Disaster capitalists: Halliburton to make money off oil spill

Disaster capitalists: Halliburton to make money off oil spill | Raw Story

Does a company that both builds oil rigs and cleans up oil spills have any motivation to prevent oil rig disasters?

That's the question some people in business and politics are asking themselves after Halliburton's purchase of an oil clean-up company 10 days before the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and launched the worst oil spill in US history.

Some observers see a conspiracy in the actions of the company once headed by Dick Cheney. Halliburton, which built the cement casing for the Deepwater Horizon's drill, announced its purchase of Houston-based oilfield services company Boots and Coots for $240 million on April 9, just 11 days before the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

According to a report at the Christian Science Monitor Friday, Boots and Coots is now under contract with BP to help with the oil spill. The company "focuses on oil spill prevention and blowout response," CSM reports. Halliburton's purchase is not yet a done deal -- it's still awaiting regulatory approval, though few observers think the purchase won't pass muster.

"[Mergers and acquisitions] in the industrial and oil services sectors is totally normal," writes David Anderson at The Inspired Economist, "but the timing in this case, is not. Boots & Coots sure seems like the perfect company to own if it would soon become necessary to get more involved with some oil disaster.
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"Does this strike readers as a coincidence? If so, it’s a pretty lucky one for Halliburton."

Stephen Lemons: Neo-Nazis Patrol the Vekol Valley; J.T. Ready Calls "Border Ops" for Saturday

Neo-Nazis Patrol the Vekol Valley; J.T. Ready Calls "Border Ops" for Saturday - Phoenix News - Feathered Bastard

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu recently announced that "drug
cartels" control the area in his county where deputy Louie
Puroll was allegedly shot at, and where two men were recently
gunned down.

Now Babeu may be getting some assistance from an unwelcome and
unsavory source: Vigilantes led by National Socialist Movement member
J.T. Ready.

As
I blogged back in May, Ready and fellow neo-Nazi Harry Hughes have
been going on illegal alien "patrols" in Pinal County's Vekol Valley,
dressed in camouflage and armed with assault rifles.

Now Ready has announced a "Border Ops" alert for this Saturday via
his profile on the white supremacist New Saxon site, inviting
participants to "bring plenty of firearms and ammo."

"Camouflage or earth tone clothing [is] preferred," according to the
announcement. "Bandanas, balaclavas, or other identity concealing items
are permissible and encouraged."

Ready's statement promises that, "This is the Minuteman Project on
steroids! THE INVASION STOPS HERE!"

I called Ready to ask him if he had informed law enforcement about
his operation, which he says will involve other NSM members and include
an "incursion" into Mexico. He said his group has a law enforcement
liaison flying in, but it didn't sound like he'd run any of this
stunt past the local gendarmes.

"Our statement to law enforcement is to support us," said Ready.
"With choppers...with SWAT teams and so forth. We're telling them to
come down."

But Ready seemed to think it was time for he and his folks to take
matters into their own hands.

3 Weeks After Arrest, Still No Charges in Wikileaks Probe

3 Weeks After Arrest, Still No Charges in Wikileaks Probe :: www.uruknet.info :: informazione dal medio oriente :: information from middle east :: [reg.de]

An Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking classified information to Wikileaks has still not been charged with any crime, three weeks after being arrested and put in pre-trial confinement.

PFC Bradley Manning, 22, is being held at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, and has been assigned a military defense attorney. The Army and State Department are investigating claims Manning made to an ex-hacker in online chats that he disclosed classified information.

An Army legal advisor in Washington, D.C., says the delay in filing charges is unusual but is not a violation of regulations.

"I think if you were able to make a timeline of all the cases, [three weeks] would be at the high end," said Lt. Col. Chris Carrier, chief of the policy branch of the criminal law division in the Judge Advocate General’s office (JAG) in Washington, D.C.

Carrier, who has no direct knowledge of the Manning case, said the military is required to produce a charge sheet "in a timely fashion," but the complexity of this case may be causing the delay.

"It strikes me that this [case] may be relatively complicated in terms of obtaining, handling, managing the evidence and explaining things," he said. "They have to figure out what they’re dealing with."

Activists dare Congressman to arrest them

Activists dare Congressman to arrest them - CNN.com

Washington (CNN) -- Activists with several free Gaza groups will symbolically surrender Thursday at a Congressman's office, after the lawmaker called for the prosecution of Americans who were aboard a flotilla raided last week by Israeli authorities.

On a conference call organized by the non-profit Israel Project last week, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, said that the Justice Department should prosecute any U.S. citizen aboard the well-publicized flotilla that was stopped by the Israeli military on its way to Gaza last week. Nine people were killed in the May 31 incident.

"So what is illegal is helping Hamas," Sherman said. "I will be asking the attorney general to prosecute all Americans involved in what was a clear effort to give items of value to a terrorist organization."

The U.S. State Department considers Hamas a foreign terrorist organization.

Sherman said the activists could be prosecuted under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which makes it illegal to give supplies to terror groups

Members of Gaza Freedom March said its group and others would offer themselves up for arrest Thursday at 2 p.m. ET.

"Should Rep. Sherman seek to arrest us, we have faith that no jury in America would possibly convict us for our humanitarian and human rights work in Palestine," the organizers said in a statement.

If Sherman does not have them arrested, the group said it will hold a memorial service for people who died in the raid.

Israel’s atomic lies and apartheid

Israel’s atomic lies and apartheid | SocialistWorker.org

SASHA POLAKOW-Suransky, a senior editor at Foreign Affairs magazine (produced by the very mainstream Council on Foreign Relations), has issued a new book in which he reveals that in March of 1975, Shimon Peres, Nobel Peace Prize winner and current president of Israel, offered to sell the apartheid government of South Africa nuclear bombs.

He did this in his capacity as defense minister of Israel. The UK daily, the Guardian, recently published the documents in a group of articles.

The deal didn't go through, because South Africa found the price too high. It is not clear if Peres had approval of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to make the deal. The Israeli president's office denies the accusation, saying Polakow-Suransky's charges are based on "interpretation" and not on "facts." The New York Times report on the denial does not mention it was the South African regime that was interpreting the offer as one of nuclear arms!

There are many serious implications here: 1) Israel has nuclear weapons and thus may be ineligible for U.S. foreign aid; 2) Shimon Peres is a monster who was willing to sell nuclear bombs to a regime that practiced the international crime of apartheid; and 3) The notion that "mad mullahs" in Iran can't be trusted with nuclear weapons while the freedom-loving Israeli government can be trusted is total nonsense.

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Papua New Guinea: Indigenous People stripped of land rights

Papua New Guinea: Indigenous People stripped of land rights : Intercontinental Cry

Indigenous Landowners have been stripped of their Constitutionally-protected land rights by the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Without any warning or consultation, on 27 May 2010, the government of PNG introduced emergency legislation that dissolves the Constitutional rights of all landowners in PNG, including the right of Indigenous People to own land, challenge resource projects in court and receive any form compensation for environmental damage.

"The legislation was passed by Parliament without anybody being allowed to see the Bill before it was presented", comments ACT NOW!, an independent organization based in PNG. "Nobody was allowed to read or comment on the text. There was no scrutiny by a Select Committee and not even a Parliamentary debate."

New Caravans heading to the Gaza strip and Oaxaca, Mexico : Intercontinental Cry

Despite the armed attacks on two separate aid caravans on April 27th and May 31st, the international community is determined to bring desperately needed supplies to Palestinians in Gaza city and a Triqui village, on the other side of the world, in Oaxaca, Mexico.

On April 27, the international community was stunned to learn that a paramilitary group known as UBISORT had attacked a peaceful humanitarian aid caravan en route to the indigenous Triqui village of San Juan Copala in Oaxaca.

The government of Oaxaca has since blamed the attack, which resulted in the deaths of two human rights observers, on the actual organizers of the caravan. An absurd claim to say the least.

The caravan was attempting to cross an illegal blockade that UBSIORT (an organization founded by members of Oaxaca's ruling party, the Institutional Revolution Party, or PRI) has imposed on the the Triqui village since January 2010. The blockade has made it impossible for the villagers to leave or gain access to food, water or other basic necessities.

THE COMMUNITY RALLIES TOGETHER FOR JUSTCE FOR THE 11 VICTIMS OF ANTHONY ...