
Rowley went
public with her frustrations, was named a Time
magazine person of the year for whistleblowing.
Samit revealed far more than Rowley of the details of the investigation.
For each nugget of information, MacMahon asked Samit if Washington
officials called to assess the implications. Time after time, Samit said
no.
Woman With
Perfect Memory Baffles Scientists
March 20, 2006, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1738881&page=1
[AJ] remembers every day and almost every detail
of her life. James McGaugh is one of the world's leading experts on how
the human memory system works. But these days, he admits he's stumped.
McGaugh's journey through an intellectual purgatory began six years ago
when a woman now known only as AJ wrote him a letter detailing her
astonishing ability to remember with remarkable clarity even trivial
events that happened decades ago. Give her any date...and she
could recall the day of the week, usually what the weather was like on
that day, personal details of her life at that time, and major news
events that occurred on that date. Like any good scientist,
McGaugh was initially skeptical. But not anymore. "This is real," he
says. "In order to explain a phenomenon you have to first understand the
phenomenon," McGaugh says. "We're at the beginning."
Note: The human mind and spirit
are much more powerful than many scientists might imagine.
MTV's 'Spiritual
Windows' mix faith with rock 'n' roll
March 11, 2006, Chicago Sun-Times
http://www.suntimes.com/output/falsani/cst-nws-fals11.html
It was about 10 seconds long and showed gondoliers
rowing in the canals of Venice, Italy, while a Latin-sounding man's
voice said: "Your heart is where your treasure is, and you must find
your treasure in order to make sense of everything." And then more words
appeared on the screen: "Everyday grace: MTV." In late January,
MTV, the arbiter of all things hip, quietly launched a campaign of 24 of
these little films. They call the campaign "Spiritual Windows."
"We wanted to create little, short moments, almost breaths of peace, for
the channel," Kevin Mackall, the...senior vice president of on-air
promos for MTV explained. "There's a genuine appetite for spirituality
these days." According to a little-known poll...53 percent of
18-to-29-year-olds said "religion" was "extremely important" or "very
important" to their daily lives. Only 14 percent said religion wasn't
important to them at all. One spot! , with the tag line "Consume
mindfully," shows a Tibetan nun hauling two plastic garbage bags to the
curb in front of her Buddhist temple. Then there's "Everyone," with a
Chinese dragon dancing...accompanied by a voice-over that says, "We need
other human beings to be human." And one of the longer spots...shows the
sun setting over a pyramid in Egypt as the Brazilian magical realist
author Paulo Coelho's voice announces, "The desert will give you an
understanding of the world. How do I immerse myself in the desert?
Listen to your heart." Mackall...insists the "Spiritual Windows" are no
gimmick. "It really, truly is answering a call from our audience," he
said. "Hopefully it's a first step into some other content like this."
Touch-Screen
Voting Fallible, Ehrlich Says
March 6, 2006, The Guardian
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/05/AR2006030501045.html
Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) has
embraced a legislative proposal to abandon the state's touch-screen
voting machines for the coming election, in which he is a candidate, and
to lease others that provide a paper record to verify results. Ehrlich's
endorsement is the latest turn in the debate over Maryland's electronic
voting machines that were used in nearly every polling place in the 2004
election. The state has committed $90 million to the system, which
critics say is vulnerable to tampering. Last month, Ehrlich -- who
championed the Diebold machines in 2003 -- express[ed] concern about
reliability questions raised in California and Florida about those
machines. A review of California's voting systems found more
than a dozen vulnerabilities that security analysts said could be fixed.
More than two dozen states now have some requirement for vote
verification.
Note: These vulnerabilities were
discovered after the machines were used widely in previous elections.
