Tag Archives: aviation

| “The American Dream” – Best 3 minutes of George Carlin’s career! [3:15]

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| “The American Dream” Best 3 minutes of George Carlin’s career! [3:15] ~ Doc Truth, YouTube.

“There’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the REAL owners, now. The REAL owners, the BIG WEALTHY business interests that control things and make all the important decisions — forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. YOU DON’T. You have no choice. You have OWNERS. They OWN YOU. They own EVERYTHING.

They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations; they’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the City Halls; they’ve got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They gotcha by the BALLS. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying — lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want — they want MORE for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They DON’T want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that, that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.

That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting FUCKED by system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passably accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

And now they’re comin’ for your SOCIAL SECURITY MONEY. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it BACK. So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it ALL from you sooner or later — ‘cuz they OWN this fuckin’ place. It’s a big CLUB. And YOU AIN’T IN IT. You and I are NOT IN the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the in their media telling you what to believe — what to think — and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-workin people — white collar, blue collar — doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on.

Good honest hard-workin people CONTINUE — these are people of modest means — continue to elect these RICH COCKSUCKERS who don’t GIVE a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you, they don’t GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU. T HEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU — AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. You know? And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care … that’s what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth — it’s called the American Dream … ‘coz you have to be asleep to believe it.”

George Carlin’s Final Words To The World …
George Carlin on “The American Dream!”

URL: http://youtu.be/E1OgEG_FSIg

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| Israeli hubris + 5 burning Questions on Russian S-300 Missile system sales to Syria!

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5 Questions on Russian S-300 Missile System Sales to Syria ~ Mikhail Fomichjow, RIA Novosti.

Russian S-300 Missile system
Russian S-300 Missile system
MOSCOW, May 14 (Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti) – If fresh media reports are true, Russia, Syria’s longtime supplier of military equipment, may soon provide Damascus – or already has – with advanced S-300 air defense systems, tipping the balance in the devastating 26-month conflict in the Middle Eastern country. But the “if” is a big one. The missile batteries would give Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime a powerful weapon against foreign air strikes – one of the options being bounced around as a form of international intervention – and could fracture the fragile accord on Syria reached last week between Moscow and Washington, which hope to get the warring sides to negotiate. But verifiable information about the S-300 deal is desperately scant: Was there a deal at all? What did it cover? Has any part of it been implemented? For now, what we know about the S-300 saga, from its origins to its implications, has been based on disappearing documents, anonymous sources, rumors, approximations and misunderstandings.

Here, RIA Novosti tries to unravel the mess and answer some of the big questions. -

Is there really a deal to sell Russian S-300 systems to Syria? How do we know?

Technically, it’s all hearsay. The only solid piece of evidence was a 2011 annual report by S-300’s manufacturer, the Nizhny Novgorod Machine Building Plant, which mentioned a contract for the missile systems for Syria. The report has since vanished from the plant’s website, but was cited by the respected Vedomosti business daily at the time as saying that the contract was worth $105 million and that an unspecified number of S-300 systems were slated for delivery between 2012 and early 2013.

The S-300-P surface-to-air missile system

All other reports have been based on leaks by unnamed intelligence and diplomatic sources, including, most recently, in the prominent Russian daily Kommersant and the Wall Street Journal, which said last week that the deal includes four S-300 batteries and 144 missiles and has a price tag of $900 million, with deliveries to begin, possibly, by late summer. (One S-300 missile system is estimated by experts to cost some $115 million, plus $1 million or so per missile.) Damascus has never commented on the deal, and neither has the Russian arms export monopoly Rosoboronexport. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly said Russia is following through on existing contracts to supply defensive weapons, including air defense systems, to Syria, but never says what precisely they are. The lack of clarity leaves room for wild guesses: Maybe the S-300 deal was never in the cards. Or maybe a number of complexes have already been shipped over the past two years, as some media reports alleged in December. -

Who decides whether the deal goes through? Can the international community or any third parties affect the sale?

The deal is strictly between Moscow and Damascus – which is to say, it’s all in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. International treaties on arms trade are few and far between, and tend to cover things like strategic weapons and cluster bombs, not air defense systems, however advanced they may be. Meanwhile, all attempts to ban arms sales to Syria via the UN Security Council have been blocked by Russia. Of course, there is behind-the-scenes haggling and arm-twisting, but that’s unofficial. -

Why are the S-300s dangerous? They’ve been on the production line since 1978 – aren’t they outdated by now?

