Ambassador: Al-Qaeda Probably Has U.S. Weaponry

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WASHINGTON – Robert S. Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, says it’s possible that arms and munitions paid for by the United States are finding their way into al-Qaeda hands in Syria.

It was at a panel discussion held by the Middle East Institute in Washington that he declared, “We strongly, strongly, strongly support the efforts of the Syrian opposition coalition to develop its organization….we think they are absolutely…they are a legitimate representative of the Syrian peoples’ aspiration and we will work with them, we will cooperate with them.”

But there has been evidence of growing activity by al-Qaida and Islamic extremist elements inside Syria as part of that opposition coalition, officials note. And they may be getting some of the military supplies.

Ford acknowledged that there is no way to be able to track the destinations of all of the weapons help that is going into the region, and it’s possible al-Qaeda – or other anti-American jihadist groups – could be collecting some.

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UK Doctor’s Horrifying Admission Reveals How Sick & Disabled Babies Are Put on ‘Death Pathways’, Deprived of Food & Fluid for 10 Days

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Sick children and even disabled newborn babies, are reportedly being discharged from NHS hospitals in England only to die slowly at home or in hospices in an unfathomable manner. The innocent children are being put on controversial “death pathways,” once only thought to have involved elderly and terminally ill adult patients.

The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), an organization that facilitates end-of-life treatment, is behind the inhumane program. The Daily Mail has learned the process of “withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.” In other words, patients — young and old — are slowly starved and dehydrated to death.

One doctor, acting as a whistle blower, admitted to starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in the neonatal unit of one hospital in a leading medical journal. The doctor describes it as a 10-day process, during which the baby becomes “smaller an shrunken.”

Roughly 130,000 elderly and terminally ill patients reportedly die on the Liverpool Care Pathway, or “death pathways.” LCP is now being independently investigated at the orders of ministers in England.

The Daily Mail has more details on this tragic story:

“The investigation, which will include child patients, will look at whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions. Medical critics of the LCP insist it is impossible to say when a patient will die and as a result the LCP death becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They say it is a form of euthanasia, used to clear hospital beds and save the NHS money.”

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Islamist-Dominated Egypt Panel Hastily Approves Draft Constitution Without Input From Liberal & Christian Members

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CAIRO (AP) — Islamists approved a draft constitution for Egypt early Friday without the participation of liberal and Christian members, seeking to pre-empt a court ruling that could dissolve their panel with a rushed, marathon vote that further inflames the clash between the opposition and President Mohammed Morsi.

The move advanced a charter with an Islamist bent that rights experts say could give Muslim clerics oversight over legislation and bring restrictions on freedom of speech, women’s rights and other liberties.

The draft must now be put to a nationwide referendum within 30 days. Morsi said Thursday it will be held “soon.”

The Islamist-dominated assembly that has been working on the constitution for months raced to pass it, voting article by article on the draft’s more than 230 articles for more than 16 hours. The lack of inclusion was on display in the nationally televised gathering: Of the 85 members in attendance, there was not a single Christian and only four women, all Islamists. Many of the men wore beards, the hallmark of Muslim conservatives.

For weeks, liberal, secular and Christian members, already a minority on the 100-member panel, have been withdrawing to protest what they call the Islamists’ hijacking of the process.

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U.N. Votes to Recognize Palestine

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UNITED NATIONS — The General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Thursday to grant Palestinians limited recognition of statehood, prompting exuberant celebrations across the West Bank and Gaza Strip and immediate condemnations from the United States and Israel.

The 193-member U.N. body voted 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions, to recognize Palestine as a “non-member observer state,” a status that falls well short of independence but provides Palestinians with limited privileges as a state, including the right to join the International Criminal Court and other international treaty bodies.

Speaking before the vote, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the U.N. actions offered the only means to salvage a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We did not come here to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel,” he said. “Rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of a state that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine.”

But the United States and Israel said the Palestinian bid would complicate efforts to restart stalled Middle East peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement accusing Abbas of having “violated the agreements” between the two sides, and pledging that “Israel will act accordingly.”

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Russian Mafia Whistleblower Found Dead

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photo credit: sergio vassio

WEYBRIDGE/LONDON – A Russian businessman helping Swiss prosecutors to uncover a powerful fraud syndicate has died in unexplained circumstances near his mansion in Britain, in a twist to a Russian mafia scandal that has strained Moscow’s ties with the West.

Alexander Perepilichny, 44, sought refuge in Britain three years ago and had been helping a Swiss investigation into a Russian money-laundering scheme by providing evidence against corrupt officials, his colleagues and media reports said.

He has also provided evidence against those linked to the 2009 death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, a case that caused an international outcry and prompted the US to push for a bill cracking down on Russian corruption.

Perepilichny, a Russian citizen, collapsed and died not far from his home on an upmarket, heavily protected estate in the county of Surrey, south of London, on November 10.

He is now the fourth person linked to the Magnitsky case to have died in strange circumstances.

