Flyby News Home - Flyby News Archives - Casinni NoFlyby - Flyby Links

Flyby  News

"News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era"




Impeach * Sonar Dust Deceit * UFO * SITCHA


17 January 2008
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people
tolerate the growth of private power to the point
where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself.
That in its essence is fascism – ownership of government
by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power."


– President Franklin D. Roosevelt

1) Freedom or Impeachment – Democracy or Vote-Fraud-Feudalism
- - How The Pentagon Planted a False Hormuz Story
- - U.S. Military Veteran Jailed for Exercising Free Speech
- - Doubts grow over Iranian boat threats
- - Wexler Lights Impeachment Fire in Congress
- - European press: It wasn't a miracle - Hillary won via a rigged vote
- - Canada puts U.S. on torture watch list
2) 9/11’s second round of slaughter
- - U.S. House Oversight Committee to Hold Hearing in NYC
- - U.S. Military Officers Challenge Official Account of 9/11
- - Pennsylvania 9/11 Family, friends, independent media event 1/29
- - Able Danger 9/11 film premiere at Rotterdam Film Festival
- - U.S. Ex-Congressman Indicted In Terror Funding Case
3) Bush Attempts Illegal Override of Court Order Protecting Whales from Sonar
- - Kodiak Island Alaska Becomes Key Star Wars Test Site
4) Following money-banking criminal enterprises world held hostage
- - US bank losses intensify recession fears
5) Richard Sitcha, detained without charges
- - Draft Letter On Behalf of Jehan Abdur-Raheem
6) The polio vaccine, AIDS, and their US-made viruses
7) UFO in Texas –Witnessed by dozens of credible people

- - Government & Military Witnesses Provide Major UFO Disclosures

Editor’s Notes:

Seven items are in this intense issue; so, to slow down, I'll go backwards in summarizing. Item seven adds more credible-witness testimonies regarding UFO's. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of people in a rural Texas community reported seeing a UFO, described as a ‘Walmart-sized' high-speed, silent UFO, in broad daylight! The sixth item is an article by Jerry Mazza on the polio vaccine and connection to AIDS, (made in the USA). Item five is an article on Richard Sitcha, and photo. The Courts have recently ruled that he could be deported to Cameroon, where he has claimed to have been tortured. It looks grim, but, perhaps, something will happen to provide him and family a safe haven. Following that is a draft letter I wrote today on behalf of Jehan Abdur-Raheem, regarding his extended stay in the BOX in prison for more than two years. Item four is more from World Reports on criminal-economics, explaining possible current events, and why the Bush administration criminals may be holding the world hostage with the threat of complete financial collapse. This could be the news behind the news. England has strict laws to prohibit slander and libel. Christopher Story FRSA, Editor and Publisher, International Currency Review and World Reports Limited, is based in London.

Item three is completely outrageous; it includes an important NRDC press release: Bush Attempts Illegal Override of Court Order Protecting Whales from Sonar. This action is dehumanizing and shameful, and further proof of no honor left in the Bush administration regarding justice and the US Constitution. Following that is an article on Kodiak Island in Alaska, which is becoming a key Star Wars test site. Item two begins with another Jerry Mazza article, “9/11’s second round of slaughter”. The following articles include information on an important 9/11 health Hearing in NYC, January 22, 2008; plus, a new film, called “Able Danger” released in Europe; also information on a special 9/11 Family, friends, independent media, gathering and presentation in Wayne, PA, January 29th; following that is on an ex-Congressman indicted in a Terror-Funding situation.

And getting close to the beginning, item one covers the deception by the US to possibly lead into invading Iran. We can’t let this happen. Note the story covering a U.S. Military Veteran [hero], jailed for exercising free speech. This also includes a video of Rep, Wexler speaking to the House on why Congress must hold immediate hearings on Rep. Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment. Plus, note the articles on the European press figuring Hillary won in NH via a rigged-Diebold vote, and don't miss the appropriate article about Canada putting the U.S. on its torture-watch list. What has the US become? And what can we do about it?


Valley 9/11 Truth
PRESENTS
"Loose Change Final Cut"
Film screening and following discussion at the
Media Education Foundation, Northampton, MA
Tuesday, January 22, 2008; 7:00pm

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
~ Take Grassroot Actions ~
911Truth.org
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
SUPPORT SIBEL EDMONDS - FBI WHISTLEBLOWER
For latest updates ~~ click here!

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
For Independent Investigations
9/11
I N I T I A T I V E

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
New York Times Best-Selling Author's 9/11 Truth Novel
THE SHELL GAME



1) Freedom or Impeachment – Democracy or Vote-Fraud-Feudalism

- - How The Pentagon Planted a False Hormuz Story
- - U.S. Military Veteran Jailed for Exercising Free Speech
- - Doubts grow over Iranian boat threats
- - Wexler Lights Impeachment Fire in Congress
- - European press: It wasn't a miracle - Hillary won via a rigged vote
- - Canada puts U.S. on torture watch list

- - How The Pentagon Planted a False Hormuz Story
Analysis by Gareth Porter

16/01/08 -- WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (IPS) - Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the Jan. 6 U.S.-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows.

The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defence for public affairs in charge of media operations Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the Navy itself.

Then the Navy disseminated a short video into which was spliced the audio of a phone call warning that U.S. warships would "explode" in "a few seconds". Although it was ostensibly a Navy production, IPS has learned that the ultimate decision on its content was made by top officials of the Defence Department.

Truncated, for the complete article, see:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19085.htm

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - U.S. Military Veteran Jailed for Exercising Free Speech
By David Swanson, based on report from Malachy Kilbride

Mike Ferner was found guilty today in District of Columbia Superior Court. He has just been sentenced.

Ferner was originally sentenced to 5 days incarceration suspended and 6 months unsupervised probation including a $100 fine and $50 to the victims compensation fund.

He told the judge that he would not pay the fine and that his highest civic duty was to protest as the Germans should have done against Hitler. "Today we must speak out against the crimes of our government," Ferner said, according to Joy First who was in court in solidarity with Ferner.

Ferner has been taken away by US Marshals to jail.

The judge vacated the sentence and gave him a new sentence of one night in DC jail, First said.

Ferner is a national officer of Veterans For Peace.

Ferner, who served as a Navy Hospital Corpsman during the Viet Nam war, was arrested September 20, in the the visitors' gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives when he and another activist stood up and loudly addressed the members of Congress, saying: "Funding the War is Killing Our Troops!"

Ferner was arrested by Capitol Police and charged with disorderly disturbing Congress, a charge that carries a maximum 6 months jail sentence.

"The government says I was disturbing Congress, but that is not the case," said Ferner, a freelance writer from Toledo, Ohio. "I stood up in the House Gallery to sound an alarm, and you don't knock quietly on the door when your neighbor's house is on fire. You pound and raise your voice as if lives depend on it--and that is exactly what's happening in Iraq. Thousands of lives are being lost, the war is causing untold suffering, and Congress keeps throwing gasoline on the flames."

"We have politely petitioned, called and written Congress to demonstrate we want this war ended, and they keep voting more billions for the war. Clearly we need to ring an alarm to get the point across to these people so far removed from the consequences of their votes," Ferner concluded.

Post: Media@lists.mayfirst.org
List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/media

Source URL http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29994

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - Doubts grow over Iranian boat threats
January 11, 2008, The Guardian (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)

· Pentagon climbdown over 'you will explode' video
· Mystery remains over where voice came from
Ed Pilkington New York
Friday January 11, 2008
Guardian

Doubts intensified last night over the nature of an alleged aggressive confrontation by Iranian patrol boats and American warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday, after Pentagon officials admitted that they could not confirm that a threat to blow up the US ships had been made directly by the Iranian crews involved in the incident.

Several news sources reported that senior navy officials had conceded that the voice threatening to blow up the US warships in a matter of minutes could have come from another ship in the region, or even from shore.

The concession came on the day that a formal American complaint was lodged with Iran over the incident, and just 24 hours after President George Bush, on tour in the Middle East where he will be discussing policy towards Iran, warned Tehran to desist from such aggression and said any repetition would lead to "serious consequences".

The Pentagon alleges that the confrontation lasted about 20 minutes and took place in the Strait of Hormuz, where the US ships were in international waters. Five Iranian patrol boats swarmed around three US warships and came within a threatening 200 metres, prompting US personnel to be put on alert.

The US navy has said that its gunners came within seconds of firing on the speedboats.

On Tuesday, the US administration released video footage that it said showed the Iranian speedboats harassing the American vessels. A voice in English with a strong accent was heard to say: "I am coming at you - you will explode in a couple of minutes."

Yesterday the Iranians put out their own four-minute video that showed an Iranian patrol officer in a small boat communicating with one of the US ships. "Coalition warship number 73, this is an Iranian navy patrol boat," the Iranian said. An American naval officer replied: "This is coalition warship number 73 operating in international waters."

The voice of the Iranian sailor in Tehran's footage was different to the deeper and more menacing voice, threatening to blow up the warships in the US version. Nor was there any sign of aggressive behaviour by the Iranian patrol boats.

The Strait of Hormuz is a particularly sensitive stretch of water, both economically as a key shipping route for oil from the Gulf, and militarily. The location, together with memories of the arrest of 15 British sailors by the Iranians last year and their detention for two weeks, is likely to have heightened nerves on both sides.

But the mystery remains of where the voice that apparently threatened to bomb the US ships came from. The Pentagon has said that it recorded the film and the sound separately, and then stitched them together - a dubious piece of editing even before it became known that the source of the voice could not, with certainty, be linked to the Iranian patrol boats.

A post on the New York Times news blog yesterday from a former naval officer with experience of these waters said that the radio frequency used in the Strait of Hormuz was regularly polluted with interfering chatter, somewhat like CB radio. "My first thought was that the 'explode' comment might not have come from one of the Iranian craft, but some loser monitoring the events at a shore facility."

Despite growing doubts about what happened, the Bush administration continued to stand by claims of Iranian hostility. The defence secretary, Robert Gates, said the concern came from the "fact that there were five of these boats and that they came as close as they did to our ships and behaved in a pretty aggressive manner".

Further attention will focus on Tehran from today when Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, begins a two-day visit for talks on Iran's nuclear programme.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,332034747-111322,00.html

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - Wexler Lights Impeachment Fire in Congress
Submitted by Bob Fertik on January 16, 2008 - 10:24am.

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) went to the floor of the House to demand impeachment hearings, and he set the House on fire with his passion! Watch for yourself: http://www.democrats.com/impeach

More on this issue is also posted here at 911Truth.org
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20080116141645910

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - European press: It wasn't a miracle - Hillary won via a rigged vote
By Michael Carmichael

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7794

Global Research, January 14, 2008
Planetary Movement

The mainstream Italian media are reporting both the rigging of the New Hampshire primary for Senator Hillary Clinton and the official demands for a swift, accurate and impartial recount. In an article written by Marcello Foa, one of Europe's most respected journalists, it appears that vote tallies for all Democratic candidates as well as Republicans were reduced by Diebold vote-counting machines.

In an analysis of the hand-counted ballots, the influential Milanese newspaper - Il Giornale, reports that all Democratic candidates except Senator Hillary Clinton made gains when the New Hampshire ballots were manually tabulated, while Senator Clinton made inexplicably large gains where ballots were tabulated by computerized scanners.

According to the report, Ron Paul should have finished third in the Republican primary rather than fifth. Thus, it would appear that both Barack Obama and Ron Paul were the primary targets of vote-rigging operations in New Hampshire.

Il Giornale cites the Princeton study that alerted public attention to the vulnerability of computerized voting machines used throughout America to deliberate vote-tampering and election-rigging via manipulation of the memory cards.

The state of New Hampshire is equipped with computerized tabulation machines manufactured by Diebold, devices that have received a massive amount of negative publicity after the public awareness of vote-rigging surged dramatically following the presidential election scandal of 2000.

In previous statements, former President Jimmy Carter - who has a global reputation as one of the foremost authorities on election procedures - has frequently pointed out that the United States of America does not meet international criteria for electoral security.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the http://www.globalresearch.ca Centre for Research on Globalization.

For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com
© Copyright Michael Carmichael, Planetary Movement, 2008
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7794

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - Canada puts U.S. on torture watch list

Canada puts U.S. on torture watch list: CTV
Updated Wed. Jan. 16 2008 11:02 PM ET
CTV.ca News

Omar Khadr's lawyers say they can't understand why Canada is not doing more to help their client in light of new evidence that Ottawa has put the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on a watch list for torture.

Khadr -- a Canadian citizen who was just 15-years-old when he was captured in Afghanistan more than five years ago and taken to Guantanamo -- has claimed that he has been tortured at the prison. Now, CTV News has obtained documents that put Guantanamo Bay on a torture watch list.

Khadr's U.S. military lawyer says the new documents contradict Harper's assurances that his client is receiving fair treatment.

"Omar has certainly been abused, his rights have been violated under international law, and apparently the Canadian government has reason to believe that's true, and yet, they've acted not at all to assist him," William Kuebler told CTV News.

Khadr's lawyers say suspicions of torture undermine claims that he can get a fair trial from the military commission in Guantanamo Bay. They want him sent back to Canada to face justice here. But the government has said he's charged with serious crimes and they are waiting for the U.S. judicial process to play itself out.

Canada's new focus on torture was ordered by the inquiry into Maher Arar's nightmare in Syria. U.S. authorities sent Arar -- a Canadian of Syrian ancestory -- to Syria after he made a brief stopover in New York in 2002. They wrongly accused him of having links to terrorism in large part because of information provided by the RCMP.

Arar was sent to a Syrian prison where he was tortured for nearly a year. An inquiry into the Arar affair ordered a new focus on torture, and CTV News has learned that, as part of a "torture awareness workshop," diplomats are now being told where to watch for abuse.

The aim of the workshop: to teach diplomats who visit Canadians in foreign jails how to tell if they've been tortured. It also listed countries and places with greater risks of torture. The list includes Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and China. But surprisingly, it also included the United States, Guantanamo Bay, and Israel.

It notes specific "U.S. interrogation techniquies," which include "forced nudity, isolation, and sleep deprivation." The U.S. has repeatedly denied allegations by international groups that it tortures prisoners captured in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. However, U.S. officials have refused to comment on the Canadian list.

But international observers say they are heartened by the specificity of the Canadian list. Alex Neve of Amnesty International says he is surprised that Canada would risk offending allies by naming countries that potentially torture prisoners.

"These are countries where, sadly, the record is clear -- torture and ill treatment happens," said Neve.

But it appears that Ottawa may have had second thoughts about being so explicit. After the documents were released as evidence in a court case relating to Afghan detainees, the government tried to get them back. Sources say that Ottawa apparently wanted to black out sensitive parts that may anger allies.

Khadr -- who was born in Toronto -- was captured in 2002 after a battle with U.S. forces in which an American soldier died. He's accused of war crimes, but critics have alleged the U.S. military court that is trying him violates U.S. and international law. Khadr is the only Western citizen remaining at Guantanamo Bay.

A war crimes trial has never been held against anyone under the age of 18. International observers have questioned Ottawa's decision not to help Khadr, who many believe is no different than child soldiers victimized in Africa.

