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Archive for category Limited Hangouts

corruption news

Feb 5

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Angola, Big Pharma, Corruption & Crime, Diplomats, Flu psyop, Human Trafficking, Iran, Limited Hangouts, Media, Military, Minerals, Taiwan, Thailand | No Comments

1. military staff in Malaysia linked info to unnamed foreign embassy

KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA’S defence minister reportedly said on Thursday that military personnel had been paid to leak security information to a foreign embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

The alleged leak was unveiled in a probe conducted by the ministry’s intelligence corps together with police, Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said according to state media and The Star newspaper.

‘I don’t want anyone at any position to sell information to external parties,’ he was quoted as saying by The Star on its website. ‘I will make an announcement after meeting the prime minister (Najib Razak) regarding the information that was leaked to a foreign embassy, which allegedly used internal sources,’ he added.

Mr Ahmad Zahid did not name the embassy involved but urged diplomats to carry out their duties properly and warned that action can be taken against perpetrators under the country’s official secrets laws.

‘I hope no one will take advantage of their positions in this country to carry out unethical activities,’ he reportedly said. ‘I believe they have been paid,’ he added, referring to the military personnel allegedly involved in the act.

An aide to the minister said he could not immediately confirm the minister’s remarks when contacted by AFP. Mr Ahmad Zahid told national news agency Bernama that his ministry has been monitoring its staff over any possible information leakage especially since the theft of two US-made fighter jet engines worth US$29 million (S$41 million). — AFP

source: straits times

2. Lancet slammed: vaccine science poisoned by special interests in pharmamedia — The Lancet threw that MMR guy under the bus by discrediting him (but please don’t notice their conflicts of interest!) they can try to conflate all people who question vaccines. this has been covered widely in corporate media, natch.

The editors of Medical Veritas journal have condemned The Lancet’s retraction of the controversial study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, charging editor Richard Horton with pandering to special interests in a conspiracy to defraud the public about the risks of vaccinations.

In 1998, The Lancet published the contested study linking autism and intestinal problems to the risky MMR triple virus vaccine. Yesterday, following the British General Medical Council’s decision that Dr. Wakefield had been “dishonest,” The Lancet’s editor retracted the article saying the Council’s report made it “utterly clear, without any ambiguity at all, that the statements in the paper were utterly false.”…

The Winter, 2010 issue of Medical Veritas, evidenced gross conflicting interests undermining the The Lancet’s integrity. Following the publication of Dr. Wakefield’s controversial study, Reed-Elsevier-ChoicePoint mergers occurred. The mega-company formed has nearly monopolized the medical scientific publishing industry. Previous to this, The Lancet editors protested the “damaging” of medicine and health science by pharmaceutical companies.

“Now it is obvious Dr. Horton’s company has been grossly contaminated by special interests as biased as Dr. Ross’s ‘PharmaCouncil’,” Dr. Horowitz said.

Reed-Elsevier-ChoicePoint, it turns out, is directed by Chief Executive Officer, Sir Crispin Davis, according to a Reuter’s News Service promotion for GlaxoSmithKline recently published. According to Forbes, Sir Davis was knighted by the Queen of England for his “service to the information industry.” He has served as a Non-Executive Independent Director of GlaxoSmithKline, PLC since 2003. Sir Davis spent his early career with Procter & Gamble.

more @ prevent disease

3. Taiwanese held in smuggling US made military components to Iran –  looks like a little sting to fluff the case against Iran. lots of “could be’s”….

MIAMI - US AUTHORITIES said on Thursday they arrested a Taiwanese man for allegedly smuggling US-made military components to Iran that could help the Islamic republic develop missiles and unmanned drones.

Yi-Lan Chen, 40, who also goes by Kevin Chen, was arrested on Wednesday on the US Pacific territory to Guam and is being sent to Miami, where prosecutors had sought his arrest.

If convicted, Chen faces up to 20 years in prison and up to US$1 million (S$1.4 million) in fines. Prosecutors said that Chen had exported ‘dual-use’ technology - which ostensibly has civilian purposes but can be applied for the military - to Taiwan or Hong Kong where it would be reloaded and shipped to Iran.

‘The dual-use items allegedly exported in this case could easily be used in missile development and other military components,’ US Attorney Jeffrey Sloman said in Miami.

‘Such conduct poses a serious threat to our national security, and will not be tolerated,’ he said. The goods Chen is accused of exporting to Iran include P200 turbine engines and spare parts, which can be used for model airplanes but also for unmanned military drones, prosecutors said.

