by Stephen Lendman

On February 3, a Department of Justice press release headlined "Aafia Siddiqui Found Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court of Attempting to Murder US Nationals in Afghanistan and Six Additional Charges."

At her scheduled May 6 sentencing, she "faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the attempted murder and armed assault charges; life in prison on the firearms charge; and eight years in prison on each of the remaining assault charges. SIDDIQUI faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison on the firearms charge."

On February 3, New York Times writer CJ Hughes headlined: "Pakistani Scientist Found Guilty of Shootings," convicting her on all seven counts, including attempted murder - "capping a trial that drew notice for its terrorist implications as well as its theatrics," but omitting convincing evidence of Siddiqui's innocence. Instead, Hughes said she was arrested with "instructions (in her purse) on making explosives and a list of New York landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building." Her defense team acknowledged their existence, but Siddiqui denied packing them or knowing of their origin. She later suggested she copied them from a magazine, planned no terrorist acts, nor did her indictment claim them.

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Subversives who think government is corrupt and should be controlled by the people face 10 years in prison and a $25,000 dollar fine if they fail to register with authorities in South Carolina, in another chilling example of how free speech and dissent is being criminalized in America.

JERUSALEM - Human Rights Watch said on Sunday that Israel has failed to properly investigate alleged crimes committed during last winter's devastating Gaza war as demanded by the United Nations."Israel claims it is conducting credible and impartial investigations, but it has so far failed to make that case," said Joe Stork, HRW's New York-based group's deputy director for the Middle East.

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin
Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has sharply criticized US President Barack Obama over his national security policies.

Speaking at a national convention of the "Tea Party" movement Saturday night, Palin slammed the first African American president of the US for his handling of the so-called war on terror.

US Senators Joe Lieberman (L) and John Kerry (R)
Leading US senators Joseph Lieberman and John Kerry inveigh against a top EU official for supporting further diplomatic talks with Iran over its nuclear program.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, the two US officials criticized the European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashto who threw her lot with more dialogue over Iran's nuclear program

At the end of a rough couple of weeks, some good news for the Obama administration: falling unemployment

It might not sound like much, but a surprise dip in the US unemployment rate is the best piece of news the White House and Democrats have had for a long time. With official figures showing the headline rate of unemployment falling below the 10% mark to 9.7%, the economy is no longer just supplying bad headlines.

Amidst all the talk about tea parties and a Republican resurgence, the economy and the jobs market remain the most pressing issues in the minds of voters, even more than terrorism, healthcare or even the government budget deficit. Until the economy turns around, the political fate of both Obama and the Democrats remains dangerously uncertain.

THE scientist at the centre of the “climategate” email scandal has revealed that he was so traumatised by the global backlash against him that he contemplated suicide.

Just before the execution unit began slaughtering 16 teenagers at a party in Ciudad Juárez on the US-Mexico border last Sunday night, one of the killers apparently suggested that girls and children be allowed to leave before the killing began. No, said another, "Denles parejo… ya valieron todos" – give it to them all the same.

Stock markets in Europe and Asia fell sharply Friday in the second day of a near-panic selloff fueled by fears that the debt crisis facing weaker European economies will throw the world economy into a “double-dip” recession.

As US and British troops prepare to attack the town of Marjah in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, military commanders and the media are openly comparing the operation to the siege of Fallujah, one of the bloodiest war crimes of the Iraq war.

United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon threw a lifeline to Israel yesterday, stating that there was not yet enough evidence to say whether Israel or the Palestinians are complying with UN demands to investigate allegations of war crimes during the 22-day Israeli assault on Gaza.

Anthem Blue Cross customers got a shock this week when the health insurer informed thousands of individual policyholders that their premium rates will jump as much as 39 percent on March 1. "There aren't any other parts of our society where people have no regard for inflation rate and increase their prices this much. I can't imagine anything in the world that's going up 39 percent," said Josh Libresco, 54, of San Rafael, as he grappled with the news that his family premium will go from $858 per month to $1,192 - and that's with a $5,000 deductible.