The S-300 systems have been modernized repeatedly to remain state-of-the-art airplane- and rocket-destruction machines. The S-300PMU2 Favorit can launch six missiles at once, each capable of destroying aircraft flying at several times the maximum speed of the F-16 and F-22 fighter jets – the staples of the Israeli and US air forces, respectively – as well as intercepting ballistic targets. They can be suppressed or sabotaged by ground troops, but it is a tricky task. All this is to say, that the risk and cost of air attacks against Syria would rise dramatically (more on that directly below). -

Who are the targets?

Not the Syrian rebels – they have no aircraft. And though you can technically reprogram the S-300 to hit ground targets, that would be akin to hammering nails with a tablet computer, given the price of $700,000 to $1.2 million per missile. However, any attempts by foreign powers to enforce a no-fly zone over Syria, as was done in Libya in 2011, would end in what Igor Korotchenko, the editor of the Moscow-based National Defense magazine, described as “dozens of destroyed aircraft and coffins covered by star-spangled banners. Unacceptable.” -

What’s the possible time frame? How long until Assad can shoot foreign fighter jets out of the sky?

The S-300 system deploys in five minutes – once it’s paid for, produced, tested, shipped, and manned by trained personnel. Some of this poses little problem: The Syrian government seems to have enough money in its pockets, and shipping from St. Petersburg to the Syrian port of Tartus takes about two weeks. That is, of course, provided the cargo does not get arrested in Finland, or the ship denied entry to European ports because its insurance was revoked – both true stories that happened to Russian ships reportedly carrying arms to Syria. Still, it would likely take a while before Damascus actually gets any missiles. The Wall Street Journal claims – citing US sources citing Israeli sources – that the shipments may begin arriving by August, while the London-based, Arab-language Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper said they are already in Syria, though still under Russian supervision. However, according to Russian arms experts, the manufacturer is unlikely to have ready-to-ship S-300 systems lying on the shelves: Whatever leftovers there were from a deal with Iran, scrapped in 2010, were long ago snatched up by other customers such as Algeria, according to Ruslan Pukhov of the Center for Analysis of Strategy and Technologies, a for-profit research group in Moscow. This means the systems would need to be produced and test launches conducted, a job that would take about a year, Pukhov said. Furthermore, dozens or even hundreds of staff would have to be trained to operate the complicated machinery, which should take about six months. This would push Assad’s most optimistic deadline of owning fully operable S-300 complexes to November at best, with spring of 2014 being a more realistic estimate. Updated with S-300′s estimated cost and changing “missile complex” to “missile system” throughout.

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| Uniformed mafia: Kern County man beaten to death by deputies!

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Kern County man dies after alleged beating by deputies ~ Paul Pringle and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times.

 

The sharp cracks echoing from the East Bakersfield street were loud enough to jolt Ruben Ceballos from a midnight slumber. Then he heard screams.

The 19-year-old jumped from his living room sofa and hurried to the kitchen door, which offered a view of the violent scene outside — Kern County sheriff‘s deputies repeatedly striking a man in the head with batons as he lay on the pavement.

“I saw two sheriff’s deputies on top of this guy, just beating him,” Ceballos said in an interview Monday. “He was screaming in pain … asking for help. He was incapable of fighting back — he was outnumbered, on the ground. They just beat him up.”

Deadly sheriff’s beating prompts charges of coverup

LIVE CHAT: Discuss the case at 9 a.m.

The man was David Sal Silva, 33, a father of four, and he was pronounced dead less than an hour later. The altercation last week was videotaped by witnesses and has roiled the Central Valley city for days.

One woman frantically called 911, telling the operator: ”The guy was laying on the floor and eight sheriffs ran up and started beating him up with sticks. The man is dead laying right here, right now. I got it all on video camera and I’m sending it to the news. These cops have no reason to do this to this man.”

In an unusual move, sheriff’s officials later detained for several hours two witnesses who had videotaped the incident on their phones. They were released only after they surrendered their phones to deputies.

“It makes it look like a coverup,” said David Cohn, a lawyer for Silva’s children and parents, adding that he has not been able to see the footage. “What we’re all concerned about is, ‘Are these videos going to be altered? Are they going to be deleted?’ “

Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said in an interview Monday that it was too early in the investigation to reach any conclusions about Silva’s death. But he defended the decision to take custody of the phones as a way of preserving possible evidence. The sheriff said his office obtained a search warrant for the phones.