Before those elections, voting machine manufacturers and elections
officials insisted there were no such vulnerabilities. For lots more
cover-ups around elections, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/electionsinformation
Fiscal Year 2005
U.S. Government Financial Statements
March 1, 2006, Official Website of the
GAO (Government Accountability Office)
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06406thigh.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-06-406T
GAO is required by law to annually audit the
consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government. The Congress
and the President need to have timely, reliable, and useful financial
and performance information. For the ninth consecutive year,
certain material weaknesses in internal control...continued to prevent
GAO from being able to provide the Congress and American people an
opinion as to whether the consolidated financial statements of the U.S.
government are fairly stated in conformity with U.S. generally accepted
accounting principles. Three major impediments to an opinion on
the consolidated financial statements continued to be (1) serious
financial
management
problems at the Department of Defense, (2) the
federal government's inability to adequately account for and reconcile
intragovernmental activity and balances between ! federal agencies, and
(3) the federal government's ineffective process for preparing the
consolidated financial statements. The cost to operate the federal
government increased to $760 billion in fiscal year 2005 from $616
billion in fiscal year 2004. This represents an increase of about $144
billion or 23 percent. The federal government's gross debt was about $8
trillion as of September 30, 2005. The federal government's
fiscal exposures now total more than $46 trillion, representing close to
four times gross domestic product (GDP) in fiscal year 2005 and up from
about $20 trillion...in 2000.
Note: The GAO (Government
Accountability Office) is one of the few branches of government which
works hard to prevent corruption. Why didn't this devastating report get
any press coverage? Why does the media fail to inform the public that
the Pentagon cannot account for literally trillions of dollars? (see CBS
article on this at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/050310pentagontrillionslost)
For possible answers, see our media summary at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/mediacover-up
Now the Pentagon
tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
February 22, 2006, The Observer
(One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html
A secret report, suppressed by US defence
chiefs...warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising
seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear
conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across
the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring
the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat
to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The
threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the
few experts privy to its contents. 'Disruption and conflict will be
endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again,
warfare would define human life.' The report was commissioned by
influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held
considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades.
Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a ! scientific debate to a US
national security concern', say the authors. Last week the Bush
administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected
scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy
agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. A former
whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that
suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the
White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.
Note: Though I don't agree with
these doomsday scenario predictions (the Pentagon tends to focus on
worst-case scenarios), the suppression of this report clearly does not
serve the public.
Final Note: Remember that
with your
help, we can and will build a
brighter
future
for us all. And for some deeply
inspiring stories to provide balance to all of this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
The message below is available online at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060317newsarticles
Dear friends,
Below are one-paragraph excerpts of
important news articles you may have missed. Each excerpt is
taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link
provided. If any link fails to function,
click
here. These news articles include
revealing information on weapons in space, huge war profits, a
boom in billionaires, Tamiflu riches flowing into the pockets of
a high government official, and more. Key sentences are
highlighted for those with limited time. By choosing to
educate ourselves and to
spread
the word, we can and will
build
a brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents
Bush and Clinton
Pentagon
eyeing weapons in space
March 14, 2006, Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/14/pentagon_eyeing_weapons_in_space/
The Pentagon is asking Congress for hundreds
of millions of dollars to test weapons in space, marking the biggest
step toward creating a space battlefield since President Reagan's
long-defunct ''star wars" project. The Defense Department's budget
proposal...includes money for a variety of tests on offensive and
defensive weapons. Arms-control specialists fear the tests will push
the military closer to basing weapons in space than during Reagan's
Strategic Defense Initiative in the mid-1980s -- without a public
debate of the potential consequences. The descriptions included in
the budget request mark only what is publicly known about the
military's space warfare plans. Specialists believe the classified
portion of the $439 billion budget, blacked out for national
security reasons, almost certainly includes other space-related
programs. Under President Bush, the White House has
emphasized what's known as ''! space dominance" -- the notion that
the United States must command space to defend the nation, but the
budget request marks a transition from laboratory theory to reality.
The Bush administration has sought to keep the military's options
open despite international opposition to weapons in space.
