Parents who deliberately starve children of love face jail under new Cinderella Law

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/10732982/Parents-who-starve-children-of-love-face-jail.html Parents who deliberately starve children of love face jail under new Cinderella Law Changes to the child neglect laws will make “emotional cruelty” a crime for the first time, alongside physical or sexual abuse Christopher Hope By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent10:00PM BST 30 Mar 2014 Comments1456 Parents who starve their children of love and affection face prosecution under a “Cinderella Law”, The Telegraph can disclose. Changes to the child neglect laws will make “emotional cruelty” a crime for the first time, alongside physical or sexual abuse. The Government will introduce the change in the Queen’s Speech in early June to enforce the protection of children’s emotional, social and behavioural well-being. ...

Militants in Syria prepare chemical attack in Damascus – UN envoy

http://rt.com/news/syria-chemical-attack-militants-645/ Militants in Syria prepare chemical attack in Damascus – UN envoy Published time: April 01, 2014 17:42 Edited time: April 02, 2014 10:45 Get short URL A handout image released by the Syrian opposition's Shaam News Network shows a Syrian couple mourning in front of bodies wrapped in shrouds ahead of funerals following what Syrian rebels claim to be a toxic gas attack by pro-government forces in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, 2013. (AFP Photo / Shaam News Network)A handout image released by the Syrian opposition's Shaam News Network shows a Syrian couple mourning in front of bodies wrapped in shrouds ahead of funerals following what Syrian rebels claim to be a toxic gas attack by pro-government forces in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, 2013. (AFP Photo / Shaam News Network) Share on tumblr Tags Arms, Conflict, Opposition, Politics, Syria, Terrorism, UN, Violence Armed gangs in Syria are conspiring to stage a chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs in order to later lay the blame on the Bashar Assad’s government, Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari has warned the Security Council. “Competent Syrian authorities intercepted a wireless communication between two terrorists in the Jawbar area of the Damascus governorate,” Jaafari said in a letter addressed to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council. The letter was published on Tuesday on the UN website. In that communication, the diplomat said, one “of the terrorists said that another terrorist named Abu Nadir was covertly distributing gas masks.” The Syrian security services, Jaafari said, also intercepted another communication between militants one of whom was called Abu Jihad. During that conversation, the latter indicated that toxic gas would be used and “asked those who are working with him to supply protective masks.” Back in March, Jaafari informed the Security Council that a person named Haytham Salahuddin Qassab “transported chemical substances from Turkey on behalf of the terrorist organization known as Ahrar al-Sham.” He allegedly purchased the chemical agents from Turkey’s Dharwa Import and Export Company. Syria's permanent representative at the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari (AFP Photo / Philippe Desmazes)Syria's permanent representative at the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari (AFP Photo / Philippe Desmazes) The substances reportedly included among others white phosphorous and isopropyl hydroxylamine. It was alleged, Jaafari said, that militants planned to use them to produce white smoke in certain areas and later claim that Syrian planes had bombed them. “However, the primary reason for requesting those substances was to use them as chemical weapons,” the Syrian diplomat warned. The information in the previous letter along with new details obtained from the intercepted communications confirm “that armed terrorist groups are preparing to use toxic gas in the Jawbar quarter and other areas, in order to accuse the Syrian Government of having committed such an act of terrorism,” Jaafari said. Syria’s UN Ambassador confirmed his concerns to RT Arabic. He said that militants had earlier followed a similar scenario in the chemical attacks in Allepo and in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, when they blamed Assad’s forces for the deadly incidents. Jaafari said that the UN is currently considering the issue. The Secretary General as well as the Coordinator of the UN-OPCW joint mission to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons program, Sigrid Kaag, are also being kept up to speed with developments. Syria agreed to the destruction of its chemical weapons arsenal through a deal brokered largely by Russia, after the US threatened to use military force against the country. That followed a deadly chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August, 2013. The Syrian government and the opposition have pointed the finger of blame at each other over the incident that killed hundreds, and both have denied their involvement. So far, 49 percent of the raw materials for Syria's poison gas and nerve agent program scheduled for destruction have been shipped overseas, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said last week. A handout picture released by the Cypriot Press and Information Office (PIO) shows the Danish support vessel L17 "Esbern Snare", one of the vessels deployed to bring Syriaís chemical agents to destruction, on February 3, 2014, outside the southern Cypriot coastal town of Larnaca. (AFP Photo)A handout picture released by the Cypriot Press and Information Office (PIO) shows the Danish support vessel L17 "Esbern Snare", one of the vessels deployed to bring Syriaís chemical agents to destruction, on February 3, 2014, outside the southern Cypriot coastal town of Larnaca. (AFP Photo) The rest is expected to leave the country by the end of April, the global chemical weapons watchdog added in a report to the UN, reported AP. The total amount of chemicals either removed or already destroyed inside Syria is 53.6 percent. According to the OPCW, Damascus pledged to remove all chemicals by April 13, except for those in areas “that are presently inaccessible,” which face an April-27 deadline. But so far the deadlines have not been met, with the Syrian government blaming the unstable situation inside the country. Under the deal, some chemicals are to be destroyed at facilities in the US and Europe, while a large part of the toxic material is to be eliminated on board a ship at sea. Syria has declared around 700 tons of the most-dangerous chemicals, 500 tons of less-dangerous precursor chemicals and 122 tons of isopropanol – an active ingredient in sarin gas production. The deadline for the mission’s completion is June 30.

