Mexican Police Shoot US Embassy Staff

Two US embassy staff have been shot by Mexican police in what is believed to be a case of mistaken identity.

Both have been taken to hospital, according to reports, though their injuries are not thought to be life threatening.

A Mexican police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one suffered a wound to the leg and the other was hit in the stomach and hand.

The official said the wounded were not agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration or FBI, but did not identify which agency they work for.

The Mexican public security ministry and marines said in a statement on Friday: "A diplomatic vehicle belonging to the US embassy was hit by multiple bullets from personnel of the federal police in the Tres Marias-Huitzilac highway." Read More

Samsung Ordered To Pay Apple $1bn....Well, they are hardly going to go against the Company Currently Keeping America Afloat

Samsung has been ordered to pay Apple $1.05bn (£664m) after a court battle over patent infringement.

The decision in the complex case came after the nine-member jury began deliberations on Wednesday.

Apple filed its complaint in April 2011 and engaged legions of America's highest-paid patent lawyers to demand $2.5bn (£1.6bn) from its top smartphone competitor. Samsung Electronics had fired back with its own lawsuit seeking $399m.

During closing arguments, Apple lawyer Harold McElhinny claimed Samsung was having a "crisis of design" after the 2007 launch of the iPhone, and executives with the South Korean company were determined to illegally cash in on the success of the revolutionary device.

Samsung's lawyers countered that it was simply and legally giving consumers what they want: smart phones with big screens. Read More

Jeffrey Johnson 'Did Not Fire At Police'

A laid-off clothing designer who killed a former colleague outside New York’s Empire State Building did not fire at police, according to evidence collected so far.

Gunman Jeffrey Johnson, 58, was shot by armed officers, and nine bystanders were wounded.

One witness claimed Johnson had fired at police, but authorities say ballistics evidence so far does not support that.

Johnson had worked for six years as women's accessories designer at Hazan Imports, which is housed in the Empire State Building, but he was laid off about a year ago.

The shooting caused chaos in the heart of Manhattan.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Johnson fired at his former colleague three times at close range after a dispute about 9am. Read More

Doomsday: Cascadia Fault Line Mega Quake (45 min film)

The Truth: Facebook Post by Brandon Raub (The Marine who was arrested by the FBI because he decided to speak his mind)

The following text is from a copy of a Facebook post that Brandon Raub made in 2011. The text was given to CBS 6 by Raub’s mother:

The Truth
by Brandon J Raub on Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:00 am

America has lost itself. We have lost who we truly are. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave.

This is the land of Thomas Jefferson.

This is the land of Benjamin Franklin.

This is the land of Fredrick Douglas.

This is the land of Smedley Butler.

This is the land John F. Kennedy.

This is the land of Martin Luther King.

This is the land where the cowboy wins. This is the land where you can start from the bottom and get to the top. This is the land where regardless of you race and ethnicity you can succeed and build a better life for you and your family. This is the land where every race coexists peacefully. This is the land where justice wins. This is the land where liberty dwells. This is the land where freedom reigns. This is the land where we help the poor, and people help each other. This is land where people beat racism.

The Federal Reserve is wrong. They have designed a system based off of greed and fear. They designed a system to crush the middle class between taxes and inflation. This is wrong, and it is unjust. It is wrong.

We have allowed ourselves to be deceived and seduced by the powers of the printing press. It is not a good system. It discourages saving: the foundation for all stable economic activity. The Federal Reserve is artificially manipulating interest rates and creating phony economic data.

This thing has deceived our entire nation.

They created it in 1913. They also created the income tax in 1913. They encouraged the growth of debt so they can tax you on it. There is interest on the debt. Your government is in bed with these people. They want to enslave you to the government so that they can control every aspect of your lives. It is an empire based on lies. They operate of greed and fear.

There is a better way. It’s called freedom. Freedom is called a lot of things. But there is a true meaning. It means very simply that you have the right to do whatever you want as long as you are not infringing on the freedoms of other people.

I firmly believe that God set America apart from the other nations of the world. He saved a place where people could come to to escape bad systems of goverment. This system we have created works. It really works.

There is evil going on all around the world. The United States was meant to lead the charge against injustice, but through our example not our force. People do not respond to having liberty and freedom forced on them.

Men and Women follow courage. They follow leadership, and courage. Our example has paved the way for people all around the world to change their forms of government.

Force is not the way because liberty is a powerful concept. The idea that men can govern themselves is the basis for every just form of government.

We can govern ourselves. We do not need to be governed by men who want to install a one world banking system. These men have machine hearts. Machine and unnatural hearts.

They have blocked out the possibility of a better world. They fear human progress. They have monopolies on everything.

