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Megaupload.com Shutdown, its Founder Arrested

EU Times — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:29:50 +0000

Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down one of the world’s largest file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws.

The indictment accuses the company of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed Thursday, one day after websites shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs.

Megaupload.com has claimed it is diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.

The indictment says that at one point, Megaupload was the 13th most popular website in the world. sfgate.com

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that, “This kind of application of international criminal procedures to Internet policy issues sets a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?”

Highlights

In what the federal authorities on Thursday called one of the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought, the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized the Web site Megaupload and charged seven people connected with it of running an international enterprise based on Internet piracy.

Four of the seven people, including the site’s founder, Kim Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz), have been arrested in New Zealand, the authorities said; the three others remain at large. Each of the seven people – who the indictment said were members of a criminal group it called “Mega Conspiracy” – is charged with five counts of copyright infringement and conspiracy. The seven each face a maximum of 55 years in prison.

Coming just a day after civil protests in the United States over proposed antipiracy bills, the arrests were greeted almost immediately with digital Molotov cocktails. The hacker collective that calls itself Anonymous attacked the Web sites of the Justice Department and several major entertainment companies and trade groups in retaliation for Megaupload’s seizure. The Justice Department’s site and several others remained inaccessible for much of Thursday afternoon. nytimes.com

As part of the crackdown, more than 20 search warrants were executed in the United States and in eight other countries. About $50 million in assets were also seized, as well as a number of servers and 18 domain names that formed Megaupload’s network of file-sharing sites. mediabistro.com

On Wednesday, Google and Wikipedia joined dozens of sites in political theatrics by blacking out some content and explaining their arguments against the laws. nytimes.com

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Obama rules as a Dictator, says Ron Paul

EU Times — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 09:45:10 +0000

Much of Congress is calling out President Obama for his excessive use of executive power in a string of recess appointments this week. To some lawmakers, this isn’t the first time the commander-in-chief has stepped on the toes of his constituents.

To Ron Paul, in fact, Obama has transcended America into a practical dictatorship.

The commander-in-chief overstepped the Congress and appointed Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection, much to the chagrin of the US Senate, who were on recess at the time. Although the president has the power to make such appointments during Senate recess sessions, lawmakers have since become outraged that Obama could not have waited for them to give Cordray the go-ahead.

Now the new CFP chief will sit pretty in a paid federal position and await a decision from Congress to either approve or disapprove Obama’s appointment — a decision which could be months in the making. In the meanwhile, Cordray lacks any official authority to rule the CFP, essentially allowing him to vacate a ghost opening and be compensated for simply sitting pretty.

But why would the president do such a thing?

“It is disappointing that a former constitutional law professor does not understand that the President is not a dictator or a king who can simply ignore the Constitution whenever he feels frustrated by the system of checks and balances wisely put in place by our Founders,” Texas congressman and GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul says in an official statement.

His move, says the legendary libertarian politicians, shows a “clear disregard of the Constitution” and a “flagrant contempt for the rules.”

According to Paul, this isn’t first time that the current commander-in-chief has overstepped the Constitution either. Throughout the administration, says Paul, the president has bypassed the rules in order to make decisions favored by few but always to his liking. Most recently, the congressman attacked President Obama over his warning to Capitol Hill that he would get his jobs act through one way or another.

“The current administration has unabashedly stated that Congress’s unwillingness to pass the president’s jobs bill means that the president will act unilaterally to enact provisions of it piecemeal through Executive Order,” Paul said in an open letter last November. “Obama explicitly threatens to bypass Congress, thus aggregating the power to make and enforce laws in the executive. This clearly erodes the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. It brings the modern presidency dangerously close to an elective dictatorship.”

Elsewhere in Congress, Senator John McCain called the appointment of Cordray an “absolute abuse of power,” and Congressman Dan Burton said the president was acting in “direct dereliction of his oath to the American people to protect and defend the American Constitution.”

Ron Paul adds that the president “must be called to account for his actions.” Paul is currently challenging Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum for the GOP party’s nomination in hopes of running against Obama later in 2012.

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ACLU criticizes Obama over indefinite detention and torture act

EU Times — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:29:26 +0000

“He will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law.”

These harsh words come courtesy of the executive director of the ACLU, formerly a supporter of the president but also just one of the many dissenters who have since have grown disillusioned with an administration tarnished by unfulfilled campaign promises and continuous constitutional violations.

When he signed the National Defense Authorization Act on New Year’s Eve, President Barack Obama said that he had his reservations over the controversial legislation that will allow for the indefinite detention of Americans.

Now some of the president’s pals are expressing their agreement with Obama’s own hesitation but say that the commander-in-chief should have thought harder before signing away the civil liberties of Americans.

Under the bill, which approves all defense spending for the 2012 fiscal year, certain provisions allow for the military detainment and torture of US citizens, indefinitely, essentially allowing for Guantanamo Bay-style prisons to be a real possibility for every American. As the act floated around Congress, an underground outrage erupted and activists attempted to keep the bill from leaving the House and the Senate, although a lack of media coverage largely left the matter hidden to the public. Despite this campaign, the legislation made it out of the Capitol Building and into the Oval Office last month, prompting advocates against the act to petition for the president to veto it.

