Wednesday, 21 August 2013

The European Union Times

UK ordered Guardian to destroy hard drives in effort to stop Snowden revelations

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 06:14 AM PDT

UK authorities reportedly raided the Guardian’s office in London to destroy hard drives in an effort to stop future publications of leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The action is unlikely to prevent new materials coming out.
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger revealed in a Monday article posted on the British newspaper’s website that intelligence officials from the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) told him that he would either have to hand over all the classified documents or have the newspaper’s hard drives destroyed.
After more talks, two “security experts” from GCHQ – the British version of the National Security Agency – visited the Guardian’s London offices.
Rusbridger wrote that the government officials then watched as computers, which contained classified information passed on by Snowden, were physically destroyed in one of the newspaper building’s basements.
“We can call off the black helicopters,” Rusbridger said one of the officials joked.
Another source familiar with the event confirmed to Reuters that Guardian employees destroyed the computers as UK officials observed.
During negotiations with the government, Rusbridger said that the newspaper could not fulfill its journalistic duty if it satisfied the authorities’ requests.
But GCHQ reportedly responded by telling the Guardian that it had already sparked the debate, which was enough.
“You’ve had your debate. There’s no need to write any more,” Reuters quoted the unnamed official as saying.
In the article, Rusbridger explained that because of existing “international collaborations” between journalists, it was still possible to report the story and “take advantage of the most permissive legal environments.”
“I explained to the man from Whitehall about the nature of international collaborations…Bluntly, we did not have to do our reporting from London. Already most of the NSA stories were being reported and edited out of New York. And had it occurred to him that [reporter Glenn] Greenwald lived in Brazil?” wrote Rusbridger.
“The man was unmoved. And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian’s long history occurred – with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian’s basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents.”
Rusbridger pointed out that the whole incident felt like a “pointless piece of symbolism that understood nothing about the digital age.”
The news comes after Sunday’s international incident during which David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was held at Heathrow airport under the UK Terrorism Act for the maximum time allowed before pressing charges. Greenwald was the reporter who exclusively broke the Snowden story.
The editor promised that the Guardian will “continue to do patient, painstaking reporting on the Snowden documents, we just won’t do it in London. The seizure of Miranda’s laptop, phones, hard drives and camera will similarly have no effect on Greenwald’s work.”
Another US security source told Reuters that Miranda’s detention was meant to send a message to those who received Snowden’s classified documents, about how serious the UK is in closing all the leaks in relation to the whistleblower’s revelations.
Greenwald, who first published secrets leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, responded by promising to release more documents. He added that the UK would be “sorry” for detaining his partner for nine hours.
Snowden, who has been granted asylum by Russia, gave Greenwald up to 20,000 documents with details about the US National Security Agency and the UK’s GCHQ surveillance operations.
‘US is the intellectual author behind detention of Miranda’
Lawyer Eva Golinger told RT that the UK has violated all concepts of freedom of the press. “We are talking about a media outlet. Journalists and their spouses and partners being detained and interrogated. So clearly there has been a decision made that everything related to Edward Snowden must be captured no matter what, violating anyone’s right under any country’s laws.”
Golinger believes that government’s pressure on journalists could inspire some to cover the topic of government surveillance even more, instead of discouraging them to do so.
“The more principled the people reporting are, the more they will continue to pursue that work in the face of threat. Such cheap threats and intimidation give people even more reasons to continue doing what they are doing because it shows that those in power are clearly frightened of the information that is being put out,” she explained.
“At the same time it could certainly intimidate other journalists and create the environment of self-censorship, where many would be unwilling to take the risks that are involved with national security reporting, particularly when it comes to the US.”
Golinger argued that US is the “intellectual author behind the detainment of Miranda.”
“We are talking about a search and capture that is going on for Edward Snowden and it is the US that is leading that effort. It is not the UK or other European nations, they are merely abiding by the wishes of the US…What I believe is that Washington has simply put out a request to all of its allies that anyone related to Edward Snowden must be detained if they come into your territory and the UK abided by that and did their duty.”
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Drastic growth in extreme poverty in US

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 05:52 AM PDT

The number of people living on less than $2 a day per person increased from 636,000 in 1996 to about 1.65 million in 2011.

