Infinite Unknown

• More than 250,000 dispatches reveal US foreign strategies
• Diplomats ordered to spy on allies as well as enemies
• Saudi king urged Washington to bomb Iran

Read the full coverage of the US embassy cables

The release of more than 250,000 US embassy cables reveals previously secret information on American intelligence gathering, and political and military strategy. Photograph: Rex Features

The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.

At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many designated “secret” – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership.

These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches, which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers’ website, also reveal Washington’s evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.

These include a shift in relations between China and North Korea, high-level concerns over Pakistan’s growing instability, and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.

Among scores of disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail:

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Tags: Afghanistan, Angela Merkel, China, Germany, Global News, Government, Iran, Julian Assange, Military, Pakistan, Politics, Russia, U.K., U.S., WIKILEAKS, Yemen

This urgent call-to-action video by the Health Ranger calls upon grassroots food freedom supporters to call their U.S. Senators on Monday, November 29, 2010, to oppose S.510.

Don’t miss:

Codex alimentarius is here:

In the US:

- In the wake of S.510 Fake food safety … it won’t be a matter of what’s for dinner … but will we have dinner?

- List of Bribed US Senators To Support Senate Bill S. 510 (‘Food Safety Modernization Act’)

- Unconstitutional Senate Bill S. 510 Vote Delayed Until After Thanksgiving

- Senate Bill S. 510 Food Safety Modernization Act Vote Imminent: Outlaws Gardening And Saving Seeds

- US Senate bill 3767 seeks to put dietary supplement makers in prison for ten years (for telling the truth)

- RED ALERT: Dr. Rima E. Laibow On The Food Safety Bill (S 510): This Bill Eliminates All Local Farming, Organic Farmers and Garden Farmers:

“This bill is the triumph of agri-bills”

“It is the industrialization tool for the entire US food supply”

“It brings all of Codex standards and guidelines into implementation”

“This bill means that no farmer can safe seed”

“If it does pass, you and I, our children, our loved ones will suffer and we will die”

In the EU:

- Medicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU, Big Pharma Wins

- EU Legislation Puts An End To Herbal Medicine As We Know It

Tags: agriculture, Barack Obama, Farmers, Food, Genetically Modified Organisms, GMO, Health, organic, Politics, Seeds, U.S.

The big freeze will continue to grip Britain for weeks to come, forecasters said last night.

Motorists struggle as heavy snowfalls continue throught the UK Photo: AP

The predication came as more severe weather warnings were issued and parts of Scotland and North East England were hit by up to 16 ins of snow.

The snow will spread across the Pennines towards Manchester today and also move inland from eastern England towards the South East and London, the Met Office said.

A spokesman for the MeteoGroup forecasters said: “People should be bracing themselves for more cold weather for the working week and beyond.”

Gritters were out in force to clear main roads yesterday but conditions on minor roads in many areas were described as “treacherous”.

Police in the worst-hit areas warned motorists to drive only if their journeys were “absolutely essential” as the disruption caused by the earliest widespread snow for 17 years continued.

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Tags: Environment, snow, U.K., Weather, Winter

Symbolic acknowledgment of culpability over Katyn murders in 1940 signals Russia’s willingness to face up to its past

A memorial dedicated to the Polish officers murdered in the Katyn forest in 1940. Photograph: Dario Thuburn/AFP/Getty Images

In a symbolic admission of guilt, Russia’s parliament has declared that Joseph Stalin ordered his secret police to execute 22,000 Polish army officers and civilians in 1940, in one of the greatest mass murders of the 20th century.

Today’s acknowledgment of Stalin’s personal culpability over the Katyn massacre comes amid a cautious thaw between Moscow and Warsaw, whose recent relations have been thorny at best. It was also seen as a sign that Russia may finally be ready for muted self-scrutiny over its totalitarian past.

Mikhail Gorbachev admitted in 1990 that the NKVD was to blame for the massacre, after a half-century of the Soviets blaming it on Nazi troops. However, there has never been a formal statement which implicates the Soviet leadership in such explicit terms.

Officials in Warsaw greeted the declaration positively. “It is a good step, an important sign,” Poland’s speaker of parliament, Grzegorz Schetyna, told reporters. It would ensure a “better atmosphere” for Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Warsaw next week, he added.

The 21,768 officers, doctors, policemen and other public servants – captured by the Red Army when it swept into Poland after the outbreak of the second world war in 1939 – were mainly shot in Katyn forest near Smolensk in western Russia and in several other places.