This life can be free and beautiful. There are enough resources on this earth to support the world’s population. There are enough resources on this earth to feed everyone. There is enough land for everyone to own their own land and farm, and produce their own energy.

These people have been hiding technology. There are ways to create power easily. There is technology that can provide free cheap power for everyone. There are farming techniques that can feed the entire world.

The Bill of Rights is being systematically dismantled. Men have spilled their blood for those rights.

Your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters, and Americas best young men and women are losing their limbs. They are losing their lives. They are losing the hearts. They do not know why they are fighting. They are killing. And they do not know why.

They have done some extraordinary acts. Their deeds go before them. But these wars are lies. They are lies. They deceived our entire nation with terrorism. They have gotten us to hand them our rights. Our Rights! Men died for those rights!

September Eleventh was an inside job. They blew up a third building in broad daylight. Building 7.

Your leaders betrayed you.

You elected an aristocracy. They are beholden to special interests. They were brainwashed through the Council on Foreign Relations. Your leaders are planning to merge the United States into a one world banking system. They want to put computer chips in you.

These men have evil hearts. They have tricked you into supporting corporate fascism. We gave them the keys to our country. We were not vigilant with our republic.

There is hope. BUT WE MUST TAKE OUR REPUBLIC BACK. source

3 U.S. Marines shot in Mexico by gunmen riding in Federal Police Car

Unknown gunmen attacked an American diplomatic vehicle south of Mexico City, injuring three people, a Mexican military official told CNN Mexico.

The motive behind the attack on the U.S. vehicle, which was on a diplomatic mission, was not immediately known.

Gunmen inside what was described as a Mexican federal police vehicle fired upon a U.S. Embassy vehicle, said the official, who declined to be named for security reasons.

The Mexican official said three Mexican marines were injured in the shooting. However, there were conflicting reports. Some Mexican reports stated that two of the injured were Americans.

The injured passengers were transported to a hospital in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

The Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed that a U.S. diplomatic vehicle was "shot up" in Mexico, but said no DEA officers were involved in the incident.

The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the reports, but had no immediate comment.

The U.S. vehicle was attacked on a highway between Mexico City and Cuernavaca, near the town of Tres Marias.

Mexico's federal police said that its personnel were not involved in the shooting. Their forces appeared at the scene only after the shooting to secure the perimeter, police said. source

NASA to launch weather rocket

Empire State shooting news conference

'Greece is bankrupt. Full stop. Game over'

'Iran nuclear talks expose IAEA as gang of thugs'

Typhoon topples trees & buses, wreaks havoc in Taiwan

German 'Pussy Riot' punishment worse than Russian?

Romney birth certificate remark rekindles Obama controversy

(Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took a dig at President Barack Obama on Friday over his birth certificate in comments that re-ignited a controversy over the Democrat's eligibility to be president.

"No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate," a smiling Romney told a rally of some 7,000 people in his home state of Michigan.

"They know that this is the place that we were born and raised," he said to the laughter of the crowd, speaking alongside his wife, Ann.

Romney's remarks drew a strong rebuke from Obama's team in the tight presidential contest that has become more ill-tempered in recent weeks. They also further obscured Romney's attempts to keep his message focused on jobs.

The joke was a reference to the widely discredited belief that Obama, whose father was from Kenya, was not born in the United States and thus is not eligible to be president. Read More

'Protests gain momentum in Canada'

6 dead in Quebec Legionnaire's disease outbreak

MONTREAL — Legionnaire's disease, which hit Quebec in mid-July, has infected 65 people and killed six, health authorities of the French-speaking Canadian province said.

"We are very concerned by the current situation," Quebec public health chief Francois Desbiens said.
"It's the largest legionellosis outbreak in Canada in recent years."

Sixteen new cases were reported on Thursday alone.

Health authorities suspect improper maintenance of cooling towers in air conditioning systems are at fault for the outbreak.

Legionella bacteria grow in stagnant water in such appliances, then spread with droplets expelled by the system during operation.

The 68 cooling towers housed in 28 buildings were inspected, cleaned and disinfected, but the operation has not put an end to the epidemic. Read More

Nuclear reactor shuts down in southern Korea

A nuclear reactor in South Korea's southeastern region shut itself down after its reactor operation system gave a warning signal, the state-run plant operator said Thursday.

The Reactor-1 in Uljin Nuclear Power Plant, automatically stopped operating its nuclear reactor and turbine generator as of 6:41 p.m., according to the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co.

It froze itself on the warning signal and the shutdown falls under a "zero" rating according to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards, it said.

