Thursday, June 19, 2014

CLG: NZ Govt opens Maui's dolphin area for oil drilling, Ben & Jerry's Renames Iconic Flavor to Support Vermont's GMO Labeling Food Fight Fund, et al



News Updates from CLG
19 Jun 2014
Previous edition: Obama tells Congress U.S. deploying up to 275 troops to Iraq (Google subscribers: Google Filter Instructions for CLG Newsletter.)
Obama to Congress: I don't need new permission on Iraq 18 Jun 2014 I'll let you know what's going on, but I don't need new congressional authority to act, President Barack Obama told congressional leaders Wednesday about his upcoming decision on possible military intervention in Iraq. While the White House statement emphasized Obama would continue to consult with Congress, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the President "basically just briefed us on the situation in Iraq and indicated he didn't feel he had any need for authority from us for the steps that he might take." House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California agreed with McConnell's assessment, adding she believed congressional authorization for military force in Iraq back in 2001 and 2003 still applied.
ISIS militants 'with US passports' --'The seeds of 9/11s are being planted all over Iraq and Syria' 16 Jun 2014 There is something particularly concerning about the "masked, sociopathic murderers" who fight for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), writes former state department official Andrew G Doran for the National Review. Some of them, he says, are Western citizens who have travelled to Syria to fight President Bashar Assad's government - and have passports or other immigration paperwork that would allow them to return to their home countries whenever they want. In fact, he says, citing the Daily Beast, perhaps a dozen are already in the US.
Cameron says Isis planning attacks in UK 18 Jun 2014 David Cameron tells MPs it is wrong to think that violence in Iraq is "nothing to do with us" because Islamist militants are "planning to attack us here at home in the United Kingdom". Referring to a series of attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), the prime minister said the group hoped to establish "some sort of extreme Islamist regime in the middle of Iraq", which would affect Britain.
Social media mass surveillance is permitted by law, says top UK official 17 Jun 2014 The true extent of the government's interception of Google, Fb and Twitter - including private messages between British citizens - has been officially confirmed for the first time. The government's most senior security official, Charles Farr, detailed how searches on Google, Fb, Twitter and YouTube, as well as emails to or from non-British citizens abroad, can be monitored by the security services because they are deemed to be "external communications". It is the first time that the government has admitted that UK citizens, talking via supposedly private channels in social media such as Twitter direct messages, are deemed by the British government to be legitimate legal targets that do not require a warrant before intercepting.
British Spy Agencies Assert Power to Intercept Web Traffic 17 Jun 2014 In a broad legal rationale for collecting information from Internet use by its citizens, the British government has asserted the right to intercept communications that go through services like Fb, Google and Twitter that are based in the United States or other foreign nations, even if they are between people in Britain. The British position is described in a report released Tuesday by Privacy International and other advocacy groups. The report, confirming a summary seen Monday by The New York Times, says the findings are based on a government document that the groups obtained through a lawsuit. The government document, released with the report, says contact between people in Britain through social networks based elsewhere, or use of search engines located outside Britain, constitutes "external communication," and as such, is subject to interception, even when no wrongdoing is suspected.
UN: 356 killed, including 257 civilians, in E. Ukraine military campaign 18 Jun 2014 At least 356 people, including 257 civilians, have died since the beginning of the "anti-terrorist" operation in Ukraine's eastern regions of Lugansk and Donetsk, according to UN calculations. There were 14 children among the dead. The results prepared by the UN special commission in Ukraine have been presented by Gianni Magazzeni, head of European Department of the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.
2 Russian journalists killed in Ukraine military shelling 18 Jun 2014 Kiev's army shelling near Lugansk, eastern Ukraine, took the lives of two Russian journalists - Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, who were filming refugees leaving the scene when a shell hit amidst their small group. The two journalists working for Rossiya TV died from their wounds, with reporter Igor Kornelyuk passing away on the operating table. Later in the day, the death of Anton Voloshin, a sound engineer, was also confirmed by the channel.
Psaki defends Ukraine FM over 'Putin f**ker' remark, confuses Iraq and Iran 16 Jun 2014 Long-suffering State Dept. spokesperson Jen Psaki endured another torrid press briefing as she was forced to defend some distinctly unsavory remarks by Ukrainian politicians and struggled with the differences between Iraq and Iran, as well as oil and gas. [LOL!] As usual, AP's Matt Lee served as Psaki's chief tormentor, bringing up last week's protests outside the Russian embassy in Kiev, in which Ukraine's acting Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchitsa addressed the anti-Russian mob by telling them that "Putin is a f**ker."
$40-billion missile defense system proves unreliable --The system's performance has gotten worse, not better, since testing began in 1999. --Lawmakers have protected flawed missile defense system's funding and want to spend billions more to expand it. 15 Jun 2014 The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, was supposed to protect Americans against a chilling new threat from "rogue states..." But a decade after it was declared operational, and after 40 billion in spending, the missile shield cannot be relied on, even in carefully scripted tests that are much less challenging than an actual attack would be, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found. The Missile Defense Agency has conducted 16 tests of the system's ability to intercept a mock enemy warhead. It has failed in eight of them, government records show.
Air Force prepares to dismantle HAARP ahead of summer shutdown 14 May 2014 The U.S. Air Force gave official notice to Congress Wednesday that it intends to dismantle the 300 million High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Gakona this summer. The shutdown of HAARP...will start after a final research experiment takes place in mid-June, the Air Force said in a letter to Congress Tuesday. Responding to questions from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) during a Senate hearing Wednesday, David Walker, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology and engineering, said this is "not an area that we have any need for in the future" and it would not be a good use of Air Force research funds to keep HAARP going. "We're moving on to other ways of managing the ionosphere, which the HAARP was really designed to do," he said. "To inject energy into the ionosphere to be able to actually control it. But that work has been completed." Comments of that sort have given rise to endless conspiracy theories, portraying HAARP as a superweapon capable of mind control or weather control, with enough juice to trigger hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. [It is.]
'We'll turn membership of Hamas into a ticket to Hell': Palestinians' homes trashed as Israeli troops make 40 new arrests in hunt for three 'kidnapped' Jewish teenagers --Hamas denies accusations that it is behind the kidnapping of three youths 17 Jun 2014 Palestinians were today picking up the pieces of their trashed homes after Israeli troops swept through the West Bank in the hunt for three missing Jewish teenagers. Soldiers charged into homes in cities and refugee camps across the eastern Palestinian territory, turning over furniture and taking away 41 suspected Hamas members. To the east, in Gaza, homes and workplaces were shattered by a fourth straight night of Israeli air force bombardment after militants fired rockets into Israeli territory.
Benghazi suspect Ahmed Abu Khattala may be brought to U.S. on Navy ship --The administration has said only that he will appear before the U.S. District Court in Washington "in the coming days." 18 Jun 2014 Captured Libyan terrorism suspect Ahmed Abu Khattala may be brought to the United States aboard the Navy ship where he is being held, U.S. officials said, a prospect that would probably extend the amount of time he can be interrogated by the FBI without being brought before a court. Although the federal court where he is to be tried has not yet spoken on the issue, it could object to the relatively slow mode of transport, officials said. Abu Khattala is aboard the amphibious transport ship USS New York in the Mediterranean Sea.
Benghazi Consulate Attack Suspect Captured in Libya, U.S. Official Says 17 Jun 2014 American special forces seized the suspected mastermind of the deadly Benghazi consulate attack in a weekend raid in Libya, a U.S. administration official said Tuesday. Ahmed Abu Khattala has been wanted in the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack. His capture marks the first apprehension of one of the alleged perpetrators in the attack.
MH370: searchers not looking in the best place, satellite experts say --Scientists from British company Inmarsat tell BBC that Australian vessel was distracted by bogus signals 16 Jun 2014 The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is yet to target the most likely crash site, having been distracted by what is now believed to have been a bogus signal, satellite experts have claimed. Scientists from Inmarsat, the British company that has been helping the search effort, told the BBC's Horizon programme there was a "hotspot" in the southern Indian Ocean in which it most likely came down. [Try Diego Garcia.]
Fukushima operator struggles to build ice wall to contain radioactive water --Tepco says it is behind schedule with scheme because temperature of pipes sunk into ground is not low enough 17 Jun 2014 The operator of Japan's battered Fukushima nuclear power plant has said it is having trouble with the early stages of an ice wall being built under broken reactors to 'contain' radioactive water. Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) has begun digging the trenches for a huge network of pipes under the plant through which it intends to pass refrigerant. This will freeze the soil and form a physical barrier that is intended to prevent clean groundwater flowing down mountainsides from mixing with contaminated radioactive water underneath the leaking reactors.
FDA OKs US cell-based flu vaccine facility as govt prepares for pandemic --The facility had already received a separate 'pandemic ready' certification. 16 Jun 2014 The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first US facility that can make cell-culture influenza vaccines, a Novartis plant in Holly Springs, N.C., that has been part of federal government efforts to prepare for a their pandemic and to sidestep some limits of egg-based flu vaccine technology. Novartis said in a press release today that the approval clears the way for commercial production to begin at the site and for Flucelvax, its seasonal flu vaccine, to be made in the United States for the first time. The vaccine, approved in November 2012, was the first cell-based flu vaccine to receive FDA clearance. Flucelvax, an inactivated trivalent vaccine approved for use in adults, contains flu viruses grown in mammalian cell cultures. [Now that hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested on these deadly vaccines, do you actually think the(ir) pandemic isn't far behind?]
NZ Govt opens Maui's dolphin area for oil drilling 17 Jun 2014 The Government has opened up more than 3000 square kilometres of a marine mammal sanctuary for oil and gas drilling, home to the critically endangered Maui's dolphin. It comes less than a week after the International Whaling Commission urged our Government to do more to save the species. The Maui's dolphin is the world's rarest. It is estimated there are only 55 left.
Ben & Jerry's Renames Iconic Flavor to Support Vermont's GMO Labeling Food Fight Fund 16 Jun 2014 It's food fight time. In response to the lawsuit filed against Vermont's first in the nation GMO labeling law, Ben & Jerry's unveiled Food Fight Fudge Brownie, an honorary renaming of one of its most iconic flavors, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, to support Vermont's legal defense. Vermont's Governor Peter Shumlin, business leaders, members of the Vermont Right to Know Coalition, and passers by watched as the company's co-founder Jerry Greenfield unveiled a giant pint of the new flavor, Food Fight Fudge Brownie.
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