Stephen Lendman — Global Research May 24, 2013

Reports said two assailants hacked a British soldier to death. He’s been identified as Lee Rigby. He was killed in broad daylight. It was several hundred meters from southeast London’s Woolwich Royal Artillery barracks.

Weapons included a machete type knife. Alleged attackers remained on the scene. They did so until police arrived 20 minutes later.

Why wasn’t explained. Killers don’t usually stay around to be captured. Both assailants were shot and apprehended. They were hospitalized for treatment.

One allegedly said “(w)e must fight as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Britain’s ITV news aired an edited video clip.

Allegedly an onlooker filmed it.

The clip showed a young Black man with blood dripping from his hands saying “(w)e swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.”

”The only reason reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day.”

“The British soldier is an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

ITV edited the statement. It said nothing about “do(ing) this because Muslims are dying every day.” Unedited it said:

“There are many, many ayah (religious verses) throughout the Koran that says we must fight them as they fight us, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

“I apologize that women had to witness this today but in our land women have to see the same.”

“You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don’t care about you.”

“You think David Cameron will get stuck in the street, when we start busting our guns?”

“You think your politicians are gonna die? not it’s gonna be the average like you, and your children.”

“So get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back, so you can all live in peace.”

Reports called what happened the first domestic Al Qaeda-inspired attack since the July 7, 2005 underground (so-called 7/7) bombings.

A series of attacks targeted the city’s public transport system. They came during the morning rush hour. They were for maximum disruption and casualties.

At precisely the same time, an anti-terror drill occurred. It simulated real attacks. It was no coincidence.

The real attack was a false flag. It was done to heighten fear. At issue was enlisting public sentiment to keep Britain allied with Washington’s imperial wars.

At the time, AP reported that Israel’s London embassy warned Scotland Yard in advance. Israeli Army Radio said:

“Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred.”

No action was taken. Israel’s then finance minister Netanyahu was told to skip a London economic conference. He was scheduled to speak.

Other officials were warned, not the public. Fifty-two people died. Over 700 were injured.

These type incidents automatically raise questions. Answers are needed before jumping to conclusions. The timing of Wednesday’s killing is very suspicious.

It comes when Washington, Britain, other NATO allies, and Israel head toward full-scale war on Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry’s traveling through the Middle East.

A so-called June peace conference is scheduled. It’s subterfuge. Prior peace initiatives failed. So will this one. Demanding Assad must go assures it. Washington’s proxy war was launched to do so. Expect no change of plans now.

Kerry met with foreign ministers of 11 so-called Friends of Syria countries and opposition group representatives. He discussed Syria with Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Multiple Israeli provocations preceded his visit. On May 23, Haaretz said Israel’s “maintaining intense intelligence activity in Syria and working with local villagers.”

It’s considering a covert Syrian “proxy force.” It claims doing so will protect Israeli security. Israel’s armed forces are very able on their own.

A so-called proxy force, if established, is clearly provocative. It heads things closer to full-scale intervention. Washington and Israel partner in all regional belligerence. They jointly plan and implement conflicts.

Kerry’s trip coincides with Washington’s plan to ramp up support for so-called “rebels.” He demands Assad must go. He’s uncompromising. So is Obama. Full-scale conflict could erupt any time.

Manufactured pretexts make it easier. False flags are longstanding pre-war tactics. They’re US/Israeli specialties. Britain’s an active co-conspirator.

Muslim extremism was blamed for Wednesday’s London killing. We’ve seen this all before. Expect heightened Islamophobia ahead. UK, US, other key NATO allies, and Israel benefit most. They’ll take full advantage.

British MP George Galloway said “(t)his sickening atrocity in London is exactly what we are paying the same kind of people to do in Syria.”

True enough. He omitted explaining what appears most important.

Washington and complicit allies manufacture pretexts. They did so to justify proxy war on Syria. It’s a short step to intervening full-blown.

They’ve done it before. They manipulate public sentiment. They fabricated reasons to attack Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. They’re doing so against Iran.

They want public support. Stoking anti-Muslim rage enlists it.

Post-9/11, Bush’s Afghan war was popular. Few knew what’s now more apparent. Fewer understood Washington’s imperial agenda.

Multiple wars followed. New ones are planned. The entire region and beyond may become embroiled in conflict. Advancing America’s imperium matters most.

At issue is creating pretexts to do so. Perhaps London’s incident is the latest. The fullness of time will explain more.

Prime Minister David Cameron convened an emergency meeting. Top advisors and intelligence officials attended.

UK Home Secretary, Theresa May, called an emergency Civil Contingencies Committee (COBRA) meeting. Cameron chaired it. It includes cabinet ministers and high-level security officials. It deals with terrorism and other major crises.

COBRA refers to the room where committee members meet – Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. A terrorist alert was imposed. Heightened security steps were taken.

These measures don’t commonly follow street killings. It doesn’t matter how gruesome. Most incidents get scant coverage. Many go unnoticed.

This one suggests something bigger. What happened may be pretext for what’s planned. It remains to be seen what follows.

Peter Eyre is a Middle East consultant, geopolitical analyst, investigative journalist, anti-war activist, and valued Progressive Radio News Hour guest.

He jumped on the Woolrich incident. He discussed justifiable reasons to doubt the legitimacy of official reports. They have a distinct aroma. They fall short of truth and full disclosure.

On May 23, Eyre headlined “Woolwich beheading: Security tightened at all London army barracks.” His detailed analysis includes images.

“The gruesome scene of a decapitated actor with no police or paramedics at the scene and no blood,” he said.

The “offenders are shot by armed police who are in attendance in the background but the murder scene has not been secured!!”

Many awakened “to this amazing Shakespearean play that has unfolded in Woolwich, London where all the actors were so bad they would not even qualify for an interview as an extra in some third rate movie!!”

Eyre asked if police “drag(ged) the (victim’s) body around the corner?”

“BBC stated a man wearing a Help the Hero’s T Shirt was hit by a car, then attacked and killed with a machete or sword by the cars occupants.”

(S)o much vivid violence and yet still no blood at the scene…why?”

“(B)ecause the actors had not had time to splash it around before they filmed the scene.”

“(I)t was however added later as the picture (in his article) shows…the blood is only on the pavement and not on the road!!”

“(D)o you think they attempted to copy the Boston Bombing but somehow did not get it right?”

Eyre suggested that blood on a signpost was “Tomato Ketchup!!”

Key is calling the incident Islamic terrorism. Doing so automatically raises suspicions. Most often, the usual suspects are patsies. They’re props for planned state-sponsored mischief.

Expect UK, America, Israel and imperial allies to take full advantage. Police state harshness may increase. Waging war on Islam will continue.

Doing so full-scale against Syria appears likely. What’s long planned may erupt any time.

A Final Comment

UK media reports identified one alleged attacker. Twenty-eight year old Michael Abebolajo grew up in Romford. He comes from a Christian family. In 2003, he converted to Islam.

A man who knew his family said they were very pleasant. Friends called him very quiet. In school, he was a good guy, they said. They were shocked to learn a former schoolmate faces murder charges.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Source

Introduction — May 23, 2013

For years, Sweden – one of Europe’s most tranquil countries, famous for its attractive immigration policies and generous welfare system – has attracted a huge influx of immigrants, who now make up about 15 per cent of the population.

This was no mere accident.

For Sweden had been at the forefront of a historically unprecedented process that has seen it transformed from a tranquil homogenous society to network of disparate heterogeneous communities. A process that is now being reflected in many other countries across the world, where formerly homogenous communities are being changed into a patchwork quilt of disparate peoples and cultures.

The so-called “multi-ethnic, multi-racial” society has become the norm.

All of this happened in the space of a few short decades; across the world and without any publicity from the corporate media about what was REALLY HAPPENING, of course.

This was no mere coincidence. For the resulting friction between the communities was not only to be expected, it was intended. For these conditions provide the ideal opportunity for the elite to exploit the principle of “divide and rule”.

Although don’t expect to hear that from their mouthpieces in the elite owned corporate media. Who will no doubt spin the usual line about this being the result of “prejudice”, “discrimination” and “lack of opportunities” etc, etc.

Indeed, the BBC is already running the headline “Stockholm riots throw spotlight on inequality“.

However, while the elite owned media may blather on about what was behind the riots, they will deliberately ignore the fact that this is the expected outcome of a process of social engineering. A deliberate process that has been underway for decades across the globe; effectively turning the world into one big migrant labour camp whose inhabitants can be more easily controlled with the lure of transitory rewards.

‘They don’t want to integrate’: Fourth night of youth rioting rocks Stockholm

Russia Today — May 23, 2013

Youth gang riots have rocked the Swedish capital Stockholm for four straight nights. Hundreds of mostly immigrant teenagers tore through the suburbs, smashing windows and burning cars in the country’s worst outbreak of violence in years.

On the fourth night of violence, youths torched over 30 cars in 15 neighborhoods along with a restaurant in Skogas, south of Stockholm. Three law enforcement officers were injured, police spokesperson Kjell Lindgren reported.

Stockholm firefighters were busy throughout the night, saying they had “never before seen so many fires raging at the same time.” Some 90 blazes were reported in total, most of them reportedly caused by the rioters. Still, the fourth night of violence was relatively quiet compared to the previous three, RT’s Peter Oliver reported from Stockholm.