NATO forces are planning massive buildups in the Caucus region nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan aimed at splitting Russia ###http://news.antiwar.com/2014/04/01/nato-plans-military-buildup-in-caucasus/

al-CIAda blast hits govt. compound in Kabul

Blast hits govt. compound in Kabul Wed Apr 2, 2014 1:13PM Home > Asia-Pacific > Afghanistan Several policemen are killed in a blast that targeted the Interior Ministry's compound in Kabul. »Read more### http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/02/356904/blast-hits-govt-compound-in-kabul/

Hard truth from an American couple who witnessed the destruction of Libya.

http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/ The following is really worth a read. Hard truth from an American couple who witnessed the destruction of Libya. UPDATE: This is getting hacked with regular frequency. If anything looks stupid, including typos, grammar, or anything to look like it was written by a hick check back later, I am reviewing and reposting as needed to keep this in its original form. They obviously HATE this one, it is no doubt important. The original testimony follows: Who are James and Joanne Moriarty We were business people doing business in Libya since 2007 January. We made a unique enzyme that rejuvenates oil wells and cleans up sludge pits, cleans out pipelines and tanks and does a whole lot of neat things to oil. We booked a huge amount of business in Libya from 2007 to 2011: 5 billion dollars worth of our product. We signed a JV with the Social Security Investment Fund of Janzour near Tripoli, Libya. We actively began to build a production facility to fulfill these contracts for our enzyme when the so called Libyan revolution began in February of 2011. I would like to note that the Libyan people were not in any way extremist Muslims. The part of the Koran that was added by the Ayatollah Khomeini talking about killing infidels was thrown out of Libya by Ghadafi because he said it was not part of the Koran. For this there was a fatwa or death order put on Ghadafi for over 20 years by the radical extremist Muslims. All religions with a book were allowed in Libya. Women were emancipated in the 1970’s by Ghadafi. No special clothing were required and all women were highly educated if they choose to be. They were doctors, lawyers, ministers, business owners, or just house wives whatever they decided. Libya shared ½ of all the its oil revenue with its 5.5 million population. All medical care was free, if you could not get the care you needed in Libya then you could travel wherever you needed with a family member and all costs and expenses were fully paid. Education was free and if you wanted to go outside to another University that was paid in full with a stipend. When a Libyan couple got married they received a $46,000 gift from the government to start their lives. Their first home, a 2500 sq foot condominium cost 10% of their salary for 20 years and then it was theirs. Gasoline was 44 cents a gallon, all utilities were free. If you were hungry and had no money they had huge stores of food where you could get rice, milk, cheese, flour and money to buy meat. The average salary in Libya was the highest in Africa, higher than China or India at $15,800 a year. If you had a college education and could not find a job you received that money until you found a job. The Libyan people were happy, there was no tax, only businesses had some tax but it was minimal. The government shared the wealth of Libya with its people, there was no taxing of the people to support the state. There was no reason for a revolution, there were some disgruntled radical Islamists who had tried to enforce Sharia law and radical Islam upon Libya to no avail because they only made up about 3 to 5%. These are the people NATO and the US joined hands with to take over Libya. In April of 2011 we were invited to travel to Tripoli on an NGO Fact Finding Commission. We agreed and in May of 2011 we traveled to Tripoli, Libya to take part in this Fact Finding Commission. We spent a whole lot of time with the Tribes of Libya learning about the truths of Libya and their government. We also were witness to huge war crimes committed by NATO upon the innocent people of Libya. Because there was no popular support for this so called revolution in Libya, it was necessary for NATO, the US, UK, France, UN, Qatar and Israel to funnel in thousands of Al Qaeda mercenaries into Libya. We are witnesses to the hordes of terrorists, that were armed, funded and trained by the aforementioned group. We have in our hands the private document written in Hebrew that is an agreement between the would be rebels and the Mossad. The agreement states that Israel will provide arms and training to the rebels until they take over the country