Analysts: More Libyan bloodshed could prompt U.S., NATO intervention

If the U.S. military were to intervene in an increasingly chaotic Libya, it would most likely be part of a NATO action in which Libyan bloodshed has reached a humanitarian crisis, analysts said Thursday.

As reports emerged Thursday about deadly clashes between leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces and anti-government protesters in the town of Zawiya near Tunisia, analysts highlighted how Gadhafi has already pledged to fight a rebellion to martyrdom.

Military intervention "is something which I hope doesn't happen, but it looks as though at some point that it should happen," said Simon Henderson, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (read more)

Scientists have found a FREE source for ANTI-MATTER

Student held over 'Bush plot' - 24th Feb 2011

A SUSPECTED terrorist has been arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate former US President George W Bush with a chemical weapon.

FBI agents swooped on the 20-year-old Saudi national after he was accused of buying up chemicals for an improvised explosive device.

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari is also alleged to have compiled a list of targets including Bush's Texas home.

Aldawsari, who was admitted into the United States in 2008 on a student visa, was arrested in Texas, the US Justice Department said. Source

Starving eagles ‘falling out of the sky’ - 24th Feb 2011

“It was absolutely incredible. Within 10 days, we had gone from 7,200 eagles to 345...said Mr. Hancock

When David Hancock saw the bald-eagle count on the Chehalis River drop from more than 7,000 to fewer than 400 over a few days in December, he knew a crisis was coming.

Earlier this week, news reports that starving eagles were “falling out of the sky” in the Comox Valley, on Vancouver Island, confirmed his fears.

Wildlife rescue centres on the Island have reported birds growing so weak from hunger that they fall out of trees, or fly so clumsily they hit things. One crashed into a roof.

Mr. Hancock said a collapse of chum salmon runs has left British Columbia’s bald-eagle population without enough food to make it through the winter, leaving them weak from hunger and forcing thousands of birds to scavenge at garbage dumps.

Reports of starving eagles have been coming in from all over the Lower Mainland but seem concentrated in the Comox Valley, he said. Read more

Worldwide warfare: Video of Greece strike turning violent in Athens

Libya protests: Gaddafi says Bin Laden to blame

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has told state TV that Osama Bin Laden and his followers are to blame for the protests wracking his country.

In a phone call from the town of al-Zawiya played live on TV, Col Gaddafi said young people were being duped with drugs and alcohol to take part in "destruction and sabotage".

Col Gaddafi is battling to shore up control of Tripoli and western areas.

Protesters have been consolidating gains in cities in the east.

'This is your country'

The telephone call was said to be an address to the people of al-Zawiya, 50km (30 miles) west of the capital, where there has been renewed gunfire reported in the streets.

Col Gaddafi said the protesters had no genuine demands and were being dictated to by the al-Qaeda leader.

"Bin Laden ... this is the enemy who is manipulating people. Do not be swayed by Bin Laden," he said. (read more)

Dictators everywhere are quaking in their jackboots: China detains citizens who spread call to protest

Officials in China rounded up Internet users who had reposted a call for protests and charged them with subversion as the authoritarian government continued its campaign to crush any Middle East-style democracy movement, activists said Wednesday.

Though only a handful of people responded to the call to demonstrate in 13 cities across China this past weekend and were met by a show of force from authorities, the unidentified organizers issued a renewed appeal to gather peacefully in parks or near monuments at 2 p.m. on Sundays. For the protest-shy, it said people could participate by simply taking an "afternoon stroll" at the appointed time and place. (read more)

Baby Dolphins Dying In High Numbers In Gulf of Mexico

The industry’s leading scientist on marine mammal strandings is concerned about the deaths of baby dolphins.

Blair Mase, NOAA’s marine mammal stranding coordinator for the Southeast region, confirmed that the number of baby dolphin deaths is high.

She said the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies reports all its findings to her.

So far this calving season, 17 infant dolphins have either been stillborn or died shortly after birth.

“We’re definitely keeping a close eye on this situation,” Mase said. “We’re comparing this to previous years, trying to find out what’s going on here.” (read more)

Callous Corporatism: Woman Dies at Desk, Found the Next Day

A 51-year-old Los Angeles County worker died at her desk last Friday, and was not found there until the next afternoon, when a Saturday security guard was making the weekend rounds.

Rebecca Wells, who was employed by the L.A. County Department of Internal Services in the risk management division, was last seen alive by co-workers on Friday at about 9AM. "She was always working," commented one co-worker. The exact time of her death has not been determined. (Read more)

Scientist finds Gulf of Mexico bottom still oily, dead

Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a top scientist's video and slides that she says demonstrate the oil isn't degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor.

That report is at odds with a recent report by the BP spill compensation czar that said nearly all will be well by 2012.

