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HAARETZ Sat, 31 Jul 2010
What happened to the 130,000 Syrian citizens living in the Golan Heights in June 1967? According to the Israeli narrative, they all fled to Syria, but official documents and testimonies tell a different story.
The ground offensive was preceded by three days of artillery shelling and bombing from the air. Many of the Syrian outposts were hit in the bombings, as were a good number of houses, animal sheds and other civilian structures. And there were human casualties, too, of course. According to most testimony, the flight of civilians toward Damascus began then, and involved tens of thousands of people.
There is no question that many civilians joined the fleeing Syrian army forces both before and after the offensive. Many, but not all. A Syrian estimate a week after the war stated that only about 56,000 civilians had abandoned the Golan at that point.
Shalem believes the inhabitants left the villages as soon as the shelling started, but says they didn't abandon their land and apparently were waiting to return home once the battles ended: "It's a behavior pattern we'd seen in earlier conquests in the war ... Civilians flee their homes, but stay where they can maintain eye contact with the village, to see how things evolve. These were simple folks for the most part, not big politicians by any means, and in the absence of any leadership they did what was necessary to preserve their homes and property."
Shalem's account is supported by most of the testimonies of fighters interviewed for this article. Almost everyone who poked his head out of his tank or armored vehicle remembers seeing hundreds of Syrian civilians gathered outside the villages during the two days of fighting in the Golan.
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DAWN Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:33:23 PKT
Afghanistan could be holding $1 trillion of untapped mineral deposits including critical industrial metals such as lithium, the New York Times reported, quoting US government officials.
The previously unknown deposits of iron, copper, cobalt and gold are so huge that it could transform the impoverished nation into one of the world's important mining centres, the report on the newspaper's website said.
The mineral wealth, discovered by a team of Pentagon officials and US geologists, is scattered throughout the country including in the south and east along the border with Pakistan, where the Taliban-led insurgency is the most intense.
“There is stunning potential here,” the newspaper quoted General David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command, as saying in an interview at the weekend.
“There are lots of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”
An internal Pentagon memo said Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of........
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TIMESONLINE Wed, 09 Jun 2010
Military chiefs are also accused of giving the advice that politicians and civil servants wanted to hear, rather than the cold facts that might make the political imperative — on this occasion, leading the Nato charge into southern Afghanistan — less palatable.
Muddying the planning process was a failure by the intelligence community to present a fuller analysis of the Taleban threat in Helmand, deeming it to be a containable force that numbered only hundreds — an estimate that proved inaccurate.
That contributed to a sense of blind confidence within Whitehall, where a principle concern was that the goal to enhance a tiny, American provincial reconstruction team in Helmand would be so successful it would put other provinces to shame. “There was a three-year time frame and Helmand would be peaceful, stable and prosperous,” said a civilian involved in the planning. “We said the time frame didn’t make any sense. We got huge push back from Whitehall, who wanted us to write something different for the ministers.”
General Mackay, who left the Army last year, accused the military of allowing itself to be politicised and “too acquiescent in rolling over to political bidding”. Such a culture, he said, promoted mediocrity. “The genesis of this approach is born of complacency, the thought that ‘we can deal with it as and when it happens’. It resulted, I believe, in the upper echelons of government (political, civil and military) going into Helmand with their eyes shut and their fingers crossed.
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GUARDIAN Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:44:44 GMT
Evidence over "paragraph 168" shows that security services did know of deliberate US strategy of sleep deprivation, rendition threats and shackling. One of the gravest revelations so far made about the missing "paragraph 168" of this week's appeal court judgment in the Binyam Mohamed case is that parliament's intelligence and security committee (ISC) was misled by MI5. Government lawyer Jonathan Sumption QC, in a letter demanding the deletion of paragraph 168, confirmed this, pointing out that the judgment stated: "Officials of the service deliberately misled the ISC." He was referring to evidence given to a secret session of the ISC on 23 November 2006 by the then head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller. She was testifying about events in May 2002 that took place under her predecessor, Stephen Lander.
According to the ISC's later heavily redacted report, Manningham-Buller and her team denied all knowledge of Mohamed's ill-treatment. The committee – chaired by the former Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy – was told: "A member of the security service did interview [Mohamed] once for a period of approximately three hours while he was detained in Karachi in 2002." The interrogator, later known as Witness B, was "an experienced officer" who conducted the interview "in line with the services' guidance to staff on contact with detainees".
The ISC recorded: "The security service denies that the officer told [Mohamed] he would be tortured as he alleges … He did not observe any abuse and … no instances of abuse were mentioned by [Mohamed]."
Murphy's committee duly reassured the public that although MI5 conceded they had not demanded specific assurances from the US that Mohamed was being properly treated: "This is understandable given the lack of knowledge at the time of any possible consequences of US custody of detainees."
That part of the published ISC report now appears to have been untrue. The judges found that MI5 had 42 documents, detailing how both Witness B and "persons senior to Witness B" had been briefed in detail at the time about how the US was deliberately ill-treating Mohamed as part of a "new strategy", systematically depriving him of sleep, terrifying him with threats of rendition and shackling him in interrogations.
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MIRROR Wed, 03 Feb 2010
The ex-International Development Secretary told how a "deceitful" Mr Blair silenced Cabinet colleagues who questioned his plans for the 2003 invasion. She said she was jeered by Mr Blair and his pro-war "mates" when she raised objections.
In a ferocious attack on Blair's government, Ms Short made a series of explosive remarks. She accused the former Prime Minister of misleading Parliament and claimed law chief Lord Goldsmith conned the Cabinet that the invasion was legal.
She revealed that Gordon Brown believed Mr Blair pushed ahead with war as he was "obsessed with his legacy". At the end of her fiery three hours of testimony, Ms Short won rapturous applause from the public gallery.
Ms Short dramatically claimed the Cabinet had no say and Mr Blair used "little chats" to decide policies.
"It was not a decisionmaking body. I don't think there was ever a substantive discussion in Cabinet.
"If you ever raised an issue with Tony Blair he would cut it off. The machinery of government had broken down quite badly. But when you add secrecy and deceit, it's positively dangerous."
She told the panel, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, how she had tried to question Lord Goldsmith in Cabinet about his 11th-hour ruling that the invasion was, after all, legal.
"I said, 'That is extraordinary.
Why is it so late?' They all said 'Clare!'. I was jeered at to be quiet. If the Prime Minister says be quiet there is only so much you can do".
Ms Short said the Cabinet was never told that Lord Goldsmith had previously judged the invasion to be illegal without a second resolution and changed his mind after being "leaned on".
Nor was she told the two top Foreign Office legal advisors believed the war was against international law. "I think he misled the Cabinet and misled me."
She went on: "The ministerial code said legal advice should be circulated and it wasn't. There was a lot of misleading of Parliament too."
Ms Short said Mr Blair was wrong to say the French would not have backed a second resolution."That was in my view a lie, a deliberate lie. It was one of the big deceits," she said.
Asked why she did not quit until March 2003, she replied: "If knew then what I know now I would have. What Blair promised me wasn't true. I was conned."
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FIRMMAGAZINE Tue, 12 Jan 2010
"Some of the British public may remember signing a petition to the European Parliament in 1995, requesting the involvement of the EU in examining matters relating to the Lockerbie disaster.
...
"Surely Europe should be concerned about these issues now that the official prosecution case appears to have been corrupted. The refusal so far of Mr Brown to allow a full inquiry is justification in itself for referring the matter back to Europe.
"However it would be infinitely preferable if those involved in this fiasco in England, Scotland and the USA would set up an inquiry of sufficient power and impartiality to resolve these issues. That seems a route much more in line with President Obama’s attitude to terrorism.
"In a recent open letter to him, I have tried to make him aware of the following:-
“In a recent 'YouGov' poll in the Muslim world in October 2009, following a debate on Lockerbie held under the auspices of the Qatar foundation, Over half the 1047 respondents thought Megrahi (the alleged Lockerbie bomber) innocent, and in a grim reminder of how the US is perceived in the Arab World, whereas 12% thought that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie, 21% thought that the US was 'directly or indirectly responsible'.”
"Deliberate deception in a Criminal Court is not compatible with the new President’s powerful rhetoric and integrity. It diminishes neither terrorism, nor the reputation of his country. President Obama is the man uniquely positioned to clarify this dreadful business, and he must do so if trust in US intelligence and the use to which it is put is to be restored. "
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WORLDPRESSNETWORK Fri, 25 Sep 2009
Professor Robert Black QC and UN appointed international observer Hans Kochler have backed a campaign initiated by the Lockerbie Justice Group which challenges the Lord Advocate to openly demonstrate that Pan Am 103 could have been brought down by a semtex bomb, under controlled laboratory conditions.
The group state that fabric and circuit board fragments cannot survive a semtex explosion, and accordingly the entire Crown case against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi falls. In 2007 Ulrich Lumpert of timer company MEBO released an affidavit stating he had manufactured the circuit board “evidence” relied upon by the Crown at the Zeist trial. Earlier this year a report by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer concluded that the Crown’s case was “scientifically implausible”.
