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Alleged Iranian bombers cavorted with Thai women in beach resort

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Police hunted on Friday (Feb. 17) for a fifth alleged terrorist who may have taught three arrested Iranians how to bomb Israeli diplomats in Bangkok, and released a photo showing the trio celebrating with Thai girls at a sleazy beach resort before bungling their plot.

"The additional suspect is a 52-year-old Iranian man, Nikkhahfard Javad, who was seen leaving the house hours before the blast," said Bangkok Metropolitan Police Deputy Commander Anuchai Lekbumrung on Friday (Feb. 17), referring to the Iranians' bomb-packed house which exploded on Tuesday (Feb. 14), apparently unintentionally.

Thai media said police suspected Mr. Javad was a bomb-making instructor, who allegedly helped the three younger Iranian men build so-called "magnet bombs" with C-4 explosives which could be stuck on the exterior of vehicles belonging to Israeli embassy personnel in Bangkok, but the plot failed.

A photograph published on Friday (Feb. 17) identified Mr. Javad as a stocky, graying, slightly balding man with a moustache and close-cropped beard arriving at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

Chat I just had with Homeland Security

After publishing this report I was contacted by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The individual involved never returned my call. Instead I heard from Brian Hale who said he had been with Director Morton at the event recently held at the University of Virginia and discussed in my report. He told me that ICE in fact had nothing to do with contacting activists, that in fact Ed Ryan (who had contacted local residents from an ICE email address) actually worked for Federal Protective Services which used to fall under ICE and still has some ICE email addresses. I asked Hale, regardless of department, why any branch of Homeland Security was using our money to contact us in a manner that intimidated people out of exercising their First Amendment rights. Hale told me to ask Federal Protective Services (FPS).

Where is Conyers with impeachment threats against President for Iran attack now?

It may have been the one and only thing which prevented an attack on Iran during the Bush years. Chairman of the Judiciary Committee John Conyers spent years fending off nationwide calls to impeach George W. Bush over the invasion of Iraq, the shredding of the Constitution after 9/11, and other high crimes and misdemeanors culminating in a summer of 2008 "non-impeachment impeachment hearings," in which witnesses such as Rep. Brad Miller, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, Rep. Walter Jones, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, Vincent Bugliosi and many others came together to implore the committee to bring articles of impeachment.

At one point Conyers closed to the committee room to any further audience members, prompting calls of "shame! shame! shame!" from the packed halls of the Rayburn Building to which people had traveled from across the country, but established numerous closed-circuit television viewing rooms for the public in other parts of the Hill.

BREAKING NEWS---VICTORY AT COOPER!!

We just received the news that, due especially to all your solidarity efforts & those of steelworkers, their families, and all the people fighting for justice, a TENATIVE SETTLEMENT AT COOPER TIRE WAS JUST ANNOUNCED!!

Pending worker’s ratification of the announced settlement, the SATURDAY RALLIES ARE POSTPONED.

Just as the lockout of the Cooper Tire workers was an attack on all of us, this settlement is a victory for all of us who stood together with these embattled workers and their families. Only because of the solidarity efforts so far, and the announced escalation of our solidarity efforts, did Cooper management come back to the table and actually begin to negotiate again. THANK YOU ALL!!

Cold war in warm waters: US-China's dangerous contest for Asia-Pacific

On two occasions in my life I found myself living close to the South China Sea. The sea became my escape from life's pressing responsibilities. But there is no escaping the fact that the deceptively serene waters are now also grounds for a nascent but real new cold war.

China takes the name of the sea very seriously. Its claim over the relatively massive water body – laden with oil, natural gas and other resources – is perhaps 'ill-defined', per the account of the BBC (Nov 3, 2011), but it is also very serious. Countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei are uneasy but are caught in a bind. China's growing regional influence – to some, perhaps 'encroaching hegemony' – is an uncontested fact of life. To challenge - or balance - the rising Chinese power, these countries face a most difficult choice: accepting China's supremacy or embracing an intractable American return to the region. The latter option is particularly worrisome considering the US's poor military track record throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Help Arctic Whales

The Obama administration is considering leasing the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas – the Polar Bear Seas – for oil drilling. Doing so would have a disastrous impact on the whales that depend on the Arctic Ocean for mating and feeding.

Take action now to protect beluga, bowhead and grey whales from the dangers of oil drilling by sending a message to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Right now, NOAA's scientists are studying the potential impacts of oil drilling. If they give a green light, drilling would almost certainly start this summer. But they can also stop this drilling by calling attention to the real damage that oil drilling would do to the marine wildlife of the Polar Bear Seas.

You already know that an oil spill in the Polar Bear Seas would be a catastrophic disaster, because we don't have the equipment to clean it up – and the Arctic is in complete darkness for 3 months out of the year.

Happy savages

“Thirty seconds to zero . . . six, five, four, three, two, one.”
Suddenly a big orange blossom fills the screen, accompanied by ukuleles and lovely — I mean Strangelovian — Polynesian music. The blossom is actually Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb blast, the largest U.S. test ever, detonated over Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954.

This is a few minutes into Nuclear Savage: The Island Experiments of Secret Project 4.1, one of the most disturbing documentaries I’ve ever seen, and one of seven feature-length films that are part of Chicago’s fourth annual Peace on Earth Film Festival, Feb. 23-26, at the Chicago Cultural Center. The event, once again, is free of charge.

Peace on earth?

The film festival seeks to “enlighten and to empower individuals, families and communities to step out of the ignorance of conflict . . .”

I take a deep breath and think about Nuclear Savage, a film by former Greenpeace activist Adam Jonas Horowitz, which opens up one of the hidden horrors of American history — analogous to our history of slavery, lynching and Jim Crow — but perpetrated on the far side of the world, with nuclear weapons.

A crazy Republican attack that Obama himself agrees with

Imagine if a bunch of the craziest war-hungry Republicans in the House filmed themselves in a nutty bat-guano video packed with lies addressed to the President of the United States. And then imagine President Barack Obama almost immediately agreeing with them. I can think of two ways in which such a series of events could go unnoticed, as it just has.

First, it could be about something insignificant. But this was about undoing the automatic cuts to the military mandated by the failure of the Supercommittee (remember, the top news story of a few months back?). The military, across various departments, swallows over half of federal discretionary spending, and there's no greater obsession in the corporate media than the great Spending vs. Cuts issue. This is NOT insignificant.

Second, it could be about something that the elites of both major parties agree on, the media therefore ignores, most Republican voters love, and Democratic voters pretend not to notice because the President is a Democrat and an election is less than a year away.

Three alleged Iranian bomb-makers arrested after bungling the plot

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Malaysia arrested on Wednesday (Feb. 15) an alleged member of an Iranian bomb-making gang who plotted to assassinate Israeli diplomats, one day after he fled Bangkok where their house exploded and another Iranian had destroyed his own legs in a bungled blast while battling police.

Thailand meanwhile searched on Wednesday (Feb. 15) for a woman identified as an Iranian named Rohani Leila, 32.

She allegedly had rented the now-damaged house where the four suspects stayed, a few blocks from Iran's government-run Cultural Center in an upscale neighborhood where many Thai Muslims live.

The man arrested in Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, allegedly used an Iranian passport, number M20305701, which identified him as Masoud Sedaghatzadeh.

Mr. Sedaghatzadeh was born in Tehran on February 12, 1981, and the son of Abbas Sedaghatzadeh, according to a published scan of the document. (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Third-Iranian-suspect-arrested-...)

My life as a post 9/11 Iraqi immigrant

Many of my friends began to hate me, the faces of people who looked at me differently at airports and other public places, even my co-workers; making derogatory comments. I apologized to many people over the years, even people that I didn't know. All I wanted to do was to tell the World that I am not a "terrorist."

My family and I fled Iraq with no choice. Saddam Hussein personally organized a team of men in a plot to bury my family alive. The reason for killing my family was vague, it was only understood that my father worked as an informant for the CIA to oust Saddam Hussein.

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