The War
Dividend: The British companies making a fortune out of conflict-riven
Iraq
March 13, 2006, Independent
(one of the UK's top newspapers)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article350959.ece
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13385
British businesses have profited by at least
£1.1bn since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein three years
ago. The company roll-call of post-war profiteers includes some of
the best known names in Britain's boardrooms. The evidence of
massive investments and the promise of more multimillion-pound
profits to come was discovered in a joint investigation by
Corporate
Watch, an independent watchdog, and The
Independent. The findings show how much is [at] stake if Britain
were to withdraw military protection from Iraq. British company
involvement at the top of Iraq's new political and economic
structures means Iraq will be forced to rely on British business for
many years to come. A total of 61 British companies are identified
as benefiting from at least £1.1bn of contracts and investment in
the new Iraq. But that figure is just the tip of the iceberg.! It
could be as much as five times higher, because many companies prefer
to keep their relationship secret. The waters are further muddied by
the Government's refusal to release the names of companies it has
helped to win contracts in Iraq. The report acknowledges
that British business still lags behind the huge profits paid to
American companies. In five years, the £1.1bn of contracts
identified in the report will be dwarfed by what Britain and the US
hope to reap from investments. Highly lucrative oil
contracts have yet to be handed out.
Note: For more powerful
information on war-profiteering revealed by a highly decorated U.S.
general see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/warisaracket
Defending the
party of Davos
March 13, 2006, CNN
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/10/news/international/pluggedin_2_fortune/
I went to hear Jeff Faux talk recently about
his new book "The
Global Class War," an account of how the
corporate elite has been selling out American workers. I don't
entirely buy his argument. Faux is founder of the Economic Policy
Institute, a Washington think tank...which I think is best described
as "gloomy." There is no economic news that the EPI can't find a way
to spin negatively. That said, the work the group does is always
meticulous and usually thought-provoking. The same can be said of
Faux's book. His main point is that there now exists a global "party
of Davos" (the Swiss ski resort where politicians, businesspeople,
journalists, and scholars gather every January for the annual
meeting of the World Economic Forum), whose members have more in
common with each other than with the peoples of their home
countries. I can tes! tify that there is truth to this. I am a
member of the junior auxiliary of the party of Davos.
Faux's point is not that people like
me are sinister and evil -- there's no Trilateral Commission/Council
on Foreign Relations/Bilderberg
Group conspiracy nonsense in his book --
just that the interests of corporate America aren't necessarily the
same as America's interests.
My chief solace is that Faux doesn't seem to have an obviously
better alternative. Or maybe that shouldn't be a solace -- because
Faux is right that a global economic system designed entirely by
corporations, without any democratic input to speak of, isn't what
anybody really wants.
Note: This is a heartening
article from one who rubs elbows with the power elite. It is also
one of the rare times I've seen the powerful Bilderberg Group
mentioned in mainstream media. If you don't know about this secret
gathering of the global elite, I most highly recommend two revealing
BBC articles you can find at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/051115secretsocietiesbilderberg
Donald
Rumsfeld makes $5m killing on bird flu drug
March 12, 2006, Independent
(one of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article350787.ece
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060313114723970
The US Defence Secretary has made more than
$5m (£2.9m) in capital gains from selling shares in the
biotechnology firm that discovered and developed Tamiflu, the drug
being bought in massive amounts by Governments to treat a possible
human pandemic of the disease. More than 60 countries have so far
ordered large stocks of the antiviral medication - the only oral
medicine believed to be effective against the deadly H5N1 strain of
the disease - to try to protect their people. The United Nations
estimates that a pandemic could kill 150 million people worldwide.
The drug was developed by a Californian biotech company, Gilead
Sciences. Mr Rumsfeld was on the board of Gilead from 1988 to 2001,
and was its chairman from 1997. He then left to join the
Bush administration, but retained a huge shareholding. The 2005
report showed that, in all, he owned shares worth up to $95.9m, from
which he got an income of up to $13m. The firm made a loss in 2003,
the year before concern about bird flu started. Then revenues from
Tamiflu almost quadrupled, to $44.6m, helping put the company well
into the black. Sales almost quadrupled again, to $161.6m last year.
