In recordings released yesterday and earlier in August, Richard Clarke, the former White House Director of Counter-Terrorism alleges that top CIA officials including George Tenet intentionally withheld crucial intelligence from the FBI concerning known Al Qaeda operatives in the US before September 11 which could have possibly prevented the attacks.
This is only the most recent reason to immediately indict Tenet as he is also proven to have lied before the joint congressional inquiry after 9/11 by stating that he did not meet with Ex-President Bush in August of 2001 when CIA records later proved that they met twice; once in Crawford, Texas on August 17th and again in Washington on August 31.
The identities of other officials involved in the coverup include Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, the current Director of the CIA Global Jihad Unit, CTC Director J. Cofer Black and Richard Blee of Alec Station.
Holding a top U.S.A. intelligence position does not give anyone the right to purger themselves in congressional hearings. These actions classify as obstruction of justice and need to be brought to national attention and courts immediately.
Sources: CSPAN | George Tenet Lied Before The 9/11 Commission | www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF_Y4oRsDqE
TORONTO – They’re talking Turkish at the Cheese Boutique this week. Toronto’s iconic cheese shop in the city’s west-end celebrates the foods of the Turkish and Ottoman Palace with the help of three acclaimed chefs from the landmark Ciragan Palace Kempinski Hotel in Istanbul, who will be showcasing their talents in a series of cooking demonstrations and food dishes that promises to be one of the best culinary experiences to come to the city.
The event is taking place all week to Sept. 26 and features cooking classes with the George Brown culinary students and a special evening gala. Plus this coming Sat. Sept. 24 Cheese Boutique will be celebrating all things Turkish with specialty foods and appearances from the chefs to offer a true gourmand experience for everyone.
The three chefs are famous for their work with the Ciragan Hotel Ottoman Palace, the only Ottoman Imperial Palace and hotel by the Bosphorus (known as the Istanbul Strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia). It’s considered one of the most prestigious hotels in the world that has hosted countless eminent figures including heads of state, royalty, artists and such celebrities as the late Luciano Pavarotti, Robert De Niro, Ray Charles, Sophia Loren and Oprah Winfrey to name a few.
The chefs — Hasan Hüseyin Bozkurt, Eray Erdogan and Ahmet Kara — will be presenting some of the finest dishes from the hotel, including the hotel’s award-winning Tugra Restaurant , which serves the best of traditional and modern Turkish and Ottoman cuisine in dinners.
US proposal to build a nuclear power plant would be considered: Turkish Energy minister
AFP
Turkey’s energy minister said Monday Ankara would consider a proposal from the United States to build a nuclear power plant in the country’s north.
“If a proposal comes from the United States, we could evaluate it but so far, no concrete proposal has been made to us,” Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told reporters.
Turkey reached an agreement with Russia in May 2010 to build Turkey’s first nuclear plant in Akkuyu in Mersin province, in the south.
In December, Turkey and Japan also signed a memorandum on civil nuclear cooperation, a step towards a possible $20-billion deal for Japanese companies to build a nuclear plant at Sinop, on Turkey’s Black Sea coast.
Yildiz said Turkey wanted to hear the same political will from Japan after the latter’s prime minister changed.
“I can say we are negotiating with different countries and different companies in order to generate alternative solutions in case Japan is unable to carry on with us,” Yildiz said.
The minister declined to name which countries or firms Turkey was negotiating with but said everything would be clarified by the end of October.
He repeated the Turkish government’s insistence to press ahead with plans to build its first nuclear power plant amid concerns raised by Japan’s nuclear disaster.
“There is a logic to our determination,” said Yildiz. “We want to minimise our dependence on energy imports.”
via Turkey would consider US proposal for nuclear power plant – Region – World – Ahram Online.
ISTANBUL—The U.S. is seeking to triple trade with Turkey over the next five to six years, the U.S.’s undersecretary of state for trade and commerce, Francisco Sanchez, said Monday, underlining Washington’s commitment to anchor an increasingly assertive ally at odds over Israel.
Speaking at a news conference in Istanbul after attending the inaugural meeting of the Turkey-U.S. business council, an advisory group to boost commercial ties, Mr. Sanchez said business links between Washington and Ankara had “never been better,” singling out Turkey’s energy sector as a potential target for future U.S. investment.
“I’d like to see us triple [trade] in the next five or six years. I think it’s very doable,” Mr. Sanchez said, adding that “I don’t believe any two partners will ever agree 100% on everything. The key is to look at how we manage those differences.”
The business council was launched in part out of recognition that for strategic allies, the two nations had relatively weak trade ties. But data show that trade between the U.S. and fast-growing Turkey has begun to strengthen. In 2010 bilateral trade swelled to a record $15 billion, while the first seven months of this year have already seen $12 billion in trade volumes, Mr. Sanchez said. Turkey’s economy expanded 11% in the first half of 2011 compared with a year earlier, outstripping China to post the fastest growth of any G-20 economy.