“We still have to secure the evidence, especially when the evidence can tell us whether we did it right or wrong,” Youngblood said.

He said his agency, to remove the appearance of any conflict, has asked the Bakersfield Police Department to analyze the phone videos.

KERO-TV Channel 23 in Bakersfield broadcast a security camera video from the scene showing grainy images of figures pummeling someone on the ground, with about 20 swings of what appear to be batons or sticks. It’s difficult to see Silva in the seven-minute video or how many of those swings connected.

A earlier statement by the Sheriff’s Office said Silva might have been intoxicated and resisted the deputies’ efforts to restrain him, forcing them to use their batons. It said six deputies, a sergeant and two California Highway Patrol officers were at the scene. One deputy had a K-9 dog.

Silva stopped breathing and was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m. Wednesday, the statement said. Youngblood said it could take the coroner’s office up to four months to complete toxicology tests and determine a cause of death.

In an email to The Times on Monday, the CHP said it “is deeply sympathetic” to the Silva family and “takes seriously all incidents where an individual dies while in custody.” The agency said it could not discuss the matter further because of the investigation.

The Silva episode follows several high-profile brutality cases involving the Kern County Sheriff’s Office in recent years.

One led to criminal convictions of three deputies and a $6-million civil judgment in the 2005 death of a jail inmate, according to attorneys. Another resulted in a $4.5-million court award for the family of a man who died in 2010 after being struck 33 times with batons and Tasered 29 times, attorneys said.

A deputy accused in the civil lawsuit over the 2010 death has the same name as one of those who confronted Silva. Youngblood would not confirm that it was the same deputy, however.

According to Cohn, Silva became upset Tuesday morning and abruptly left the home he shared with his girlfriend and their children. He later visited his mother’s house before turning up at Kern Medical Center seeking help for some sort of emotional trouble. He left the hospital when a security officer told him he could not sleep there, Cohn said.

Silva fell asleep in front of a house across the street, the spot where the deputies confronted him, the attorney said. He said he did not know if Silva had been drinking. Court databases show that Silva pleaded no contest in 2008 to a misdemeanor charge of disturbing the peace. He was charged with being drunk and disorderly two years later, but the case was dismissed.

Cohn represented the son of the inmate killed in 2005, an offshore oil field worker who was arrested after behaving erratically. “They don’t seem to have any training when it comes to people with a mental illness,” Cohn said of the Sheriff’s Office “There seems to be a culture of striking first and asking questions later.”

Legal experts were surprised that deputies detained the witnesses for the purpose of seizing their phones.

Laurie Levenson, a Loyola law professor and former federal prosecutor, said the department’s tactics were “very heavy-handed, but technically may have been legal because the 911 call created a probable cause to obtain the videos.”

But she said law enforcement officers “cannot detain people for hours on end, and if they did here that would be problem.”

Dmitry Gorin, a Los Angeles defense attorney, said: “The deputies could secure the house, but they cannot detain the people. The argument here would have to be they would not let them leave because they could take the cellphone with them. This is very unusual. I have never had a client detained in this way.”

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| Russia’s Mediterranean Task Force to include Nuclear Subs – Navy Chief!

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Russia’s Mediterranean Task Force to Include Nuclear Subs – Navy Chief ~ RIA Novosti.

MOSCOW, May 12 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Mediterranean task force will comprise 5-6 warships and may be enlarged to include nuclear submarines, Navy Commander Adm. Viktor Chirkov said on Sunday.

“Overall, already from this year, we plan to have 5-6 warships and support vessels [in the Mediterranean Sea], which will be replaced on a rotating basis from each of the fleets – the Black Sea, Baltic, Northern and, in some cases, even thePacific Fleet. Depending on the scope of assignments and their complexity, the number of warships in the task force may be increased,” Chirkov told RIA Novosti.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu earlier said a decision to deploy a permanent task force in the Mediterranean to defend Russia’s interests in the area had been made.

The Russian navy commander also said nuclear submarines could be deployed in the Mediterranean, if necessary.

“Possibly. In a perspective. They [submarines] were present there during the existence of the 5th squadron. There were both nuclear and diesel submarines there. Everything will depend on the situation,” he said.

The Soviet Union maintained its 5th Mediterranean Squadron in that sea from 1967 until 1992. It was formed to counter the US Navy 6th Fleet during the Cold War, and consisted of 30-50 warships and auxiliary vessels at different times.

Russia also plans to use its Mediterranean task force for missions in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the country’s Navy chief said.

“No doubt, if necessary, when some tasks arise in other nearby regions, in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the task force may be used,” Chirkov said.

Russian Subs

Now the Russian Navy is training officers who will perform their duties at sea on a permanent basis, he said.

“These persons must be comprehensively trained to solve tasks not only in the Mediterranean but also in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans,” he said.

The headquarters of Russia’s Mediterranean taskforce will be set up already in the summer of 2013, he said.

“The headquarters will be established in the summer of this year and its officers will stay aboard one of the flagships in the Mediterranean Sea,” he said.

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Russian missile cruiser Varyag

Russian missile cruiser Varyag

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| Conning zion? Netanyahu flies into turbulence over $127,000 bed on plane!

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Netanyahu flies into turbulence over $127,000 bed on plane ~

Outcry in austerity-hit Israel over news that ‘rest chamber’ was installed on plane ferrying PM and wife to London for Thatcher funeral!

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara in China this week

Binyamin and Sara Netanyahu in China this week. It was pointed out that the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, who will be 90 next month, spent an 11-hour flight to South Korea seated. Photograph: Avi Ohayon/AFP/Getty Images

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has encountered severe turbulence after it emerged that he ordered a double bed to be installed on a plane that carried him and his deeply unpopular wife, Sara, to Baroness Thatcher‘s funeral in London last month – at a cost of $127,000 (£83,000).

The revelation comes amid growing resentment over an austerity budget proposed by the finance minister Yair Lapid, a former TV personality who won popular support in January’s election by promising to champion Israel‘s financially squeezed middle class. Up to 15,000 people demonstrated in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities on Saturday night in an echo of the massive social justice protests that swept the country two years ago.

Following an outcry over the cost of installing a “rest chamber” on the chartered El Al flight, Netanyahu’s office said that henceforth no sleeping cabins would be provided on short-haul flights to Europe.

Initially, officials defended the move – disclosed by Israel’s Channel 10 on Friday evening – in a statement that was immediately mocked by commentators for its detailed account of Netanyahu’s schedule.

The statement said: “The prime minister took off for London on the night after Independence Day, in the course of which he attended a reception for outstanding soldiers at the presidential residence, the World Bible Quiz, a reception for diplomatic personnel in Israel and the Israel prize ceremony. The flight was booked for midnight after a day full of events, and afterwards the prime minister was to represent the state of Israel at a number of official international events, including meetings with the prime ministers of Canada and Britain. It is acceptable for the prime minister of Israel to be able to rest at night between two packed days as those.”

El Al, Israel’s national airline, was paid $427,000 for the charter flight, including the cost of the chamber. A smaller plane, without sleeping quarters, would have cost $300,000, according to Israeli media reports.

Channel 10 pointed out that the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, who will be 90 next month, spent an 11-hour flight to South Korea seated in business class.

Writing in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s biggest-selling newspaper, Sima Kadmon said: “We thought that nothing could surprise us anymore when it came to the Netanyahus’ personal behaviour. Well, we thought wrong. It turns out that King Bibi and Queen Sara are entitled to do everything … The double bed that was installed on the plane cost the Israeli public, which is buckling under the weight of the austerity measures, half a million shekels. Is there no shame?”

The disclosure of Netanyahu’s in-flight sleeping arrangements follows the revelation earlier this year of a prime ministerial budget of $2,800 for ice-cream. A contract with a Jerusalem ice-cream parlour was swiftly cancelled.

Meanwhile, the Israeli public is facing a 1.5% rise in income tax, a 1% increase in VAT and a reduction in child allowances as part of an austerity package, which critics says disproportionately penalises the middle class.

Anger at demonstrations on Saturday focused on Lapid, whose party Yesh Atid (There is a Future) came second in January’s election and is now a key partner in Netanyahu’s coalition government. Lapid had pitched his campaign at middle-class voters who were the mainstay of 2011′s social justice movement.

Daphni Leef, one of the protest leaders, called on Lapid to “take from the tycoons, not the people … from those who have and not from those who don’t”.

Lior Tzur, 31, told the Jerusalem Post: “Lapid sold us all an illusion that he’ll change things and help the middle class, when really he’s just going to continue the same policies of money and power that existed before.”

A poll published in the pro-government Israel Hayom tabloid last week found that more than 50% of respondents said their confidence in Lapid had fallen since the election.