With a report from CTV's Roger Smith in Ottawa
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080116/khadr_torture_080116/20080116



2) 9/11’s second round of slaughter

- - U.S. House Oversight Committee to Hold Hearing in NYC
- - Military Officers Challenge Official Account of 9/11
- - Pennsylvania 9/11 Family, friends, independent media event 1/29
- - Able Danger 9/11 film premiere at Rotterdam Film Festival
- - U.S. Ex-Congressman Indicted In Terror Funding Case

9/11’s second round of slaughter
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor

Jan 16, 2008, 00:20

A review of Dust to Dust: the health effects of 9/11
A film by Heidi Dehncke-Fisher

What makes this documentary, Dust to Dust: the health effects of 9/11, so special is not just the chilling statistics it displays onscreen about the poisonous brew of materials that fell on Ground Zero and the surrounding neighborhoods; what makes this piece so affecting is the heart-rending testimony of the warm-bodied victims of 9/11’s fall-out, now living through a second round of slaughter, sadly their own.

These victims are struggling to stay alive and sane, combating cancers, pulmonary diseases, every conceivable kind of breathing disorder, and the psychic shock of being misled, flat-out lied to by the US and New York City governments as to the risk they were taking continuing to work, returning home or going to school in the area; this whether on the piles, in the surrounding neighborhoods, office buildings or even small businesses, directly and months after the apocalypse occurred.

To make matters worse, the organizations designated to help these people, FEMA, the EPA, Workmen’s Compensation, private insurance companies, municipal health providers, Social Security, Medicare, et. al, present these victims with a daily barrage of obstacles, largely red tape in paying (or avoiding to pay) for medical bills, including medications, surgeries, organ transplants, physical or psychological therapies, plus well-deserved financial benefits to help victims meet living expenses and literally keep a roof over their heads.

The federal, city and corporate blockage by the very people who should be facilitating assistance to these victims compound the inhumanity. The guilty parties range from functionaries in the various federal and city agencies and insurance companies to those who stand at the very helm of this nation. It’s no wonder one female EPA worker says, staring in the face of this conspiracy of red tape and feet-shuffling, “We are the dust of 9/11.”

What hit the victims?

Dust to Dust boldly supers on the screen some of the 2,500 contaminants that erupted from the explosions of the World Trade Center towers, Tower Seven and the two, fuel-laden jetliners, turning into a toxic gray dust that hung in the air as well as settled in people’s lungs and on area streets, vehicles, buildings, residences, both outside and inside the city for months . . .

* Over 400 tons of asbestos, which once inhaled in any quantity cannot be expelled by the lungs
* 90,000 liters of jet fuel containing benzene, a carcinogen that suppresses the immune system and causes leukemia
* Mercury from over 500,000 fluorescent lights that is toxic to the nervous system, and damaging especially to the kidneys
* 200,000 pounds of lead and cadmium from personal computers, toxic to the respiratory track, especially damaging to kidneys
* Polycystic aromatic hydrocarbons that cause lung, laryngeal and throat cancers
130,000 gallons of transformer oil with PCBs, causing serious skin rashes and liver damage
* Crystalline Silica from 420,000 tons of concrete, sheetrock and glass (tiny particulates that lodge in heart, causing ischemic heart disease)
. . . and so on and on and on . . .

Meet life’s cast

During the film we meet John Graham, an EMT, and carpenter, a strong, soft-spoken man battling with a handful of life-threatening conditions; similarly there is silver-haired Richard Mulhern, a fiber optic technician; Christ Baumann, an NYPD detective; Bonnie Giebfried, EMT; Timothy Duffy, a New York firefighter; NYPD Detective Zagroda who survives his lost son; Patrick Lynch of the New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, and others equally affecting.

Detective Zagroda describes an incident in which his son, a police officer as well, already suffering from a severe cough, stopped a lieutenant who was carrying five respirators. He asked for one. And the lieutenant told him, “Sorry, can’t do, these are for the brass.” The young Zagroda died one morning on the floor of a bedroom in his home from black lung disease as his child slept on the bed above, and his father discovered him. This is one of the most powerful moments of Dust to Dust, seeing this hulk of a man turn speechless with tears.

We also meet deer-in-the-headlights Michael Brown, former director of FEMA; a truth-telling Hugh Kaufman, engineer/investigator and EPA critic. And we meet the unbelievable Christine Todd Whitman, the EPA administrator who consistently told New York and the world there was “No reason for the general public to be concerned.” Of course, we see George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell, without facemasks, to make sure no one asks for one or uses even the meager paper masks that were available.

We meet Dr. Stephen Levin, head of the Mount Sinai Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Levin tells how he and his colleagues could see early on that these people were being exposed to cancer-causing materials that would end in disaster. This as Whitman kept reassuring everyone that we were “Not getting elevated levels causing concern.”

Of course, Rudy Giuliani is seen with a somber faced, former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik standing behind him. Rudy tells us straight-faced that “The air quality is safe and acceptable . . . That’s just the reality.” And we cut to a healthy looking black New Yorker who says, “If the mayor says it’s okay, I believe him. It’s okay.” And there it is in a nutshell. Which led one doctor to say, “Economic and political motivations rather than a real concern for public health” were at play.

The underlying agenda

Perhaps the major agenda, as the filmmakers suggest, was to get Wall Street up and running in a matter of days, no matter what the cost to everyone else. In fact, in one interview of a young woman Wall Streeter questioned as she walks briskly amidst the rubble to work, she insists she’s okay; she’s happy to be back to work; it’s no problem. It’s that same innocence, that same willingness to jump into this polluted torrent of life. An older woman who is questioned does not display that enthusiasm. She is worried about even being there. But these are just the little people caught in the jaws of some larger beast.

And thus, in addition to the 343 firefighters and paramedics, and the 78 police offers who died that day among the nearly 3,000 who perished, add to that the quietly disappearing numbers among the thousands of “survivors.” I also reported on them in Online Journal in Ground Zero illnesses come back to haunt Giuliani, and No money to treat 9/11 workers, $3 billion a week to fight Iraq?.

The ultimate irony is that the rush to work these men and women on the piles relentlessly aggravated in large part their nascent illnesses. The compulsive push of Giuliani to wipe out this horrific crime scene in eight months when we had 30 months to do the job is again criminal. In sharp contrast, first responders in Washington, D.C., had to wear respirators to go to work at the Pentagon disaster site, absolutely, no questions asked.

And, whether you believe 9/11 was an Inside Job or not, Dust to Dust will open your eyes to the punishable criminality of this second round of slaughter. It will make your ire rise and demand justice one more time, this time for the lingering hurt.

Excerpts – for the complete article, see:
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2845.shtml

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - U.S. House Oversight Committee to Hold Hearing in NYC

Asking Why Bush Administration Halted Program for 9/11 Heroes

-Congress to Examine Cancellation of National 9/11 Health Care Plan-

New York, NY - On January 22nd, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement will convene a hearing in New York City entitled 9/11 Health: Why Did HHS Cancel Contracts to Manage Responder Health Care? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been invited to testify about why it abruptly halted a request for proposals to provide care for thousands of 9/11 responders and others from outside the tri-state area who are sick or injured as a result of the 9/11 attacks.

Subcommittee Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) will be joined by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Vito Fossella (R-NY) and other NY elected officials, who will hear testimony from 9/11 responders and others TBA.

Due to security procedures, attendees are encouraged to arrive well in advance of the hearing.


Field Hearing on 9/11 Health:
Why Did HHS Cancel Contracts to Manage Responder Health Care?

Tuesday, January 22nd at 10:30am

Ceremonial Courtroom
Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse
500 Pearl Street
New York, NY

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - Twenty-five U.S. Military Officers Challenge Official Account of 9/11
Official Account of 9/11 “Impossible”, “A Bunch of Hogwash”, “Total B.S.”, “Ludicrous”, “A Well-Organized Cover-up”, “A White-Washed Farce”
Jan. 14, 2008

Eight U.S. State Department Veterans Challenge the Official Account of 9/11 – Official Account of 9/11 "Flawed", "Absurd", "Totally Inadequate", "a Cover-up"
Jan. 5, 2008 http://patriotsquestion911.com/Article%20Military%20Officers%20Challenge%20911.pdf PDF Version Article on OpEdNews www.opednews.com/articles/genera_alan_mil_080104_eight_u_s__state_dep.htm

PatriotsQuestion911.com

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = == = = = = = = = = = = =

- - Pennsylvania 9/11 Family, friends, independent media event 1/29
A Special "9/11 Truth Tuesday" - 1/29/2008

5:00 pm - Loose Change Final Cut,
7:00 pm, 9/11: Press For Truth.
Anthony Wayne Movie Theater in Wayne, PA

Following film screenings there will be a panel for Q&A
at the Freehouse Restaurant in Wayne, PA.

