NA WA! PHOTO NO LIE

NA WA! PHOTO NO LIE

Editorial

MISCHIEF

It is just pure mischief and it is a continuation of the political propaganda initiated against Professor John Evans Atta Mills.

Since the death of President Mills, some people and institutions have deliberately sought to create doubt about the circumstance of his death and in the process suggest that he was murdered.

Now it is clear to even his most ardent opponents that Professor Mills enjoys the tremendous support and sympathy of people from all walks of life.

An aura of sainthood hangs over Professor Mills after his death and his opponents are worried about the possibility that this good will can very easily be transferred to President John Mahama.

They desperately want to prevent this and the strategy is to subtly suggest that those who are likely to be beneficiaries of the goodwill are those who killed him.

 That way, the political opponents of Professor Mills believe that the goodwill Professor Mills enjoys can be dissipated.

In our view, this is a show of utter disrespect to Professor Mills and the People of Ghana.

This dirty campaign must end now.

KILLED BY POLICE: THE FAMILY’S PETITION TO IGP

Dear Sir,

"PETITION FOR-REDRESS REGARDING DEATH OF MY BROTHER MOHAMMED  AYOROGO AS A RESULT OF ACCIDENT CAUSED BY POLICE VEHICLE NO.GP1247

Mohammed Alhassan IGP

I wish to appeal to the Minister of Interior and the Attorney General to come to my aid to ensure that justice is done in the above case involving my brother, the late Mohammed Ayorogo, aged 24 yrs, who was knocked down and killed by a Police vehicle with registration NO GP 1247 at Abokobi on is" February, 2013 and which the Police are dragging their feet to prosecute the offending Police driver.

The facts of the case are that on the 18th  of February 2013, my late brother who was a dispatch rider of Royal Dutch Pharmacy, a private company in Accra was riding the company's official motor bike with registration number M-I0-GR-9426 from Abokobi towards Accra and at about 3.00pm, the Police vehicle with registration number GP 1247 also driving from the opposite direction i.e. from Accra towards Abokobi, suddenly left their lane and was driving against traffic and knocked down the late Mohammed Ayorogo, and he sustained injuries on the leg and hands. According to eye witnesses, the Police driver now identified as Cpl. Attuah of the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), Police Headquarters, Accra got down and picked the victim and instead of putting him safely in the police Vehicle, he hired a Taxi Cab and put him in the boot, like a dead animal. 

Witnesses and drivers who were caught up in Traffic vehemently protested against the police action and demanded that they convey him in the police vehicle and send him to the nearest hospital. The Police ignored this suggestion and only removed him from the boot of the taxi and put him at the back seats of the Taxi and ordered the driver to take off while the- Police followed with the Police vehicle. Unfortunately for the Police, an Etv Ghana television crew arrived at the scene and filmed the incident and broadcasted it live from the scene in their news bulletin. (Please Sir, you can call for the excepts from Etv Ghana and watch the horrible incident for your good selves)

Sir, it was friends and some relatives who watched the T.V news bulletin and saw my late brother who informed me of the accident. I rushed to the Police hospital first and contacted the nurses at the OPD and the emergency ward in search of my brother but I was told that no motor accident case or victim had been brought there. I continued to the 37 military hospital and was told the same story. I proceeded to Korle Bu, Ridge and La hospitals but did not see my brother.

 The next day, I went to the Police hospital Mortuary-and to my surprise, I found the lifeless dead-body of my brother lying on the floor with his uniform. My information was that, the Policemen took my brother straight to the mortuary without sending him to the hospital for medical treatment or at least for confirmation of death by the medical Officers and because of that there was no record of him in the hospital. According to the Mortuary Attendant, he protested and asked the Policemen who refused to disclose their identities, to take the victim to the OPD to see a doctor for medical attention, but they shouted on him to take instructions and drove off.

Sir, after the Police had allegedly completed their investigation the body was released to the, family for burial. The Police never showed any concern or sympathy to even assist the family in the burial and funeral rites, up to date the Police have not found it appropriate ,to apprise the family of the action it has taken to ensure that the driver of the vehicle is prosecuted and compensation paid to the family. I have been to the Police Headquarters on several occasions and what some of the Policemen in charge tell me is unprintable.

Consequently, I was compelled to petition the Director General MTTU, Police Headquarters on the issue. He told me verbally that according to his inquires, the docket on the accident had been forwarded to the Attorney General's office for directives, that has forced me to write this petition to your Honorable Ministers to ensure that justice is done expeditiously to dispel the notion being bandied around by the Policemen concerned that the docket will remain in the Attorney- General's office for years.

I hope this petition will be given due attention.

0244034257

 The Attorney - General
 Attorney - General Department
 Ministry of justice

 Accra

The Minister of the Interior
Ministry of the interior
Ministries Accra

Cc The Inspector- General Of Police
Ghana Police Headquarters 

AFRICA CRIMINAL COURT

Barack Obama

By Dawuda Mohammed Suru

About Ten years ago, when the doors of the International Criminal Court (ICC) were opened in Hague, the expectations were that, the days of injustice and impunity especially on the part of elected authorities and other influential persons across the world will seize to see the light of the day. Today, the International Criminal Court is supported by many countries in the world with some African countries such as Uganda, Central African Republic, Mali and Democratic Republic of Congo already petitioned the court whilst the United Nation in recent past also referred some leaders of Libya and Sudan for prosecutions by the Court.

Recently, in the light of the visit of His Excellency President Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Basher to Abuja to attend African union(AU) special summit on HIV/AIDS, malaria and Tuberculosis, Ambassador Tinn Intelmann of the Court in a letter protested the visit and urged the authorities in Nigeria to comply with the Rome statute by arresting President Al Basher. The same arguments made whenever President Omar Al Basher visits any state party including Ghana in 2008.The opponents of President Al Bashir are accusing him of perpetrating an immoral act and presiding over a government with determined agenda of wiping out people of black skinned in Darfur.

It appears that, in a very desperate attempt to divert attention of American populations in the run up to the elections in 2004 from the terrible fallouts in Iraq. The government of United States of America hastily claimed and declared the conflict in Darfur as genocidal and strangely enough quickly warned against preoccupying themselves with it. Fortunately, given its apparent political opportunism, many in the International Community including both former Secretary General His Excellency Kofi Annan and former President His Excellency President Olusegun Obasanjo rejected it and called for a disregard of such claims of genocide in Sudan. As if that was not enough, the Special Commission On Darfur created by the Security Council of United Nation and chaired by Mr. Antonio Cassese was unambiguous and emphatic in their report that, both the claim and declarations of genocide occurrence in Darfur were baseless.

Furthermore, there is a very little if any at all racial distinction between the many ethnic groupings in Darfur. Both the so labeled Arabs and African are dark in complexion and the only possible differences are located in the cultural practices of the groups. Undoubtedly, the displacements of many innocent people within the region of Darfur are very disturbing and unacceptable. The Sudanese government under the leadership of President Omar Al Bashir was evidently very open and eager in signing the agreements with International Organization For Migration to oversee the returning of victims to their homes and ever since promoted the visits of many countless aid workers to the region. The arguments of President Al Bashir and the government ability to influence and control the activities of the criminal and bloody gangs are not supported by the evidence in the grounds. Many of the Sudanese government institutions including the Security agencies have been recorded as part of the victims of those criminals groups. Recognizing and accepting the conflict in Darfur as a clash over natural resource and never about an ethnic cleansing agenda is certainly the direction in helping solve the problem.