“The Crown theory utterly depended upon Judges believing that this white-hot sphere with a temperature of 6,800F, travelling in all available directions at 20,000mph did not scorch, never mind totally annihilate, a printed circuit board and a fabric label, which it was able to wholly detach from the shirt. Our group finds this utterly incredible,” the group said.
“We, as members of the concerned Scottish public, invite the Crown to openly demonstrate their theory under controlled laboratory conditions. Either the circuit board survives with its legible ID and soft solder, or it is annihilated in a white-hot gas. In the event of PCB annihilation, we demand a proper and independent committee of inquiry into ‘What brought this plane down?’ Will you please publicly demonstrate your theory, Madam Lord Advocate?”
The challenge has been backed by Dr Hans Kochler, who observed the trial and called for a full public inquiry afterwards.
“It is highly important to address this question to the Scottish prosecutor’s office and I shall add my name to such an initiative,” he said.
“It is equally important that an explosives expert with impeccable academic credentials, ideally a University professor from a European country, endorses this initiative or confirms the basic physical facts in writing. Under this condition I can join the initiative.”
De Braeckeleer and researchers at the Centre of Explosives Technology Research in Socorro, New Mexico estimated that up to thirty pounds of explosive was needed to destroy a Boeing 747, if the explosion had occurred in the hold as the Crown claimed
“As the explosion of one pound of Semtex H inside the luggage container does not generate a blast wave sufficiently powerful to fracture the skin of the fuselage, we have little choice but to conclude that the verdict appears scientifically very implausible,” they said.
The group’s initiative is bolstered by the new testimony of former Ferranti electrical engineer Aitken Brotherston, experienced in testing circuitry for use in military applications.
“Although no doubt there have been some advances in the construction of circuit boards the predominance of boards in current use are the same as those I tested. In most cases the boards would happily catch light with a flame source similar to that of a Swan Vesta and the others merely required a butane blowtorch with temperatures being at most in 100s of degrees C,” he says.
“While we did not test them to the 3000 plus degrees C temperatures of a Semtex explosion bright spot, even as an apprentice electronics engineer with Ferranti, my experience at much lower temperatures would persuade me that nothing of the circuit boards would survive that environment.
“The proposal that fragments of the board, of sufficient size to permit identification, packed with the bomb had survived a temperature environment of more than 3000 degree C in the explosion is to me just not credible.
“What it does demonstrate is the extent to which anyone promulgating that theory believes us out here in the real world to be completely stupid.”
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WORLDPRESSNETWORK
WPN Scoop : WPN has been reliably told that Libya was explicitly told that unless al-Megrahi's appeal was dropped, then al-Megrahi's release could not be guaranteed. Whether the person conveying this information could deliver on the promise is academic as long as Libya believed it was from a source well connected to the British government. This is intimidation which perverted the course of justice, and which the judges, politicians and mass media were all too happy to turn a blind eye to.
Al-Megrahi, wanting to maximise the chance of his release to spend his final few days with his family, thus agreed to drop the appeal despite his innocence, which the judges too readily accepted, apparently without proper regard to the review which found very serious concerns about this conviction. In effect, the judges preferred a miscarriage of justice to stand and for an innocent man to die with the label of mass-murder over him (and, by association, Libya), than to disclose the cover-up and conspiracy surrounding the Lockerbie case.
This intimidation is therefore a criminal offense which the British police and crown prosecution service should investigate vigorously bearing in mind the huge public interest in discovering how a major crime got committed and who was really behind it, and how an innocent man got convicted of the crime. As a start, all the judges in the case should be interviewed under oath to try and uncover how much political interference there was in the prior judicial opinions in the case.
"Lockerbie: Megrahi was framed" .. "Megrahi in effect blackmailed by the governments of Scotland and England
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TIMESONLINE Fri, 11 Sep 2009
MI6 is to be investigated over alleged ill-treatment of a suspect after the security service raised concerns over one of its own officers.
The unexpected development means that both MI6 and MI5 are now being investigated by the police, an unprecedented occurrence and one that will bring an unwelcome spotlight on the two organisations.
MI5 has been under investigation for some weeks over the case of Binyam Mohamed, the Ethiopian-born British resident who alleged that he was tortured by CIA interrogators while he was being held in a secret detention centre in Morocco.
When the allegations were made by Mr Mohamed, who was accused but not charged by the Americans of being linked to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, there were concerns in Whitehall that other cases might arise in which the British intelligence services might have benefited from information gained by the CIA using unlawful interrogation techniques.
The CIA is already being investigated for alleged human rights abuses. Eric Holder, the US Attorney General, appointed John Durham, a veteran prosecutor from Connecticut, to examine all the evidence.
The US Justice Department recently released a secret report which showed CIA interrogators choking one prisoner repeatedly and threatening to kill another detainee’s children. Previous revelations uncovered other techniques, including “waterboarding” which involved detainees suffering the experience of drowning.
He said 12 former Guantanamo Bay detainees - with some residency link to Britain - had made such allegations to the police. A number of cases are already being heard by the courts.
The cases include that of Binyam Mohamed. They are all suing the Government for compensation for alleged complicity in the claimed abusive treatment they received in the American military detention camp.
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WORLDPRESSNETWORK
The Scottish Labour party, standing on each other's shoulders, could limbo under a snake and still leave headroom.
I say that as someone brought up to believe Labour was the dynamic force for social justice, responsible for all that was good and decent in our society, from education to health provision, from pensions to prisons.
But watching the Lockerbie debate, the fall-out and the duplicitous and venal behaviour of the New Labour numpties made me want to retch.
People I know and have worked with, formerly progressives, became part of the mob baying for the head of Kenny MacAskill - not one overly endowed with grey matter, I grant you. But they knew beyond peradventure that he was doing exactly what their masters in Westminster wanted and would have done in a breath, had they the power.
Gordon Brown's silence on the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi convicts him.
No senior national New Labour figure has said Megrahi should not have been released or, had the UK government had the decision, he wouldn't have been.
Jack Straw, looking more like a Dickens character every day (Sowerberry, the undertaker in Oliver Twist, is my choice), was never short of a scruple to get shot of.
His leaked letters to MacAskill and the SNP government make it clear, having insisted on keeping Megrahi out of a prisoner exchange deal with Libya, he caved in when the gravity of the potential loss to BP was pointed out.
This slimy about-turn, his spokesman said, was "academic" as the decision to free him was made in Edinburgh. Aye, right Jack! I've said before that MacAskill is a big palooka but his opponents in Scottish Labour haven't laid a glove on him and they have taken the dive.
Perhaps I'm doing MacAskill down because he used nifty footwork to avoid the trap that surely would have caught him - releasing Megrahi under the prisoner exchange deal rather than humanitarian - and, if he had, he'd now be caught up in Straw's web of deceit.
I'll bet canny old Uncle Eck had a word or two in his ear about that danger.
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GUARDIAN Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:11:42 GMT
• Talks with Gaddafi six weeks ago
• US campaign for Scottish boycott
Gordon Brown faced fresh questions tonight after it emerged that he discussed with Colonel Gaddafi detailed conditions for the Lockerbie bomber's return nearly six weeks ago, while senior Labour figures warned of an economic backlash from angry Americans "costing our country dear".
Meanwhile, details emerged of a second letter written by the Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis to the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, confirming that there were no legal reasons not to let Megrahi go and concluding: "I hope on this basis you will now feel able to consider the Libyan application."
Although the Foreign Office said it was not intended to make representations either way, the leaking of the letter suggests the SNP-led administration may be starting to fight back.
However, the Scottish government last night responded defiantly, insisting the US had made clear in discussions that, while it opposed Megrahi's release, it regarded freeing him on compassionate grounds because of his terminal cancer as "far preferable" to a prisoner transfer deal that would have seen him in custody.
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DAILYMAIL Sat, 15 Aug 2009
Relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing have joined politicians in accusing the Scottish Government of a cover-up after the only man found guilty of the atrocity dropped his second appeal against his conviction. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer,
is likely to be
freed next week. Had he continued with his appeal, families of the victims believe it would have gone some way to exposing what they claim is a cover-up.
They accuse the Scottish Government of striking a deal with the convicted bomber that he drop his appeal, which may have exposed a miscarriage of justice, in exchange for repatriation.
Talking to The Times, Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, said: 'It’s pretty likely there was a deal,' adding that the British and Scottish governments were anxious to avoid the appeal.
The move now means the families of the 270 passengers killed when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky in 1988 have lost their final chance to expose the truth. News of Al Megrahi's decision to drop his appeal has fueled speculation about whether he was a scapegoat.
Christine Grahame, a member of the Scottish Parliament, told The Times: 'There are a number of vested interests who have been deeply opposed to this appeal because they know it would go a considerable way towards exposing the truth behind Lockerbie.'
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died, also believes Al Megrahi is innocent. He said: 'I am someone who does not believe he is guilty. The sooner he is back with his family, the better. Everything points to a miscarriage of justice in the case.
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GUARDIAN Sat, 09 May 2009 23:01:00 GMT
MP demands inquiry into Met tactics at demo
An MP who was involved in last month's G20 protests in London is to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds.
Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.
Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.
Brake, a member of the influential home affairs select committee, will raise the allegations when he gives evidence before parliament's joint committee on human rights on Tuesday.
"When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, 'There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,'" Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.
