In the Shadow of the Moon

Piracy Is A Crime!

War Will Cost 190bln In 2008

Iraq, Afghanistan Wars To Cost US
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost at least $190 billion in 2008, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, making it the most expensive year in the conflicts since they were launched by President George W. Bush.Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Congress to approve the funding after Bush this month beat back demands from Democrats for a quick end to the Iraq war and said the U.S. presence there would go on after he leaves office in 2009.Gates said he hoped longer-term for a much smaller U.S. force than the 165,000 troops currently in Iraq. He added that "I don't see" any of the requested money being used for preparing a military attack on Iran, which Pentagon officials say is supplying weapons used against U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Rather: Government Influencing Newsrooms

Rather: Government Influencing Newsrooms
Dan Rather said Thursday that the undue influence of the government and large corporations over newsrooms spurred his decision to file a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company. "Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live."

Benito Mussolini 1883-1943

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

You Will Regret Attacking Iran

Iran Warns West against Sanctions
Iran told Western powers on Saturday they would regret any attack against the country over its nuclear activities, and it rolled out a display of missiles and other military hardware that underscored the warning."Our message to the enemies is: Do not do it," the head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said, speaking to reporters less than a week after France's foreign minister publicly raised the prospect of war. "They will regret it, as they are regretting it in Iraq," the commander added, speaking on the sidelines of an annual military parade just outside the capital.

Gene Screening

Geneticists Question Screening of Fetuses
Geneticists are questioning the use of screening for certain hereditary diseases after new research showed that parents may be aborting healthy fetuses that test positive for a potentially serious but often treatable condition among Ashkenazi Jews. The study, in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, found that one-quarter of couples chose to terminate pregnancies after their fetus screened positive for Gaucher disease.

Arctic Belongs To Russia

Arctic Seabed 'Belongs To Russia'
A Russian expedition has proved that a ridge of mountains below the Arctic Ocean is part of Russia's continental shelf, government officials have said. The Natural Resources Ministry said tests on soil samples showed Russia was linked to the Lomonosov Ridge. Moscow has mounted several expeditions recently - and risked tensions with rivals in August by planting a flag in the seabed below the North Pole.

Canadian Dollar Reaches Parity

Canadian Dollar Trades Equal to U.S.

Canada's dollar traded equal to the U.S. currency for the first time in three decades, capping a five-year run on the back of booming demand for the nation's commodities. The Canadian dollar rose as high as $1.0008, before retreating to 99.87 U.S. cents at 4:16 p.m. in New York. It has soared 62 percent from a record low of 61.76 U.S. cents in 2002. The U.S. dollar fell as low as 99.93 Canadian cents today. The Canadian currency last closed above $1 on Nov. 25, 1976, when Pierre Trudeau was Canada's prime minister.

Billions Of Dollars

A Little Perspective on $87 Billion

On September 7th, 2003, President Bush announced on national television that he was going to ask the Congress to grant him an additional $87 billion dollars for the fiscal year, beginning October 1, 2004, to continue the fight on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since before then, to the end of September, 2007, the United States has dedicated approximately $315 billion dollars to the cause. But these amounts of money are an impossible for anyone to visualize. Let's have a look

Iran Draws Up Attacks Plans

Iran Issues Israel Attack Warning

Iran has drawn up plans to bomb Israel if it launches an attack on Iranian soil first, military officials say. The deputy commander of Iran's air force said that in the "unlikely event" of an Israeli attack, Tehran could respond with air and missile raids.

Markets Soar After Rate Cut

Stocks Soar After Half-Point Rate Cut
A jubilant Wall Street barreled higher Tuesday after the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by a larger-than-expected half percentage point. The Dow Jones industrial average reacted by surging 335 points its biggest one-day point jump in nearly five years.

Shadow Company

Spying On The USA - Michael McConnell

Russia and China 'Spying On US'

Russia and China are spying on US facilities at close to Cold War levels, the head of US intelligence has warned. Both were aggressively collecting information on the US, head of National Intelligence Michael McConnell warned.

180,000 Private Contractors In Iraq

180,000 Private Contractors Flood Iraq

The United States has assembled an imposing industrial army in Iraq larger than its uniformed fighting force and responsible for a such a broad swath of responsibilities the military might not be able to operate without its private-sector partners. More than 180,000 Americans, Iraqis, and nationals from other countries work under a slew of federal contracts to provide security, gather intelligence, build roads, forge a financial system, and transport needed supplies in a country the size of California.

Canadian Dollar May Pass US

Canadian Dollar Could Go Above U.S

Canada's dollar could easily overshoot parity with the U.S. greenback and go as high as $1.05 US over the next few months, says Helmut Pastrick, chief economist with the Credit Union Central of B.C.

Bombing Of Iran Already Being Planned

Bush Setting America Up For War With Iran

Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran's nuclear weapons programme are doomed to fail.

French Foreign Minister Comments Of War With Iran

France Ups Ante In War Of Words With Iran

On Sunday, Kouchner used the toughest language to date from a French minister, warning that "we have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war." If Tehran possessed an atomic weapon, it would be a "real danger for the whole world," he said in an interview.

