Alien Found In Brazil

As biologically diverse as the Amazon is, this peculiar creature would not appear to be a natural inhabitant of the Brazilian jungle or, indeed, Earth for that matter. Standing just a few feet from a mesmerizing flashing light, this unidentified being could offer proof that we are not alone in the universe.

The image comes from a video obtained by noted paranormal writer Michael Cohen and is claimed to have been filmed by two British tourists visiting the Mamaus region of the Amazon.

While the camera is focused on some young children, seen in the distance behind them is a silvery light. However, it is only when the eyes are diverted to the surrounding jungle does it become apparent that there is a small being standing side-on just to the right of a tree, appearing to arch its back. It is the 'unmistakable' form of an 'alien'. No explanation is offered as to what the light may be.

While for many the images can simply be dismissed as a well-executed hoax, Mr Cohen, who runs the noted paranormal website allnewsweb.com, suggests the photos go some way to proving the existence of aliens. He said: 'This is highly compelling footage that will be hard to discredit.'

'The area was also the focus of a high-level Brazilian government investigation known as Operation Prato, where the army was sent in to monitor and confirm an alien presence in the region. It comes from an area known for experiencing intense UFO activity. It is rather apparent that aliens are interested in this region due to its biological diversity.'

He said the Brazilian government denied there was an Operation Prato for years before conceding it did occur and released large amounts of files associated with it.

Here is the video. 

The truth is out there.

Think Different, Be Different

Narrated by Steve Jobs. Think different, be different. Be a rebel, be a troublemaker. Be crazy.

The Death Of An Icon

Rest in peace Steve Jobs. You will be missed. Dear readers, stay hungry, stay foolish. 

Strange Clouds

Are you ready for the beginning of the end? The truth is coming. We're running out of time.

Noose Tightens In French Defense Scandal

After years of inaction and coverup, details are emerging in France of the sale of armaments by the French state-owned defense contractor DCNS to countries across the world including Pakistan, Malaysia, Chile, India, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia, with bribes and kickbacks built into DCNS’s budget, ensnaring politicians across the globe. 

Allegations involving DCNS, formerly known as DCN, range from murder to bribery and corruption and go from defense procurement officials in each of those countries to some of the top politicians in France.

Under the French legal system, prosecutors under the control of the Ministry of Justice must make a preliminary enquiry, during which no one has access to the files, so that any information the police have obtained cannot be shared. The prosecutors have been stymied for years by the ministry. However, investigators appear to be losing their awe of politicians all the way up to President Nicholas Sarkozy.

In September, for instance, Nicholas Bazire, 54, the best man at Sarkozy’s wedding to supermodel Carla Bruni, was arrested and charged with misuse of public funds in the 1995 presidential campaign of Edouard Balladur. Sarkozy was Balladur’s campaign spokesman and budget minister at the time. Another friend, Thierry Gaubert, Sarkozy’s cabinet chief when he was budget and communication minister, was arrested earlier. Sarkozy is seeking avoid the appointment of an instruction judge in an effort to keep the cases under control. But the political knives may be out for Sarkozy.

That increases the chances that investigating judges will allow prosecutors a more detailed look at DCNS’s books to probe kickbacks in Pakistan, where 11 French submarine engineers were killed in a bomb attack, and Taiwan, where a number of murders and suicides have been recorded in connection with the sale of frigates to Taiwan’s navy.

William Bourdon, the leader of a three-lawyer team investigating Malaysia’s US$1 billion purchase of submarines from DCNS for the Malaysian reform organization Suaram, earlier told Asia Sentinel he hoped his team would have access to the files by October. Bourdon was summarily deported from Malaysia in July after giving a speech in Penang describing some of the details of the allegations.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was defense minister at a time when Malaysia bought two Scorpene-class submarines from DCNS. Included in the transaction was a €114 million commission paid to Perimekar Sdn Bhd, a company owned by Najib’s close friend, Abdul Razak Baginda. The transaction has been mired in controversy since 2006, when Altantuya Shaariibuu, a party girl and translator ostensibly hired to help in the contract, was murdered after demanding US$500,000 from Razak Baginda, her jilted lover, for unspecified reasons. Razak Baginda was acquitted of her murder under unusual circumstances without having to provide a defense. Two of Najib’s police bodyguards were convicted and sentenced to death. They have appealed the verdict.

Joseph Breham, a lawyer with Solicitors International Human Rights Group and a member of Bourdon’s team, said in London last week that DCNS often budgeted as much as 8 to 12 percent of its total receipts as "commissions" paid to grease sales of armaments in third-world countries. Breham’s speech was reported for the Malaysia website Malaysiakini by Miriam Mokhtar.

Malaysia bought two Scorpene submarines from DCNS for about US$1 billion and leased a third from a DCNS subsidiary for training. Of that, the €114 commission was paid to Razak Baginda’s company, Perimekar Sdn Bhd.

Breham said Razak Baginda’s company Perimekar had received the commission for "supporting the contract," which he said was a euphemism for unexplained costs, and also for "housing the crew" of the submarines in France. Perimekar was wholly owned by another company, KS Ombak Laut Sdn Bhd, which in turn was also controlled by Razak Baginda. His wife Mazalinda, a lawyer and former magistrate, was the principal shareholder, according to the French lawyers.

Breham questioned why such vast sums could be paid to Razak Baginda’s company. The €114 million obtained by Ombak Laut, he said, was more than the amount paid by France to all of its primary school teachers for a year. He also revealed that DCNS’s former finance director had written memos in which he alleged that €31 million of the €114 million had been used for "commercial engineering", a term Breham said had no legal meaning.

Breham said that in France, before 2002, any money used to bribe foreign officials was tax deductible. When the former finance director of DCN made a claim for the €31million allegedly used to bribe the Malaysians for the purchase of the Scorpenes, the Minister of Budget questioned such a large bribe, although he did eventually authorize the tax break.

The French lawyer mentioned a possible third commission, which arose because of the different mechanisms that enabled the submarines to operate. The Malaysian submarines had to be modified to operate in tropical waters, he said, which required altering the technical specifications. A variation order was made which incurred a further US$2.5 million. Breham concluded that the only doubt about the €114 million payment, which is reflected in Perimekar's financial statements, was whether the payment was for valid reasons or unethical ones.

The sticking-point for DCNS is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, signed by all 34 members of the OECD including France in 1997. The convention establishes legally binding standards to criminalize bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions and provides for a host of related measures that make this effective. Thus the alleged bribery by a French company of Malaysian officials became an offense under French law.

In April 2010, the lawyers, acting for Suaram filed a 'plainte avec constitution de partie civile' complaint, which is a criminal prosecution with a concurrent independent action for civil damages. That would mean there would be two trials, one a criminal trial and the second a civil trial for compensation.

This has two great advantages, Breham said. First, an independent instruction judge is appointed for the civil case. Second, Suaram becomes a party to the case, at which point the legal team, acting for Suaram, can then have access to all the files about the case and can ask questions of the instruction judge and request that he investigates on its behalf.

There is a huge struggle in France between the prosecution and the instruction judge. Breham says that unlike a prosecutor, this independent judge has investigative powers to subpoena officials from DCN, and access documents in the DCN offices to obtain evidence of commissions. The judge can also request "mutual criminal assistance" from the Malaysian authorities for purposes of information and cooperation. So far, there is no indication that Malaysian officials intend to cooperate. 


The official report can be found here.

The truth is out there.

Obama's Emergency 2012 Broadcast

This is a dramatization of the event that is heading our way. Actual broadcast will be made upon the realization of the event.

Do try to watch the movie "2012". All the signs of that leads to the apocalyptic 2012 in the movie is now happening all around us. Open your eyes and see for yourself. Stay tuned. The truth is out there.

Palestine

President Barack Obama's speech to the UN sounded disturbingly similar to Texas Governor Rick Perry's speech to Pro-Israel right-wingers one day earlier.

President Barack Obama's speech to the UN General Assembly succeeded in making clear why the Palestinians had no other choice but to take their statehood bid to the UN and why the United States can no longer pretend to be an "honest broker" in the conflict.

For the first time since the UN conferred statehood on Israel 63 years ago, the sitting US president told the world body that the United States will back Israel, right or wrong. The president's speech was so one-sided, in fact, that he sounded a lot like Texas Governor Rick Perry, who gave a similar speech to a group of "pro-Israel" right-wingers one day earlier. Perry is not the president, so his speech was different, except for the motivation, which was same.

Both speeches were standard "pro-Israel" bloviating, but Perry gave his on the campaign trail and not in front of the entire world. (I hesitate to call a speech opposing Palestinian statehood "pro-Israel" when the latest comprehensive poll on the subject says that 70 per cent of Israelis say Israel should support the UN's decision if statehood is granted.)

The very best explanation of what Obama did at the United Nations came from Daniel Levy, a Brit who moved to Israel right out of college 18 years ago.

"There is virtually no thread of reason running between the way he [Obama] related to the rest of the world and its developments, particularly in the Middle East, and the positions he espoused on Israel-Palestine - a conflict apparently occurring on another planet," said Levy, co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation.

"Palestinian freedoms, rights and self-determination are somehow supposed to be attained without the recourse to leverage, international law or meaningful international support, considered to be necessary and legitimate virtually everywhere else."

"Palestinian freedoms, rights and self-determination are somehow supposed to be attained without the recourse to leverage, international law or meaningful international support."

- Daniel Levy, co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation

Of course, there is one "thread", although it is not of "reason".

Every word in Obama's speech was designed not to advance a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but to keep single-issue donors and, to a lesser extent, single-issue voters in his camp for the 2012 election.

Not a week goes by without the Obama team sending emails out to people it deems Israel voters to remind them of all the wonderful things this president has done for Israel. One recently was dedicated to citing quotes from Prime Minister Netanyahu praising Obama - the first time I can remember that a president sought to validate himself by citing the praise of a foreign leader.

Obama isn't lying about his "pro-Israel" record, however. This administration has been the most one-sided supporter of everything Israel asks for since 1948. There is no competition. Not even George W Bush comes close.

Most pro-Israel president ever

When the Israelis, following Obama's election, asked Bush to give Israel permission to bomb Iran, he said no, despite his vice president and neoconservative aides pushing the Israeli position hard. Bush also did more than Obama to advance the peace process that the Israeli right hates so much, convening an international summit at Aqaba and being the first president to say, in unambiguous terms, that the United States supports "two states, living side by side in peace and security".

On Israel, Obama is to the right of Bush, to the right of Reagan, and certainly to the right of Clinton. On Israel and Palestine, Barack Obama is Rick Perry.

Of course, Obama's outrageous surrender to Netanyahu still won't impress the Israel-Firsters. They have despised him from day one, for all kinds of reasons, and predictably condemned the speech. Meanwhile, Israel's thuggish far-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, told reporters that: "I am ready to sign on this speech with both hands."

Avigdor Lieberman, a right-wing Israeli politician, could have written Obama's speech. Lieberman is telling the truth - he could have written Obama's speech - and the neocons are lying. But neocons are adherents of the Sen Mitch McConnell (R-KY) school: They have only one goal, which is to defeat this president. And although privately they celebrate their amazing success at intimidating Obama into submission, publicly they denounce him and send scary emails to senior citizens in Florida and New Jersey warning them that Obama wants to destroy Israel.

But these speeches and love-ins with Netanyahu accomplish nothing for Obama. The single-issue Israel voters and donors (three per cent of the Jewish community) will take their money and votes elsewhere.

And Netanyahu will, working from Jerusalem, do everything he can to help the Republicans win the next election. It's almost funny how these people would exchange the person who is the most "pro-Israel" president ever (looking at it from their "maintain-the-occupation-at-all-costs" vantage point) for an unknown quantity like Perry or Romney. After all, a Republican whose main constituency is Wall Street would likely turn out to approach Israel with more scepticism than Obama does.

But it's a game. Netanyahu and the lobby want to defeat Obama to demonstrate, yet again, who calls the shots on US Middle East policy.

But forget the campaign for a moment - which is what Obama should have done when addressing the UN The president's speech was an embarrassing disaster. Since 2009, 1,600 Palestinians (overwhelmingly civilians and over 400 children) have been killed by the Israeli army.

Thirteen Israelis have been killed over the same period. Despite that, Obama devoted 120 words of his speech to Israeli suffering (even going so far as to cite the Holocaust) and not one word to Palestinian suffering.

Example: An Australian newspaper reports on a new film about the tragedy of Palestinian women in Gaza (under full Israeli blockade) who are suffering with breast cancer but are not permitted by Israel to leave Gaza for treatment. (They used to go to Israeli hospitals or hospitals in the Arab states and Europe.) Nor does Israel permit the import of the radioactive isotopes used to treat breast cancers. So they die.

One could go on and on about the horrors of the occupation but it won't matter to the politicians who determine US foreign policy. They know which side their bread is buttered on, as Obama demonstrated at the UN this week.

Time for a new broker

But, I'm surprised to say, Obama did Palestinians and the 70 per cent of Israelis who support statehood a big favour. By demonstrating that the United States refuses to play the role of "honest broker" and by telling the UN that we are Israel and Israel is us, the United States is yielding the role of Middle East peacemaker to others.

The French, Turks, Indians, Brazilians, Chinese, South Africans, and Russians don't agree on much. But they do agree on the urgency of the creation of a Palestinian state in the areas occupied in 1967. And they agree that the United States, no longer the superpower it once was, should move over and let countries not fully invested in one side play a more constructive role.

Those who wonder how these "other countries" could exert the leadership the US has abdicated might consider the issue of economics, trade, etc. Israel does not live on an island with the United States. It is part of the world and not even the United States and the $3.5bn it hands over to Israel each year (no strings attached) can save Israel if the rest of the world says "enough".

Obama has chosen to abdicate. The rest of the world is eager to step up.

And that is why I have no doubt that the state of Palestine was created this week at the United Nations. By opting out, Obama did a tremendous favour to Palestinians and Israelis both. Palestinians will have their fully sovereign, contiguous state. And the Jewish state of Israel will finally be secure.

As Israelis like to say, "yhiyeh tov". Or as Arabs say, "insha'Allah khair". Everything will be fine.

- MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network.