Brake has produced a draft report of his experiences for the human rights committee, having received written statements from people in the crowd. These include Tony Amos, a photographer who was standing with protesters in the Royal Exchange between 5pm and 6pm. "He [one of the alleged officers] was egging protesters on. It was very noticeable," Amos said. "Then suddenly a protester seemed to identify him as a policeman and turned on him. He legged it towards the police line, flashed some ID and they just let him through, no questions asked."
Amos added: "He was pretty much inciting the crowd. He could not be called an observer. I don't believe in conspiracy theories but this really struck me. Hopefully, a review of video evidence will clear this up."
The Independent Police Complaints Commission has received 256 complaints relating to the G20 protests. Of these, 121 have been made about the use of force by police officers, while 75 relate to police tactics. The IPCC said it had no record of complaints involving the use of police agents provocateurs. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "We would never deploy officers in this way or condone such behaviour."
The use of plain-clothes officers in crowd situations is considered a vital tactic for gathering evidence. It has been used effectively to combat football hooliganism in the UK and was employed during the May Day protests in 2001.
Brake said he intends to raise the allegations with the Met's commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, when he next appears before the home affairs select committee. "There is a logic having plain-clothes officers in the crowd, but no logic if the officers are actively encouraging violence, which would be a source of great concern," Brake said.
The MP said that given only a few people were allowed out of the corralled crowd for the five hours he was held inside it, there should be no problem in investigating the allegation by examining video footage.
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BLOGSPOT Sat, 02 May 2009
An internet trawl of the UK, Scottish and foreign press discloses not a single report on the proceedings at the second day of the Lockerbie appeal. This is disappointing but not really a surprise, given the experience at the original trial at Camp Zeist. Then, the press turned up in droves for the opening day, for "star" witnesses, like Edwin Bollier, Tony Gauci and Majid Giaka, and for the announcement of the verdict, but otherwise were conspicuous by their absence. The coverage, particularly in the Scottish media, was shockingly poor. The same was true of the first appeal in 2002, but there at least there was live television coverage through the BBC News website.
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WORLDPRESSNETWORK Wed, 18 Mar 2009
i) Justice campaigner and former pilot Robbie the Pict, voted 4th most influential figure in Scots law, argues that as the Crown case against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmad al Megrahi continues to unravel, Scottish authorities are failing in their duty to investigate the true cause of the fall of Pan Am 103.
....
ii) Lockerbie verdict was a "negotiated outcome" says UN observer. Verdict of "diplomatic convenience" was reached.
The United Nations Special Observer to the Lockerbie proceedings has, in an article for the forthcoming issue of the National Law School of India Review, accused the Scottish Judiciary and legal system of colluding with US intelligence to orchestrate a political show trial.
In a remarkable and lengthy critique of the flawed trial process and protracted subsequent proceedings, Kochler says the Scottish Court covened in the Netherlands which convicted Abdelbaset Ali Mohmad Al Megrahi, reached a pre-determined outcome, and accuses the UK authorities of an "apparent strategy" to cover up the "errors and malpractices" in the years since Megrahi's conviciton, that have kept him in jail on the basis of a discredited case.
"Altogether, the actions of the Prosecution and Defence often appeared co-ordinated, somehow following an external (non-judicial) strategy, and created the impression of a scripted procedure (whereby the “script” was followed at least to a certain extent)
and of a negotiated outcome," Kochler says.
"For an independent observer from outside the Scottish judicial establishment, there was simply no other way to explain the strange kind of “Solomonic judgment” which three Scottish law lords had unanimously reached at the end of the trial and five other law lords had confirmed by unanimously rejecting the (first) appeal.
"In the author’s evaluation, this judgment was more the child of political (i. e. diplomatic) convenience than of sound legal reasoning. How could one otherwise have explained that the first suspect was found “guilty” while the second suspect was found “not guilty” – both on the basis of an indictment the main argument of which was a rather complicated explanation, almost exclusively based on inferences, how the two Libyan suspects had acted together to ingest a bomb, hidden in a brown Samsonite suitcase (that was supposed to travel as unaccompanied luggage to Frankfurt and from there on to Heathrow), at Luqa airport in Malta?"
Kochler goes on to argue that the Government's inexplicable protection of information from a foreign power with the issue of Public Interest Immunity certificates is a measure that will make a fair trial under a new appeal "impossible".
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BBC Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:24:53 GMT
The Metropolitan Police has agreed to pay £60,000 damages to a man it arrested during an anti-terror raid.
The High Court heard that Babar Ahmad was subjected to "serious gratuitous prolonged unjustified violence" and "religious abuse" after his arrest.
Mr Ahmad, a 34-year-old IT support analyst, was never charged following the dawn raid at his home in Tooting, south west London, in December 2003.
He is now in jail awaiting extradition to the US on separate charges.
Mr Justice Holroyde heard that one of the unnamed officers allegedly involved will face criminal proceedings.
Phillippa Kaufmann, counsel for Mr Ahmad, told the High Court that he had been dragged by handcuffs and held by the neck.
She added his treatment at the hands of Territorial Support Group officers was intended to humiliate and debase him and make him fear for his life.
Previously, the force had denied that Mr Ahmad had been punched, stamped on and repeatedly struck with the knee in the police van.
Mr Ahmad was in court to hear lawyers for Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson agree to the pay-out.
Previously, he had followed proceedings by videolink from Long Lartin prison, Worcestershire.
He had been due to give evidence on Wednesday.
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THEFIRMMAGAZINE 04 Mar 2009
A scientific analysis of the Crown's discredited theory that approximately 1lb of semtex contained in a Toshiba radio caused the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, has concluded that the notion is "scientifically implausible."
The report, by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer agrees with the findings of John H Parkes, a former MOD contractor and explosives engineer who assisted in the rescue operations in Lockerbie, and subsequently submitted a report of his findings to the then Scottish Secretary Malcolm Rifkind. Parkes was never called as a witness to the trial.
Dr de Braeckeleer's findings reiterate the initial findings from US sources, that the Crown theory does not stand up to forensic scrutiny.
"In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, researchers at the Centre of Explosives Technology Research in Socorro, New Mexico, estimated that up to thirty pounds of explosive was needed to destroy a Boeing 747, if the explosion had occured in the container. We agree with that estimate," the report says.
"As the explosion of one pound of Semtex H inside the luggage container does not generate a blast wave sufficiently powerful to fracture the skin of the fuselage, we have little choice but to conclude that the verdict appears scientifically very implausible."
The AAIB report into the destruction of the Boeing 747, which concluded that the plane was downed by a small semtex blast, contains five conflicting accounts of the moment of the explosion on board the aircraft.
Evidence of fragmentation observed on victims at the site and on the wreckage - which was not heard at the trial- indicate an explosives "signature" that was not consistent with a semtex blast close to the skin of the fuselage. Unbroadcast footage of the wreckage, and contemporaneous photographs of the crashed plane, shows puncture damage to parts of the plane far away from the claimed site of a semtex blast, and of a character indicating far more powerful explosives events on board.
The evidence introduced during the trial to support the semtex theory, which was claimed to have been recovered from the crash site, was later demonstrated to have actually come from simulated test explosions.
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BBC Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:01:05 GMT
A commuter who was sitting near Jean Charles de Menezes on a Tube train has told his inquest that police gave no warning before killing him.
Anna Dunwoodie said she believed officers were "out of control" and gave off a "sense of panic" before shooting.
She claimed that the innocent 27-year-old appeared calm as a gun was held to his head.
Mr de Menezes was killed in 2005 in south London by police who mistook him for a failed 21 July suicide bomber.
Ms Dunwoodie was sitting two or three seats to the left of Mr de Menezes when he boarded the train at Stockwell Tube Station, south London on 22 July 2005.
She told the inquest that, at the time, she thought the firearms officers pursuing Mr de Menezes were members of a gang.
She said she did not hear officers shout any warning at the electrician.
"I would like to say that on whether I heard anything from police officers, I am very, very clear. I had absolutely no idea who they were and had they shouted I would have latched on to that," she said.
She described the scene on the train as one of panic:
"I think it was the man, who I now know to be a surveillance officer, (who) really seemed to be frightened or hyped up and when he was calling the other men they seemed... you know, when people are full of adrenalin and they move quickly and their movements are a bit jerky.
"I felt they were a bit out of control, that's what it felt like."
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BBC Thu, 18 Sep
The Appeal Court appoints a special defender to view confidential documents wanted by the Lockerbie bomber in his appeal, BBC Scotland understands.
It follows an extraordinary hearing held behind closed doors at which the UK Government argued that revealing the documents would compromise security.
The UK Government argued last month it should not be forced to hand over highly confidential documents wanted by Megrahi's legal team.
Foreign Secretary David Milliband said to publish the documents, sent to the government by an un-named foreign power, would compromise Britain's national security.
It will be the first time such a course has been taken in Scotland, although some English courts have appointed special defenders to examine evidence in terrorism cases.
There has been no official comment from Megrahi's legal team, although it is thought they are planning an appeal to the Privy Council, arguing the move will violate his human rights.
Dr Hans Koechler, the United Nations special envoy to the trial in the Netherlands of the two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing, criticised the development as "intolerable".
In a BBC interview, Dr Koechler said it was "detrimental to the rule of law."
