On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton gave a presentation in St. Paul, MN on the subject of global warming. In this 4-minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warning to all Americans regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty that is scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009.

A draft of the treaty can be read here:

http://www.globalclimatescam.com/docu…

Page 18: Section 38 of the “Share vision for long-term cooperation action plan” contains the text for forming the new government.

Page 44-45: Section 46 “Objectives, scope, and guiding principles” contains the text for enforcement and establishment of the rule of law.

There has been considerable debate raised about Monckton’s conclusion that the Copenhagen Treaty would cede US sovereignty. His comments appear to be based upon his interpretation of the The Supremacy Clause in the US Constitution (Article VI, paragraph 2). This clause establishes the Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. TREATIES as the supreme law of the land. Concerns have been raised in the past that a particularly ambitious treaty may supersede the US Constitution. In the 1950s, a constitutional amendment, known as the Bricker Amendment, was proposed in response to such fears, but it failed to pass. You can read more about the Bricker Amendment in a 1953 Time Magazine article:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/art…,9171,806676-1,00.html

Lord Monckton served as a policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher. He has repeatedly challenged Al Gore to a debate to which Gore has refused. Monckton sued to stop Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” from being shown in British schools due to its inaccuracies. The judge found in-favor of Monckton, ordering 9 serious errors in the film to be corrected. Lord Monckton travels internationally in an attempt to educating the public about the myth of global warming.

sraeli forces have clashed with Palestinians at Haram Al Sharif, or Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem.

Several Palestinians were arrested and dozens more were lcoked inside the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports from East Jerusalem.

Stewart Nozette, 52, arrested after demanding Israeli passport during FBI sting

A former Nasa scientist who helped discover evidence of water on the moon has been charged with attempting to sell Israel secrets about America’s military satellite systems.

Stewart Nozette, 52, from Maryland, was arrested in an FBI sting after demanding cash and an Israeli passport in return for classified information obtained when he worked with a high security clearance for the US space agency, the Pentagon and an energy department laboratory where he helped to develop a radar that indicated there is ice on the south pole of the moon.

Although the indictment does not allege that Israeli agents had already recruited Nozette, it says that he had already been paid a substantial amount of money to work as a consultant to an Israeli state-owned defence firm in return for “answering questions from the company”. During an FBI surveillance operation before the sting, Nozette also allegedly acknowledged to a colleague that he had committed a crime and threatened to flee the country and tell everything he knows to Israel.

The case is potentially a further embarrassment for Israel at a time of unusually strained relations with the US after a number of cases of Americans accused of spying for the Jewish state in recent years.

The prosecutor in Washington, Channing Phillips, said: “Those who would put our nation’s defence secrets up for sale can expect to be vigorously prosecuted.”

The FBI launched its sting last month when an agent contacted Nozette posing as a spy for Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad. The scientist and undercover agent met later in the day at a hotel and discussed an exchange of classified information for cash. Court papers say that Nozette told the agent he had access to much of what the “US has done in space”.

“These are among the most sensitive subjects and it will have to be recreated from memory over some time,” he said.

It was then agreed that the scientist would pass his information at a post office. “I don’t get recruited by Mossad every day. I knew this day would come,” Nozette is heard saying on a wiretap, according to the court papers.

In the following weeks, the FBI left two envelopes with a total of $11,000 (£6,700) in cash and questions about classified information for the scientist to answer. Nozette replied with information about the US satellite and military early warning systems, and its attack response system.

The undercover agent also supplied the scientist with a mobile phone to send text messages and gave him an alias that was supposedly to appear on his new Israeli passport.

Investigators have not said why they latched onto Nozette. But according to court papers, the scientist worked for more than a decade as a technical consultant for Israel Aerospace Industries, a government-owned defence firm during which he was paid $225,000 to answer “the company’s questions and, in return, Nozette received regular payments from the company”.

Continue reading: THE GUARDIAN

The assumptions most Americans hold about Iran and its policies are wrong

Thursday is a fateful day for the world, as the U.S., other members of the United Nations Security Council, and Germany meet in Geneva with Iran in a bid to resolve outstanding issues. Although Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had earlier attempted to put the nuclear issue off the bargaining table, this rhetorical flourish was a mere opening gambit and nuclear issues will certainly dominate the talks. As Henry Kissinger pointed out, these talks are just beginning and there are highly unlikely to be any breakthroughs for a very long time. Diplomacy is a marathon, not a sprint.