Many years ago, the founders according to the treaty establishing the Organization of African Unity (OAU) were inspired by a common drive to encourage understanding and cooperation among African nations in a response to the aspirations of Africans for brotherhood, solidarity and greater unity to overcome national and ethnic differences. Today, more than ever before, the developments in which decisions affecting the world are dominated by small countries some of which are not even signatory to institutions such as the International Criminal Court are backwards and no longer tolerable. African countries and other developing states should be given bigger voice at international institutions to take decisions to give international relations democratic character. Considering the structure and mode of operations of the International Criminal Court, very clearly it is targeted at African leaders and interests and therefore does not make sense for some countries within the Continent to maintain, they will comply with the Rome statute by arresting President Omar Al Bashir.

Lagos Airport and Lagos-Ibadan Roads: Shameless Neglect by Shameless Leaders

By Akin Olukiran

Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria President

First impression, they say, counts.  I recall a near-comedic episode over a decade ago when I had to visit a stupendously rich man with some mental health issues in a leafy suburb of London, on a cold winter morning, in company of a Caucasian professional colleague.  Upon arrival at the mansion, seeing the state of the expansive but filthy living room, we both made up our minds not to accept any offer of a drink.  Why?  It’s the first impression we had, with the deplorable and unhygienic state of the living room.  I was shocked when the man invited us to sit with him on the breakfast table in the kitchen and I saw how immaculate the kitchen was.  This was contrary to the ramshackle state of the living room.  Though the kitchen was immaculate, I had already formed an impression that I couldn’t shift.  To my consternation, when the man offered us a cup of tea and I declined, my colleague said yes and went ahead to have a cuppa.  After we left the place, I asked him why he went back on his earlier resolve to decline an offer of a cup of tea.  He responded that as an Englishman, he just could not resist the offer of a cup of tea!  Had the situation been reversed, with the living room looking immaculate and the kitchen as filthy as a pig’s trough, we would have had a drink without knowing state of the rest of the house.  That is the power of “first impression”!

To anyone visiting Nigeria, either for the first time or as a returnee, coming in through the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, the first contact with anything remotely Nigeria is the drive through the Airport Road.  What an unpleasant drive!  Whether going to a five star hotel in Ikoyi or wherever in Lagos metropolis, you have to pass through this eyesore of a road.  As a seasoned traveller, and at the risk of sounding rather conceited, I have the privilege of having visited over twenty different countries spread across Europe, the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa (four in Africa).  I have never seen any country that I can compare its airport road to that of Nigeria.  The road to and from Nigeria’s busiest international airport and the first point of contact with Nigeria’s road infrastructure by any visitor coming to the country, is reflective of the shamelessness of our leaders and their lack of pride in the Nigeria project.

This is more disturbing when one draws a parallel with our homes.  No matter how unpleasant, dirty, poor, or untidy one’s home might be, for most sane people with any iota of self-worth, the sitting room or “parlour” (in the case of Nigerians’ popular room and parlour abodes) which visitors and guests see, is usually tidied up, arranged pristinely and presented nicely to give a good impression.  This is notwithstanding the state of the rest of the house where the bedrooms might be in deplorable, filthy conditions.  This however, is only applicable to those who have pride!  It appears that successive governments in Nigeria have lost all sense of amour-propre and are so shameless that they cannot see the eyesore that this stretch of less than five kilometres of road has become.

Airport roads, in even the poorest of all the countries that I have visited are well tarred, pothole-free, lined with trees and well lit with functional street lights.   The Lagos airport road is anything but all of the above.  This unfortunately, is another symptom of the cantankerous relationship between the federal and state governments in Nigeria.  I understand that the Lagos State government is both keen and willing to carry out the necessary repair works to the road to enable the state to showcase the nation’s crown jewel, but because of the prevailing regressive and seemingly intractable federal law, the state is grossly disempowered to take any action.

On the deplorable state of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, what can one say?  It is diabolical!  It is a scar on the country’s conscience and a curse on our leaders for the countless number of innocent lives that have perished on this short, mere 120km (<75miles) stretch of motorway.  It is incomprehensible that the most strategic arterial route that links the heartbeat of the country – Lagos, with the rest of the country is not just a death-trap in a perpetual state of peril, but most worryingly, it is also home to countless number of sprawling mega-churches and an Islamic centre on a 28 hectare piece of land at Mowe, all vying for bragging rights on how many millions attend their weekly and monthly gatherings.  A short journey that shouldn’t take more than a little over an hour, travelling at an internationally acceptable speed of 70m per hour, ends up taking four to six hours.

Our leaders have conveniently found an alternative route of travelling by air to their various destinations at our expense and at a cost way beyond the reach of millions of Nigerians who have to endure and brave the hazards that this road poses.  We have become a nation of jokers that collectively, the whole country has become a stage to rival the Apollo in Hammersmith, London, where a plethora of top comedians perform their best stand-up and we are all comedians playing to a virtual international audience looking at us with both disdain and incredulity.  This can only be the view of the international community when, as a concerned Nigerian who ply this route quite frequently, words failed me when I read in one of our national dailies on 7^th June this year that the Ogun State command of the Federal Road Safety Corps sought divine intervention on the high rate of road crashes on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway!  The statement read “The Sector Commander, FRSC, Ogun State, Mr. Christopher Ademoluti, has taken the battle against Road Traffic Crashes in Ogun State, especially on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, to the General Overseer of RCCG, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, for his spiritual intervention.”  The statement then added that Pastor Adeboye prayed for the safety of all road users.  This, to me, trivializes the laudable, innovative and practical initiatives which the likes of Dr Kayode Olagunju of FRSC , (a fine officer whose daily road safety tips I tend to follow) are advancing.

This, to say the least, is laughable!  The answer to the problems on this road is in our hands.  God has already given us the wherewithal to make the road safer for road users but we have failed to apply them for the good of all.  The Redeemed Church, with all its wealth and other resources can, and should work collaboratively with other faith organisations that have set up shops along the Expressway to provide an alternative road to and from Lagos to ease the unsustainable congestion on this road.  In other climes where adequate planning procedures are followed and understood, the granting of permission to any of these faith groups to set up their mega churches/mosque along the Expressway would have taken the consequent traffic flow into consideration to demand planning gains.  Part of these gains would have been the provision of an alternative route for worshippers to and from Lagos and other facilities that would be of general public and local community benefit.

I thank God though that as I finish writing this piece, my dear father, Pa Joseph Babalola Idariapo Olukiran left this sinful and badly scarred country to be with the Lord in the wee hours of Saturday 29^th June 2013. He died peacefully in his home at the ripe age of 96.  May his gentle soul and those of thousands of innocent souls who had to face avoidable violent deaths on Nigeria’s deplorable roads, rest in the perfect peace of God, our creator, and to whom we all must return.

Akin Olukiran

Genetic Engineering: The Global Food and Agricultural Crisis

By Colin Todhunter

In 2012, Professsor Seralini of the University of Caen in France led a team that carried out research into the health impacts on rats fed GMOs (genetically modified organisms) (1). The two-year long study concluded that rats fed GMOs experienced serious health problems compared to those fed non GM food. Now comes a new major peer-reviewed study that has appeared in another respected journal. This study throws into question the claim often forwarded by the biotech sector that GMO technology increases production and is beneficial to agriculture.

Researchers at the University of Canterbury in the UK have found that the GM strategy used in North American staple crop production is limiting yields and increasing pesticide use compared to non-GM farming in Western Europe. Led by Professor Jack Heinemann, the study’s findings have been published in the June edition of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability (2). The research analysed data on agricultural productivity in North America and Western Europe over the last 50 years. 

Heinemann states his team found that the combination of non-GM seed and management practices used by Western Europe is increasing corn yields faster than the use of the GM-led package chosen by the US. The research showed rapeseed (canola) yields increasing faster in Europe without GM than in the GM-led package chosen by Canada. What is more, the study finds that it is decreasing chemical herbicide and achieving even larger declines in insecticide use without sacrificing yield gains, while chemical herbicide use in the US has increased with GM seed.