and in return for that Israel will get to put a military base in the green mountain area of Libya. The war against Libya had been planned for a long time. Dennis Kucinich held the documents that showed that there were war games in the Mediterranean with the French, UK and US against a mythical North Africa oil rich dictator nation. This was supposed to start on the 21st of February. The war actually started on the 17th of February. The main reason for the destruction of Libya was the gold backed currency for the continent of Africa called the Dinar. http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/World_News_3/article_7886.shtml Ghadafi had planned the African bank and with the formation of this bank Libya was leading Africa to freedom: Freedom from the paper bankers, the imperialists that controlled the poor countries and their assets. This gold backed currency would have destroyed the paper bankers whose money is backed by nothing. Those paper bankers, the FED and the EURO owned by the Rothschild group would have been destroyed. For this reason Ghadafi had to not only fall from power but he had to die. If he had gone into exile, his mouth would still work. The second reason for the Libyan war was AFRICOM, the US military control of Africa. Libya was the strongest country in Africa and Libya refused to ever let the US take military control over them. The third reason was the lawsuit that had been filed by Ghadafi (Libya) against all the Western European nations for all the broken treaties and all the atrocities committed in Africa over hundreds of years by the Western Europeans and the loss of revenue caused by the embargo against Libya for 30+ years. It should be noted that Libya was not guilty of the Lockerbie bombing as proven by a CIA whistle blower. This law suit was for $7 + trillion dollars and it had legs. Western Europe could ill afford this kind of debt so they happily joined in the destruction of the sovereign nation of Libya The 21st of August NATO decided that they had waited long enough for the Libyan people to get behind their coup d’état so they forcibly took Tripoli. We were a big hotel near the seaport. We saw NATO bring in their Apache helicopters and mow down the innocent people in the streets. In the first hour of NATO’s takeover of Tripoli 1300 people were killed in the streets and 5000 wounded. NATO also ran bombing raids, used big guns mounted on small pickup trucks. The bombing and killing went on all night and for the next three nights. Next shiploads of Al Qaeda rebels flowed into the Tripoli port from Benghazi and unloaded on the roads around Tripoli. All of the people were bearded and carried AK-47’s. As they rode around Tripoli in their caravans they began to set up check points every 500 yards or so. They looted every store and every home they could get into, they broke into every vehicle and stole everything that they wanted. They took over hotels and set up torture centers. The Russian Ambassador had called and offered to put our name on a list on a rescue ship that was being sent from the Prime Minister of Malta. We were approached by a couple other westerners and asked how we planned to get out of Libya. We said we were trying to get on the rescue ship sent by Malta, they asked if they could join us and we said we would ask that their names be put on the list. The FIFA soccer coach for Libya from Germany joined us, the sister of the President of Mauritania, a Baharani Prince, a man from Texas that we did not know before and a Filipino lady who had been working at the hotel. We arranged ourselves on the van from the hotel and left in the late afternoon to meet the ship that was supposed to be arriving in one of the ports along the Tripoli coast. We were stopped at every check point by bearded Al Qaeda firing their AK-47’s into the air and yelling Allah Akbar. Our driver told them that we were journalists in Arabic so they let us through because the media had been lying about the rebels so they were happy to let us through. We could not find the ship, after some hours of up and down the coast it was now dark. Guns were being fired everywhere, Al Qaeda bearded types roamed the streets. We did not know it but the rebels had fired on the ship and it was 3 miles out in the Mediterranean. Our last trip to the pier was our downfall. We were suddenly surrounded by a group of small pickup trucks and out climbed a bunch of Al Qaeda with their guns pointed at us and they said “your game is up”. They took us at gunpoint to their torture center which had been the Radisson Hotel. They took all of our belongings and our passports. They interrogated us and filmed it using a British film crew. We could hear the men being tortured but we could do nothing. Finally after many hours and it was now day light, they said we were going to be allowed to go. Right before that a big fat Sheik with a long beard came in and look down his nose and said something in Arabic at us. The driver to our van had been changed to a man we knew from the hotel and we said we wanted to go to the rescue ship now, he said this van is going back to the hotel, we argued with him but he pulled us aside and said “What you did not understand that Sheik say was: “When they go to the rescue ship, kill them, chop them up and burn the bodies and blame in on Ghadafi”. We decided to go back to the hotel. We had to pay all of our last money to the mercenaries so that they would let us go, they were paid $2500 for each person they killed and $1000 to burn the bodies. That took all of our money. We knew that we were on their list and we knew why, a US attorney, double spy working for Hezbollah had put all of our names on a list and sent it to them. The next miracle was a friend of the sister of the President of Mauritania had a friend that was in charge of the IOM (Immigration) ship. They were able to sneak us on that ship to Benghazi the next day. That saved our lives because we know that the Al Qaeda mercenaries were looking for us so that they could get paid again. The ship ride was the ride from hell. It took 2 days in massive heat, no a/c, windows all around the seated area, no food except hot water, moldy bread and outdated juice cartons that caused everyone to use the bathroom. There were probably 300 to 400 refugees on the ship and there was 2 bathrooms. Our friend from the IOM took charge of us in Benghazi and took us to a hotel. Lucky for us the list with our name had not reached Benghazi because the communications were down. One of the heads of the Rebels came to the hotel because he heard we were there. He was impressed that we had a Baharani Prince with us and bought us dinner, we had not eaten for 4 days. He was able to put us a plane out of Benghazi (even though the rest of Libya was under a no fly zone). We walked out on a pitch black tarmac, boarded a raggedy 727 that took off on a black tarmac. We flew low over to Tunis and landed about 4:30. The story was really just beginning but at least we were somewhat free of the Al Qaeda rebels. After we arrived back in Texas, Jimmy was taken by the FBI at the Houston Airport passport check center. I was allowed to pass through and I was the one with the 200 GB of proof, interviews, videos, photos, testimonies, etc. He was interrogated for 3 hours. We were to learn at a later time that we were targeted by our government at that time. Our crime was that we were witnesses to the war crimes and genocides that were committed in Libya by the NATO gang. As targeted Individuals all attempts to obtain gainful employment or restart our business that was blown up in Libya have been thwarted. After NATO handed Libya over to Al Qaeda, many Libyans were imprisoned, tortured and killed. Many of them left so that they could survive. There are now 2 million in exile. We are very close to the Tribes of Libya, we speak with the tribal leaders in exile now almost every day. They have appointed us as their official spokespersons. We have been attempting to make it known to our congress that they were completely wrong footed in Libya and that we basically had handed Libya, a peaceful Muslim country, over to Al Qaeda. No one was interested. The tribal leaders began to pass intelligence regarding the internal movement of Al Qaeda inside Libya, we started passing this information to Dr. Jerome Corsi who was more than willing to report the truth. We were then contacted by US intelligence (4 different divisions). We have had 3 different divisions of the US intelligence in our home, getting intelligence from our tribal leaders. But we have discovered that they have no intention of doing anything with the information and the intel was being used to warn Al Qaeda not stop it, so we stopped passing the information. One of the intelligence people was a lady; she called us after she left and told us that if we ever wanted a life we needed to shut up about Libya and that they (the government) had done a “soft” attack on us (ruined our life and finances) and that we were lucky because they could have chosen to do a “terminal” attack on us. We have been literally destroyed, but we have decided to open our mouths and not shut them. We realize the only way to protect ourselves is by getting our story out to the most people possible. We will be homeless next month as we have no more assets to sell and cannot pay our expenses. We are hoping to start giving presentations and sharing our story with paid honorariums; in that process we will hope to find good people who might like to hire two very productive, intelligent and talented people. But, we will not stop telling our story