At a science conference in Washington Saturday, marine scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia aired early results of her December submarine dives around the BP spill site. She went to places she had visited in the summer and expected the oil and residue from oil-munching microbes would be gone by then. It wasn't. (Read more)

GPS To Track Truant Students In Anaheim

Call it a last-ditch effort to tackle truancy in Orange County.

Two Anaheim schools have become the first in California to adopt GPS tracking to prevent students from cutting class.

KNX 1070′s Mike Landa reports on the new voluntary program at Dale and South Middle Schools.

Students with at least four unexcused absences will be given a handheld device with a GPS signal to verify their location, which officials hope will cut down on truancies. (Read more)

Pentagon aide John Wheeler 'was killed by hitman' claims distraught widow

Prominent Washington aide John Wheeler was assassinated by a hitman in a targeted killing, his widow has claimed.

Katherine Klyce said the way her late husband’s body was dumped at a landfill site could only have been carried out by a professional.

The 66-year-old suggested his work with the Pentagon over his decades-long career could have made him enemies who wanted rid of him. (Read more)

Food shortage: The real coming crisis

Forget stocks, the real crisis is coming… and it’s coming fast.

Indeed, it first hit in 2008 though it was almost entirely off the radar of the American public. While all eyes were glued to the carnage in the stock market and brokerage account balances, a far more serious crisis began to unfold rocking 30 countries around the globe.

I’m talking about food shortages.

Aside from a few rice shortages that were induced by export restrictions in Asia, food received little or no coverage from the financial media in 2008. Yet, food shortages started riots in over 30 countries worldwide. In Egypt people were actually stabbing each other while standing in line for bread.

We’re now seeing the second round of this disaster occurring in Egypt and other Arab countries today. Thanks to the Fed’s funny money policies, food prices have hit records. And even the Fed’s phony measures show that vegetable prices are up 13%! (Read more)

America reaching financial "tipping point"

We are facing a tipping point. There will soon be a crisis affecting US citizens beyond any experienced since the Great Depression. And it may happen within the year. This past week three awful developments put a dagger into the hope for a growth-led recovery, which held promise of possibly averting a debt and currency implosion crushing the American economy.

The first was a little-noticed, but tragic, series of events in the newly elected House of Representatives. The speaker, Mr. Boehner, had given the task of fashioning the majority's spending cut agenda to Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), a rising conservative star representing the vocal wing of fiscal conservatives in the House. Promising to cut $100 billion of government spending, Mr. Boehner spoke before the elections of the urgency to produce immediately when Republicans took control. (Read more)

British rescue turns to farce: 500 trapped in Libya told plane is stuck at Gatwick and warship won't dock till it's safe - 24th Feb 2011

Hundreds of terrified Britons were still trapped in Libya today as the plane meant to rescue them sat on the tarmac at Gatwick with a ‘technical fault’.

The first specially-chartered flight to Tripoli designed to rescue 500 stranded men and women had been announced yesterday by Foreign Secretary William Hague.

But as Colonel Gaddafi’s regime teetered on the brink of bloody civil war, and other nations evacuated their citizens from danger, Britain’s response to the crisis descended into chaos.

This morning, the plane that was supposed to evacuate the stranded Britons remained on the runway having been broken down for more than ten hours.

Last night, the Royal Navy’s HMS Cumberland was due to arrive off Libya’s second city Benghazi – but will not seek to dock as it is not safe. Read more

Indigenous Ecuadoran woman humbles US oil giant - 24th Feb 2011

RUMIPAMBA, Ecuador (AFP) – She has no legal training, and doesn't speak the Spanish that dominates government in Quito but indigenous villager Maria Aguinda helped bring a landmark judgment against US oil giant Chevron for polluting the rain forest she calls home.

The diminutive grandmother whose modest home sits near marshes clogged for decades in sticky oil has been at the heart of the David-and-Goliath case, and spoke out after Chevron was slapped last week with a $9.5-billion fine, among the heaviest ever handed down for environmental damage.

"Before I die they have to pay me for the dead animals, and for what they did to the river, and the water and the earth," the 61-year-old Aguinda told AFP at her home in Rumipamba, a town in remote Orellana province where pollution caused by 30 years of oil drilling and petroleum accidents had become a sad fact of life.

Texaco operated in the area between 1964 and 1990, and was bought in 2001 by Chevron, which inherited Texaco's legal nightmare. Read More

The moment New Zealand quake shook a city to pieces - 24th Feb 2011

Christchurch resembles a warzone as office buildings, homes and churches lie in ruins after the 6.3 magnitude earthquake ripped through the city.

Rescue workers have been working for more than 24 hours to locate any survivors but in many cases, the damage is so great that there is little hope. The death toll is currently 75 but hundreds are still unaccounted for.

The Mail has brought together some of the most incredible pictures from what is one of the worst natural disasters in New Zealand's history. Eerily reminiscent of 9/11, they capture the raw power of the tremor and its devastating consequences.

Source