Note: For many more strange
coincidences and facts around the avian flu scare, take a look at
our summary of eye-opening news articles at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/avianflu
Forbes
reports billionaire boom
March 10, 2006, BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4791848.stm
A worldwide economic boom has yielded
a record number of dollar billionaires in the past year, according
to Forbes. Their number rose by 15%. Microsoft's Bill Gates
tops the list for the 12th year running, with a net worth of $50bn
(£29bn). The combined net worth of the 793 is $2.6 trillion and US
billionaires account for just under half the amount. The figures
were conservative estimates for different reasons. While New York
has the highest number of resident billionaires with 40, Moscow is
second with 25, and London comes third with 23. Steve Forbes,
Forbes' chief executive and editor-in-chief, attributed the global
rise in the number of billionaires to an economic boom.
Note: Yet a recent New
York Times article shows that the income of 90% of citizens is
basically stagnant or even decreasing. See
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060306newsarticles#1
The Dubai
Deal You Don't Know About
March 9, 2006, Time
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1171773,00.html
Dubai Ports World, the firm at the center of
the controversy, announced today that it would give up its bid to
manage U.S. ports, agreeing to transfer the contracts to a “U.S.
entity." Yet while one Dubai company may be giving up on U.S. ports,
another one shows no signs of...giving up a contract with the Navy
to provide shore services for vessels in the Middle East. The firm,
Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS)...was sold to a Dubai government
investment vehicle for $285 million. Why is a Dubai shipping
services company doing business with the Pentagon when handing over
U.S. port operations to the emirate would supposedly compromise
national security? ISS “will be responsible for providing
all the logistics requirements of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships in
ports throughout the [Middle East] region.” The release also notes
that ISS may be asked to provide services for U.S. military training
exer! cises and “contingency operations inland.” ISS’s
partner for those services? None other than KBR, the division of
Halliburton — Vice President Dick Cheney’s old firm — that has won
billions of dollars in contracts for the Iraq war and
reconstruction. Ironically, Halliburton's name has come up
as a possible candidate to be the "U.S. entity" to take over the
U.S. ports management from Dubai Ports World.
Moussaoui
Jury Riveted by 9/11 Transcript
March 8, 2006, CBS/Associated Press
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/08/ap/national/mainD8G7AG300.shtml
The details of what happened to the four
hijacked jetliners on Sept. 11, 2001, have been known for years, but
when a prosecutor read a simple minute-by-minute account of the
attacks, the jury deciding the fate of confessed al-Qaida
conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui hung on every word. In a similar
vein, the missed opportunities of the FBI and other agencies to
prevent Sept. 11 have been known for years, but when FBI agents are
forced to admit them on cross-examination, they seem fresh to the
jury. FBI agents have been
forced to admit under cross-examination that the
FBI knew
years before Sept. 11 that al-Qaida had plans
to use planes as missiles to destroy prominent buildings. They also
had to acknowledge numerous missed opportunities in the months
before Sept. 11 to catch two of the hijackers with terror links
known to the government, even
though the pair frequently used their own names in this country to
rent cars, purchase plane tickets and even, once, to file a police
report after getting mugged.
Note: What all of the media
articles on this important case fail to mention is the laptop
computer of Moussaoui was confiscated weeks before 9/11, yet FBI
headquarters systematically undermined requests by Minneapolis FBI
agents to search the computer. See
http://www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up10pg#moussaouilaptop.
And a full two weeks before 9/11 an FBI Minnesota
supervisor said he was trying keep Moussaoui from “taking control of
a plane and fly it into the WTC," yet his investigation was
repeatedly blocked by top officials. See
http://www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up10pg#moussaoui
Battery power
as good as gas?
March 6, 2006, Toronto Star
(one of Canada's leading newspapers)
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1
&c=Article&cid=1141599010468&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851
A much-shrouded idea could give portable power
a real charge, for a change—and change, well, everything. Imagine
the day when cellphones charge up in seconds, laptop batteries never
degrade, and electric cars have the same power, driving range and
purchase price as their gas-powered cousins. Such a battery—a
superbattery—doesn't exist today, but a tiny company out of Austin,
Texas, is getting remarkably close, and the possibilities have
caught the attention of the U.S. army, the former vice-chairman of
Dell Computer, and one of the most respected venture capital firms
in North America. Among EEStor's claims is that its
"electrical energy storage unit" could pack nearly 10 times the
energy punch of a lead-acid battery of similar weight and, under
mass production, would cost half as much. It also says its
technology more than doubles the energy density of lithium-ion
batteries in most portable computer and ! mobile gadgets today, but
could be produced at one-eighth the cost. The company...is
weeks away from seeking independent verification of the product's
performance. Adding more intrigue to the story is the fact that
Colin Powell, the former U.S. secretary of state, joined Kleiner
Perkins last summer as a strategic partner.