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| Pakistan: Peshawar High Court declares US drone strikes as illegal!

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Pakistan court declares US drone strikes as illegal ~ Press Trust of India, NDTV.

Islamabad: US drone strikes on Al Qaeda and Taliban elements in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt are illegal, a top court declared on Thursday and directed the Foreign Ministry to move a resolution in the UN against such attacks.

The Peshawar High Court issued the verdict against the strikes by CIA-operated spy planes in response to four petitions that contended the attacks killed civilians and caused collateral damage.

Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, who headed a two-judge bench that heard the petitions, ruled the drone strikes were illegal, inhuman and a violation of the UN charter on human rights. The court observed that the strikes must be declared a war crime as they kill innocent people.

“The government of Pakistan must ensure that no drone strike takes place in the future,” the court said. It asked the Foreign Ministry to table a resolution against the American attacks in the UN.

“If the US vetoes the resolution, then the country should think about breaking diplomatic ties with the US,” the judgment said.

US officials have said the drones target Al Qaeda and Taliban elements in Pakistan’s tribal regions who are blamed for cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan insists that the US spy planes kill innocent people, damage civilian property and are counter-productive to the war on terror.

The US has rejected Pakistan’s calls for halting drone strikes.

The Peshawar High Court had earlier reserved its verdict after the completion of arguments by lawyers for the federal government and the petitioners, including the Defence of Pakistan Council, an amalgamation of religious groups, tribal elders and rights groups.

The petitioners had asked the court to direct the government to make public any secret deal with the US on drone strikes, stop drone strikes by force, take the issue to the UN Security Council and pay compensation to families of people killed in missile attacks.

US President Barack Obama has stepped up CIA drone strikes targeting Al Qaida and Taliban elements in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region since 2009.

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| NY: At 1776ft, One World Trade Center now the tallest building in Western Hemisphere!

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New York’s tower of strength: Historic moment as spire is placed on 1,776ft World Trade Center to make it the tallest building in Western Hemisphere ~ ASSOCIATED PRESS and DAILY MAIL REPORTERS.

The silver spire topping One World Trade Center has been fully installed on the building’s roof, bringing the iconic structure to its full, symbolic height of 1,776 feet.

The spire’s installation was completed Friday morning, after pieces of it had been transported to the roof of the building last week. Construction workers below applauded the milestone.

The building is rising at the northwest corner of the site where the twin towers were destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The area is well on its way to reconstruction with the 72-story Four World Trade Center and other buildings.

The 408-foot spire, weighing 758 tons, will serve as a world-class broadcast antenna. An LED-powered light emanating from it will be seen from miles away and a beacon will be at the top to ward off aircraft.

Stunning: The spire of the World Trade Center has been put in place, allowing the iconic structure to tower over New York City at 1,776 feetStunning: The spire of the World Trade Center has been put in place, allowing the iconic structure to tower over New York City at 1,776 feet
Installation of the spire atop the new One World Trade Center building was completed Friday morning in New York City
Installation of the spire atop the new One World Trade Center building was completed Friday morning in New York City

What a high: Installation of the spire atop the new One World Trade Center building was completed Friday morning in New York City, breaking records

New skyline: One World Trade Center, top center, seen from the Heights neighborhood of Jersey City, New Jersey after the spire was put in placeNew skyline: One World Trade Center, top center, seen from the Heights neighborhood of Jersey City, New Jersey after the spire was put in place
Standout: As the sun rises over New York City on Friday morning, residents will awake to a new skyline after the addition of the spireStandout: As the sun rises over New York City on Friday morning, residents will awake to a new skyline after the addition of the spire

The addition of the spire, and its raising of the building’s height to 1,776 feet, would make One World Trade Center the tallest structure in the U.S. and third-tallest in the world, although building experts dispute whether the spire is actually an antenna – a crucial distinction in measuring the building’s height.

If it didn’t have the spire, One World Trade Center would actually be shorter than the Willis Tower in Chicago, which stands at 1,451 feet and currently has the title of tallest building in the U.S., not including its own antennas.

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a Chicago-based organization considered an authority on such records, says an antenna is something simply added to the top of a tower that can be removed. By contrast, a spire is something that is part of the building’s architectural design.

The tower is slated to open for business in 2014.