According to Heinemann, Europe has learned to grow more food per hectare and use fewer chemicals in the process. On the other hand, the US choices in biotechnology are causing it to fall behind Europe in productivity and sustainability.

The Heinemann team’s report notes that incentives in North America are leading to a reliance on GM seeds and management practices that are inferior to those being adopted under the incentive systems in Europe. This is also affecting non GM crops. US yield in non-GM wheat is falling further behind Europe, “demonstrating that American choices in biotechnology penalise both GM and non-GM crop types relative to Europe,” according to Professor Heinemann.

He goes on to state that the decrease in annual variation in yield suggests that Europe has a superior combination of seed and crop management technology and is better suited to withstand weather variations. This is important because annual variations cause price speculations that can drive hundreds of millions of people into food poverty.

The report also highlights some grave concerns about the impact of modern agriculture per se in terms of the general move towards depleted genetic diversity and the consequently potential catastrophic risk to staple food crops. Of the nearly 10,000 wheat varieties in use in China in 1949, only 1,000 remained in the 1970s. In the US, 95 percent of the cabbage, 91 percent of the field maize, 94 percent of the pea and 81 percent of the tomato varieties cultivated in the last century have been lost. GMOs and the control of seeds through patents have restricted farmer choice and prevented seed saving. This has exacerbated this problem.

Heinemann concludes that we need a diversity of practices for growing and making food that GM does not support. We also need systems that are useful, not just profit-making biotechnologies, and which provide a resilient supply to feed the world well.

Despite the evidence, governments capitulate

Given the mounting evidence that questions the efficacy and safety of GMOs (3,4,5,6,7), it raises the issue why certain governments are siding with the biotech sector to allow GMOs to be made available on commercial markets. It is simply not the case that country after country is accepting GMOs on the basis of scientific evidence, as scientists-cum-lobbyists for the GM sector often state (8). If scientific evidence were to be determining factor, few if any countries would have sanctioned GMOs.  

Part of the answer lies in the fact that the powerful US biotech sector continues to forward its agenda that GMOs are a frontier technology that will save humanity from famine and hunger. This is despite evidence that most of the world’s hunger is the product of profiteering industrial chemical agriculture and the global structuring of food production and distribution under the banner of ‘free trade’ and ‘structural adjustment’ (9,10), or as many of us know it brow beating and structural dependency.

Yet, the mantra of GM as the saviour of humanity persists courtesy of the GM sector’s puppet politicians and regulatory bodies (11). The US is pushing for lop-sided bilateral trade agreements with other countries not only to generally tie economies into US economic hegemony in an attempt to boost its ailing economy and flagging currency, but more specifically to get nations to ‘accept’ GMOs. Through behind-closed-door deals (12,13) coercion (14) or the hijack of regulatory bodies (15), there has been some success, and many think it could be just a matter of time before other countries, not least India, capitulate to allow GM food crops onto the commercial market.

In fact, regardless of any legal statute, it may be and probably is already happening in India, not least via contamination (16). However, if contamination by means of illegal planting and open field ‘testing’ fails to get GMOs on to the commercial market via the back door, the GM sector is attempting to cover all angles. Immediately after a moratorium on BT Brinjal was announced in 2010, a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill suddenly emerged. The BRAI Bill could not be passed in 2010 and 2011 because of objections, but it has surfaced again as a 2013 Bill. Environmentalist Vandana Shiva argues that it not so much constitutes a Biotechnology Regulation Act, but a Biotechnology Deregulation Act, designed to dismantle the existing bio-safety regulation and give the green-light to the GM sector to press ahead with its agenda in the country.

By highlighting the GM sector interests behind the proposed legislation, Shiva says that the goal is to give the sector’s corporations immunity by freeing them of courts and democratic control under India’s federal structure. For those who follow such developments in India, it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to appreciate that the future of Indian agriculture is in the wrong hands. Certain key scientists and top politicians have already been ideologically (or otherwise) ‘bought and paid for’ by proponents of the ‘Green Revolution’ and more recently the GM sector (7).

On a global level, with reports of wheat (17), rice (18) and maize (19) having been widely contaminated with GMOs, there seems to be a conscious ploy to contaminate so much of the world’s crops so that eventually GMOs take over regardless and render the pro/anti GM debate almost academic (20).

It seems that secretive trade deals, the hijack of official bodies designed to ensure the ‘public interest’ and bullying or intimidation are not enough. Contamination strategies are but one more way of achieving through closed and non-transparent methods what could not be possible by transparent and democratic means – simply because hundreds of millions of people do not want GMOs.

A generation down the line (or much sooner), will we looking at the health and environmental consequences of GMOs in the same way we now regard the impacts of the original ‘Green Revolution’?

“There are very good reasons why we have never introduced a Green Revolution into Africa, namely because there is broad consensus that the Green Revolution in India has been a failure, with Indian farmers in debt, bound to paying high costs for seed and pesticides, committing suicide at much higher rates, and resulting in a depleted water table and a poisoned environment, and by extension, higher rates of cancer.” Paula Crossfield, food policy writer/activist (21).

We don’t have to take Paula Crossfield’s word for it, though. Punjab was the ‘Green Revolution’s’ original poster boy, but is fast becoming transformed from a food bowl to a cancer epicenter and now reels under an agrarian crisis marked by discontent, debt, water shortages, contaminated water, diseased soils and pest infested cops (22,23,24).

In the meantime, big ‘ag’ in collusion with big pharma will continue to control our food and define our healthcare by pushing their highly profitable ‘miracle solutions’ for the health and environmental problems which they conspired to create in the first place. It is all part of the wider corporate-elite agenda to colonise and control every facet of human existence.  

Notes

1) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637

2) http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14735903.2013.806408#tabModule

3) http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/new-study-confirms-wheat-autism-link-0

4) http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/it-time-acknowledge-roundup-herbicide-contraceptive

5) http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers

6) http://vidarbhatimes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/maharashtra-reports-btcotton-failure-in.html?m=1

7) ) http://www.globalresearch.ca/india-genetically-modified-seeds-agricultural-productivity-and-political-fraud/5328227

8) http://www.deccanherald.com/content/311963/ban-gm-crops-imperil-indian.html

9) http://www.globalresearch.ca/our-hunger-games/5302603

10) http://cchronicle.com/2010/10/focus-on-hunger-interview-with-vandana-shiva/

11) http://rense.com/general33/fd.htm

12) http://www.global-sisterhood-network.org/content/view/799/76/

13) http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-eu-free-trade-agreement-a-corporate-stitch-up-by-any-other-name/5339789

14) http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/20/us-retaliation-list-gm-crops-cablegate/

15) http://www.globalresearch.ca/stench-of-eu-corruption-in-monsanto-gmo-whitewash/5316294

16) http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-death-of-rice-in-india/9562

17) http://rt.com/news/monsanto-wheat-japan-exports-026/

18) http://www.gmcontaminationregister.org/index.php?content=nw_detail2

19) http://www.scidev.net/global/gm/news/mexico-confirms-gm-maize-contamination.html

20) http://www.nwrage.org/content/2005-was-very-good-year-biotech-food-industry

21) http://civileats.com/2009/07/10/g8-promises-15-billion-in-agricultural-aid/

22) http://www.deccanherald.com/content/309654/punjab-transformation-food-bowl-cancer.html

23) http://sagarmediainc.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/punjab-indias-grain-bowl-now-reels-under-agrarian/

24) http://www.amazon.com/The-Violence-Green-Revolution-Agriculture/dp/0862329655

LIES IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

Barack Hussein Obama, US President

By David Brooks

All of us who use telephones or any internet communications services – that is almost all e-mail, chat, video-chat, internet phone calls or document delivery – have been informed that we are potentially subject to spying on the part of United States intelligence agencies, particularly if our communication is international. We have just been informed that those responsible for the supervision of these programs, in the name of the people, were not fully informed of the extent of this massive system of surveillance. We have just been informed by those who govern that no one needs to worry, that we can be confident they are doing the right thing.