Initially the Obama administration said the president’s advisers would recommend a veto, but later rescinded the threat. Senator Carl Levin eventually revealed that President Obama had insisted on adding the wording that has made NDAA such a target among activists who are frightened of the civil liberty-stripping capabilities.

One week after the president did ink the legislation, some of Obama’s old pals are saying they are in disbelief over how a former constitutional law professor could agree to such provisions that crush the law of the land.

“President Obama’s action … is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero says in a statement. Such a charge not only carries much clout because it comes courtesy of the head of such an integral and reputable advocacy group, but Romero himself was praising the president three years earlier after he won the 2008 election. Now that same administration is doing everything Romero thought it wouldn’t.

“I believe he knows what he needs to do to restore the America we believe in, to get us on back on track, to give us back our America, an America we never stopped believing in but have sorely missed for the past eight years,” Romero wrote in 2008 in an op-ed that encouraged the president to follow through on his campaign promise of closing Guantanamo Bay. “Call me naive, but I honestly believe he wants to do it. He promised us that on the campaign trail, and I believe it was more than an empty promise,” wrote Romero.

Three-quarters of the way through his presidency, Obama has now only left Gitmo remain open, but is going to be able to send his own citizens to its torture cells.

“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” adds Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today.”

Other groups who had previously offered their endorsement to the president are saying they are upset as well.

“It is deeply troubling that the NDAA became law with the detention provisions intact,” reads a statement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. “We believe it is unconstitutional for our military to become a police force that would hold American citizens indefinitely without the right to trial or even to hear the charges brought against them.”

CAIR had long supported Obama for his protection of Muslim-American rights. Nearly one year ago Executive Director Nihad Awad told the media that the group welcomes Obama for his “decision to emphasize the fact that Muslims are contributing members of our society.” Only 12 months later, the group says they are now skeptical over how the president can now use his power to strip the rights of anyone.

“This ill-conceived and un-American legislation will forever be seen as a stain on our nation’s history – one that will ultimately be viewed with embarrassment and shame,” adds the advocacy group.

Although the powers of the act indeed offer the president the ability to indefinitely detain people, citizens or non, Obama said during signing that he would not interpret the legislation to mean as such.

“I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens,” added the president in a statement that accompanied the signing of NDAA. “My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law.”

That memo does not, however, mean future heads of state will necessarily be excluded from following the orders authorized by Congress. In fact, the ACLU’s Romero tells The Atlantic, “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.”

“President Obama did pledge in a signing statement not to use this law to detain American citizens but this provides little comfort, as signing statements have no legal force and he has repeatedly failed to uphold similar promises in the face of political pressure — including his pledge to close Guantánamo within his first year in office,” adds the Center for Constitutional Rights in their own statement this week. “The law authorizes a future president, such as a President Romney, President Bachmann or President Perry, to use this authorization in the most aggressive manner available.

When he offered his John Hancock come signing time, the president acknowledged suspicious but went ahead with it anyway, noting, “The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

“I guess promising that Americans wouldn’t be indefinitely detained, period, was too much of a stretch,” blogger Mary Wheeler adds.

Those very suspicions that Obama wrote of did not stop the president from following the plea of Congress though, less than a year until November elections make or break the legacy of the president.

If you ask many, though, that legacy has been tarnished by the NDAA.

“Our Founders were fearful of the military — and they purposely created a system of checks and balances to ensure we did not become a country under military rule,” Minnesota Senator Al Franken wrote of the bill on Huffington Post. Franken, a Democrat along with Obama, said he had agreed with parts of the bill but the controversial provisions alone were reason for him not to sign it.

“This bill undermines that core principle, which is why I could not support it.”

For Obama, that didn’t quite seem to matter as much.

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Obama Signs NDAA Citizen Detention Bill

EU Times — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:51:43 +0000

On this first Infowars Nightly News show of 2012, Alex talks about the imploding economy with Catherine Austin Fitts, the former managing director and member of the board of directors of the Wall Street investment bank Dillon, Read & Co. Inc., and Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush Administration.

Alex covers Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act, a draconian bill that will allow the military to arrest American citizens and disappear them into a secret labyrinth tribunal system where victims may be kept for years without access to due process and the protection of the Fourth Amendment.

Also covered this evening is HR 3166, also known as the Enemy Expatriation Act that will strip United nationals of their citizenship if it is decided that they are engaged in hostilities against the government.

Alex delves into the Iowa caucus and the attempt by the establishment to derail Ron Paul’s campaign and the prospect of chicanery and dirty tricks during the event tomorrow. He also takes a look at Ron Paul’s “Closing Argument” ad.

Other topics include the expansion of the drone “kill chain” into the murky realm of contractors as the war on terror moves into new regions.

Alex also talks about a disturbing video making the rounds that shows U.S. soldiers in Iraq blowing up a dog for kicks.

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Kim Jong-il to be embalmed by Russian specialists

EU Times — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:48:11 +0000

On Wednesday, December 28, North Korea holds the funeral service for its leader Kim Jong-il, who died on December 17. The first stage of the funeral will be held in Kymsusan memorial complex in Pyongyang – the official residence of Kim Jong-Il’s father, Kim Il Sung.