From a distance: On a perfect May day in New York, construction workers set off to hoist up the spire, which appears like a tiny speck against the side of the buildingGetting ready: Last week, construction workers set off to hoist up the spire, which appears like a tiny speck against the side of the World Trade Center
Spire
Spire

Red, white and blue: An American flag was attached to the base pinnacle before it had begun its vertical trip

Soaring: The final sections of the spire is raised to the top of One World Trade Center Soaring: The final section of the spire is raised to the top of One World Trade Center
Monumental task: It took a massive crane and a large team of workers to lift the pinnacle to the top Monumental task: It took a massive crane and a large team of workers to lift the pinnacle to the top

One for the album: Construction workers armed with cell phones take pictures of the spire being raised to the top of the building One for the album: Construction workers armed with cell phones take pictures of the spire being raised to the top of the building

Awe-inspiring sight: Smiling workers follow the spire's progress to the top of One World Trade Center Awe-inspiring sight: Smiling workers follow the spire’s progress to the top of One World Trade Center

FACTS AND FIGURES ON ONE WORLD TRADE CENTER:

Official Name: One World Trade Center
Former Name: Freedom Tower
Street Address: 1 World Trade Center
Proposed: 2005
Start of construction: 2006
Expected completion: 2014
Architectural height: 1776 feet
Occupied height: 1254 feet
Height to tip: 1792 feet
Height of spire: 408 feet
Floors above ground: 104
Floors below ground: 5
Number of elevators: 73
Top elevator speed: 10.16 m/s
Cost of construction: $3.8billion

Installation of the 800-ton, 408-foot spire began in December, after 18 pieces were shipped from Canada and New Jersey.

With the beacon at its peak to ward off aircraft, the spire will provide public transmission services for television and radio broadcast channels that were destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, along with the trade center towers.

Overlooking the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the high-rise is scheduled to open for business in 2014.

The tower is at the northwest corner of the site, which is well on its way to reconstruction with the 72-story 4 World Trade Center and other buildings.

The celebration comes just a week after a grisly reminder of the terror attack that took nearly 3,000 lives: the discovery of a rusted piece of airplane landing gear wedged between a nearby mosque and an apartment building – believed to be from one of the hijacked planes that ravaged lower Manhattan.

As officials prepared to erect the spire, the office of the city’s chief medical examiner was working in the hidden alley where they feared debris could still contain human remains.

On Wednesday last week, medical examiners concluded their hunt while reporting having found no human remains.

Purpose: The entire spire will tower 408-foot at the top of the building while serving as a world-class broadcast antennaPurpose: The entire spire will tower 408-foot at the top of the building while serving as a world-class broadcast antenna
Gleaming: The final detail topping the the 408-foot spire for One World Trade Center is shown at ground level on WednesdayGleaming: The final detail topping the the 408-foot spire for One World Trade Center is shown at ground level on Wednesday

The new tower’s crowning spire is a joint venture between the ADF Group Inc. engineering firm in Terrebonne, Quebec, and New York-based DCM Erectors Inc., a steel contractor.

The tallest building in the Western Hemisphere is the Willis Tower in Chicago. The world’s tallest building, topping 2,700 feet, is in Dubai.

Waiting: Cranes work adjacent to the spire on top of One World Trade Center with the last remaining piece still awaiting its placement possibly as soon as Thursday
Rival: Upon completion the building will be just feet from topping the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, the Willis Tower in Chicago

Rival: Upon completion the building, pictured towering above the Statue of Liberty, right, will be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere

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| Gang stole $45m from cash machines across globe in hours, say prosecutors!

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Gang stole $45m from cash machines across globe in hours, say prosecutors ~ Associated Press in New York, guardian.co.uk.

‘Virtual criminal flash mob’ used bogus swipe cards loaded with data from hacked bank databases to commit thousands of thefts.

cash machine theft

Seven people are being held in connection with a case US prosecutors describe as a ‘massive 21st-century bank heist’. Photograph: Gene J Puskar/AP

A gang of criminals stole $45m (£29m) in a matter of hours by hacking their way into a database of prepaid debit cards and then draining cash machines around the globe, US prosecutors have said.

Seven people were being held on Thursday in connection with the case, which prosecutors said involved thousands of thefts from machines using bogus magnetic swipe cards carrying information from Middle Eastern banks. The fraudsters moved quickly, working in cells to loot financial institutions around the world.

US attorney Loretta Lynch called it “a massive 21st-century bank heist”.

One of the suspects was caught on surveillance cameras, his backpack loaded down with cash, authorities said. Others took photographs of themselves with giant wads of notes as they made their way up and down Manhattan.

