By Rady Ananda

After author Ben Hewitt revealed that the oft-quoted figure of 77 million foodborne illnesses a year came from a 1999 study based mostly on assumption, the Centers for Disease Control released a revised estimate of 48 million. The new revision still uses the assumption, which Hewitt clarifies:

"It is less often stated that the 1999 study providing these numbers ends with a line that reads 'unknown agents account for approximately 81% of foodborne illnesses and hospitalizations and 64% of deaths.' In other words, a significant majority of assumed illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths are just that: Assumed. The numbers are merely extrapolated from estimates of all deaths by gastroenteritis of unknown cause."

Full story »

By Katherine Smith, PhD

The Long-hidden report: CIA created ‘safe haven’ for Nazis in the US obtained by the New York Times November 13, 2010, may be the most concrete account yet of the role that prominent members of Germany's Nazi party played in the early, formative years of the CIA, following World War II. The report alleges the CIA created a "safe haven" for Nazis believed to be of use to the US' Cold War efforts. [1]

Notice the words alleges and believed to be of use to the US' Cold War efforts.

The report confirms, what some refer to as a pathetic chapter in our nation’s history. The "experts" our intelligence people recruited were just a bunch of criminals and losers that never provided any useful intelligence about the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Lieutenant Richard Hallock had a breakthrough in 1943 when he deciphered the codes of the Red Army intelligence. The Venona Project

One part of the report addresses the story of Otto Von Bolschwing, an associate of Adolf Eichmann, who was instrumental in drawing up plans for ridding Germany of Jews. [2]

Below is an excerpt by Christopher Simpson about Otto Von Bolschwing from Simpson’s Blowback America's recruitment of Nazis, and its disastrous effect on our domestic and foreign policy, Page 252:

“The story of U.S. intelligence relations with criminals such as Brunner is of necessity fragmentary, for both the CIA and Brunner himself have taken extensive measures to keep such affairs hidden. It is clear, however, that Brunner was not an exception to the rule who managed to ingratiate himself with the Americans through guile or through an oversight. There is, in fact, at least one other known case of U.S. recruitment Baron Otto Von Bolschwing, an SS veteran of Adolf Eichmann's "Jewish Affairs" office, the elite committee that served as the central administrative apparatus of the Nazis' campaign to exterminate the Jews.”

Notice he worked in Eichmann’s elite "Jewish Affairs" office, not in the Third Reich's elite “Soviet Affairs” office.

“Von Bolschwing, deeply involved in intelligence work, and in the persecution of innocent peoplefor most of his adult life, was a supreme opportunist who succeeded in traversing the whole evolution of U.S. policy toward Nazi criminals. He had profited during the war from the Nazi confiscation of Jewish property, then later from the defeat of Nazi Germany itself. Von Bolschwing enlisted as a CIC informer for the Americans in the spring of 1945.

Von Bolschwing joined the Nazi party at the age of twenty-three, and in the years leading up to 1939, he was a leading Nazi intelligence agent in the Middle East, where he worked under cover as an importer in Jerusalem. One of his first brushes with Nazi espionage work, according to captured SS records, was a role in creating a covert agreement between the Nazis and Fieval Polkes, a commander of the militant Zionist organization Haganah, whom von Bolschwing had met through business associates in the Mideast. Under the arrangement the Haganah was permitted to run recruiting and training camps for Jewish youth inside Germany. These young people, as well as certain other Jews driven out of Germany by the Nazis, were encouraged to emigrate to Palestine. Polkes and the Haganah, in return, agreed to provide the SS with intelligence about British affairs in Palestine. Captured German records claim that Polkes believed the increasingly brutal Nazi persecution of the Jews could be turned to Zionist advantage-at least temporarily-by compelling Jewish immigration to Palestine, and that the Haganah commander's sole source of income, moreover, was secret funds from the SS.” [End of Excerpt]

What if there was another reason the CIA created a “safe haven” for Nazis?

Full story »

by Stephen Lendman

In his book "Freedom Next Time," John Pilger used CIA Vietnam terminology calling Afghanistan "the grand illusion of the American cause," describing long-suffering Afghans victimized by conflict, violence, occupation, extreme deprivation and genocide.