He said: "In no country can the situation be allowed where the accused or the appellant is not free to have his own defence team, and instead someone is imposed upon him."
It is expected the full appeal by Megrahi, who is serving his life sentence in Greenock Prison, will be heard next year.
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DAILYMAIL Sun, 31 Aug 2008
A female confidante of Dr David Kelly raised disturbing new questions last night over how the Ministry of Defence weapons inspector was able to kill himself.
But five years after his death at 59, his close friend, American military linguist Mai Pederson, has come forward to dispute this account. The Hutton inquiry heard that he died after making several cuts to his left wrist, which severed the ulnar artery, buried deep in the tissue on the side of the hand nearest the little finger. An earlier coroner’s inquest was halted when the Government used an obscure law to turn the investigation over to Lord Hutton. His inquiry concluded that ‘there was no involvement by a third party’ in the scientist’s death, which was said to be caused primarily by the cut artery and hastened by the painkillers. Ms Pederson, a former US Air Force officer, met Dr Kelly when she was assigned to work in 1998 as a translator for the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq. And she revealed in an interview with The Mail on Sunday that, in the months leading to his death, the right-handed scientist was unable to use his right hand for tasks requiring strength because of a painful injury to his right elbow. According to Ms Pederson, when she dined with Dr Kelly at a Washington restaurant in the spring of 2003, the hand’s grip was so weak that he struggled to get a knife through a steak he had ordered. The linguist, who counselled Dr Kelly during his conversion to the Baha’i religious faith that she follows, says he had begun to favour his left hand for even relatively minor tasks, a tendency she observed on numerous other occasions.
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DAILYKOS Sun, 31 Aug
Yesterday, with the news of Sarah Louise Heath Palin inexplicably being chosen as a Vice-Presidential nominee, the attentive American public was also introduced to her character. Unfortunately for all of us, it was filled with multiple instances of backtracking and outright lies. While Alaskans had been giving her an 80% approval rating, recently 87% of Alaskans polled on the subject of TrooperGate believed she was lying.
Now, I've known liars in my life. Their single core problem is not with themselves, but those around them. If they're never called out on their twisting of truths and fabrications, they simply continue to make larger lies.
Well, Sarah, I'm calling you a liar. And not even a good one.
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ABCNEWS.GO Fri, 15 Aug 2008
The incident involving Sen. Barack Obama's campaign plane last month was much more serious than the airline or the Federal Aviation Administration said, according to FAA control tower tapes obtained by ABC News.
At the time, an FAA spokesperson said the pilot did not declare an emergency and the airline owner, Midwest Airlines, said safety "was never an issue."
The tapes, broadcast Thursday on ABC News' "World News with Charles Gibson", show otherwise.
An FAA spokesperson acknowledged today that its statements at the time of "no emergency" were wrong, based, the spokesperson said, on erroneous reports from FAA air traffic managers.
"We later learned there was an emergency declared," FAA spokesperson Elizabeth Cory said. The FAA had not publicly corrected the record until today, after being contacted by ABC News.
Unbeknownst to the pilot, an emergency evacuation slide had inflated inside the tail of the jet, affecting control cables there.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident. In a preliminary report, the NTSB said it detected "marks consistent with rubbing of elevator control cables" and a broken railing that "impinged upon elevator control cables."
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www.swissinfo.ch Sat, 21 Jun 2008
The controversy surrounding the Swiss government's shredding of documents seized as part of a nuclear smuggling investigation continues to grow.
Experts criticise the lack of separation of powers and mounting speculation that the United States, concerned that its agents were implicated, had demanded the documents be destroyed
"The government is not above the law – even when the security or the interests of the country are involved," said legal expert Thomas Fleiner, director of the Federalism Institute at Fribourg University.
He said that neither the government nor parliament could interfere with the competency of the courts.
Niklaus Oberholzer, president of the St Gallen board of indictment, also believed the separation of powers had been breached, describing the incident as a "monstrosity".
"Smoke screen"
Since then government shutters have closed and doubts about the official version of events have grown.
Andreas Zumach, a strategy expert from Geneva, said the government's citing of the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was an "absolute smoke screen".
Zumach doesn't believe the IAEA gave any orders to destroy the documents. Instead he thinks there was pressure from the United States.
There has been widespread media speculation that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which allegedly employed the Tinners, had requested the shredding of the documents.
A Swiss radio report, quoting "well-informed sources", said the shredding took place under the supervision of a US official.
The government did not want to comment on the claims.
Kurt Spillmann, former director of the Centre for Security Studies at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, said he could "well imagine" that the US was involved in the files' destruction.
He pointed to the possibility that the documents contained statements by US agents.
The Green Party is demanding the appointment of a parliamentary investigating committee, saying in this case Switzerland got down on its knees before the United States.
Swiss neutrality and sovereignty appear not to count with the US, according to the Greens.
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WAKEUPFROMYOURSLUMBER Tue, 03 Jun 2008
Palestinians now being blamed for the 1988 Scotland Lockerbie Jet Bomb
It doesn't get any better than this for certain elements bent on starting up another war in the ME, this time with Israel bombing the hell out of Occupied Palestine, Lebanon and Syria while their favorite group of mercenaries, the US military, turns Iran into another shocked and awed country.
Various powers that be had Libya in their sights for the frame-up and didn't stop until Gaddafi was neutered and brought to heel to American interests, especially some oil companies.
With Gaddafi emasculated, it was time to change the game, by pointing the blame at another target, Palestine.
Except that at the time the original story broke, back in 2002, the neocons and zionists were in preparations to destroy one of Israel's "existential" enemies, Iraq and were directing their mighty influences to help shove America into invading Iraq.
But that was then and now, Israel, still licking its wounds and smarting from getting its ass kicked by a small group of ragtag freedom fighters, Hezbollah, is now looking for some plausible excuse to go back into Lebanon and to further smash Occupied Palestine into smithereens and with the stories being pumped to the media framing Palestinians and by extension, Palestine, for the Lockerbie bombing, Israel now has the phony evidence they need to start another ME war, with the added bonus of having the U.S. taking on another of Israel's "existential" enemies, Iran.
Look for the fireworks to start this Summer.
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BBC Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:26 GMT
The coroner for the inquest into the death of Princess Diana has no plans to refer ex-butler Paul Burrell to police for a perjury investigation.
Lord Justice Scott Baker had told the jury that it was "blindingly obvious" her former butler had lied to them.
But after the verdict, he said he was "not minded" to involve the police.
The Metropolitan Police said it is not currently investigating any perjury allegations relating to the case, but did not rule out doing so in the future.
In his summing up, Lord Justice Scott Baker told the jury that the evidence Mr Burrell gave was clearly "not the whole truth", but that not all of his testimony should be discounted.
Mr Burrell, who has published several books and was a reality television participant, may have given evidence while thinking that "whatever he said might have an impact on his future enterprises", the coroner said.
In a video obtained by the Sun newspaper, Mr Burrell appeared to claim he introduced "red herrings" in court and held back facts.
Mr Burrell, 49, who denies perjury, had refused to return to the UK from the US to reappear at the inquest.
Lord Justice Scott Baker also cast doubt on Mr Burrell's conversation with the Queen several months after the August 1997 crash, in which he claimed that the Queen told him "there are powers at work in this country of which we have no knowledge".
Dodi's father Mohamed has rejected the verdicts. His spokeswoman, Katharine Witty, told BBC News 24: "I think he is just going to reflect on the full ramifications of the verdict."
Asked if he would challenge it through judicial review, she said: "I think it is something he is considering...I think he is going to be very mindful of what people are saying - which is that it should end here."
She said Mr Al Fayed accepted some issues had "fallen away" during the inquest, but added: "It is possible that MI6 were involved...we are still saying that, it's possible, but whether...we can do anything about that remains to be seen."
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MONEYWEEK Tue, 18 Mar 2008
in tough economic times like these when inflation is raging, unemployment is climbing, and the economy is falling apart, our government is forced to look into the mirror and create a magical image by reassuring the American people that everything is just fine with the economy, when it’s really not.
Why is it so important for the government to fudge and mangle the price indexes? Well, many government payments like social security and other benefits are tied to inflation, and America is broke. Fudging the price indexes to cut the level of reported inflation is a great way of directly sticking Grandma with a hidden tax increase.
Moreover, economic statistics such as the Gross Domestic Product, (“GDP”) are reported by taking the inflated GDP numbers and adjusting them for inflation. So, if the inflation numbers are understated by even two to three percent, GDP will be overstated by the same percentage. If, because of underreporting for inflation they can overstate economic growth by several percent, not a single politician or government employee – including the staff at the Federal Reserve – would complain. Remember, Washington is a company town where the American people get to pay the salaries and benefits for all government employees!
Indeed, with all this price fixing, the US government, Federal Reserve, and Wall Street stock touts thought that a recession was impossible. In order to show negative GDP, the actual economy would have to be falling by more than three percent. (This means that the recession is actually much worse than the government admits to.)
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GUARDIAN Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:01:12 GMT
Scotland Yard allowed a suspected war criminal to escape from Britain partly because they feared an attempt to stop him would lead to a gun battle at Heathrow airport, police documents seen by the Guardian reveal. The former senior Israeli officer was supposed to be detained as he arrived in London for a speaking engagement, after a British court had ordered his arrest. But detectives looked on as he landed, then hid on the plane for two hours, before flying off to avoid arrest.A British court had issued a secret arrest warrant for Major General Doron Almog for the alleged war crime under the Geneva convention of ordering the demolition of 59 civilian Palestinian homes. Israeli diplomats were tipped off after Almog's plane left Israel on September 11 2005. Once it landed in London a military attache from the Israeli embassy boarded the jet and warned Almog to stay on board. He refused to leave the plane until it took off again for Israel, two hours later. The war crimes arrest warrant was issued by senior district judge Timothy Workman, after an application by British lawyers acting for Palestinian victims of the demolition in 2002 in Gaza. Under British law on war crimes UK courts have jurisdiction to try suspects even if the alleged crimes are committed abroad. Almog, commanding officer of the Israeli defence forces' southern command from December 2000 to July 2003, was due to arrive at 1.25pm on a flight belonging to El Al, Israel's national carrier. Those who obtained the warrant say police made errors. The document is written by detective superintendent John MacBrayne, from the counter-terrorism command, who was in charge on the day. It was drafted in response to an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation. MacBrayne wrote of events the day Almog landed at Heathrow: "Consideration was given to boarding the El Al flight and DSU MacBrayne sought clarification of his powers to do so with those officials present." Top detectives were told that police routinely boarded flights, but were not sure if they could do so without the permission of the airline. "It was confirmed that El Al were refusing voluntary access to the plane ... another consideration being that El Al flights carried armed air marshals which raised issues round public safety. There was also no intelligence as to whether Mr Almog would have been travelling with personal security as befitted his status, armed or otherwise. DSU MacBrayne took the considered opinion that, as access to the plane would not be consensual, there existed a real threat of an armed confrontation." Daniel Machover, a solicitor involved in gaining the warrant, said police did not need permission to board the plane, and could also have stopped it taking off until Almog emerged. The document reveals that before the planned arrest Scotland Yard consulted a police unit called the Communities Tensions Team, for advice on reaction in the British Jewish community. A "trusted partner" of the police, a Jewish contact, was also involved. The warrant, issued at Bow Street magistrates court, central London, is believed to be the first of its kind issued in Britain against an Israeli national over conduct in the conflict with Palestinians. The attorney general would have had to sanction a prosecution before it went ahead. Speaking days after avoiding the arrest, Almog told the Guardian he was advised not to leave the plane by the cabin crew. "I don't know how he [the military attache] found out but I am glad he did. It was also fortunate that I was flying with El Al as they are loyal. I don't know what would have happened if I had been on a British Airways flight."
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WSWS Sat, 09 Feb 2008
Horrifying allegations of torture and killings carried out
by the British Army in southern Iraq emerged on January 31.
Based on witness statements, death certificates and video evidence, the lawyers allege that nine more people survived
torture and abuse.
"the allegations were the most harrowing he had ever heard"
“the police asked us to send ambulances to the British base to collect some bodies. When they brought the 22 bodies, it was a surprise to us to see some of these bodies mutilated and tortured.”
At the time, the British Army dismissed allegations of torture
as “absurd.” But the case, along with hundreds of accusations
arising from its activities in Iraq, has been the subject of calls
for a public inquiry ever since. A yearlong investigation by the
Royal Military Police (RMP) found no evidence of deliberate mutilation.
On January 31, however, the ban was overturned by Lord Justice
Moses following legal moves by the victims’ families, the
Guardian, the Times and the BBC. The Guardian
reported Moses as ruling that the MoD’s attempt to stop media
reporting on the allegations has no basis in law and that their
handling of the case was “barmy.”
Regarding the ban on naming soldiers, Moses told the defence
secretary’s counsel, “It is not the way it works. If
you’re right about that there would be one rule for the Ministry
of Defence and another for the ordinary citizen.”
The Majid al Kabir allegations further refute the central point
made in a recent report published by the British Army into aspects
of its reign of terror in southern Iraq, which whitewashed previous
abuses as the result of bad planning, inadequate training and
the work of individuals.
Baha Mousa was a 26-year-old hospital worker detained September
2003 during a raid by members of the Queen’s Lancashire regiment
on a hotel in Basra. Mousa, who witnessed soldiers stealing cash
from the hotel, was arrested along with six other workers at the
hotel. All were hooded, bound, subjected to stress positions and
brutally beaten for days.
Photographs and records show Mousa suffered 93 injuries, including four broken ribs, a fractured nose, smashed wrists and a ligature around his neck. According to one witness, “I heard Baha
Mousa screaming. I was still hooded but it sounded like he was
in another room. I heard him scream: ‘Please help me, blood
is coming out, please help me, I am going to die.’ The last
thing I heard him say was: ‘My nose broke.’ After this
there was silence.”
The case was also central to a 2007 ruling by the British Law
Lords that the government was in breach of the European convention
of Human Rights and the UK’s own Human Rights Act for not
conducting an independent inquiry.
Aitken also reported on the outcome of cases against soldiers
accused of brutality following a riot in Amara in 2004. A video
showing youths being beaten by British troops was passed to the
News of the World. No charges were brought.
In the Camp Breadbasket case, four soldiers were finally found
guilty of abuse after images showing prisoners being forced to
simulate sex were discovered by a worker at a photo-processing
shop. Other images showed prisoners suspended from a forklift
truck.
“As a senior officer in the Iraqi army, I am clear that these terrible actions could not have taken place without support from senior officers within the British army.”
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MONEYWEEK Fri, 08 Feb 2008
When the history of the credit bubble comes to be written, the list of guilty actors will be lengthy indeed: irresponsible banks, greedy borrowers, foolish speculators, incompetent regulators, the central bankers who kept rates too low for too long. Yet one group of players has been especially culpable in creating the current mess.
The credit rating agencies ...
For MBIA and Ambac, the maintenance of the highest rating was critical, as any downgrade would automatically transmit itself to the many bonds they insured, threatening a cascade of falling prices. By the end of 2007 it became clear that the insurers’ likely losses would bankrupt them unless they had a multi-billion infusion of new capital. The companies’ share prices reflected this, losing most of their value during the year. The cost of insuring against the bond insurers’ default (easily gauged from the credit derivatives market) at the same rose to levels consistent with a rating in the Cs or Ds – that is, the market had performed its own assessment of these companies’ creditworthiness, and classified them as junk.
Nevertheless, to date Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s have stubbornly refused to downgrade the bond insurers, and their AAA rating remains. Although it is likely that they have come under heavy pressure from the banks and, behind the scenes, from regulators, to avoid a downgrade, the agencies’ unwillingness to recognise the insurers’ high risk of default flies in the face of reality, and is attracting increasing criticism.
It is also perhaps the culmination of the long process of loss of integrity that we have outlined. From acting in their first two decades as the investor’s friend, the credit rating agencies had become thoroughly corrupted by the peak of the bubble in 2007.
For them, the outlook is bleak. Their reputation indelibly tarnished, there must be a significant chance that they will in due course fall victim to lawsuits and bankruptcy themselves
The discrediting of the existing ratings system has also seriously damaged secondary market liquidity: whole swathes of the bond market have simply stopped trading.
For the investor, the lesson learned is an old one – to pay attention to conflicts of interest. Just as the internet bubble showed us that stock tips given by investment banks with a vested interest in selling new shares were worthless, the credit rating scandal has reminded us that we cannot trust a system where the raters are paid by the issuers.
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GLOBALRESEARCH Fri, 08 Feb 2008
there's going to be an unprecedented wave of bank closures in the US and that people who want to hold on to their life savings are going have to be extra vigilant as the situation continues to deteriorate. And it is deteriorating very quickly.
Right now, many of the country's largest investment banks are holding $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities and other structured investments that are steadily depreciating in value. As these assets wear-away the banks' capital, the likelihood of default becomes greater. This week, Fitch Ratings announced that it will (probably) cut ratings on the 5 main bond insurers (Ambac, MBIA, FGIC, CIFG,SCA) “regardless of their capital levels”. This seemingly innocuous statement has roiled markets and put Wall Street in a panic. If the bond insurers lose their AAA rating (on an estimated $2.4 trillion of bonds) then the banks could lose another $70 billion in downgraded assets. That would increase their losses from the credit crunch--which began in August 2007---to $200 billion with no end in sight. It would also impair their ability to issue loans to even credit worthy customers which will further dampen growth in the larger economy. Structured investments have been the banks' “cash cow” for nearly a decade, but, suddenly, the trend has shifted into reverse. Revenue streams have dried up and capital is being destroyed at an accelerating pace. The $2 trillion market for collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) is virtually frozen leaving horrendous debts that will have to be written-down leaving the banks' either deeply scarred or insolvent. It's a mess.
There were some interesting developments in a case involving Merrill Lynch last week which sheds a bit of light on the true “market value” of these complex debt-pools called CDOs. The Massachusetts Secretary of State has charged Merrill with “fraud and misrepresentation” for selling them a CDO that was "highly risky and esoteric" and "unsuitable for the City of Springfield.” (Most cities are required by law to only purchase Triple A rated bonds) The city of Springfield bought the CDO less than a year ago for $13.9 million. It is presently valued at $1.2 million---MORE THAN A 90% LOSS IN LESS THAN A YEAR.