Panelists include:

* 9/11 Family Member Bob McIlvaine who lost his son Bobby.
* 9/11 Family Member and "Jersey Girl" Lorie Van Auken who lost her husband Kenneth.
* 9/11 Family Member and "Jersey Girl" Mindy Kleinberg who lost her husband Alan.
* 9/11 First Responder and founder of the FealGood Foundation, John Feal.
* Director of Loose Change Final Cut Dylan Avery.
* Director of 9/11: Press For Truth Ray Nowosielski.
* And maybe some surprises...

Press is welcome.
Source URL - http://911blogger.com/node/13394

== = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - Able Danger 9/11 film premiere at Rotterdam Film Festival

A new 9/11 Truth-inspired (?) film called "Able Danger" will have its world premiere at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) next week.

See http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/ned/iffr_2008/premieres.aspx

See also http://www.abledangerthemovie.com

More information about the movie here:
http://nystreetfilms.com/docs/AD_deck.pdf

http://911blogger.com/node/13401

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - U.S. Ex-Congressman Indicted In Terror Funding Case

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted a former US lawmaker for his links to a charity that sent funds to an Afghanistan-based supporter of Al-Qaeda through banks in Pakistan.

Former Republican representative Mark Deli Siljander was named in a 42-count indictment against the Missouri-based Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), charged with "engaging in prohibited financial transactions for the benefit of US-designated terrorist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar," the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

Siljander, 57, faces money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges in the case.

Hekmatyar is an Islamist rebel leader who received US aid in the 1980s to resist the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He briefly served as Afghan prime minister in the 1990s and initially opposed the Taliban regime, but then switched sides after the October 2001 US-led invasion.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080116/wl_sthasia_afp/usattacksprosecuteafghanistanpakistan_080116224056news.yahoo.com
Also posted at http://911blogger.com/node/13417


For more information on these subjects, see:

Bush Conspiracy and 9/11 Investigative Reports,
looking into the unanswered questions.


Campaigns for reclaiming a lost USA democracy



3) Bush Attempts Illegal Override of Court Order Protecting Whales from Sonar

- - Kodiak Island Alaska Becomes Key Star Wars Test Site

Bush Attempts Illegal Override of Court Order Protecting Whales from Sonar
From NRDC.org – 16 January 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bush Attempts Illegal Override of Court Order Protecting Whales from Sonar
Unprecedented Waiver Imperils Marine Mammals; White House Snubs California, Federal Courts and Congress

Press contact: Daniel Hinerfeld, 310/434-2300, 310/710-3111, dhinerfeld@nrdc.org; Hamlet Paoletti, 310/434-2300, 310/877-4686 (cell), hpaoletti@nrdc.org
If you are not a member of the press, please write to us at nrdcinfo@nrdc.org or see our contact page

LOS ANGELES (January 16, 2008) – The Bush administration yesterday attempted to override a federal court order requiring the U.S. Navy to minimize harm to whales and dolphins during upcoming sonar exercises off Southern California. In an effort to nullify measures established to protect marine mammals from potentially lethal sound blasts, President Bush gave the Navy an unprecedented waiver under the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), and allowed the Navy a second “emergency” waiver under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Those statutes are the basis of a January 3 injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, requiring the Navy to monitor for and avoid marine mammals while operating high-intensity, mid-frequency sonar during the “SOCAL” naval exercises, now underway.

“There is absolutely no justification for this,” said California Coastal Commissioner Sara Wan. “Both the court and the Coastal Commission have said that the Navy can carry out its mission as well as protect the whales. This is a slap in the face to Californians who care about the oceans.”

Judge Cooper ruled that the Navy’s scheme to mitigate harm had been “grossly inadequate to protect marine mammals from debilitating levels of sonar exposure” in Southern California’s rich biological waters. Her injunction required the Navy to maintain a 12 nautical mile no-sonar buffer zone along the California coastline; to shut down sonar when marine mammals were spotted within 2,000 meters; and to monitor for marine mammals using various methods, among other measures.

The waivers would eliminate all of the court-ordered mitigations under the pretext of “emergency.” In fact, no emergency conditions exist: The SOCAL exercises are routine training drills planned long in advance, but without meeting legal standards. Indeed the exercises were challenged by the California Coastal Commission and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) a year ago.

Moreover, the court did not issue a blanket injunction, but instead produced a carefully tailored order that enables the Navy to conduct sonar training using the common-sense mitigations, many of which the Navy had already employed in previous exercises.

“The President’s action is an attack on the rule of law,” said Joel Reynolds, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at NRDC, which obtained the injunction against the Navy. “By exempting the Navy from basic safeguards under both federal and state law, the President is flouting the will of Congress, the decision of the California Coastal Commission, and a ruling by the federal court.”

Both waivers must survive court review for the Navy to legally ignore the injunction. However, the waiver under NEPA is illegal, according to NRDC, because that statute does not include an escape clause for the executive branch, as some statutes do.

“This is not a national security issue. The Navy doesn’t need to harm whales to train effectively with sonar. It simply chooses to for the sake of convenience,” said Mr. Reynolds. “By following the carefully crafted measures ordered by the court, the Navy could conduct its exercises without imperiling marine mammals. Instead, it is attempting to circumvent the court and our environmental laws through presidential fiat. These waivers are unnecessary and we doubt they will both survive judicial review.”

For more information about the effect of sonar on marine mammals, see “Sounding the Depths II: The Rising Toll of Sonar, Shipping and Industrial Ocean Noise on Marine Life”

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists, served from offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beijing.

Related Links:
http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/sound/contents.asp
Sounding the Depths II: The Rising Toll of Sonar, Shippingand Industrial Ocean Noise on Marine Life
http://www.nrdc.org/media/2008/080103.asp
Press Release - Federal Judge Orders Navy To Adopt Significant Mitigation Measures For Sonar Use

Source URL http://nrdc.org/media/2008/080116.asp

For excellent background resources on this issue, see:
The harmful impact on Whales and Dolphins
by the U.S. Navy's experimental use of active sonar systems


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - Kodiak Island Alaska Becomes Key Star Wars Test Site

Kodiak Island in Alaska is famous for huge Kodiak bears, world-class salmon fishing, and the magnificent green that the island turns during the summer--which is why Kodiak is affectionately called Alaska's Emerald Isle.

But in recent years Kodiak Island has become known for something else. Star Wars. Hard to believe?

In 1992 the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation’s (AADC) was created and built the Kodiak Launch Complex. The people on the island organized to fight this development saying that putting a rocket launch facility on this pristine place would severely impact the fishing and tourist industry.

The public was promised that the launch complex wouldn't have any significant impact on the environment though Republican Sen. Ted Stevens made sure that no Environmental Impact Statement was required. The promoters of the launch complex also assured island residents that all launches would be for civilian uses, there would be no military role for the facility.

Local activists though knew better than to trust the assurances of these politicians. They smelled something fishy going on. They learned that each launch could release approximately 23,500 pounds of hydrochloric acid into the atmosphere and other dangerous substances into the ocean. They knew that this contamination could over time have tremendous negative impact on the local environment. (At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, after each space launch, there are significant fish kills due to the accumulation of toxic exhaust pollutants in the water.)

People also worried what would happen to wayward missiles that failed to properly launch.

As it turns out the only launches from the Kodiak spaceport so far have been military tests.

According to Alaska activist, and Global Network board member Stacey Fritz, "Until 2001, the Air Force with its Atmospheric Interceptor Tests had been the Kodiak Launch Complex's only customer. More of those tests are planned, but in 2001 the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command arranged for the AADC to host twenty of the U.S. Army Strategic Target System missile tests, commonly known as the STARS program. These are the missiles that simulate incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from Asia so that the military in the South Pacific can attempt to intercept them in mid-air with the latest missile defense technology. "

Things now seem to be picking up even more for the Kodiak site as the AADC announced last December that the "Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC) requires a dedicated rocket motor storage facility and an additional launch pad. KLC’s existing two launch pads are right next to each and can not be used simultaneously, thereby limiting customers and launches. The additional facilities will allow multiple launch customers to be on site simultaneously, double KLC’s launch capabilities, and result in KLC being a full service spaceport. AADC is currently developing a long-term relationship with the U.S. Air Force. The USAF plans on initiating the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) program with the goal of having launch on demand capability – placing national defense assets in orbit with very little lead time. KLC is an attractive launch site for the ORS program because the KLC offers flexible launch scheduling not available at other U.S. launch sites; and launches from KLC avoid populated areas, environmentally sensitive areas, and congested air routes."

The AADC is requesting $35 million for these launch site upgrades.

Once more we see how the military industrial complex lies their way into a community with false promises. Then once established, they dramatically expand their operations. Any chance to protect the community from this rampant militarism is lost as the local economy becomes reliant on the few jobs created and the local political class and media become subservient to the big money thrown around.

This story is being repeated daily across the nation and around the world as the military empire gobbles up community after community for bases, training facilities, and weapons testing.

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Blog)



4) Following money-banking criminal enterprises world held hostage

- - US bank losses intensify recession fears

U.S. CRIMINAL OPERATION TO SABOTAGE BASEL II
11 January 2008
[EXCERPT]
http://worldreports.org/news/112_bush_criminal_operation_to_sabotage_basel_ii World Reports

The US Dark Forces led by Godfather Bush Sr., George Bush 43, Mk-Ultra (‘Himmler’) Cheney, the ‘late’ Henry M. Paulson, the late Robert M. Kimmitt, and their collaborators and partners in High Crimes and Misdemeanours, former President William Jefferson Clinton and Hillary Rodomski Clinton, have been desperately seeking, with the enthusiastic assistance of their co-conspirator Robert Rubin at Citibank, and the other US criminal financial institutions led by the CIA’s Bank of America, to torpedo the implementation of Basel II, since it defangs their corruption at the source, causing the criminal kleptocracy immense problems for the future.

Central to this criminal operation has been the following bluff (equation):

• If Citibank collapses, the stock market will collapse and will go underground, the entire banking system will seize up and the world will be catapulted into a depression, and you know it. Therefore, you cannot tell us what to do, and we will carry on doing what we are doing whatever you want.

To which the leading financial powers, their central banks and the relevant international financial institutions, have made it evident that they will not countenance such a non-solution – albeit that many in this group, such as the Bank of England, are themselves deeply complicit in the fraudulent finance carousel that has been operating continuously from the base of the Ambassador’s stolen $27.5 trillion plus the duplicated $27.5 trillion that was raised using the original $27.5 trillion in Wanta’s accounts as collateral, while the Ambassador was languishing in the GULAG.

Building on the blackmail potential arising from the known complicity of certain central banks and powerful governments – and with the assistance of Bush’s Number One bag man (see below) who has been dispensing stolen funds left right and centre to easily corruptible politicians at home and abroad – the cabal of world criminals headed by George Bush and his Criminal President son, have (a) continued their repeated giga-thefts and (b) attempted to bribe their way to procuring domestic and foreign compliance with their criminal model, in open defiance of the assembled forces which SUPPOSEDLY remain determined to cauterise this financial fraud poison from the system, and to see to it that ALL those involved in this endless financial criminality will reap their due rewards under a restored Rule of Law.

These forces have made huge progress, assisted, we believe by this website, and despite the continued amoral fecklessness of the so-called ‘mainstream (‘sidestream’ or ‘latestream’) media which, in the United States, is manipulated under the CIA's Operation Mockingbird programme – a straightforward fact that we reiterate so that all those who thought that ‘because it hasn’t appeared in the mainstream it can’t be true’ – can look it up and do their homework, and then spare the Editor the benefit of their knee-jerk responses to FACTS that they may find ‘hard to believe’.

For complete article, see:
http://worldreports.org/news/112_bush_criminal_operation_to_sabotage_basel_ii

For updated archives, see: http://worldreports.org/news

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - US bank losses intensify recession fears
World Socialist Web Site
US bank losses intensify recession fears
By Patrick Martin
15 January 2008

Two more major banks reported heavy mortgage and consumer-loan losses Monday for the fourth quarter of 2007, reinforcing fears that that US financial crisis will likely trigger a recession, not only in America, but worldwide.

M&T Bank, based in Buffalo, New York, reported a 70 percent decline in earnings for the fourth quarter, largely due to losses on Collateralized Debt Obligations, the financial instrument widely used to transform home mortgages into tradeable securities.

Sovereign Bancorp of Philadelphia said it would take a $1.6 billion write-off for the fourth quarter, much of it related to mortgage lending. However, $600 million of the loss was due to defaults on consumer loans, an indication that the financial crisis is spreading. Sovereign said it had stopped issuing auto loans in seven of the 15 states in which it does business­Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina.

Also on Monday, CNBC reported that the biggest US bank, Citigroup, will announce a colossal write-off of as much as $24 billion and the elimination of as many as 24,000 jobs. The bank is to report its fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday, and is also expected to announce a cut in its dividend.

Citigroup has been scouring the Middle East and Asia for investors in a position to take multi-billion-dollar stakes. Among those said to be involved is Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. The bank is seeking to raise as much as $15 billion in new capital. On Monday, the state-owned China Development bank decided not to go ahead with a proposed investment of $2 billion in the company, forcing Citigroup to seek other benefactors.

The Financial Times reported Monday that Merrill Lynch, the largest US stockbroker, is seeking to raise an additional $4 billion in new capital, with the Kuwait Investment Authority as the leading candidate. Merrill Lynch is expected to write off as much as $14 billion in losses and lay off up to 1,000 workers.

The spectacle of giant US financial institutions going hat in hand to the oil sheiks and the government investment agencies of China, Taiwan and Singapore is one indicator of the deteriorating world position of American capitalism.

Another is the continued fall in the dollar, both against the currencies of rival capitalist powers, and against gold and other precious metals. Gold topped the $900 an ounce mark Monday in London trading, at one point hitting $914, an all time record. Platinum set a new record of $1,587 an ounce, while silver hit $16.58 an ounce, the highest figure in 27 years.

The dollar dropped to a record low of 1.0912 Swiss francs, while also hitting seven-week lows against the euro and the yen. At $1.4890 to the euro, the dollar is near to breaking the 1.50 barrier. That is widely regarded as a psychological milestone which could produce a much wider sell-off of dollars as countries currently accumulating dollars­especially the oil states and Asian exporters­seek to shift their surpluses to euros, yen or a basket of currencies more likely to retain their value.

The latest dollar plunge was said to be in response to comments last week by Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke, in which he pledged “substantive additional action” to prop up the US economy, a statement widely viewed as a pledge to continue cutting US interest rates by at least a half percentage point this month.

Further cuts in US interest rates, carried out at the behest of Wall Street to stave off a collapse of confidence in the financial system, ultimately make the crisis even worse, since reducing the rate of return impels foreign investors to dump their dollar-denominated assets and shift their holdings into other, more lucrative, investments.

Exerting continuous pressure on the value of the dollar is the gargantuan US trade deficit, which hit its highest monthly total in 14 months last November, according to figures released by the US Commerce Department January 11. The trade deficit shot up 9.3 percent to $63.1 billion, much more than expected, driven by a 16.3 percent rise in the cost of imported oil. Oil imports hit $34.4 billion, accounting for more than half the net deficit.