We have just been informed that the rights to privacy and expression, guaranteed in the Constitution and by federal law, must be partially abridged in order to protect us from enemies who hate the liberties and rights we have in this country.

We are only now hearing about all this, and no one knows what else has been going on, because the government must keep the defense of liberty secret, they say. Even the rules that ensure that all this is done in accordance with the law and respecting the rights of citizens – as the Obama administration and legislative leaders of both parties assure us has been the case – are secret.

The valiant columnist Glenn Greenwald, of the Guardian, has announced that there is much more, that what has been published is just the tip of the iceberg of what former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden has leaked about the massive secret spying program – which Daniel Ellsberg, who made public the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago, described as the most important leak in U.S. history.

The justifications are the same ones we have heard since September 11, 2001, although what is most noteworthy now is that a Democratic President, and a large number of Democratic Congress members who strongly criticized violations of individual privacy when George W. Bush was in office, are now defending these intrusions with the same rhetoric about protecting the country from terrorism.

The legendary journalist I.F. Stone advised all journalists who covered politics, "All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed."
In this instance, when a government’s lies are exposed, not telling the truth is justified as necessary for the defense of freedom, transparency and democracy, faced with the threat of an ever-present enemy. For example, National Intelligence director James Clapper admitted in an evasive answer to a direct question from a Senator who asked if the communications of millions of U.S. citizens had been spied upon. Clapper offered the least deceitful version of the truth he could.

The public is not very surprised by any of this and polls show mixed reactions. Some indicate that the majority are wiling to give up some of their liberties in exchange for public and national security. A Timemagazine poll found that 54% of those questioned believed that Edward Snowden had done the right thing, while 30% thought the opposite. To confuse things, according to the same survey, 53% said he should be prosecuted, while 28% said no – although among those 18 to 34 years of age, the results were 43% against his prosecution, to 41% in favor. There is a statistical tie between those who approve of internal spying programs and those who do not.

What has been the most impacted is the credibility of the ruling class, although little remains of that. In a June 13 Gallup poll, confidence in Congress is down to 10%, ranking the legislative body last on a list of 16 institutions This is the lowest level of confidence Gallup has found for any institution on record, lower than big business (22%), banks (26%), newspapers and television news (23%) and organized labor (20%), among others. Those polled expressed the highest level of confidence in the military, 76%.

The debate unleashed is no doubt healthy, showing the lack of transparency and accountability of an immense, secret, increasingly powerful government.
Ellsberg wrote in the Guardian, June 10, "… to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense – as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time – as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads – they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor."

High level officials and veteran intelligence agents have said the same recently. While some commentators have noted the continuity of Bush policies in this area, which were once strongly denounced.

The debate continues in the United States and other countries, as well. European governments and Asian civic and political groups have requested clarification from the U.S. government about the scope and legality of the right it claims to tap and spy on anyone on the planet.

In Mexico and the rest of Latin America, everyone can assume that their private internet communications are subject to secret U.S. surveillance. Does Washington have this right? Does the U.S. have the permission or cooperation of other governments? Are citizens informed?

If this is not enough to provoke a change and remember that it is thedemos, the people, who must keep watch on the government, if it is to be considered a democracy, all that has been revealed will only amount to an Orwellian Blues. 

ANCESTRAL MOONSPLASH

Black Rasta

By Ekow Mensah

The Atmosphere At La Palm Beach Hotel Was Full Of Expectation When Black Rasta In An All White Attire With The Rasta Colours On His Breast.

He also wore a small bag in Rasta colours strapped on is left shoulder.

The rhythms which poured from the African musical instruments sent the message out there clearly.

The time for a new type of reggae which incorporates true African sounds has come and the pioneer is Black Rasta.

Mr. Kwesi Pratt, Jnr. Editor of The Insight launched the new album of 18 tracks.

He said “you may not like what Black Rasta says, but you can’t ignore the fact that at time when many musician are making noise, black Rasta is making the effort to make sense.

He described Black Rasta as an extraordinary musician with a passion for Ghana and Africa.

Dr Henry Danaa, Minister for Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Murtaka Mohammed and John Ginapo all Deputy Minister joined the long list of funs who showed up.

Zap Malet, Daddy Bosco, Kwaw Kesse were some of the big names in musical circles which showed up.

One of the special guests was Grace Asibi, a film producer.

INCREDIBLE: The Story Of Professor Mills And His House Boy

By Ekow Mensah

Professor John Evans Atta Mills was then a lecturer at the University of Ghana, Law Faculty.

He had gone to town with one of his close friends.

His friend saw his house boy on the streets and alerted Professor Mills.

Professor Mills beckoned the house boy to come closer.

When the house boy came closer to the car, Professor Mills asked calmly “are the shoes you are wearing not mine?”

The house boy embarrassingly looked down at the shoes he was wearing as if he was seeing them for the first time.

 “Yes Sir, they are yours but I am very sorry” he said.

Professor Mills just said “Please remove them for me” and the house boy complied.

Several weeks later, the friend visited Professor Mills and found the house boy still at work.

In shock he turned to Professor Mills and asked “why is this boy still here”

Professor Mills told his friend that making the house boy walk barefoot back to campus was humiliating enough and that he has learnt his lesson.

Friends testify that the house boy eventually became one of the most loyal friends of Professor John Evans Atta Mills.

Editorial

VANDERPUYE MUST GO

The Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) Alfred Oko Vanderpuye needs to be shown the exit for a number of reasons.

Since becoming Chief Executive he has deliberately been promoting ethnicity in much the same way as the opponents of Nkruamah did.

What is the substantial difference between what the Tokyo Joe Boys of the 1950s and early 60s said and Alfred Vanderpuye’s justification for changing the name Ohene Djan Sports Stadium to Accra Sports Stadium.

Vanderpuye has played the tribal card and in the process embarrassed the Government and the President.

He has also insulted a national heroine and done damage to the memory of Professor John Evans Atta Mills.

The Insight has no hesitation in recommending that Mr Vanderpuye must be given the sack. Period!

TROUBLE AHEAD

The Economic Intelligences Unit (EIU) is predicting trouble after the determination of the election petition before the Supreme Court.

In its July 2013 report, the EIU said the court case “will keep political tension high”.

It said “  As the forecast period progresses  and the election dispute is dealt with, the management of the rapidly developing oil and gas sector, as well as Ghana’s other abundant natural resources, will be an important factor in assessing the prospects for political stability.

“ The current feeling, among many Ghanaians that they have not benefited from the resources boom, especially as inflation erodes earnings could grow into a situation where people  take to the streets and unrest develops.

“Labour unrest has grown in recent months, which seems likely to be a further distraction for policy makers and a source of political tension “the report said.

The report claimed that some politician may attempt to take advantage of this situation for purely partisan political gain.

Ghana’s security services have said that they are ready to prevent the country from sliding down the path to mayhem.

The Inspector- General of Police,, Mohammed  Alhassan says  he can deploy enough  men and women to prevent trouble.

The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide

By Andrew Malone

When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it’s even WORSE than he feared.

The children were inconsolable. Mute with shock and fighting back tears, they huddled beside their mother as friends and neighbours prepared their father’s body for cremation on a blazing bonfire built on the cracked, barren fields near their home.

As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. While Shankara Mandaukar had hoped his son and daughter would have a better life under India’s economic boom, they now face working as slave labour for a few pence a day. Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low.

Shankara, respected farmer, loving husband and father, had taken his own life. Less than 24 hours earlier, facing the loss of his land due to debt, he drank a cupful of chemical insecticide.

Unable to pay back the equivalent of two years’ earnings, he was in despair. He could see no way out.

There were still marks in the dust where he had writhed in agony. Other villagers looked on – they knew from experience that any intervention was pointless – as he lay doubled up on the ground, crying out in pain and vomiting.

Moaning, he crawled on to a bench outside his simple home 100 miles from Nagpur in central India. An hour later, he stopped making any noise. Then he stopped breathing. At 5pm on Sunday, the life of Shankara Mandaukar came to an end.

As neighbours gathered to pray outside the family home, Nirmala Mandaukar, 50, told how she rushed back from the fields to find her husband dead. ‘He was a loving and caring man,’ she said, weeping quietly.

‘But he couldn’t take any more. The mental anguish was too much. We have lost everything.’

Shankara’s crop had failed – twice. Of course, famine and pestilence are part of India’s ancient story.

But the death of this respected farmer has been blamed on something far more modern and sinister: genetically modified crops.

Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead.

Beguiled by the promise of future riches, he borrowed money in order to buy the GM seeds. But when the harvests failed, he was left with spiralling debts – and no income.

So Shankara became one of an estimated 125,000 farmers to take their own life as a result of the ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops.

The crisis, branded the ‘GM Genocide’ by campaigners, was highlighted recently when Prince Charles claimed that the issue of GM had become a ‘global moral question’ – and the time had come to end its unstoppable march.

Speaking by video link to a conference in the Indian capital, Delhi, he infuriated bio-tech leaders and some politicians by condemning ‘the truly appalling and tragic rate of small farmer suicides in India, stemming… from the failure of many GM crop varieties’.

Ranged against the Prince are powerful GM lobbyists and prominent politicians, who claim that genetically modified crops have transformed Indian agriculture, providing greater yields than ever before.

The rest of the world, they insist, should embrace ‘the future’ and follow suit.

So who is telling the truth? To find out, I travelled to the ‘suicide belt’ in Maharashtra state.

What I found was deeply disturbing – and has profound implications for countries, including Britain, debating whether to allow the planting of seeds manipulated by scientists to circumvent the laws of nature.

For official figures from the Indian Ministry of Agriculture do indeed confirm that in a huge humanitarian crisis, more than 1,000 farmers kill themselves here each month.

Simple, rural people, they are dying slow, agonising deaths. Most swallow insecticide – a pricey substance they were promised they would not need when they were coerced into growing expensive GM crops.

It seems that many are massively in debt to local money-lenders, having over-borrowed to purchase GM seed.

Pro-GM experts claim that it is rural poverty, alcoholism, drought and ‘agrarian distress’ that is the real reason for the horrific toll.

But, as I discovered during a four-day journey through the epicentre of the disaster, that is not the full story.

In one small village I visited, 18 farmers had committed suicide after being sucked into GM debts. In some cases, women have taken over farms from their dead husbands – only to kill themselves as well.

Latta Ramesh, 38, drank insecticide after her crops failed – two years after her husband disappeared when the GM debts became too much.

She left her ten-year-old son, Rashan, in the care of relatives. ‘He cries when he thinks of his mother,’ said the dead woman’s aunt, sitting listlessly in shade near the fields.

Village after village, families told how they had fallen into debt after being persuaded to buy GM seeds instead of traditional cotton seeds.

The price difference is staggering: £10 for 100 grams of GM seed, compared with less than £10 for 1,000 times more traditional seeds.

But GM salesmen and government officials had promised farmers that these were ‘magic seeds’ – with better crops that would be free from parasites and insects.

Indeed, in a bid to promote the uptake of GM seeds, traditional varieties were banned from many government seed banks.

The authorities had a vested interest in promoting this new biotechnology. Desperate to escape the grinding poverty of the post-independence years, the Indian government had agreed to allow new bio-tech giants, such as the U.S. market-leader Monsanto, to sell their new seed creations.

In return for allowing western companies access to the second most populated country in the world, with more than one billion people, India was granted International Monetary Fund loans in the Eighties and Nineties, helping to launch an economic revolution.

But while cities such as Mumbai and Delhi have boomed, the farmers’ lives have slid back into the dark ages.

Though areas of India planted with GM seeds have doubled in two years – up to 17 million acres – many famers have found there is a terrible price to be paid.

Far from being ‘magic seeds’, GM pest-proof ‘breeds’ of cotton have been devastated by bollworms, a voracious parasite.

Nor were the farmers told that these seeds require double the amount of water. This has proved a matter of life and death.

With rains failing for the past two years, many GM crops have simply withered and died, leaving the farmers with crippling debts and no means of paying them off.

Having taken loans from traditional money lenders at extortionate rates, hundreds of thousands of small farmers have faced losing their land as the expensive seeds fail, while those who could struggle on faced a fresh crisis.

When crops failed in the past, farmers could still save seeds and replant them the following year.

But with GM seeds they cannot do this. That’s because GM seeds contain so- called ‘terminator technology’, meaning that they have been genetically modified so that the resulting crops do not produce viable seeds of their own.

As a result, farmers have to buy new seeds each year at the same punitive prices. For some, that means the difference between life and death.

Take the case of Suresh Bhalasa, another farmer who was cremated this week, leaving a wife and two children.

As night fell after the ceremony, and neighbours squatted outside while sacred cows were brought in from the fields, his family had no doubt that their troubles stemmed from the moment they were encouraged to buy BT Cotton, a genetically modified plant created by Monsanto.

‘We are ruined now,’ said the dead man’s 38-year-old wife. ‘We bought 100 grams of BT Cotton. Our crop failed twice. My husband had become depressed. He went out to his field, lay down in the cotton and swallowed insecticide.’

Villagers bundled him into a rickshaw and headed to hospital along rutted farm roads. ‘He cried out that he had taken the insecticide and he was sorry,’ she said, as her family and neighbours crowded into her home to pay their respects. ‘He was dead by the time they got to hospital.’

Asked if the dead man was a ‘drunkard’ or suffered from other ‘social problems’, as alleged by pro-GM officials, the quiet, dignified gathering erupted in anger. ‘No! No!’ one of the dead man’s brothers exclaimed. ‘Suresh was a good man. He sent his children to school and paid his taxes.

‘He was strangled by these magic seeds. They sell us the seeds, saying they will not need expensive pesticides but they do. We have to buy the same seeds from the same company every year. It is killing us. Please tell the world what is happening here.’

Monsanto has admitted that soaring debt was a ‘factor in this tragedy’. But pointing out that cotton production had doubled in the past seven years, a spokesman added that there are other reasons for the recent crisis, such as ‘untimely rain’ or drought, and pointed out that suicides have always been part of rural Indian life.

Officials also point to surveys saying the majority of Indian farmers want GM seeds  -  no doubt encouraged to do so by aggressive marketing tactics.

During the course of my inquiries in Maharastra, I encountered three ‘independent’ surveyors scouring villages for information about suicides. They insisted that GM seeds were only 50 per cent more expensive – and then later admitted the difference was 1,000 per cent.

(A Monsanto spokesman later insisted their seed is ‘only double’ the price of ‘official’ non-GM seed – but admitted that the difference can be vast if cheaper traditional seeds are sold by ‘unscrupulous’ merchants, who often also sell ‘fake’ GM seeds which are prone to disease.)

