US waves white flag in disastrous ‘war on drugs’

After 40 years, Washington is quietly giving up on a futile battle that has spread corruption and destroyed thousands of lives Read the full story

A senior Iranian anti-drug official has accused the US, Britain and Canada of playing a major role in Afghanistan’s lucrative drug trade.

On the sidelines of an anti-drug conference in Tehran, deputy head of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters Taha Taheri said that Western powers are aiding the drug trade in Afghanistan.

“According to our indisputable information, the presence of the United States, Britain and Canada has not reduced the drug trade and the three countries have had major roles in the distribution of drugs,” IRIB quoted Taheri as saying on Thursday. Read the full story

The initial reports of a disturbance on a flight landing in Detroit were all over Twitter news feeds on Christmas: Read the full story

Cash from organized crime ‘rescued’ banks during crisis: UN official

The vast majority of an estimated $352 billion in proceeds of organized crime, mostly from the drug trade, was funneled through the global banking system during the financial crisis of the past two years, and in some cases, the money rescued banks from collapse, says the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Antonio Maria Costa told the UK Observer that intelligence agencies and prosecutors alerted him 18 months ago to evidence that drug money was being “absorbed into the financial system.”

“In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital,” Costa said. “In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”

The Observer reports:

Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, [Costa] said.

“Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities… There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.” Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.

Gangs are now believed to make most of their profits from the drugs trade and are estimated to be worth £352bn, the UN says. They have traditionally kept proceeds in cash or moved it offshore to hide it from the authorities. It is understood that evidence that drug money has flowed into banks came from officials in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and the US.

Read the complete Observer article here.

Costa has been head of the UN’s drug and crime office since 2002, and is known for his tough stance on illicit drugs, including marijuana. He recently warned that Africa is becoming a major drug hub, following an investigation into the crash of a Boeing 727 in Mali that had flown in from Venezuela carrying 10 tons of cocaine.

ARTICLE FROM The Observer:

Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor

Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions

Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations‘ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.

This will raise questions about crime’s influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. “In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor,” he said.

Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, he said.

“Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities… There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.” Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.

“That was the moment [last year] when the system was basically paralysed because of the unwillingness of banks to lend money to one another. The progressive liquidisation to the system and the progressive improvement by some banks of their share values [has meant that] the problem [of illegal money] has become much less serious than it was,” he said.

The IMF estimated that large US and European banks lost more than $1tn on toxic assets and from bad loans from January 2007 to September 2009 and more than 200 mortgage lenders went bankrupt. Many major institutions either failed, were acquired under duress, or were subject to government takeover.

Gangs are now believed to make most of their profits from the drugs trade and are estimated to be worth £352bn, the UN says. They have traditionally kept proceeds in cash or moved it offshore to hide it from the authorities. It is understood that evidence that drug money has flowed into banks came from officials in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and the US.

British bankers would want to see any evidence that Costa has to back his claims. A British Bankers’ Association spokesman said: “We have not been party to any regulatory dialogue that would support a theory of this kind. There was clearly a lack of liquidity in the system and to a large degree this was filled by the intervention of central banks.”

It is a disappearance almost worthy of Mulder and Scully. After almost 60 years investigating the UFO threat over Britain – the MoD ‘X Files’ bureau has been axed.

Earlier this week the UK Ministry of Defence quietly cut their hotline for members of the public to report UFO sightings.

And it wasn’t because no-one was calling – the line has received more than 12,000 UFO and alien reports since it was launched in 1950, including 135 last year. Read the full story

We have found video of Al Gore being confronted by a group known as We Are Change Chicago at a signing for his new book – “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis” (which has been proven to use fraudulent images via Photoshop to help his cause). Reports have surfaced that scientists involved with global warming have used fraudulent or incorrect data have added new twists to claims that global warming is caused by man and increased CO2 emissions.

What do you think?