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Tags: Global News, Government, Military, Politics, Russia, War Crimes

As casualties continue to mount in Afghanistan, so does the cost of war after nine years

Since there are now three conflicts in the greater Middle East; Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel/”Palestine” and maybe another Lebanese war in the offing, it might be a good idea to take a look at the cost of war.

Not the human cost – 80 lives a day in Iraq, unknown numbers in Afghanistan, one a day in Israel/”Palestine” (for now) – but the financial one. I’m still obsessed by the Saudi claim for its money back after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. Hadn’t Saudi Arabia, King Fahd reminded Saddam, financed his eight-year war against Iran to the tune of $25,734,469,885.80? For the custodian of the two holy places, Mecca and Medina, to have shelled out $25bn for Saddam to slaughter his fellow Muslims was pretty generous – although asking for that extra 80 cents was surely a bit greedy.

But then again, talking of rapacity, the Arabs spent $84bn underwriting the Anglo-American operation against Saddam in 1990-91 – three times what Fahd gave to Saddam for the Iran war – and the Saudi share alone came to $27.5bn. In all, the Arabs sustained a loss of $620bn because of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait – almost all of which was paid over to the United States and its allies. Washington was complaining in August 1991 that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait still owed $7.5bn. Western wars in the Middle East, it seemed, could be fought for profit as well as victory. Maybe Iraq could have brought us more treasure if it hadn’t ended in disaster. At least it would help to have paid for America’s constant infusion of cash to Israel’s disastrous wars.

According to Israeli historian Illan Pappé, since 1949, the US has passed to Israel more than $100bn in grants and $10bn in special loans – more than Washington hands out to North Africa, South America and the Caribbean. Over the past 20 years, $5.5bn has been given to Israel for military purchases. But for sheer self-abuse, it’s necessary to read of the Midas-like losses in the entire Middle East since just 1991 – an estimated $12,000,000,000,000. Yup, that’s a cool $12trn and, if you don’t believe me, take a look at an unassuming little booklet that the “Strategic Fortnight Group” published not long ago. Its statistic caught a few headlines, but was then largely forgotten, perhaps because it was published in faraway Mumbai rather than by some preposterous American “tink-thank” (as I call them). But it was funded by, among others, the Norwegian and Swiss foreign ministries. And the Indians are pretty smart about money, as we know as we wait in fear of its new super-economy.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Global News, Government, Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Military, Palestine, Politics, U.S.

Flashback

Added: 03. April 2010

Tags: DHS, Global News, Government, Homeland Security, Obama administration, Politics, U.S.

NOW here’s a story with a-peel: A Japanese fruit company has been playing Mozart to its ripening bananas, claiming it produces a sweeter product.

And that’s not all – the paper says a wide variety of food and beverages in Japan have been enjoying exposure to classical music, including soy sauce, udon noodles, miso and even sake, the Japan Times said.

In fact, the sake is downright picky when it comes to composers. At Ohara Shuzo brewery, senior managing director, Fumiko Ohara told the paper the classical musical experiment began over 20 years ago when the president, Kosuke Ohara, came across a book about brewing with music. They experimented with jazz, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, among others.

“We found Mozart works best for sake,” Mr Ohara said, “and that’s why we use only his music.”

But back to those bunches of Mozart-loving bananas. The Japan Times reported they arrive as ordinary unripe, and presumably unmusical, fruit from the Philippines at the Toyoka Chuo Seika fruit company. But then their whole existence changes.

Mozart’s String Quartet 17 and Piano Concerto 5 in D major, among other works, play continuously for one week over speakers in their ripening chamber, the paper said.

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Tags: Bananas, fruits, Japan, Mozart, Music

North Korea has placed surface-to-surface missiles on launch pads in the Yellow Sea and the reclusive state had moved surface-to-air missiles near frontline areas.

The reports came as the United States and South Korea began joint military exercises in waters west of the Korean Peninsula in the face of opposition by China and threats of “consequences” from Pyongyang.

South Korea also ordered residents of an island shelled by North Korea last Tuesday to evacuate to shelters, according to witnesses.

“They ordered people here to move to shelters saying there is an emergency situation,” the witness said, adding there were no details available.

The North’s official KCNA news agency warned of retaliatory action if its territory is violated.

“We will deliver a brutal military blow on any provocation which violates our territorial waters,” KCNA said.