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Photos: Secret Plant Feeding Iran Nuke Plans: Sources Confirm Facilities ‘Actively Engaged in Weaponization’

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Just as the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report increased alarm about Iran’s illicit nuclear program, now comes word that the Islamic regime has created even more secret nuclear sites.

The IAEA report indicated that not only has Iran completed installation of 2,784 centrifuges at Fordow, the previous secret site deep in a mountain believed to be immune to air strikes, but also could within days increase output of highly enriched uranium to the 20-percent level, well on the way to nuclear weapons.

Iran has started to feed uranium hexafluoride gas into four new cascades, increasing the number of centrifuges at Fordow from 700 to 1,400, therefore doubling its output of highly enriched uranium and cutting the time needed for having enough high-enriched material for one nuclear bomb. The regime already has enough low-enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs if further enriched.

However, according to a source within the engineering department of the Revolutionary Guards, the regime is working on its nuclear bomb program from several secret sites unknown to the world.

One such site, the source said, is in the outskirts of the small city of Shahrokhabad in Kerman Province.

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UK Millionaires Flee Country Over Tax Hikes, British Treasury Loses Billions

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Shortly after the United Kingdom’s latest big tax hike, Great Britain’s millionaires started voting with their feet. And the result hasn’t been pretty for the British treasury.

Raising the country’s top income tax rate to 50 percent has cost the UK 7 billion pounds — about $11.2 billion — since 2010, according to London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, as wealthy taxpayers have intentionally worked less, deferred income to future years, moved their earnings overseas or left the country entirely.

Whatever the reason, the British treasury has been the big loser.

“Tax paid by the top earners fell from 13.4 billion pounds before the top tax rate came in to 6.5 billion pounds in 2010/11,” The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown pushed the tax increase through Parliament before the 2010 elections swept his liberal Labour Party from power. During the 2009-2010 tax year, more than 16,000 Britons claimed annual incomes of more than 1 million pounds. After the tax increase, that number plunged to just 6,000.

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Forget Spain, Now Italy Seen As Needing Bailout

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Even as markets have been focused on a potential bailout for Spain, analysts say Italy, which is heading for a protracted recession, may also need aid in 2013.

Although Mario Monti’s technocrat government forecasts the Italian economy will decline only marginally in 2013, analysts at Citi predict a steeper contraction of 1.4 percent, after a 2.3 percent fall this year. Meanwhile, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development lowered its 2013 estimate for Italy on Tuesday to a one percent contraction.

On top of the economic weakness is growing political uncertainty. Monti’s term ends next year and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has lashed out at the government’s austerity measures, has hinted he may run for election again.

“We still see as our baseline scenario that Italy will likely be forced to ask for an international bailout at some point in 2013,” said Citi Analyst Giada Giani in a report on the country.

“Italian economic fundamentals have not really improved, despite some improvement in market conditions. The negative feedbacks from fiscal austerity on growth have been severe, as the ability of the private sector to absorb fiscal tightening by lowering its saving rate is limited.”

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Treaty Threatens U.S. Sovereignty

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WASHINGTON – Former Sen. Rick Santorum, a former GOP presidential candidate and the father of a handicapped child, joined Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, in denouncing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, saying it would open a “Pandora’s box” of legal interpretations resulting in a “direct assault on us and our families.”

In a press conference on Capitol Hill Monday, both Santorum and Lee said Articles 4 and 7 of the convention, which reference the rights of disabled children, represent a threat to both national sovereignty and the rights of families to make decisions on how to raise their own children.

“Our concerns with this convention have nothing to do with a lack of concern with the rights of persons with disabilities,” said Lee. “They have everything to do with protecting national sovereignty, protecting the interests of parents … and the interests of families.”

Article 4 of the convention compels member states to embrace “economic, cultural and social rights” that are rooted in the concept that government creates rights, as contrasted with the uniquely American view that rights are inalienable and God-given.

This is, Lee explains, “unknown in our legal system” as it presupposes that the state, not God, is the origin, of our rights.

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U.S. Treasury Declines to Name China Currency Manipulator

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China isn’t a currency manipulator under U.S. law, though the yuan “remains significantly undervalued” and needs to rise further, the Treasury Department said.

China “has substantially reduced the level of official intervention in exchange markets since the third quarter of 2011,” the Treasury said in a statement accompanying its semi- annual currency report to Congress yesterday. The yuan has gained 9.3 percent in nominal terms and 12.6 percent in real terms against the dollar since June 2010, the Treasury said.

“It appears that the strategy of the last two administrations to use diplomacy rather than confrontation in dealing with the yuan’s value is having some positive results,” William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, a Washington-based business group, said in an e-mail after the report. “There is clearly room for further appreciation, however.”

In declining to brand China a manipulator, the Treasury cited the reduced intervention and “steps to liberalize controls on capital movements, as part of a broader plan to move to a more flexible exchange-rate regime.” The U.S. hasn’t designated another nation since 1994, when it named China.

Critics of China’s exchange-rate policies, including former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, say the nation deliberately suppresses the value of its currency, making its goods cheaper in overseas markets and costing jobs in the U.S.

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