Leaders of immigrant communities were out on the streets in a bid to stop young people from rioting. Despite their efforts, as soon as the night fell, groups of arsonists took to the streets to set cars on fire. RT’s Peter Oliver witnessed rioters throwing stones at police and journalists alike.

Civil disorder in Stockholm started on Sunday, when police shot and killed a 69-old-man in his apartment after he confronted officers with a machete; the unrest has since continued throughout week.

Community leaders insist that a main reason for the violence is the high rate of unemployment in immigrant communities, particularly in the suburb of Husby near central Stockholm, one of the worst affected by the nighttime violence, Peter Oliver reported.

Although Sweden’s unemployment rate is below the EU average, joblessness among those under 25 has reached nearly 25 percent. The RT crew in Stockholm noted that a majority of those taking part in the violence are young.

Parents of the rampaging teenagers and community religious leaders are now spending sleepless nights on the street in an effort to prevent their children from wreaking havoc.

Meanwhile, the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt blamed the violence on “hooligans” and said they did not represent the majority in the rioting neighborhoods.

“I think it’s dangerous to draw a picture of Sweden with a capital separated from its suburbs. I don’t think that’s true. I think the dividing line runs straight through Husby, with a majority population and then a small group of troublemakers,” Reinfeldt said.

But the Husby youth taking part in riots told Reuters they are indeed divided from the rest of Stockholm, struggling to find a full-time job with their Husby address. Most of the interviewed rioters were reportedly unemployed.

The claims of social exclusion in immigrant-dominated suburbs have been partly conceded by Sweden’s Integration Minister Erik Ullenhag, who said the ministry is aware of:

“discrimination in these areas.” But the riots

“don’t improve the image of these areas, where there is a lot of positive stuff going on,” he added.

For years, Sweden – one of Europe’s most tranquil countries, famous for its attractive immigration policies and generous welfare system – has been accepting an influx of immigrants, which now make up about 15 per cent of its population. These migrants have failed to integrate into Swedish society, and are only in the country to enjoy the country’s social benefits system, Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist told RT.

“The problem is not from the Swedish government or from the Swedish people,” the editor in chief of Dispatch International said. “The last 20 years or so, we have seen so many immigrants coming to Sweden that really don’t like Sweden. They do not want to integrate, they do not want to live in [Swedish] society: Working, paying taxes and so on.”

“The people come here now because they know that Sweden will give them money for nothing. They don’t have to work, they don’t have to pay taxes – they can just stay here and get a lot of money. That is really a problem,” Carlqvist added.

“The police could do so much, [instead] they have told the public that they mean to do as little as possible. But they could go there and use water cannons, they could not let people out onto the streets at night. There are so many things they could do within the law – but they don’t do it,” she said.

Young Muslims who enjoy tolerance, social institutions and welfare while living in Sweden nevertheless refuse to integrate into the West, Gerolf Annemans told RT. Annemans is the parliamentary leader of Vlaams Belang (‘Flemish Interest’), a Belgian far-right nationalist political party.

“They [Muslim youths] have always sought excuse to show that they are not agreeing with the basic values of Western society,” Annemans said, pointing to the recent cases of the Boston Marathon bombing in the US and yesterday’s beheading of a British soldier in the UK.

“It’s always the same problem. There is a massive refusal by Muslim youngsters of the basics of Western society…  and they take any excuse whatsoever to show that with violence – that is where the problem is,” he said.

Source

News Commentary — May 23, 2013

Rather than blame Britain’s Foreign policies, or the huge influx of immigrants into the country in recent years or even just the “War on Terror”, a new culprit is being cited for Tuesday’s horrific events in Woolwich.

Various “experts” have already been quoted claiming the Internet was involved.

According to Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, the two killers were probably acting alone:

“I think it’s most likely they became radicalised through the Internet…”

She was echoed by Margaret Gilmore of the United Services Institute:

“I think it has been easier for our intelligence services to track people who have been radicalised through known terror groups or followed certain paths,” Gilmore said.

“But it’s rather more difficult when you get people who have become radicalised through the Internet”. From what I know I would not be surprised if these people had not crossed the radar of the security services”.

However, the security services did indeed already know of the main culprit involved in the Woolwich attack, as they have in so many recent terror outrages. Although it appears that neither he nor his accomplice was considered an immediate threat.

The two British men of Nigerian descent who carried out the attack are thought to have done so in revenge for wars in Muslim countries.

After first running down the victim in a motor vehicle, the two then launched into a frenzied attack on the fallen man.

One man, filmed calmly justifying the killing as he stood by the body holding a knife and meat cleaver in bloodied hands, was named by acquaintances as 28-year-old Londoner Michael Adebolajo — a British-born convert to radical Islam.

DAYLIGHT ATTACK

The dramatic clip filmed by an onlooker showed Michael Adebolajo justifying the attack on religious grounds:

“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day,” he said. “This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

The attack has revived speculation in the corporate media about “lone wolves”. Individual Muslim militants who may have had no direct ties with recognised terror groups but are inspired by radical preachers and by militant Islamic websites.

Whatever ultimately transpires, in the wake of Tuesday’s attack we can expect more calls for a clampdown on the Internet.

Suzan Frazer, Mehmet Guzel — Associated Press May 12, 2013

In one of the deadliest attacks in Turkey in recent years, two car bombs exploded near the border with Syria on Saturday, killing 43 and wounding 140 others. Turkish officials blamed the attack on a group linked to Syria, and a deputy prime minister called the neighboring country’s intelligence service and military “the usual suspects.”

The blasts, which were 15 minutes apart and hit the town of Reyhanli’s busiest street, raised fears that Turkey could increasingly be drawn into Syria’s brutal civil war.

Turkey already hosts Syria’s political opposition and rebel commanders, has given shelter to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and in the past retaliated against Syrian shells that landed in Turkey.

Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said the assailants were from Turkey, but were linked to Syria’s intelligence service.

“We have to a great extent completed our work toward identifying the assailants,” he told reporters. “We have established that the organization and assailants have links to the pro-regime mukhabarat (intelligence) organization.”

He did not name the group, but said the aim of the attack was to pit Turks against Syrian refugees in Reyhanli.

Earlier, another deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc said: “Our thoughts are that their mukhabarat and armed organizations are the usual suspects in planning and the carrying out of such devilish plans,” he said.

Arinc said the attacks were still being investigated, but that If it’s proven that Syrian was behind the attack, Turkey would “do whatever is necessary,” without specifying if that included military action.

One of the car bombs exploded outside the city hall while the other went off outside the post office. Reyhanli, a main hub for Syrian refugees and rebels in Turkey’s Hatay province, is just across the border from Syria’s Idlib province. Private NTV television, citing unnamed security sources, said the explosions were remote-controlled and that plastic explosives were used.

Images showed people frantically carrying the wounded through the rubble-strewn streets to safety. Black smoke billowed from a tall building.

The explosions came days before Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to travel to the U.S. for talks, which are expected to be dominated by the situation in Syria. The car bombings also follow allegations by Erdogan the Syrian regime has fired about 200 missiles tipped with chemical weapons.

Syrian mortar rounds have fallen over the border before, but if the blasts turn out to be linked to Syria it would be by far the biggest death toll in Turkey related to its neighbor’s civil war.

Syria shares a more than 500-mile (800-kilometer) border with Turkey, which has been a crucial supporter of the Syrian rebel cause. Ankara has allowed its territory to be used as a logistics base and staging center for Syrian insurgents.

Atalay said 43 people were killed and 140 others were wounded in the blasts. There was no immediate information on the identities or nationalities of the victims.

The bombings” will increase the pressure on the U.S. president next week to do something to show support to Turkey when Erdogan visits him in Washington,” said Soner Cagaptay, an expert on Turkey at the Washington Institute. “Washington will be forced to take a more pro-active position on Syria, at least in rhetoric, whether or not there is appetite for such a position here.”

Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center, said the attack may force Turkey to take action.

“It should be a defining moment for Turkey,” Shaikh said. “It has been supporting the rebels, and there has been strong rhetoric. But this may be a moment where it really has to assert itself – if it is the Assad regime (behind the bombings), and it is quite conceivable it is.”

Turkey’s opposition criticized the government’s policy on Syria, saying its active support of the rebels had put the country’s security at risk.

“Erdogan’s discourse of hatred toward Assad and provocations against the administration in Damascus is coming back to us in the form of attacks and provocations,” said Devlet Bahceli, chairman of a nationalist opposition party.

The force of Saturday’s explosions gutted some buildings, and the charred shells of cars littered the streets.

“Three buildings partly collapsed and became unusable,” Talat Karaca, who witnessed the second explosion from his rooftop, told The Associated Press by telephone. “We couldn’t approach the scene for a long time because of the blaze.”

Khawla Sawah, the medical director of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations in Reyhanli, said the town’s main hospital was full and many of the wounded were taken to the nearby city of Antakya and to a clinic set up by the Syrian medical relief group on Reyhanli’s outskirts. The center received 11 wounded, including one Turk and 10 Syrians.

She said some of the injured told her that the cars that exploded had Syrian license plates.

Both Sawah and another witness, Suzan Alhasoglu, said the incident raised tension in Reyhanli with angry youths attacking Syrians cars and other targets.

“The authorities are asking Syrians to stay home and not drive around in Syrian cars,” Sawah said. “Syrian doctors at the Reyhanli hospital were asked to go home too.”

Turkey’s military released a statement condemning the attack and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu vowed from Berlin that Turkey would act.

“Those who for whatever reason attempt to bring the external chaos into our country will get a response,” he said.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara issued a statement condemning the “murderous attack” in Reyhanli and said Washington “stands with the people and government of Turkey to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice.”

The main Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, condemned the attack and said it stands together with the “Turkish government and the friendly Turkish people.”

The coalition sees “these heinous terrorist acts as an attempt to take revenge on the Turkish people and punish them for their honorable support for the Syrian people,” it said.

The frontier area has seen heavy fighting between rebels and the Syrian regime. In February, a car bomb exploded at a Syrian border crossing with Turkey, just a few kilometers from Reyhanli, killing 14. Turkey’s interior minister at the time blamed Syria’s intelligence agencies and its army for involvement.

Four Syrians and a Turk are in custody in connection with the Feb. 11 attack at the Bab al-Hawa frontier post. No one has claimed responsibility, but a Syrian opposition faction accused the Syrian government of the bombing, saying it narrowly missed 13 leaders of the group.

In that bombing, most of the victims were Syrians who had been waiting in an area straddling the frontier for processing to enter Turkey.

Tensions also flared between the Syrian regime and Turkey after shells fired from Syria landed on the Turkish side, prompting Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S. to send two batteries of Patriot air defense missiles each to protect their NATO ally.

___

Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara. Associated Press writers Ezgi Akin in Ankara, and Bassem Mroue, Yasmine Sakher and Karin Laub in Beirut contributed to this report.

Source

Rowena Mason and Steve Swinford — Telegraph.co.uk May 6, 2013

The Tory MP, who was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of rape and sexual assault, was accused of making an unwanted advance on a man he had been drinking with in 2009.

He was interviewed by Patrick McLoughlin, the then opposition chief whip who is now Transport Secretary, but the matter was not reported to police by either the Conservatives or the complainant.

According to a friend of Mr Evans, the MP explained to the whips that the matter was a “misunderstanding”. The friend said there was no “verbal warning” but Mr Evans may have received some “friendly advice”.

The complaint was not taken any further. It is understood Mr Evans, 55, and the man who accused him of inappropriate conduct continued to associate with each other afterwards.

Downing Street refused to say whether David Cameron was made aware of the allegations at the time.

Mr Evans has spoken of his “incredulity” about his arrest over an allegation of sexual assault and another of rape between July 2009 and March 2013, both of which he strongly denies.

The MP for Ribble Valley, Lancs, said he could not understand why complaints have been made to police by “two people who are well known to each other and until yesterday, I regarded as friends”.

He added: “The complaints are completely false and I cannot understand why they have been made, especially as I have continued to socialise with one as recently as last week,” he said. “I appreciate the way the police have handled this in such a sensitive manner and I would like to thank my colleagues, friends and members of the public who have expressed their support and, like me, a sense of incredulity at these events.”

Mr Evans revealed in December 2010 that he was homosexual, saying that he was “tired of living a lie”. In an interview at the time, he said: “With my background in South Wales it was hard enough being a Tory, let alone being gay.”

Tory MPs rallied round the deputy speaker as he resisted calls to stand down, after being released on police bail. Mr Evans is expected to return to the House of Commons as usual but has asked to be excused from his ceremonial duties during the Queen’s Speech in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Number 10 has so far remained silent on Mr Evans’s arrest. However, Philip Hammond, a Cabinet minister, said he thought it would be “difficult” for the MP to carry on in his role as Deputy Speaker under such public scrutiny.

Mr Hammond, the Defence Secretary, said: “I stick rigidly to the view that we should treat people as innocent until they are proven guilty but it is quite difficult to carry out a sensitive and high profile role while being under this kind of scrutiny,” he told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary described Mr Evans as a “long-standing friend” and said that MPs of all parties would be “very sorry to see this situation”.

Other Tory MPs said Mr Evans has their backing to continue in the role, which involves helping to keep the Commons debates in order. David Davis, a former Tory leadership candidate and senior MP, said he finds it “impossible to believe the allegation that has been made”.

He said there is no need for the Deputy Speaker to resign over an accusation when he has not been charged, let alone convicted.

Among the MPs supporting Mr Evans was Andrew Bridgen, a Tory who was accused of a sex assault two years ago only for police to drop their inquiries six days later.

“Fortunately in this country we have a rule that says you are innocent until proven guilty and I think that should be maintained,” Mr Bridgen told Sky News. “I personally think that Nigel should be able to continue as Deputy Speaker while the police, quite rightly, carry on with their investigations.”

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “It would inappropriate to comment while there is a police investigation going on.”

Mr McLoughlin also declined to comment. A statement on the Ribble Valley Conservatives Association website said Mr Evans was “widely liked and respected” and it expected him to continue with his duties in the constituency as normal.

“In our democracy everyone accused is innocent until proven guilty and therefore unless Nigel chooses himself to cease to be our MP or the electorate vote him out or the justice system intervenes, we expect him to continue as normal to fulfil his duties in representing the people of the Ribble Valley,” it said.

Lancashire Police said last night: “We take all allegations of a sexual nature extremely seriously and understand how difficult it can be for victims to have the confidence to come forward.

“As a constabulary, we are committed to investigating sexual offences sensitively but robustly recognising the impact that these types of crimes have on victims.”

Source

Sky News — May 4, 2013

The Deputy Speaker, Nigel Evans, has been arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault of two men, Sky sources reveal.

The 55-year-old Conservative MP was arrested on Saturday morning at his constituency home in the village of Pendleton, near Clitheroe, in Lancashire.

He is being questioned by police over an allegation of raping one man and sexually assaulting another between July 2009 and March 2013.

Prime Minister David Cameron and Speaker John Bercow have been informed of the arrest of the popular MP, who is a prominent gay rights campaigner.

Sky News Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt said: “The allegations are one of rape against one man and sexual assault against another man. Both of those men are now in their early 20s.”

He said: “The offences are said to have been committed at his home in the village of Pendleton near Clitheroe which is in his constituency of Ribble Valley.”

Mr Evans, who comes from Swansea and whose parents ran a newsagent, has been MP for Ribble Valley since 1992.

He has held a number of front bench posts for the Conservative Party and was a Parliamentary Private Secretary in John Major’s government and Mr Major’s spokesman of Welsh Affairs.

In 2010 he was promoted to deputy speaker, earning £102,000-a-year, including his MP’s salary.

In December 2010 he came out as gay in an interview with the Mail on Sunday newspaper in which he said that he was “tired of living a lie”.

Mr Evans, who was vice chairman of the Conservative Party from 1999 to 2001, said he had been threatened with exposure by political opponents.

Sky News Chief Political Correspondent Jon Craig said: “Since then he has become quite a prominent gay rights campaigner.

“He had held, for example, at least one function in the Speaker’s apartments on gay rights. John Bercow let him use the Speaker’s apartment for a function and he has been prominent in that campaign.

“He is a very sociable MP. He is very well known.”

Mr Evans is in custody in Preston police station in Lancashire.

A Lancashire Police statement confirmed that a 55-year-old man from Pendleton had been arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault and that he was being interviewed by officers.

The statement said: “We take all allegations of a sexual nature extremely seriously and understand how difficult it can be for victims to have the confidence to come forward.

“As a constabulary, we are committed to investigating sexual offences sensitively but robustly recognising the impact that these types of crimes have on victims.

“We would encourage anyone who has experienced sexual abuse, or who has information about it, to have the confidence to report it to us knowing that we will take it seriously, deal with it sensitively and investigate it thoroughly.”

Source

Damien Thompson — Telegraph.co.uk April 27, 2013

One of the most disgusting serial killers in American history is standing trial in Philadelphia at the moment – and, since it’s happening in the US, where reporting restrictions are light, the media are free to discuss his case.

Only they haven’t – at least, not until recently, and even when the crimes are reported, they haven’t merited many headlines. Which is horrifying, when you consider what the killer is accused of. I’m going to leave out the nastiest details – but, seriously, if you don’t want to feel sick to your stomach, look away now.

Dr Kermit Gosnell, 72, “regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns”. That quote is taken from the grand jury report on the case. It describes Gosnell’s practice, called the Women’s Medical Society, as “a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread disease with infected instruments… and on at least two occasions, caused their deaths”.

According to one witness, when women were given medicine to speed up their deliveries “it would rain foetuses”. A former employee described the noise made by a baby delivered live during an abortion: “It sounded like a little alien.”

This month, to their credit, Kirsten Powers of USA Today and Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic ran articles asking why this wasn’t front-page news. The answer? Gosnell was a registered abortion provider. His killings blurred the line between late-term abortions and infanticide in a way that embarrassed pro-choice journalists.

Gosnell killed babies of the same age both inside and outside the womb. How can one be a legal termination and the other murder? Pro-choice writers and activists didn’t want to focus on that question. Indeed, reports of Gosnell’s foul clinic – which had a policy of treating white women more carefully than penniless black women – were routinely ignored by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, local hospitals, the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood, a lobby group supported by Barack Obama.

The president – as a senator, the most hardline pro-abortion politician in Congress – was due to address a Planned Parenthood gala on Thursday. But then he suddenly curtailed his visit, in order to spend more time in Texas… and just possibly because we now know that the lobby group were warned about Gosnell but didn’t pass their concerns to the police.

In short: pro-choicers averted their eyes to the crimes of a racist “doctor” whose worst acts are beyond imagining. They did so because making a fuss would give ammunition to the pro-life movement.

Only in America, you might say. But I’ve been gauging the response of British social media to the Gosnell case; many tweets reek of the same culture of evasion, to put it politely. Earlier this week I raised the question on Twitter with the Rev Richard Coles, a Left-wing pop-musician-turned-vicar who presents Radio 4’s Saturday Live and does a nice line in clerical whimsy. He said his views were “not entirely formed yet”. And in a second tweet: “Too much brouhaha at the moment.”

That says it all, I reckon. Gosnell was protected not just by pro-choice extremists such as Barack Obama, but also by run-of-the-mill liberals who, despite their distaste for late-term abortions, didn’t want to provide ammunition for the Sarah Palins of this world. So, for years, they took steps to avoid a “brouhaha”. The results are available for anyone to see online in the form of a heart-rending photograph of a baby killed by Gosnell. Unlike Mr Coles’s views on the subject, it is “entirely formed”.

Source

Lori Hinnant, Sylvie Corbet — AP April 23, 23, 2013

France legalized gay marriage on Tuesday after a wrenching national debate that exposed deep conservatism in the nation’s heartland and triggered huge demonstrations that tapped into intense discontent with the Socialist government. Within hours, fiery clashes broke out between protesters and riot police.

Legions of officers stayed late into the night, and a protest against the measure turned violent near the Invalides complex of museums and monuments. Protesters threw glass bottles, cans and metal bars at police, who responded with tear gas.

It was an issue that galvanized the country’s faltering right, which had been decimated by infighting and their election loss to President Francois Hollande. France is the 14th country to legalize gay marriage nationwide -and the most populous.

The measure passed easily in the Socialist-majority Assembly, 331-225, just after the president of the legislative body expelled a disruptive protester in pink, the color adopted by French opponents of gay marriage.

Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told lawmakers that the first weddings could be as soon as June.

“We believe that the first weddings will be beautiful and that they’ll bring a breeze of joy, and that those who are opposed to them today will surely be confounded when they are overcome with the happiness of the newlyweds and the families,” she said.

Earlier in the day, there appeared to be more police than protesters outside the Parliament building on Paris’ Left Bank, but that calculation soon shifted as night fell and thousands gathered to protest the bill. The protest dwindled to a few stalwarts shortly before midnight, when the violence began among a few hundred demonstrators including some who carried signs saying “Socialist dictatorship.”

Claire Baron, 41, a mother of two, said that she “will oppose the bill until the end.”

“I’ll keep going to the protests, I don’t give in. The bill is not effective yet, the president of the Republic must listen to our voices. We are here to defend family values. Children need a mom and a dad,” Baron said.

In recent weeks, violent attacks against gay couples have spiked and some legislators have received threats – including Claude Bartelone, the Assembly president, who got a gunpowder-filled envelope on Monday.

One of the biggest protests against same-sex marriage drew together hundreds of thousands of people bused in from the French provinces – conservative activists, schoolchildren with their parents, retirees, priests and others. That demonstration ended in blasts of tear gas, as right-wing rabble-rousers, some in masks and hoods, led the charge against police, damaging cars along the Champs-Elysees avenue and making a break for the presidential palace.

Following the vote members of the gay and lesbian community flocked to a square in central Paris, just behind City Hall, to celebrate the vote.

“I feel immense joy, gigantic joy,” said 39-year old Sylvain Rouzel. “At last, everyone has the same rights. This is huge! France was lagging behind. We had to wait 14 years after the civil union to finally obtain the right to get married, with equal rights for everyone. I feel great!”

Paris’ openly gay mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, was among the crowd of hundreds gathered for the street celebration in the Marais, the city’s historic gay neighborhood.

When Hollande promised to legalize gay marriage, it was seen as relatively uncontroversial. The issue has become a touchstone as his popularity has sunk to unprecedented lows, largely over France’s ailing economy.

“The opposition is in a weakened position, but they know which buttons to press in order to get a reaction in society, in a country as liberal as France, where nobody thought it was an issue,” said Hossein Alizadeh, a coordinator with the U.S.-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission who has followed the issue.

But the most visible face in the fight against gay marriage – a former comedienne who goes by the name of Frigide Barjot – said the movement named “A Protest for Everyone” will continue beyond the law’s passage and possibly field candidates in 2014 municipal elections. She said anyone involved in protest violence would be marginalized, but blamed the government for its failure to listen.

“The violence comes from the way in which this was imposed,” Barjot told France Info radio.

French conservatives, demoralized and divided by the election loss of standard-bearer Nicolas Sarkozy, found common cause in opposing same-sex marriage. Hoping to keep the issue alive, the conservative UMP party planned to challenge the law in the Constitutional Council.

“The controversy that we’ve seen has been a stoked and manipulated controversy that’s really kind of a last-ditch attempt to block the tide of history,” said Evan Wolfson, president of the American activist group Freedom to Marry, which he said worked with the French on the bill. “I don’t think it spoke to a deep or wide opposition among the French people.”

French civil unions, allowed since 1999, are at least as popular among heterosexuals as among gay and lesbian couples. But that law has no provisions for adoption, and the strongest opposition in France as far as same-sex couples goes comes when children are involved. According to recent polls, just over half of French are opposed to adoption by same-sex couples – about the same number who said they favored same-sex marriage.

Christophe Crepin, spokesman for the police union UNSA, says the extraordinary security Tuesday included a total of about 4,000 officers in the area near the National Assembly building and water cannon positioned nearby.

On the cover of Tuesday’s Liberation newspaper, the famed gay photographers Pierre and Gilles took over the front page and several of the inside pages, splashing them with some of their most provocative photos, including one of three soccer players – nude but for the footwear – facing the camera.

In New Zealand, where gay marriage enjoys popular support, people gathered outside Parliament and joined in singing a traditional Maori love ballad after a vote last week making it legal. Nine states and the District of Columbia in the U.S. also recognize such marriages, but the federal government does not.

—

AP reporter Bastien Inzaurralde contributed to this report.

Source

Russia Today — April 24, 2013

A new forward-looking campaign is hoping to shape public perception in a bid to make sure that the concept of armed drones that attack targets without human input never become a reality.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has announced the creation of an international coalition, which it hopes can push for a global treaty for a pre-emptive ban on artificially intelligent weapons before they can be fielded in battle.

These “killer robots,” as the group calls them, are not yet being operated by any army in the world, though the pace at which drone technology and robotics are advancing has led to speculation that they could be developed within the next few decades.

According to Humans Right Watch, which cites a report it co-authored with Harvard Law School in November of 2012, a fully autonomous machine that could select and fire upon a target selected of its own volition could be available within 20 years, if not sooner.

That report, entitled “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots,” outlines the legal, ethical and policy concerns surrounding the development of self-directed weaponry. While in certain contexts advanced weaponry already possesses some semblance of “intelligence,” such as guided missiles or drones capable of adapting to battlefield conditions, present technology still requires human input, and in that sense involves basic humanitarian law.

Leading the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is Jody William, a Nobel Peace laureate for her efforts to enact a ban on anti-personnel landmines. She believes that exposure of the issue will bring about public opposition.

“As people learn about our campaign, they will flock to it. The public conscience is horrified to learn about this possible advance in weapons systems. People don’t want killer robots out there,” William said in comments to the BBC.

“Normal human beings find it repulsive,” she added.

Already the use of semi-autonomous weapons, such as aerial drones, has led to mounting criticism over the legal processes behind both the selection of foreign targets, and also their unilateral use on foreign soil. More recently in the US, there’s been a heated debate over whether they should be used on American citizens at all.

Current semi-autonomous technology at least requires a human operator, and in theory does not kill without proper authorization. As Human Rights Watch points out, the development of artificial intelligence-equipped machines presents a number of issues circumventing conventional law, and might even lead to an international arms race not unlike the one currently happening within the field of drone tech.

For its part, a directive issued by the US Department of Defense in 2012 and quoted by the BBC has stated that weapons with a degree of autonomy “shall be designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force.”

While in March of 2012, Lord Astor of Hever – the UK’s parliamentary undersecretary of state for defense – stated that the Ministry of Defence “currently has no intention of developing systems that operate without human intervention.”

According to a report produced by the Teal Group, in 2011 its market study estimated that in the coming decade worldwide spending on drones will reach $94 billion, with countries such as China looking to quickly close the gap with US technology.

Source

A Brazilian website documents a brutal military crackdown including murders of supporters of Henrique Capriles. They believe the re-election of Nicolas Meduro, Chavez’s designated successor, was a fraud.

Courtesy Marcos in Brazil — henrymakow.com April 21, 2013

“Facing 3200 accusations of fraud, with videos, pictures, etc, people “en masse” in the streets, the Venezuelan Marxists flipped out. Eight protesters were murdered, army on the streets, massive repression. People who voted for Capriles are being persecuted.

Dilma, Argentina’s Kirchner, Uruguay’s Mujica, and other Marxist politicians hurried to support and inaugurate Cuba-trained Maduro before things got ugly.

For us in Brazil, it became clear that Lula’s Workers Party will never leave power democratically. Inflation is rising, industrial output has fallen 5%, a recession is coming. If people get angry, they will manipulate the election. Brazil has 99% of ballots in electronic form and there is NO paper trail. The machines are made by Diebold, the company caught red handed in fraud events.”

Continues …

Introduction — April 18, 2013

Nearly 200 U.S. troops are being sent to Jordan’s border with Syria, ostensibly to help deliver “humanitarian supplies”. That’s the cover story anyway.

The real reason they are being deployed however, is to act as a forward vanguard for a potentially much bigger force of as many as 20,000.

This force would then be in a position and in strength for direct confrontation with Syrian forces. In other words the U.S. would be able to openly intervene in Syria, on “humanitarian grounds” of course.

All that is required for this larger force to be deployed is a pretext. Only this time it won’t be the mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction, as it once was with Iraq. This time the pretext will be to stop Syria’s stocks of dangerous “chemical weapons” falling into the wrong hands.

No matter that the U.S. is currently reported to be using elements affiliated to al Qaeda as an auxiliary force against the Syrian Army. Thousands more U.S. troops may soon need to be sent to secure those dangerous “chemical weapons”.

As Webster G. Tarpley notes in an interview with Press TV, this amounts to one of the “most colossal hypocrisies of our age”. The West originally invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban because they were allegedly providing refuge to elements of al Qaeda. Now though, the U.S. is using al Qaeda affiliated groups to further its own plans in the Middle East.

Of course the Los Angeles Times doesn’t say as much and only refers to the affiliation of some Syrian opposition groups to Al Qaeda in passing. Nonetheless the growing proximity between the U.S. and its alleged terrorist opponents doesn’t augur well, even if it is airbrushed by the whores in the corporate media.

Step toward possible military intervention in Syria

David S. Cloud — Los Angeles Times April 17, 2013

The Pentagon is sending about 200 troops to Jordan, the vanguard of a potential U.S. military force of 20,000 or more that could be deployed if the Obama administration decides to intervene in Syria to secure chemical weapons arsenals or to prevent the 2-year-old civil war from spilling into neighboring nations.

Troops from the 1st Armored Division will establish a small headquarters near Jordan’s border with Syria to help deliver humanitarian supplies for a growing flood of refugees and to plan for possible military operations, including a rapid buildup of American forces if the White House decides intervention is necessary, senior U.S. officials said.

Although the Pentagon has sent Patriot missile batteries to Turkey and several dozen U.S. troops already are in Jordan to assist with aid flights and other operations, the move marks the first deployment that Pentagon officials explicitly described as a possible step toward direct military involvement in Syria.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who disclosed the deployment Wednesday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, made clear that both he and President Obama remained deeply wary of intervening in Syria just as U.S. forces are trying to withdraw from 12 years of war in Afghanistan.

But U.S. officials say they have stepped up preparations because the Syrian civil war shows few signs of abating, and a political settlement that includes the departure of President Bashar Assad appears increasingly unlikely.

“Military intervention is always an option, but it should be an option of last resort,” Hagel said. He warned that a major deployment could “embroil the U.S. in a significant, lengthy and uncertain military commitment.”

Forces loyal to Assad hold power in Damascus, the Syrian capital, and control large parts of other major cities. Rebel militias have made gains near the Turkish border in the north and in southern Dara province near Jordan.

Assad’s forces are increasingly relying on air power and artillery to hold back the rebels, although reports from Syria in the last week suggest they may have been able to retake some territory in ground fighting in several areas.

Among the most formidable of the many rebel factions fighting the government is Al Nusra Front, which recently acknowledged that it is aligned with Al Qaeda.

The strength of Al Nusra Front has deepened fears in Washington and in much of the Middle East, including in Israel, that Assad’s stockpiles of poison gases and other chemical weapons agents could fall into the hands of Islamist extremists.

The willingness of Jordan’s King Abdullah II to accept even a small number of U.S. troops reflects the growing concern about the spillover effects of the Syrian bloodletting.

Jordan is one of Washington’s closest allies in the region, but it has no U.S. bases and has never allowed a sizable U.S. military presence, fearful it would spark domestic unrest. Even during the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq, which Jordan supported, the presence of U.S. special operations forces entering Iraq from Jordan was a closely held secret.

But with Syria imploding and refugees streaming across the border, Jordanian officials have agreed to accept the small U.S. contingent and are willing to consider a larger force in the future, U.S. officials said.

Hagel is scheduled to visit the Middle East next week, with stops in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Much of the trip is expected to focus on Syria.

Until now, the Obama administration has chiefly provided humanitarian supplies and so-called nonlethal aid, such as communications gear, to rebel factions. Officials say U.S. military and intelligence personnel also have given nonlethal training to some Syrian groups at a camp in Jordan.

The White House has refused calls by some members of Congress to start providing weapons and ammunition to the rebels, to establish a no-fly zone to halt Syrian air attacks against civilian areas, or to use U.S. troops to create a “humanitarian safe zone” in Syria.

The first U.S. troops are likely to arrive in Jordan this month, but most will go in May. They will be based at a Jordanian military installation, an official said.

Many in the initial contingent will be civil affairs officers, trained in providing humanitarian assistance.

But the Pentagon has also made plans to expand the force to 20,000 or more if necessary, including bringing in special operations teams to find and secure Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles, U.S. air defense units to guard Jordan’s airspace, and conventional military units capable of moving into Syria if necessary.

If the Assad regime collapses, the civil affairs teams might be sent into Syria to help restore services and security. But optimistic predictions that the U.S. could quickly restore order in Iraq after the 2003 invasion proved illusory, a lesson that many in the Pentagon have not forgotten.

In his testimony Wednesday, Hagel acknowledged that the administration’s policy of seeking a negotiated settlement in Syria while building up so-called moderate rebel factions capable of taking power after Assad leaves has not worked.

“It hasn’t achieved the objective, obviously,” Hagel said. “That’s why we continue to look for other options and other ways to do this.”

Hagel said he had met Tuesday with Obama to discuss options for Syria, “and he’s concerned about it for the same reason you are — the humanitarian devastation.”

The war has killed an estimated 70,000 people and more than 1 million have fled the fighting, according to United Nations officials. Many are now in overcrowded refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate committee that he was not certain that U.S. military forces could secure all of Syria’s chemical weapons depots. He said Assad’s forces had moved some chemical agents to keep them from falling into rebel hands.

“They have been moving [the stockpiles], and the number of sites is quite numerous,” Dempsey said.

Asked by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich,) the committee chairman, if the U.S. military could take steps that would put pressure on the Assad regime, Dempsey cautioned that sending U.S. troops could have unanticipated consequences.

“As I sit here today, Senator, I do not see the introduction of military force would produce the outcome we seek,” he said. “I don’t think it should be left unaddressed, let me be clear about that. But the introduction of military power right now certainly has the possibility of making the situation worse.”

U.S. officials worry that sending American troops into Syria could inflame the civil war rather than end it. Militants might seize on U.S. intervention as a reason to join the fight, or expand it into neighboring nations.

Dempsey also backed away from his previous support for arming the rebels. He said that the risks of fueling the conflict have grown as Al Nusra Front and other Islamic extremist groups have played a greater role in the rebellion.

Dempsey testified in February that he, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had backed a proposal last year by then-CIA director David Petraeus to begin arming the rebels, but the White House had rejected the plan.

“I am more concerned than I was before” because Islamist fighters have taken the lead, Dempsey said. He said he would reconsider if it were possible to ensure that weapons went only to moderate factions.

After Secretary of State John F. Kerry met this month with members of the Syrian opposition, U.S. officials said they were planning to give rebels new types of nonlethal military assistance, including body armor and night-vision goggles, but would stop short of providing weapons.

Source

Mike Adams — Natural News April 15, 2013

Two bombs have rocked the streets of Boston and reportedly injured 22 marathon runners (two have reportedly died). It’s too early to know the cause of these explosions, but you can rest assured both the state and federal government will try to use this tragic event to blame whatever convenient enemies are most advantageous for the government.

No one has yet stepped forward to claim responsibility for the bombs, and the fact that no firearms were used in the attack may indicate this was NOT part of a false flag effort by the government to try to blame gun owners. (But it’s still way too early to tell…)

Here at Natural News, we are horrified at this loss of innocent life, and we are praying for the victims of this bombing as well as their families.

Bomb squad was running “controlled explosion” on the same day

What’s not yet being reported by the mainstream media is that a “controlled explosion” was under way on the same day as the marathon explosion.

As the Boston Globe tweeted today, “Officials: There will be a controlled explosion opposite the library within one minute as part of bomb squad activities.”

Some people believe this explosion might have been part of the demolition of another bomb. It seems unlikely, however, that a bomb at the library, one mile away, could be so quickly located and rigged to be exploded by the bomb squad in less than one hour following the initial explosions at the marathon.

Furthermore, according to Local15TV.com, a University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach said there were bomb-sniffing dogs at both the start and finish lines, long before any explosions went off. He said:

“They kept making announcements on the loud speaker that it was just a drill and there was nothing to worry about. It seemed like there was some sort of threat, but they kept telling us it was just a drill.

Bloomberg news is now saying, “This is very likely a terrorist attack.”

The question is: Who are the terrorists? It’s far too early to take an informed guess on all this. However, it is indisputable that the FBI is actively engaged in carrying out bomb plots in the United States, then halting them at the last minute to “catch the terrorists.” This fact has been covered by the New York Times, among other publications.

Also read
FBI ‘entrapment’ tactics questioned in web of phony terror plots and paid informants.

Keep in mind I am in no way blaming the FBI for this. Most men and women who work with the FBI are upstanding citizens who would be appalled at such acts. But it is theoretically possible that one of the FBI’s many “terror plots” went too far and turned into a live bomb instead of a dud followed by an arrest for “domestic terrorism.”

For the record, the explosions seemed relatively small for a false flag, and most false flags target children in order to maximize the emotional leverage after the event. That these explosions did not target children is yet more evidence that it may not have been a false flag at all.

Either way, terrorism always works in the favor of the state. It makes presidents look presidential, and it gives the government an excuse to crack down on civil liberties all across the country.

Be wary of who ultimately gets blamed for this, especially if it’s a veteran or patriot.

Continues …

Dick Eastman — therebel.org April 16, 2013

1. Like 9-11, Madrid, and the 7/7 bombings the Boston Marathon also had national defense drills of the same scenario going on as the actual bombings took place.

2. After this chain of coincidences no one in the FBI or homeland security has remarked upon it or considered it a coincidence worth checking out.

My contention is this — if the FBI was both intelligent and non-complicit — they would consider the possibility that a single planner is designing attack to coincide with drills — with a theory, perhaps, that by having the terrorist acts coincide with training the intention is that people will be made to suspect the government of involvement, that is, to raise suspicion that the government is involved.

It is of course tragic that entire lines of suspicion are ruled out by political correctness rather than letting the evidence lead the way.

1, There will be no checking out the possible motives arising from the fact that gun control and anti-terrorist legislation is pending before Congress.

2. Nor of the fact that — as “editor” from an article forwarded from infowars points out: “This is done so that if the compartmentalized operation is exposed the operatives executing the attack can simply claim they were part of the drill.]”

Welcome, to Palestine and Iraq and Syria, privileged of the educational home of the American ruling elite. What goes around comes around.

I suspect the bomb was set off remotely by someone observing from a distance, waiting for the mix of victims to best suit their needs. I would investigate the demographics of those closest and the demographics of groups who statistically should have been represented among the victims of a Boston Marathon crowed, but unexpectedly are absent.

I personally do not think there are two groups in the world today who would do such a thing. But of course my suspects are the ones with will not be considered — which is also a significant datum, when you really stop to think about it.

We who know the truth about all of the false-flag killings of the last 20 years — do not look at this attack on innocent humanity in Boston the same way the pro-war-on-terror neo-con Harvard Law, Brandeis, Boston College faculty and alums do.

You people of Boston — think how you ignored the honest citizen investigators when they told you the truth about Aurora and Sandy Hook — back to 9-11. Why don’t you get with us, who serve truth and justice rather than solidarity with your criminal class for once?

And don’t think for a second that because I say these hard things that I am not as sad for those killed and those maimed — or shaken that the ones who did this operated against us with confidence — gained from 9-11 and hundreds of other operations around the world over time — that they can get away with it. The perpetrators and accomplices of 9-11 appear on mainstream media – especially Murdoch Fox News practically ever day.

Source

Mike Adams — Natural News April 12, 2013

A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report described in testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday reveals that “North Korea now has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles.”

The U.S. has jointly declared “Watchcon 2″ status with South Korea, the highest level of military alert, as North Korean missiles have been spotted in the “launch” position.

This story was broken by the Christian Science Monitor and publicized by DrudgeReport.com.

According to the report, Rep. Doug Lamborn ® of Colorado quotes an unclassified edition of the DIA report which reads, “DIA assess with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles. However, the reliability will be low.”

What this means is that the missile failure rate is believed to be high, but that North Korea possesses ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads.

Why is this such a big deal? Because North Korea recently promised to nuke several major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. The threat was dismissed by most observers as hot air, based on the belief that North Korea did not possess missiles capable of carrying and delivering nuclear warheads. Now that belief must be called into question.

North Korea capable of striking Japan, South Korea, Taiwan

If the report is true, it would mean North Korea is capable of launching nuclear missiles at nearby targets such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other nations. Thousands of U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, making military zones there obvious targets for the North’s nuclear crusade.

But North Korea may also be capable of launching ballistics missiles with longer range — allowing them to strike targets such as Australia, Hawaii or even the West Coast of the United States. Most experts doubt North Korea has the technical expertise to achieve such long-range performance, but no one denies the country is working on developing such technologies.

If North Korea has nuclear missiles as described in the intelligence report — and if it is willing to use them — it means North Korea possesses the means to overrun South Korea with military might. Kim Jong-Un can simply launch a preemptive nuclear strike at the closest military base then unleash a human wave of North Korean soldiers to march into Seoul and occupy South Korea.

This could pull the United States into a dangerous global war with China, a communist regime that considers North Korea to be its political ally and strategic partner.

Predictions: The U.S. may strike North Korea

I predict that if this escalation does not rapidly cool down, the U.S. will be forced to unleash a military strike on North Korea’s missile assets. I am not the only one concerned about this possibility.

This YouTube video claims to show a stream of vehicles fleeing the North and crossing the DMZ into South Korea, escorted by a military vehicle. Their rationale? Possibly to escape an imminent U.S. military strike on North Korea.

Interestingly, this is one of the few times when I actually agree with the Pentagon that a pre-emptive strike is morally justified against North Korea. If the U.S. attacks North Korea’s military leadership (but not civilians), it will be an act of national self-defense against an irrational aggressor who had directly and persistently threatened to nuke U.S. cities.

Source

SOUTH Korea has raised its military watch alert to “vital threat” before an expected North Korean missile launch, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned the Korean peninsula may be slipping out of control.

South Korean intelligence says the North has prepared two mid-range missiles for imminent launch from its east coast, despite warnings from ally China to avoid provocative moves at a time of soaring military tensions.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told parliament the launch could take place “anytime from now on” and warned Pyongyang it could trigger a fresh round of UN sanctions.

On Tuesday, the North reiterated a warning that the peninsula was headed for “thermo-nuclear” war and advised foreigners to consider leaving South Korea.

In a further sign of rising nuclear tensions, a key border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official said Wednesday.

An official at the Dandong Border Office, who declined to give his name, told media: “Travel agencies are not allowed to take tourist groups to go there, since the North Korean government is now asking foreign people to leave. As far as I know, business people can enter and leave North Korea freely.”

The South Korea-US Combined Forces Command raised its “Watchcon” status from 3 to 2 to reflect indications of a “vital threat”, Yonhap news agency said, citing a senior military official.

Watchcon 4 is in effect during normal peacetime, while Watchcon 3 reflects indications of an important threat. Watchcon 1 is used in wartime.

In a separate report, Yonhap quoted a government source as saying Pyongyang might be preparing “multiple” launches, after other launch vehicles were reportedly detected carrying shorter-range SCUD and Rodong missiles.

Although the North’s warnings to embassies in Pyongyang and foreigners in the South were both largely shrugged off, there is growing global concern that sky-high tensions might trigger an incident that could swiftly escalate.

UN warns of ‘dangerous’ tension

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said during a visit to Rome that he had spoken to the Chinese leadership to try to calm tensions, and would discuss the issue with US President Barack Obama on Thursday.

“The current level of tension is very dangerous, a small incident caused by miscalculation or misjudgement may create an uncontrollable situation,” Ban said.

North Korea has wielded the “thermo-nuclear war” threat several times in recent months — most recently on March 7 — despite expert opinion that it is nowhere near developing such an advanced nuclear device.

The current crisis on the Korean peninsula has been intensifying almost daily since the North’s nuclear test in February, which drew toughened UN sanctions.

Incensed by ongoing South Korean-US military exercises, Pyongyang has accused Washington and Seoul of preparing an invasion and threatened dire military actions from artillery barrages to nuclear strikes.

South Korea last went to Watchcon 2 around the time of the North’s nuclear test, and its long-range rocket launch last December.

The Watchcon system solely relates to surveillance levels and is separate from the Defcon system of military preparedness.

The mid-range missiles mobilised by the North are reported to be untested Musudan models with an estimated range of anywhere up to 4,000 kilometres.

That would cover any target in South Korea and Japan, and possibly even US military bases on the Pacific island of Guam.

Japan, where the armed forces have been authorised to shoot down any North Korean missile headed towards its territory, said Tuesday it had deployed Patriot missiles in its capital as a pre-emptive defence measure.

In addition to PAC-3 batteries, Aegis destroyers equipped with sea-based interceptor missiles have been deployed in the Sea of Japan.

But a top US military commander, Admiral Samuel Locklear, said he favoured shooting down a North Korean missile only if it threatened the United States or Washington’s allies in the region.

If North Korea pushes ahead with the launch, the UN Security Council will convene immediately, Foreign Minister Yun said.

“It’s hard to predict what kind of action the Security Council might take, as the nature of such a launch would have to be analysed first,” he said, adding fresh sanctions were a possibility.

Satellites find ‘missing’ NK missiles

The move to Watchcon 2 comes after it was revealed United States spy satellites had found two ‘missing’ North Korean nuclear-capable missiles.

CNN reported US officials were expecting a launch by North Korea “at any time”.

Any such “test” launch would be seen as a further escalation of already high tensions in and around the Korean peninsula.

Things could be made worse if North Korea does not issue a “standard warning” of a missile test firing to commercial aviation and maritime shipping.

“We hope they issue a notification but at this point we don’t expect it. We are working on the assumption they won’t, ” the official said.

US officials have confirmed that satellites have been kept over the suspected launch areas for the past week in order to locate – and monitor – the launch vehicles. Bad weather has made their job harder, they said.

The launchers are said to be about half-way down the North Korean east coast and about 20km inland. Satellite imagery shows the missiles have been fuelled and positioned for launch.

The Pentagon has announced it is ready to respond to any missile aimed at America or its allies.

The commander of US forces in the Pacific sought to reassure Congress that the Pentagon would be able intercept a missile. US satellites and radars in the region will be able to detect and quickly calculate the missiles’ trajectory.

This would help determine if the launch was hostile – or a test.

The missiles would be shot down by land or sea based anti-missile weapons if they were to track over South Korea or Japan.

Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear said: “We have a credible ability to defend the homeland, to defend Hawaii, to defend Guam, to defend our forward deployed forces, and to defend our allies,” Locklear told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The US has never sought to shoot down a North Korean missile, and it’s unclear if such a move would escalate the tension that has roiled the region. The Obama administration has moved additional military forces into the Pacific, but has sought to calibrate its response in the matter to avoid fueling the crisis.

A “counter-provocation plan” drawn up by US and South Korean officials calls for their combined military forces to respond proportionally to a North Korean attack, but to avoid any step that could set off an escalation of hostilities.

Direct attack on South unlikely

Analysts see a direct attack on Seoul as extremely unlikely, and there are no overt signs that North Korea’s 1.2 million-man army is readying for war, let alone a nuclear one.

South Korea’s military has reported missile movements on North Korea’s east coast but nothing pointed toward South Korea.

Still, North Korea’s earlier warning that it won’t be able to guarantee the safety of foreign diplomats after April 10 has raised fears that it will conduct a missile or nuclear test today, resulting in US retaliation.

The United States and South Korea have raised their defence postures, and so has Japan, which deployed PAC-3 missile interceptors in key locations around Tokyo yesterday as a precaution against possible North Korean ballistic missile tests.

“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a thermonuclear war due to the evermore undisguised hostile actions of the United States and the south Korean puppet warmongers and their moves for a war against” the North, said a statement by the North Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, an organisation that deals with regional matters.

The statement is similar to past threats that analysts call an attempt to raise anxiety in foreign capitals. Observers say a torrent of North Korean prophecies of doom and efforts to raise war hysteria are partly to boost the image of young and relatively untested leader Kim Jong-un at home, and to show him as a decisive military leader.

Another reason could be to use threats of war to win Pyongyang-friendly policy changes in Seoul and Washington. Last week, North Korea told foreign diplomats in Pyongyang that it will not be able to guarantee their safety as of Wednesday. It is not clear what the significance of that date is.

Tourists continued to arrive in Pyongyang despite the war hysteria.

Australian Mark Fahey of Sydney said he was not concerned about a possible war.

“I knew that when I arrived here it would probably be very different to the way it was being reported in the media,” he told The Associated Press at Pyongyang airport. He said his family trusts him to make the right judgment but “my colleagues at work think I am crazy.”

Chu Kang Jin, a Pyongyang resident, said everything is calm in the city.

“Everyone, including me, is determined to turn out as one to fight for national reunification … if the enemies spark a war,” he said, in a typically nationalist rhetoric that most North Koreans use while speaking to the media.

In Seoul, South Korean Presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing told reporters that the North Korean warning amounted to “psychological warfare.”

“We know that foreigners residing in South Korea as well as our nationals are unfazed,” she said.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who has sought to re-engage North Korea with dialogue and aid since taking office in February, expressed exasperation with what she called the “endless vicious cycle” of Seoul answering Pyongyang’s hostile behaviour with compromise, only to get more hostility.

Yesterday North Korea said it was suspending work at the Kaesong industrial park near its border, which is combines South Korean technology and know-how with North Korea’s cheap labour. North Korea pulled out more than 50,000 workers from the complex, the only remaining product of economic cooperation between the two countries that started about a decade ago when relations were much warmer.

Other projects from previous eras of cooperation such as reunions of families separated by war and tours to a scenic North Korean mountain stopped in recent years.

Source

Pyongyang has issued a warning urging foreign nationals to evacuate South Korea, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. The statement was followed by threats from North Korea of “thermonuclear” war on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea has warned all foreign nationals to prepare to evacuate the South in the event of conflict. “We do not wish harm on foreigners in South Korea should there be a war,” Reuters quoted KCNA news agency as saying, citing the spokesperson for its Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee.

Further,“all international organizations, businesses and tourists” were told to “work out measures for the evacuation.”

The statement was followed by renewed threats of “thermonuclear” war on the Korean Peninsula, AFP reported.

This marks the latest escalation in Pyongyang’s rhetoric.

On Monday, a South Korean lawmaker visiting the US said that nuclear support from Washington is needed to protect against North Korea’s continued aggression and unpredictability, and to keep its neighbor in check.

Rep. Chung Moon-joon suggested that South Korea needs nuclear weapons of its own – not just to intimidate Pyongyang, but also to send a strong message to China.

Recent tensions in the Korean Peninsula further escalated after North Korea announced that 51,000 workers would be recalled from a joint industrial Kaesong zone shared with the South, a major severing of economic ties between the countries.

Tensions escalated further on Tuesday when North Korean laborers did not show up for work at the Kaesong joint industrial zone in the morning, effectively suspending operations. Earlier, Pyongyang refused to allow South Korean workers to enter the area, located a few kilometers inside the North’s territory.

Pyongyang issued another warning last week advising embassies in North Korea to consider evacuating in the event of war. Currently, about two dozen countries have embassies in North Korea; most have said there are no immediate plans to withdraw personnel.

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North Korea could be preparing to conduct a fourth nuclear test, following signs of activity at the country’s main testing site, South Korea‘s unification minister, Ryoo Kihl-jae, said on Monday.

Ryoo told a meeting with MPs at the national assembly that Seoul had acquired evidence of increased movement of vehicles and personnel at Punggye-ri, the Yonhap news agency said.

The site on North Korea’s north-east coast is where the country’s three previous controlled nuclear detonations – in 2006, 2009 and on 12 February this year – took place.

Ryoo’s comments came after a South Korean newspaper quoted an unnamed government source as saying that workers appeared to be preparing for another test at Punggye-ri.

The JoongAng Ilbo quoted the source as saying that South Korean intelligence had detected “increased activity of labour forces and vehicles” at the site.

“We are closely monitoring the ongoing situation, which is very similar to the situation ahead of the third nuclear test. We are trying to figure out whether it is a genuine preparation for a nuclear test or just a ploy to heap more pressure on us and the US,” it said.

The prospect of a nuclear test is certain to add to tensions on the peninsula amid reports that the regime in Pyongyang could be planning to launch a medium-range missile from its east coat, possibly as early as Wednesday.

Any missile launch is expected to be a test rather than a targeted strike and could take place in the runup to the 101st anniversary of the birth of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, on 15 April. Another significant date is the anniversary of the foundation of the Korean people’s army 10 days later.

Last week, North Korea warned foreign embassies in Pyongyang it could not guarantee their safety from the threat of conflict after Wednesday this week and advised them to consider pulling their staff out of the capital.

The North has unleashed a barrage of threats since the UN imposed sanctions in response to February’s nuclear test. It has also been angered by military exercises involving South Korea and the US that are due to run to the end of the month.

The regime has threatened to launch nuclear strikes against the US mainland and its bases in the Pacific, declared itself in a “state of war” with South Korea and cut its military hotline with Seoul.

Last week, it banned South Korean workers from entering the Kaesong industrial complex – a jointly run enterprise located just north of the heavily armed border dividing the peninsula and an important source of hard currency for Pyongyang. The ban remained in place on Monday.

The North’s latest moves are being seen as an attempt to push fears of an impending military crisis in the hope of winning concessions from Washington. There are no signs that the regime is mobilising its army of 1.2 million in preparation for any sort of attack.

The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, said he did not believe the North would take military action, but added: “I can’t take the chance that it won’t.”

The US has brought forward the deployment of a missile defence system to Guam, a US territory in the Pacific. It has drawn up plans with South Korea on how to respond to specific military provocations by the North.

The allies would “respond more forcefully than in the recent past but in a limited way intended to prevent an escalation to broader war”, the New York Times said, citing Pentagon officials.

A nuclear test would anger China, which has shown signs of growing frustration with North Korea, a major recipient of Chinese aid.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, alluded to North Korean provocations when he said no country “should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain” in a speech on Sunday.

In a telephone conversation with the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at the weekend, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said Beijing “opposes provocative words and actions from any party in the region and do not allow trouble-making on China’s doorstep”, according to the ministry’s website.

The commander of the 28,000 US troops based in South Korea, General James Thurman, abruptly cancelled a visit to Washington where he had been due to testify before congressional committees. Thurman would remain in Seoul as a “prudent measure”, according to a US military official quoted by the Associated Press.

The chairman of South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff, General Jung Seung-jo, also cancelled a visit to Washington later this week in light of rising tensions at home.

Dan Pfeiffer, an adviser to President Obama, said the administration “wouldn’t be surprised” if the North conducted a missile test or similar provocation.

Pfeiffer told ABC’s This Week that the North should “stop their actions, start meeting their international obligations and put themselves in a position where they can achieve what is their stated goal, which is economic development, which will only happen if they rejoin the international community”.

Source

Five women have staged a topless protest in front of an Islamic cultural centre and mosque in Brussels.

The Femen demonstration was in support of a woman in Tunisia called Amina, who posted pictures on the internet of her naked body bearing anti-Islamic slogans.

As a result, one cleric called for her to be killed. Wahabi Salafi preacher Almi Adel, who heads the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, said the 19-year-old should be stoned to death.

There are unconfirmed rumours that the woman’s family have locked her up at home.

One of the Femen activists at the Brussels protest, who gave her name only as Margaux, said: “It is an action in support of Amina who is locked up and under medication by her family because she had the courage to get naked, to advocate her rights to have her own body and to use her own body as she pleases, as she wishes; the situation of women in a lot of countries is unbearable but we will not let this go.”

Nobody came out of the mosque during the protest, which lasted 10 minutes, and there was no police presence.

Source

Muslim women send message to Femen

Al Jazeera — April 5, 2013

Muslim women have launched a campaign to send a message to “sextremist” collective Femen. “Muslimah Pride Day” was organised in response to Femen’s self-declared “Topless Jihad Day”, a day of topless protests around the world to support Tunisian Femen activist Amina Tyler.

The organisers of the counter-protest urged Muslim women to speak out for themselves and assert their diverse identities:

Continues …

I have watched like everyone else over the last few weeks with increasing alarm the sudden rush to war by the United States and its allies against the nation of North Korea.   We have already seen over the last week how the media and other officials have mistranslated Kim Jong Il’s official statements, and tried to twist them into somehow being both threats and a declaration of war against America.   We have also watched as both the United States and China have been rushing forces to the borders of North Korea…. It does seem that we are just a hair trigger away from this becoming a shooting war, between China and the US itself…

But something came to my attention a few weeks back, thanks to Sherrie, who writes “Sherrie Questioning All” at www.sherriequestioningall.blogspot.com.   She put up an article that I noted in my Sunday rant from a few weeks back about how the Japanese had discovered that the US was conducting “secret flights” to North Korea itself with both officials and “equipment” for at least the last several years (and possibly much longer)!    First, I want to present the original Japanese article, that comes from the website: www.ajw.asahi.com, that exposes these secretive flights, right here for everyone to see for themselves..  I do have my own thoughts and comments to follow:

LEFT IN THE DARK: Secret U.S. military flights carried officials, equipment to N. Korea

February 15, 2013 — By YOSHIHIRO MAKINO The Asahi Shimbun

Senior U.S. administration officials held secret talks in North Korea on at least three occasions in 2011 and 2012, The Asahi Shimbun has learned.

Although the visits had potential implications for Japan, Washington did not inform its security partner at the time and only informally confirmed one of them when the Japanese side pressed, government and other sources in Japan, South Korea and the United States said.

The U.S. State Department even warned the Foreign Ministry against making further inquiries, saying they would harm bilateral relations, the sources said.

U.S. military planes flew from an air base in Guam to Pyongyang and back on April 7, 2012, and again on a longer visit lasting from Aug. 18-20, the sources said.

It is believed that those aboard included Sydney Seiler, director for Korea at the U.S. National Security Council, and Joseph DeTrani, who headed the North Korea desk at the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. DeTrani left the post in May.

They met with North Korean officials and discussed policies following the death of leader Kim Jong Il in December 2011.

The North Korean delegation included Jang Song Thaek, vice chairman of the National Defense Commission and husband of Kim Jong Il’s sister. Jang is widely considered to serve as a mentor for Kim Jong Un, who succeeded his father as his nation’s leader.

The Japanese government only learned about the flights after receiving reports from hobbyists monitoring activity at military bases and also analyzing air traffic flight plans.

When the Japanese side submitted an official inquiry, U.S. officials expressed frustration that the request had been made, citing the subject’s confidential nature. The State Department warned Japan against inquiring further, saying Washington-Tokyo ties could be damaged.

The third visit that The Asahi Shimbun has confirmed is one that took place in November 2011. Sources said at least one military aircraft from the Guam air base loaded heavy equipment, including bulldozers, at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo and flew to Pyongyang.

It is believed that the delegation included officials from the U.S. Pacific Command. They met with North Korean officials and discussed efforts to recover the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, the sources said.

When Japan inquired about this visit, U.S. officials unofficially confirmed that it had taken place, the sources said.

Please check a related article at (http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/korean_peninsula/AJ201302150084).

NTS Notes:  Ok, I will say it… Something here really stinks to high heaven…. And I suspect that we are all being set up as suckers with all the propaganda in this rush to war against North Korea!

Secret flights into North Korea with US government officials?  It is no wonder the Japanese have stayed quiet about this…..They were probably told by their “ally”, the United States to just keep quiet and look the other way….

I do wonder what kind of sick game the United States is playing here?   Secret flights to North Korea with both officials and military equipment, and nobody is supposed to notice?

I not only smell a rat, but I am beginning to wonder if this rush to war with North Korea is a sick and twisted game being played on the citizens of the United States to purposely strike fear into everyone… But for what purpose?

I do wonder what the criminals in the US government is attempting to gain by putting this latest fear of war against North Korea (and China) into its own citizens…The psychology of fear is a dangerous weapon, and could cause people to accept almost anything that will alleviate that fear….The prime example was the aftermath of the Israeli attacks of 9-11 where the fearful US public quickly accepted the draconian Patriot Act to alleviate the fear of the “terrorists”….

Again, I want to thank Sherrie for first bringing this to my attention a few weeks back…. This is indeed dynamite!

More to come

NTS

Source

North Korea has placed two of its intermediate range missiles on mobile launchers and hidden them on the east coast of the country in a move that could threaten Japan or U.S. Pacific bases, South Korean media reported on Friday.

The report could not be confirmed. But any such movement may be intended to demonstrate that the North, angry about joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises and the imposition of U.N. sanctions, is prepared to demonstrate its ability to mount an attack.

The North has said nuclear conflict could break out at any time on the Korean peninsula in a month-long war of words that has prompted the United States to move military assets into the region.

The tension with North Korea has roiled South Korean financial markets and top finance officials in Seoul warned they could have a long-term impact on markets.

In North Korea itself, there was no intensification of the strident rhetoric about impending war as the country marked a national holiday. And some analysts said the tone of recent statements, however bitter, was most probably aimed at securing concessions and was unlikely to lead to armed conflict.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, quoting a senior military official familiar with the matter said: “Early this week, the North moved two Musudan missiles on the train and placed them on mobile launchers.”

There were unconfirmed media reports on Thursday that the North had moved missiles to the east coast, although it was not clear what kind of missiles had been deployed.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry declined to comment.

Speculation centered on two kinds of missiles neither of which is known to have been tested.

One was the so-called Musudan missile which South Korea’s Defence Ministry estimates has a range of up to 3,000 km (1,865 miles, the other is called the KN-08, which is believed to be an inter-continental ballistic missile, which is again untested.

MARKET JITTERS

In Seoul, officials from economic ministries, the central bank and regulatory agencies held emergency talks and promised swift and strong action should the markets lose stability. News of the talks and the central bank involvement boosted investors’ expectations of an interest rate cut next week.

South Korean shares slid, with foreign investors selling their biggest daily amount in nearly 20 months, hurt after aggressive easing from the Bank of Japan sent the yen reeling, as well as by the tension over North Korea.

“In the past, (markets) recovered quickly from the impact from any North Korea-related event, but recent threats from North Korea are stronger and the impact may therefore not disappear quickly,” Vice Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho told a meeting.

North Korea threatened to strike U.S. military bases, including those on the American mainland, and to shut down a joint industrial complex with the South while denying entry to the complex by South Korean workers this week.

The South’s new unification minister said the government was willing to pull out workers from the Kaesong industrial complex if it became dangerous, though he said the situation was not that serious for the moment.

The threats from North Korea’s 30-year-old leader Kim Jong-un, though not unusual from the reclusive state, have followed the imposition of new U.N. sanctions in response to North Korea’s third nuclear test in February. Reaction to the threats in markets has until now been muted.

The increasingly tense standoff with North Korea could not happen at a worse time for the government of the South’s new president, Park Geun-hye, whose first steps in office included a sharp cut in growth forecasts.

Park, in office for just over a month, has ordered her cabinet to draw up what is likely to be a large supplementary budget to lower budget revenue projections and add new spending plans aimed at jump-starting faltering domestic demand.

“The market usually doesn’t get jittery over North Korea threats. But this time is different, because they look willing to sacrifice Kaesong, which has never happened before,” said Park Hyung-joon, macroeconomics team leader at Meritz Securities.

Some U.S. analysts expressed a degree of alarm over the intensification of the threats.

“The rhetoric is off the charts,” said Victor Cha, former director for Asian affairs at the White House National Security Council and now senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic Studies in Washington.

“We don’t understand this new guy at all. And if the North Koreans move to provoke the South, the South is going to retaliate in a way we haven’t seen before.”

Other analysts said a degeneration into conflict was unlikely.

“We do not believe that North Korea intends to attack South Korea, pre-emptively or otherwise, in the current cycle of threat projection,” the U.S.-based Nautilus think-tank said in a study published on Thursday.

“Rather, these statements are opportunistic, and express its authentic strategy which is extortionate. The North’s nuclear forces are intended to compel their adversaries to change their policies towards (North Korea), not to deter unprovoked external attack—except when such an attack might actually be in motion.”

(Additional reporting by Lim Seung-gyu, Hyunjoo Jin, Somang Yang and Peter Apps in London; Editing by Robert Birse)

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