Ministers
back 'terminator' GM crops
March 5, 2006, Independent
(one of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article349331.ece
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0305-04.htm
Ministers are trying to scrap an international
agreement banning the world's most controversial genetic
modification of crops, grimly nicknamed "terminator technology", a
move which threatens to increase hunger in the Third World. The
Government is to push for terminator crops to be considered for
approval on a "case-by-case basis" at two meetings this month; its
position closely mirrors the stance of the United States and other
GM [genetically modified organisms]-promoting countries.
Terminator technology...would stop hundreds of millions of poor
farmers from saving seeds from their crops for resowing for the
following harvest, forcing them to buy new ones from biotech
companies every year. The technique is officially known as
genetic use restriction technology (Gurt), making crops produce
sterile seeds. It could be applied to any crop, including maize and
rice, widely grown in developing countries. The UK working group on
terminator technology...says: "It could destroy traditional farming
methods, damage farmers' livelihoods and threaten food security,
particularly in developing countries." [Former UK Minister of
Environment Michael] Meacher said: "For the first time in the
history of the world, farmers would be stopped from using their own
seeds."
Note: For more on this
alarming development:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/deception10pg
Pay too much
and you could raise the alarm
February 23, 2006, Providence
Journal (the leading newspaper in Rhode Island)
http://www.projo.com/news/bobkerr/projo_20060224_frico24.1d2c026b.html
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=RAISEALARM-02-28-06
Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas
schoolteacher. What got him so upset might seem trivial to some
people who have learned to accept small infringements on their
freedom as just part of the way things are in this age of terror-fed
paranoia. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had
gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a
check for $6,522. And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The
Soehnges' behavior was found questionable. After sending in the
check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly
credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount
available for credit on their account hadn't changed. They were
told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center,
that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their
normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain
percentage higher than that normal payment, Hom! eland Security has
to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is
lifted. Walter called television stations, the American
Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see
what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called
the Bank Privacy Act. "The more I'm on, the scarier it gets," he
said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get
permission to spy."
Obsession:
Mr. Singh’s Search for the Holy Grail
October 2004, Popular Science
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/futurecar/19b09aa138b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
[Somender Singh] claims that his invention
makes an engine cleaner, quieter and colder...while using up to 20
percent less gas. So far, all Singh’s invention has earned him is a
few polite rejection letters from presidents, professors and auto
manufacturers. “I am...no man with letters after his name or fancy
institutions, and what I have invented is really very simple,” he
admits. Remember that the internal combustion engine is itself
hardly rocket science. The internal combustion engine (ICE) has been
with us for about 200 years. The basic concept—the boom that turns a
crank—has not really changed at all. The efficiency of that bang had
stalled out at around 28 percent. The vast majority of the fuel was
dissipated as engine heat or exhaust. Singh knew that...the
combustion chamber [was where] fuel was turned to bang. He modified
a motorcycle, then a two-stroke, then a four-stroke, then a car,
then 50 cars. ! Singh applied for a patent in January 1999, and the
U.S. Patent Office issued him
No.
6237579 in May 2001. Finally he was
allowed to bring his engines and hook them to a Benz EC-70
dynamometer with a five-gas analyzer and a Benz gravimetric
fuel-measuring device. At between 2,000 and 2,800 rpm,
Singh’s modified engine used between 10 and 42 percent less fuel
than its unmodified twin, with no appreciable losses in torque or
power.
