Link: http://rattube.com/2009/04/24/alert-swine-flu/

Army: 3 vials of virus samples missing from Maryland facility. Check out the links mentioned in the video: UnslaveMee click ‘more info’ just to the right of the upper right corner of video. NYT: Mexico Shuts Schools Amid Deadly Flu Outbreak.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/pers-a24.shtml

Wednesday’s lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal threatens President Obama with all-out opposition to any effort to hold Bush administration officials responsible for authorizing torture by the CIA and military. Denouncing Obama’s half-hearted criticism of the Bush administration’s torture policy as “Presidential Poison,” the leading right-wing voice of the American financial aristocracy warns, “His invitation to indict Bush officials will haunt Obama’s Presidency.”

Link: http://sev.prnewswire.com/publishing-information-services/20090422/DC0328222042009-1.html

Recently released files obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal details of secret battles raging between founders of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), U.S. presidents and top law enforcement agencies: Israeli Foreign Ministry employee Isaiah L. Kenen is ordered by Nathan B. Lenvin of the DOJ Foreign Agent Registration Act section to continue registering as an Israeli foreign agent. Kenen rejects the order to begin work at the American Zionist Council (AZC) lobbying for U.S. arms and financial aid. He later establishes AIPAC.

Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-interrogation_24apr24,0,3258830.story

The Obama administration agreed late Thursday to release dozens of photographs depicting alleged abuse by U.S. personnel during the Bush administration of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least 44 pictures will be released by May 28, making public for the first time images of what the military investigated at facilities other than the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/sinn-a24.shtml

Following the lives of two teenagers, Sin Nombre—in Spanish with English subtitles—tells the story of thousands of poor youth in Central America trying to cope with a society that has nothing for them. Some opt to take the long and dangerous trip to el Norte (the US) in search of work, while others—those who stay behind—are often attracted to gang culture, looking for a sense of belonging and brotherhood, a life that ends up imprisoning them in the same or an even more miserable existence.

Link: http://wabcradio.com/news.asp?c=5145&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhosted.ap.org%2Fdynamic%2Fstories%2FU%2FUS_OBAMA_DEFENDANTS_RIGHTS%3FSITE%3DWABCAM%26SECTION%3DHOME%26TEMPLATE%3DDEFAULT

The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to overrule a 23 year-old decision that stopped police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer is present, the latest stance that has disappointed civil rights and civil liberties groups.

Link: http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4629.shtml

A black hole is an area in space with such a powerful gravitational pull that no matter or energy in space can escape its pull; a place into which objects disappear and are not expected to be seen again. Dying stars typically are pulled into black holes in our universe; but in America, billions and trillions of dollars disappear into the vast black hole of the military-industrial complex. And this powerful force and influence is literally sucking the lifeblood out of the American economy.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46612

Activists are urging the heads of the World Bank Robert Zoellick, above) and IMF not to attach strings to new emergency aid to poor countries. Efforts to pull the global economy out of its nosedive enter a new phase this weekend amid warnings the decline is steeper than previously thought and signs the cockpit crew continue to jostle for the joystick.

Link: http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/61703

"In trying to understand the situation and any future potential for reconciliation it is important to understand the difference in the realities of the West Bank and Gaza. Both areas are under Israeli occupation, but in the West Bank the Israeli army is operating throughout Palestinian areas, including in densely populated cities and towns. Israel fully controls the land, the expansion of settlements and settlement infrastructure and other infrastructure such as water, electricity and road networks, as well as the separation wall."

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/chin-a24.shtml

China’s recent announcement of multi-billion dollar deals with several Latin America countries will strengthen its already substantial presence in a region the US has historically regarded as its own backyard.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgMx2F41XD0

The plans to implement martial law in America have been taking shape for decades, hidden behind "Continuity of Government" contingency planning. Now, with public outcry over the banker bailout bill at fever pitch, all of the pieces are in place for the U.S. Army to start policing American citizens. For more information and analysis, please visit http://www.corbettreport.com.

Link: http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/04/the-mighty-debt-purge-of-2009/

The Fed’s $12.8 trillion of monetary stimulus has triggered a six-week long surge in the stock market. Think of it as Bernanke’s Bear Market Rally, a torrent of capital gushing from every rusty pipe in the financial system. The Fed’s so-called “lending facilities” have gone far beyond their original purpose, which was to backstop a broken system. Now they’re leaking liquidity into the equities markets and sending stocks soaring while the “real” economy sinks to the bottom of the fish tank. That’s how the Fed does business these days: plenty of tasty crepes for the Wall Street kingpins and table scraps for the lumpen masses.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1172688/British-soldiers-tortured-murdered-20-Iraqis-covered-firefight-claim.html

