http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16763954

The BBC has seen more evidence of the extent to which the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has lost control of sections of the poor suburbs of Damascus.

We had no luck following Arab League observers. They drove round a middle class, largely Christian and largely pro-Assad neighbourhood in the centre of the capital, without stopping, before returning to their hotel with their escort of regime security men.

So a convoy of journalists, without regime minders, went alone to Saqba, a poor district about 20 minutes from central Damascus – where a funeral was due to take place of a man killed by the Assad regime’s forces.

Once we left the centre we saw no regime security men. Then on the edge of Saqba we came upon several dozen armed and masked fighters from the Free Syria Army (FSA).

An older man – who said he had been a general in the Syrian army – was in charge.

He wasn’t masked, had a stubbly, scarred face and was carrying a hand grenade.

His men had sandbagged positions, and said they were protecting the local people.

They took us deeper into Saqba where several thousand local men had gathered, marching through the streets and chanting anti-regime slogans, some calling for President Assad’s execution.

They processed the body of the dead man on an open stretcher.

It’s clear that the regime forces, when they deploy enough men, can enter the rebellious suburbs of Damascus.

But they do not appear to have the force to hold them.

It is equally clear that the only way the president can enforce his authority in Saqba, and other suburbs of the city, is through the barrel of a gun.

His regime faces opposition in the capital that is increasingly armed and organised.

This does not mean that the president is about to fall. He has his own hardcore support, based on minority communities – his own Alawites, Christians, some Druze and Kurds, and also well-off Sunnis.

Mr Assad also has well-armed forces – in and out of uniform.

It looks as if Syria faces more blood and more bitterness.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6396abc0-4a5d-11e1-a11e-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1ktc1bkQe

Syrian troops battled for control of some Damascus suburbs as Arab and western diplomats intensified their efforts to secure a United Nations Security Council resolution calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step aside.

Activists said that at least 99 civilians had been killed across the country since Thursday as the regime sought to regain areas where armed rebels have established a presence. Meanwhile, authorities said six soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in the suburbs alone.

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its now the FSA backed by all the “good” guys versus assad and his “bad” guys..the “rebels” got very close to damascus but were pushed back in the last 2 days..UN resolutions will fail along russian and chinese lines..whats next?

401

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-report-that-will-blow-up-the-eurozone-2012-1

No, I’m not talking about the fact that Germany and Holland want to take over as the de facto government in Greece, as Noah Barkin writes for Reuters (that they want to do it through Brussels is a mere technicality).

Max Julius of Citywire.uk did a piece on the report, without mentioning it directly, 10 days ago:

Why Germans and Dutch will exit ‘suicide pact’ eurozone

Germany and the Netherlands are likely to quit the eurozone rather than swallow an indefinite number of ‘unrequited transfers’ to the union’s crisis-stricken nations, according to Charles Dumas, chief economist at Lombard Street Research.

Speaking at an event in central London, he said that before joining the single currency, German incomes had stayed level but their purchasing power had increased as the Deutschmark appreciated. With the weaker euro, the economist said, they have seen ‘tremendous’ wage restraint, leading to huge growth in German firms’ market share but ‘no serious growth of the economy’ and a squeeze on disposable incomes. Meanwhile, consumption rose elsewhere in the eurozone, he said.

‘So what you’re actually dealing with here… is a German population which has had a rotten deal – and that’s why they’re all so angry’ noted Dumas, who is also chairman of the macroeconomic forecasting consultancy. Branding the monetary union a ‘suicide pact’, he continued: ‘So what this exercise in uniting Europe has achieved is to divide Europe.’

Dumas [noted that] the ‘Club Med’ nations needed about 5% of gross domestic product in annual debt refinancing ‘more or less indefinitely’.

This would amount to €150 billion a year, of which Germany would have to stump up just over €60 billion, France a little under €50 billion and €15 billion from the Netherlands, he said. And this would be on top of the shortfall in consumer spending, in addition to the fact that wages and consumption may have to be held down in the future, Dumas warned.

Ilargi: This morning, Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad cited Dumas as saying these numbers are “cautious estimates”. They are valid only if Greece and Portugal would leave the Eurozone in 2012 – which Dumas expects will happen -. If they don’t, the payments will be even higher.

He predicts the costs of a return to the guilder will be much less than for instance the Dutch government’s Central Planning Bureau claims, which warns of huge losses if Holland were to leave the Euro.

Continue here: http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2012/01/report-that-will-blow-up-eurozone.html#ixzz1ktPPkw4S

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lots of information to digest here..the key part is that germany may dump the eurozone..and that would blow up the EU..have no doubts..and a reader, mariorules, told us this over a year ago..

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http://www.merrittnews.net/article/20120124/MERRITT0101/120129916/-1/MERRITT/thursday-was-coldest-day-of-the-year-globally-since-2002

Bitter cold winter weather broke some records last week in Merritt and around the world.

The thermometer’s Jan. 18 reading of a high of -21 degrees in Merritt was the coldest Jan. 18 since Environment Canada began recording temperatures in 1968. An arctic front plunged the Nicola Valley and much of the province into a deep freeze last week, with Environment Canada issuing extreme wind chill alerts that brought temperatures down between -35 and -45.

The following day, Jan. 19, the AMSU satellite of 251.858K recorded the coldest day of the year globally since 2002, based on the daily global average temperature.

Things warmed up considerably in the valley by the weekend with temperatures hovering just below and above zero.

Environment Canada forecasts mild temperatures throughout the week and this weekend with highs and lows between -5 and 7 degrees.

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get this in your heads..the world is not warming up..they can place their weather stations closer to cities and near warmer city environments but you wont fool all of us..more on this tomorrow..

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http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/01/the_strange_dea.php

We were stunned when Debrah Kitchings said it: in the 26 years since she investigated the odd death of Mary Florence “Flo” Barnett for the Los Angeles County Coroner, she has not once been asked by a reporter about what she remembers of the case.

Only once in that time, she says, was she ever asked about it at all.

“I think her daughter or a relative sent a letter, an inquiry, I think,” Kitchings says.

Today, Kitchings is retired and lives in Riverside County, California, but in 1985, she was an investigator with the LA Department of Coroner when, on the night of September 8, she was called to Dominguez Valley Hospital in Compton to conduct a gunshot residue test on the hands of the dead woman.

Despite the passage of time, Kitchings remembers the case well. And she suspects that there’s a reason I’m interested in this one death out of the many she handled over her career.

“It has something to do with Scientology, right?”

Continue here: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/01/the_strange_dea.php

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this is really worth a read..how miscaviges wife managed to shoot herself 3 times in the chest with a rifle and then have enough strength to fire another shot off into her head..must be wonderwoman..

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16771939

Inappropriate spending cuts could “strangle” growth prospects, the head of the IMF has warned.

Austerity programmes must be tailored to each economy, Christine Lagarde said, and not be “across the board”.

The International Monetary Fund has been one of those stressing the need for countries to cut their debts, but some fear this could hit growth.

The correct response to the eurozone debt crisis has been a major debate at World Economic Forum in Davos.

“We are not suggesting there should be fiscal consolidation across the board,” Ms Lagarde stressed.

“Some countries have to go full-speed ahead to do this fiscal consolidation, but other countries have space and room. They should explore what to do… in order to help themselves.

“It has to be tailor-made.”

One of those expressing concerns about the possible implications of fiscal consolidation at the gathering at the Swiss ski resort was US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

He told the annual meeting of political and business leaders on Friday that there was a risk of a recessionary “cycle” from austerity measures.

“There is a risk that every disappointment in growth will be met with an austerity that will feed the decline, and that is a cycle you have to arrest to solve financial crises,” Mr Geithner said.

Crisis-hit countries such as Greece and Spain are implementing deep government spending cuts and raising taxes in order to try to bring down their deficits.

“For parts of Europe for a long time, there will be no alternative to very substantial adjustment in budget deficits,” Mr Geithner said.

He is one of a number of leaders who have said this week that the deficit-cutting measures have been an important step in addressing the eurozone debt crisis.

Ms Lagarde echoed those on Saturday: “There is work under way. There is progress, as we see it,”

But some see these policies as potentially very damaging. Financier George Soros told the BBC that the fiscal cuts, which Germany supports, could even lead to a “lost decade” of economic stagnation in Europe.

“This German insistence on austerity could destroy the European Union,” he said. “This is reality, this is the harsh reality that we need to face.

“It is not written in stone, the future is not predetermined. We determine the future, so it would be well within the possibilities of the authorities to change it.”

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christine and her bag..

so let me get this right..they tell europe to stop spending and reign in debt..and then in the same breath they say you cant have to much austerity..i am no economist but please..WTF?

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http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/world/space-experts-ground-gingrich-moon-plan/story-e6frea8l-1226255247516

REPUBLICAN presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has stirred strong passions by claiming he will establish a permanent moon base by 2020 if elected, but experts say he is living on another planet.

The basic idea is not actually as far-fetched as it sounds. NASA in 2006 announced plans to set up a colony on the south pole of the moon, in around 2020, as a base for further manned exploration of the solar system.

The problem for Gingrich, a space enthusiast with ideas dating back decades for zero-gravity honeymoons and lunar greenhouses, is that the 2008 financial crisis came along and turned feasible projects into pipe dreams.

“A lunar base by 2020 is a total fantasy,” John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, told AFP.

“We got to the moon in the 1960s by spending over four per cent of the federal budget on Apollo. NASA’s now at one-tenth of that level.”

During boom-time, President George W Bush called for a return to the moon, followed by Mars expeditions, and NASA drew up plans called Constellation to meet these goals and replace the shuttle fleet when it retired.

But President Barack Obama scrapped Constellation in 2010, saying the plans were “over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation”. The once-proud shuttle fleet now lies mothballed.

American astronauts now have to rely on Russian spacecraft to get to the International Space Station.

Against this depressed backdrop, Gingrich has left himself open to the charge that his grandiose vision for human spaceflight is simply an attempt to pander to vulnerable voters.

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American,” he told supporters at a Florida rally.

Never one to shy away from bold statements, Gingrich compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, John F Kennedy, and the Wright Brothers, boasting: “I accept the charge that I am an American and Americans are instinctively grandiose.”

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oh newt..come on now..you been stealing barrys coke?

it

wont

happen

k?

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http://rt.com/news/anonymous-mexico-sopa-acta-941/

Online hacktivist group Anonymous has blocked access to Mexican Senate and Interior Ministry websites. The attack is a protest against a proposed law that will see those who violate copyright online fined one million pesos (over $100,000).

The proposal, from conservative senator Federico Doring, is widely seen as the Mexican version of the SOPA/ PIPA bills, denounced by Wikipedia and other web giants, as well as by the internet community at large, as a threat to internet freedom.

Google, YouTube, Yahoo, AOL and many others have likened the bills to China-style censorship. The deals were supposedly created to protect copyrighted material, but most believe they would cripple the internet, effectively killing all websites allowing user-uploaded content, endangering potential whistleblowers and severely damaging online freedom of speech.

The controversial bills have been shelved indefinitely by the US Congress after the wave of protests and blacking outof popular websites such as Wikipedia, to get the point across.

Despite the victory of internet users in the SOPA/PIPA case, however, other battles rage on. Another controversial treaty – ACTA, an international agreement aimed at protecting intellectual property – sparked mass protests in Poland after its signing by the country.

Anonymous has already targeted official websites in the countries that have signed ACTA. They struck the Polish, French and Czech government websites, as well as the sites of the Irish ministries of justice and finance, the European Parliament, Ireland’s Innovation Minister Sean Sherlock and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

The proposed Mexican law is the new target for Anonymous, who seem ready to tackle any organization or government on the planet that threatens internet freedom and free speech. Anonymous claimed responsibility for the attacks on Mexican websites on their Spanish Twitter account Friday.

Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire told a news conference that the ministry’s site had been blocked late morning. It lasted for a little less than five minutes, the site was not compromised and officials were investigating, Poire said.

Doring said in his Twitter feed that Anonymous have the right to show they are against his proposal, but do not have the right to attack websites. He also insisted that the proposal “does not contemplate any criminal punishment” and would not sanction users of social networks because they do not make a profit.

This is not the first time the elusive internet collective is operating on Mexican online turf. Last October, Anonymousthreatened to publish information on drug cartels in the country, with the main focus on Los Zetas (one of the most powerful and violent drug cartels) and those, who have been collaborating with the cartels, such as police officers and taxi drivers.

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once again..if they are targetting ACTA supporters then they have  friend in me..more power to them as they go down this path..

