Israel's 2nd Largest Newspaper -- "The Haiti Disaster is Good for the Jews."

This remind me a lot the day after comment by Netanyahu: "9/11 is good for us":

As sorry as we are about the horror in Haiti, the current positive attitude to Israel – thanks to the IDF delegation – shows that the country must engage in proactive as well as reactive hasbara.
Tamir Haas 21/1/2010, Maariv-NRG

At a time when our country is under media attack on the basis of harsh and anti-Semitic reports, and we are forced to contend with terrorists who have assumed the winning image of victims of war, one could say that the Haiti disaster is the best thing that could have happened to us. So why are blood, destruction, poverty, hunger and orphans good for the Jewish State? First of all because global attention has been drawn elsewhere and the international media have a more interesting story to cover. Second, because every disaster-area needs a hero, and right now we are it. I must admit that I would not be surprised if the image aspect of setting up a hospital in Haiti, as well as the IDF rescue efforts, was given greater weight than humanitarian considerations.

If I am right, then finally, someone in the Knesset has done the right thing, deciding to take advantage of the opportunity to prove to the world how kindhearted and capable we are. And if the Foreign Ministry manages to make further use of the Israeli success stories in Haiti and market them to the world, all the better. We can only hope that none of our talented politicians is caught in front of a camera saying “We showed the world. We were really awesome in Haiti,” or something like that – a distinct possibility considering the recent mess with the Turks. Better to be modest.

Those in Charge Don’t see Hasbara as Warfare

The tough question raised by our success in Haiti is why we do well in the media only when we have the opportunity to star in another country’s disaster, and not on a regular basis? After all, you can’t have a natural disaster every day. The answer to the question is a lack of concerted effort to garner sympathy from the countries of the world, alongside behaviour that actually creates antagonism, such as humiliating ambassadors on camera. Before criticizing current hasbara practice however, we must realize that our biggest problem lies in the way we approach the entire issue of image. First of all, our elected representatives see themselves as politicians rather than statesmen, and so prefer to focus on their own personal interests, rather than on those of the country. Every Israeli citizen is knows this, to the point that we can’t stand our own leaders, so why does it come as surprise that the rest of the world isn’t too crazy about us either? Second, those in charge of the country’s PR don’t see hasbara as warfare, just like any military operation, intended to safeguard and promote our national and security interests. If hasbara were to receive the attention it deserves, with the kind of funding that security gets, our media performance would be better, Foreign Ministry officials would be more professional, foreign ministers would not act like rookies, and most importantly, we would have long-term plans and strategies.

Proof of Amateurishness and Lack of Professionalism

You want proof of the amateurishness and lack of professionalism I’m talking about? Here: “Hasbara is the responsibility of the IDF, not the Foreign Ministry”. This is what Danny Ayalon told participants at a recent conference of the Israel Public Relations Association. Does this mean that there is no hasbara coordination between the IDF and the Foreign Ministry? Is this how Ayalon washes his hands of Israel’s image problem? If so, is it any wonder that he behaves so recklessly, setting the Turkish Prime Minister up for a slam dunk? After all, he seems to think that the consequences, in terms of Israel’s image, are not his responsibility. In the above statement, Ayalon doesn’t even bother to hand some of the responsibility to Information Minister Yuli Edelstein. If the Foreign Ministry doesn’t give a damn about the Information Ministry, why should anyone else?

We have to stop concentrating all of our efforts on reaction and start taking the initiative. There are a lot of things we can do to facilitate hasbara: subsidizing tourism from countries in which Israel suffers from a relatively poor image, or a hasbara unit that would focus on marketing the stories of victims of terrorism (like they do in Gaza), or hasbara designed specifically to appeal to countries with strategic importance, etc. But before we do anything, we must first understand that hasbara is war and should be treated like any other aspect of homeland security. After that, we can move forward.

Note that Richard Silverstein is on this story too. More

(Maybe) related: Israel Makes Waves by Simulating an Earthquake

United Nations caught out again on climate claims

United Nations caught out again on climate claims

By Jonathan Leake | The Australian | January 25, 2010 12:00AM

THE UN climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to a rise in natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny – and ignored warnings from scientific advisers. The report’s author later withdrew the claim because the evidence was too weak.

The link was central to demands at last month’s Copenhagen climate summit by African nations for compensation of $US100 billion from the rich nations.

However, the IPCC knew in 2008 that the link could not be proved but did not alert world leaders, who have used weather extremes to bolster the case for action on climate change.

Kevin Rudd last November linked weather extremes to the debate over the government’s emissions trading scheme.

“We will feel the effects of climate change fastest and hardest, and therefore we must act this week, and the government will be doing everything possible to make sure that can occur,” the Prime Minister said at the time.

British Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband has suggested floods – such as those in Bangladesh in 2007 – could be linked to global warming.

US President Barack Obama said last year: “More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent.”

Last month British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament that the financial agreement at Copenhagen “must address the great injustice that . . . those hit first and hardest by

climate change are those that have done least harm”.

The IPCC has now been forced to reassess its report linking extreme weather to climate change.

The UN body’s about-face comes less than a week after it was forced to retract claims that the Himalayan glaciers would be largely melted by 2035. The claim was sourced to an environmental group’s report of an interview in New Scientist magazine.

The Indian glaciologist who made the quote said a week ago the claim was “speculation” and had not been used in a peer-reviewed scientific paper.

It also comes as the British parliament launches an inquiry into leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit that raised questions about the legitimacy of some data published by the IPCC about global warming.

The latest controversy goes back to the IPCC’s benchmark 2007 report on climate change, which warned that the world had “suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s”. It suggested part of the increase was because of global warming.

However, the scientific paper on which the IPCC based its claim had not been peer reviewed, nor published, by the time the climate body issued its report. When the paper was published, in 2008, it had a new caveat. It said: “We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophic losses.”

The IPCC failed to issue a clarification before the Copenhagen climate summit last month. Two scientific reviewers who checked drafts of the IPCC report urged greater caution in proposing a link between climate change and disaster impacts, but were ignored.

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a climatologist at the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, who is vice-chairman of the IPCC, said the UN body was now “reassessing the evidence” and it would publish a report on natural disasters and extreme weather with the latest findings.

The opposition used the latest revelations to savage Mr Rudd over his handling of climate change. Tony Abbott pointed to Mr Rudd’s reluctance to mention climate change in the series of speeches he had delivered around the nation in the lead-up to Australia Day.

“This is yet another case of the Prime Minister raising expectations and not acting on them,” the Opposition Leader said. “The challenge for the Prime Minister is to say now whether he really will reintroduce the ETS given the failure of Copenhagen.”

Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt backed the British parliamentary inquiry into the so-called Climategate emails, established on Friday. “The key to community consensus on climate change is confidence in the science,” he said.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong last week endorsed the IPCC report that contained the glacier claim. “It has been intensely scrutinised with very few errors being identified, and none that challenge the central conclusions of the report,” she said. “The Fourth Assessment Report represents the international consensus on climate change science. All reports of the IPCC are subjected to extensive expert and government review.”

The paper at the centre of the latest questions was written in 2006 by Robert Muir-Wood, head of research at Risk Management Solutions, a London consultancy, who became a contributing author on the IPCC report on climate change impacts.

He wanted to find out if the eight year-on-year increase in losses caused by weather-related disasters since the 1960s was larger than could be explained by the impact of social changes such as growth in population. Such an increase, coinciding with rising temperatures, would suggest global warming was to blame.

In the research, Mr Muir-Wood looked at a range of hazards, including tropical cyclones, floods and hurricanes. He found from 1950 to 2005 there was no increase in the impact of disasters once growth was accounted for. For 1970 to 2005 he found a 2 per cent annual increase that “corresponded with a period of rising global temperatures”, but said almost all of it was because of strong hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005. Despite such caveats, the IPCC report cited only the 1970-2005 results.

Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, who commissioned Mr Muir-Wood’s paper, has told the IPCC that citing one section in preference to the rest was wrong.

“The idea that catastrophes are rising in cost because of climate change is completely misleading,” Mr Muir-Wood said.

http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/united-nations-caught-out-again-on-climate-claims/

USA themselves enabled Chinese hacking of Google

USA themselves enabled Chinese hacking of Google: "Notice: Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and author of

'Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.'



Read more of his writing at www.schneier.com.



Back in 2007, he also was able to detect a NSA backdoor in a random

number generator proposed by the NIST as a new encryption standard.

This random number generator is included with MS Windows Vista, SP1, and

most probabely also with Microsoft Windows 7.



Conclusion: Beware, Google Gmail is INSECURE ! ! ! !


"

kelly's murder, raison d'etat: 70 years secret!

kelly's murder, raison d'etat: 70 years secret!: ".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245599/David-Kelly-post-mortem-kept-secret-70-years-doctors-accuse-Lord-Hutton-concealing-vital-information.html

http://arthurzbygniew.blogspot.com/2007/10/british-mp-says-dr-kelly-was-murdered.html

David Kelly post mortem to be kept secret for 70 years as doctors accuse Lord Hutton of concealing vital information

By Miles Goslett

23rd January 2010

Vital evidence which could solve the mystery of the death of Government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly will be kept under wraps for up to 70 years.

In a draconian – and highly unusual – order, Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the controversial inquiry into the Dr Kelly scandal, has secretly barred the release of all medical records, including the results of the post mortem, and unpublished evidence.

The move, which will stoke fresh speculation about the true circumstances of Dr Kelly’s death, comes just days before Tony Blair appears before the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War.

It is also bound to revive claims of an establishment cover-up and fresh questions about the verdict that Dr Kelly killed himself.

