Japan's Chernobyl? Radiation pressure fears at Fukushima plant

Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing
Director Akio Komiri weeps as Japanese officials
finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough
to kill people. (Mar 18, 2011)

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PJ Crowley: Bradley Manning's treatment by US 'stupid'

BBC News, 11 March 2011

Wikileaks Revelations

• Q&A: Arrest of Wikileaks' founder
• Cables at a glance
• Wikileaks activists go analogue
• A world after Wikileaks

The US treatment of the man accused of leaking secret cables to Wikileaks, is "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid", US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley has said.

Private First Class Manning is being held
in solitary confinement in a military brig

Mr Crowley made the remarks about Bradley Manning to an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Nonetheless Bradley Manning is in the right place," Mr Crowley said.

Private Manning is being held in solitary confinement at a maximum security US military jail.

He is shackled at all times and has been on suicide watch at the Quantico marine base in Virginia.

Mr Crowley was asked whether his comments were on the record and replied, "sure".

He could not immediately be reached on Friday to clarify whether he was speaking in a purely personal capacity at MIT or representing the view of the US State Department.

'Elephant in room'

Philippa Thomas, a BBC journalist on a student fellowship in Boston, was among about two dozen people gathered to hear Mr Crowley talk about "the benefits of new media as it relates to foreign policy", at an event organised by the Center for Future Civic Media.

After a wide ranging discussion, one young man said he wanted to address "the elephant in the room" and asked Mr Crowley what he thought about Wikileaks and in his words "torturing a prisoner in a military brig"?

Mr Crowley did not address the issue of torture, but replied that what was being done to Pte Manning by colleagues at the Department of Defence was "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid".

"None the less Bradley Manning is in the right place," he added, going on to say that in Washington's view "there is sometimes a need for secrets… for diplomatic progress to be made".

Stripped

Amnesty International has described the treatment of Pte Manning, whose mother is Welsh, as "harsh and putative" and has called on the British government to intervene.

In a letter released by his lawyers, Pte Manning claims he is routinely stripped to his underwear each night and his prescription glasses are confiscated, leaving him with limited vision.

Military officials have said this is standard procedure for people deemed a suicide risk.

Pte Manning has been charged on 34 counts, including illegally obtaining 250,000 secret US government cables and 380,000 records related to the Iraq war from a military database.

He has also been charged with aiding the enemy, a capital offence, but prosecutors have said they will not seek the death penalty.

State Department's P.J. Crowley stepping down

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Four former U.S. Bell City officials ordered to stand trial on corruption charges

English.news.cn 2011-03-11

LOS ANGELES, March 10 (Xinhua) -- A judge in the U.S. state of California on Thursday ordered four former officials of a local city to stand trial on charges of misappropriating millions of dollars from public coffers through lofty salaries and loans of taxpayer money.

Former Bell City chief administrator Robert Rizzo is charged with more than 50 felony counts of misappropriation of public funds, conflict of interest and falsification of documents. He also is charged in a separate case with two counts of misappropriation of public funds.

His former top assistant, Angela Spaccia, is charged with four counts of misappropriation of public funds.

Former mayor Oscar Hernandez and former councilman Luis Artiga were also ordered to stand trial on various charges.

The four will be arraigned on March 24.

The ruling was given by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Henry J. Hall after roughly three weeks of preliminary hearing.

The third and final preliminary hearing in the case will begin next week.

Rizzo and seven other former Bell officials were arrested last September as a result of a corruption and salary scandal that has rocked the working-class city in suburban Los Angeles.

With a small population of about 38,000, Bell City found itself in the national spotlight when local media reported in July that some top city officials were making exorbitant salaries. Rizzo was paid an annual salary of 787,637 dollars, and Spaccia, 376,000.

Additionally, Hernandez, Artiga and other two of the city's four council members -- Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal -- were being paid 97,000 for their part-time jobs.

It's also been reported that the disgraced officials are eligible for huge pensions; that some had taken out questionable loans from the city; that residents' property tax rates were unlawfully high; and that the city also overcharged them for sewer service.