The state-run operator said the halt of the reactor will not have any impact on the plant's safety, adding it is unrelated to a radiation leak. Read More

U.S. journalist feared missing in Syria

(CNN) -- The whereabouts of an American freelance journalist who has been working in Syria since May are unknown, a news agency reported.

It is among the key developments Friday in Syria's ongoing conflict:

American freelance journalist Austin Tice, who has been working in Syria, has not been heard from since mid-August, the McClatchy news agency reported Friday.

Syria has restricted access by international journalists, routinely refusing to issue visas to enter the country. Many who report from inside Syria do so by slipping across the border, as was the case with Tice, according to McClatchy's report. Read More

Egyptians Rally Against New Islamist President

Several thousand Egyptians rallied Friday in the first significant protests against the country's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, accusing him and his Muslim Brotherhood group of trying to monopolize power.

The main protest in Cairo, which counted around 3,000 people and converged on the presidential palace from several locations, drew a far smaller turnout than the mass demonstrations that helped topple Morsi's predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, or the later rallies against the council of generals that took power after Mubarak's fall.

While the turnout was low for Friday's rally in Cairo, as well as similar ones in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and elsewhere, the protests point to the fears many Egyptians feel with the Islamist president and his policies, and reflect the deep divide in Egyptian society over the country's future direction under Morsi and the Brotherhood. Read More

US think-tank says Iran covering building IAEA wants to visit

(Reuters) - A U.S. think-tank published satellite imagery on Friday which it said showed "pink colored material" covering a building at a sensitive military site in Iran which U.N. nuclear inspectors want to visit.

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said the tarp - at the Parchin military complex - might be an attempt to conceal alleged clean-up work there at a time when Iran is under growing international pressure to open up its disputed nuclear program to scrutiny.

The images were consistent with a Reuters story on Thursday, which cited diplomatic sources as saying a brightly-colored tent-like structure now covered the building.

The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believes that explosives tests relevant to the development of nuclear weapons were conducted in a steel chamber in the building, possibly a decade ago, and wants to go there to search for evidence. Read More

US Drones continue rampage in Pakistan

On Friday, it was business as usual for drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The CIA sent its unmanned Predators to North Waziristan yet again and Pakistan continued with its protests.

As many as 18 suspected terrorists are reported to have been killed in Friday’s drone attacks on the Shawal Valley of North Waziristan. This was the fifth time in the past seven days that drones have visited the tribal agency adjoining Afghanistan and most of these attacks have targeted Shawal Valley.

Despite the repeated bombarding of Shawal Valley, there was no clarity as to who the targets are. The valley is under the control of Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadar and the area is considered a safe haven by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and foreign fighters carrying out jihad against the coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The series of attacks on Friday came a day after the Foreign Office summoned a senior official of the U.S. Embassy to issue a demarche over the repeated drone attacks which Pakistan views as a violation of its sovereignty. Read More

Angela Merkel rejects Greek pleas for extra two years to repay loans

Angela Merkel has rejected pleas from her Greek counterpart for a two-year repayment extension after receiving backing from the French president, François Hollande, for her hardline stance.

The German chancellor said it was up to the people of Greece to show they can implement austerity measures agreed with Brussels and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) before there could be any further discussion about the latest €130bn (£103bn) debt package.

But she softened the blow with a commitment to wait for a report next month on the progress by Athens to cut government spending and implement far reaching tax and labour market reforms. She said Greece should stay in the euro "and that's what I'm working for."

The uncertainty surrounding the eventual outcome of talks between Antonio Samaras, the Greek prime minister, and the troika of representatives from the IMF, Brussels and the European Central Bank unsettled markets before the bank holiday.

Reports that the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, had conducted talks in Brussels over a possible bailout package were denied by all sides, but added to the uncertainty surrounding the euro. Read More

Kenya police arrest 9 community leaders after clashes kill 53

(Reuters) - Kenyan police have arrested five clan leaders and four chiefs in connection with an attack that killed 53 people in a long-running dispute over land and water in a rural part of the east of the country, a senior provincial official said on Friday.

Armed with machetes, bows and arrows and spears, attackers from the Pokomo ethnic group locked villagers from the rival Orma group in their homes, set the structures alight and killed anyone who tried to escape late on Tuesday.

Settled Pokomo farmers and semi-nomadic Orma pastoralists have clashed intermittently for years over access to grazing, farm land and water resources.

Samuel Kilele, government commissioner for Coast province, told reporters in the port city of Mombasa the arrested elders are accused of organizing and leading the raid and the chiefs of failing to alert authorities about the planned attacks.

"They had prior information which they did not share with us so that we could intervene before the attacks occurred. We have sacked all of them, and will take them to court next week to face charges of complicity and abetting crime," Kilele said.

"We are pursuing 10 other ring-leaders of the attack, whose names we have, and who will assist us to arrest all those who participated in the killings." Read More

Mass killer Breivik: "This sentence is illegitimate"

Aug. 24 - Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik addresses the court after being sentenced for a maximum term on Friday -- when judges declared him sane enough to answer for the murder of 77 people last year.

Wealth Strategies: Economic Recovery? Not Good Enough!

Aug. 24 - Moody's John Lonski says that recent economic data may show some signs of improvement, but leading indicators suggest the U.S. isn't out of the woods yet and the Fed will need to enact more stimulus.

James Holmes told classmate he wanted to kill people

(Reuters) - Accused Colorado gunman James Holmes had conversations with a classmate about wanting to kill people in March 2012, four months before a deadly rampage that left 12 people dead and 58 others wounded 58, a court document showed on Friday.

The document also said that Holmes was denied access to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where he was a Ph.D. student, after making threats to a professor. Source

Syrian Jets Attack Targets Near Aleppo

Fighter jets have attacked targets near Marea, north of Aleppo, according to Sky's special correspondent Alex Crawford.

Reporting from the scene, Crawford said: "We were right under one of the president's fighter jets which was operating in the Marea area 25km north of Aleppo.

"This jet flew down very low, we saw it drop two sets of bombs, there appeared to be no military targets there.

"One bomb landed near a school on top of a house that was unoccupied at the time, the other landed near a communications target.

"Earlier in the day there were more flights by fighter jets, both times they appeared to be targeting the two hospitals in Aleppo.

"There have been a lot of injuries as a result, many of them children. One child was only 11 years old who had shrapnel in the left side of his lung which had gone all the way through. Read More

Constitution-touting Ewoks beware: Tandem-Duct Aerial Demonstrator

Greenpeace activists clinging to Russian oil rig

A Canadian is among the six Greenpeace activists who scaled a floating Russian oil rig early Friday to protest against drilling in the Arctic and were clinging to the structure's side as employees sprayed them with water.

The activists climbed the rig in the Pechora Sea, anchoring themselves with mooring lines, after arriving in three inflatable boats around 4 a.m. local time, the environmental organization said Friday.

Members of the group, led by Greenpeace chief Kumi Naidoo of South Africa, include two activists from Germany, and one each from Canada, the United States and Finland.

The Canadian is Terry Christenson from Parry Sound, Ont., who has been an activist with the group for four years.

Greenpeace said the activists did not face much resistance from oil workers and managed to put a banner on the rig, which says: "Don't kill the Arctic." more

"Real" Politics: 70% of Obama's 19 million Twitter followers are fake

Obama's Twitter account has 18.8 million followers -- but more than half of them really don't exist, according to reports.

A new Web tool has determined that 70% of Obama's crowd includes "fake followers," The New York Times reports in a story about how Twitter followers can be purchased.

"The practice has become so widespread that StatusPeople, a social media management company in London, released a Web tool last month called the Fake Follower Check that it says can ascertain how many fake followers you and your friends have," the Times reports.

"Fake accounts tend to follow a lot of people but have few followers," said Rob Waller, a founder of StatusPeople. "We then combine that with a few other metrics to confirm the account is fake." more

Breivik Apologises For Not Killing More

Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has apologised to "militant nationalists" for not killing more people during a shooting spree and bomb attack in Norway.

He was speaking after a five-judge panel in Oslo ruled he was sane as he killed 77 people last year and sentenced him to 21 years in jail.

Breivik - who claimed the killings were necessary to stop the "Islamisation" of the country - also said he did not accept the "illegitimate" judgement, but would not appeal the verdict.

"I wish to apologise to all militant nationalists that I wasn't able to execute more," he said before his remarks were cut off by the presiding judge.

As the judges convicted Breivik of terrorism and premeditated murder, sentencing him to 21 years in a high security prison, he smirked to the court.

Sky's Robert Nisbet, reporting from Oslo, said Breivik would probably spend the rest of his life behind bars with the justice system increasing his sentence in five year increments. Read More

Saudi Struggle vs. Iran Looks Likely to Get Worse

Saudi Arabia has gone on the offensive against Iran to protect its interests. Its involvement in Syria is the first battle in what is going to be a long conflict that will know no frontiers nor limits.

Ongoing disorders in the island kingdom of Bahrain since February 2011 have set off alarm bells in Riyadh. The Saudis are convinced that Iran is directing the protests and fear that the problems will spill over the 25-kilometer long COSWAY into oil rich Al-Qatif, where the bulk of the Saudi Arabia's Shia are concentrated. So far, the Saudis have not had to deal with demonstrations as serious as those in Bahrain, but success there could encourage the protestors to become more violent.