The forgotten coup

http://edition.presstv.ir/TextOnly/detail.aspx?id=356783 The forgotten coup John Pilger, CounterPunch Tue, 01 Apr 2014 11:01:14 GMT Washington’s role in the fascist putsch against an elected government in Ukraine will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore the historical record. Since 1945, dozens of governments, many of them democracies, have met a similar fate, usually with bloodshed. Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries on earth with fewer people than Wales, yet under the reformist Sandinistas in the 1980s it was regarded in Washington as a “strategic threat”. The logic was simple; if the weakest slipped the leash, setting an example, who else would try their luck? The great game of dominance offers no immunity for even the most loyal US “ally”. This is demonstrated by perhaps the least known of Washington’s coups — in Australia. The story of this forgotten coup is a salutary lesson for those governments that believe a “Ukraine” or a “Chile” could never happen to them. Australia’s deference to the United States makes Britain, by comparison, seem a renegade. During the American invasion of Vietnam — which Australia had pleaded to join — an official in Canberra voiced a rare complaint to Washington that the British knew more about US objectives in that war than its antipodean comrade-in-arms. The response was swift: “We have to keep the Brits informed to keep them happy. You are with us come what may.” This dictum was rudely set aside in 1972 with the election of the reformist Labor government of Gough Whitlam. Although not regarded as of the left, Whitlam — now in his 98th year — was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride, propriety and extraordinary political imagination. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to “buy back the farm” and speak as a voice independent of London and Washington. On the day after his election, Whitlam ordered that his staff should not be “vetted or harassed” by the Australian security organisation, ASIO — then, as now, beholden to Anglo-American intelligence. When his ministers publicly condemned the Nixon/Kissinger administration as “corrupt and barbaric”, Frank Snepp, a CIA officer stationed in Saigon at the time, said later: “We were told the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators.” Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, ostensibly a joint Australian/US “facility”. Pine Gap is a giant vacuum cleaner which, as the whistleblower Edward Snowden recently revealed, allows the US to spy on everyone. In the 1970s, most Australians had no idea that this secretive foreign enclave placed their country on the front line of a potential nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Whitlam clearly knew the personal risk he was taking — as the minutes of a meeting with the US ambassador demonstrate. “Try to screw us or bounce us,” he warned, “[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention”. Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, “This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House. Consequences were inevitable … a kind of Chile was set in motion.” The CIA had just helped General Pinochet to crush the democratic government of another reformer, Salvador Allende, in Chile. In 1974, the White House sent the Marshall Green to Canberra as ambassador. Green was an imperious, very senior and sinister figure in the State Department who worked in the shadows of America’s “deep state”. Known as the “coupmaster”, he had played a played a central role in the 1965 coup against President Sukarno in Indonesia — which cost up to a million lives. One of his first speeches in Australia was to the Australian Institute of Directors — described by an alarmed member of the audience as “an incitement to the country’s business leaders to rise against the government”. Pine Gap’s top-secret messages were de-coded in California by a CIA contractor, TRW. One of the de-coders was a young Christopher Boyce, an idealist who, troubled by the “deception and betrayal of an ally”, became a whistleblower. Boyce revealed that the CIA had infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred to the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as “our man Kerr”. In his black top hat and medal-laden mourning suit, Kerr was the embodiment of imperium. He