Editor: yan

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Biden pitches democracy with Russia's rights activists

RT, 10 March, 2011

US Vice President Joe Biden (right) speaks to Russian human
right's activist Lyudmila Alekseeva (second right) as he meets
with Russian Civil Society leaders in Moscow, March 10, 2011

US Vice President Joe Biden has stated that America is interested in the development of democracy in Russia. On Thursday, he met with Russian human rights activists and NGOs’ representatives in Moscow.

“Biden said that the issue of human rights and democracy is crucial for the US and they keep stressing it,” Moscow Helsinki Group chairperson Lyudmila Alekseeva told Interfax after the meeting.

The upcoming 2011 parliamentary and 2012 presidential elections were also among the topics raised. Alekseeva noted that human rights activists pointed out that it was important that the voting be fair. “It refers not only to the election day, but also to the registration of parties and their participation in election debates,” she said.

The format of the meeting was rather unusual, Russia’s Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin observed. Instead of the traditional round-table discussions, Biden spoke with each participant individually for two-three minutes.

Oleg Orlov, the head of the Russian human rights center Memorial, said that the meeting was rather interesting.

“We received some interesting signals,” he is quoted as saying. “For instance, Biden told my colleagues that Russia’s membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) was in one or another way connected to the improvement in the country’s human rights situation and, in particular, how the elections will be held.”

According to Memorial’s director, Joe Biden stated that the US Congress voting on the repealing the Jackson-Vanik amendment – which was signed into law during the Cold War and still remains in force – will depend on the level of fairness in the upcoming elections and compliance with human rights in Russia.

Orlov also voiced his criticism about the approaches that Russia and the US use in fighting a threat that has become common for the international community – terrorism. “The principles of human rights fall victims to a false understanding of Russian and American security,” he said.The Obama Administration still has not fulfilled its promise to shut down the “illegal prison” in Guantanamo. Orlov added that US deviation from the principle priority of human rights is harmful for the entire world, including Russia.

According to Orlov, Biden agreed and said that there should be no double standards. Biden also noted that “he feels sorry” that the US Congress opposes the prison closure. But he and President Barack Obama are continuing to work on the issue as the prison “should be closed”.

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Libya: Gaddafi forces detain and beat BBC team

BBC News, 9 March 2011

Goktay Koraltan and Feras Kilani said other detainees had
been badly beaten

Libya Revolt

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Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's security forces detained and beat up a BBC news team who were trying to reach the strife-torn western city of Zawiya.

The three were beaten with fists, knees and rifles, hooded and subjected to mock executions by members of Libya's army and secret police.

The men were detained on Monday and held for 21 hours, but have now flown out of Libya.

Government forces are in a fierce fight to wrest Zawiya from rebel control.

Government artillery and tanks have pounded the city, 50km (30 miles) from the capital Tripoli, over the last four days.

'Torture'

The BBC team showed their BBC identification when they were detained at an army roadblock on Monday.

Libya conflict in maps

They had been seeking, like many journalists, to get around government restrictions by reaching the besieged city.

The three of them were taken to a huge military barracks in Tripoli where they were blindfolded, handcuffed and beaten.

One of the three, Chris Cobb-Smith, said: "We were lined up against the wall. I was the last in line - facing the wall.

"I looked and I saw a plain-clothes guy with a small sub-machine gun. He put it to everyone's neck. I saw him and he screamed at me.

"Then he walked up to me put the gun to my neck and pulled the trigger twice. The bullets whisked past my ear. The soldiers just laughed."

A second member of the team - Feras Killani, a correspondent of Palestinian descent - is said to have been singled out for repeated beatings.

Their captors told him they did not like his reporting of the Libyan popular uprising and accused him of being a spy.

The third member of the team, cameraman Goktay Koraltan, said they were all convinced they were going to die.

Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen:
"We have decided to extend our surveillance"

During their detention, the BBC team saw evidence of torture against Libyan detainees, many of whom were from Zawiya.