The number of Americans living on less than $2 a day per person, soared by 160 percent from 1996 to mid-2011, a new report finds.
The report by the National Poverty Center (NPC) indicates that the number increased from 636,000 in 1996 to about 1.65 million in 2011.
The figure of $2 a day per person, used by the researchers, is the United Nations measure of poverty in developing countries, according to the World Socialist Web Site.
The official poverty line for a family of three is almost equal to $17 per person per day averaged over a year.
For deep poverty, which is below half of the poverty line, an average of approximately $8.50 per person per day is considered.
The report also showed that 4.3 percent of non-elderly households with children were in extreme poverty with 3.55 million children living in them.
The number of Americans living in poverty began to increase after the Clinton administration ended cash welfare for susceptible families in 1996.
Between 1996 and 2008, the poverty rate almost doubled, amounting to 600,000 poor households. The trend continued to go up following 2008 recession with the pace accelerating.
450,000 more families have become poorer over the past 3 years, with a marked rise in their numbers during the first half of 2011.
In a July report, the statistics on poverty showed that four out of 5 US adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives.
The trend had been attributed to “an increasingly globalized US economy, the widening gap between rich and poor and loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs.”
According to some estimates a staggering number of Americans, over 146 millions, are either “poor” or “low income.”
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Corrupt science sets standards for all