The call for strengthening commercial ties comes at a politically sensitive moment for the longtime allies, who wield the two largest militaries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Diplomatic tensions have escalated rapidly between Turkey and Israel—Washington’s closest partners in the region—most recently over Israel’s refusal to apologize for an operation to board a Gaza-bound ship last year that killed nine activists, eight of whom were Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American. Ankara expelled top Israeli diplomats, cut military ties and vowed to send navy vessels to escort aid ships in the future.
That has coincided with Turkey showing signs of trading its vaunted “zero problems with neighbors” foreign policy for a more muscular approach, bidding to become the leading power in the Middle East and North Africa.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set similar goals to boost trade with partners around the Middle East. Last week he pledged in Cairo to triple trade and investment with Egypt, after signing ambitious, if largely political, energy agreements.
The U.S.’s Mr. Sanchez acknowledged that political challenges could burden efforts to boost commercial ties, but stressed that the importance of the relationship for both parties meant solutions could be found.
“There is no challenge that can overcome the importance of this relationship. You can see it in the numbers; we have a growing and vibrant relationship. This relationship is too important and too valuable to the U.S. and Turkey,” the undersecretary said.
The potential for such challenges was on display Monday as U.S. company Noble Engineering Inc. began exploratory drilling for gas off the southern coast of divided Cyprus, ignoring Turkish warnings that it would retaliate by launching its own explorations in the eastern Mediterranean.
Mr. Sanchez wouldn’t comment on the Texas-based company’s operations, and brushed off questions over how the U.S.’s fast-sinking popularity in Turkey could hamstring its efforts to boost business collaboration, stressing that the commercial objectives of the allies were aligned.
The latest global poll by the Pew Research Center in May showed that the lowest approval rating for the U.S. of six Muslim nations surveyed was in Turkey—at just 10%, down from 17% last year. U.S. President Barack Obama didn’t fare much better, with only 12% of Turks expressing confidence for the U.S leader, against 73% who didn’t.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation employs upwards of 15,000 undercover agents today, ten times what they had on the roster back in 1975.
If you think that’s a few spies too many — spies earning as much as $100,000 per assignment — one doesn’t have to go too deep into their track record to see their accomplishments. Those agents are responsible for an overwhelming amount of terrorist stings that have stopped major domestic catastrophes in the vein of 9/11 from happening on American soil.
Another thing those agents are responsible for, however, is plotting those very schemes.
The FBI has in recent years used trained informants not just to snitch on suspected terrorists, but to set them up from the get-go. A recent report put together by Mother Jones and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkley analyses some striking statistics about the role of FBI informants in terrorism cases that the Bureau has targeted in the decade since the September 11 attacks.
The report reveals that the FBI regularly infiltrates communities where they suspect terrorist-minded individuals to be engaging with others. Regardless of their intentions, agents are sent in to converse within the community, find suspects that could potentially carry out “lone wolf” attacks and then, more or less, encourage them to do so. By providing weaponry, funds and a plan, FBI-directed agents will encourage otherwise-unwilling participants to plot out terrorist attacks, only to bust them before any events fully materialize.
Additionally, one former high-level FBI officials speaking to Mother Jones says that, for every informant officially employed by the bureau, up to three unofficial agents are working undercover.
The FBI has used those informants to set-up and thus shut-down several of the more high profile would-be attacks in recent years. The report reveals that the Washington DC Metro bombing plot, the New York City subway plot, the attempt to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower and dozens more were all orchestrated by FBI agents. In fact, reads the report, only three of the more well-known terror plots of the last decade weren’t orchestrated by FBI-involved agents.
The report reveals that in many of the stings, important meetings between informants and the unknowing participants are left purposely unrecorded, as to avoid any entrapment charges that could cause the case to be dismissed. Perhaps the most high-profile of the FBI-proposed plots was the case of the Newburgh 4. Around an hour outside of New York City, an informant infiltrated a Muslim community and engaged four local men to carry out a series of attacks. Those men may have never actually carried out an attack, but once the informant offered them a plot and a pair of missiles, they agreed. Defense attorneys cried “entrapment,” but the men still were sentenced to 25 years apiece.
“The problem with the cases we’re talking about is that defendants would not have done anything if not kicked in the ass by government agents,”Martin Stolar tells Mother Jones. Stolar represented the suspect involved in a New York City bombing plot that was set-up by FBI agents. “They’re creating crimes to solve crimes so they can claim a victory in the war on terror.”For their part, the FBI says this method is a plan for “preemption,” “prevention” and “disruption.”
The report also reveals that, of the 500-plus prosecutions of terrorism-related cases they analyzed, nearly half of them involved the use of informants, many of whom worked for the FBI in exchange for money or to work off criminal charges. Of the 158 prosecutions carried out, 49 defendants participated in plots that agent provocateurs arranged on behalf of the FBI.