Koraltan said: "I cannot describe how bad it was. Most of them [other detainees] were hooded and handcuffed really tightly, all with swollen hands and broken ribs. They were in agony. They were screaming."

Killani said: "Four of them [detainees] were in a very bad situation. There was evidence of torture on their faces and bodies. One of them said he had at least two broken ribs. I spent at least six hours helping them drink, sleep, urinate and move from one side to another."

A senior Libyan government official later apologised for the BBC team's treatment.

But the BBC said in a statement that it "strongly condemns this abusive treatment".

"The safety of our staff is our primary concern especially when they are working in such difficult circumstances and it is essential that journalists working for the BBC, or any media organisation, are allowed to report on the situation in Libya without fear of attack," said the statement from Liliane Landor, languages controller of BBC Global News.

"Despite these attacks, the BBC will continue to cover the evolving story in Libya for our audiences both inside and outside the country."

It comes as government forces mount a fierce fightback against the rebels who rose up in mid-February to end Col Gaddafi's 41 years in power.

Banks refuse to tell FSA how many of their staff earn more than £1m

FSA chief Hector Sants reports to Treasury select committee

guardian.co.uk, Jill Treanor, Wednesday 9 March 2011

Hector Sants, head of the FSA. Photograph: Micha Theiner/City
AM/Rex Features

Major banks are refusing to tell the Financial Services Authority how many of their staff are paid more than £1m.

Hector Sants, chief executive of the City regulator, told the Treasury select committee that "four of the larger banks" were not complying with his request to provide more information about how their top bankers are paid. He did not identify the banks.

Sants had asked for the information after a request from the select committee's chairman Andrew Tyrie who had asked for the numbers of bankers earning more than £1m across the six leading banks in Britain. He urged Sants to aggregate the information, rather than provide individual pay details. Tyrie also wanted to know how their pay compared with the lowest paid board director at their firm.

Sants said that while the FSA had some "regulatory information" about pay, some of the banks had declined to provide him with additional information that Tyrie was seeking.

Sants had warned last month that the banks would regard such information as "sensitive". "In view of this, we think it right to seek the consent of all the firms concerned on their 2010 remuneration awards before we pass this aggregated information to the committee," Sants had said.

Some information has started to emerge since then. Last week Douglas Flint, chairman of HSBC, admitted the bank paid 253 staff more than £1m while the chairman of bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland has said the bank paid more than 100 people £1m but was not more specific.

New FSA rules have forced Barclays to admit that the average pay of 231 staff was £2.4m after the bank revealed these key employees had been paid a combined £554m. To comply with the disclosure required from the Project Merlin agreement, Barclays also conceded that five of its top managers had shared a payout of £110m.

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Illinois Governor Quinn signs death penalty ban

Reuters, CHICAGO | Wed Mar 9, 2011

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn gestures at a news conference introducing
the 2010 Ford Taurus at the Ford assembly plant in Chicago, Illinois
August 4, 2009. (Credit: Reuters/Frank Polich)

(Reuters) - The governor of Illinois signed a law on Wednesday abolishing capital punishment, an issue that has roiled the state since revelations of wrongful convictions led to a decade-long moratorium on executions.

When the law signed by Democratic Governor Pat Quinn takes effect on July 1, Illinois will become the fourth state in the past two years after New York, New Jersey and New Mexico to dispense with the death penalty.

The ultimate punishment will still be an option in 34 states and for federal inmates. Most Western democracies no longer carry out executions.

(Writing by Mary Wisniewski, Editing by Greg McCune and Jerry Norton)

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NASA and Alien Life - By Law NASA Is NOT Allowed To Tell The Truth

UFO-Blogger, Mar 8, 2011

Yesterday NASA disavows its own scientist's about claim of alien life which make us think hard, why the HELL NASA disavowing its own scientist and astronauts when its comes to existence of alien life.

After few hour digging on NASA website, we find something astonishing and also learns why people blame NASA a "Never A Straight Answer" agency.