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204573704577185591620344190.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

A maker of rechargeable car batteries that was using a $118.5 million Energy Department grant to build a factory in Indiana filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday, becoming the latest green-energy company backed by the Obama administration to run into trouble.

Ener1 Inc. said its prepackaged bankruptcy filing will enable the company to receive a new infusion of capital and keep its operations going. Ener1 reached a deal with lenders to cut its $91 million debt in half and said it would receive $81 million in new funds, mostly from Bzinfin S.A., a company backed by Russian businessman Boris Zingarevich.

A subsidiary of Ener1 called EnerDel Inc. employs 275 workers outside Indianapolis and is going forward with building its battery plant, Ener1 said. The subsidiary isn’t in bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy filing is the latest embarrassment for the clean-energy program included in President Barack Obama’s 2009 economic-stimulus package. Last September, Solyndra LLC, a California solar-panel maker, declared bankruptcy and shut down, leaving taxpayers with losses on the $527 million in government loans the company had received. A smaller company that was developing electric-grid technology with U.S. support also filed for bankruptcy protection last fall.

The Solyndra bankruptcy has triggered months of investigations by Republicans in Congress, with lawmakers questioning whether the company got favors because one of its main backers was a foundation led by a donor to Mr. Obama’s campaign.

The Obama administration has denied giving Solyndra special treatment and said the loan was made on the merits. It has said failures are to be expected in the still-emerging clean-energy industry.

Mr. Obama defended his efforts in Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, specifically mentioning batteries.

“In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries,” he said. “Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled, and thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.”

Rep. Cliff Stearns, (R., Fla.), who has led the Solyndra investigation, said the Ener1 bankruptcy showed the failure of the president’s agenda. “One bankruptcy may be a fluke, two could be coincidence, but three is a trend,” Mr. Stearns said. “The Department of Energy’s jobs record seems to grow worse by the day … and it is American taxpayers who are paying the price.”

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another month, another failed green venture..costing a couple of hundred million only..thats not to bad…its not their money so why should they care..its your money!

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16738209

The FBI is seeking to develop an early-warning system based on material “scraped” from social networks.

It says the application should provideinformation about possible domestic and global threats superimposed onto maps “using mash-up technology”.

The bureau has asked contractors to suggest possible solutions including the estimated cost.

Privacy campaigners say they are concerned that the move could have implications for free speech.

The FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) posted its “Social Media Application” market research request onto the web on 19 January, and it was subsequently flagged up by New Scientist magazine.

The document says: “Social media has become a primary source of intelligence because it has become the premier first response to key events and the primal alert to possible developing situations.”

It says the application should collect “open source” information and have the ability to:

• Provide an automated search and scrape capability of social networks including Facebook and Twitter.
• Allow users to create new keyword searches.
• Display different levels of threats as alerts on maps, possibly using colour coding to distinguish priority. Google Maps 3D and Yahoo Maps are listed among the “preferred” mapping options.
• Plot a wide range of domestic and global terror data.
• Immediately translate foreign language tweets into English.

The FBI says the information would be used to help it to predict the likely actions of “bad actors”, detect instances of people deliberately misleading law enforcement officers and spot the vulnerabilities of suspect groups.

http://rt.com/news/fbi-social-networks-privacy-781/

The FBI has got tired of monitoring social media sites manually and wants to reinvent the process. So, soon your posts may instantly light up on a map as a big red dot if considered suspicious, marking the location of the ‘bad actor.’

“Social media has become a primary source of intelligence because it has become the premier first response to key events and the primal alert to possible developing situations,” says the Request for Information published by FBI on January 19.

The FBI’s ‘market research’ shows that the bureau is planning to monitor all ‘publicly available’ data on social media sites through a new game-changing system.

The bureau is looking for a company which is interested in and capable of building such a system and has published a list of requirements for it.

The enquiry says that the system should provide an automated search and scrape capability of both social networking sites and open source news sites for breaking events, crises, and threats that meet the search parameters defined by the FBI.

It should also be capable of automated filtering of the data and of providing the operator with instant notification of breaking events and emerging threats.

The FBI places strong emphasis on the fact that the system should access only ‘publicly available’ data, taking every occurrence of this phrase in quotes throughout the whole document.