On December 27, in the eastern Kunar region of Afghanistan, ten Afghans, eight of whom were schoolchildren, were dragged from their beds and shot by US forces during a nighttime raid. Afghan government investigators said the eight students were aged from 11 to 17 years. This incident is but one example of countless atrocities US military personnel have carried out in the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, US military personnel torturing detainees in Abu Ghraib, Iraqi civilians suffering the violence  meted out by US forces, or US forces detaining schoolchildren in Baghdad, the list of atrocities is seemingly endless.

At a town hall meeting in Tampa, Florida on 28 January, President Obama explained what in his view had to happen if there is to be a two-state solution which would see Israel and the Palestinians living side by side in peace and security. He said, “Both sides are going to have to make concessions”.

Anger among workers at the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) plant in Fremont, California, toward the United Auto Workers (UAW) exploded at a January 24 meeting discussing the imminent closure of the facility. Nearly 5,000 workers will lose their jobs when the plant, formerly a joint venture of General Motors and Toyota, closes on March 31. Four hundred or so workers were present at the meeting

The official US unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent in January, despite 20,000 jobs lost, according to monthly figures for December released Friday by the Labor Department. The number of jobs, which the labor department called “essentially unchanged,” was affected by a number of contingent events, including the hiring of 9,000 temporary workers by the federal government to help with the 2010 census and the “inventory bounce” that took place in December.

Nearly 2ft of snow fell on Washington today with President Barack Obama dubbing the whiteout ‘Snowmageddon’. And as the blizzard hit the US capital forecasters warned tonight that some of it could be heading to the UK this week.
Flights were cancelled and roads blocked. But Mr Obama managed to venture out of the White House to make his comment at a Democratic Party meeting.

The Energy and Natural Resources Authority in Gaza warned that a severe shortage of fuel will force it to shut down electricity by Sunday. Kanan Abaid, head of the authority, said on Saturday that only enough fuel is available for one more day, warning of a crisis if the station stopped working.

1. Israeli Vice-President for American Affairs (IVPAA), Barrack Hussein Obama (BO) is in such a bind that even Daniel “Dracula” Pipes (DDP), one of our favorite loons here at Mantiq al-Tayr, has offered him advice. I guess the IVPAA just isn’t getting enough advice from Zionist Jews and Israeli – Firsters like Rahm Israel Emmanuel, David Axelrod and Dennis Ross and . . . . . (insert long list), so in service to his country, Israel, Count Daniel came to his rescue.

Foreign policy and war issues have taken a back seat to the Democratic administration's push to cram a health care reform bill down our throats. But the world won't wait any longer as it reacts to US provocations on several fronts. The Iran crisis is ripening towards a military confrontation after Obama's diplomacy charade collapsed in failure.

Sarah Palin delivered a speech prior to her keynote at the Republican Tea Party fest in Nashville scheduled for this weekend. In addition to touching on government spending and the bankster bailout, Palin said the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should have been grilled before he was read his Miranda rights.

The US defense secretary, has dismissed Iranian assertions that it is close to reaching a deal that would see some of its uranium sent abroad for enrichment. Robert Gates said during a meeting in Ankara, Turkey's capital, that he saw no evidence that Tehran had changed its position in its nuclear dispute with the US and its allies and suggested it was time to move forward with sanctions.

While many in Congress, the press and the public have given up on the idea of even a limited public option in health care reform, Flowers and her group, Physicians for a National Health Program, are standing firm for a single-payer plan. Specifically, they want to extend the Medicare program, which they see as a functioning single-player plan, to the nation as a whole. Flowers has testified before Congress and penned Op-Eds and she has been arrested three times in her attempts to get Congress and the White House to pay attention to single-payer.

Senators opposing bill raked in twice as much insurance cash as backers. With national health reform in peril, California has taken matters into its own hands. Its Democratic-led Senate last Thursday approved the creation of a single-payer insurance system. Authored by Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), the bill passed in a largely party-line vote of 22-14.

U.S. plans to place elements of its global missile shield in Romania pose a real threat to Russia's national security, a Russian military analyst said on Friday. Romanian President Traian Basescu said on Thursday his country was ready to host U.S. medium-range interceptor missiles to counter a potential ballistic missile attack, but stressed that they would not be directed at Russia.

Over the past two decades, Ricardo Dominguez has made a career for himself tweaking the sensibilities of government officials and developing software tools meant to disrupt the status quo. Presently, he leads a team at the University of California at San Diego that is designing a mobile application to assist migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

The U.S. military has 200 troops on the ground in Pakistan. That’s about the double the previously-disclosed number of forces there. It’s a whole lot more than the “no American troops in Pakistan” promised by special envoy Richard Holbrooke. And let’s not even get into the number of U.S. intelligence operatives and security contractors on Pakistani soil.

A confusing employment report this morning: employment down, but unemployment also down. Nor is this a story about workers dropping out of the labor force; the report shows an increase in the employment-population ratio, the percentage of adults who are working. What?

Suspected Sunni militants bombed a bus carrying Shiite worshippers and two hours later attacked a hospital treating the victims, killing 25 people and wounded 100 on Friday in a strike on Pakistan's largest city.

An executive summary was released today regarding the October Taliban attack on Combat Outpost Keating, a Nuristan Province base. The attack was driven back, but not before eight Americans were killed.

By killing three U.S. soldiers in a bomb attack in a remote corner of northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, Feb. 3, the Taliban scored a political jackpot. With anti-American sentiment cresting in Pakistani public opinion, the presence of the three American trainers in a convoy passing through Koto village when it was struck by a roadside bomb has set off a flurry of questions and even wild conspiracy theories about the U.S. presence in the country.

Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that Google — the world’s largest Internet search company — is negotiating an information-sharing agreement with the National Security Agency (NSA) — the world’s largest network for routine, mass communications surveillance. The partnership is supposed to help protect Google’s networks, but the ramifications of companies like Google working with the NSA are frightening. Concerned? You can take action today by sending a letter to Google, letting them know that you object to such a deal and value your privacy online.

The US unemployment rate has reached a five-month low of 9.7 per cent, despite US employers reporting that they cut 20,000 jobs from their payrolls in January. Before Friday's announcement from the US labour department, it was widely reported that the number of employed was likely to rise by between 5,000 and 15,000.

Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans took to the streets on Wednesday, January 27 to protest the inauguration of Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Soza. Lobo was the victor in fraudulent elections held last November and his new regime is seen by the Honduran resistance as a continuation and consolidation of the coup regime that first came to power by overthrowing democratically-elected President, Manuel Zelaya, on June 28, 2009. During the march I caught up with Rafael Alegría, a key leader in the National Resistance Front, and a leading Honduran figure in the international peasant movement, Vía Campesina.

Over the past four decades Israel has defrauded Palestinians working inside Israel of more than two billion US dollars by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists have revealed. A new report, “State Robbery”, to be published later this month, says the “theft” continued even after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 and part of the money was supposed to be transferred to a special fund on behalf of the workers.

Many in Pakistan believe Siddiqui is innocent and thousands have protested against the verdict. Thousands of Pakistanis have staged rallies against the conviction of a Pakistani scientist found guilty of trying to kill American servicemen in Afghanistan. Protests were held on Thursday in several cities in Pakistan, where many believe that Aafia Siddiqui is innocent.

One in eight Americans does not have enough to eat and requires emergency food assistance. This staggering number is revealed in a report released on Tuesday by Feeding America (FA), a network consisting of thousands of food pantries, soup kitchens and similar agencies serving 37 million people in the US. The report, entitled Hunger in America 2010, paints a devastating portrait of the social misery faced by millions of American working people.

Two years on from the biggest financial crisis to strike world capitalism since the 1930s, leading international bankers made clear at last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that they will resist any attempts to reign in their speculative practices.

A New York jury has convicted the US-educated Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui of attempted murder for shooting at US forces while jailed in Afghanistan in 2008. None of the Americans were injured, but Siddiqui was shot and wounded while in US custody. Human rights groups have long alleged that Siddiqui was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani authorities in 2003 and interrogated and tortured at the behest of the United States. In her testimony, Siddiqui claimed to have been held in a US secret prison. We speak to Siddiqui family spokesperson Tina Foster of the International Justice Network and Petra Bartosiewicz, an independent journalist who has been closely following Siddiqui’s case.

You can walk down many of the streets of Port au Prince and see absolutely no evidence that the world community has helped Haiti. Twenty three days after the earthquake jolted Haiti and killed over 200,000 people, as many as a million people have still not received any international food assistance.

Last week, I wrote about a revelation buried in a Washington Post article by Dana Priest which described how the Obama administration has adopted the Bush policy of targeting selected American citizens for assassination if they are deemed (by the Executive Branch) to be Terrorists. As The Washington Times' Eli Lake reports, Adm. Dennis Blair was asked about this program at a Congressional hearing yesterday and he acknowledged its existence:

You Tube comment by lushfauna: Bottom line- Gaza looks like the Warzaw Ghetto and the good people of the world are speaking out against it. The Hollacaust is evil and the open air collective punishment of Gaza is evil. Zionism has something very wrong with it. Besides everytime you hear an arab what's their main beef? From wacky amejenadad to Osama? Gaza, Gaza- Cut the sh!t, the right wing isn't doing you or the world any favors. It's amazing how some try to justify it. The way the IDF demeans them on purpose says it all.

I knew that it was a nuclear bomb. Almost immediately missiles started flying from one country to another, quickly spreading to all over the world. I also saw that many nuclear explosions did not come from missiles but from ground bombs of some kind. I knew that in the future there would be a nuclear war throughout the world and this is how it would start. The next thing that I felt more than I saw was that shortly after this there was no commerce, no shopping, buying, and was impressed that there was no economy. The economy had almost failed completely and no one had any money. The next thing I saw was people being sick and dying. I saw this particularly in four cities, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Salt Lake. The disease started by having white blisters, some the size of dimes appear on their hands, arms and face. This quickly developed into white puffy sores and blisters. I knew that the diseases, and there were several different kinds, but at first primarily these two, came from small containers that had been brought into the United States. These containers were like quart jars and I was impressed that the people carrying them would just drop them on the ground in large crowds of people and the people would become infected without realizing it. In these cities as the disease spread, the people tried to flee from the cities out to the countryside. There was complete chaos in these cities and a breakdown of normal society. There was no electricity in them either, but I don't know why or how that came to be. There were cars piled up everywhere, blocking roadways and most people then had to walk out with nothing. The disease started to spread beyond these initial cities.

This latest Yupik shaman council warning is stating that our World is now in even more danger than in 1908 as humanity has failed to learn the lessons of over a century of war, which these Arctic peoples say is evidenced by the Blue Whale ‘Guardians of our Earth’ now singing the “Song of Death” as an ‘announcement’ to all human beings to prepare for the ending of all things. To the Blue Whales ‘Song of Death’ the Yupik shamans are referring to, baffled Western Scientists are now also reporting that these largest animals our World has ever known have indeed begun to mysteriously change their ‘songs’, all over our Planet for the first time in recorded history, and in what John Calombokidis, a blue whale expert at the Cascadia Research Collective, notes is a “fascinating finding”. But to what Western scientists are now noting to their puzzlingly alarm as to the changing of the Blue Whales song the World over, the Yupik shamans first noted during a 2002 meeting in Yanrakynnot, Russia when in examining the ‘strange portents’ occurring throughout the Arctic Regions of our Planet warned that only 10 years were left before the ‘Time of the Great Ending’ was upon us all again.