Please check down below NASA website fine print and you will also learn, what we talking about ?

The requirements of this part to make Agency records available do not apply to matters that are--

(1) a) Specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive Order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and

(1) b) Are in fact properly classified pursuant to such Executive Order;

(2) Related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of NASA;

(3) Specifically exempted from disclosure by statute (other than 5 U.S.C. 552), provided that such statute:

a) Requires that the matters be withheld from the public in such a manner as to leave no discretion on the issue, or

b) Establishes particular criteria for withholding or refers to particular types of matters to be withheld;

Source : http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/FOIA/exempt.html

Unless extraterrestrials decide to say "f**k the Earth elite's military industrial complex agenda" and show up without warn, at same time, in every single country, to be seen in national TV all over the world, NASA will keep playing this cat-mouse game, for life.

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Time to ‘Make Wall Street Pay’

RT, 09 March, 2011

AFP Photo / Timothy A. Clary

A new campaign “Make Wall Street Pay” has kicked off in Washington hundreds of fed up homeowners in a series of protests that brought a DC Bank of America branch to a halt and targeted House Speaker Boehner’s office.

The big banks bankrupted the country, not the teachers and pensioner argued the group. They believe its Wall Street’s responsibility to pay for the damage and make amends.

Jordan Estevao, the campaign director with the National People's Action said tax payers are being expected to cover the enormous costs, while major corporations and banks are receiving tax breaks and government bailouts while causing increased economic troubles as they profit and others suffer.

“We’re not in the middle of a budget crisis, we’re not in a middle of a spending crisis – we’re in the middle of a revenue crisis. We’re spending less and less on programs that help the working class and poor people in America. We’re spending less and less on teacher salaries, les s and less on police and essential services,” he explained. “Meanwhile the banks have both the ability and the responsibility to make up the budget gap.”

He argued Wall Street has a responsibility to the people to help those they have hurt.

“The trickledown effect has clearly not worked so far and we have no reason to expect it to start working in the future,” Estevao commented. “What we are calling for is a few things; 1. Banks need to stop fighting reforms that would keep people in their homes and in turn stabilize the economy. Second we are calling on the government to pass a financial speculation tax.”

A tax on financial speculation, argued Estevao, would generate $150 billion in revenue annual and discourage rampant speculation which causes economic crisis.

Max Fraad Wolff, an economist at The New School in New York said the US has dwindled and reduced its corporate collections. The US has a high corporate rate, he explained, but the effectiveness of the rate is very low.

“We have a tendency to under tax large corporations,” he said. “We have redistributed so much money upward, so our rich people and our largest companies take home so much of the money at the end of the day that if we don’t tax them we really don’t have enough money to run our basic government systems and services anymore.”

Wolff explained the financial system has been aggressively propped-up by the government and has backed out of its fair share of paying taxes.

“They aren’t contributing massively in any shape or way to the government’s basic revenue which puts us in an enormous deficit,” he added.

The lack of tax revenue from major corporations hinders the ability of the government to provide services.

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China Praises Positive Trend in Ties with US

Jakarta Globe, Christopher Bodeen, March 08, 2011

China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi reacts during a press
conference for the National People's Congress at the Great
Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on Monday. Yang said
there is now a positive atmosphere in relations with the US
following a rocky year in which they feuded over issues from
Taiwan to Internet freedom. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Beijing. Buoyed by President Hu Jintao's successful visit to Washington, China's relations with the US are warming again after a year of disputes over issues from Taiwan to Internet freedom, China's foreign minister said Monday.

Yang Jiechi's comments marked a remarkably upbeat assessment of relations between the world's No. 1 economy and dominant military power and the rising Asian giant, whose economy overtook Japan's last year to claim the No. 2 spot.

The sides need to "seize on the momentum, build on the progress, earnestly implement the agreement reached by the leaders of the two countries and take solid steps in building the China-U.S. cooperative partnership," Yang said.