Note: After
posting a
message on a group of high-school students
who achieved dramatic improvements in car engine efficiency two
weeks ago, I received emails from more than ten people claiming to
have made or know of similar inventions. The above article was sent
to me as evidence in one case. I know dozens of other cases that
could be real. For lots more, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/newenergyinformation
Final Note: Remember that
with your
help, we can and will build a
brighter
future
for us all. And for some deeply inspiring
stories to provide balance to all of this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
The message below is available online at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060306newsarticles
Dear friends,
Below are one-paragraph excerpts of
important news articles you may have missed. Each excerpt is
taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link
provided. If any link fails to function,
click
here. These news articles include
revealing information on declining U.S. salaries, bullying of
the press, GM (Genetically Modified) food problems, organic food
benefits, and more. Key sentences are highlighted for
those with limited time. By choosing to educate
ourselves and to
spread
the word, we can and will
build
a brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents
Bush and Clinton
Suit airs Able Danger claims
March 4, 2006, Sacramento Bee
(Leading newspaper of
Sacramento, Calif.)
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14225641p-15049903c.html
Two operatives at the center of the Able
Danger controversy have sued the Defense Department for denying them
contact with their lawyers during closed congressional hearings.
Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and J.D. Smith were among a dozen
intelligence officers and contractors who worked on the clandestine
program set up long before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to
track al-Qaida. They are accusing the Pentagon...of violating their
First Amendment rights by blocking their access to legal counsel
during the closed sessions. "Able Danger identified the Sept. 11,
2001, attack leader Mohamed Atta, and three of the 9/11 plot's 19
hijackers, as possible members of an al-Qaida cell linked to the
1993 World Trade Center attack or its participants," the suit said.
Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient who fought undercover in
Afghanistan, caused a stir in August when he stepped forward to say
that he and other Able Danger operatives had identified Atta as long
as 21 months before the Sept. 11 attacks. That claim - later
supported by the Able Danger team's leader, Navy Capt. Scott
Phillpott - contradicted a central finding of the commission
Congress had set up to probe the Sept. 11 attacks, which
concluded that none of the hijackers had been known to U.S.
authorities before the assault.
Note: Though the major media
once gave Able Danger good coverage, only the Sacramento Bee
has mentioned that the team's leader is one of the individuals who
stepped forward. For lots more on the vitally important Able Danger
program:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/abledanger911
Experts Call
for Release of 9/11 Evidence
March 1, 2006, Yahoo News/PR Web
http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20060301/bs_prweb/prweb352979_1
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/3/prweb352979.htm
A society of experts and scholars has now
joined with
Judicial
Watch in calling for release of videos
that are being held by the Department of Defense, which are
essential to understanding events at the Pentagon that transpired on
September 11, 2001. Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which is dedicated to
exposing falsehoods and establishing truths about the events of
9/11, has gone beyond Judicial Watch by calling for the release of
other films and evidence that, its officers maintain, are essential
to understanding 9/11. "It is outrageous that the government is
withholding this vital information", said James H. Fetzer, founder
and co-chair of the society.
They are calling for immediate release of the full
Pentagon
surveillance tape as well as
video
tapes seized by FBI agents minutes after
the Pentagon hit; a complete
inventory of the plane wreckage and debris from Flights 11, 77, 93,
175 or any other aircraft that crashed or was destroyed on September
11, 2001.
Note: Though Yahoo News
picked up this important article, no major media found it
newsworthy.
Graduates
versus Oligarchs
February 27, 2006, New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12093.htm
Highly educated workers have done better than
those with less education, but a college degree has hardly been a
ticket to big income gains. The 2006 Economic Report of the
President tells us that the real earnings of college graduates
actually fell more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2004. So
who are the winners from rising inequality? It's not the top 20
percent, or even the top 10 percent. The big gains have gone to a
much smaller, much richer group than that. A new research paper by
Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, "Where
Did the Productivity Growth Go?," gives the details. Between 1972
and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th
percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about
1 percent per year. So being in the top 10 percent of the income
distribution, like being a college graduate, wasn't a ticket to big
income gains. But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent;
income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the
99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. Should we be worried about the
increasingly oligarchic nature of American society? Yes, and not
just because a rising economic tide has failed to lift most boats.
Both history and modern experience tell us that highly
unequal societies also tend to be highly corrupt.
The Bullying
of the Press
February 26, 2006, London Times
http://timesonline.typepad.com/mick_smith/2006/02/the_bullying_of.html
I reported on eight of the
[Downing
Street] memos while working at the Daily
Telegraph in September 2004. I then moved to the Sunday Times, where
I obtained the other two memos. Why did the US newspapers take so
long to pick up on the story?
The memos were so momentous in what they told us about how Bush and
Blair went to war...that they surely had to be reported. They were
not only “the smoking gun” that proved all the lies; they also
proved the lack of planning for the aftermath; the fraudulent use of
the UN to make the war legal; and...the way in which the allies
began the war...months before they went to the UN or Congress to get
backing for war. The memo actually says...that the Prime Minister
agreed at Crawford in April 2002 to go to war, so the British needed
to "create the conditions" which would make the war legal under
international law. In the wake of 9/11, the US media were initially
prevented from any criticism of the administration. Then when the
need to criticize became unavoidable, they were cowed by
administration claims that it helped the terrorists. There is
something grotesque about Bush saying that his administration is
setting “a
forward strategy for freedom” around the
world while it is attempting at the same time to
bully the
US press back into submission at home. I
don’t for one moment believe it will succeed. But none of us can
afford to be complacent.
Midwest Oil
fined for selling gas too cheaply
February 24, 2006, Star Tribune
(Leading newspaper of Minneapolis-St. Paul)
http://www.startribune.com/535/story/267143.html
The Minnesota Commerce Department on
Thursday announced plans to fine a gas station chain $140,000 for
repeatedly selling gas below the state's legal minimum price.
The fine against Midwest Oil of Minnesota is twice as large as any
imposed on a company since 2001, when the state established a
formula based on wholesale prices, fees and taxes to determine a
daily floor for gas prices. The price law was intended to prevent
large oil companies from driving smaller competitors out of
business, but some critics argue it fails to protect consumers.
According to the Commerce Department, the Midwest-owned stations in
Anoka, Oakdale and Albert Lea sold gas below the minimum price on
293 days in 2005. Kevin Murphy, deputy commissioner of the
department, called the violations "willful, continuing, and
egregious and warrant a substantial penalty."
London Mayor
Suspended Over Nazi Remark
February 24, 2006, ABC/Associated
Press
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1657126
Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended
from office for four weeks on Friday for bringing his office into
disrepute by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration
camp guard. "His treatment of the journalist was
unnecessarily insensitive and offensive," said David Laverick,
chairman of the Adjudication Panel for England, the disciplinary
panel that ruled on the case. The mayor had told the panel that he
had not meant to offend the Jewish community when he asked Evening
Standard reporter Oliver Finegold whether he had been a "German war
criminal."
Note: For the mayor's
response:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1720442,00.html
Strangers at
the Door
February 23, 2006, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/opinion/23ervin.html
Who could have imagined that, in the post-9/11
world, the United States government would approve a deal giving
control over six major American ports to a country with ties to
terrorism? But this is exactly what the secretive Committee on
Foreign Investment in the United States has done. Since 1999, the
ports of New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities have
been operated by a British concern, P & O Ports, which has now been
bought by Dubai Ports World, a company controlled by the government
of the United Arab Emirates. While the United Arab Emirates is
deemed by the Bush administration to be an ally in the war on
terrorism...two of the 9/11 hijackers were citizens of the
emirates, and some of the money for the attacks came from there. It
was one of only three countries in the world that recognized the
Taliban regime. And Dubai was an important transshipment
point for the smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani
scientist who supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with equipment
for making nuclear weapons. Most terrorism experts agree that the
likeliest way for a weapon of mass destruction to be smuggled into
our country would be through a port. After all, some 95 percent of
all goods from abroad arrive in the United States by sea, and yet
only about 6 percent of incoming cargo containers are inspected for
security threats.
Autistic
Teen's Hoop Dreams Come True
Feb 23, 2006, CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/23/earlyshow/main1339324.shtml
It was the stuff of Hollywood, but it was
real. Senior Jason McElwain had been the manager of the varsity
basketball team of Greece Athena High School in Rochester, N. Y.