But on this occasion, I thought I’d take the opportunity to list some things that people tend to think they know about Iran, but for which the evidence is shaky.

Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the U.S.

Reality: Iran has not launched an aggressive war modern history (unlike the U.S. or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of “no first strike.” This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Iran’s military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.

Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to “wipe it off the map.”

Reality: No Iranian leader in the executive has threatened an aggressive act of war on Israel, since this would contradict the doctrine of ‘no first strike’ to which the country has adhered. The Iranian president has explicitly said that Iran is not a threat to any country, including Israel.

Continue reading: SALON

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon fired the top U.S. official at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan on Wednesday over differences the official, Peter Galbraith, had with his boss over how to deal with charges of fraud in the Afghan presidential election. Galbraith tells NPR the dispute was over whether the U.N. should do anything about the fraud in the Afghan presidential election.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon fired the top U.S. official at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan on Wednesday over differences the official, Peter Galbraith, had with his boss over how to deal with charges of fraud in the Afghan presidential election.

A statement issued by Ban’s office said the secretary-general had decided to “recall” Galbraith and end his appointment as the U.N.’s deputy special representative to Afghanistan. Galbraith, the former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, was publicly critical of apparent corruption in the Aug. 20 presidential election, and was at odds with his boss, Special Representative Kai Eide, over how the U.N. should have responded to the election.

Preliminary results from the Aug. 20 election show that President Hamid Karzai won a majority, but final results have been delayed by fraud allegations that prompted a partial recount.

Galbraith tells NPR’s Robert Siegel that the disagreement with Eide centered on “ghost” polling stations — set up in insecure areas and that could be used to produce votes that were never cast. He says he also disagreed with Eide on sharing U.N. data on fraud with Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission.

Eide, Galbraith says, opposed sharing data, and decided that the U.N. would say nothing about the polling centers after the Afghan government complained about Galbraith’s call to close them.

“The dispute was whether the United Nations should do anything about the fraud that took place,” Galbraith says.

Continue reading: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC RADIO

Eccentric Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi lives up to his reputation during his first visit to America

It was meant to be a day of global reconciliation, when the new leader of the free world put all the rancour of the past eight years behind him and heralded an era of unity. And so it might have been were it not for a short man, swathed in saffron robes and a black felt hat waving his arms around and shouting: “Terrorism!”

Muammar Gaddafi – for it was he – grabbed his 15 minutes of fame at the UN building in New York today and ran with it. He ran with it so hard he stretched it to an hour and 40 minutes, six times longer than his allotted slot, to the dismay of UN organisers.

On his first visit to the US, and in his maiden address to the UN general assembly, Gaddafi fully lived up to his reputation for eccentricity, bloody-mindedness and extreme verbiage.

He tore up a copy of the UN charter in front of startled delegates, accused the security council of being an al-Qaida like terrorist body, called for George Bush and Tony Blair to be put on trial for the Iraq war, demanded $7.7tn in compensation for the ravages of colonialism on Africa, and wondered whether swine flu was a biological weapon created in a military laboratory. At one point, he even demanded to know who was behind the killing of JFK. All in all, a pretty ordinary 100 minutes in the life of the colonel.

To be fair, this was a man suffering from severe sleep deprivation. The US state department, New York city council and Donald Trump had prevented him from laying his weary head in an air-conditioned tent in New Jersey, Central Park and Bedford respectively, and the resulting strain was evident.

“I woke up at 4am, before dawn!” Gaddafi lamented about an hour into his speech, adding for the benefit of the jetlagged diplomats seated stony-faced in front of him: “You should be asleep! You’re all tired after a sleepless night!”

Continue reading: THE GUARDIAN

A new report from Adalah shows how the courts and police attempted to stamp out opposition to Operation Cast Lead “This is a time of war, and every incident harms the people’s morale.”

This was not a sentence in a right-wing journal, but rather a statement by an Israel Police representative during Operation Cast Lead seeking to persuade the Tel Aviv District Court to block anti-war protesters from the city.

Around the same time, in a Haifa Magistrate’s Court hearing on extending the remand of minors, Judge Moshe Gilad stated: “Anyone who enables remarks denouncing the state and backing its enemies, even as they rain missiles upon its citizens, must obey its laws, and certainly is prohibited from attacking police who come to impose order. It is similar to a person spitting in the well from which he drinks.”

Here are some of the pearls in Adalah’s new report: “Prohibited protest – how the law enforcement authorities limit the freedom of expression of opponents of the Gaza military attack.” The document, being published for the first time here, was written by attorneys Abeer Baker and Rana Asali. They reviewed and analyzed hundreds of rulings and detention requests, interviewed dozens of human rights activists who were arrested and threatened during the Gaza attack, and documented the behavior of Israeli academia during the moments of truth last winter.

Continue reading: HAARETZ

Since the 2003 US-led invasion, Iraq has witnessed a dramatic rise in the cultivation and trafficking of drugs. Reports indicate that drug abuse is on the rise among Iraqi youth and that armed militias have muscled in on this lucrative trade. So how can Iraq combat this growing problem? Inside Iraq investigates.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s spokesman denounces ‘propaganda and bias’

Link to ‘The Guardian’ video

Israel refused to accept the findings of a highly critical UN inquiry into the Gaza war and said today it would launch a diplomatic offensive to prevent any risk of prosecutions.

No independent inquiry into the military’s conduct during the war last January would be held, a clear rejection of one primary recommendation from the UN report.

The inquiry, headed by a former South African judge, Richard Goldstone, delivered a detailed and damning criticism of the war, accusing both Israel and armed Palestinian groups, notably Hamas, of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. It was by far the most serious international inquiry into the three-week war, which left 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead and which triggered a wave of criticism across the world.

“This report was conceived in sin and is the product of a union between propaganda and bias,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. “Israel is a country with a fiercely independent judiciary … Everything done by the military in Israel is open to judicial review by the independent judiciary.”

Israel had refused to co-operate with the inquiry, not letting the team enter Israel or the occupied West Bank. It said the UN human rights council, which commissioned the inquiry, was biased against Israel.

“The mandate was biased from the beginning and it would have been a mistake to give credibility to a mission that has more in common with a kangaroo court than it does with a serious investigation,” Regev said.

For its part, Hamas also rejected the criticism. “The Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance were in a position of self-defence and not of attack. One cannot compare the simple capabilities of the resistance with the great strength of the occupation,” said Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader and former Palestinian prime minister.

After the inquiry was published yesterday evening, a legal team from Israel’s foreign ministry met with other government officials to prepare an analysis of the UN report. Netanyahu reportedly held meetings into the night on the impact of the findings.

Israel is concerned that, when the UN human rights council discusses the report later this month, it could agree to pass it to the UN security council. The security council could then decide to pass the findings on to the international criminal court, where arrest warrants could be issued ahead of prosecutions.

Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, who is on a visit to Washington, said he would meet the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, to minimise the impact of the report before it reaches the UN security council. Other senior figures from the Israeli government are expected to begin a round of telephone calls with ministers from other governments, particularly the five permanent members of the security council, to head off any decision that might lead to prosecutions. The Ha’aretz newspaper said priority calls would go out to EU nations, in the hope of influencing the debate at the UN human rights council in Geneva.

Continue reading: THE GUARDIAN

The British oil trader Trafigura has offered to pay out in a historic damages claim from 31,000 Africans injured by the dumping of toxic waste in one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history, the Guardian can reveal.

The compensation deal for the victims of toxic oil waste dumping in west Africa – likely to be confirmed imminently – means the full extent of attempts to cover up what really happened can be spelled out for the first time.

The truth is laid bare in Trafigura’s hitherto secret documents, published by the Guardian today.

The company’s internal emails show the true nature of the toxic waste dumped around Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast. Trafigura had publicly claimed the waste was harmless.

The exposure of the company files has contributed to Trafigura’s climbdown after three years of bitterly contested legal battles.

Continue reading: THE GUARDIAN

Former Congressman James Traficant released after 7 years in prison.