‘This case will send a message to those individuals who attempt to profit by illegally supplying improper dual-use technology to other countries,’ said Anthony Mangione, an US immigration agent investigating the case. Iran is under a raft of sanctions imposed by the United States, United Nations and European Union over its nuclear program and its support for hardline Islamist movements overseas. — AFP

source: straits times

4. Victor Bout ordered to appear in Thai court

Russian businessman and alleged arms dealer Viktor Bout has been summoned to appear in a Thai court on February 16, one of his lawyers said on Friday. Former Russian army officer Bout, 42, remains in custody in a Thai jail after the Bangkok Criminal Court refused in August to extradite him to the United States, where he is facing four terrorism-related charges and a possible life sentence. “I was informed that my client had been asked to appear in court on February 16. However, I was not told why he had been summoned,” Thai lawyer Chamroen Panompakakom told RIA Novosti. He suggested that Bout could face an additional questioning or the announcement of an appeals court verdict on his extradition case.

more @ ria novosti

5. um, Frank Timis hearts Sierra Leone. you see what admitting to a few little mistakes can do? a little ball-fluffing never hurt anyone.

It is quite easy for anyone to be suspicious of a large investment initiative from an international company in a small African country with huge mineral wealth and potential. A lot has been written about African Minerals and Frank Timis in the past. But most of what has been written focused mainly on the mistakes of the past – which have been fully acknowledged by the company’s management. Surely everyone deserves a second chance. Especially when that chance is given to someone whose determination to prove everyone wrong can only be matched with his vision to end the poverty-stricken environment structure of a country he has come to fall in love with.  Timis has lent his support to Sparks, a UK based children’s medical charity whose remit is to fund research across the whole spectrum of paediatric medicine, and has invested in a company developing a more effective method of treating malaria. And he can even do more for Sierra Leone!

…Frank Timis once said  “the best lie is the truth, because you never get caught.”  Reputable international renowned companies like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to Macquarie, have backed his business projects for the past 15 years. This goes to show the faith big companies have in Timis. He may be a colorful personality, but he surely has the brains to turn things around.

…The United Nations recently declared the company’s Tonkolili development to be the Most Effective Corporate Social Responsibility Project ever embarked on. But he surely does not get the credit he deserves for such amazing feats of accomplishments. With all this backdrop, Frank Timis says he is not looking for recognition for his philanthropy. He is always looking forward to the next deal.

more @ newstime africa

6. Angola man accused of teen sex plot

An Angola man faces federal charges in New York, accusing him of transporting a 15-year-old girl across state lines for the purposes of having sex with her last fall. In late January, Foster Creager, 40, was arrested in Steuben County. He is scheduled to appear before a federal judge in the southern district of New York on Monday. According to the criminal complaint, a 15-year-old girl went missing from Hyde Park, N.Y., on Sept. 10. FBI agents discovered she had been communicating via e-mail with someone named “Kenneth Bone.”

Telephone records linked the phone number used by “Kenneth Bone” to Creager, of the 4300 block of West U.S. 20 in Angola.

On Sept. 11, Steuben County sheriff’s officers went to a mobile home and recreational vehicle park in Angola and saw Creager standing next to an RV. He told police the teen was inside. During an interview with detectives, Creager said he met the girl two or three months earlier on the Internet. He said he picked up the girl in New York and drove with her and another person to Indiana. In court documents filed in federal court in Fort Wayne, the other person is identified as Judy DeLong. Both DeLong and Creager have been indicted on a single count of transporting a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

Creager told police he and the 15-year-old were “boyfriend and girlfriend” but said he suspected she was not 18 when he brought her to Indiana.

The teen told investigators that Creager told her she would need to be “in hiding” for three years until she turned 18, according to court documents.

DNA collected during a forensic examination of the teen matched Creager’s, according to court documents.

source: journalgazette.net

update on Hadjicostis murder

Jan 24

Posted by A. Peasant in Cyprus, Limited Hangouts, Turkey | No Comments

image from: Cyprus Weekly

An update on the Hadjicostis murder, covered here and by aangirfan here,

…which you can readily see has intelligence services fingerprints all over it.

But never mind all that crazy talk about the embassy and the security cameras and the shell casings and Mossad and Cyprus blah blah blah. This is the very simple, very easy to understand white bread explanation, suitable for public consumption:

NICOSIA - A Cyprus court remanded a blonde TV presenter and her brother in police custody on Friday on suspicion of ordering the contract killing of media tycoon Andis Hadjicostis.

Elena Skordelli, a 42-year-old mother of two and TV show host, and her brother Tassos Krasopoulis, 37, appeared before a Nicosia district court and were remanded for eight days. They have not been charged.

The pair denies any involvement in the killing and their defence lawyers said the suspects wanted to help police with their inquiries.

They were arrested on Thursday night in connection with the gangland-style hit on the media mogul after a suspect already in custody admitted to his part in the crime.

He then fingered the brother and sister as the people behind the killing, police said.

According to the suspect’s police statement, he met the TV journalist and her brother on two occasions during which they ordered the hit on Hadjicostis for a fee, the court heard.

Police believe the motive was financial and personal revenge as they are both shareholders in private channel Sigma TV.

Hadjicostis, a father of two, was chief executive of the Dias media group, one of the island’s largest, which owns Sigma TV, Radio Proto, daily newspaper Simerini and other publications.

It is alleged that the woman wanted her revenge after she was sacked from Sigma and held Hadjicostis responsible.

In return for carrying out the hit, the other suspects were also to receive jobs at the station, the court heard.

Five suspects are in police custody on suspicion of involvement in the killing.

The 42-year-old media mogul was gunned down outside his home close to the US embassy on January 11.

Earlier in the week, Skordelli had issued a statement threatening to sue anyone who implicated her in the killing of her “beloved Andis”.

She also claimed that her life was being endangered by a scurrilous whispering campaign against her and requested police protection saying someone had tampered with her car.

The seasoned journalist reportedly has a 20-% share in private TV station Sigma, which belongs to the Dias group owned by Hadjicostis’s father Costis.

Three other suspects arrested last week are expected to appear again before a Nicosia court on Saturday.

Police have asked Interpol to circulate a warrant for the arrest of a sixth suspect, Gregoris Xenofontos, 29, who is thought to be in Moldova.

Additional details:

The arrests came after the outcome of the testimony of one of three suspects already in custody, who is said to have ‘broken under police questioning’ and confessed his involvement in the crime. Authorities withheld comment on the nature of the confession….The minister was flanked by Kypros Michaelides, police superintendent for the Nicosia district, who also refused to answer any questions by newsmen, such as whether the two new suspects were being considered as the masterminds of the crime, or whether the arrests would take investigations in a new direction.

…Earlier this week Skordelli’s lawyer sent letters to the police chief, Attorney-general and the Justice and Interior Ministers requesting protection after an alleged attempt to cause her injury. In the letter, lawyer Michalakis Kyprianou claimed his client was potentially in danger and asked for police protection. He further claimed that unknown persons removed three nuts from the front tyre of Skordelli’s car last Friday, “evidently, to cause an accident or even her death”.The letter came just 24 hours after the TV presenter ordered her lawyer to sue everyone “responsible for all the slanderous and malicious publicity, which has been carried out at my expense, as much in the Greek domain as in the Cypriot, via televisual or electronic formats, in printed, televised and electronic forms of media.”

Almost from day one of the murder, Skordelli’s name came up on a number of Greek websites and blogs offering theories about the murder.

Their remand for the other three suspects ends tomorrow, at which time police are expected to request a renewal. The so-called fourth suspect, 29-year-old Gregoris Xenofontos is wanted by police, who have issued European and international warrants for his capture. Xenofontos is believed to have departed for Moldova with his wife a few days after the murder.

tough jobs: covering big pharma’s ample ass

Jan 20

Posted by A. Peasant in Big Pharma, Corruption & Crime, Flu psyop, Limited Hangouts, Vaccines | No Comments

Check out this amazing article, whereby big pharma attempts to deflect criticism that it has manipulated governments and international agencies by hyping H1N1. Actually they collaborated. Remember? They did it together they work together all together now.

But if some people are going to be held accountable, well I guess it’s not one big happy family after all.

Note that adjuvants are suddenly an unfamiliar technology.

Analyst: Adjuvanted H1N1 vaccines helped stir Europe’s debate

Robert Roos * News Editor

Jan 15, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – The use of adjuvanted vaccines, an unfamiliar technology, helped spark mistrust that may have contributed to the recent allegations in Europe that pharmaceutical companies manipulated governments and international agencies by hyping the H1N1 pandemic threat, according to a British market analyst who follows infectious disease issues.

Some members of the 47-nation Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly have proposed a resolution charging that pharmaceutical companies, aiming to boost vaccine and drug sales, worked to “alarm” governments about the pandemic and prompt them to waste money on inefficient vaccine strategies and expose people to inadequately tested vaccines.

National and international health officials, along with the World Health Organization, have vigorously denied the allegations, which will come before the council on Jan 26.

Hedwig Kresse, MPhil, MSc, a London-based senior analyst on infectious diseases at the independent market analysis firm Datamonitor, said today the decision to use adjuvanted vaccines might have contributed to the controversy in Europe. She also said that when H1N1 emerged, it was the press and government officials, not pharamaceutical companies, that voiced alarm and pushed for a vaccine.

Off to a bad start
“I think in Europe the entire pandemic vaccine supply situation got off to a bad start because European regulators opted for adjuvanted vaccines, which resulted in a lot of negative publicity across Europe” and reduced the public’s interest in getting vaccinated, Kresse told CIDRAP News.

In the United States, she noted, authorities decided not to use adjuvants (which have never been used in US flu vaccines) and to stick with the standard technologies that have been used in seasonal flu vaccines for many years, she noted. (The US government bought a supply of adjuvants for possible emergency use but has not used them.)

“It wasn’t the same kind of debate as in Europe,” she said. “That led to a bigger acceptance of the vaccine.”

The pandemic H1N1 vaccines approved in Europe are GlaxoSmithKline’s Pandemrix, containing the adjuvant ASO3, and Novartis’s Focetria, which contains the company’s MF59 adjuvant. [SQUALENE - ed.] Also approved in Europe is Baxter’s Celvapan, which contains no adjuvant but is made in cell culture, a newer technology, rather than in eggs.

Kresse noted that one adjuvanted flu vaccine, Novartis’s Fluad, was approved in Europe back in 1997, but it is used only in the elderly.

Since most Europeans were unfamiliar with adjuvanted flu vaccines, “it was a new technology and there was no long-term record regarding reactogenicity,” Kresse said. “And since H1N1 has so far been a clinically mild pandemic, it just didn’t seem logical to a lot of people that you needed this new technology. So a lot of people saw it as an unnecessary risk to take.”

The safety record of the European vaccines has been good so far, Kresse said. She said they cause a slightly higher rate of local reactions, such as pain and itching, and possibly a higher rate of fever, than flu vaccines with no adjuvants. “I’m not aware of any major safety concerns in Europe,” she added.

H5N1 threat set stage for adjuvants
Kresse noted that pandemic vaccine efforts in Europe were predicated on the H5N1 avian flu virus. Vaccine versions of this virus have grown poorly in eggs and have been poorly immunogenic. As a result, she said, the general view has been that adjuvants are needed to make H5N1 vaccines work.

Manufacturers developed mockup vaccines based on H5N1, with adjuvants, with the understanding that when a pandemic emerged, the pandemic virus could replace the H5N1 and the vaccine could gain rapid regulatory approval.

Concerning the charge that vaccine manufacturers hyped the pandemic threat to boost their profits, Kresse said it doesn’t fit her perception of how things evolved.

“I think these questions have to be treated very, very carefully,” she said. “Without a doubt the pharmaceutical companies did benefit from the pandemic. But when I look back, it was more the government and the press” that talked a lot about the threat and pressed for a vaccine. “It was more the pharmaceutical companies being on the receiving end and being asked to deliver it as fast as they possibly could.”

She said it seems unlikely that the current controversy would make drug companies unwilling to produce pandemic vaccines in the future, but she wouldn’t rule out that type of outcome.

“If it really comes to a very nasty public discussion and results in a big loss of reputation for the pharmaceutical companies, then it’s another matter,” she commented. “Then as a company I might calculate very carefully what I’d gain and lose in terms of reputation.”

On the other hand, she said it’s unlikely that companies would completely withdraw from pandemic supply efforts: “There’s a very vital political interest in keeping the sector attractive for pandemic supplies.”

Tommy Thompson defends US vaccine efforts
Also today, former US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson added his voice to those defending the pandemic vaccine programs, saying it would be a terrible outcome if critics succeeded in scaring companies away from vaccine development. Thompson served as HHS secretary through President George W. Bush’s first term.

In a telephone interview, Thompson, now a senior partner in the Washington, DC, law firm Akin Gump, said the nation’s preparedness for disease outbreaks has improved and that the progress must be maintained.

“In the past we’ve not been prepared and we haven’t had companies that wanted to be in the vaccine business,” he said. “For the first time in our long history, we’ve got companies that are interested in preparing vaccines for flu. . . . The worst thing in the world would be to say this was contrived and therefore scare away vaccine companies from getting scientists to do research on infectious viruses.”

As for the assertion that the pandemic threat was exaggerated, Thompson said, “The only way to prove our concerns beyond a reasonable doubt is to have a lot of people die, and I don’t know anyone who’s advocating more lethality from flu viruses.”

“You’re always going to have critics, but people in the scientific community believe we’re doing the right thing and I certainly believe that,” he added. “I think it was the right thing to do, to get started down this path, and I’m glad that it continues to be expanded.”

He also commented that while the H1N1 virus is not as lethal as was feared, the pandemic may not be over and the virus could mutate into a more dangerous form.

Stunning remarks.

Selected posts from this long-running saga:

There’s only one word to describe this sort of thing.

Bringing home the bacon.

Novel, as in pulled out of someone’s head or ass or laboratory.

The Trifecta Theory.

Rara Avis.

Bird Flu and the Hegelian Dialectic

osama is a permanent limited hangout

Sep 14

Posted by A. Peasant in 9-11, CIA, Experts, Identities, Israel, Limited Hangouts, Media, Military, Mind-fucking, Obama/Biden, Terrorism | No Comments


Naturally we’ve just heard from the dead Osama bin Laden.*

*Osama bin Laden, as we all know (wink wink wink), is a notorious terrorist murderous mastermind who killed 3000 Americans in cold blood and got away with it, having miraculously outwitted capture by the best military in the world for eight years.

WASHINGTON - Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden told Americans in a new message Sunday that their support for Israel had the launch of the September 11, 2001 attacks, a US-based terror monitoring group said. Al-Qaeda’s As-Sahab media released a video titled “Message to the American People,” which features a still image of bin Laden and an audio statement, said IntelCenter. According to the center, Bin Laden said that among “some other injustices,” US support to Israel motivated Al-Qaeda to launch the 9/11 attacks. He also stated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were driven by the pro-Israeli lobby in the White House and corporate interests, not Muslim militants. “If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups,” he said, according to IntelCenter. “Rather than fighting to liberate Iraq - as Bush claimed - it (the White House) should have been liberated.” He was referring to former US president George W. Bush, who launched an invasion of Iraq in 2003. According to bin Laden, current US President Barack Obama is powerless to change the course of the wars. Obama’s retention of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other individuals from the Bush administration is confirmation of the president’s weakness, the Al-Qaeda chief argued. Bin Laden urges Americans to pressure White House leaders to cease the wars and US support to Israel, rather than succumb to “the ideological terrorism” exercised by neo-conservatives.

Well, here you have a recording of “bin Laden” (long-dead CIA asset Tim Osman) making some sense. He’s putting forth the main arguments that you will find at many truth sites on the internet. These arguments rest on solid facts, but since Osama bin Laden says them too, they are now totally discredited, are they not? The psyops goal being to link people who speak the truth about Israel with the notorious terrorist murderous mastermind Osama bin Laden.

But that’s not all! There’s much more psyops goodness here.

“The bitter truth is that the neo-conservatives continue to cast their heavy shadows upon you,” he said. If the wars are not ended, “all we will do is to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, like we exhausted the Soviet Union for ten years until it collapsed with grace from God the Almighty and became a memory of the past,” bin Laden vowed.

Read “we” in the context that al Qaeda is a CIA creation, as the Muslim world knows, and you see what lies in store for us.

Observers say Bin Laden cited known facts and genuine Muslim grievances to regain fading support for his group. The Al-Qaeda leader, they add, has only sated [sic] the obvious to show that he is still sensitive to issues important to Muslims amid wide Arab and Islamic public displeasure of his violent methods.

But many Americans still don’t know that the CIA created al Qaeda. Here’s where the “analysts” can be so very, very useful in applying the mind-fuck.

His message, which analysts say is really directed at the Muslim world and not the American people as he said, will likely to fail in gaining any sympathy or support, as the Muslim peoples are not interested in his contribution to their just causes.

Aha. So, the notorious terrorist murderous mastermind bin Laden *says* his message is directed at the American people, but he is a known liar, and the analysts *know* he is a liar, so his message is really directed at the Muslim world, but he will FAIL, as everyone knows, because the Muslim world is not interested in his contribution to their just causes (because they know he’s a tool of the CIA, which, as everyone paying attention knows, is peopled with criminals).

Wrapping it up, we have the explanation of the timing, which you should know has absolutely nothing to do with the urgent pressure to bomb Israel’s arch-enemy Iran, as well as the enormous bounty on his head, which nobody will ever have to pay since they know exactly where he’s been all this time.

The release came two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of the Al-Qaeda-sponsored attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. IntelCenter said bin Laden typically releases such a statement annually around September or October. The last audiotape by bin Laden was released June 3. In that missive he scorned Obama’s overture to the Muslim world and warned of decades of conflict ahead. Bin Laden has a 50-million-dollar bounty on his head and has been in hiding for the past eight years. US intelligence officials say they believe the world’s most wanted man is hiding in either Pakistan or Afghanistan near the remote mountainous border between the two countries.

Oh those US intelligence officials. They say they believe, do they? Well, you know, talk is cheap.