McElwain, who's autistic, was added to the roster by coach Jim
Johnson so he could be given a jersey and get to sit on the bench in
the team's last game of the year. Johnson hoped the
situation would even enable him to get McElwain onto the floor a
little playing time. He got the chance, with Greece Athena up by
double-digits with four minutes go to. And, in his first
action of the year, McElwain missed his first two shots, but then
sank six three-pointers and another shot (video), for a total of 20
points in three minutes. "I've had a lot of thrills in
coaching," Johnson says. "I've coached a lot of wonderful kids. But
I've never experienced such a thrill." The crowd went wild, and his
teammates carried the exc! ited McElwain off the court.
Note: The video of this
inspiring piece is most excellent (though you have to watch the
30-second commercial first). It is available at the above link to
CBS.
Organic Food
Fends Off Pesticides
February 20, 2006, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthology/story?id=1642533
If you are looking to banish pesticides from
your child's diet, new research suggests that organic food will do
the trick, at least when it comes to two common pesticides.
Researchers found that pesticide levels in children's bodies dropped
to zero after just a few days of eating organic produce and grains.
"After they switch back to a conventional diet, the levels go up,"
said study co-author Chensheng Lu, an assistant professor of
environmental and occupational health at Emory University. Lu said
the impetus for the new study was a previous research project that
examined pesticide levels in 110 children and only found one child
whose body was pesticide-free — a child who regularly ate organic
food. The findings were to be discussed Sunday at the annual meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in St.
Louis. The study, funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, appeared online last September in the journal Environmental
Health Perspectives. Learn more about organic diets from
CNN.com.
America's
masterplan is to force GM food on the world
February 13, 2006, The Guardian
(One of the UK's leading
newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,,1708375,00.html
Three judges emerged after years of
secret deliberation to rule that Europe had imposed a de facto ban
on GM [genetically modified] food imports between 1999 and 2003,
violating WTO rules. The court also ruled that Austria,
France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg had no legal grounds
to impose their own unilateral import bans. Actually, the judges
said much more, but in true WTO style no one has been allowed to
know what. A few bureaucrats in the US, EU, Argentina and Canada
have reportedly seen the full 1,045-page report, and an edited
summary of some of its conclusions has been leaked. But no one, it
seems, will take responsibility for the ruling, which may force the
EU to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate some of the
world's most heavily subsidized farmers, and could change the laws
of at least six countries that have imposed GM bans. It is now clear
that the real reason the US took Europe to the WTO court was...to
make it easier for its companies to...open regulatory doors in
China, India, south-east Asia, Latin America and Africa, where most
US exports now go. This is where millions of tonnes of US food aid
heads, and where US GM companies are desperate to have access,
buying up seed companies and schmoozing presidents.
Note: For an excellent
summary of the dangers of genetically modified foods that Americans
are already eating without their knowledge, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/deception10pg
Military's
Role in a Flu Pandemic
October 5, 2005, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/04/AR2005100400681.html
President Bush said yesterday that he
would consider using the military to "effect a quarantine" in the
event of an outbreak of pandemic influenza in the United States.
Bush also suggested that putting National Guard troops under
federal, rather than state, control might be one part of a response
to the "catastrophe" of an avian influenza outbreak. The president
raised the same idea after Hurricane Katrina, suggesting that he is
considering a greater role for the military in natural disasters.
Most public health experts believe it is impossible to entirely
isolate neighborhoods, towns, cities or regions during an outbreak
of disease. Instead, quarantines today generally refer to a variety
of strategies for identifying and limiting the movement of people
who are infected with a contagious pathogen or are at high risk.
That might include screening travelers for fever and flu symptoms;
prohibiting large gatherings of people, including at some
workplaces; and requiring that people exposed to infected
individuals stay at home until the incubation period for the illness
has passed. China took these measures during the outbreak of severe
acute respiratory syndrome in 2003.
Final Note:
Remember that
with your
help, we can and will build a
brighter
future
for us all. And for some deeply inspiring
stories to provide balance to all of this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
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