Merrill has quietly settled out of court for the full amount and seems genuinely confused by the Massachusetts Secretary of State's apparent anger. A Merrill spokesman said blandly, “We are puzzled by this suit. We have been cooperating with the Secretary of State Galvin's office throughout this inquiry.”
Is it really that hard to understand why people don't like getting ripped of?
This anecdote shows that these exotic mortgage-backed securities are real stinkers. They're worthless. The market for structured debt-instruments has evaporated overnight leaving a massive hole in the banks' balance sheets. The likely outcome will be a rash of defaults followed by greater consolidation of the major players. (re: banking monopolies) The Fed's multi-billion bailout plan; the “Temporary Auction Facility” (TAF) is a quick-fix, but not a permanent solution. The real problem is insolvency, not liquidity.
Surprisingly, there's an even bigger threat to the financial system than these staggering losses at the banks. A default by one of the big bond insurers could trigger a meltdown in the credit-default swaps market, which could lead to the implosion of trillions of dollars in derivatives bets. The inability of the under-capitalized monolines (bond insurers) to “make good” on their coverage is likely to set the first domino in motion by increasing the number of downgrades on bond issues and intensifying the credit-paralysis which already is spreading throughout the system.
“The numbers are so terrible, it's beyond belief,” said Scott Anderson, senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co.
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GLOBALRESEARCH Fri, 08 Feb 2008
there's going to be an unprecedented wave of bank closures in the US and that people who want to hold on to their life savings are going have to be extra vigilant as the situation continues to deteriorate. And it is deteriorating very quickly.
Right now, many of the country's largest investment banks are holding $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities and other structured investments that are steadily depreciating in value. As these assets wear-away the banks' capital, the likelihood of default becomes greater. This week, Fitch Ratings announced that it will (probably) cut ratings on the 5 main bond insurers (Ambac, MBIA, FGIC, CIFG,SCA) “regardless of their capital levels”. This seemingly innocuous statement has roiled markets and put Wall Street in a panic. If the bond insurers lose their AAA rating (on an estimated $2.4 trillion of bonds) then the banks could lose another $70 billion in downgraded assets. That would increase their losses from the credit crunch--which began in August 2007---to $200 billion with no end in sight. It would also impair their ability to issue loans to even credit worthy customers which will further dampen growth in the larger economy. Structured investments have been the banks' “cash cow” for nearly a decade, but, suddenly, the trend has shifted into reverse. Revenue streams have dried up and capital is being destroyed at an accelerating pace. The $2 trillion market for collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) is virtually frozen leaving horrendous debts that will have to be written-down leaving the banks' either deeply scarred or insolvent. It's a mess.
There were some interesting developments in a case involving Merrill Lynch last week which sheds a bit of light on the true “market value” of these complex debt-pools called CDOs. The Massachusetts Secretary of State has charged Merrill with “fraud and misrepresentation” for selling them a CDO that was "highly risky and esoteric" and "unsuitable for the City of Springfield.” (Most cities are required by law to only purchase Triple A rated bonds) The city of Springfield bought the CDO less than a year ago for $13.9 million. It is presently valued at $1.2 million---MORE THAN A 90% LOSS IN LESS THAN A YEAR.
Merrill has quietly settled out of court for the full amount and seems genuinely confused by the Massachusetts Secretary of State's apparent anger. A Merrill spokesman said blandly, “We are puzzled by this suit. We have been cooperating with the Secretary of State Galvin's office throughout this inquiry.”
Is it really that hard to understand why people don't like getting ripped of?
This anecdote shows that these exotic mortgage-backed securities are real stinkers. They're worthless. The market for structured debt-instruments has evaporated overnight leaving a massive hole in the banks' balance sheets. The likely outcome will be a rash of defaults followed by greater consolidation of the major players. (re: banking monopolies) The Fed's multi-billion bailout plan; the “Temporary Auction Facility” (TAF) is a quick-fix, but not a permanent solution. The real problem is insolvency, not liquidity.
Surprisingly, there's an even bigger threat to the financial system than these staggering losses at the banks. A default by one of the big bond insurers could trigger a meltdown in the credit-default swaps market, which could lead to the implosion of trillions of dollars in derivatives bets. The inability of the under-capitalized monolines (bond insurers) to “make good” on their coverage is likely to set the first domino in motion by increasing the number of downgrades on bond issues and intensifying the credit-paralysis which already is spreading throughout the system.
“The numbers are so terrible, it's beyond belief,” said Scott Anderson, senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co.
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BLOGSPOT Mon, 04 Feb 2008 **Today's Top Story**
Embattled French bank Societe Generale faces fresh troubles Monday when a trial opens in Paris involving a vast money laundering scam between France and Israel.Four banks, including Societe Generale, and 138 people, including the bank's chairman Daniel Bouton, are on trial over the multi-billion dollar scam that allegedly began in the late 1990s. The other banks include Societe Marseillaise de Credit, Barclays France and the National Bank of Pakistan. Societe Generale revealed late last month it had lost a staggering 4.8 billion euros (7.1 billion dollars) in the biggest rogue trading scandal in history. Takeover talk is now swirling around France's third largest bank, with two French banks eyeing a possible bid on Societe Generale. Allegations of a money laundering network stretching between France and Israel initially surfaced during an investigation into a separate fraud involving companies in the Sentier garment-making district of Paris. Cheques trafficked from France were allegedly cleared in money exchange offices or banks in Israel, where a third party can clear a cheque by paying a cash sum, making it difficult to trace the origin of the funds. The sums were then repatriated to French banks. Among those charged in the France-Israel scam include six rabbis, a former French prosecutor and 57-year-old Bouton, along with other banking managers. In the case of Societe Generale, investigators cite one example in which the bank received seven million euros (10.4 million dollars) in stolen cheques from the Israel Discount Bank between 1997 to 2001, "knowing these influxes had a criminal origin." All four banks are charged with contributing to money laundering and profiting from the deals. All deny the charges. "Societe Generale and its representatives did not -- either knowingly or unknowingly -- participate in this system and in no way committed the crime of money laundering they are charged with," the bank's lawyer Francois Martineau said. Bouton is accused of turning a blind eye to the cheque system, though his lawyers insist he knew nothing about it. Investigators have gathered 600 tonnes of paperwork and evidence for the trial which is expected to last until July. Eighty five people have already been found guilty over the case in 2004. Some of those defendants are back on trial facing new charges.
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GUARDIAN Wed, 23 Jan 2008
A Whitehall spin doctor may have played a greater role in the drafting of the famous dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction than the government admitted at the time, the Information Tribunal said today
In a ruling on a freedom of information request relating to what is alleged to be the first draft of the dossier published in 2002, the tribunal said that the public should be allowed to read the document.
The tribunal made its ruling following a three-year campaign by a researcher who believes that the dossier will undermine the government's claims that the document was entirely drawn up by John Scarlett, the then-head of the joint intelligence committee, and not government spin doctors.
The dossier, which claimed Iraq could launch weapons on of mass destruction within 45 minutes, became the subject of huge controversy when the BBC reported that it had been "sexed up" by Downing Street.
Today's decision relates to an early version of the dossier written by John Williams, a former Daily Mirror journalist who at the time was head of press at the Foreign Office. The so-called "Williams draft" was mentioned during the Hutton inquiry but it was never published and at the time the Foreign Office claimed that it had little influence on the version that was eventually published.
The government always claimed that the dossier eventually published in September 2002 was the work of the joint intelligence committee and its chairman, Scarlett.
But Tony Blair was subsequently accused of "sexing up" the dossier to persuade the public to support the war against Iraq and at the time of the Hutton inquiry there was a fierce debate about the extent to which his spin doctors, and principally his press chief, Alastair Campbell, were involved in the wording of the document.
Willliams, who has now retired from the Foreign Office, apparently started writing his version on September 7 2002, four days after Blair had announced that a dossier on Iraq's WMD would be published.
At the time of the Hutton inquiry the government insisted that the dossier drafting process had started later and that the Williams version was not relevant.
It was admitted that Williams had attended meetings to discuss the dossier, but it was claimed that he was not "part of the joint intelligence committee machinery" and that his input was marginal.
After considering evidence from the Foreign Office, and reading the Williams draft itself, the tribunal said that the Williams version should be made public.
"Information has been placed before us, which was not before Lord Hutton, which may lead to questions as to whether the Williams draft in fact played a greater part in influencing the drafting of the dossier than has previously been supposed," said the tribunal, which has the job of adjudicated when public bodies do not accept an order from the information commissioner to release information.
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BBC Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:39:47 GMT
The White House acknowledges it recycled back-up tapes of e-mails sent in 2003, meaning millions may be lost forever.
The taped-over e-mails could include messages discussing the Iraq war and leaking of a CIA officer's identity.
The White House disclosure was forced by a lawsuit brought by private groups.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said there was "no basis to say that the White House has destroyed any evidence or engaged in any misconduct".
If the e-mails were not saved, the White House may have violated laws which require the preservation of documents that make up part of presidential and federal records.