Experts note that the chance of winning a terrorism-related trial, entrapment or not, is near impossible. “The plots people are accused of being part of — attacking subway systems or trying to bomb a building — are so frightening that they can overwhelm a jury,” David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor, tells Mother Jones. Since 9/11, almost two-thirds of the cases linked to terrorism have ended with guilty pleas. “They don’t say, ‘I’ve been entrapped,’ or, ‘I was immature,’” a retired FBI official remarks.
All of this and those guilty pleas often stem for just being in the right place at the wrong time. Farhana Khera of the group Muslim Advocate notes that agents go into mosques on “fishing expeditions” just to see where they can get interest in the community. “The FBI is now telling agents they can go into houses of worship without probable cause,” says Khera.“That raises serious constitutional issues.”
From the set-up to the big finish, the whole sting operation is ripe with constitutional issues such as that. A decade since 9/11, however, the FBI is reaching through whatever means it can pull together to keep terrorists — or whom they think could someday become one — from ever hurting America.
A health risk? America's National Toxicology Program says both 2-MI and 4-MI found in Coke are animal carcinogens
An ingredient used in Coca-Cola and Pepsi is a cancer risk and should be banned, an influential lobby group has claimed.
The concerns relate to an artificial brown colouring agent that the researchers say could be causing thousands of cancers.
‘The caramel colouring used in Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other foods is contaminated with two cancer-causing chemicals and should be banned,’ said the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a health lobby group based in Washington, DC.
‘In contrast to the caramel one might make at home by melting sugar in a saucepan, the artificial brown colouring in colas and some other products is made by reacting sugars with ammonia and sulphites under high pressure and temperatures.
‘Chemical reactions result in the formation of two substances known as 2-MI and 4-MI which in government-conducted studies caused lung, liver, or thyroid cancer or leukaemia in laboratory mice or rats.’
America’s National Toxicology Program says that there is ‘clear evidence’ that both 2-MI and 4-MI are animal carcinogens, and therefore likely to pose a risk to humans.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found significant levels of 4-MI in five brands of cola.
The executive director of the CSPI, Michael F Jacobson, has petitioned America’s food regulator, the Food & Drug Administration, to take action.He said: ‘Carcinogenic colourings have no place in the food supply, especially considering that their only function is a cosmetic one.’
Mr Jacobson said the name ‘caramel colouring’ does not accurately describe the additives, explaining: ‘It’s a concentrated dark brown mixture of chemicals that simply does not occur in nature.’
Popular drink: The Beatles drinking bottles of coca cola in Paris in 1964. Scientists say its 'caramel colour' is a mixture of chemicals that does not occur in nature
He added that while regular caramel could not be described as healthy, ‘at least it is not tainted with carcinogens’.
U.S. regulations distinguish between four types of caramel colouring, two of which are produced with ammonia and two without it. The CSPI wants the two made with ammonia to be banned and has received backing from five prominent cancer experts, including several who have worked at the National Toxicology Program.
The type used in colas and other dark soft drinks is known as Caramel IV, or ammonia sulphite process caramel. Caramel III, which is produced with ammonia but not sulphites, is sometimes used in beer, soy sauce, and other foods.
The CSPI admitted that any risk associated with consumption of the chemicals would be extremely small. It said the ten teaspoons of sugar found in a can of regular cola would be more of a health problem.
However, it argued the levels of 4-MI in the tested colas still may be causing thousands of cancers in the U.S. population alone.
Earlier this week, it was claimed that Coca-Cola’s secret recipe had been leaked. It was even suggested it might be possible to recreate the taste and look on the kitchen table.
The leak claims were denied by the company, where a spokesman said: ‘Many third parties have tried to crack our secret formula. Try as they might, they’ve been unsuccessful because there is only one “Real Thing”.’
Coca-Cola and Pepsi did not respond to a request for a response to the CSPI claims.
This morning Coca-Cola rejected the CSPI’s concerns.
A spokesman said: ‘Our beverages are completely safe. CSPI’s statement irresponsibly insinuates that the caramel used in our beverages is unsafe and
maliciously raises cancer concerns among consumers.
‘This does a disservice to the very public for which CSPI purports to serve.
‘Studies show that the caramel we use does not cause cancer.’
The company said its drinks do not contain 2-MEI. It said they do contain 4-MEI in trace amounts.
It said: ‘These extrapolations by CSPI to human health and cancer are totally unfounded.’
In recordings released yesterday and earlier in August, Richard Clarke, the former White House Director of Counter-Terrorism alleges that top CIA officials including George Tenet intentionally withheld crucial intelligence from the FBI concerning known Al Qaeda operatives in the US before September 11 which could have possibly prevented the attacks.
