Citizens for Legitimate Government--30 May 2011

Citizens for Legitimate Government--30 May 2011

http://www.legitgov.org

'US dropped cluster bombs on Misratah' 29 May 2011 A Human rights investigation in Libya has found that it was the US and its Western allies who cluster bombed the troubled city of Misratah back in April. The HRI said it has convincing evidence that the cluster bombing blamed on pro-Gaddafi forces was actually carried out by the US navy. The report says at the time of the attack, Human Rights Watch and a 'reporter' working for US media immediately blamed forces loyal to Libya's embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi for the cluster bombing that threatened civilian lives.

CIA prisons in Poland 'illegal' --Prosecutors representing terror suspect Adb al-Rahim al-Nashiri claim the man was tortured at the facility between 2002 to 2003. Al-Nashiri was subjected to waterboarding and mock executions with a power drill while he was naked and hooded, the prosecutors said. 30 May 2011 Secret prisons operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Polish territory violated international law and the Polish constitution according to legal experts, reported the daily Gazeta Wyborcza on Monday, citing sources close to an investigation. The CIA held terror suspects inside a military intelligence training base in Stare Kiejkuty, northeastern Poland, from 2002 to 2005, anonymous Polish intelligence officers have said. According to Wyborcza, Poland and the US agreed that the US would not reply to a Polish request for assistance in the case. This would prolong the investigation until the case could be suspended, the daily reported, citing a source in the prosecutor's office.

NATO vows longer stay in Afghanistan 30 May 2011 NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called for an increase in the military budget of member states to extend the US-led presence in Afghanistan. On Monday, Rasmussen called on NATO member-states to increase military budgets and keep up their contributions to the mission in Afghanistan. He claimed that a rapid exit from Afghanistan would still be premature. [US killer drone locusts: Once they descend for oil and opium, there's no eradicating the plague.]

Afghan leader Karzai issues 'last warning' to Nato --The BBC's Quentin Sommerville said villagers brought their dead children to the governor's office shouting: "See they aren't Taliban". 29 May 2011 Afghan President Hamid Karzai has forcefully condemned the killing of 14 civilians in the south-west of the country in a suspected Nato air strike. Mr Karzai said his government had repeatedly asked the US to stop raids which end up killing Afghan civilians and this was his "last warning". Afghan officials say all those killed were women and children.

ISAF apologizes for killing Afghans 30 May 2011 Foreign forces in Afghanistan have issued an apology for killing dozens of Afghan civilians, mostly children, in Nawzad district in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. The ISAF statement put the number of killed civilians at nine, while Afghan officials in Helmand province said 14 civilians, including five girls, seven boys and two women were among those killed by the US-led forces.

Nato-Led Airstrike Kills 12 Afghan Children --'My house was bombarded in the middle of the night and my children were killed. The Taliban were far away from my home, why was my house bombed?' --Distraught Afghan father Noor Agha 29 May 2011 Twelve children and two women have been killed in a Nato airstrike in Afghanistan, according to local officials. The tragedy happened in Nawzad district in southwest Helmand province late on Saturday. Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial government, said Nato was targeting 'insurgents' but instead struck two homes, killing two women, five girls and seven boys.

Afghan soldier kills US-led soldier 30 May 2011 12:52PM NATO says an Afghan man wearing an army uniform has shot and killed a US-led foreign soldier and injured a number of others in the country's troubled south. Local officials confirmed that the man was an Afghan soldier. Earlier on the day, four US-led troops were killed in a roadside bomb attack in the eastern Wardak Province.

Taliban insurgents hit NATO base, downtown Herat in coordinated attacks 31 May 2011 'Insurgents' staged deadly coordinated strikes Monday in the western city of Herat, where an explosion killed at least four people in a bustling downtown area and a car bomb detonated at the gates of a NATO base, injuring several Italian soldiers inside, Afghan and coalition officials said. An Afghan soldier died in a subsequent shootout. Herat, a city that lies close to Afghanistan's border with Iran, has been designated as one of the first areas of the country where Western troops are to hand over security responsibilities to Afghan forces beginning in July.

Six US-led troops killed in Afghanistan 30 May 2011 2:22PM At least six US-led soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in one of the bloodiest days for the foreign troops serving in the war-torn country. NATO says an Afghan man wearing an army uniform, has shot and killed a foreign soldier in the south. It is not immediately clear if the shooter was an Afghan soldier or a militant in disguise.

4 US-led troops perish in Afghanistan 30 May 2011 9:53AM At least four US-led forces in Afghanistan have been killed in a roadside bomb attack in the eastern Afghan province of Wardak. The four soldiers were killed by roadside bomb blasts in Saydabad district in the early hours of Sunday evening, Wardak provincial spokesman Shahedollah Shahed told Press TV on Monday... Taliban militants claiming responsibility for the attack stated that six US-led soldiers were slain in the attack.

