Het Nieuws

Citaat:

CIA Report: Bin Laden Is Dying Of Kidney Failure... Still
Leaked details smack of propaganda campaign to intensify military activity

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A top secret CIA report, leaked to TIME magazine, which suggests that Osama Bin Laden has between six and eighteen months to live, smacks of controlled propaganda as part of an effort to intensify the war on terror during the remaining months of the Bush administration.

The "leaks" suggest that sources within the CIA have "ostensibly managed to get the names of some of the medications bin Laden is taking" and have concluded that the former intelligence asset is dying of Kidney failure.

In essence, they know what pills Osama is popping but they have no idea where he is popping them.

The news comes in the same week that it has been revealed that Pakistan has an agreement to allow CIA-operated Predator drones fly over the country and strike targets in the so called "hunt" for Bin Laden.

In addition, details of a secret Pentagon plan to send U.S. special forces into the wild tribal regions of Pakistan to find Bin Laden have also emerged. The plans have reportedly not yet been implemented due to White House in fighting.

The TIME article comments:

If bin Laden really is dying, the news would doubtless be greeted with some ambivalence. On the one hand, his demise is what the U.S. government has been fervently trying to hasten — since before 9/11. But death by kidney disease is not exactly what it had in mind. "Wouldn't that be a tragic situation if, with all this effort, bin Laden died without it happening at the hands of coalition forces?" says one current senior counterterrorism official.

Indeed, what a glorious end to Bush tenure it would be for the President to be able to stand over the rotting corpse of Bin Laden, the man he vowed to capture "dead or alive", and proclaim that everything the neocon war machine has wrought over the past seven years has all been worth it.

Better get to work then because, according to the CIA, just like Bush, Bin Laden only has months left.

The one tiny problem with all this is of course the fact that Bin Laden has been on death's door due to chronic Kidney failure for at least eight years now.

According to French newspaper Le Figaro, Bin Laden was on a kidney dialysis machine after he had one shipped to his base in Kandahar Afghanistan in 2000, and when the CIA personally visited him in a Dubai hospital. Other accounts suggest he was also suffering from Hepatitis C at the time and had only two years left to live.

Journalists who met Bin Laden before 9/11 later proclaimed their disbelief about the fact that he didn't appear on video after December 2001 to brag about the fact that he had not been captured. Since that time, every single Bin Laden video tape released has contained vague non-specific messages and in many cases the footage is old and re-hashed.

"With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival?" wrote the New York Times' Amir Taheri in July 2002.

A very good reason for Osama remaining silent after the end of 2001 would be the fact that he probably died on December 26 of that year, according to a report in the Pakistani Observer, which cited a Taliban official as stating that Bin Laden died due to an untreated lung complication and that he had attended his funeral.

In 2002 CNN reported on the fact that Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf believed Bin Laden to be dead:

[A Bush administration official] said U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis every three days and "it is fairly obvious that that could be an issue when you are running from place to place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in a mountain hideout,".

Others have gone on record insisting they believe Bin Laden to be dead, they include:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, FBI counter-terrorism chief Dale Watson, Israeli intelligence sources, the late former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, Bin Laden expert Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University’s Religious Studies program.

In addition, a leaked French secret service memo in September 2006 concluded that Bin Laden had died of typhoid poisoning the previous month. The memo cited Saudi Arabian secret service sources who were convinced that Bin Laden had died in Pakistan.

"The information gathered by the Saudis indicates that the head of al-Qaeda fell victim, while he was in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, to a very serious case of typhoid that led to a partial paralysis of his internal organs," states the French memo.

Judging from all the available evidence, the White House knows for certain or at least strongly suspects that Bin Laden is dead and has been for many years, but they have chosen to maintain his myth for the purposes of political propaganda and as a hook on which to pin the advance of the imperial Neo-Con agenda.