According to North Korean media, Kim Jong-Il died from a heart attack as he was traveling by train across the country. His younger son, Kim Jong Un, has been named the successor.

According to RIA Novosti, the sarcophagus will be carried along the streets of Pyongyang prior to the ceremony. The people of North Korea will thus be able to bid farewell to the leader, who ruled the 24-million-strong country for over 17 years. According to South Korean media, Kim Jong-Il’s body will rest in a glass coffin with the body of his father at Kymsusan palace.

Russian experts were invited to Pyongyang to embalm Kim Jong-Il, Yonhap agency said. The experts with Vladislav Kozeltsev at the head arrived from the Moscow Center for Biomedical Technologies. The specialists of the center preserve the body of Vladimir Lenin in the Mausoleum. Kim Jong-Il’s car, a carriage of his legendary armored train, his clothes and his desk will be on display in the tomb of the “dear leader.”

A mass meeting of mourning is to take place at the central square in Pyongyang on Thursday morning. Up to 100,000 people are expected to take part in the meeting. They will swear an oath to Kim Jong Un, who still formally serves as Deputy State Defense Committee of the DPRK. Kim Jong Un has already been named the leader of the state, party and armed forces. The information about it has been published in the official publications of the country.

The funeral committee said that the ceremony would be marked with cannon volleys in memory of the deceased leader in Pyongyang and other cities. All locomotives and vessels will sound their sirens, whereas the citizens of North Korea will bow our heads during a three-minute moment of silence.

The DPRK authorities have decided not to welcome foreign delegations for the ceremony. However, a private delegation from South Korea arrived in Pyongyang to bid farewell the North Korean leader. The delegation is headed by the widow of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who conducted the policy of “sunshine” towards the DPRK and visited Pyongyang, RIA Novosti said.

North Korea’s main party newspaper Rodong Sinmun published a special article on the front page about the visit of the South Korean delegation. During the visit, Kim Jong Un thanked the guests for condolences, but there was no special meeting with him.

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Japan to deliver arms to communist and sanctioned regimes

EU Times — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:45:05 +0000

The Government of Japan on December 27 made a significant step toward the abolition of voluntary restrictions on arms exports that had been in effect since 1967. The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that the decision was taken by the government’s Security Council, based on national needs in developing their own military-industrial complex and intent to ensure adequate supplies of “military equipment for humanitarian missions.” It is worth noting that the information did not come as a surprise, because in recent years, the Japanese side has repeatedly made it clear that such a step was possible.

Japan committed not to supply weapons to communist regimes and the countries involved in international conflicts and those placed under UN sanctions. This resulted in a serious blow to the Tokyo programs involved in the design and manufacture of weapons, as Japan had to refuse to participate in joint projects on military-technical cooperation with a number of states.

Of course, today’s decision could not be made without the American ally knowing about it, and it is beneficial for them. For example, the abandonment of the old restrictions will allow the corporation Mitsubishi Heavy to participate in the production of parts for the fifth-generation fighter F-35 together with the U.S. company Lockheed Martin. A week earlier the official Tokyo endorsed the decision that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces will be equipped with these fighters. The estimated cost of the order of Tokyo is seven billion dollars. Moreover, Japan’s participation in this project, according to experts, should significantly reduce the cost of the fighter.

But there is more to it. Military analysts point out that the abolition of restrictions on Japanese exports of arms will use the latest achievements of Japan in the further development and improvement of the U.S. missile defense system. This, they believe, will in the future help to create a European missile defense system.

Of course, another “militarized” decision of the Japanese government will remain unnoticed by neither the world in general, nor the region in particular. First of all, we are talking about China. They have repeatedly expressed concern about the steps made by Tokyo, clearly aimed at the departure from the post-war settings. Beijing does not hide the fear of the revival of Japanese militarism and revanchism and makes it clear that it will respond to the growing “military threat” with an additional increase in defense spending.

The Japanese side gave many reasons for this in recent years. They include limited participation in the “peacekeeping” and humanitarian missions of Japanese soldiers outside the region, as well as a significant strengthening of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, and others.

What are the real reasons for the current decision of the Government of Japan, and how justified are the concerns of the Chinese side? Head of Center for Japanese Studies with the Institute for Far Eastern Studies Victor Pavlyatenko answered this question in an interview with “Pravda.Ru”: “Some experts are trying to link this with the interests of the U.S. missile defense, and that, say, the decision was nearly dictated by Washington. First, the talks about it started not at the time of the Japanese government Democrats, but at the time of liberals when hot-heads demanded to cancel the old taboos.

Second, we should not overestimate the influence of the United States, which already is not the same as, say, 40-50 years ago. And, third, the military-technical cooperation between America and Japan, as such, exists without the removal of restrictions on arms exports. Take at least the system of sea-based missile AEGIS, created not without the involvement of Japan. The Japanese have participated and shared their dual-use technologies with the Americans before.