Protecting the oil is the first concern of the Saudi government. Oil is the sole source of the national wealth and is managed by state-owned Saudi Aramco. The monopoly on political power held by the members of the Saud family means that all of the wealth of the kingdom is their personal property. Saudi Arabia is a company country with 28 million citizens the responsibility of the Saud rulers. source

Saudi Aramco: An Unknown Hacker Group Claims That It Shut Down the World’s Largest Oil Company — and That They’ll Do It Again

The NY Times is reporting that unknown computer hackers who call themselves “Cutting Sword of Justice” have claimed responsibility for spreading a malicious virus into Saudi Aramco, the Saudi government-owned oil company that’s also the world’s largest, and destroying three-quarters of all its computers. The hackers used a similar virus as the government created virus, Flame.

But the Cutting Sword of Justice won’t be stopping there, they’re planning to do it again. According to their new Pastebin post below, the hackers plan to launch another cyber attack on Saudi Aramco at 5:00PM on Saturday, saying “be prepared for something you will see in your eyes and you will not be able to stop it.” Remember, this attack isn’t your typical DDoS attack of hacktivists from the past, it’s malicious software that infects and destroys computers. The last attack destroyed over 30,000 computers. more

Several shot outside Empire State Building in NY in another mass shooting

At least four people were shot outside New York City's Empire State Building on Friday morning and the gunman was dead, New York City officials said. A witness said the gunman was firing indiscriminately.

The shootings occurred just outside the city's iconic skyscraper, a massive tourist attraction, at the height of the summer travel season and just after the morning rush hour. The intersection at the heart of midtown Manhattan was quickly shut down.

Police said at least four were wounded. The fire department said paramedics were evaluating eight people but some of them may not have been shot.

Aliyah Imam told Fox 5 News television she was standing at a red light when a woman standing next to her fell to the ground. She said the woman was hit in the hip.

The gunman was "shooting indiscriminately at people," Imam said.

A fire department spokesman said it received a call about the shooting just after at 9 a.m. (1300 GMT) Friday and that emergency units were on the scene within minutes. more

It's ADMIRAL McRaven, Mr President! Obama botches rank of top Navy SEAL

Barack Obama has always been known for his silken words, soaring rhetoric and ability to use language to his advantage.

Lately, however, the president seems to be losing command of the details. In a speech at a fundraiser in New York on Wednesday night, he took aim at Todd Akin, the political punch bag du jour on both sides of the political aisle.

‘Recently, some of you have been paying attention to the commentary of the Senator of Missouri, Mr Akin, who - the interesting thing here is that this is an individual who sits on the House Committee on Science and Technology, but somehow missed science class. Read More

Odds of Global Recession Are 100%: Marc Faber

There’s still a 100 percent chance the world heads into recession, Marc Faber, publisher of “The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report,” told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Thursday, echoing a call he made in May.

When you look at the major economies, Europe, the U.S., China and the emerging markets that are dependent on China for growth, Faber, aka Dr. Doom, only sees weakness.

“Europe is already in recession,” he said. “Germany is still growing very, very slightly, but is likely to go into recession soon.”

Growth in the U.S. is also falling off. “The U.S. economy has decelerated and I don’t see much growth in the next six to 12 months,” Faber said.

There’s also little the Federal Reserve and other policy makers can do to turn the U.S. economy around. “I think that if you look at the injection of liquidity and the intervention by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury with fiscal measures, it has already impoverished the U.S. economy,” he said. Read More

 TEPCO to check for active faults beneath Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) will survey the earth beneath the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture to check if two fault lines there are active, the utility announced on Aug. 23.

The two faults, labeled alpha and beta, run directly under the plant's No. 1 reactor. TEPCO had previously judged that they were inactive, and the central government accepted this conclusion after conducting its own examination.

However, as all of Japan's nuclear plants face renewed safety checks in the wake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant meltdowns, experts have called on TEPCO to conduct a detailed age assessment of the faults.

TEPCO decided to excavate the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa faults and date them by studying fossilized pollen deposits, among other telltale factors. The survey results will be released in February 2013.

In a 2006 government revision to anti-earthquake design inspection standards, it was decided that faults that had shifted in the past 120,000-130,000 years should be considered active. Before the change, only faults that had moved in the past 50,000 years were considered active.

TEPCO had until recently maintained that the alpha and beta faults under the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant hadn't moved for between 120,000 and 240,000 years, and were therefor inactive. Geological experts had, however, pointed out that the age estimation did not have a clear foundation, and called for a new survey. Source