In a wide-ranging news conference on the sidelines of China's annual legislative session, Yang also pointed to deepening relations with Russia, investment and assistance to African nations, and stronger ties to multinational groupings such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

However, his comments on US ties were among his most emphatic, possibly lending hope to negotiators seeking progress on disputes over China's massive trade surplus with the US and accusations that it keeps its currency artificially low to boost exports.

"There is now a good atmosphere in China-US relations," Yang said. "We have a full agenda in developing China-US relations in the coming months."

Relations have been on the upswing since Hu's state visit in January that was widely hailed as a success. Hu received a much-coveted state banquet and formal White House welcome and the two sides managed to avoid the missteps that plagued Hu's last visit in 2006.

Yang said US Vice President Joseph Biden is scheduled to visit China this summer, followed by a trip to Washington by his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

A series of high-level meetings on trade and diplomatic ties offer further chances to boost the relationship, he said.

Yang also acknowledged lingering frictions, reiterating China's strong opposition to arms sales to Taiwan and urging the US to lend more support to a warming trend in relations between Beijing and Taipei.

The positive climate couldn't be more different than this time last year when China suspended military-to-military exchanges and bitterly criticized Washington over a $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory.

Further disputes followed over a visit to the White House by Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama, regarded by China as a separatist intent on overthrowing Chinese rule over the Himalayan region.

Google's decision to stop censoring its search results inside China and US criticism of China's Internet controls also heightened the tensions. Beijing has lashed out at U.S. involvement in South China Sea territorial disputes and joint war games with South Korea in the Yellow Sea.

China's relations with neighbors Japan, South Korea, and the Southeast Asian nations also have suffered in recent months, partly as a result of Beijing's more aggressive assertions of its territorial claims and support for North Korea's hard-line communist leadership.

Yang said China would devote greater attention to those relationships in the coming months, although he asserted Japan was responsible for tensions over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that Tokyo controls but Beijing claims.

China's assertive behavior — it sent navy vessels and military aircraft closer to Japanese territory last year than ever before — and soaring economy magnifies the perceived threat from its growing defense spending, which is to rise 12.7 percent this year to $91.5 billion.

However, Yang suggested that some foreign doubts about China's intentions were born of envy over Beijing's successes in pulling millions out of poverty, weathering the global financial crisis, and managing an economy that grew by 10.3 percent last year.

"What I feel is that actually in some countries, including in some developed countries, people have much on their minds," Yang said. "People ask themselves: What is the secret of China in making all these accomplishments?"

Associated Press

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Britain to upgrade Palestinian diplomatic status: Hague

Antara News, Tue, March 8 2011

London (ANTARA News/AFP) - Britain will upgrade the status of the Palestinian delegation to London to the level of a mission in line with a number of other EU countries, Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Monday.

"Given the extent of our aid to the Palestinian Authority and our work with them, we will join many other countries in upgrading the status of the Palestinian delegation to London to the level of a mission," he told parliament.

The decision puts Britain in line with fellow European Union members France, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

Norway, which is not a member of the EU, has also upgraded, in a move which gives the head of the Palestinian diplomatic delegation the rank of ambassador.

Hague is due to hold talks Tuesday in London with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister David Cameron.

Editor: B Kunto Wibisono

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Obama restarts Guantanamo trials

Yahoo News, By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press, Mar 7, 2011

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama approved Monday the resumption of military trials for detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ending a two-year ban.

It was the latest acknowledgement that the detention facility Obama had vowed to shut down within a year of taking office will remain open for some time to come.

"I strongly believe that the American system of justice is a key part of our arsenal in the war against al-Qaida and its affiliates, and we will continue to draw on all aspects of our justice system — including Article III courts — to ensure that our security and our values are strengthened," the president said in a statement. Article III courts are military commissions.

Under Obama's order, Defense Secretary Robert Gates will rescind his January 2009 ban against bringing new cases against the terror suspects at the detention facility.

Closure of the facility has become untenable because of questions about where terror suspects would be held.