With rumours of imminent government compensation to stem the wave of deaths, many farmers said they were desperate for any form of assistance. ‘We just want to escape from our problems,’ one said. ‘We just want help to stop any more of us dying.’

Prince Charles is so distressed by the plight of the suicide farmers that he is setting up a charity, the Bhumi Vardaan Foundation, to help those affected and promote organic Indian crops instead of GM.

India’s farmers are also starting to fight back. As well as taking GM seed distributors hostage and staging mass protests, one state government is taking legal action against Monsanto for the exorbitant costs of GM seeds.

This came too late for Shankara Mandauker, who was 80,000 rupees (about £1,000) in debt when he took his own life. ‘I told him that we can survive,’ his widow said, her children still by her side as darkness fell. ‘I told him we could find a way out. He just said it was better to die.’

But the debt does not die with her husband: unless she can find a way of paying it off, she will not be able to afford the children’s schooling. They will lose their land, joining the hordes seen begging in their thousands by the roadside throughout this vast, chaotic country.

Cruelly, it’s the young who are suffering most from the ‘GM Genocide’  -  the very generation supposed to be lifted out of a life of hardship and misery by these ‘magic seeds’.

Here in the suicide belt of India, the cost of the genetically modified future is murderously high.

POWER PLAY IN DCE APPOINTMENTS

Local Gov't Minister, Kwasi Oppong Fosu

Two internal audit reports in August and October 2012 about the activities within the Akontombra District Assembly (Western Region) contain startling revelations about corruption, maladministration under the watch of the incumbent District Chief Executive, Mr. Peter Nkuah. In spite of these and other very serious allegations and complaints, the President insists that Mr. Nkuah is his man for DCE for the District.

According to the audit reports signed by Mr. Zakaria Farouk (Senior Internal Auditor) in 2012 “withdrawals totaling GHC 76,860.00 were made without any supporting payment vouchers in breach of the provisions of the financial regulations.

In spite of specific regulations about the use of monies from the Consolidated Fund, GHC 47,500 was illegally transferred from the District Development Facility Sub-Consolidated Fund Account to the Assembly’s Internally Generated where monies were dissipated on petty contracts, awarded to friends some of whom were not even accredited contractors.

Other strange actions under the watch of the DCE include Expenditure without approval (Jan-June 2012) amounting to GHC4,601.80; withdrawals without Payment Vouchers totaling GHC 76,860.00, and Expenditure without Warrant amounting to GHC 55,879.50.

As if these were not enough, six caterers under the School Feeding Programme, were given cheques for a period that they did not cook, instead of returning the cheques to the Programme. After asking them to cash the cheques, the District collected most of the monies from the caterers, with the excuse that they were being returned to government chest. No one knows what happened to those cash which totaled . According to our information, the schools in which the caterers were supposed to provide food were Akpafu D/A Primary School, Aprutu Anglican Primary School, Kojokrom D/A Primary School, Wurur D/A Primary School, Nkwadum D/A Primary School and Krobomanshia D/A Primary School. The total amount involved was GH¢26, 531. Although this case was contained in a petition with copies to, among other people, the Minister of Local Government and the President’s Chief of Staff, nothing was done to pursue the matter. 

They also accuse the DCE of falsely informing government in 2012 that the Akontombra town roads had been resurfaced although this was not the case. Fed with this misinformation, the government included the Akontombra town roads as having been refurbished in the 2012 “Better Ghana Agenda” booklet.

Strangely, the Presidency appears to have so much confidence in this DCE that three government appointees to the Assembly, who have expressed concern about the malfeasance of the DCE have been sacked by the President. One of the appointees, having recently been elected as Presiding member, took out an injunction to quash his dismissal.

This sort of power-play has been replicated in many parts of the county. In several parts of the country, the President’s nominees for District Chief Executives and Municipal Chief Executives have been met with opposition, mainly from NDC functionaries but also (in some cases), community leaders, including chiefs,  who have expressed bewilderment and hostility at the nominations.

This is because, for many of these people in the districts, the performance of some of the DCE’s, most of whom have already served four terms under Professor Mills, have been abysmal. The complaints are not homogeneous.    They range from charges of corruption, nepotism, arrogance, to incompetence, maladministration.

The communities are therefore taken aback that the President and his local government advisors have closed their ears to these local concerns with the explanation that those who are opposing the nominations are doing so out of sheer envy and mischief.

In the Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam (AEE) District in the Central Region it was reported that the  Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Baba Jamal had to threaten Government appointees to the Assembly with dismissal if they did not confirm the nominated DCE for the area, Peter Light Koomson.

In Assin North Municipal Assembly, the President sacked most of the Government appointees to the assembly when they refused to back the incumbent MCE.  At the voting, 15 “machomen” were deployed to intimidate the voters.

The chiefs of the Agortime-Ziope District in the Volta Region Have also opposed  the re-nomination of Michael Komla Adzaho as the District Chief Executive (DCE). According to them, Mr. Adzaho failed to to anything to improve social conditions in the area during his first tenure as DCE.

In the the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa District, the Assemblymen rejected the President’s nominee for the DCE post when the . He had 27 out of 45 votes of the assembly members present. 

In Upper Denkyira West, assembly members rejected, Mr Ackah Yankey, in spite of the President revoking the appointments of its six nominees to the assembly.

Again, in the Biakoye District (Volta Region), Gambaga (Northern Region), Kasena Nankana West District, Asante Akim and the West Mamprusi District the people protested against the re-nomination of the incumbent DCEs on grounds of corruption, although the President claimed satisfaction with the caliber of those DCEs.

These acts of intimidation and bullying against dissenting District Assembly members have caused dissatisfaction against the President and Regional NDC Executives who insist on imposing DCEs who are considered unacceptable.

The question that needs to be asked is why the government could have fallen out with its own nominees just because they are trying to expose corruption in their local areas.

RACIST LYNCHING

Trayvon Martin

By David Hoffman

On May 10, 2012, my article about the murder of Trayvon Martin, entitled An American Lynching, appeared on the pages of Pravda.Ru.  I concluded this article by saying:

"Sadly, given the sordid, racist history of Florida, and indeed many towns, cities and states throughout America, the outcome of the [George] Zimmerman trial is probably preordained.  An all-white jury will blame Martin for having the 'audacity' to be an African-American teenager wearing a hoodie and walking through a gated community.

These jurors, on the other hand, will view Zimmerman as the faithful 'community' watchdog, the personification of America's frustration with crime, the man doing the job that the 'authorities' are unwilling, or unable, to do.

And Trayvon Martin's name will be added to the ever-growing list of African-Americans who, both as crime victims and as wrongfully convicted innocents, were lynched by America's intransigently racist legal system."

I hate to say I told you so. 

Make no mistake about it:  if a rich, white, unarmed teenager had been gunned down in a similar manner in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, the shooter, acting in self-defense or not, would be on his/her way to prison this very moment.

Naturally what these jurors forgot, or chose to ignore, is that Trayvon Martin had as much right to defend himself as George Zimmerman.  He was in an unfamiliar neighborhood being followed by someone he did not know, a disturbing scenario for any young person.  And, unlike Zimmerman, he was not carrying a gun. 

  

Zimmerman, on the other hand, was carrying a gun.  And this gun gave him the incentive to instigate a situation he could have easily avoided.  And when he started to get his butt kicked, he used it.

Now, thanks to a jury in Sanford, Florida, African-American children can be gunned down by vigilantes for nothing more than walking through the "wrong" neighborhood, and wannabe Zimmermans can intentionally instigate fights, shoot their opponents if they start losing, then successfully holler "self-defense."