The possibility that some of the lost e-mails may have dealt with the leaking of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003 has fuelled interest in the case.
The leak resulted in her resignation from the CIA and, three years later, the conviction of top White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), one of two groups bringing the lawsuit against the White House, says the problem stems from its decision to dismantle its electronic record-keeping system from March 2003 at the same time as recycling back-up tapes of deleted emails, a process which continued until the end of October 2003.
Crew claims that up to 10 million e-mails may have been lost between 2003 and 2005.
"The significance of this time period cannot be overstated: the US went to war with Iraq, top White House officials leaked the covert identity of Valerie Plame Wilson and the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into their actions," Crew said in a statement.
The group has questioned the White House's apparent failure to explain how the problem arose or to determine how many e-mails may have been permanently lost.
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BBC Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:01:51 GMT
Kenny Richey has told BBC Scotland that he spent his first days of freedom at home in Scotland contemplating whether to take his own life.
In an interview, the 43-year-old said he had considered suicide more since his release from prison than in his 21 years spent on death row in the US.
Richey was freed after a plea deal with prosecutors over an arson attack in which a two-year-old girl died.
Richey, who left Edinburgh aged 18 to live with his American father in Ohio, said the city that he had known was no longer there.
But despite having been faced with the electric chair in the past, he said his fight to keep living had only just begun.
He added that suicide had been in his thoughts during his first few days out of prison.
"It's like I don't belong in this time period - everything has changed, people have changed, everyone has moved on," he said.
"I just feel like I'm not a part of anything and it breaks my heart."
Reflecting on his conviction over the death of two-year-old Cynthia Collins in an arson attack, Richey again insisted he was innocent.
When asked why he had not earlier accepted a plea bargain which would have seen him only serve 10 years in prison, he replied: "Because they wanted me to plead guilty and I didn't do anything."
He added that the prosecutors he eventually did reach an agreement with knew he was innocent but "just wouldn't admit it".
Richey said: "They don't want the US judicial system to look bad, they don't want to make themselves look bad. It would have been an embarrassment."
He added that he was angry and bitter about what had happened.
"They took 21-and-a-half years of my life for something I didn't do, of course I'm bitter. Who wouldn't be?"
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WSWS Tue, 08 Jan 2008
Last week, the CIA declassified a February 2003 letter from Democratic Representative Jane Harman of California discussing the planned destruction of videotapes depicting the interrogation and torture of prisoners held by the CIA.
Harman requested that the CIA release the letter in order to show her supposed criticism of the agency’s plans to destroy the evidence. In a statement on the letter, Harman said that it “makes clear my concern about possible destruction of any tapes.” In fact, the letter only underscores the fact that the Democratic Party was aware of and supported the CIA’s secret policy of torture.
Democrats knew of plans to destroy evidence of interrogations, but made no serious attempt to stop it or inform the American people. Indeed, Harman’s “concern” was in effect an indication to the CIA that the Democrats would not challenge a decision to destroy the tapes and would not expose the agency if it did so.
The videotapes, involving hundreds of hours of interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, were secretly destroyed in November 2005. Their destruction was only publicly disclosed last month, though several Democrats had been made aware of the action at least a year ago.
Perhaps the most significant section of the three-paragraph letter is that dealing with the CIA’s interrogation policy, not the plans for destroying the tapes. Harman made clear that she supported the program of “enhanced interrogation,” which included the use of the notorious torture technique of waterboarding. The letter amounted to a green light for the continuation of the program, which was kept secret from the American people for several more years.
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TIMESONLINE Wed, 26 Dec 2007
The Washington Post reported that “current and former officials” said the torture lasted weeks and even, according to some, months, and that the techniques included hypothermia, long periods of standing, sleep deprivation and multiple sessions of waterboarding. All these “alternative procedures”, as Bush described them, are illegal under US law and the Geneva conventions. They are, in fact, war crimes. And they were once all treated by the US as war crimes when they were perpetrated by the Nazis. Waterboarding has been found to be a form of torture in various American legal cases.
This is not, of course, the first big scandal to have emerged over the administration’s interrogation policies. You can fill a book with the sometimes sickening details that have come out of Guantanamo Bay, Bagram in Afghanistan, Camp Cropper in Iraq and, of course, Abu Ghraib.
The administration has admitted that several prisoners have been killed in interrogation, and dozens more have died in the secret network of interrogation sites the US has set up across the world. The policy of rendition has sent countless suspects into torture cells in Uzbekistan, Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere to feed the West’s intelligence on jihadist terrorism.
Any reasonable person examining all the evidence we have - without any bias - would conclude that the overwhelming likelihood is that the president of the United States authorised illegal torture of a prisoner and that the evidence of the crime was subsequently illegally destroyed.
Congresswoman Jane Harman, the respected top Democrat on the House intelligence committee in 2003-06, put it as simply as she could: “I am worried. It smells like the cover-up of the cover-up.”
It’s a potential Watergate. But this time the crime is not a two-bit domestic burglary. It’s a war crime that reaches into the very heart of the Oval Office.
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TIMESONLINE Wed, 26 Dec 2007
THE CIA chief who ordered the destruction of secret videotapes recording the harsh interrogation of two top Al-Qaeda suspects has indicated he may seek immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before the House intelligence committee.
Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, is determined not to become the fall guy in the controversy over the CIA’s use of torture, according to intelligence sources.
It has emerged that at least four White House staff were approached for advice about the tapes, including David Addington, a senior aide to Dick Cheney, the vice-president, but none has admitted to recommending their destruction.
Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, said it was impossible for Rodriguez to have acted on his own: “If everybody was against the decision, why in the world would Jose Rodriguez – one of the most cautious men I have ever met – have gone ahead and destroyed them?”
The tapes recorded the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two suspected Al-Qaeda leaders, over hundreds of hours while they were held in secret “ghost” prisons. According to testimony from a former CIA officer, Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding, a form of torture that simulates drowning, and “broke” after 35 seconds. He is believed to have been interrogated in Thailand. The tapes were destroyed in 2005. Both men are now held in Guantanamo Bay.
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PRISONPLANET **relinked** October 12 2005
Peak oil is a scam designed to create artificial scarcity and jack up prices while giving the state an excuse to invade our lives and order us to sacrifice our hard-earned living standards.
Publicly available CFR and Club of Rome strategy manuals from 30 years ago say that a global government needs to control the world population through neo-feudalism by creating artificial scarcity. Now that the social architects have de-industrialized the United States, they are going to blame our economic disintegration on lack of energy supplies.
A dangerous fallout precedent being set is that people on both the left and right believe wars are being fought in order to tap the last reserves of oil on the planet. The "coalition of the willing", whoever they may be for any given war, will not pay particular attention to refuting this claim because it allows them a reason to start and continue said war.
Even though many will see it as immoral, many will subconsciously attach it as a reason for the war. In reality the war is purely for profit, power and control, oil can be a part of that, but only if the peak oil claim is upheld.
If we continue to let the corrupt elite tell us we are wholly dependent on oil, we may reach a twisted situation whereby they can justify starvation and mass global poverty, perhaps even depopulation, even within the western world due to the fact that our energy supplies are finished.
Peak oil is just another weapon the globalists have in their arsenal to move towards a new world order where the elite get richer and everyone else falls into line.
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 Washington Post admits the "Bin Laden" 911 tape a CIA FAKE -- Press TV-On the edge with Max Keiser-07-22-2010(Part1)
YOUTUBE 24 July 2010
On the Edge with Alex Jones to talk about the surveillance state now being reported in MSM
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U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt
YOUTUBE 23 Nov 2009
Congress says that with no way to actually pay back our debts, faking a coup to eliminate financial obligations is the best plan for the U.S. economy.
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Economics 101 - Michel Chossudovsky on the Banker Bailouts
YOUTUBE 21-Sep-2009
Michel Chossudovsky, the director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, sits down with The Corbett Report to discuss the real meaning of the banker bailouts. For more information and...
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George Galloway on the talkSPORT radio show Saturday 5 September 2009 "The Mother of All Talk Shows"
SPIDEREDVIDEOS Saturday 5 September 2009
George Galloway's very popular and award winning radio show - the fastest growing radio show on the air waves. Today's radio show covers current affairs, especially Lockerbie and the 70th...
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G20 Death was NO "Heart Attack": Manslaughter charges to follow!
YOUTUBE 18 Apr 2008
A second autopsy on Ian Tomlinson reveals he died of Internal Bleeding NOT a Heart Attack as was broadcast before. The officer who struck Tomlinson has now been questoned under caution and...
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PROOF that the Police LIED about the death of Ian Tomlinson
YOUTUBE 9 April 2009
The police are on tape LYING about the circumstances surrounding the Death of the G20 Victim Ian Tomlinson.
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Paramilitary TSG Police Officer attacked Ian Tomlinson
YOUTUBE 9 April 2009
Ken Livingstone describes his surprise that the attacker of Ian Tomlinson was a Police Officer wearing a Balaclava to hide his face. He declares the Man to be a Paramilitary Officer from the...
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Britain planned Collusion with Nazis to Rule the World
YOUTUBE Mon, 01 Sep 2008
Released through the Official Secrets Act after 60 years, the Plan that Britain would Hatch with Germany to Rule the World.