A December 15 ICRC press release expressed deep concern about how dire conditions have gotten, their worst ever since America's illegal war of aggression began in October 2001.

Headlined, "Afghanistan: a people trapped between sides," it cited "civilian casualties, internal displacement, and insufficient access to medical care, all of which are occurring against the background of a proliferation of armed groups."

Full story »

By Dennis Rahkonen

The "fabulous" wealth of the super rich didn't miraculously fall from the sky, nor is it attributable to the imagined entrepreneurial genius or other supposedly superior qualities of Mister Money Bags.

In most cases, there's a direct link connecting palatial estates in plush, gated communities to deteriorating working-class neighborhoods, either here or abroad, where people who toil too hard in their bosses' enterprises, for too little pay and scant benefits, experience lives ranging from merely hard-pressed to desperately poor.

Full story »

by Stephen Lendman

Dead on December 13 at age 69 after two aorta tear surgeries failed to save him, Western media headlines hailed the man London Guardian writers Ed Pilkington and Adam Gabbat called a "giant of US foreign policy," saying his loss leaves "a substantial hole to fill."

On December 13, New York Times writer Robert McFadden headlined, "Strong American Voice in Diplomacy and Crisis," saying:

"Mr. Holbrooke was hospitalized on (December 10) after becoming ill. (After two major surgeries, he) remained in very critical condition until his death....A brilliant, sometimes abrasive infighter, he used a formidable arsenal of facts, bluffs, whispers, implied threats and, when necessary, pyrotechnic fits of anger to press his positions." For good reason, he was nicknamed "The Bulldozer."

Full story »

Stuart Littlewood

Rarely do I enter a church unless it's to admire the medieval architecture, a soaring testament to man's faith in a more dangerous and uncertain age.

One reason being that church leaders, by and large, ignore the fate of the Holy Land, which of course underpins the whole structure of their faith. The performance of our bishops, who have a voice in the House of Lords but never use it, is beyond pathetic.

However, every year at this time I make a point of visiting the parish church in the small market town of Fakenham, in Norfolk, to enjoy their dazzling Christmas Tree Festival. The event has been going for 10 years and this year raised money for 78 local and national charities.

Full story »

Eric Walberg

The movement to isolate Israel through boycott, divestment and sanctions resonates from Canada to the Indo-Pakistani border.

Last month Canada’s controversial Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper continued his campaign to support Israel through thick and thin at an international conference hosted by the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA), where he solemnly warned participants, “History shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israel mob tells us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are in the longer term a threat to all of us.”

Full story »

by Stephen Lendman

A November 10 Qatar News Agency article headlined, "Israel Plans to Rebuild Old Jerusalem - Palestinian Official," saying:

Attorney Ahmed Al-Ruwaidi, "responsible for the Jerusalem unit in the Palestinian Authority (PA), said Israel plan(s) to build new settlement homes in old Jerusalem where the ancient walls of the city will be overshadowed by modern bridges, synagogues and gardens spreading from the Arab neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah to Wdi Al Joze and Suwaneh."

The scheme involves home demolitions, dispossessions, and new settlement construction to solidify "the capital and spiritual center of Israel and the Jewish people (by creating) a world city which attracts the souls of millions of believers across the globe."

Full story »

By Khalid Amayreh

The double suicide bombing which took place in south-eastern Iran a couple of days ago was a nefarious act by every standard of imagination. It was a pornographic bloodshed, motivated by a corrupt ideology, latent hatreds, and a decidedly criminal distortion of Islam itself.

The criminal act, which killed 38 innocent people and maimed many others, was a New Hijri year present to Israel and Zionist circles which are awaiting the opportune time to hit Iran for the purpose of preserving the Zionist entity's hegemony and supremacy in this part of the world.

Full story »

by Stephen Lendman

Before dying, Richard Holbrooke admitted it, saying "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan." The Washington Post reinterpreted it, saying:

"Holbrooke's death is the latest complication in an effort plagued by unreliable partners, reluctant allies and an increasingly skeptical American public."

They're not alone. Include noted analysts, administration officials, the influential Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Pentagon top brass. An earlier article discussed it, accessed through the following link:

Full story »