But most people do not realize that the data they are sharing with their friends on social networking sites is in fact publicly available.

The average user believes that only a narrow circle of close friends and relatives are reading his or her blog, and this gives them “the sense of freedom to say what they want without worrying too much about recourse,” says Jennifer Lynch at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as cited by newscientist.com. “But these tools that mine open source data and presumably store it for a very long time do away with that kind of privacy. I worry about the effect of that on free speech in the US.”

All the collected data will be stored in the FBI database and conveniently displayed on a map upon request (by the way, FBI prefers Google, ESRI, and Yahoo maps to any other service). Of course the functionality of the map will be increased beyond the limits set for the common user.

The interactive map will have additional layers, such as US domestic and worldwide terror data, US embassies and military installations around the world, weather conditions and forecasts, and video feeds from surveillance and traffic cameras.

The revelation of the FBI’s ‘market research’ raises even more concerns about the aspects of private data safety on the Internet, as more and more data about the users is being collected and stored – for different reasons – in numerous databases around the globe.

Collecting the information in not a challenge anymore, but analyzing the data is. But there are companies, for example Google, which can crack such a problem.

Recently Google announced plans to bring all data collected from users’ separate accounts on its sites into a combined profile. Google is seeking ways of creating a simpler product experience and providing better services to its clients. But that move has triggered a lot of outrage and raised more questions about privacy on the Internet.

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“The FBI’s ‘market research’ shows that the bureau is planning to monitor all ‘publicly available’ data on social media sites through a new game-changing system”

the obsessive need to track information and see exactly what we are all doing is out of control..it borders on paranoia..the cat is really out the bag..

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/gov-rick-perry-texas-coul_n_187490.html

Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax “tea party” Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states’ rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, “Secede!”

An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall — one of three tea parties he was attending across the state — that officials in Washington have abandoned the country’s founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt.

Perry repeated his running theme that Texas’ economy is in relatively good shape compared with other states and with the “federal budget mess.” Many in the crowd held signs deriding President Barack Obama and the $786 billion federal economic stimulus package.

Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters’ questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

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the name of this video game maybe incorrect..but the message isnt..its the break up of the USA..and its nots as far fetched as you think..

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16712239

The Zetas cartel has become the biggest drug gang in Mexico, overtaking its bitter rival, the Sinaloa cartel, a new report suggests.

The report by US security firm Stratfor says the Zetas now operate in more than half of all Mexican states.

Stratfor says the Zetas’ brutal violence seems to have given the gang an advantage over the Sinaloa cartel, which prefers to bribe people.

Since 2007, 47,500 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico.

The report says that drug-related violence in Mexico has persisted, despite the government’s efforts to fight the cartels.

According to the study, most smaller drug gangs have been subsumed by either the Zetas or the Sinaloa cartel, turning the two groups into the predominant criminal forces in Mexico.

The Zetas control much of eastern Mexico, while the Sinaloa cartel has its stronghold in the west of the country.

The authors also point out their differences in strategy.

They say that the Zetas whose leadership is composed of ex-special operations soldiers, resort to extreme violence.

The Sinaloa cartel, although also ruthless, prefers to bribe and corrupt people, as well as providing intelligence on rivals to the authorities.

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note “since 2007″..that would be when the guns started arriving..via the USA..

401

———-

that was my week..a few highlights including the new egyptian parliament and bieber flashing the horns, why does marilyn have a blood cross over here? and of course my favorite event of the week..JuLiar getting rolled on australia day..enjoy..

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http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Science+and+Tech/Story/A1Story20120123-323459.html

The Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry wants to collect audio recordings of the purported strange noises in the sky heard by residents of Kota Samarahan, Sarawak.

In a Sinar Harian report, Deputy Minister Datuk Fadillah Yusuf said the ministry was collecting as much “evidence” as possible on the bizarre happening so it could submit its report to the National Space Agency (Angkasa) for further investigation.

“This incident is no laughing matter. We hope those who have audio or video recordings of the noises can come forward so we can investigate,” said Fadillah, adding that any evidence can be sent to the Petrajaya parliamentary service centre in Jalan Astana, Kuching.

Residents of Kota Samarahan claimed to have heard noises resembling “loud snorings” in the wee hours of Jan 11 and Jan 12, triggering speculations and apocalyptic theories among the fascinated.