British soldiers tortured and murdered up to 20 Iraqis in cold blood, the High Court was told yesterday. It happened after a three-hour gun battle at an Army checkpoint near Basra, a lawyer claimed. Rabinder Singh said a group of local men were taken prisoner and transported to an Army camp where they were beaten with a rusty tent pole, punched, slammed against walls, denied water, blasted with loud music and forced to strip naked in the presence of a woman – a humiliation for Muslim men.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/23/freddie-mac-chief-death

The acting chief financial officer of the ailing US mortgage provider Freddie Mac was yesterday found dead having apparently taken his own life. Police responded before dawn to an emergency call from the home of David Kellermann in Vienna, Virginia, on the outskirts of Washington. Fairfax county police said no foul play was evident and that the cause and manner of death was under investigation by the state medical examiner. Media reports said Kellermann had hanged himself in the basement of his home. Rat Tube: Freddie Mac CFO Suicide by Hanging? (or gunshot wound).

Link: http://www.alternet.org/immigration/137787/shocking%3A_today%2C_life_in_the_south_for_poor_latinos_is_pure_hell%21/

A new study finds that "legal" and "illegal", "citizen" and "resident," are distinctions without difference for poorer Latinos in today's Deep South.

Link: http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1226.htm

New reports circulating in the Kremlin today are showing that the rising tensions between the US and Israel have escalated even further after the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), David Kellermann, 41, of the US government-controlled home funding provider Freddie Mac was found hanged in what the FSB is describing as an ‘Israeli Mossad initiated suicide’ after his tracing of over $50 billion in United States government funds that were ‘funneled’ to Israel and led to the collapse of the American mortgage giant.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/23/bursting-washingtons-bubble

Millions of people looked forward to Barack Obama's presidency with a sense of pride and hope. But Obama's first 100 days have raised critical questions about the limits of what we can expect from a Democrat in the White House--and what it will take to get the change we want.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/23/is-a-recovery-in-sight

Whatever official statistics show, the economic picture is still grim for working people. THE OPTIMISTS claim that an economic recovery is near at hand, based on a recent stock market bounce and some less-bad-than-usual economic statistics.

Link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2009/04/23/torture/index.html

The "ticking bomb" scenario only happens on TV. Those, like Dick Cheney, who cite it are leading society down a fatal slippery slope of abuse.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090423/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_interrogation_memos_senate+

As national security adviser to former President George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice verbally approved the CIA's request to subject alleged al-Qaida terrorist Abu Zubaydah to waterboarding in July 2002, the earliest known decision by a Bush administration official to OK use of the simulated drowning technique.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/22/torture-bush-administration-senate-report

• Report opens the way for possible prosecution of Bush officials
• Bush team rejected military's advice against techniques
• Report could re-open Abu Ghraib abuse cases
A Senate inquiry published today directly implicates senior members of the Bush administration in the extensive use of harsh interrogation methods against al-Qaida suspects and other prisoners round the world.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m53635&hd=&size=1&l=e

There are no headlines or pontificating pundits, but the real news that has become crystal clear to any but the most delusional and distracted Americans is that President Obama has no commitment to applying the rule of law where it counts. Certainly, not applying it to the large number of rich and powerful people that have violated our Constitution and plunged the nation into economic disaster.

Link: http://www.truthout.org/042209R

In America's relations with Islamic countries, a peculiar dishonesty reigns. It is all so hush-hush, and often done with a wink and nod, as the rulers of these lands lead Washington to believe one story while telling their own people the opposite. The media reports are hard to forget: Arab nations wanted the Bush administration to invade Iraq. Sunni Arab leaders are urging Israel and the United States to bomb suspected nuclear sites in Shiite Iran. And, from The New York Times last week, "Pakistan Rehearses Its Two-Step on Airstrikes."

Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger159.html

Given that most people agree that the drug war has failed to achieve its supposed purpose after decades of warfare, an important question arises: Why is the drug war still being waged, especially when we consider all the collateral damage that this federal program has produced? Hasn’t the time arrived for Americans to demand an immediate end to the war on drugs?

Link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090504/scheer?rel=hp_picks

We are being robbed big-time, but you can't say we haven't been warned. Not after the release Tuesday of a scathing report by the Treasury Department's special inspector general, who charged that the aptly named Troubled Asset Relief Fund bailout program is rife with mismanagement and potential for fraud. The IG's office already has opened twenty criminal fraud investigations into the $700 billion program, which is now well on its way to a $3 trillion obligation, and the IG predicts many more are coming.

Link: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22478.htm

George W. Bush insisted that the U.S. did not use torture. But the four Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel memos released last week by the Obama administration's Justice Department paint a starkly different picture. The declassified memos provided legal authorization for "harsh interrogation techniques" used by the Bush administration in the years following Sept. 11, 2001. They authorized (as listed in the Aug. 1, 2002, memo by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee) "walling ... facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation, insects placed in a confinement box, and the waterboard."

Link: http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/04/lies-and-torture/

The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. – President Bush in June 2003
I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved … I told the country we did that. And I also told them it was legal. We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it. – President Bush in April 2008 about interrogation tactics used on detainees.

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/22/environmental_crimes_trial_underway_against_wr

Government prosecutors called their final witness on Monday in their case against W.R. Grace and Company. The firm and five former executives are charged with knowingly exposing their workers and the public to vermiculite ore contaminated with asbestos from the company’s mine in Libby, Montana. The government has called it “the nation’s biggest environmental disaster.”

Link: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3704667,00.html

Attorneys seek to charge top officials, accuse Israel of 'massive terror attacks' in Gaza Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other top officials could face legal action in Norway over the Gaza offensive after six Norwegian lawyers said Tuesday they would accuse them of war crimes.

Link: http://www.infowars.com/insane-cop-arrests-abc-news-reporter-for-filming-traffic-accident/

It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America - aggressive, overbearing and mentally unstable cops who think that it is an arrestable offense not to obey their every order - harassing citizens who have done absolutely nothing wrong. The latest example comes from El Paso, Texas, where a local ABC news reporter and his cameraman were arrested simply for something they routinely do every day as part of their job - filming traffic incidents.

Link: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/943/eg6.htm

Scientists fear the increasing number of bird flu cases among children may allow for the mutation of the pathogenic virus. As the number of reported bird flu cases in children continues to rise attention is increasingly being focussed on government efforts to control the disease.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/castro04212009.html

Neither represented nor excommunicated, only today could I learn what was discussed at the Summit of Port of Spain. They led us all to entertain hopes that the meeting would not be secret, but those running the show deprived us of such an interesting intellectual exercise. We shall get to know the substance but not the tone of voice, the look in the eyes or the facial look that can be a reflection of a person's ideas, ethic and character.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/passion-deadly-secrets-and-betrayal-in-putins-russia-1671597.html

He was a member of Russia's elite security forces. She was a dissident playwright. Did they get too close – to each other, and the truth behind a notorious terrorist attack? Shaun Walker reports from Moscow

Link: http://www.aclu.org/drugpolicy/search/39416prs20090421.html

The U.S. Supreme Court today heard oral arguments over whether school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old Arizona girl when they strip searched her based on a classmate's uncorroborated accusation that she previously possessed ibuprofen. The American Civil Liberties Union represents April Redding, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, whose daughter, Savana Redding, was strip searched by Safford Middle School officials six years ago.

Link: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/943/eg6.htm

Scientists fear the increasing number of bird flu cases among children may allow for the mutation of the pathogenic virus. As the number of reported bird flu cases in children continues to rise attention is increasingly being focussed on government efforts to control the disease.

Link: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22447.htm

President Barack Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA interrogators who used waterboarding on terrorism suspects amounts to a breach of international law, the U.N. rapporteur on torture said. "The United States, like all other states that are part of the U.N. convention against torture, is committed to conducting criminal investigations of torture and to bringing all persons against whom there is sound evidence to court," U.N. special rapporteur Manfred Nowak told the Austrian daily Der Standard.

Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/15651/

Chinese authorities blocked news of the June 4th event as well as information on Hu Yaobang, the late Chinese Communist Party leader, on websites throughout the country. Just before the 20th anniversary of former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Hu Yaobang’s death, Chinese authorities blocked a large number of Internet posts about Hu, as well as information on the June 4th Massacre on websites throughout the country.

Link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090504/hertsgaard?rel=hp_currently

When Michelle Obama began planting an organic garden on the South Lawn of the White House recently, there was no doubt she was sending a message, but the message was more subversive and far-reaching than most American media coverage recognized. On March 20, joined by a class of local fifth graders, the first lady lifted the first shovels of dirt onto a 1,100-square-foot plot that will feature fifty-five kinds of vegetables, including spinach, peppers, arugula, kale, collards and tomatoes (but no beets--the president reportedly does not like beets). Various herbs and berries will also be grown in the garden, which is fully visible to the thousands of tourists and other pedestrians that pass by the White House daily. (There will also be two boxes of bees for pollination.)

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/19/police-intimidation-protesters-civil-liberties

The police have always faced a degree of suspicion from the public. The founders of the Met dressed their men in blue rather than the more military red to underline their civilian role. Keeping the peace is one of society's toughest jobs and one that our police have performed sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Maybe people in the UK are becoming impatient with the police, but not the cattle in America. The police can tazer, stomp, club, tear gas, strip search, and beat people nearly to death in the U.S. with total impunity and the America people silently accept the abuse with nary a whimper.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8006597.stm

Mr Obama has banned the use of controversial interrogation techniques
US President Barack Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA agents who used torture tactics is a violation of international law, a UN expert says. The UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, says the US is bound under the UN Convention against Torture to prosecute those who engage in it.