was the Queen of England’s Australian viceroy in a country that still recognised her as head of state. His duties were ceremonial; yet Whitlam — who appointed him — was unaware of or chose to ignore Kerr’s longstanding ties to Anglo-American intelligence. The Governor-General was an enthusiastic member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by the Jonathan Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, The Crimes of Patriots, as, “an elite, invitation-only group … exposed in Congress as being founded, funded and generally run by the CIA”. The CIA “paid for Kerr’s travel, built his prestige … Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money”. In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain’s MI6 had long been operating against his government. “The Brits were actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office,” he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, “We knew MI6 was bugging Cabinet meetings for the Americans.” In interviews in the 1980s with the American investigative journalist Joseph Trento, executive officers of the CIA disclosed that the “Whitlam problem” had been discussed “with urgency” by the CIA’s director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield, and that “arrangements” were made. A deputy director of the CIA told Trento: “Kerr did what he was told to do.” In 1975, Whitlam learned of a secret list of CIA personnel in Australia held by the Permanent Head of the Australian Defence Department, Sir Arthur Tange — a deeply conservative mandarin with unprecedented territorial power in Canberra. Whitlam demanded to see the list. On it was the name, Richard Stallings who, under cover, had set up Pine Gap as a provocative CIA installation. Whitlam now had the proof he was looking for. On 10 November, 1975, he was shown a top secret telex message sent by ASIO in Washington. This was later sourced to Theodore Shackley, head of the CIA’s East Asia Division and one of the most notorious figures spawned by the Agency. Shackley had been head of the CIA’s Miami-based operation to assassinate Fidel Castro and Station Chief in Laos and Vietnam. He had recently worked on the “Allende problem”. Shackley’s message was read to Whitlam. Incredibly, it said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia’s NSA whose ties to Washington were, and reman binding. He was briefed on the “security crisis”. He had then asked for a secure line and spent 20 minutes in hushed conversation. On 11 November — the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia — he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal “reserve powers”, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The problem was solved.

PTB try to start violence in Thailand?

http://edition.presstv.ir/TextOnly/detail.aspx?id=356822 Gunmen shoot dead Thai protester Tue, 01 Apr 2014 18:16:34 GMT The political crisis in Thailand deepens as a group of gunmen has shot dead an anti-government protester and injured several others in the north of the capital Bangkok, security sources say. The Thai security officials said on Tuesday that the victim was killed when gunmen fired shots at a bus and a flatbed truck carrying demonstrators. "According to our initial intelligence information, it definitely involved politics," said Paradorn Pattanatabut, a security adviser to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, adding, "It is hard to control the situation." Protesters were attacked while returning to their encampment from a demonstration at government offices. Tensions in Thailand have once again escalated since anti-government protesters took back to the streets to pressure Premier Yingluck to resign. The violence has left at least 24 dead and hundreds injured since November. Thailand held a general election on February 2 in an attempt to curb anti-government protests, which were triggered in November 2013. However, on March 21, Thailand’s Constitutional Court ruled the elections disrupted by anti-government protesters invalid. The protesters say Yingluck should step down so that an unelected “people’s council” could enact reforms. Opponents also see the premier as a proxy for her elder brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister toppled in a coup in 2006. The ex-premier has been in self-exile since 2008 to avoid a two-year prison sentence.