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Tags: China, Global News, Government, Military, North Korea, Politics, South Korea, U.S.

“EVEN GERMANS LOVE EU ATTACK” (???)

Message to the Daily Express:

There is not one German with a brain left that would not immediately want to go back to the German Mark and give the euro the finger!

In fact the German  people knew from the beginning that if you put the strongest currency, the German Mark, into a pot with weaker and junk currencies, that they can only lose.

And of course Germans love Nigel Farage.

And of course Infinite Unknown supports your campaign:

- THE Daily Express is the first national newspaper to call for Britain to leave the European Union

- THE DAILY EXPRESS: JOIN OUR CRUSADE TO PULL BRITAIN OUT OF THE EU

In case you’ve missed the video:

- Nigel Farage: ‘Who the Hell do You Think You Are. The Euro Game Is Up!’

Speaker: Nigel Farage MEP, UKIP, Co-President of the EFD group

European Parliament, Strasbourg – 24 November 2010

EVEN GERMANS LOVE EU ATTACK

Nigel Farage (pictured) EU President Herman van Rompuy: “You should be the pin-up boy of the eurosceptic movement.”

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage has become a Europe-wide internet sensation again with his latest attack on Brussels bureaucrats.

His speech to the European Parliament last week has been viewed 200,000 times on YouTube and has been translated into German.

Addressing EU President Herman van Rompuy Mr Farage said: “You’ve been in office for one year and in that time the whole edifice is beginning to crumble, there’s chaos and the money’s running out. I should thank you. You should be the pin-up boy of the eurosceptic movement.

“Your fanaticism is out in the open. You talked about the fact that it was a lie to say the nation state could exist in the 21st century globalised world.

“Well, that may well be true in the case of Belgium, which hasn’t had a government for six months, but for the rest of us, people are saying we don’t want that flag, we don’t want the anthem, we don’t want this political class – we want the whole thing consigned to the dustbin of history.”

The Ukip leader then turned on Economic Commissioner Olli Rehn for suggesting that Ireland delay any general election until its budget had approved.

“Who the hell do you think you people are?” he said. “You are very, very dangerous people. Your obsession with creating this Euro state means you are happy to destroy democracy.”

Mr Farage’s previous outburst last February attracted almost 600,000 views on YouTube and resulted in an official reprimand.

Sunday November 28,2010
By Ted Jeory

Source: The Daily Express

Tags: EU, Europe, Global News, Government, Nigel Farage, Politics

CIA brain experiments pursued in veterans’ suit

The CIA is notorious for its Cold War-era experiments with LSD and other chemicals on unwitting citizens and soldiers. Details have emerged in books and articles beginning more than 30 years ago.

But if military veterans have their way in a California law suit (PDF),  the spy agency’s quest to turn humans into robot-like assassins via electrodes planted in their brains will get far more exposure than the drugs the CIA tested on subjects ranging from soldiers to unwitting bar patrons and the clients of prostitutes.

It’s not just science fiction — or the imaginings of the mentally ill.

In 1961, a top CIA scientist reported in an internal memo that “the feasibility of remote control of activities in several species of animals has been demonstrated…Special investigations and evaluations will be conducted toward the application of selected elements of these techniques to man,” according to “The CIA and the Search for the Manchurian Candidate,” a 1979 book by former State Department intelligence officer John Marks.

“[T]his cold-blooded project,” Marks wrote, “was designed … for the delivery of chemical and biological agents or for ‘executive action-type operations,’ according to a document. ‘Executive action’ was the CIA’s euphemism for assassination.”

The CIA pursued such experiments because it was convinced the Soviets were doing the same.

Victims have sought justice for years, in vain. Now, almost 40 years later, a federal magistrate has ordered the CIA to produce records and witnesses about the LSD and other experiments “allegedly conducted on thousands of soldiers from 1950 through 1975,” according to news accounts.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Larsen’s Nov. 17 order exempted the agency from having to testify about electrode tests on humans, but Gordon P. Erspamer, lead attorney for the veterans, says “we are pursuing this as well.”

“There is no question that these experiments were done,” Erspamer said by e-mail Tuesday, “but defendants say that they used private researchers and test subjects drawn from prisons, hospitals and nursing homes as subjects, not active duty military [personnel]. CIA said it had no one knowledgeable on this topic.”

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Tags: CIA, Global News, Government, Military, MKULTRA, Politics, Science, U.S.