Retail sales figures from December, to be announced publicly on Tuesday, are expected to show the combined impact on consumer spending of higher gasoline and home heating costs and plunging home values. An actual decline in retail sales in December, compared to the same month the year before, would be the first such negative reading since June.

Sales reports from individual retailers already suggest the dimensions of the downturn in consumer spending, with Macy’s reporting a 7.9 percent decline in same-store sales in December 2007, compared to December 2006. Kohl’s reported an 11 percent drop and Nordstrom a 4 percent drop. The broad decline is an indication that upscale as well as middle-income consumers are cutting back.

Other figures detailed the expanding dimensions of the home mortgage crisis, which is becoming a more generalized crisis of consumer credit:

* A Mortgage Bankers Association survey found that a record 18.81 percent of the nearly 3 million sub-prime adjustable-rate loans issued by its members were already past due.

* Freddie Mac, the big mortgage finance company, found that homeowners refinancing their mortgages were able to extract $20 billion less in the third quarter than the second. The $60 billion in home equity extracted was the lowest since the first quarter of 2005, and indicates that far less such cash will be available for consumer spending.

* The American Bankers Association found that delinquency rates for home equity lines of credit had climbed to their highest level in 10 years at the end of September.

* The Federal Reserve Board reported last week that total outstanding credit card debt rose at an 11.3 percent annual rate in November 2007. For the year, credit card debt is up 7.4 percent to $937.5 trillion, compared to increases of from 2 to 4 percent between 2003 and 2005.

The growing indebtedness of consumers, combined with the falloff of spending, demonstrates that millions of households, working class and middle class, are going further into debt just to finance their day-to-day expenses. Any new expenses can lead to major financial difficulties.

In the face of these figures, the sudden flurry of proposals by the political representatives of big business­the Bush administration, Congress, and the Democratic and Republican candidates­resemble nothing so much as the reorganization of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

White House officials told the press last week that Bush would propose a stimulus package for the US economy in his State of the Union speech scheduled for January 28, although no details had been worked out yet. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said January 11 that the US economy had slowed “rather materially” and that “time is of the essence” in initiating any stimulus package.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the two leading congressional Democrats, sent a joint letter to Bush Friday saying, “We want to work with you.” The letter received a favorable White House response, and Pelosi met with Fed chief Bernanke Monday to discuss what concrete actions could be taken.

Some combination of tax cuts for business, tax rebates for the working poor and a limited extension of unemployment benefits or home heating assistance is the likely outcome of such discussions, with a total amount estimated at $50 to $100 billion. Even these proposals are problematic, however, since congressional Republicans could block such measures, particularly those targeted to lower-income families.

The presidential candidates have chimed in, with the Republican candidates proposing more tax cuts for business and the wealthy­which would do nothing to alleviate the spreading economic distress among working people­and the Democrats offering stimulus packages that would amount to little more than band-aids.

Hillary Clinton’s plan, released Friday, calls for $70 billion in stimulus, including relief for homeowners facing foreclosure and an extension of unemployment benefits. Barack Obama slightly outbid her, offering a $75 billion plan, but with more targeted to business interests in the form of tax incentives.

None of these plans amount to more than a drop in the bucket compared to the vast dimensions of the social and economic crisis in the United States. By one estimate, the $30-a-barrel increase in oil prices over the past five months has by itself cost US consumers $150 billion­double the amount of “stimulus” proposed by the Clinton and Obama plans. It goes without saying that no big business politician is proposing that the oil companies disgorge any of their massive profits. On the contrary, the energy bill adopted by the Democratic Congress last month retains $12 billion in federal subsidies to the oil giants.

More fundamentally, a minor boost to consumer spending will do nothing to offset the spreading financial contagion or restabilize debt markets. The bursting of the housing bubble is only the initial stage of a financial crisis of unprecedented dimensions, one that will call into question the viability of the capitalist system worldwide.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jan2008/econ-j15.shtml



5) Richard Sitcha, detained without charges

- - Draft Letter On Behalf of Jehan Abdur-Raheem

Losing Hope
Richard Sitcha, detained without charges,
faces deportation-and that could spell death.
By Maureen Turner

In the three and a half years since I've been following Richard Sitcha's case, I admit to maintaining a low-level­ and uncharacteristic­ degree of optimism that things would turn out all right for him.

In 2001, the Cameroon native had come to the U.S. and settled in Hartford, fleeing the oppressive, abusive government in his homeland. Sitcha says he'd left home after being arrested and tortured for helping the families of a group of young men ­dubbed the Bepanda Nine by international human rights groups ­who'd been killed by government security forces. His story apparently satisfied the U.S. government, which granted him asylum in early 2003.

But the relief was short-lived; nine months later, Sitcha was informed that his case had been reopened. He was summoned to court on Sept. 18, 2003, where a judge revoked his asylum, asserting that his application was no longer deemed credible. He was promptly arrested for immigration violations, thanks to tougher, post-September 11 policies, and has spent the past four years in jail, desperately fighting to stay in the U.S. He has never been charged with a crime.

On the surface, there's not much about Sitcha's case that would inspire optimism. He and his supporters have failed to get fully satisfying answers about what prompted the government to suddenly doubt his asylum application. (Court records indicate one factor may have been testimony from an embassy worker in Cameroon disputing Sitcha's claim of involvement in the Bepanda case; the Department of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over the case, did not respond to an interview request from the Advocate.) He's been bounced among several jails, including Greenfield and, currently, Plymouth. He was beaten by a cellmate in one place and, he says, abused by guards in another. Throughout, he and his friends have lived in fear of his deportation back to Cameroon, where they fear he could be killed by government forces.

Last month came some devastating news: Sitcha's most recent application for a stay of deportation was denied, opening the door for him to be returned to Cameroon at any time.

Perhaps I've been able to maintain some shred of optimism about Sitcha's case because of the people who've rallied behind him.

Sitcha may have been a stranger in a strange land when he arrived in the U.S. six years ago, but he didn't stay that way for long. He quickly made friends in Hartford's African-immigrant community and at St. Anne-Immaculate Conception, the church where the devout Catholic began attending mass. His church friends have formed the core of his support group, joined by devoted Valley activists who learned of his case and began visiting him while he was held in the Greenfield jail. They formed a Sitcha Defense Fund, raising $27,000 for legal fees and seeking, with limited luck, attorneys who take on his case.

Even now, they are lobbying Sens. Ted Kennedy and John Kerry for help, hoping for a stay of deportation to allow them time to find a third country that will accept Sitcha or at least some guarantee that he will be protected if he is sent back to Cameroon. (The committee can be contacted at suzannec@crocker.com or by writing to P.O. Box 1263, Greenfield, MA 01302.)

--

I met Sitcha at the Greenfield jail on a Saturday morning in the summer of 2004. As a reporter, I couldn't confirm many of the things he told me about his experience in his homeland. But I did see the scars on the bottom of his feet, the result of a jail house beating with the blunt end of a machete after his arrest in Cameroon, he said. I'd also read damning reports ­including one from the U.S. State Department ­about the human rights violations and abuses inflicted by the government there, including the Bepanda Nine case.

And I was able to spend a few hours getting to know Sitcha. He spoke animatedly, and persuasively, about all he'd been through, poring over a pile of legal documents he'd brought with him. He talked about the strength he'd found through his religious faith and his loyal circle of friends. He spoke of his distrust in the legal system, his fears about what would happen if he was sent back to Cameroon, and his disappointment in the realities that contradicted the American ideals he'd learned about at home.

"I can't lie to you ­I'm very surprised for America," Sitcha told me that morning. "I went to school; I learned international law; I learned the American system. ... It's not what I learned in school. I cannot understand how they can put someone in prison for nothing."