The Impending Yellowstone Eruption and the Book of RevelationIn Recent Posts, we have discussed the 7 seals in the Book of Revelation and how they represent the 7,000 years of the earth's temporal existence. Of primary interest is the opening of the 6th seal which is defined as the beginning of the 6th Thousand Years: 12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; (Revelation: 6) As I have also stated previously, this earthquake would have to be so immense that it was felt throughout the entire world. I also believe that this earthquake would cause the formation of a volcano so immense that its belching forth of smoke and lava would cause the sun to wear black during the daytime and the earth to appear as if it is bathed in blood. ► More than 1,200 tiny quakes hit Yellowstone Park, but jitters are few

It's one of those numbers that's so unbelievable you have to actually think about it for a while... Within the next 12 months, the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term debt. And that's not counting any additional deficit spending, which is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion. Put the two numbers together. Then ask yourself, how in the world can the Treasury borrow $3.5 trillion in only one year? That's an amount equal to nearly 30% of our entire GDP. And we're the world's biggest economy. Where will the money come from? How did we end up with so much short-term debt? Like most entities that have far too much debt – whether subprime borrowers, GM, Fannie, or GE – the U.S. Treasury has tried to minimize its interest burden by borrowing for short durations and then "rolling over" the loans when they come due. As they say on Wall Street, "a rolling debt collects no moss."

The issue may have reached a turning point last week when a federal appeals court questioned the limits of the FCC's authority in a 2008 case involving Comcast. The agency had ordered the Internet and cable giant to stop blocking subscribers' access to the online file-sharing service BitTorrent. But in an oral hearing last Friday, three judges grilled an FCC lawyer over whether the agency had acted outside the scope of its authority. The appeals court is still hearing the case, but analysts predict that the FCC will lose and that the ruling could throw all of its efforts to oversee Internet access into question. A loss could undermine the legality of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's push for policies that would prohibit service providers from restricting customers' access to legal Web content -- the concept known as net neutrality -- and throw into doubt the agency's ability to oversee pricing and competition among Internet service providers.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will launch an inquiry in the course of this month on the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on the extent of the pharma‘s industry’s influence on WHO. The Health Committee of the PACE, a body representing 47 European nations including Russia, has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the inquiry. The step is a long-overdue move to public transparency of a “Golden Triangle” of drug corruption between WHO, the pharma industry and academic scientists that has permanently damaged the lives of millions and even caused death.

The vast majority of the talking heads on television are still speaking of the current economic collapse as if it is a temporary "recession" that will soon be over. So far, the vast majority of the American people seem to believe this as well, although for many Americans there is a very deep gnawing in the pit of their stomachs that is telling them that there is something very, very wrong this time around. The truth is that the foundations of the U.S. economy have been destroyed by an orgy of government, corporate and individual debt that has gone on for decades. It was the greatest party in the history of the world, but now the party is over. The following are 11 signs from just this past month that show that the U.S. economy is headed into the toilet and will not be recovering....

from: William Hughes

On Jan. 29, 2010, Doctors Margaret Flowers and Carol Paris were arrested outside a hotel, at the Inner Harbor, in Baltimore, MD, where President Barack Obama was to give a speech. They were on a sidewalk outside the Renaissance hotel holding a banner. The doctors had a letter that they wanted to give to the President and/or one of his aides, re: Medicare for All. They were arrested for trespassing, according to to a police officer at the scene. Later after getting into a police car, this reporter was advised, the two doctors were released, without going to the local lockup. Each was then given “a citation” for trespassing. For background on this issue, check out Dr. Flowers’ visit to the White House, on Jan. 28, 2010, at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxziSRM6fdo