The attempt to discredit this as the work of an amateur and...
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TWA Flight 800 Shot Down by Surface-to-Air Missile pt 5 of 6
YOUTUBE
This video proves flight 800 was actually destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Every allegation made in this video is backed up
with facts-none more dramatic than those that come from...
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TWA 800 - The Search for the Truth (2002)
GOOGLE
"TWA 800: The Search for the Truth" examines what happened that July night back in 1996, when TWA Flight 800 took off from Kennedy Airport in New York en route to Paris. Minutes later a...
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David Icke - Big Brother, the Big Picture
EDGEMEDIATV July 6th 2008
David Icke speaks to the constituents of Haltemprice and Howden about the 'Big Brother'
election, forced by the resignation of David Davis, and the move towards the global
Big Brother...
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What SHOULD have happened on 911?
YOUTUBE 30-June-2008
An interesting Video showing what really happens to a Steel Framed building with an inner Steel Core. This is what SHOULD have happend on 911 IF the story is true what we are told. The outer...
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7/7 Ripple Effect
GOOGLE
Regarding the 7/7/2005 terrorist attacks in London, let us look at the facts, and what we were told, and compare them. Then, using Ockham’s Razor and common-sense, let us see what...
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Sibel Edmonds: KILL THE MESSENGER
GOOGLE
A Documentary on State Secrets Privilege & U.S. Whistleblowers
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David Icke on BBC radio being interviewed by Russell Brand
SPIDEREDVIDEO 5 January 2008
"Most of us tend to live in a proscribed reality and that freedom is an illusion because the freedom exists in such narrow parameters that ultimately we are enslaved by a very manipulative...
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James Whale interviewing David Icke about his new book "Guide to the Global Conspiracy (And How to End It)" on talkSPORT radio station
SPIDEREDVIDEO Wed, 07 Nov 2007
James Whale talkSPORT radio show interviewing David Icke about his new book "The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy (And How to End It)" abut the globalists' plans to impose a single...
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Willie Nelson on 9/11: Twin Towers Demolished
YOUTUBE 5 Feb 2008
Country music legend Willie Nelson made some riveting comments on the Alex Jones show about what really happened on 9/11.
Amongst his others comments-- an inkling that the twin towers'...
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TerrorStorm Final Cut (Alex Jones)
GOOGLE
New and Updated. Has Additional 17 minutes of new footage and interviews. Watch and pass along.
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Hacking Democracy 1 of 9
YOUTUBE
This cautionary documentary exposes the vulnerability of computers - which count approximately 80% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections - suggesting that if our votes...
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Alex Jones : The Myth Of Peak Oil
PRISONPLANET
A 1 hour+ audio clip featuring Alex Jones' comments on peak oil and then the analysis of respected scientific commentator Dr. Nick Begich who presents evidence to suggest the idea of Peak oil...
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Oil, Smoke & Mirrors. This film argues that the 9/11 attacks and "war on terror" can be more credibly understood in the wider context of a divergence between available global oil supply and demand.
GOOGLE
"Oil Smoke & Mirrors" offers us a sobering critique of our perceived recent history, of our present global circumstances, and of our shared future in light of imminent, under-reported...
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"ENDGAME - Blueprint for Global Enslavement" - Full Film
GOOGLE
Latest documentary from Alex Jones. "What is the ENDGAME of the Illuminati and the New World Order? Enslavement and Extermination?"
Congressman Ron Paul is interviewed 7 mins 15...
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James Whale discussing the just released film "Loose Change: Final Cut" on talkSPORT radio station
SPIDEREDVIDEO Thu, 29 Nov 2007
Film "Loose Change: Final Cut" discussed on the James Whale talkSPORT radio show. Watch "ENDGAME" on
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Loose Change: Final Cut - Full Film
GOOGLE November 2007
This is the long awaited "Loose Change: Final Cut" DVD. The "Final Cut" is the last amazing step in the evolution of the Loose Change 9/11 film. It presents over 2 hours of new, undeniable...
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"ENDGAME - Blueprint for Global Enslavement" - Trailer
YOUTUBE
Trailer for Alex Jones' upcoming film ENDGAME.
The National Expositor wanted to see what would happen if we sent someone with no prior exposure to the truth movement to review an...
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James Whale hosts a debate on 911 conspiracy theories, including interviewing the executive producer of Loose Change, an MI5 whistleblower, and the co-author of book "9/11 Revealed" on talkSPORT radio station
SPIDEREDVIDEO Thu, 05 Apr 2007
James Whale talkSPORT radio show (3 hours). Including :
Annie Machon - Partner and former MI5 colleague of government whistleblower "David Shayler"
Tim Sparke -...
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James Whale interviewing Alex Jones about his new film "ENDGAME - Blueprint for Global Enslavement" on talkSPORT radio station
SPIDEREDVIDEO Wed, 14 Nov 2007
Alex Jones discussing his new film "ENDGAME" on the James Whale talkSPORT radio show. Watch "ENDGAME" on
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Loose Change: Final Cut - Trailer
YOUTUBE
Loose Change: Final Cut is almost here...
This long awaited 9/11 documentary will be available to the public via internet viewing / DVD from 11-Nov-2007.
More Info :...
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The Great Conspiracy
GOOGLE
The 9/11 News Special You Never Saw
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Wake Up America!
SHOUTFILE
George Carlin is a comedian, but that doesn't mean everything he says is a joke.
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Chemtrails again, what is the real truth about this ?
YOUTUBE
I don't really know whether these planes are all military or civilian or a mixture of both, the only fact I can go on is that the sky seems always white, never blue any more and the trails...
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The Elephant In The Room: We Are Change UK: Richard Dearlove
YOUTUBE
Sir Richard Dearlove head of MI6 from 1999 - 2004 Confronted by "We Are Change UK" and MI5 Whistleblower Annie Machon at a talk entitled, Can Journalists be trusted with public security?...
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George Galloway talkSPORT radio show Friday 16 November 2007
SPIDEREDVIDEOS
Covering a wide range of topics, including Pakistan's military coup and reviewing a new book by Norman Baker which investigates the apparent assassination of Dr. David Kelly with involvement...
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Seymour Hersh - Amnesty Lecture 24 Oct 2007
Wed, 24 Oct 2007
Seymour Hersh - Amnesty Lecture 24 Oct 2007 at Trinity College
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Ahmadinejad DID NOT threaten to "wipe Israel off the map."
YOUTUBE
Iranian President Ahmadinejad DID NOT threaten to "wipe Israel off the map."
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Secrets of the CIA
GOOGLE
"CIA is a state sponsored terrorist association". "CIA is not realy an intelligence agency. It is a covert action agency"
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Attack on USS Liberty United States Cover-up
GOOGLE
On the 4th day of the 6 day war Israeli Fighter jets and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty killing 34 and wounding 171. This documentary contains the Israeli version of events along...
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Loss of Liberty
GOOGLE
'Loss of Liberty' dramatically proves, beyond any doubt, that the attack by Israel on June 8, 1967 against the US naval intelligence gathering ship USS Liberty, in which 34 Americans were...
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USS Liberty Capt Ward Boston talks with Hesham Tillawi part 1
GOOGLE
Captain Ward Boston interviewed by Dr. Hesham Tillawi
of Current Issues TV (http://www.currentissues.tv)
Ward Boston, Jr.,Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.) was Counsel to the U.S....
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USS Liberty with Capt Ward Boston Part 2
GOOGLE
Captain Ward Boston interviewed by Dr. Hesham Tillawi
of Current Issues TV (http://www.currentissues.tv)
Ward Boston, Jr.,Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.) was Counsel to the U.S....
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WikiLeaks exposé: Robert Fisk: The shaming of America
US military 'cannot find Iraq tape'
Nato admits killing Afghan women - "Some reports suggested Nato soldiers tried to cover up the deaths of the women by removing bullets from the bodies"
CIA tainted French bread with LSD for test
Seumas Milne : This is no ripping yarn, but a murder to fan more conflict - The media may revel in a Mossad hit, yet Britain's response to a plot that could threaten its own citizens has been craven
70-year gag on Kelly death evidence
Cover-up claims as David Kelly post mortem set to stay under wraps for 70 years
Calls for fresh Dr Kelly inquiry - "Earlier finding of suicide was flawed" - "Due process has been subverted" - "It's highly likely he was assassinated" - "There needs to be a proper inquiry into the Iraq War"
BBC investigation : 'Flaws' in key Lockerbie evidence
French media caught red-handed: Honduras coup protest photo presented as Iranian
US spies: Israel or UK forged nukes report on Iran
John Pilger : Welcome to Orwell’s World 2010 - Inverted lies that “passed into history and became truth"
22 million 'lost' Bush era emails recovered
UK spy chief denies Iraq war deceit
BBC's Mike Thomson investigates Britain's role during the 1970 coup in oil-rich Oman: History records that it was a family affair, but documents reveal London's hidden hand
Declassified FBI file: AIPAC staffer spied for Israel
SIBEL EDMONDS' DEPOSITION: VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT RELEASED
Ex-UN sleuths accused of trying to frame Syria
PM's record on Libya under fire
Brown under fire over Lockerbie view
Megrahi was in Libya prisoner transfer deal 'in UK interests'