Neither can I. But more than six years after the September 11 attacks allowed the government to declare open season on our basic civil rights, I should no longer be surprised by it. Out of respect for Sitcha and his friends, I hold out hope for a last-minute reprieve, a long-overdue hopeful development in his case. But if it doesn't come, I have no business being surprised.

mturner@valleyadvocate.com

For the original posting of this article,
From hope to prison
Source URL (with photo)www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=5170

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Post@ FlybyNews.com

Free Richard Sitcha -- In April 2001, Richard Sitcha fled Cameroon after being imprisoned and tortured by the government’s security forces due to his involvement with the political protests against the Bepanda Nine killings. Fearing for his life, Richard applied for political asylum as soon as he arrived in the United States. The United States government granted Richard asylum in January 2003. Life was looking up for Richard—he could now realize his dreams of going back to school and bringing his wife and two children to the US. On September 18, 2003, however, the US government revoked Richard’s asylum and arrested him in the courtroom. He has been in jail, without charge, ever since that date! For more information, visit - FreeRichard.com. Also, in FN archives, see: Dennis J. Kucinich and the Sitcha Connection; also an article by Richard Sitcha, My Way of the Cross; and updates of March , May, August, 2006, and April, 2007 from the Sitcha Defense Committee. Plus, in item 3, a May 2007 letter from Sitcha to Mark.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - Draft Letter On Behalf of Jehan Abdur-Raheem
By Jonathan Mark

Re; FN issue - December 18, 2007 -
Eco $ Abyss * 1959 * Impeach * DeathPen
Item 3 - - Jehan Abdur-Raheem – A Muslim in Isolation Row

[All feedback is welcome – write to flyby (at) mtdata(dot)com]

[DRAFT]
Commissioner Fischer
The NYS Department of Correctional Services
The Harriman State Campus
#1220 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York – 12226

cc: Jehan Abdur-Raheem
77A1180
P.O. Box 500; Elmira Correctional Facility
Elmira, NY 14902-0500

Dear Commissioner Fischer:

I believe I have strong evidence indicating that that the extensive solitary confinement of Jehan Abdur-Raheem at Elmira Correctional Facility is neither fair or just. The evidence I have is from letters from Jehan Abdur-Raheem over the past years, communicating nonviolence, friendship, in attitude, thoughts, and actions. On record Raheem has never been charged with any rioting, escapes, staff assaults, drugs or weapons violations. Why should he be in lock down for years from non-disclosed sources? I hope you will consider replying to let me know if interested in reviewing these letters.

I am skeptical when it comes to non-disclosed sources with vague accusations at a time when the US government has been exposed for misleading our country into a preemptive war; not only regarding weapons of mass destruction, but in influencing the public into believing that Iraq had something to do with the events of September 11, 2001.

Jehan happens to worship as a Muslim; I have friends of most all religions, and I find value in most all religions, too. The value in each religion is in what unites us. What it really comes down to is that we each are human, foremost. I was raised in Brooklyn, NY, in the Jewish religion. Jehan and I through correspondence have formed a friendship. Jehan’s letters reveal mistreatment at Elmira Correctional Facility. His actions and thoughts have been nonviolent and sociable for at least as long as I have communicated with him. The letters he had written to me are worth considering before another day of isolating him from ‘normal’ prison activity, and should be considered, too, for his parole at his next Hearing.

Thank you for any consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Mark
publisher
Flyby News
P.O. Box 1999
Wendell Depot, MA 01380
Tel.
Web Site - FlybyNews.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[Post@ FlybyNews.com]
Human Rights + A Nation Behind Bars: the buried talents of a population.



6) The polio vaccine, AIDS, and their US-made viruses
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor
Jan 11, 2008, 00:43

When I was a teenager growing up in Brooklyn, my parents warned me every summer to stay away from public pools or taking any chances running under opened fire hydrants to cools us from the brick-and-tar baking heat. Their fear was the epidemic of polio that haunted the US -- 52,000 cases in 1952 alone. My parents worried that polio “germs” could be carried in the highly used and abused public waters.

Yet in April 1955, in my 17th year, lo and behold Dr. Jonas Salk, a funny looking guy from Pittsburgh, announced from the University of Michigan that he had developed a polio vaccine for distribution. Eureka. Thousands of families like mine flooded to the local doctors, clinics, and hospitals. It seemed all those rosaries my friends’ mothers and mine gave up to the Holy Mother paid off. But did they?

As William Carlsen reports in his SFGATE article “Rogue virus in the vaccine:” Salk’s vaccine was produced by actually growing live polio virus on kidney tissue from the Asian rhesus monkey. The virus was then killed with formaldehyde. Thus, when the vaccine was injected in humans, the dead virus generated antibodies that could fend off live polio. What a simple, beautiful idea. Or so it seemed.

What the millions of people who were injected didn’t know, nor would they until 1959, when Bernice Eddy, looking in her microscope at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), found that monkey kidney cells, the very same kind used to make the vaccine, were dying with no known cause. So she experimented.

She prepared extracts from kidneys from eight to 10 rhesus monkeys. She then injected tiny amounts beneath the skin of 23 newborn hamsters. In nine months, “large, malignant, subcutaneous tumors” showed up on 20 of the animals -- and the world shook. Or did it?

Eddy tried to spread the word

Horrified that a monkey virus could be contaminating the famous polio vaccine, on July 6, 1960, Eddy shared her findings with Dr. Joseph Smadel, chief of NIH’s biologics division, who summarily dismissed the tumors as harmless “lumps.” Meanwhile at a Pennsylvania Merck lab, Dr. Maurice Hilleman and Dr. Ben Sweet isolated the virus. They named it Simian Virus 40 or SV40 for being the 40th virus found in rhesus kidney tissue. So much for miracle drugs.

Nevertheless, by then we seemed to be winning the polio war. Sixty percent of the population, some 98 million Americans, had gotten at least one shot of the Salk vaccine and the number of cases was diving downwards.

Concurrently, an oral polio vaccine developed by virologist Albert Sabin was in its final trials in Russia and Eastern Europe. Tens of millions of people had been given it, and it was ready to be licensed in the US. Its big difference was that unlike the Salk vaccine, Sabin’s version contained a live but weakened form of polio virus that “promised” lifelong immunity.

Fortunately, US Public Health Service (PHS) officials had conducted tests and found SV40 in both the Sabin and Salk vaccines. The US PHS estimated that a third of the Salk vaccine was tainted, and that SV40 was causing cancer in lab animals. Picture the corporate and government panic at this news, which was less than mildly shared with the public.

Early in 1961, PHS officials met quietly with the agency’s top vaccine advisers. Strangely, the agency found no evidence the virus had been harmful to humans. Yet in March, officials ordered manufacturers to eliminate SV40 from all future vaccine. New plans to neutralize the tainted polio virus seed stock were adopted and SV40-free African green monkeys were used to make the bulk vaccine instead of rhesus monkeys. More monkey business.

Amazingly, officials didn’t recall the contaminated Salk vaccine, that is, more than a year’s supply. It stayed in the hands of the country’s doctors. And they didn’t notify the public of the contamination and SV40’s effect on new born hamsters. Their strange reasoning was that any negative information could start a panic and put the vaccination campaign in danger. What about the millions of people who took the vaccines? Weren’t they being put in danger?

The first disclosure

The Salk vaccine contamination story crept on cat’s feet on July 26, 1961, onto page 33 of the New York Times. It reported Merck and other manufacturers had halted production until they could get “monkey virus” out of the vaccine. Asked for comments, the US PHS said there was no evidence the virus was dangerous. Except, of course, to the 20 baby hamsters it blew away.

In 1962, a Harvard epidemiologist, Dr. Joseph Fraumeni, joined the National Cancer Institute and was assigned to find out if there was any cancer increase among those injected with the Salk vaccine. With two Colleagues, Fraumeni tested vaccine samples from May and June of 1955, the first months of the national immunization campaign. Then they ranked the samples according to “no,” “low” or “high” amounts of SV40 they contained.

It was the only time US health officials would measure such level in the 55-62 vaccine. Stored samples were later dumped. Fraumeni pinpointed states where contaminated vaccines were distributed during the key months. California received a vaccine with a low level of the virus. The study also looked at cancer death rates for 6-to-8-year olds vaccinated during that narrow time frame and tracked the group for four years.

Findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed no significant difference in cancer deaths in states with high or low levels of SV40 in the vaccine when compared with cancer deaths in states with no SV40 in the vaccine.

Yet some 14 years later, after “isolated reports” linking the virus to human cancers, Fraumeni deemed another group should be looked at that had received contaminated vaccine. This group was the subject of trials conducted in the early '60s at Cleveland Metropolitan general Hospital. To see the effect of different amounts of SV40 in vaccines, hospital researchers inoculated newborns from mostly lower-income black families. Noticeably, doses ranged up to more than 100 times the dose recommended for adults, not a nice thing to do to those black kids.

The experiments spanned three years, involving 1,073 infants. The majority were given Sabin oral, which later was shown to contain SV40. A 1982 report in the New England Journal of Medicine hedged the study’s limitations: that a majority of the kids had not responded; but SV40-realted cancers could take longer than 17 to 19 years to appear; and SV40 appeared less likely to infect humans through the oral vaccine.

Despite these critical caveats, the whitewash called the findings “reassuring and consistent with the prevailing view that SV40 is not carcinogenic in human beings.” Then they called a halt to the studies, claiming “mountains of complexities and obstacles in tracing this particular group and the negative results to date.” This is not to mention their destructive racism, which would remain part of the government’s position for years.

BOOM, 1988

In Boston, Dr. Robert Garcea and assistant, Dr. John Bergsagel, used a new tool, a polymerase chain reaction, PCR, to look for a pair of common human viruses in kids’ brain tumors. A different DNA footprint popped up in more than half the tumors. It finally hit them that they were seeing SV40.

The PCR was capable of amplifying the smallest fragments of DNA, making detections far more credible than earlier more primitive tests for SV40-like proteins in human tumors. The findings were disturbing, indicating that the children were too young to have received the contaminated vaccine, yet somehow the virus infected them and embedded itself in their tumors.

In that same year, Dr. Michele Carbone found a milky, rind-like tumor in a laboratory at the National Insitutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Carbone performed a variety of experiments showing that sixty percent of hamsters, after having SV40 injected into their hearts, contracted the fatal cancer, mesothelioma. Something awful was happening.

Carbone finally used PCR to test 48 human mesotheliomas stored at the NIH. He was stunned when 28 of them contained SV40. PCR went on to unleash a wave of SV40 discoveries. By the end of 1996, dozens of scientists reported SV40 in a variety of bone cancers and a wide range of brain cancers, a rise of 30 percent over the previous 20 years.

At the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, officials were growing increasingly concerned about the SV40 discoveries. And these findings were of particular interest to Fraumeni, who had been promoted to director of the NCI (National Cancer Institute)’s Division on Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. His early studies concluding that SV40 posed little or no health risk were now under challenge . . .

More about the NCI, National Cancer Institute

The deadly truth is that the National Cancer Institute (NCI-Frederick) and 37 mission partners are located at Fort Detrick, about 20 minutes from Bethesda, Maryland. The Fort is home to the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (ISAMRMC). The primary missions include biomedical research and development. This is where the AIDS virus was developed, but not from monkeys.

In my 2005 Online Journal article, The AIDS virus: Made in the USA?, I reported that “Dr. Robert Strecker indicated that the AIDS virus was in fact developed by the National Cancer Institute, in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO), in a laboratory at Ft. Detrick in Maryland. From 1970–74, this laboratory facility was part of the U.S. Army’s germ warfare unit, known as the Army Infectious Disease Unit, or Special Operations Division, also referred to as the Army’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Laboratory. Post 1974, the facility was renamed the National Cancer Institute (NCI). According to researcher William Cooper (former Navy Intelligence officer), noted in Larry Jamison’s article Is The AIDS Virus Man Made?, this work was supervised by the CIA under a project called MK-NAOMI.

Truncated, for the complete original posting of this important article, see:
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2830.shtml

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal



7) UFO in Texas –Witnessed by dozens of credible people

- - Government & Military Witnesses Provide Major UFO Disclosures

Residents of rural Texas town abuzz over UFO sightings
By Angela K. Brown - Associated Press Writer
January 15, 2008

Standing near the area where he saw a large silent object in the sky, Ricky Sorrells talks about the sighting in Dublin, Texas. Sorrells said he has seen the object several times, and was glad to read that other people had seen it, too, “because that means I’m not crazy.”

Stephenville, Texas — In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO.

Several dozen people — including a pilot, county constable and business owners — insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.

“People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it’s the end of times,” said Steve Allen, a freight company owner and pilot who said the object he saw last week was a mile long and half a mile wide. “It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts.”

While federal officials insist there’s a logical explanation, locals swear that it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said the object’s lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane. People in several towns who reported seeing it over several weeks have offered similar descriptions of the object.

Machinist Ricky Sorrells said friends made fun of him when he told them he saw a flat, metallic object hovering about 300 feet over a pasture behind his Dublin home. But he decided to come forward after reading similar accounts in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune.

“You hear about big bass or big buck in the area, but this is a different deal,” Sorrells said. “It feels good to hear that other people saw something, because that means I’m not crazy.”

Sorrells said he has seen the object several times. He said he watched it through his rifle’s telescopic lens and described it as very large and without seams, nuts or bolts.

Maj. Karl Lewis, a spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth, said no F-16s or other aircraft from his base were in the area the night of Jan. 8, when most people reported the sighting.

Lewis said the object may have been an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes. Lights from the aircraft would seem unusually bright and may appear orange from the setting sun.

“I’m 90 percent sure this was an airliner,” Lewis said. “With the sun’s angle, it can play tricks on you.”

Officials at the region’s two Air Force bases — Dyess in Abilene and Sheppard in Wichita Falls — also said none of their aircraft were in the area last week. The Air Force no longer investigates UFOs.

One man has offered a reward for a photograph or videotape of the mysterious object.

About 200 UFO sightings are reported each month, mostly in California, Colorado and Texas, according to the Mutual UFO Network, which plans to go to the 17,000-resident town of Stephenville to investigate.

Fourteen percent of Americans polled last year by The Associated Press and Ipsos say they have seen a UFO.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/jan/15/residents_rural_texas_town_abuzz_over_ufo_sighting/

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- - Government & Military Witnesses Provide Major UFO Disclosures

For a two-page summary of the book Disclosure
Government & Military Witnesses Provide Major UFO Disclosures
See: www.wanttoknow.info/070716ufosdisclosures

FN archives also include information from the Disclosure Project, when this information was first released in May, 2001 -

Disclosure Project on UFO/ET Presence * Part 1 * Edgar Mitchell's Testimony

Testimonies from Project Disclosure - Part 2

Following post@ FlybyNews.com

Disclosure Project, credible UFO/ET documentation;
you can link to a site by Norman D. Livergood called Brainwashing America; plus learn about the
near-death experience of Mellen-Thomas Benedict; and don't miss exclusive reports on
Bart Jordan and evidence of technologically advanced ancient civilizations.



For FN recommended links for
late breaking independent news, visit
:

911Truth.org

Online Journal

World Reports

911blogger.com

Democracy Now!

Common Dreams

Journalof911studies.com

PatriotsQuestion911.com

Information Clearinghouse

Sibel Edmonds - Just A Citizen

Citizens for a Legitimate Government

Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth



The views expressed herein are the writers' own and not necessarily those of Flyby News.
A "Fair Use Policy" that describes FNs' use of copyrighted material is at FlybyNews.com.
Feedback for story suggestions and networking Flyby News is appreciated.
You can write to the editor by email: -- flyby (at) flybynews.com --

Flyby News is nonviolent in focus, and has supported critical campaigns
for a healthy environment, human rights, justice, and peace,
since the launching of NASA's Cassini space probe in 1997.

=====News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era====>

= = = = = = www.FlybyNews.com = = = = =



Email address: