News Updates from CLG
14 Jun 2014
14 Jun 2014
http://www.legitgov.org/
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U.S. Secretly Flying Drones Over Iraq --White House Could Expand
Drone Flights 12 Jun 2014 The U.S. since
last year has been secretly flying unmanned surveillance aircraft in small
numbers over Iraq to collect intelligence on insurgents, according to U.S.
officials. Before the Islamist offensive, the program was expanded based on
growing U.S. and Iraqi concerns about the expanded military activities of al
Qaeda[al-CIAduh]-linked fighters. Officials wouldn't say what types of drones
were being used but said the flights were conducted only for surveillance
purposes. The program was launched with the consent of the Iraqi
regime.
Obama 'urgently' considering air assault on targets in Syria
and Iraq 13 Jun 2014 The Obama
administration is urgently considering an air assault on 'Islamic extremists'
that officials told the Guardian could be directed at targets in Syria as well
as Iraq. President Obama announced on Friday that in the "days ahead" he will
decide on a package of military and diplomatic options to halt the rapid advance
of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis)...Obama has ruled out sending
US soldiers and marines back to the Iraqi streets they patrolled from 2003 to
2011, but signalled a new, reluctant openness to returning
the US to war in Iraq.
Iraq asks for US air strikes to bomb
militants 12 Jun 2014 Iraqi
officials have privately asked US President Barack Obama's administration to
weigh potential air strikes targeting militants, a Western official says. The
Obama administration is weighing several possibilities to offer military
assistance to Baghdad, including drone
strikes, the official told AFP on Wednesday on condition of
anonymity. Washington is committed to "working with the Iraqi government
[US-installed dictatorship] and leaders across Iraq to support a unified
approach against ISIL's continued aggression", State Department spokeswoman Jen
Psaki told reporters.
Urgent: U.S. Embassy prepares evacuation
plans --Mortar rounds
and rockets have hit Baghdad International Airport and Mosul's airport has been
the target of assault. 12 Jun 2014 The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is
preparing contingency plans to evacuate its staff since ISIL has taken control
over large swaths of Iraq, according to a U.S. State Department official. The
U.S. official also mentioned that the U.S. Embassy, United Nations and other
foreign organizations with a presence in Iraq are "preparing contingency plans
to evacuate employees." ISIL has seized control of Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah
and intends to create an Islamic state across the Iraq-Syria
border.
Russian Bombers Fly Within 50 Miles of California
Coast --NORAD
scrambles fighter jets 13 Jun 2014 Two Russian Tu-95 Bear bomber planes came within 50 miles of the Northern California coast on
Monday, shortly after four of the Russian Tu-95 planes entered the Air Defense
Identification Zone (ADIZ) near Alaska. ABC News reports the incident began when four Russian planes entered the ADIZ
off Alaska, prompting the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to
send two American F-22 Raptor fighter jets to shadow the Russian bombers. Two of
the Russian planes headed back towards their home country, while the remaining
two Russian bombers flew south and entered the ADIZ off Northern
California.
'White phosphorus' reports: Ukraine military 'dropped
incendiary bombs' on Slavyansk 12
Jun 2014 Residents of Slavyansk and its suburbs were awoken overnight on
Thursday by what they say were incendiary bombs that were dropped on their city
by Kiev's military. Witnesses and local media reports suggested that the bombs
might be phosphorous. Much of the village of Semyonovka, located in the
Slavyansk suburbs, was set ablaze. Local residents told RT that the ground
didn't stop burning for some time.
270 killed, over 700 injured in Kiev's military op in E.
Ukraine - Health Ministry 11 Jun
2014 Since the beginning of April, 270 people have died and 713 others have been
injured in Kiev's military crackdown in eastern Ukraine, according to health
officials. "225 people have died in Donetsk region, 576 people have asked for
treatment for wounds in hospital, currently 150 people are hospitalized. Since
the beginning of the standoff 45 people have died in Lugansk region, in all 137
people were injured," the statement on Ukraine’s Ministry of Health website
reads.
Ukraine crisis raises risk for nuclear
reactors 10 Jun 2014 The recent news
of a water shortage due to a broken pipeline affecting thousands in strife
ravaged Eastern Ukraine spells trouble for the safety of the country's nuclear
power plants. That's because the security and reliability of a country's
critical infrastructure like its electrical power and water grid is essential to
safely run nuclear reactors...The experts did not want to describe possible
sabotage or war scenarios on the record, but stressed that they consider this a
real danger. "You don't need an army, only 20 to 30 highly trained men," said
Hahn. "These things are totally incalculable." That's why NATO sent a
small civilian expert team to Ukraine in April to advise officials on
improving the safety [Yeah, right!] of nuclear power plants and other critical
infrastructure "in the context of possible threats".
Nuclear bomb nearly detonated after falling on North Carolina,
declassified report says --Just one switch away from nuclear disaster 11 Jun
2014 There are few things in this world that can change the course of history
faster than a nuclear bomb exploding...That makes the latest details to emerge
about a January 24, 1961, incident involving two nuclear bombs all the more
jarring. A B-52 bomber broke up in the sky over North Carolina, and one of the
two bombs on board was in the "armed" setting by the time it hit the ground near
Goldsboro, North Carolina, according to a newly declassified report published on
Monday by the National Security Archive. If the switch had not been damaged by
the impact of the crash, the weapon could have detonated, the report
said.
Radioactive material stolen from lab in
Mexico 12 Jun 2014 A device
containing radioactive substances [cesium-37 and americium-beryllium] was stolen
from a government research facility and authorities are working to track it
down, Mexico's No. 2 official said. "We have the report regarding the theft of
this material and the alerts and protocol we follow in these cases have already
been implemented," Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told reporters
after speaking at a conference of state law enforcement chiefs and attorneys
general. A group of armed men grabbed the
device Sunday night during an assault on a National Construction Laboratory
warehouse in Tultitlan, Mexico state.
Post-Fukushima radiation levels near US shores continue to
increase 11 Jun 2014 Radiation
levels in Albacore tuna have tripled post-Fukushima, according to Oregon State
University (OSU) researchers. The scientists came to that conclusion after
conducting a study on fish caught off the coast of Oregon...However, researchers
with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the GEOMAR
Research Center for Marine Geosciences say the worst is yet to come and that the
most highly radioactive water hasn't reached US shores yet.
Freed war prisoner Bergdahl in stable condition at Army
medical center in Texas 13 Jun 2014
U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who spent five years as a Taliban prisoner of
war before being released on May 31, was in stable condition at a military
hospital in Texas and has not yet met his parents, military officials said on
Friday. Bergdahl, who arrived in the pre-dawn hours of Friday on a military
flight from Germany, was in a good enough physical condition to meet with
debriefers but has not been informed of the controversy surrounding his capture,
the officials said.
CIA Disciplines 15 Officers in Harassment
Cases 10 Jun 2014 These days, the
CIA says it has a zero tolerance policy toward workplace harassment. And an
agency document obtained by The Associated Press said 15 CIA employees were
disciplined for committing sexual, racial or other types of harassment last
year. That included a supervisor who was removed from the job after engaging in
"bullying, hostile behavior," and an operative who was sent home from an
overseas post for inappropriately touching female colleagues, said the document,
an internal message to the agency's workforce.
U.S. quietly advising local police not to disclose details on
surveillance technology --Federal involvement in local open records proceedings is
unusual. 12 Jun 2014 The Obama administration has been quietly advising
local police not to disclose details about surveillance technology they are
using to sweep up basic cellphone data from entire neighborhoods, The Associated
Press has learned. Citing security reasons, the U.S. has intervened in routine
state public records cases and criminal trials regarding use of the technology.
This has resulted in police departments withholding materials or heavily
censoring documents in rare instances when they disclose any about the purchase
and use of such powerful surveillance equipment.
Despite beefed-up security, school shootings
continue 11 Jun 2014 Bulletproof
whiteboards, concrete school barriers, video surveillance and armed teachers.
Those are just some of the security measures schools have taken since the Dec,
14, 2012, shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that
killed 20 students and six educators. "It's not just Sandy Hook. We experienced
this after Columbine and after Virginia Tech. People tend to implement knee-jerk
reactions," said Robin Hattersley Gray, executive editor of Campus Safety
Magazine.
UW-Madison scientist creates deadly new '1918' flu virus in
lab --Virus similar to
1918 flu pandemic, which killed 50 million people 11 Jun 2014 Yoshihiro
Kawaoka, the UW-Madison scientist whose bird flu research sparked international
controversy and a moratorium two years ago, has created another potentially
deadly flu virus in his lab at University Research Park. Kawaoka used genes from
several bird flu viruses to construct a virus similar to the 1918 pandemic flu
virus that killed up to 50 million people worldwide. The researchers identified
eight genes nearly identical to the genes that made up the 1918 pandemic flu
virus.
Eric Cantor to Step Down as House Majority
Leader 11 Jun 2014 House Majority
Leader Eric Cantor, who is not mounting a GOP write-in campaign, will step down
as majority leader, sources tell ABC News. Even if the No. 2 House Republican
from Virginia were able to pull it off -- a long shot -- he would never be
re-elected majority leader after his shocking and historic primary defeat
Tuesday night. He hopes to serve through July, but a leadership election could
happen before that.
Judge issues temporary order stopping some new NC protest
rules 13 Jun 2014 A Wake County
judge has issued a temporary restraining order on some of the new rules
governing protests at state legislature. Judge Carl Fox on Friday heard a
lawsuit that the state NAACP filed alleging the rules on actions inside the
General Assembly's meeting place are unconstitutional and are an attempt to
silence protesters. Attorneys with the NAACP said the rules are vague and overly
broad because they give Republican leaders too much discretion and stifle
dissent.
Complaint against Homeland Security alleges abuse of immigrant
children 11 Jun 2014 A group of five
organizations today filed a complaint to the Department of Homeland Security on
behalf of 116 unaccompanied immigrant children who they said experienced abuse
and mistreatment while in custody. "We are coming forward now with more than 100
complaints but we believe thousands of children have be subjected to these
conditions," said Joseph Anderson, director of litigation with Americans for
Immigrant Justice. The complaint comes as the federal government grapples with a
surge of children crossing the border illegally without parent or
guardians.
The Troubling Case of Chris Hedges - Pulitzer winner. Lefty
hero. Plagiarist. --He writes a weekly column
published in the widely read progressive website Truthdig and frequently
republished on the Truth[sic]out website. 12 Jun 2014 A leading moralist of the left, however, had now been
caught plagiarizing at one of the oldest magazines of the left... The plagiarism
at Harper’s Magazine was not an isolated incident. Chris Hedges, a
former New York Times reporter, has a history of lifting
material from other writers that goes back at least to his first book, War
Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, published in 2002. He has echoed language
from Nation author Naomi Klein. He has lifted lines from radical social critic
Neil Postman. He has even purloined lines
from Ernest Hemingway.
Government slammed over badger cull as TB rate is lowest for
10 years 12 Jun 2014
The Government faced renewed criticism of its controversial [horrific] badger
cull as figures showed new tuberculosis outbreaks in cattle had reached a decade
low. New figures showed the monthly incidence rate for bovine TB in England,
which measures the proportion of new outbreaks discovered through testing, was
around 3.25% in March 2014, the lowest rate since 2004. It follows a similarly
low rate in February of 3.5%, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs (Defra) said.
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