Whistle-blower: Dr Kelly died after casting doubt on Government claims about Saddam's weapons

Tonight, Dr Michael Powers QC, a doctor campaigning to overturn the Hutton findings, said: ‘What is it about David Kelly’s death which is so secret as to justify these reports being kept out of the public domain for 70 years?’

Campaigning Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has also questioned the verdict that Dr Kelly committed suicide, said: ‘It is astonishing this is the first we’ve known about this decision by Lord Hutton and even more astonishing he should have seen fit to hide this material away.’

The body of former United Nations weapons inspector Dr Kelly was found in July 2003 in woods close to his Oxfordshire home, shortly after he was exposed as the source of a BBC news report questioning the Government’s claims that

Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, which could be deployed within 45 minutes.

Lord Hutton’s 2004 report, commissioned by Mr Blair, concluded that Dr Kelly killed himself by cutting his wrist with a blunt gardening knife.

It was dismissed by many experts as a whitewash for clearing the Government of any culpability, despite evidence that it had leaked Dr Kelly’s name in an attempt to smear him.

Only now has it emerged that a year after his inquiry was completed, Lord Hutton took unprecedented action to ensure that the vital evidence remains a state secret for so long.

A letter, leaked to The Mail on Sunday, revealed that a 30-year ban was placed on ‘records provided [which were] not produced in evidence’. This is thought to refer to witness statements given to the inquiry which were not disclosed at the time.

In addition, it has now been established that Lord Hutton ordered all medical reports – including the post-mortem findings by pathologist Dr Nicholas Hunt and photographs of Dr Kelly’s body – to remain classified information for 70 years.

The normal rules on post-mortems allow close relatives and ‘properly interested persons’ to apply to see a copy of the report and to ‘inspect’ other documents.

Lord Hutton’s measure has overridden these rules, so the files will not be opened until all such people are likely to be dead.

Last night, the Ministry of Justice was unable to explain the legal basis for Lord Hutton’s order.

The restrictions came to light in a letter from the legal team of Oxfordshire County Council to a group of doctors who are challenging the Hutton verdict.

Last year, a group of doctors, including Dr Powers, compiled a medical dossier as part of their legal challenge to the Hutton verdict.

They argue that Hutton’s conclusion that Dr Kelly killed himself by severing the ulnar artery in his left wrist after taking an overdose of prescription painkillers is untenable because the artery is small and difficult to access, and severing it could not have caused death.

In their 12-page opinion, they concluded: ‘The bleeding from Dr Kelly’s ulnar artery is highly unlikely to have been so voluminous and rapid that it was the cause of death. We advise the instructing solicitors to obtain the autopsy reports so that the concerns of a group of properly interested medical specialists can be answered.’

Tonight, Dr Powers, a former assistant coroner, added: ‘Supposedly all evidence relevant to the cause of death has been heard in public at the time of Lord Hutton’s inquiry. If these secret reports support the suicide finding, what could they contain that could be so sensitive?’

The letter disclosing the 70-year restriction was written by Nick Graham, assistant head of legal and democratic services at Oxfordshire Council.

It states: ‘Lord Hutton made a request for the records provided to the inquiry, not produced in evidence, to be closed for 30 years, and that medical (including post-mortem) reports and photographs be closed for 70 years.’

Nicholas Gardiner, the Chief Coroner for Oxfordshire, confirmed that he had seen the letter.

Order: Lord Hutton has secretly barred the release of all medical records, including the results of the post mortem

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday today, he said: ‘I know that Lord Hutton made that recommendation. Someone told me at the time. Anybody concerned will be dead by then, and that is quite clearly Lord Hutton’s intention.’

Asked what was in the records that made it necessary for them to be embargoed, Mr Gardiner said: ‘They’re Lord Hutton’s records not mine. You’d have to ask him.’

He added that in his opinion Lord Hutton had embargoed the records to protect Dr Kelly’s children.

The inquest into Dr Kelly’s death was suspended before it could begin by the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer. He used the Coroners Act to designate the Hutton Inquiry as ‘fulfilling the function of an inquest’.

News that the records will be kept secret comes just days before Mr Blair gives evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry on Friday.

To date, Dr Kelly’s name has scarcely been mentioned at the inquiry. One source who held a private meeting with Sir John Chilcot before the proceedings began said that Sir John had admitted he ‘did not want to touch the Kelly issue’ .

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: ‘Any decision made by Lord Hutton at the time of his inquiry was entirely a matter for him.’

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said yesterday that it would not be possible to search their records during the weekend.

The Mail on Sunday was unable to contact Lord Hutton.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245599/David-Kelly-post-mortem-kept-secret-70-years-doctors-accuse-Lord-Hutton-concealing-vital-information.html#ixzz0dYHLHGvI

"

In 1997 U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen Warns about eco-terrorism using scalar electromagnetic weapons. What he was talking about... or he was a

In 1997 U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen Warns about eco-terrorism using scalar electromagnetic weapons. What he was talking about... or he was a conspiracy Kook