What the Zimmerman verdict does confirm is several axioms I have proffered in Pravda.Ruarticles over the years:  (1) The American legal system "labors harder to rationalize injustice than it does to produce justice" (quoted from A Tale of Two Academics, Part II (June 18, 2009); (2) The American legal system incessantly ignores, and in many cases even rewards, criminals whose crimes promote the corrupt goals of the system, and punishes those who possess the courage to expose these crimes; (3) The American legal system is nothing more than a means for the rich and powerful to impose their will on the poor and powerless and disguise it as "law"; (4) Evil is the primary motivating force in human nature, and America's legal system provides the outlet for people to exercise this evil under the pretense of doing "justice."

So forget the overpaid, talking heads, forget all the legal "analysis," forget all the talk designed to dupe you into believing there is a method to the legal system's madness.  The reality is that evil motivated those Sanford, Florida jurors, and, thanks to them, a murderer walks free. 

But this is not surprising in a milieu where CIA murderers also walk free with the blessing of the United States "Justice" Department, where torturers teach at prestigious law schools and serve as federal judges, and where the most lawless people are often those sworn to uphold the law.

Throughout the years, many people have asked me why I abandoned my law practice, particularly since it is often a gateway to fame, fortune, and political power.  The answer is simple:  I could not destroy my soul.  I sat in too many courtrooms and watched smirking all-white juries deny compensation to African-Americans who suffered horrendous incidents of police brutality and other injustices; I saw a City Attorney laughing and celebrating when a federal magistrate denied any financial compensation to an African-American man who had spent over five years in prison for a crime he didn't commit; I watched innocent people plead guilty to crimes they did not commit because they faced the prospect of being punished more severely if they chose to go to trial; and I watched attorneys delay trials time and again in the hope that ill and suffering people would become so sick or financially destitute that they would settle for less money than they were entitled to.

And I recalled the words of one of my law professors:  "If you're ever conflicted between being an attorney and being a human being, remember you were a human being first." 

I have no doubt that many attorneys entered, and are entering, the legal profession the way I did:  naive and believing the system is about truth and justice.  But those "David vs. Goliath" cases so prominently featured on television and movie screens, where idealistic, inexperienced young attorneys triumph over venal corporate interests and high-priced adversaries, are more myth than reality. 

I wish I could profess that some psychic insight led me to accurately predict the outcome of the Zimmerman trial.  But the truth is the ugliness of America's legal system and American racism made that outcome a certainty.

So a word to the wise:  Don't ever believe, not even for a second, that America's legal system is designed to promote truth and justice.  Don't ever enter into a legal battle thinking that anyone (including the judges) is concerned about fundamental fairness or even the most rudimentary concepts of right and wrong.  Don't ever believe that logic and sagacity are the foundations for legal "opinions" or jury verdicts.  Don't ever believe that "nobody is above the law."      

But, most importantly, don't ever believe that anyone in the system has a conscience.

Instead, accept the fact that politics, judicial bias, and/or the income, race, and/or gender of the defendant(s) or the victim(s) determine the outcome of most cases. Accept the fact that whatever common sense dictates to be the right thing to do, the system will do the opposite.  Accept the fact that the system is obtusely and incurably racist.  Accept the fact that the system is nothing more than a tool created by the rich and powerful to protect the interests of the rich and powerful.

If you believe otherwise, you will be doomed to many years of disappointment and misery, unless, of course, some Neighborhood Watch "captain" decides to kill you first.

A few weeks ago, a majority of justices on the United States Supreme Court, an institution that, under Chief "Justice" John Roberts, has become the ultimate testament to the legal system's corruption, hypocrisy, racism, obtuseness, and bias, struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act-a law that, just a few decades ago, numerous civil rights activists were beaten, jailed, and murdered for supporting.  The court's reasoning:  "America has changed."

Tell that to the family of Trayvon Martin.

NSA spying never catches Israelis - Why not?

Jullian Assange (L), Edward Snowden (R)

By Jim W. Dean

Intelligence analysis ALWAYS follows a dual track of analyzing what you can see...and what you can't. The massive coverage on the recent Snowden revelations has basically all been theater as most had already been revealed and/or was known about by every Intel agency on the planet.

Two old platitudes come to mind...'Crying Crocodile Tears', and Shakespeare's “Me thinks she doth protest too much”. When you cut through all the smoke and mirrors, the essence is very simple. 

Snowden, like Assange...despite the huge amount of classified material with all the embarrassing things that involved so many countries, neither of them seemed to know anything about the massive Israeli espionage that is carried out all over the world.

For example, the field reports from Afghanistan and Iraq involved Israelis being picked up as contractors doing very nasty things, and yes, doing them even to American troops. None of that stuff made its way into the leakers shocking release pile. We have people who wrote some of those reports, and they were major headlines. 

My verdict? No leaker who has had access to the mother-load of dirty Intel laundry on numerous selected countries, and who never releases any on Israel, is for real. They are an operator. Why? Because busting open the Israeli espionage cover-up is the story of a lifetime. 

On one side you have a loyal faction of modern Intel professionals trying to monitor and block Israeli penetrations. And then there is the rogue bunch assisting the bad guys for all the rewards offered, not so much by the Israelis themselves but their substantial political helpers. 

This battle has been going on for a long time and there is a huge amount of material available even in the declassified files. If you want to find out more, all you have to do is scratch the dirt. It is the espionage scandal of our time and these phony leakers have contributed nothing.

Veterans Today burned Assange in the fall of 2011, with Ziggy Brzezinski helping through his big PBS interview where he spilled the beans about the Assange information being released having been 'seeded.' He gave our initial claims a lot more exposure. 

So that really leaves only one plausible explanation for 'missing' the Israeli espionage angle. Remember I said it would be impossible for a really connected leaker not to know about it. And if Assange and Snowden were really these altruistic goody goodies who cry about the public's right to know how they are being abused by government spying on them, then why would they give the Zionists a free pass for doing it to all of us? 

Press TV readers would know why...because these guys are on an Israeli string. This is simply Intel 101. When everybody is getting embarrassed by leaks except for that one special group, there is no suspect number two. 

The Europeans are crying wolf as part of the charade, also. They all have been doing similar communications intercept spying on their own people...and more than a few of them in conjunction with the US under sharing arrangements.

The beginning of this came from the alleged 911 hijackers. They had spent time in various European states and moved around different legal jurisdictions as the most normal tactic of that era for avoiding close monitoring by counter-intelligence services. 

Communications Intel people did not want to get caught being responsible for missing another major attack, so it was open city on collecting everything they could by whatever means available. The NSA name for it was Total Awareness. This sometimes would include having other jurisdictions do things that were illegal for you to do in your own country. 

For example, years ago Canada intercept sites could collect material on Americans, and we on them, and both could testify that they were not collecting communications domestically and be telling the truth technically. But they were never asked about whether there was a sharing arrangement with anyone. This is part of the theater of Congressional hearings...what does not get asked. 

The Israelis have a huge appetite for intercept information and they used their Jewish Lobby political muscle to get their contractors inside many of their friendly country counterintelligence operations, especially communications. In the US, Michael Chertoff literally hardwired them with full promotion and protection from Bush and Cheney. 

Remember this is the crowd, along with Rudy Giuliani, who were going to make Bernie Kerik Homeland Security Director after being a high school dropout and detective third class. He was nothing more than a sock puppet for his handlers who would have been running the show. 

What kind of leaders would use a tragedy like 911 to put a totally incompetent person in charge of the biggest conglomeration of Intel and law enforcement in history? Many were suspicious that they wanted to make sure that 911 would never be unraveled as to who was really behind it here in the US. Bernie would have been perfect for that. He has been out of jail a month now. 

