Saturday, 25 December 2010 10:41 'The power of concentrated corporate capital was on display in Washington last week, as it has been all year. The incoming Chair of the Congressional committee responsible for banking regulation, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) says “my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.” And President Obama sat down with the CEOs of 20 large corporations to talk about how he could help Big Business increase their already record profits. And, in the Supreme Court, 13 of 16 business cases were ruled in favor of business interests. These actions echo a year where Sen. Durbin complained the banks “own” the Congress and where President Obama worked with the health insurance industry to keep them in control of health care while claiming it was “reform,” and where the Supreme Court in Citizens United vastly increased corporate power in elections by allowing unlimited spending. Corporate capital dominates the government and prevents the changes urgently needed in so many crisis issues for the nation and the world.' Read more: How Do We Shift Power to the People and Away from Concentrated Corporate Power? Saturday, 25 December 2010 09:41 'Scientists have established a link between the cold, snowy winters in Britain and melting sea ice in the Arctic and have warned that long periods of freezing weather are likely to become more frequent in years to come. An analysis of the ice-free regions of the Arctic Ocean has found that the higher temperatures there caused by global warming, which have melted the sea ice in the summer months, have paradoxically increased the chances of colder winters in Britain and the rest of northern Europe. The findings are being assessed by British climate scientists, who have been asked by ministers for advice on whether the past two cold winters are part of a wider pattern of climate change that will cause further damaging disruption to the nation's creaking transport infrastructure.' Read more: Expect More Extreme Winters Thanks to Global Warming, Say Scientists Saturday, 25 December 2010 09:04 'A seven-year effort by the Central Intelligence Agency to hide its relationship with a Swiss family who once acted as moles inside the world’s most successful atomic black market hit a turning point on Thursday when a Swiss magistrate recommended charging the men with trafficking in technology and information for making nuclear arms. The prospect of a prosecution, and a public trial, threatens to expose some of the C.I.A.’s deepest secrets if defense lawyers try to protect their clients by revealing how they operated on the agency’s behalf. It could also tarnish what the Bush administration once hailed as a resounding victory in breaking up the nuclear arms network by laying bare how much of it remained intact.' Read more: C.I.A. Secrets Could Surface in Swiss Nuclear Case
Yitzhak Levanon, without any prior announcement, left for Tel Aviv with his wife on Wednesday night on an Israeli airline, El Al, following the busting of an Israeli spy ring two days earlier in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
Egyptian Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, ordered the referral of the three accused defendants, two Israeli fugitives and a detained Egyptian, to the Emergency State Security Court on charges of spying for Israel and harming the country's national interests.
The ambassador had neither announced the details for his sudden departure nor the date of his return to Cairo, Ikhwanweb, the Muslim Brotherhood's official website reported Thursday.
The country's state security apparatus is currently investigating the case and interviewing the suspects. Members of the network have created two connected telephones centers in London and Cairo, through which they listened in on phone conversations of high-ranking officials in the Egyptian government, transferring the calls to a third office in Tel Aviv.
Mobinil, Egypt's leading mobile operator, has denied that one of its employees was involved with the network.
FTP/MGH
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Israeli amb. suddenly leaves Cairo
Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Yitzhak Levanon (file photo)
With the discovery of an Israeli spy ring in Egypt, Israel's ambassador to Egypt has unexpectedly left Cairo for Tel Aviv.
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