The daily reported that residents in Budapest, Hungary and Conklin, Canada had also heard similar peculiar noises in the sky on the same dates.

The daily also quoted international reports saying the strange noises heard globally could have originated from the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) programme, an ionospheric research programme based in Gakona, Alaska in the United States.

***

Strange Sounds Map

http://seektress.com/ssounds.htm

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the link above has all the information..all over the world people are hearing strange noises..i have done a post now because a government has recognised this and wants answers..like we do..

401

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/piracy/9041774/US-Navy-Seals-rescued-American-hostages-from-Somalia-why-wont-Britain-do-the-same.html

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4180692,00.html

Jordan’s King Abdullah alluded to a possible deterioration in Amman’s relationship with Jerusalem if unless Benjamin Netanyahu‘s government to “make significant concessions which will allow the Palestinian leadership to justify their return to the negotiating table.”

The papers sources said that the king has “three aces up his sleeves,” which he may choose to use of Israel proves “suborn,” including the possible reduction or suspension of the diplomatic ties between Israel and Iran.

Thursday will make the Quartet’s dealing to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, by which both parties were supposed to present their updated positions on security and the issue of borders.

Chief Israeli and Palestinian negotiators Yitzhak Molcho and Saeb Erekat will meet later Wednesday, in what Palestinian sources said is likely to be the last round of Mahmoud Abbas that Jordan should be give a chance to broker the Israeli-Palestinian talks.

According to the Maan news agency, Abbas “Refuses and will continue to refuse to prolong the talks… He sees today’s meeting as the last chance to broker an agreement that will allow the preliminary talks to continue and eventually mature into full-fledge negotiations.”

Abbas, the sources added, is poised to declare that the Amman talks have failed.

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we hadnt heard a lot from jordan..but we do now..taking a side?..favorite enemies..dont be fooled..

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http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120126/170955410.html

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told a bold student at Moscow State University who asked him a challenging question that he is ready to defend his ideals to the bitter end.

Medvedev met with journalism students at the university on Wednesday, and a student asked him: “A serious revolutionary situation is brewing up in the country… What will be your personal behavior strategy during a revolution?”

“Are you ready to stand a popular trial and defend each of your decisions and ideals?” the student, who said his name was Vladimir Kulikov, asked. “Do you realize that you may even be sentenced to death? Are you ready to accept it bravely and clearly, like Saddam Hussein did, or will you emigrate to friendly North Korea?”

Medvedev said: “You have probably asked the boldest question in your life. I congratulate you on that… I will answer you extremely honestly. Any person elected to the presidential post must be prepared for everything, and I am also ready for everything.”

The president said that despite various predictions on the nearest future of Russia and the March elections, the issue of a revolution is out of the question.

“I do not want the events in our country to develop in line with a revolutionary or any other extreme scenario and, to tell you the truth, I do not see enough prerequisites for this,” he said.

The persistent student then once again asked the president whether he was prepared to die for his ideals.

“If you need a clear answer – of course I am ready to die for my ideals,” Medvedev said.

“By the way, ideals are not only the Constitution and a set of elevated values, they also include the family, children and all the rest. These are also values for which we all should be prepared to suffer proceeding from various considerations,” he said.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin-led United Russia party won the December 4 parliamentary elections in Russia but critics claimed the vote had been skewed in favor of United Russia. The authorities admitted that minor violations had occurred during the vote, but denied claims that the irregularities affected the vote’s results.

Vote rigging allegations led to the largest anti-government protests for almost two decades, with demonstrators demanding a rerun and the dismissal of election chief Vladimir Churov.

Putin served two terms as Russia’s president between 2000 and 2008, but was barred from standing for a third consecutive term by the Constitution. He became prime minister after his handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, became president.

Putin is considered the most likely candidate to win the presidential election on March 4. However, analysts say his declining popularity could see him forced into a runoff. Medvedev, who decided against running in this year’s presidential elections, said on Wednesday he might run again in the future.

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brave words..i wonder if he would be that brave running AGAINST putin..

401

ACTA is one more offensive against the sharing of culture on the Internet. ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is an agreement secretly negotiated by a small “club” of like-minded countries (39 countries, including the 27 of the European Union, the United States, Japan, etc). Negotiated instead of being democratically debated, ACTA bypasses parliaments and international organizations to dictate a repressive logic dictated by the entertainment industries.

ACTA would impose new criminal sanctions forcing Internet actors to monitor and censor online communications. It is thus a major threat to freedom of expression online and creates legal uncertainty for Internet companies. In the name of trademarks and patents, it would also hamper access to generic medicines in poor countries.

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the mother of SOPA is already here..and its worse..and its been signed by most western countries already..undercover of darkness..the net will be finished as an open source..they myriad of ways you can be caught up in copyright violations is staggering..reminds me of  an ayn rand quote..her quote about men becoming criminals..they will make so many rules it will be impossible to be legal and live legal..

401

————

got linked to this by another reader..ever wondered how the ancients from all over the world drew the same pictures?..what were they seeing that the whole world could see?..this sort of history really interests me..wether you believe the theories or not its very interesting..”points of agreement” is what we need to focus on..because in there is the truth..

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http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2012-01-25/chart-of-day-baltic-dry-shipping-rates-fall

Statistics from the Office of National Statistics this morning showed that the UK went into reverse in the last quarter of 2011, when the economy shrank by 0.2% – but as the Baltic Dry Index shows, the global economy is looking even more worrying.

The index – often used as a proxy for the health of the global economy as it reflects the prices charged for shipping commodities such as metals, coal or grain around the world – has fallen by 61% since October.

The index was at 842 at yesterday’s close – down from its 12-month high of 2173 last October.

Nick Bullman, managing partner at risk consultant Check Risks, said the index is a good way of looking at the risks to the global economy, “as it tends to be where they hit first”.

According to Bullman, its initial collapse in October was driven primarily by a fall-off in demand from China, where declining housing prices pushed purchasing managers to cut back on orders for the raw materials whose transport the Baltic Dry Index reflects.

He said: “This collapse looks similar to the falls we saw in the Baltic Dry ahead of the recessions of the late 1970s and early 1990s – but this drop is actually steeper.”

Bullman added that it was also a more direct indicator of global economic health than government-produced statistics. “Personally, I’m not interested in employment data and GDP figures because they’re manipulated,” he said.

“US unemployment is in high double digits at moment, not 9% – the way the US government collates the data means the long-term unemployed just fall out of the numbers.”

However, using the Baltic Dry as an indicator of global economic health is complicated by the fact that prices also fall when new ships come into service. Shipping firms have been expanding their fleet in response to rising Chinese demand for imported commodities in recent years.

But Bullman said that shipping companies have also been deliberately slowing down their journeys to save fuel, with trips from China to the US going now taking around 50% longer than they were early in 2011.

Instead, he said he was surprised by how long the Baltic Dry took to fall. The NewContex index – an indicator of prices for transporting products in container ships – started falling in April last year.

Bullman said: “When we saw that happening in April, we realised that risks had returned to pre-2008 levels. We thought the Baltic Dry would start falling too, but it was actually relatively resilient.”

“What this is signalling is that the world economy is slowing down much more quickly than people have been thinking.”

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one of the most important graphs you can see..its usually ahead of the trend and the trend is down..quickly and fast..but dont listen to me..i am just a conspiracy nut..

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/19/warren-buffett-jay-z-diamond_n_1216458.html#s623655&title=Grand_ReOpening_Of

Most may not associate the words “Warren Buffett” and “rage” too closely, but last night the Oracle of Omaha did exactly that.

The famed investor joined other huge names like Ashanti, Russell Simmons and Spike Lee last night at there-opening of his pal Jay Z’s Manhattan club 40/40. At the party, the 81-year-old, best known for his financial savvy, rocked Jay Z’s diamond sign.

This isn’t the first time that the two super rich men have been spotted together. Jay-Z made an appearance inan episode of Buffett’s “Secret Millionaires Club,” an animated series about a group of youngsters led by Buffett as they tackle financial emergencies. In the video, the husband of Beyonce and father of Blue Ivy Carter schools the kids on giving back.

The two also appeared together in an interview with Forbes in 2010 where they discussed the secrets of their success. Both touched on the value in having a wealth of experience and trusting their gut.

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seriously..you sill old bastard..jay-z is playing you like he plays everyone..remember jay-z wanted to make t-shirts for the OWS?..a real 99%er this guy..

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