Content from links above can be found below. Read the full story

By Kate Kelland

LONDON, Nov 18 (Reuters) – More than half of Britons being offered vaccination against pandemic H1N1 flu are turning it down because they fear side-effects or think the virus is too mild to bother, a survey of doctors showed on Wednesday.

Many of the 107 family doctors polled by Britain’s Pulse magazine said there was widespread resistance from patients and on average only 46 percent of those offered the vaccination agree to have it.

Doctors reported particular difficulties in persuading pregnant women to be vaccinated against the virus, according to Pulse, a trade newspaper for doctors. Read the full story

2009-11-12

MADRID — Spain wants EU naval forces to blockade three Somali ports used to launch pirate attacks against ships in the Indian Ocean, Defence Minister Carme Chacon said Wednesday.

She said Spain will call on European Union foreign and defence ministers to concentrate military efforts on blockading the ports at a meeting next Monday and Tuesday.

“We know that it is from these three ports that most, if not all, ‘mother ships’ used by pirates reach up to one thousand miles away from the coast — as they did yesterday — and carry out kidnappings far from the coast,” she told RNE public radio.

Chacon also said the pirate gangs “have ties to sophisticated law firms in London,” and she called for the international community to do more to track ransoms given to pirates to release hostages.

Several law firms in London, business capital of the world’s maritime industry, have handled piracy kidnap and ransom cases in recent years.

They help ship owners deal with the legal aspects of paying a ransom and engage private security contractors to negotiate with pirates and carry out the ransom drop.

Pirates on Monday launched their longest range hijack attempt to date by opening fire on the Hong Kong-flagged oil tanker BW Lion 1,000 nautical miles east of Mogadishu, the EU naval force in the region said.

The next day pirates attacked the Danish-flagged container ship Nelle Maersk, also some 1,000 nautical miles east of the Somali capital.

Both ships escaped their attackers but the incidents demonstrated how beefed-up security off the Somalia coast appears to be leading pirates to move deeper into the Indian Ocean and its shipping lanes linking Asia and Europe.

Chacon said the attacks so far from the Somalia coast were a “giant step” for the pirates who she said were becoming bolder.

The pirates usually use “mother ships” to sail hundreds of miles out to sea and then attack in small skiffs, sometimes using high-grade weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades.

“These are not romantic pirates which some may be led to imagine, they are authentic criminal organisations which are focused on kidnappings of all types merchant ships, fishing trawlers, ships belonging to the World Food Programme,” said Chacon.

The minister said Somali pirates were currently holding 12 boats and their crews hostage, including the Spanish trawler Alakrana which was seized with its 36 crew on October 2, as well as vessles from Britain, China and Malta.

The pirates are demanding four million dollars (2.6 million euros) ransom as well as the release of two suspected pirates who were detained a few days after the trawler was seized and brought to Spain to face trial.

The Spanish government has ruled out freeing the two suspects but Chacon said they could serve their sentence back in Somalia if found guilty of any crime.

A lawyer for one of the two detained suspected pirates, Javier Diaz Aparicio, told Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo he was trying to reach a plea bargain agreement with Spanish prosecutors.

In an interview with news radio Cadena Ser on Tuesday he suggested that his salary was being paid for by the interior ministry.

http://www.google.com/

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they are contacting, when, where and which websites they are visiting.

Despite widespread opposition over Britain’s growing surveillance society, 653 public bodies will be given access to the confidential information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to access the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority. Read the full story

There are 50 murders a day in South Africa, the host country of the 2010 football World Cup. And Brazil, host of both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, also suffers from extreme violence. With a view to the high-profile events, the two countries are now attempting to crack down on rampant crime — and are using ruthless tactics to do so.