Two British soldiers killed in bomb blast 29 May 2011 The families of two Royal Marines killed in an explosion in Afghanistan have paid tribute to their loved ones. Marine Sam Alexander, from Hammersmith, west London, and Lieutenant Ollie Augustin, from Kent, were killed on Friday when they were caught in a blast from an IED (improvised explosive device). The men were on patrol in the Loy Mandeh area of the Nad-e Ali District of Helmand Province when they were killed, an MoD spokesman said.

2 Australian soldiers hurt in Afghan war 29 May 2011 Two Australian soldiers have been wounded after their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device while on patrol in southern Afghanistan. The incident took place on Wednesday and the soldiers are being treated as outpatients at Tarin Kot base in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province, The Sydney Morning Herald cited a statement issued by the Australian Defense Department on Saturday. The statement added that the Australian soldiers were evacuated by helicopter while their vehicle was destroyed in order to avoid potential use by militants.

More than 7,000 slotted for Iraq this summer 25 May 2011 More than 7,170 soldiers will deploy to Iraq beginning in mid-summer -- despite a security agreement that requires U.S. forces to depart the country by Dec. 31. The deployments are part of the regular rotation of forces and will include a division headquarters of 775 soldiers and two brigade combat teams totaling 6,400 soldiers, according to a Defense Department announcement Tuesday.

Explosion wounds Iraqi defense minister candidate 29 May 2011 A roadside bomb explosion ripped through a car in eastern Mosul Sunday, wounding an Iraqi defense minister candidate and his driver, police said. Khalid al-Obaidi was heading home when the blast struck. He was transferred immediately to an area hospital and is in stable condition, police said.

Obama nominates Army general Dempsey to lead Joint Chiefs of Staff 30 May 2011 President Obama nominated Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and promoted two other senior military leaders Monday, completing an overhaul of his national security team in advance of the 2012 election. Obama's appointments will usher in a new leadership at the Pentagon, where for the first 2 1/2 years of his term he had kept most of the existing brass from his predecessor [sic] George W. Bush. In turning to Dempsey, Obama had to pull him out of a high-ranking position -- Army chief of staff -- that he had appointed him to just last month.

Israel Minister: Strike on Iran Could Be Necessary 30 May 2011 An Israeli Cabinet minister said the civilized world must take joint action to avert the Iranian 'nuclear threat,' including a pre-emptive strike if necessary. Moshe Yaalon -- the minister for strategic affairs -- made the statement in an interview with Russia's Interfax news agency released Monday ahead of a visit to Moscow. "We strongly hope that the entire civilized world will come to realize what threat this regime is posing and take joint action to avert the nuclear threat posed by Iran, even if it would be necessary to conduct a pre-emptive strike," Yaalon was quoted by Interfax as saying.

Saudi force 'trained by UK' 29 May 2011 The Saudi Arabian National Guard sent into Bahrain to crush a popular uprising receives training from the British military, it was reported today. The training including weapons and public order are organised by the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, according to documents obtained by The Observer under the Freedom of Information Act. The secretive group is said to consist of 11 British army staff under the command of a brigadier.

Yemeni forces attack protesters, kill 70 30 May 2011 At least 70 individuals have been killed in southern Yemen as security forces clashed with protesters that were calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Protest organizers reported on Monday that Yemeni forces have killed at least 70 demonstrators in Taizz, according to wire and broadcast reports. The reports also indicate that government forces set protest camps at Freedom Square on fire as well, injuring scores of protesters in the process.

Group hacks PBS website in WikiLeaks protest 30 May 2011 A group of hackers angered by a PBS documentary about WikiLeaks has posted a fake news story on the website of the public broadcaster claiming that dead rapper Tupac Shakur was alive and well. The group, Lulz Boat, attacked PBS' servers on Sunday, posting stolen passwords and other sensitive PBS information alongside a story headlined "Tupac still alive in New Zealand." "We just finished watching WikiSecrets and were less than impressed," Lulz Boat said, referring to an hour-long documentary that aired on PBS' "Frontline" program on Tuesday.

Two Fukushima workers may have exceeded radiation limit 30 May 2011 Two workers at Japan's crippled nuclear power plant may have exceeded the government's radiation exposure limit, the plant operator said. Measurements of external exposure and radioactive iodine in their thyroid glands suggested that the two male workers, one in his 30s and the other in his 40s, had surpassed the maximum set by the government of 250 millisieverts over the life of the control and clean-up project. The government relaxed its upper limit for exposure for the Fukushima disaster, allowing 250 millisieverts for male emergency workers compared with the conventional maximum of 100 millisieverts for nuclear-related emergencies.

Fukushima Debacle Risks Chernobyl 'Dead Zone' as Radiation in Soil Soars --Radiation from plant has spread over 600 square kilometers (230 square miles) 30 May 2011 Radioactive soil in pockets of areas near Japan's crippled nuclear plant have reached the same level as Chernobyl, where a "dead zone" remains 25 years after the reactor in the former Soviet Union exploded. Soil samples in areas outside the 20-kilometer (12 miles) exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant measured more than 1.48 million becquerels a square meter, the standard used for evacuating residents after the Chernobyl accident, Tomio Kawata, a fellow at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, said in a research report published May 24 and given to the government.