Space Tourists

Space tourists, A New Race Is On

The week after Richard Laronde returned home from a 16-day trek to the South Pole in January, he bought a ticket to outer space. For Laronde, who had also journeyed to the North Pole in 2006, making the decision to splurge $200,000 on one of the world's first commercial spaceflights took about as long as it takes to do a Google search for "space tourism." "As soon as I got back from the South Pole, I got on the Internet," said Laronde, 56, who owns a prospering event-planning business in Boston. Within days he had wired a $20,000 deposit to an accredited space travel agent in New York."Astronauts were my heroes growing up," said Laronde, who came of age in the early years of the U.S. space program. "It's always been a childhood dream."

Syria And North Korea Sharing Nuclear Secrets

U.S. confirms Syria-N. Korea Nuke Link

The United States has determined that Syria has been seeking nuclear weapons from North Korea. "We do know that there are a

number of foreign technicians that have been in Syria," Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Semmel said. "We do know that there may have been contact between Syria and some secret suppliers for nuclear equipment. Whether anything transpired remains to be seen." One North Korean-flagged ship, Al Hamad, arrived in the Syrian port of Tartous on Sept. 3. Three days later, the Israel Air Force attacked an unspecified target in northeastern Syria along the Euphrates River near the border with Turkey.

Israelis Secret Syrian Nuclear Raid

Israelis ‘Blew Apart Syrian Nuclear Cache’
IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way. At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames. Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.

In Iraq For Oil: Greenspan

Oil Behind Iraq Invasion
THE US went to war in Iraq motivated largely by oil, former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan says in a memoir to be released today. "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil," he writes.

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World

Googles Moon Prize

Google Backs Private Moon Landing

Search giant Google is offering a $30m prize pot to private firms that land a robot rover on the Moon. The competition to send a robot craft to the Moon is being run with the X-Prize Foundation. To claim the cash, any craft reaching the lunar surface must perform a series of tasks such as shoot video and roam for specific distances. Firms interested in trying for the prize have until the end of 2012 to mount their Moonshot.

Visa IPO In the Green

SEC Approves Visa's Restructuring Plan

Visa, the nation's largest credit card network, on Thursday got the go-ahead from the Securities and Exchange Commission to combine its global operations a move it must make before it can go public.

UN Inspector Scott Ritter: Bombing Iran

Worlds Tallest Building

Surpasses CN Tower In Height

The CN Tower has fallen in stature a little bit. It's no longer the world's tallest free-standing structure. The Burj Dubai, a US$4.1-billion hotel, business, and residential complex under construction in the United Arab Emirates has surpassed the Toronto landmark in height. On Wednesday, the Burj Dubai soared slightly above the CN Tower's 553 metres and it's expected to reach even higher heights as construction continues. When it's finally complete, the ritzy new building will be 800-metres tall.

Google Raise Privacy Concerns

Google's Detailed Streetscapes
Canada's Privacy Commissioner has raised concerns over a new Google program that lets users view and zoom in on street-level photographs that are so clear and precise, they can pinpoint an unknowing bystander and their exact location with the click of a mouse button.

Oil At Record High

Oil Trades Near $80

Crude oil traded near a record $80 a barrel in New York after U.S. stockpiles dropped more than forecast and on concern that storms in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic may disrupt output. U.S. oil inventories fell 7.01 million barrels last week, the Energy Department said yesterday, the biggest decline this year and more than twice the decline forecast in an analyst survey. Tropical Storm Humberto will strike the Texas coast later today, the National Hurricane Center said.

Ron Paul: Iranian Threat

Ron Paul

Facebook Privacy Concerns

Two-Tier Internet

US Backing For Two-Tier Internet
The US Justice Department has said that internet service providers should be allowed to charge for priority traffic. The agency said it was opposed to "network neutrality", the idea that all data on the net is treated equally.

George Orwell 1903-1950

It's not a matter of whether the war is not real, or if it is, Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or Eastasia but to keep the very structure of society intact.

Photo From Palestine

Palestinian girl holds a weapon next to militants from Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

Russian Moon Base

Russia Manned Mission To The Moon

Russia plans to send cosmonauts to the Moon by 2025 and establish a permanent manned base there in 2027-2032, the head of the space agency said Friday. Anatoly Perminov said that in accordance with Russia's space program through 2040, a manned flight to Mars will be carried out after 2035.

North Korea To Disable Nuclear Program

North Korea to Declare Nuclear Programs
North Korea agreed Sunday to account for and disable its atomic programs by the end of the year, offering its first timeline for a process long sought by nuclear negotiators, the chief U.S. envoy said. Kim Gye Gwan, head of the North Korean delegation, said separately his country's willingness to cooperate was clear—in return for "political and economic compensation"—but he mentioned no dates.

Sub Prime Meltdown

American Public Education

Nuclear Armed Iran Unacceptable

Sarkozy Raises Prospect Of Iran Airstrikes
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday a diplomatic push by the world's powers to rein in Tehran's nuclear program was the only alternative to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran."