World-News

Apr 11 2009 by Dave Black, The Journal

A NEW bid to erect a mobile phone mast half a mile from one of the region’s historic treasures is being recommended for approval, despite strong opposition by local councillors.

Telecommunications giant Telefonica O2 UK wants to site the 27.5m-high lattice tower in Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland – 800 metres north of the Roman Wall and within the official setting of the World Heritage Site.

Parish councillors at Heddon say it is “inconceivable” that a mobile phone mast could be sited within the World Heritage Site under any circumstances, and have branded the proposal “completely unacceptable”.

Read More...
http://tinyurl.com/d96pw4

Carlton Meyer, Sanders Research Associates: "Measuring unemployment is an art that can result in widely varied rates. Not surprisingly, the US government uses a method that excludes millions of Americans seeking employment. This lower rate is used to prove that America's economic system is superior to those in Europe. Their higher unemployment rates are blamed on unions and socialism, which guarantee workers health care and paid vacations. The implication is that while many American workers lack such benefits, at least they have jobs. This argument is faulty since unemployment is measured differently."

http://www.truthout.org/041009LA



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=unemployment
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Carlton+Meyer

Christina Rexrode, The Charlotte Observer: "TARP has struggled to clarify its purpose and organize its logistics, according to the three government groups in charge of overseeing the program. They say the Treasury Department, which administers TARP, is tight-lipped on some important matters, such as how officials decide which banks qualify for it. They complain that TARP doesn't have the staffing to make sure banks are complying with the rules attached to the money. There's even disagreement about how much money is actually left."

http://www.truthout.org/041009S

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Rise of the TARP state

National Review
by Rich Lowry

04/10/09

How many legislators thought that in supporting TARP they were giving the federal government the power to bail out the auto industry, let alone fire a CEO and effectively run companies? When word came down in October that GMAC, the financial arm of General Motors, was considering becoming a bank holding company to get TARP funds, it seemed a violation of the spirit of the law. But GMAC needn’t have bothered. Through TARP, government funds went directly to GM and Chrysler, even after Congress declined to authorize them. As he was using the leverage created by TARP to fire GM’s CEO, Pres. Barack Obama guaranteed warranties for GM and Chrysler cars. He set up special warranty accounts — funded, naturally, with TARP dollars. TARP is an endlessly flexible slush fund that has given the federal government warrant to intervene in the private sector however it pleases. A lawlessness has inhered in TARP since Bush Treasury secretary Henry Paulson sold it to Congress under essentially false pretenses. The Obama administration continues in the same tradition...

http://tinyurl.com/c4k9ue


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Paulson
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http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Treasury
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Christina+Rexrode
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Rich+Lowry

Saturday, April 11, 2009, 08:20

FAMILIES are fuming after a second mobile phone firm announced plans for a mast near to a school and a play area.

Orange wants to build a 12-metre high mast on Jubilee Road, May Bank, which cuts through Wolstanton Marsh and is close to May Bank Infants' School.

The company is seeking residents' feedback before submitting a planning application to Newcastle Borough Council.

The news comes after The Sentinel reported earlier this month that Vodafone wanted to build another 10-metre high mast on the same stretch of road.

Now residents are horrified at the prospect of both phone companies winning planning permission.

Victoria Taylor, aged 24, of Oxford Road, May Bank, said: "As a mother of two children and another on the way, I'm very worried about the effects on their health.

Read More...
http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/news/Second-phone-mast-blow-community/article-894474-detail/article.html

The US budget deficit accelerated in March to hit a record nearly one trillion dollars in the first half of the current fiscal year as the government moved to bail out troubled institutions, government data showed Friday.

http://snipurl.com/fnqoa



Social Security's Surplus Disappearing Fast in Downturn

According to both the budget proposed by the White House in February and projections issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in March, Social Security benefits ($659 billion, according to the CBO) will exceed payroll taxes ($653 billion) in fiscal 2009 for the first time since 1984.

http://snipurl.com/fnqpi


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=budget+deficit
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President Barack Obama has requested another $83.4 billion (£57 billion) from Congress to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, using a controversial special troop funding provision that he voted against as a senator.

http://snipurl.com/fni8o


From Information Clearing House



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http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy

Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US predator strikes thus comes to not more than six per cent.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=21440


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Pakistan
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Video Interview

"In the United States we are really brought up to think there's only really one class. That is, the idea of class conflict, class struggle, that is foreign to American culture." says Zinn. "We're brought up to think that were part of one big happy family," according to Zinn this is simply a perpetuated lie that contradicts the reality that a large percentage of the population doesn't fit in to this happy family model.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22395.htm


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Howard+Zinn

Black Money

As the global financial downturn continues and pressure for profits increases on corporations across the world, a small group of lawyers in the U.S. Justice Department is pursuing an aggressive crackdown against an international business tactic -- bribery -- which the World Bank says amounts to as much as a trillion dollars a year in payments.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/blackmoney/etc/synopsis.html



Fed sees economy sliding further

Federal Reserve policy-makers, faced with bleaker forecasts for a rapidly worsening recession, decided to buy a "substantial" amount of U.S. Treasury and mortgage debt to halt the slide, minutes of their most recent meeting showed on Wednesday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5377PR20090408



Moody's Downgrades The Whole Country

For the first time ever, the ratings agency placed all munis on negative outlook, a precursor to potential downgrades. Historically, the agency looked at munis individually and considered them to be too diverse to make blanket statements about.

http://www.businessinsider.com/moodys-puts-all-munis-on-negative-outlook-2009-4



The banks are too powerful and they are ruining the rescue plan

Recent events have made me pessimistic that America's latest bank rescue plan will work. Worse, it is the disastrous banks themselves that are being allowed to wreck any efforts to resurrect the global economy.

http://snipurl.com/fl8jv


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=financial+downturn
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With the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a 'secret' that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again."

http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2009/04/05


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
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http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=what+change
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http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=wiretapping

Tiny red and gray chips found in the dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center contain highly explosive materials - proof, according to a former BYU professor, that 9/11 is still a sinister mystery.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/0,5143,705295677,00.html


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=9/11

Medical personnel committed a "gross breach of medical ethics" by taking part in torture in Guantánamo, a leaked International Committee of the Red Cross document has revealed.

http://snipurl.com/fl8ft


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Guantanamo
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
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The US military in Afghanistan admitted Thursday that four people its troops killed in a raid were not "combatants", after Afghans said they included a mother and her children, with a baby dying afterwards.

http://snipurl.com/fl7uh



Anger after us kills Afghan family

An Afghan army colonel whose wife and children died in a US-led raid demanded action against the troops responsible Friday as President Hamid Karzai condemned the killings.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090410/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrestcivilianlead


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Karzai
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=civilian+deaths

By Michael Gaddy

Is the state capable of killing to achieve its goals? One could always ask Randy Weaver and the Waco survivors, not to mention the families of tens of thousands of soldiers and millions of Vietnamese and Iraqis.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22379.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Michael+Gaddy

Video

In the clip, Obama appears to bow before the Saudi monarch, lowering his head in the direction of Abdullah's hand as he shook it just moments before G-20 leaders posed for a group photograph in London last week.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22386.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=G20+summit

By Glenn Greenwald

The fact that Keith Olbermann, of all people, spent the first ten minutes of his show attacking Obama for replicating (and, in this instance, actually surpassing) some of the worst Bush/Cheney abuses of executive power and secrecy claims reflects just how extreme is the conduct of the Obama DOJ here.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22376.htm



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By Tom Engelhardt

The most intense of our various drone wars, the one on the other side of the Afghan border in Pakistan, is also the most mysterious. We know that some or all of the drones engaged in it take off from Pakistani airfields; that this "covert war" (which regularly makes front-page news) is run by the CIA out of its headquarters in Langley, Virginia; that its pilots are also located somewhere in the U.S.; and that at least some of them are hired private contractors.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22377.htm



Pakistan:"The Most Dangerous Country"

Video and Petition

The war in Afghanistan and its potentially catastrophic impact on Pakistan are complex and dangerous issues, which further make the case why our country needs a national debate on this now starting with congressional oversight hearings.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22382.htm



Bury Al-Qaeda Ghost

By IFTEKHAR A. KHAN

Wrapping defeat in euphemism, Bush in his last year in office had said: "We are not winning war in Afghanistan." Obama has inherited Bush's losing war. Instead of reappraising the past strategy to determine the causes of failure, he has decided to inject more troops.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22383.htm



Pakistan drone attacks to intensify, Obama officials say

On Tuesday, Pakistani leaders reportedly rebuked visiting US officials over the airstrikes, which have prompted violent responses from militants.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0408/p99s01-duts.html


From Information Clearing House



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Apr 11 2009 by John Williams, Daily Post

MOBILE phone companies are paying tens of thousands of pounds in rent to county councils.

The news met with anger from North Wales residents neighbouring the masts and equipment.

Conwy County Council receives £23,625 per year, including £14,000 for the mast on Venue Cymru, Llandudno, and £3,000 for antennas at Conwy United and Penmaenmawr Phoenix football clubs. There is also a mast on Llandudno’s football ground, gaining the club £5,000 per year.

Read More...
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2009/04/11/anger-at-north-wales-councils-over-phone-mast-cash-55578-23362986/

http://www.lewrockwell.com/schiff/schiff14.html

In Preparation for the 2010 Census
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/barnett6.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Keynes
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Peter+Schiff
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http://www.alternet.org/rights/135582/republicans_in_desperation_over_obama_releasing_more_bush_torture_memos_/

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Easter Hope: Justice Against Torture

By Ray McGovern

Even if our own government proves too timid to bring him to justice, Bush cannot risk being apprehended abroad, brought to The Hague, and tried for war crimes.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22381.htm



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