Most important, in my opinion, is a quite different point and it could be explained by the economy. First, the global arms market is a real Klondike, which the Japanese set for themselves and then shut down. Now, in times of crisis they are going to revise this decision. Second, China is stepping on its heels. Under the circumstances where it is displacing the Japanese economy from the second place in the world, for Tokyo it is important to use arms exports in order to minimize these processes.

Particularly due to the fact that the Japanese brand over the past half century has become one of the most respected in the world. In addition, under the increased competition on world markets, the emergence of new weapon designs of the Japanese arms that in terms of quality are not inferior to many competitors is able to give the Japanese economy a significant boost and strengthen its position.

As you know, military hardware is a product of the transformed civilian technologies, and its production and sales largely move the economy as a whole. This corresponds to the goal of Japan to become a world power with political and military power adequate to the current challenges.

As for someone’s fears about rising Japanese militarism, they should not be overestimated. Although it is possible to predict that Japan is moving step by step to the abolition of the 9th “pacifist” Article of its Constitution. In recent years the issue of bringing the question of its future preservation to a national referendum has been raised a few times.

Given that over the past 20 years the mood of the Japanese society has changed markedly, we can expect that in the end, this restriction on the participation of Japan in the international affairs will be removed. However, we should not think that it will be followed by aggravation. Such actions should primarily be viewed as mere purely internal political affairs.”

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North Korea begins Kim Jong-il funeral

EU Times — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:49:05 +0000

A huge portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il carried during his funeral procession in a snowy Pyongyang.

North Korea has started two days of funeral services for its late leader Kim Jong-il as tens of thousands of mourners gather on the capital’s streets to bid farewell to the country’s deceased leader.

Footage broadcast Wednesday on North Korea’s state television showed a procession led by a sedan bearing a massive portrait of Kim making its way slowly through Pyongyang.

Tens of thousands of mourners lined streets in heavy snow as they passed by. Soldiers stood in lines with their heads bowed.

Few details are known about the funeral and no foreign delegations have been invited.

Wednesday’s ceremony is also expected to be used to cement the succession of new leader Kim Jong-un, the late leader’s third son.

Kim Jong-il died of a heart attack on 17 December. He had led the state for 17 years.

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Americans will be Transferred to Foreign Prisons under Indefinite Detention act

EU Times — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:21:33 +0000

Detention Act will imprison Americans abroad

If you’re upset that congressional approval of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 can send you away to military prisons and be tortured in America, don’t worry — it could be worse.

The US could send you somewhere else.

No, really. They could. And they can. Anywhere else, too. Really.

While the bill that left Capitol Hill last week and awaits authorization from US President Barack Obama allows for the United States to indefinitely detain and torture American citizens suspected of aiding enemy forces, one provision in the bill specifies that that detention doesn’t necessarily have to occur domestically — nor does it have to be in a foreign prison run by the US.

The ongoing detention of foreign terror suspects at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has been a hot topic since the War on Terror began, with American military authorities torturing could-be criminals without ever bringing them to trial. An exposé years earlier on the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq revealed how American troops were subjecting detainees to disgusting, inhumane conditions; conditions which left some dead without ever going to trial. While Abu Ghraib has since been shut down, Guantanamo Bay continues to hold suspected criminals despite a promise to Obama to shut it down.

When the commander-in-chief inks his name to NDAA FY2012, Americans can be on their way to the same torture cells that have kept al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked terrorists for the last decade. It’s now been revealed, however, that US citizens and anyone suspected of a crime against America can be sent all over the world.

Under the legislation, the president has the power to transfer suspected terrorists “to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.”

China? Sure. Iran? Why not! North Korea? That’s a possibility too. David Glazier, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, tells Mother Jones that this was an authority that the president has had before, but only under the new NDAA is the legislation endorsed and insured that it could be applied to Americans.

“If the president could lawfully transfer a German prisoner of war to a foreign country, then in theory he could do the same thing with an American prisoner of war,” Glazier says.

Under the Feinstein Amendment imposed under NDAA FY2012, the Democratic senator from California proposed a law which would not change “existing law” with regards to detaining Americans. As Mother Jones notes, however, the jury is still out on what exactly “existing law” is when it comes to the topic, with those suspected of hostilities against America already being imprisoned without trial — citizen and otherwise. Both US-born Bradley Manning has been under military watch, isolation and torture for nearly two years, and the same has applied to a countless number of suspected terrorists at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.

Al Franken, a Democrat senator from Minnesota, wrote in an op-ed last week that the provisions put in NDAA such as Feinstein Amendment were enough for some lawmakers to sign onto the legislation, but he said the final draft was still “simply unacceptable.”

“These provisions are inconsistent with the liberties and freedoms that are at the core of the system our Founders established. And while I did in fact vote for an earlier version of the legislation, I did so with the hope that the final version would be significantly improved. That didn’t happen, and so I could not support the final bill,” wrote Franken.

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North Koreans: The Most Enslaved People On Earth

EU Times — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:58:26 +0000

Weeping for a communist dictator under threat of arrest and execution.

This is something the establishment media has completely failed to explain properly. All the video footage of weeping North Koreans stricken with grief over the death of the “dear leader” Kim Jong-Il is by no means spontaneous or natural.

It’s all part of the fun of living in a Stalinist dictatorship. If citizens do not show the appropriately sullen facial expressions, if they don’t produce tears, and if they don’t properly grieve for the dead dictator, they face imprisonment and possible execution.

Sure, some of the grief is genuine, it’s the result of a lifetime of brainwashing and the enforcement of the cult of personality. But in the most arcane and brutal police state on the planet, not being upset over Kim Jong-Il’s death could mean you’re reported as an enemy of the state by the local spy and sent to a gulag. Your entire family could also be targeted for the same treatment.

Identical scenes were witnessed after the death of the previous “dear leader,” Kim Il-sung.

Millions of North Koreans have starved to death over the past 20 years as a result of the regime’s disastrous economic policies and their refusal to accept food aid. Food is still scarce, so the fact that citizens are also handed small snacks if they attend these spectacles and put on a fake display of grief is also a massive incentive for a permanently hungry population.

North Korea is the perfect illustration of what happens when power is concentrated into the hands of the few – totalitarianism, mass starvation, economic collapse and complete enslavement.

It’s a warning the western world would do well to heed, especially in the aftermath of the passage of a law which formally opens up the chance of Americans being sent to gulags in the name of state security.

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Rumors Circulating Kim Jong-Il Was Assassinated

EU Times — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:37:08 +0000

Dictator’s death could have been result of internal power struggle with country’s military.

A prominent North Korean defector and a South Korean politician are contradicting reports that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il died of a heart attack, pointing to rumors that he was assassinated as result of an internal power struggle between the ruling Communist Workers’ Party and the country’s military.

“A rumor is circulating that earlier a high-ranking North Korean official was shot dead. This has yet to be confirmed, but such talk is evidence that discontent was brewing among some people in the North,” political scientist An Chan-il told the Korea Times.

Noting that numerous military officers were dismissed shortly after the anointment of Kim Jung-un as the Stalinist state’s next leader, An said that growing resentment within the ranks could have led to an assassination plot carried out “by those harboring discontent with the way he ruled the country.”

“As their vested interests were hurt due to Kim Jong-il, I would not rule out the possibility that some military officers, who believed their clout and influence had been damaged, could have played a role in his death,” An said.

Rep Chun Yo-ok of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) also speculated that Kim Jong-Il’s death could have been an act of “homicide,” the result of an internal power struggle.

Although the dictator has been in bad health since he reportedly suffered a stroke in August 2008, recent public appearances suggest Kim Jon-Il’s health was improving.

Rumors have long circulated that not all of the country’s military units held the slavish devotion to their “dear leader” that was portrayed by the state-run media.

As Infowars reported yesterday, strong rumors of the regime’s collapse have been circulating for over a year on the back of suspicions that Kim Jong-Il had already died. The London Telegraph questioned back in September 2010 whether a double was covering for his premature death, noting that North Korea had gone to some lengths to formally name his son, Kim Jong-un, still in his twenties, as successor in a ceremony.

Meanwhile in a related report, China has sent 2,000 PLA troops to the border with North Korea in an effort to ensure refugees do not flood across the border. 30,000 Chinese troops will be in place by the end of the month, according to a report out of Taiwan’s Central News Agency. The amount of North Koreans attempting to flee the country has surged in recent years.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-il dies

EU Times — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:39:22 +0000

North Korea, Pyongyang : North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il returns a salute to Korean People's Army soldiers marching in Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang to mark the 60th anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea, 10 October 2005.

North Korea’s veteran leader Kim Jong-il has died at the age of 69. A tearful announcer at North Korea’s state television, dressed in black, said on Monday the “Dear Leader” had died on Saturday morning of fatigue and over-work.

Kim Jong-il had been battling ailing health in recent years. It is believed he suffered a stroke in 2008.

The news has apparently shocked the people of North Korea. Kim Jong-il had ruled the country since the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, in 1994. Kim Jong-il’s youngest son, Kim Jong-un, who is in his late 20s, has officially been named as his father’s successor – that is according to Reuters, who cite the country’s Central Telegraph Agency.

Meanwhile, as the news broke, Pyongyang’s long-standing enemy, South Korea put its armed forces on high alert, while the government has declared the situation an emergency.

It is now a mystery for the world as to what is now in store for North Korea with its leader Kim Jong-il gone. However, he was no less mysterious himself while in office.

A massive military parade was held in 2008 to mark North Korea’s 60th anniversary. General Kim Jong-il was not there to greet the crowd due to health issues.

In 2003, reports claimed Kim Jong-il died of diabetes and had been replaced in public by stand-ins hired previously as a security measure.

He never spoke to the media, had a profound fear of flying, and ate with special chopsticks which could detect poison. Rumors have surrounded the so-called Supreme Leader throughout his life – beginning with his birth.

According to one source, he was born in the Soviet Union in 1941 during his father’s exile, while Kim Jong-il’s official biography claims Kim Jong-il was born during Japan’s occupation of the Korean peninsula in a secret military camp on a sacred mountain. The birth of North Korea’s second leader and the son of its Eternal President was followed, official accounts say, by the appearance of two rainbows and a new star in the heavens.

“Our people take pride in the fact that they are blessed with great leaders from generation to generation,” Yang Hyong Sop, the Vice President of North Korean Parliament has said.

The leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea since 1994, he succeeded his father Kim Il-sung and maintained the policy of keeping his country closed to the world. Kim Jong-il was also named Supreme Commander of the People’s Army, one of the largest in the world, with one million active troops and over four million reservists.

It is believed enormous funds allocated to its military might ate up North Korea’s resources needed to fight famine and other social problems. But Kim Jong-il and his regime tried to put on a different show whenever they allowed the globe a glimpse inside.

After the Korean War, the demilitarized zone was drawn up in 1953, sending North and South Korea in two very different directions. Decades on, the North remains a closed communist state, while the South is a modern democracy and innovative success story.

North Korea has caused global outrage in recent years, testing patience by carrying out underground nuclear tests and short-range missile launches, leading to US and UN financial and military sanctions.

“It is now not a matter of the United States and North Korea, it is really a matter of the region saying to North Korea that it has to change its behavior,” US Secretary of State (2005-2009) Condoleezza Rice once said.

Russia has tried to be a mediator for peace on the peninsula by pushing for negotiations.

“In the Asia-Pacific region there’s serious potential for conflict and there’s no alternative but to set up dialogue and improve understanding between the sides,” said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

In 2010, a new buzz emerged around the North with talk of the possible next leader; as Kim Jong-un became a four-star general and moved into first in line to take over from his father.

November 2010 saw tensions reach their highest point in decades after the North launched an artillery strike that left four people dead. South Korea continued to hold large-scale war games with the US and Japan, and warned conflict would break out if another attack was launched.

Now, Kim Jong-un, a young and inexperienced leader, has the keys to the country in his hands. The question is whether he will open the door or continue to keep it shut.

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Moscow faces biggest protest in years

EU Times — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 21:48:08 +0000

People walk in the city center to attend a sanctioned rally in Bolotnaya square to protest against violations at the parliamentary elections in Moscow December 10, 2011

The biggest opposition rally in recent Russian history has taken place in the capital. The protest against the results of Russia’s December 4 parliamentary election has drawn an estimated turnout of between 25,000 and 40,000.

The rally has been held on Bolotnaya Square, in Central Moscow, on December 10 between 2 pm and 6 pm.

The square is almost empty, except for media crews and a few groups of youngsters, say police.

Earlier the Interior Ministry reported around 25,000 people gathered at the scene. However opposition leaders claim up to 40,000 on the square.

Before the rally police have blocked access to the squares adjacent to the Kremlin and have restricted entry to Red Square.

Security in the capital has been stepped up with police trucks and Interior Ministry troops surrounding the scene. Moscow police say security will be tightened in the city until nightfall to prevent possible incidents.

People who came out to protest in central Moscow today were of all ages and backgrounds, reports Itar-Tass news agency. There were young people, the middle-aged and pensioners. Many came with white ribbons, balloons and flowers. Supporters of different parties and movements were present on Bolotnaya Square. Banners belonging to the liberal Yabloko party, the Communists, the “Solidarity” movement and the Russian Federation of Car-Owners could be seen.

The event has passed off peacefully, with no arrests made.

However, fire torches have been lit among the nationalist contingent at the rally. One has been thrown at the crowd. Protesters have booed the provocation and handed over some of the perpetrators to the police.

Moscow officials had previously provided protestors with a permit for a 300-strong meeting on Revolution Square, not far from the Kremlin’s walls. But as tens of thousands signed up for the event on social networks, the rally’s organizers agreed to the city’s suggestion that the rally be staged on Bolotnaya Square, which can hold a larger crowd. And is only about 2 kilometers away from the initial location.

The new venue was offered by Moscow authorities out of security considerations..

There were announcements in the Moscow Metro, and police throughout the city center were informing citizens about the change of venue.

At least five sizeable groups were redirected from Revolution Square to Bolotnaya. They were escorted by police with police helicopter monitoring the situation from the air.

The opposition demanded “the annulment of the election results and the resignation of the Central Election Commission chairman.” It also called on authorities to investigate violations and falsifications reported by election observers, and to punish those behind the irregularities.

Mass demonstrations have been held in Moscow, St. Petersburg and a number of other cities across Russia since December 5. The day after the elections, a rally was held at Chistiye Prudy, a tree-lined park in Central Moscow. According to various reports, between 2,000 to 5,000 people participated – but eventually, a group of protestors began an unsanctioned march down Myasnitskaya Street towards FSB headquarters, and as a result, more than 300 people were arrested.

On December 6, an unsanctioned opposition protest was held at Triumfalnaya Square. According to official reports, around 2,000 people gathered at the rally, and more than 300 of them were arrested – including Yabloko leader Sergey Mitrokhin, Solidarnost leader Boris Nemtsov and Other Russia leader Eduard Limonov. Meanwhile, the opposition claims there have been over 500 arrests.

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Stalin’s daughter Lana Peters dies in US of cancer

EU Times — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:57:54 +0000

Stalin's only daughter Lana Peters

The only daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin has died in the US at the age of 85.

Svetlana Alliluyeva, also known as Lana Peters, died of colon cancer at a care home in the state of Wisconsin last Tuesday, officials say.

Her defection from the Soviet Union in 1967 was a propaganda coup for the US. She wrote four books, including two best-selling memoirs.

But she said she could not escape the shadow of her father.

‘Little sparrow’

When Peters arrived in the US, she said she had come for the “self-expression that has been denied me for so long in Russia”.

She said her defection was partly motivated by the Soviet authorities’ poor treatment of Brajesh Singh, an Indian communist whom she had a relationship with.

Although she later referred to Singh as her husband, the two were never allowed to marry.

Peters went to India in 1966 to spread Singh’s ashes, but instead of returning to the Soviet Union she walked into the US embassy to seek political asylum.

She burned her passport, denouncing communism and her father, whom she called “a moral and spiritual monster”.

She graduated from Moscow University in 1949, initially working as a teacher and translator.

Peters was married three times and had two daughters and a son.

Her first memoir, Twenty Letters to a Friend, was published in 1967 and made more than $2.5m (£1.6m).

She took the name Lana Peters upon marrying architect William Wesley Peters in the US.

The couple settled in central Wisconsin and had a daughter, Olga, before divorcing in 1973.

She returned to the Soviet Union briefly in the 1980s, renouncing the US, but left again after feuding with relatives.

In an interview in 1990 with Britain’s Independent newspaper, Peters said she had no money and was living with Olga in a rented house.

Stalin, who died in 1953, is deemed responsible for the deaths of millions of his countrymen.

Peters – who was six years old when her mother took her own life – was once close to her father, who called her his “little sparrow”. But they grew distant in his final years.

He sent her first love, a Jewish filmmaker, to Siberia.

Her brother, Jacob, died in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II when her father refused to exchange him for a German general, and her other brother, Vasili, died an alcoholic, aged 40.

Lana Peters bemoaned the constant association with her father.

“People say, ‘Stalin’s daughter, Stalin’s daughter,’ meaning I’m supposed to walk around with a rifle and shoot the Americans,” she once said.

“Or they say, ‘No, she came here. She is an American citizen.’ That means I’m with a bomb against the others.

“No, I’m neither one. I’m somewhere in between.”

While Peters denounced her father’s regime, she also blamed other communist party leaders for the Soviet Union’s policy of sending millions to labour camps.

Speaking to the BBC in 1990, Peters said that life in the USSR became much easier for everyone, herself included, after Nikita Khrushchev came to power.

She revealed that Khrushchev showed her his speech to the 20th party congress in advance, so she wouldn’t be shocked. In this address, three years after Stalin’s death, Khrushchev denounced his predecessor as a brutal despot.

Interviewed in Cambridge, Peters said “When my mother left us, he [Stalin] was left completely alone. And I think what came next, in the late 30s and after the war in the 40s – I think that was a result of his complete loneliness on top of the world. Nobody would argue with him anymore.”

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South Africa at “Stage 6 Genocide”

EU Times — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 21:03:07 +0000

Genocide Watch updated its Genocide warning for South Africa on 20 Aug 2011 from 'Boer farmers' being at risk of genocide stage 5 to include all whites and women being at risk of Stage 6 genocide at the hands of "ANC Youth, black Marxist racists". It did not continue its previous stage 5 warningthat 'foreign black Africans' were also at risk. (click on the image to enlarge it)

Genocide Watch: “Julius Malema must be removed as leader of the ANC youth league… he is a violent Marxist-racist just like Winnie Mandela.” Genocide Watch updates South Africa’s whites and women (high rape rate) to Stage 6 (of the 8 stages) of genocide at the hands of ANC Youths and Black-Marxist Racists”.

Stage 6 of 8 stages of Genocide: PREPARATION: Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying symbols. Their property is expropriated. They are often segregated into ghettoes, deported into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be declared. If the political will of the great powers, regional alliances, or the U.N. Security Council can be mobilized, armed international intervention should be prepared, or heavy assistance provided to the victim group to prepare for its self-defense. Otherwise, at least humanitarian assistance should be organized by the U.N. and private relief groups for the inevitable tide of refugees to come.

7. EXTERMINATION begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called “genocide.” It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human. When it is sponsored by the state, the armed forces often work with militias to do the killing. Sometimes the genocide results in revenge killings by groups against each other, creating the downward whirlpool-like cycle of bilateral genocide (as in Burundi). At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide. Real safe areas or refugee escape corridors should be established with heavily armed international protection. (An unsafe “safe” area is worse than none at all.) The U.N. Standing High Readiness Brigade, EU Rapid Response Force, or regional forces — should be authorized to act by the U.N. Security Council if the genocide is small. For larger interventions, a multilateral force authorized by the U.N. should intervene. If the U.N. is paralyzed, regional alliances must act. It is time to recognize that the international responsibility to protect transcends the narrow interests of individual nation states. If strong nations will not provide troops to intervene directly, they should provide the airlift, equipment, and financial means necessary for regional states to intervene.

8. DENIAL is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the crimes, and continue to govern until driven from power by force, when they flee into exile. There they remain with impunity, like Pol Pot or Idi Amin, unless they are captured and a tribunal is established to try them. The response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts. There the evidence can be heard, and the perpetrators punished. Tribunals like the Yugoslav or Rwanda Tribunals, or an international tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or an International Criminal Court may not deter the worst genocidal killers. But with the political will to arrest and prosecute them, some may be brought to justice.

Dr Gregory Stanton of GenocideWatch.org has changed South Africa (and Zimbabwe) to Stage 6 of genocide – when death lists are drawn up, propaganda targetting the target-groups distributed, murder-groups are formed, armed attacks against the target-groups are starting to culminate in a full-out Genocide, and victims – (in this case more than 800,000 of the 3-million Afrikaner-whites are already living in hundreds of marginal land-sites in dismal squatter conditions) — are being forced into marginal land sites where they are denied food-aid by the regime. Stage 7 is the all-out genocide. Stage 8 is the denial of the genocide which in South Africa already occurred much earlier, during stages 4 and 5 — with the ANC-regime’s denial of its genocidal attacks against Boer farmers and its constant official attempts to hide these facts by stopping its recording these ‘farm-attacks’ in seperate categories on the official police statistics site http://www.saps.gov.za. Stanton writes: “Julius Malema must be removed as leader of the ANC youth league. He is a violent Marxist-racist. Just like Winnie Mandela.”.

Nearly 600 asylum-applications from South Africans
Legally, this designation by the world’s acknowledged expert-organisation on the process of genocide (genocide is not a singular event, it is a long-drawn out process), also means that Boers can use this status – as was already done under status 5 — to be legally admitted as ‘political refugees’ from this government-directed genocidal violence targetting them in South Africa.

Thus far 360 ‘South Africans’ have obtained political asylum in a variety of Western countries, including the USA, Canada, and Ireland. More than 200 applications also are still pending.

It also means that this fact will also be added to the two charges of genocide lodged by Boer-organisations at the International Criminal Court in The Hague in April and May this year.

Up to August 20 2011, two at-risk minority groups were listed in South Africa – the ‘Boer farmers’ and 10-million black-African Refugees. The Boers have been listed at stage 5 since 2002. On August 20 2011, this rating was changed to include ALL whites in South Africa, at risk of Genocide Stage 6. The ‘whites’ now are targetted actively ; they are being publicly demonised and identified as the ‘enemy-group’; many calls are placed in the public media calling for their mass-murders, including the murders of white babies with the song ‘One Bullet – One White Infant’. There are reports that name-lists of white local-level leaders, identified through their participation in the citizen-policing forums, are being submitted to central government agencies. ANC youths are actively engaged in planning and announcing plans to take over all the (estimated 12,000 white-owned private farms) with organised violence-driven youth groups; groups are being trained at military bases at the moment. These newly-trained (8,000-member) ANC youth league members officially are going to help carry out ‘rural census’ from early next year. The ANC-regime does not explain why it is necessary to provide military training and arms to these groups. Stage 8 is the denial of the genocide and attempts to hide it by the perpetrators.

Many of these stages blend into each other: for instance in Stage 6, the victims are also being ‘forced into marginal land-sites or camps’ where they would be left to starve. This has been happening with the whites in South Africa when they were still in Stage 5: when the ANC-regime made black-racist laws barring the Boers/Afrikaners from the entire labour market only because of their ethnicity: more than 800,000 of the 3-million Boers now languish on marginal land-sites: being denied food-aid, government benefits and denied access to the entire labour market under the ANC-regime’s sonamed ‘black economic empowerment laws’. These laws are used to ethnically-cleanse ‘whites’ from their traditional towns and smallholdings because they rapidly become empoverished and homeless.

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Maoists leader sworn in as Nepal new Prime Minister

EU Times — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:34:54 +0000

Nepal’s newly elected Maoist Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai has said he expects to complete the country’s peace process within six months.

Speaking to the BBC, Dr Bhattarai said that he hoped to lead a consensus government to break political deadlock.

Uncertainty has plagued Nepal since the end of the Maoist rebellion in 2006.

The Maoists are the largest party in parliament but left power in 2009 in a row over how many of their fighters would be integrated into the army.

Since then, Nepal has been without an effective government as politicians squabbled over who should lead the country.

Maoist vice chairman Dr Bhattarai – who was sworn in on Monday – said he believed that his party had the ability to break this deadlock.

“Being the largest party it is our legitimate right to lead the government – though we wanted to form a consensus government, we have to go through a majoritarian practice,” he said.

“Despite that, my effort will be to convert this government into a national unity government and then reach an agreement on all the major issues and complete our mission.”

Dr Bhattarai also said that tackling poverty was crucial to Nepal.

“Our country and people are very poor and [the] problem of unemployment is very acute so we should focus on giving economic relief to the masses of the people – this should be my priority.”

Dr Bhattarai said that he expected the issue of 19,000 former Maoist fighters who remain to be demobilised would be resolved within months, paving the way for agreement over a new democratic constitution.

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