So what we have had going on is a cruel betrayal, not only here in America but in many countries. The War on Terror has been used by elites as an excuse to get a vice grip control over their populations, profiling them on a scale formerly only dreamed about.

Why would this be necessary? The only real answer is a looming fear of publics finding out what their governments had really done to them, the extent of the corruption and how thoroughly they had been pillaged. 

People learning that their countries had been stolen, that would make them dangerous. They would all turn against those responsible. The only defense for the elites then would be to quickly round up all those of a certain profile, those who had the leadership skills, the knowledge, and the network strength to fight back. 

The data mining ability available to governments now is absolutely incredible. They can find out just about anything about anybody...but not on the Israelis, of course. Think about it. With these new tools we should have been able to decimate Israel's espionage networks here...political, military, financial, media, academia and the think tanks. 

How many Israeli Intel networks have the Western countries broken up since 911? The answer is zero. The Zionists have compromised these Western nations in a variety of ways, with the primary tool being political espionage as that is the pathway you use to get your people deeply embedded in all the important spots.

They spend ten, twenty years, even longer grooming their people to have them ready when the time is right to slip them into sensitive positions. Even our Justice Department has been compromised, as loyal people have gone everywhere to initiate prosecutions only to be told that it was just impossible for “protected entities”. 

Assange, and now Snowden, are just side shows...burning up the public attention time clock that could have been much better spent going after the really dangerous threats. You cannot involve the Israelis in anything and have any security. The two are mutually exclusive.

The professional Intel people all know this, but get overruled by the civilian leadership where that fix is in. To call these countries democracies is an embarrassment to the word. These are conquered countries where people were sold the story about the tooth fairy and who are now struggling to outgrow their childish beliefs as their make believe world comes down around their ears. 

All of these countries, their elite class, deem their own people to be their number one threat. And the Israeli Lobby operators are stuck to the elites like glue, promising to protect them when the dark times come...that they will be OK if they are with the right group. 

Dear readers, we are not on their 'right group' list. We are on the expendable, potential threat one. Even War on Terror veterans found themselves on it, yet many are still refusing to let go of their Teddy Bears and face up to what has to be done. 

You can shoot me as the bad news messenger if you want, but that won't save you. Saving ourselves is going to require some very clear thinking, determination, and building street armies like the Egyptians just did. 

When we can put 50 million people into the streets and bring the military over with us, it will be a new Independence day. And the first order of business would be to clean up 911, and not let those responsible walk among us. 

Susan Rice's Snowden Blunder

By Robert N. Tracci

Former United Nations ambassador Susan Rice started her new job as national-security adviser a few weeks ago. Questions about Rice’s honesty when serving as UN ambassador, focusing on her role in explaining the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, occasioned spirited public and congressional debate. Although appointment as national-security adviser is not subject to congressional approval, credibility is essential to the effective discharge of that position. Yet Rice’s recent assertions regarding the impact of Edward Snowden’s unauthorized disclosures of highly classified national-security information and her failure to correct these remarks present new questions about her judgment and fitness for her new post.

In an interview on June 29, Rice dismissed claims that Edward Snowden’s disclosure of highly classified national-security programs damaged U.S. diplomatic interests or the standing of President Obama: I don't think the diplomatic consequences, at least as they are foreseeable now, are that significant . . . I think the Snowden thing is obviously something that we will get through, as we've gotten through all the issues like this in the past. While the harm to President Obama’s political standing attributable to Snowden’s disclosures is debatable, the serious injury to the defense, national security and diplomatic interests of the United States is beyond dispute.

Snowden is much more than a "twenty-nine-year-old [sic] hacker." Given the unparalleled nature of his disclosures, Rice's statement that Snowden's conduct is equivalent to all the issues like this in the past is demonstrably false. Rice’s apparent effort to minimize the harm caused by Snowden’s criminal misconduct is at odds with the public record and reflects a strain of denialism that raises questions about her capacity to elevate national-security policy above short-term political convenience. Her assessments not only openly conflict with statements by other administration officials about the nature and impact of Snowden’s misconduct, they threaten to undermine the ability of the United States to fully hold Snowden legally accountable for his so-called gross criminal misconduct.

Some contend with no obvious sarcasm that Snowden’s conduct has not damaged the national security or defense of the United States. But disclosure of these programs unarguably compromised intelligence sources and methods and alerted the enemy to their existence. The public now knows that these programs thwarted several terrorist attacks against American and overseas targets; terrorists now know how to better conceal their intentions from U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement authorities. Moreover, assertions that Snowden has not caused serious injury to the defense of the United States are contradicted by current and former senior Pentagon and intelligence officials, including Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA directors Michael Hayden and James Woolsey, and former attorney general Michael Mukasey. Threats of legal action against technology firms alleged to have complied with lawful metadata requests are likely to chill future cooperation, all to the detriment of the defense of the United States.

The conduct and statements of foreign governments in the wake of these disclosures further belie Rice’s claims that Snowden has not significantly damaged U.S. diplomatic interests. Since Snowden’s leaks of classified information were first published, China and Russia have determined that it is in their national interest not to facilitate his extradition. During this intervening period, Snowden has disclosed information concerning alleged intelligence operations against computer networks in the People’s Republic of China, alleged monitoring of Russian government offices and personnel, and purported efforts to intercept communications at diplomatic missions of the European Union and friendly governments.

Revelations concerning alleged U.S. cyber operations in the PRC occurred while Mr. 

Snowden remained in Hong Kong and overshadowed a June 10–11 U.S.-China summit meeting at which President Obama protested China-sponsored, cyber-enabled theft of U.S. intellectual property and private data crucial to U.S. economic competitiveness. Russia has attempted to exploit disclosures to undermine the diplomatic standing of the United States and continues to harbor him.

According to the New York Times, the diplomatic fallout from Snowden's disclosures has hurt President Obama's standing in Europe and raised basic questions of trust among nations that have been on friendly terms for generations. European Union president Martin Schulz demanded a formal explanation of alleged activities and claimed the United States was treating the EU as an enemy. France threatened to halt trade talks considered vital to U.S. economic interests. The U.S. ambassador was summoned by the German foreign ministry to explain new disclosures in a prominent German newspaper, and Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to directly express her concern to President Obama. Secretary of State Kerry spent most of Monday attempting to calm skeptical European governments while President Obama reassured allies.

How any public official, particularly the individual now serving as national-security adviser, can blithely dismiss and continue to ignore the far-reaching national security and diplomatic repercussions of the Snowden thing defies credulity. Furthermore, trivializing the extent of Snowden’s injury to the United States may undermine the ability of federal prosecutors to effectively present their case against Snowden on behalf of the country he has betrayed.

Snowden’s advocates claim he was informed by altruism and had no reasonable belief that unauthorized disclosures could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation. If he stands trial for his actions, the injury to the United States and the degree to which it could reasonably have been foreseen will comprise the gravamen of the government's case against him under a key national-security statute. As a result, official comments crafted to downplay the political repercussions of Snowden’s disclosures will be seized upon by Snowden’s defense team at any future trial. This alone should be sufficient to compel government officials, including Rice, to speak with clarity and objectivity about the serious injury Snowden’s disclosures have caused to the national security and defense of the United States.

Rice has been on the job for a few days. She is not off to a good start. Rice can help restore trust in her judgment and affirm respect for the position she now holds by correcting her recent comments about the Snowden thing. In the days and weeks to come, she and other public officials must resist short-term political pressure to minimize the serious harm attributable to the illegal disclosures. Instead, they must speak clearly and candidly about the harm Snowden has caused. If they do not, they may negate a vital deterrent against unauthorized disclosures of national-security information and deprive the American people the justice we deserve in the Snowden case.