Citaat:

America's love affair fades as the car becomes burden of suburbia

The nation of road movies, freeway freedom and dreams of endless horizons is waking up to the reality of soaring fuel prices. Paul Harris in Riverside, California, reports that people are leaving their gas guzzlers in the garage

* Paul Harris
* The Observer,
* Sunday July 6, 2008
* Article history

It is known as the Inland Empire: a vast stretch of land tucked in the high desert valleys east of Los Angeles. Once home to fruit trees and Indians, it is now a concrete sprawl of jammed freeways, endless suburbs and shopping malls.

But here, in the heartland of the four-wheel drive, a revolution is under way. What was once unthinkable is becoming a shocking reality: America's all-consuming love affair with the car is fading.

Surging petrol prices have worked where environmental arguments have failed. Many Americans have long been told to cut back on car use. Now, facing $4-a-gallon fuel, they have no choice.

Take Adam Garcia, a security guard who works near the railway station in Riverside. Like many Inland Empire residents, he commutes a huge distance: 100 miles a day. He used to think nothing of it. But now, faced with petrol costs that have tripled, he is taking action. He has even altered the engine of his car to boost its mileage. 'I have to. Everyone does. I can't afford to drive as much as I did,' he said.

Recent figures showed the steepest monthly drop in miles driven by Americans since 1942. At the same time car sales are collapsing, led by huge SUVs.

General Motors, once the very image of American industrial might, is in deep trouble. Cities are now investing in mass transit, hoping to tempt people back into town centres from far-flung commuter belts where they are now stranded by high petrol prices.

Jonathan Baty used to be a pioneer. The lighting designer has cycled to work every day since 1993. It's a nine-mile round trip through the heartland of a car-based culture once famously termed 'Autopia'. But now Baty has company on his daily rides as others choose two wheels rather than four to navigate southern California's streets. 'We have seen a whole emergence of a bike culture in this area. There is a crescendo of interest,' said Baty, who does volunteer work for a cycling group, Bicycle Commuter Coalition of the Inland Empire.

In Riverside, bus travel is up 12 per cent on a year ago, rising to 40 per cent on commuter routes. Use of the town's railway link is up eight per cent. A local car pooling system is up 40 per cent. It is the same in the rest of the US. In South Florida a light rail system has reported a 28 per cent jump in passengers. In Philadelphia one has shown an 11 per cent rise. Even nationwide scooter sales have shot up. At the same time car sales are hitting 15-year record lows. Last week major American car-makers reported a devastating 18 per cent drop in car sales.

The numbers point to a more fundamental shift. In America car sales carry a symbolic value that transcends the wheeler-dealering of the showroom. This is a nation of fabled road trips and Route 66. 'There is an American dream of mobility and freedom and wealth. The car is part of all that,' said Professor Michael Dear, an urban studies expert at the University of Southern California.

In the 1950s the confident nation that helped win the Second World War was expressed in classic car designs of huge fins and open tops. By the 1990s it had become the Hummer, a huge bulking car born from the military. Now there is to be another shift. For, hidden within the car sales figures, is a more complex story than a simple fall. Sales of big cars are plummeting while smaller vehicles, especially fuel-efficient hybrids, are replacing them.

GM has now closed SUV production at four plants. Its Hummer brand is up for sale, or might even be closed. GM is ploughing huge resources into its 2010 launch of the Chevy Volt, a hybrid car that may get up to 150 miles a gallon. It needs to. GM's share price recently hit a 54-year low, prompting one top investment bank to warn that the firm could go bankrupt.

The Volt, and cars like it, could become symbols of a new more conservation-minded car age. As Americans enjoyed the 4 July holiday weekend, increasing numbers of them were staying at home rather than hitting the road. Newspapers were full of tips for 'stay-cations', not weekend breaks away. Customs once scorned, such as car pooling and cutting out trips to the mall, are now commonplace. The fact is, the vast majority of Americans cannot give up their cars altogether. Too many cities lack any reliable public transport.

Adam Garcia is one of those caught. He does two jobs and his daily road trip by car is a necessity. 'We don't have much of a choice. I have to drive,' he said. Sacrifices come elsewhere, in giving up trips to the cinema and to see friends.

But America's changing relationship with the car is just part of the story of how the most powerful nation is changing in the face of the oil price rise. America has been built on an oil-based economy, from its office workers in the suburbs to its farmers in the fields.

Since the 1950s and the building of the pioneering car-orientated suburb of Levittown in Long Island, the American city has been designed for the convenience of the car as much as its human inhabitants. People live miles away from jobs, shops or entertainment. If you take away cars, the entire suburban way of life collapses. To some, that development is long overdue.

'Suburbia has been unsustainable since its creation,' said Chris Fauchere, a Denver-based film-maker who is producing a new documentary on the issue called The Great Squeeze. 'It was created around cheap oil. People thought it would flow easily from the earth forever.'

Fauchere's film, due out later this year, aims to tackle the profound changes caused by a world where oil is becoming scarcer. He does not think that it is going to be easy for America to make the adjustment. 'It is going to be tough. It is like a chain reaction through the economy. But if you look at history, it is only crisis that starts change,' he said.

The suburbs are already being hit. As cars become more expensive, the justification for suburbs seems to disappear. Some commentators have even suggested that suburbs - once the archetype of an ideal American life - will become the new slums.

In the face of expensive fuel and crashing property prices, the one-time embodiment of a certain American dream will become crime-ridden, dotted by empty lots and home to the poor and unemployed. That is already happening as crime and gang violence has risen in many suburban areas and tens of thousands of homes have been reposessed because of the mortgage crisis.

In effect, suburbs will become the new inner cities, even as once-abandoned American downtowns are undergoing a remarkable renaissance. Even malls, the ultimate symbol of American life since the war, are undergoing a crisis as consumers start to stay away.

But there are even deeper changes going on. The car, the freeway system and cheap air travel made America smaller. Everywhere was easily accessible. That, too, is ending. Higher fuel prices have dealt a terrible blow to America's airlines. They are slashing flights, raising costs and abandoning routes. Some small cities are now losing their air connections.

In effect, America is becoming larger again. That will lead to a more localised economy. To many environmentalists that is a blessing, not a curse. They point out that cheap fuel for industrial transport has meant the average packaged salad has travelled 1,500 miles before it gets to a supermarket shelf.

'Distance is now an enemy,' said Professor Bill McKibben, author of the 1989 climate-change classic The End of Nature. 'There's no question that the days of thoughtless driving are done.'

The worst hit parts of the US are not yet the suburbs or the freeways of southern California, but the small towns that dot the Great Plains, Appalachia and the rural Deep South. Even more than the Inland Empire, people in these isolated and poor areas are reliant on cheap petrol and much less able to afford the new prices at the pump. Stories abound of agricultural workers unable to afford to get to the fields and of rural businesses going bust.

Even farmers are not immune. They might not need a car to get to their fields but their fertilisers use oil-based products whose prices have gone through the roof. A handful have started using horses again for some tasks, saving petrol on farm vehicles.

The American dream of the last half century is thus changing. The car and its culture is now under a pressure unimaginable even a few years ago. 'The frontier of endless mobility that we've known our entire lives is closing,' said McKibben.

America's excess has had many imitators. Recently a delegation of Chinese government officials and architects visited an Arizona suburb near Phoenix. Approving notes were taken as they surveyed the luxurious car-driven suburban lifestyle on display. This was just one of the many delegations that regularly come from the Far East or South America.

Even as America is sobering up from its excess of cheap oil, other parts of the world are seeking to join the party. They, too, want homes far from dirty city centres, huge open roads and fast cars. It is still a beguiling vision of freedom, mobility and bountiful riches.

McKibben spent last week on a visit to Beijing. He was worried about what he saw. Even as America's obsession with the car lifestyle is ending, others are embracing it. 'The Chinese have spent the Bush years starting to build their own version of America. A key question for the planet is whether they still have time to build a version of Europe instead - global warming will probably hinge on the answer to that question,' he said.
Car culture

The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck's classic novel follows 14 passengers and a dog as they set out from the Oklahoma dust bowl for California in a decrepit sedan. 'The ancient Hudson, with bent and scarred radiator screen ... with hub caps gone and caps of red dust in their places - this was the new hearth, the living centre of the family; half passenger car and half truck, high-sided and clumsy.'

On The Road
Written in April 1951, Jack Kerouac's autobiographical account of a road trip across the US and Mexico with Neal Cassady is the definitive account of American wanderlust.

Rebel Without a Cause
James Dean's fate is sealed when he accepts the challenge to a Chickie Race from the high-school gang of Buzz Gunderson. The game ends in tragedy for Buzz, when his car goes over the cliff. Dean was later to die when he crashed his Porsche Spyder.

Bullitt
The 1967 Dodge Charger was the most elegant car of Detroit's muscle era. The car, with its sinister occupants, is destroyed by Steve McQueen, left, in a Ford Mustang GT Fastback, and consumed in a ball of flame. The scene provides the climax to nine minutes and 42 seconds of cinematic car intensity in the hills of San Francisco.

Citaat:

Drie jongeren opgepakt voor beschieten kusttram
De politie van de zone Bredene/De Haan heeft gisteren drie jongeren van 16, 17 en 18 jaar opgepakt voor het schieten met een luchtdrukwapen op openbaar domein. Hun wapen, een tuig om metalen bolletjes mee weg te schieten, is in beslag genomen. Het trio ontkent met klem dat ze zaterdag in De Haan op de Kusttram hebben geschoten.

De drie jongens zijn na verhoor weer vrijgelaten. Ze moeten zich wel ter beschikking houden van het gerecht. Hun luchtdrukwapen is niet verboden maar het mag niet worden gedragen en gebruikt op de openbare weg. Het trio bekende dat ze in een park op blikjes hebben geschoten en op enkele voertuigen. Waar dit gebeurde, wordt verder onderzocht.

Het trio ontkent met klem dat ze zaterdagavond op de tram hebben geschoten. Bij dat incident in De Haan werd een ruit van de tram verbrijzeld. Er vielen geen gewonden. Na het incident keerden alle trams zaterdagavond naar hun stelplaatsen terug. Zondag reden alle trams weer uit. De Lijn voert intussen met de vakbonden en de politie overleg naar meer veiligheid naast de sporen.

Fuck zeg, daar waar ze geschoten hebben is zo'n 5 minuten van m'n deur, ik neem die tram tamelijk veel.
Het is ver gekomen Confused

Fritvet mogelijk besmet met het dolle koeien virus Confused

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Cetero censeo birrum bibendum esse

Geregistreerd op: 10 Apr 2007 Berichten: 5671

Citaat:

Ciska en Gringo getrouwd in Kortrijk

KORTRIJK - Ciska Moulin en Gringo Dewaele, die vorig jaar deelnamen aan het VT4-programma Temptation Island , zijn gisteren getrouwd in het Kortrijkse stadhuis. Gringo was in het wit en had zelfs witte schoenen aan. Ciska verkoos een eenvoudige jurk.

Ze bleven er bij hun trouwpartij vrij nuchter bij, al waren er heel wat vrienden aanwezig. Zelfs Nelleke Jansen was er, de enige die na Temptation Island in Playboy geraakte. Gringo: 'Ik ben en ik blijf dezelfde. Ik was op enige persbelangstelling voorzien, dus schrikken doe ik niet. Maar straks heb ik ook geen schrik van de anonimiteit. Ik moet maandag trouwens werken, want het bouwverlof begint hier maar de 21ste. En Ciska heeft vier dagen vakantie bij De Post. In onze vakantie trekken we op huwelijksreis naar Bretagne. Vanavond feesten we met vrienden en familie in Outrijve.' Het was gisteren zelfs dubbel feest, want Gringo was ook jarig. (vkk)

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Republiek Lakotah roept onafhankelijkheid uit
In het nieuwe jaar telt de wereld er een nieuwe onafhankelijke staat bij, de republiek Lakotah. De vertegenwoordigers van een door Sioux indianen bewoond gedeelte van de Amerikaanse deelstaten Montana, North - en Zuid Dakota, Wyoming en Nebraska hebben op 1 januari officieel laten weten dat zij alle bestaande verdragen met de Verenigde Staten hebben opgezegd. Daarmee is de onafhankelijke republiek van Lakotah een feit. De president van Lakotah, Russell Means, wijst er in zijn onafhankelijkheidsrede op dat de in het verleden gesloten verdragen nooit te goeder trouw door de Amerikaanse overheid zijn uitgevoerd, maar dat de bewoners van Lakotah geen haat jegens de USA koesteren.

http://www.republicoflakotah.com/

dat nieuws is een half jaar oud

	Willy Wortel schreef:
	dat nieuws is een half jaar oud

en dan

Het is geen nieuws meer...

Geregistreerd op: 11 Apr 2007 Berichten: 5596

mag er niet gewoon een nieuw topic gemaakt worden voor ursa's politieke berichten
nobody cares anyway in dit topic

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Geregistreerd op: 03 Feb 2008 Berichten: 740

Leterme op weg naar Koning om ontslag aan te bieden

Premier Yves Leterme is op weg naar Laken om zijn ontslag aan te bieden bij de Koning. Dat heeft de VRT-nieuwsdienst vernomen. Het bericht werd ook officieel bevestigd.

Meer nieuws van zodra er meer nieuws is Laughing

Yep, de regering is nu echt totaal naar de kloten. Terug naar de stembussen dan maar, en dat betekent een Lijst Dedecker in de regering.... Oh boy Laughing

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Geregistreerd op: 11 Apr 2007 Berichten: 5215

wreejt.
Kben echt benieuwd wa er nu ga gebeuren.
Ziet er in elk geval eel slecht uit. Nieuwe verkiezingen mogen in principe niet maar zullen er wellicht wel komen
Al hebben de paarse media uiteraard wel goed gebouwd aan een come-back van blauw.
Al betwijfel ik of de publieke opinie da pikt.
Aan vlaamse kant zal het in elk geval moeilijk worden nog een meerderheid te vormen
Socialisten halen met moeite tien percent en VLD en Groen halen samen geen 40 percent.

Dit gaat voor enorme spanningen zorgen
21 juli gaat heel raar worden

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Oh lord, call me my waitress and serve me tonight
serve me the sky tonight, call me my waitress and serve me tonight
serve me the sky with a big slice of lemon

Geregistreerd op: 24 Dec 2007 Berichten: 1210

Of ze houden vol bij nieuwe verkiezingen en aangezien de Walen toch niks toegeven zitten we in dezelfde miserie OF er komt een soort Verhofstadt die een halfslachtig akkoord verzorgd met veel toegevingen en dan winnen Vlaams-Belang, NV-A en LDD ongelofelijk. In ieder geval is de scheiding tussen de twee landsdelen vergroot. Hebben die Walen dan ni door da ze door zo krampachtig aan deze vorm van België vast te houden ze net meer seperatisme bezorgen.

Geregistreerd op: 11 Apr 2007 Berichten: 5215

je zou bijna gaan geloven dat ze het willen
al zouden ze het zich uiteraard snel beklagen

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Oh lord, call me my waitress and serve me tonight
serve me the sky tonight, call me my waitress and serve me tonight
serve me the sky with a big slice of lemon

Geregistreerd op: 03 Feb 2008 Berichten: 740

Ik vraag me gewoon af wat deze regering al heeft gepresteerd Smile

En of een volgende regering van deze vorm wel iets zou kunnen presteren, valt ook maar te bekijken. Als er niets verandert gaat dit inderdaad op termijn het woeligste stuk Europa worden.

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