An orchid, a laptop and a Bible adorn the desk of Pricilla de Oliveira Azevedo. She is wearing the blue uniform of the military police, but there is no weapon visible in her small office. Her territory is the Favela Santa Marta, a hillside slum in the heart of the southern tourist zone of the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. From the top of the hill, there is a magnificent view of Sugar Loaf Mountain, the statue of Christ the Redeemer and Copacabana beach. Read the full story

Britain’s major high street retailers are continuing to exploit workers in the developing world and some of the more upmarket chains are the worst offenders, according to new research.

Labour Behind the Label, a group campaigning against sweatshop conditions, surveyed 25 major retailers and found that not a single one paid a living wage to all workers in their supply chain. Read the full story

Iran’s military suffered a heavy blow today when a suicide bomber killed at least 29 people in the country’s volatile south-east, including several Revolutionary Guard commanders.

The victims included the guards’ commander, General Noor Ali Shooshtari, thought to be the most senior member killed in recent years.

Local media said at least 28 had been wounded in the bombing at a conference hall in Sarbaz in Sistan-Baluchistan, Iran’s poorest province, as Revolutionary Guard commanders met local tribal elders.

Conflicting reports said an undetermined number of commanders had died. Initial accounts put the number at six, but Hosein Ali Shahriari, MP for Zahedan, the provincial capital, told the semi-official news agency ILNA, that at least 20 commanders had died.

Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh, chief commander of Sistan-Baluchistan province, was also killed.It was Iran’s highest military death toll since the end of the 1980-1988 Iraq war, the conservative website Tabnak said.

Officials immediately blamed Britain and the US as rescue workers sifted through wreckage searching for survivors. “Surely foreign elements, particularly those linked to the global arrogance [regime code for America and Britain], were involved in this attack,” a guards statement read out on state TV said.

Suspicion also centred on Jundullah, a militant Sunni group that has claimed responsibility for previous bombings.

Official reports were confused. The official news agency, IRNA, reported that an attacker with explosives blew himself up. The English-language state satellite channel, Press TV, said there were two simultaneous explosions: one at the meeting and another targeting an additional convoy of guards en route to the gathering.

The blast appeared to be a direct challenge to the Revolutionary Guards.

The elite force – seen as the guardian of Iran’s Islamic revolution – took over direct responsibility for Sistan-Baluchistan’s security this year after a spate of attacks.

The province has been a centre of recent unrest after Jundallah took up arms on behalf of the local Baluchi Sunni population, which it claims suffers discrimination at the hands of Iran’s Shia rulers.

In May, the group, led by Abdulmalek Rigi, claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in Zahedan, the provincial capital, that killed 25. Iran later executed 13 members that it claimed were involved in the bombing. Iran has previously linked Jundallah to al-Qaida and claimed it was receiving American backing, something the US denies. Other sources have linked the organisation to the Taliban in Pakistan.

The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, condemned today’s attack, claiming it was aimed at disrupting security in south-east Iran.

“The intention of the terrorists was definitely to disrupt security in Sistan-Baluchistan province,” Larijani told an open session of parliament broadcast live on state radio.

Jundullah has carried out bombings, kidnappings and other attacks against Iranian soldiers and other forces in recent years, including a car bombing in February 2007 that killed 11 members of the Revolutionary Guard near Zahedan.

Jundullah also claimed responsibility for the December 2006 kidnapping of seven Iranian soldiers in the Zahedan area. It threatened to kill them unless members of the group in Iranian prisons were released. The soldiers were released a month later, apparently after talks through tribal mediators.

In March 2006, 22 provincial officials were shot in cold blood on an isolated road between Zabol and Zahedan after being ambushed by alleged Jundullah gunmen.

Sistan-Baluchistan, which is Iran’s most notoriously lawless province, lies on a major drug transit run from Afghanistan. Nearly 4,000 Iranian security officers are believed to have been killed in clashes with smugglers since 1979.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

New world economic order takes shape at G20

By Lesley Wroughton

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) – The Group of 20 is set to become the premier coordinating body on global economic issues, reflecting a new world economic order in which emerging market countries like China are much more relevant, according to a draft communique. Read the full story

Read the full story

Walkout over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Zionist rant

FRANCE today led a walkout of delegations, including Australia, to protest a fiery speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the UN General Assembly. Read the full story

The State Department said it would meet one-to-one with Pyongyang negotiators in an effort to persuade the reclusive Stalinist state to return to multilateral talks on dismantling its nuclear weapons programme.

Washington has also accepted a vague Iranian offer of talks on broad national security issues, even though Tehran refused to discuss its illicit atomic operations.

Read the full story

Everyone now knows that processed and fast foods are not the bastions of nutrition, but that shouldn’t make these ingredients found inside them any less revolting. This list sends a clear message: when a packaged food contains more than five ingredients and includes some that are difficult to pronounce, stay away. Make a b-line straight to the organics aisle.

Fertilizer in Subway Sandwich Rolls

While chemical fertilizers inevitably make it into our produce in trace amounts, you would not expect it to be a common food additive. However, ammonium sulfate can be found inside many brands of bread, including Subway’s. The chemical provides nitrogen for the yeast, creating a more consistent product.

Beaver Anal Glands in Raspberry Candy

The anal glands of a beaver, conveniently euphemized as castoreum, are a common ingredient in perfumes and colognes but are also sometimes used to — believe it or not — enhance the flavor of raspberry candies and sweets.

Beef Fat in All Hostess Products

While this may not bother the most ardent omnivore, others are shocked to discover that their favorite childhood treats contain straight-up beef fat. The ingredient comes included a list of other oils that may or may not be used, so it is always a gamble!

Crushed Bugs as Red Food Coloring

After killing thousands at a time, the dried insects are boiled to produce a liquid solution that can be turned to a dye using a variety of treatments. Some people worry that the coloring — often called carmine or carminic acid — could be listed as a “natural color,” disguising the fact that there are bugs in the product.

Beetle Juice in Sprinkles and Candies

You know that shiny coating on candies like Skittles? Or the sprinkles on cupcakes and ice cream sundaes? Well, they get that glaze from the secretions of the female lac beetle. The substance is also known as shellac and commonly used as a wood varnish.

Sheep Secretions in Bubble Gum

The oils inside sheep’s wool are collected to create the goopy substance called lanolin. From there, it ends up in chewing gum (sometimes under the guise of “gum base”), but also is used to create vitamin D3 supplements.

Human Hair and/or Duck Feathers in Bread

What’s in your morning bagel? If you get it from Noah’s Bagels, it contains either human hair or duck feathers, and it’s your guess as to which. The substance, called L-cysteine or cystine, is used as a dough conditioner to produce a specific consistency. While artificial cysteine is available, it is cost prohibitive and mostly used to create kosher and halal products.

Coal Tar in Red-Colored Candy

Coal tar is listed as number 199 on the United Nations list of “dangerous goods,” but that doesn’t stop people from using it in food. The coloring Allura Red AC is derived from coal tar and is commonly found in red-colored candies, sodas and other sweets.

Calf Stomach in Many Cheeses

In the UK, all cheeses are labeled as either suitable or not suitable for vegetarians because in Britain — and everywhere else — many cheeses are made using rennet, which is the fourth stomach of a young cow. In the United States and most other countries, people are left to guess about the stomach-content of their cheese.

Sand in Wendy’s Chili

Sand is hidden in Wendy’s chili as a name you might remember from high school chemistry class: silicon dioxide. Apparently they use sand as an “anti-caking agent,” perhaps to make sure the chili can last for days and days over a heater.

http://webecoist.com/

Britain is facing ‘a new horror’ from a flesh eating superbug which killed a father just within four hours of him arriving in hospital with leg pains.

Richard Johnson, 54, had been given painkillers for what doctors thought was arthritis.

But when it was realized that he had the infection necrotising fasciitis surgeons amputated his left leg in a bid to save him. Read the full story