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 05:47 AM PDT

People don’t realize how corrupt science is. They need to know, because science is where the standards of rationality are set for the rest of society. A better realization of what’s going on in science should result in science being criticized for validity and evidence, like everything else in society.
The best way to characterize the state of science is with examples. To start with something simple, consider what so-called fossil fuels are. Supposedly, biological material got covered with rocks and earth causing heat, pressure and time to transform it into petroleum. Sometimes fossils in coal are given as evidence of its origins. Guess what, numerous types of rocks include fossils. That doesn’t mean biological material was the source of those rocks. Biological material does not accumulate in large quantities without decaying. Peat moss accumulates somewhat, but nothing like the quantities found with petroleum.
The proof that petroleum does not originate with biomass is in the chemistry. Petroleum is called hydrocarbon because of hydrogen attached to carbon. Hydrogen-carbon bonds are very high in energy. Biological material has oxygen with it, called carbohydrate, which has less chemical energy. There is no way to increase chemical energy other than radiation. (ATP and similar reactions do not increase energy; they transfers energy with some loss.) Heat and pressure will not increase chemical energy, because they act upon nuclei, while chemical energy is in electrons which spin around nuclei. There is nothing that can be done to nuclei which will increase the motion of electrons which spin around them short of a nuclear reaction. (All chemical reactions go down-hill energetically with some energy loss as heat.)
Notice that the problem here is not the complexities of paleontology. The problem is that physicists don’t know what chemical energy is. What sort of wizards can they be with more complex subjects such as relativity and quantum mechanics? The entirety of those subjects can be proven to be wrong based on proper logic and basic science.
Physicists admit there is a contradiction in quantum mechanics. They say radiation exists as particles and waves. Even though the two concepts contradict each other, physicists apply them both to light. The reason for assuming radiation is like a particle is that it imparts energy to orbiting electrons in large leaps. Electrons which orbit nuclei will only increase their energy in stages, as they jump from one “orbital” to another. The radiation which imparts energy to orbiting electrons has to be just the right frequency. The assumption is that the reason why the frequency has to be just right is because there are different amounts of energy in each frequency, and a particle of energy seems to be required.
That isn’t what happens. Particles have length, width and height; energy does not. The reason why the frequency has to be just right is because a wave must bump the electron on one side of its orbit only. If both sides are bumped, one effect will neutralize the other. When the frequency is just right, an electron can be bumped repeatedly, until it acquires enough energy to jump to a higher orbit. With repeated bumps, a wave does not have to have the same energy within it as the electron acquires.
Relativity includes several major points of invalid logic. One is the claim that the velocity of light is determined by the receiving point. Effect cannot precede cause. Something cannot be determined (or caused) after it occurs. The reason for the claim is that the velocity of light cannot be determined by emitting points, because they have numerous velocities, while light only has one velocity. Notice that receiving points have numerous velocities also. For this reason, physicists say there are infinite reference frames for the infinite velocities of the receiving points. They could have said the same thing about emitting points. There is no validity in using numerous reference frames. It is the same thing as saying something has numerous velocities, but worse. A reference frame includes the rest of the universe with it. There cannot be more than one reference frame for a universe. Otherwise it is not a universe. To create numerous reference frames for velocity creates numerous amounts of energy for the same wave. Energy must be conserved, which means it cannot have numerous reference frames.
It’s actually an etheric medium which determines the velocity and characteristic of light waves, but that argument was thoroughly flushed down the drain, because an invalid experiment, called the Mickelson-Morley experiment, failed to find the etheric medium. The device used for the experiment rotated rapidly, refelcted light in several directions and then looked for slight differences in a diffraction pattern. No diffraction patter was found. (Some will say it both ways, imagining a diffraction pattern, but there was no result.) It is not valid to use a complex devise which never produces a result. Such devices always need fine tuning and calibrating, which cannot be done without a result. It’s like jumping into the ocean and saying the Titanic is not there. Failing to find something has even less meaning in science, where evidence is more critical.