Deluge could spread Fukushima radiation 30 May 2011 There are fears a tropical storm off the coast of Japan could wash radioactive material from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the air and sea. Now downgraded to a tropical storm, former Typhoon Songda is still expected to bring strong winds and torrential rain to Tokyo later this morning, with the Fukushima area also forecast to experience a deluge. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), has apologised for not being prepared for the bad weather.

Tepco can't stabilize reactors by year-end: report 29 May 2011 Tokyo Electric Power Co. is coming to the view that it will be impossible to stabilize the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant by the end of this year, possibly affecting the timing for the government to consider the return of evacuees to their homes near the plant, Kyodo News reported, citing senior company officials. The revelation that meltdowns had occurred at the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors at the plant, most likely with breaches to pressure vessels encasing nuclear fuel, has led the officials to believe that "there will be a major delay to work" to contain the situation, one of them said.

AP: Fukushima tsunami plan a single page 28 May 2011 Japanese nuclear regulators trusted that the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex were safe from the worst waves an earthquake could muster based on a single-page memo from the plant operator nearly a decade ago. In the Dec. 19, 2001, document -- one double-sized page obtained by The Associated Press under Japan's public records law -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. rules out the possibility of a tsunami large enough to knock the plant offline and gives scant details to justify this conclusion, which proved to be wildly optimistic.

Uranium Stocks Under Siege as Fukushima Continues Spewing Radiation 30 May 2011 As shares in uranium exploration companies continued to shed value, Japan's nuclear nightmare is still getting worse. News this weekend that the hope of 'stabilizing' the leakage of radiation by steam into the atmosphere and by water into the ocean is unlikely underscores just how bad the situation is. Within a 20 kilometre radius around the stricken plant, a Chernobyl-style dead zone is developing, with levels of 1.48 million becquerels a square meter measured within that area. Dangerous levels of radiation have now been confirmed as far as 600 kilometres away from Fukushima.

Did BP's oil-dissolving chemical make the spill worse? 30 May 2011 BP succeeded in sinking the oil from its blown well out of sight... by dousing the crude with nearly 2 million gallons of toxic chemicals. But the impact on the ecosystem as a whole may have been more damaging than the oil alone. The combination of oil and Corexit, the chemical BP used to dissolve the slick, is more toxic to tiny plants and animals than the oil in most cases, according to preliminary research by several Florida scientists. And the chemicals may not have broken down the oil as well as expected.

Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink --Record rise, despite recession, means 2C target almost out of reach 29 May 2011 Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency. The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius - which scientists say is the threshold for potentially "dangerous climate change" - is likely to be just "a nice Utopia", according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA.

GOP Rep. questions Obama's autopen signing of Patriot Act extension 27 May 2011 Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) is questioning President Obama's use of an autopen in signing an extension of the Patriot Act. In a letter Friday, Graves asks Obama to confirm that he saw the law prior to its autopen signing. "Mr. President, I write to request your confirmation that S. 990, as passed by Congress, was presented to you prior to the autopen signing, as well as a detailed, written explanation of your Constitutional authority to assign a surrogate the responsibility of signing bills passed into law," Graves wrote.

Republican Legislators Push to Tighten Voting Rules --G.O.P. efforts advance in 13 states 29 May 2011 Less than 18 months before the next presidential election, Republican-controlled statehouses around the country are rewriting voting laws to require photo identification at the polls, reduce the number of days of early voting, or tighten registration rules. Democrats say the changes have little to do with fraud prevention and more to do with placing obstacles in the way of possible Democratic voters, including young people and minorities. Democrats say the unified Republican push for photo identification cards carries echoes of the Jim Crow laws -- with their poll taxes and literacy tests -- that inhibited black voters in the South from Reconstruction through the 1960s.

2 firms to pay for improper military foreclosures 26 May 2011 Two mortgage lenders will pay more than $22 million combined to settle federal civil charges that they improperly foreclosed on 178 military personnel, some of whom were serving in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. Subsidiaries of Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley failed to obtain court orders before imposing the foreclosures between 2006 and 2009, the Justice Department said Thursday. The foreclosed homes were in 22 states.

Top lobbying banks got biggest bailouts: study 26 May 2011 The more aggressively a bank lobbied before the financial crisis, the worse its loans performed during the economic downturn -- and the more bailout dollars it received, according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research this week. The report, titled "A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis," said that banks' lobbying efforts may be motivated by short-term profit gains, which can have devastating effects on the economy. Data collected by the authors -- three economists from the International Monetary Fund -- show that the most aggressive lobbyers in the financial industry from 2000 to 2007 also made the most toxic mortgage loans.

Ohio schools cut jobs anticipating funding cuts 26 May 2011 Ohio school districts already are cutting thousands of jobs in anticipation of losing funding in the upcoming state budget, as unions and other education groups lobby hard at the Statehouse to get some of it restored. In Cincinnati, 226 school district jobs have been cut, including 145 teaching positions... The Ohio Education Association union says nearly 3,800 teacher and support staff jobs in Ohio won't be filled next year through layoffs, retirements or resignations, and more cuts are expected.

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