These errors were not a result of a desperate attempt to explain something; they were deliberately created for the purpose of stripping accountability from the subject and replacing it with the power of authority to decree. This purpose shows up in a few more absurdities. One is the claim that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. The basis for this claim is a three component equation under a square-root sign. It’s designed to produce a negative number for any velocity greater than the velocity of light. Since there is no such thing as the square-root of a negative, there is no such thing as anything moving faster than the velocity of light. A twelve-year-old could have produced the equation, given the task and being told there is no such thing as the square-root of a negative.
A similar contrivance is Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc². Physicists cannot say where it came from other than it parallels the kinetic energy equation, which say KE=½mv². I show simple and unquestionable mathematical proof that the kinetic energy equation is in error. It should have velocity non-squared in it, which is: KE=mv. mv is called momentum. It means momentum is the real kinetic energy. So Einstein paralleled an erroneous equation. What science and brilliance produced a simple equation which looked like one which is in error? What does it have to do with relativity or the rest of physics? Nothing but Einstein’s fakery.
The fakery also shows up in space-time. Space-time is simply the three dimensions of space with time added as a fourth dimension. Is it hard to understand how they mix? They don’t mix. Space-time is nothing more than an image of a vortex with grid lines across it and a mass in the center of the vortex. Mass has nothing to do with space-time; yet a mass is always shown in the center of the vortex. Space-time is supposed to be the real gravity. But unlike the gravity which Newton described, space-time supposedly influences light. Einstein did no measuring. It doesn’t matter; physicists supposedly prove him to be right every day. The primary proof is that light bends around stars and galaxies, just as Einstein said it would. Optics is a branch of physics based upon light bending when passing through variable density matter. It means light bends around stars and galaxies due to the matter around them, not because of Einstein’s sorcery.
Over the 13.5 billion light years which earth telescopes reach, light passes through a significant amount of matter, which gives it a longer wavelength called a red shift. Red shift means the wavelength is longer than it should be. But that isn’t how physicists interpret the red shift. They say it is caused by objects moving away from the observer. The more distant objects show more red shift, which supposedly means they are moving away from earth faster. This situation is interpreted by physicists to mean everything started with an explosion called the big bang. Isn’t it strange that the earth is in the center of the explosion, and the size of the universe is exactly the distance reached by telescopes.
An explosion is an improper interpretation of the red shift, because all observations and logic show that galaxies are not moving away from a central point. There is no reason to assume passing though matter in space cannot change the wavelength of light, because wavelength is quite arbitrary and variable, as musical instruments show. Even though the theory is not understood, a change in wavelength is totally consistent with what waves do. It’s not easy to conceptualize how a single wave can transform it’s wavelength, but conceptualizing is not a valid test for physical phenomena, and an explosion theory cannot be justified just because an alternative cannot be conceptualized. Theoretical alternatives include the Compton effect.
There are numerous contradictions in the big bang “theory.” The main one is that matter would have required an additional 13.5 billion years to get where it is from the center of the big bang, if it traveled at the speed of light, which matter never does. The universe would then be 27 billion years old instead of 13.5. None of this is possible or consistent with observations or assumptions. So physicists said everything got to approximately its present location by the universe expanding rather than matter moving. The expansion is called inflation. There can be no laws of physics until everything gets to its present vicinity. Matter cannot be compressed into a small amount of space and still have the forces and motions which create atoms, molecules and galaxies. Distance is an inseparable part of the laws of physics. Yet physicists tell us what happened as the big bang was occurring, as if laws of physics existed. It means physicists shamelessly contrive anything, when obscurity removes their subject from accountability to the public.
The simple and unquestionable mathematical proof that energy has been misdefined is on my web site at www.nov79.com.
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CIA finally admits it masterminded Iran’s 1953 coup

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 04:38 AM PDT

Late Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq (seated), who was overthrown in a US-British coup in 1953

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says the newly-released documents on US involvement in a 1953 coup against a popular Iranian government reveal no previously-unknown information and do nothing to fade Washington’s crimes.
Speaking at his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Abbas Araqchi said that the release of the recent documents 60 years after the coup “neither adds anything new to what we already knew, nor does it lessen the American crimes.”
The Iranian official noted that the declassified documents do not belong to the Central American Agency (CIA) – contrary to what has been claimed – and that Iran expects the American spy agency to release its actual documents on the issue.
Araqchi also underlined the British role in the 1953 coup and noted that although the coup of August 19, 1953 is generally viewed as an American ploy, we should not lose sight of Britain’s behind-the-scene role in planning the coup and the subsequent violence and hostility it perpetrated against Iran prior to and in the course of the coup.
On Monday, the CIA published a document, which officially conformed for the first time Washington’s role in the 1953 coup d’état against the democratically-elected administration of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq.
“The military coup that overthrew Mosaddeq and his National Front Cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of US foreign policy,” read a brief segment from an internal report by an in-house CIA historian in the mid-1970s.
The document, published on the National Security Archive website, was initially released in 1981, but most of it was blacked out at the time, including an entire section on the coup.
Iran-P5+1 talks
Responding to a question on the future of Iran’s comprehensive talks with the P5+1 group of countries and whether the talks will be handled by Iran’s Foreign Ministry or Supreme Council of National Security, Araqchi said that, regardless of which body would pursue the negotiations, Iran’s principles on its nuclear energy issue will remain unchanged.
He further noted that President Hassan Rouhani has not yet decided which of the aforementioned bodies will undertake the task of the negotiations with the P5+1.
The P5+1 countries comprise the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -China, France, Russia, UK and the US – plus Germany, which are involved in comprehensive talks with Iran, mainly over its nuclear energy program.
Responding to a question on reports about the “reduction of Iranian nuclear reserves” in the run-up to the next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1, Araqchi stated that the rate of Iranian nuclear production and reserves will be based on our needs and consumption in the field of energy and other fields such as agriculture and medicine and is not a political issue.
Inspection of Iranian aircraft by Iraq
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman censured the move by Baghdad to intercept Iranian airplanes heading to other countries via Iraq, saying such an action was an “unfriendly move” inconsistent with neighborly ties.
Araqchi said Tehran has expressed its objection to the Iraqi government over the issue.
However, he added that Tehran understands that pressure is being exerted on the Iraqi government.
“Although the Iraqi move to intercept Iranian planes was illegal and unfriendly, we are glad that it at least belied the claims” against Iran, as “nothing was found on any of the intercepted planes but humanitarian and medical aid,” Araqchi said.
In April, Baghdad checked Iranian aircraft for three consecutive days. The searches found humanitarian aid and commercial goods.
On July 13, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Iraq has been conducting random checks on Iranian planes bound for Syria since September 2012.
The Iraqi foreign minister added that these checks had only found “non-lethal aid like medicines and food.”
Trip by Azeri Navy commander to Iran
Referring to the reports about the cancelation of Azeri Navy Commander Shahin Sultanov’s trip to Tehran, Araqchi said the visit was not canceled but was postponed due to several reasons, mainly the change in Iran’s administration following the June 14 presidential election.
Iran’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mohsen Pak-Ayeen said on August 17 that Sultanov was planning to travel to the Islamic Republic on an invitation by Iran’s Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari.
Crisis in Syria
In response to a question about the turmoil in Syria, Araqchi said UN-Arab League Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi had contacted Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to discuss the issue.
Araqchi added that Zarif had reiterated Iran’s readiness to cooperate with the UN and Brahimi himself in order to resolve the crisis.
According to Araqchi, Brahimi stressed Iran’s influential role in the region particularly with regards to Syria, reiterating the necessity of Tehran’s presence in international meetings over Syria and the upcoming Geneva conference.
Iran has repeatedly voiced its opposition to any foreign interference in the internal affairs of Syria.
Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant
Responding to questions about Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in southern Iran, Araqchi said it will most likely be ready for full function and be inaugurated within the next several weeks.
He reiterated, however, that the plant has long been producing electricity while undergoing experimental stages, which is a common practice that takes place at nuclear power plants from the time when their construction is completed by the contractor to when their handling is entirely relayed to the possessor country.
The Foreign Ministry official described the Bushehr NPP as a case jointly handled by Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency and the Foreign Ministry, adding that it has been one of the nation’s key foreign policy issues in the past 20 years.
Fate of Lebanese Shia cleric Imam Musa Sadr
Regarding the latest developments about the fate of senior Lebanese Shia cleric Imam Musa Sadr, who was kidnapped 35 years ago while on an official tour of Libya under its slain dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the Iranian official said the former’s case remains a major issue of the Muslim world.
Araqchi added that Iranian officials are continuing their cooperation with Lebanese and Libyan authorities to find further information about the fate of the highly-revered Muslim scholar and leader.
“His case is still open although we regretfully have not found any substantial clues about it,” Araqchi said.
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‘Israel behind Egypt coup’ – Turkish PM

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 04:28 AM PDT

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims Ankara has proof Israel was behind the July 3 military “coup” that toppled Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, Turkish media report.
Erdogan said the West was beginning to redefine democracy as a process that is not solely determined at the ballot box, although the poll represents “the people’s will.”
“This is what has been implemented in Egypt. Who is behind this? Israel. We have evidence,” Erdogan said, as quoted by the Hurriyet daily, during a meeting with provincial chairs of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Erdogan spoke of a meeting between Turkey’s justice minister and a “Jewish” intellectual in France before Egypt’s 2011 elections.
“The Muslim Brotherhood will not be in power even if they win the elections. Because democracy is not the ballot box’: This is what [the intellectual] said at that time,” the PM continued.
Erdogan did not clarify what connection the unidentified intellectual had to the Israeli government or how his alleged opinion proved Israel played any part in the recent ouster of Morsi.
In March, Israel attempted rapprochement with Turkey after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Erdogan to apologize for the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid that resulted in the death of eight Turks and one Turkish-American.
Erdogan accepted the apology and both sides agreed to carry out further discussions. The Turkish PM, however, said that normalization of bilateral ties would take time, insinuating that Turkey wanted to ensure victims of the raid were compensated and that Israel remained committed to easing the restriction of goods to Gaza before restoring relations, Haaretz daily reports.
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