Here’s how it worked:

Hackers got into bank databases, eliminated withdrawal limits on prepaid debit cards and created access codes. Others loaded that data on to any plastic card with a magnetic stripe – old hotel key card or expired credit card worked fine as long as they carried the account data and correct access codes.

A network of operatives then fanned out to rapidly withdraw money in multiple cities, authorities said. The cells would take a cut of the money, then launder it through expensive purchases or ship it wholesale to the global ringleaders.

It appears no individuals lost money. The thieves plundered funds held by the banks that back up prepaid credit cards, not individual or business accounts, Lynch said.

She called it a “virtual criminal flash mob”, and a security analyst said it was the biggest cash machine fraud case she had heard of.

There were two separate attacks, one in December that reaped $5m (£3.2m) worldwide and another in February that brought in about $40m in 10 hours in about 36,000 transactions. The scheme involved attacks on two banks, Rakbank in the United Arab Emirates and the Bank of Muscat in Oman, prosecutors said.

The plundered machines were in Japan, Russia, Romania, Egypt, Colombia, Britain, Sri Lanka, Canada and several other countries. Law enforcement agencies from more than a dozen countries were involved in the investigation.

The accused ringleader in the US cell, Alberto Yusi Lajud-Pena, was reportedly killed in the Dominican Republic late last month, prosecutors said.

An indictment accused him and the other seven New York suspects of withdrawing $2.8m in cash from hacked accounts in less than a day.

Such cash machine fraud schemes are not uncommon.

Some of the fault lies with the ubiquitous magnetic strips on the back of the cards. Much of the world has abandoned them in favour of chip and pin cards. But because US banks and merchants have stuck to cards with magnetic strips, they are still accepted around the world.

Lynch would not say who masterminded the attacks globally, who the hackers are or where they were located, citing an ongoing investigation.

Lajud-Pena was found dead with a suitcase full of about $100,000 in cash. Dominican officials said they arrested a man in the killing who said it was a botched robbery.

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| Pakistan: Musharraf taken into custody on charges of terrorism!

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Pervez Musharraf taken into custody on charges of terrorism ~ , guardian.co.uk.

Former military dictator returned to ‘save’ Pakistan but must now face possibility of being tried for treason.

Pervez Musharraf, the man who was once Pakistan‘s all-powerful military ruler, was taken into police custody on Friday following a judge’s ruling that he should be tried on terrorism charges.

Any hopes the former president might have had of clinging on to some dignity by being held under house arrest were dashed when police officers came and escorted him from his luxury home on the outskirts of Islamabad to the city’s police headquarters.

He has been remanded in custody for two days while police investigate claims that his sacking of top judges towards the end of his eight-year rule in 2007amounted to terrorism.

Earlier on Friday he had appeared in one of the city’s small, clammy courts where a judge ruled that he should be held under house arrest.

That ruling followed extraordinary scenes on Thursday when a high court judge refused to extend the “pre-arrest bail” he had been granted last month and ordered his arrest, prompting the former army chief to flee from the court and take refuge in his home.

His arrest on Friday ended a potentially embarrassing situation where Musharraf remained at large despite an order from a judge that he be taken into custody.

But after just a couple of hours of detention at home he was taken into police custody for two days.

Earlier Musharraf, a keen user of social media, took to Facebook to decry the charges against him.

“These allegations are politically motivated and I will fight them in the trial court, where the truth will eventually prevail,” he said.

The former president certainly has few friends among Pakistan’s feisty legal community, who still rage at his 2007 dismissal of judges, including the chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who Musharraf feared would challenge his re-election as president.

In his judgment on Thursday Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui ruled that confining judges to house arrest was an “act of terrorism”.

He said Musharraf had “spread fear in the society, insecurity among the judicial officers, alarm in the lawyers’ community and terror throughout Pakistan”.

The former president, who seized power in a coup in 1999 before being harried out of the country in 2008 by his opponents, faces several court challenges, including claims of conspiring to assassinate Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister, by not providing her with enough security and for ordering the killing of an important separatist tribal leader.

Some analysts believe he will ultimately be able to defend himself against the charges. More serious would be if he was accused of treason for imposing emergency law, a charge that can carry the death sentence.

However, only parliament can press treason charges and so far it has been reluctant to do so.

On Friday the senate unanimously passed a resolution calling for Musharraf to be tried for treason.

Some politicians expressed anger that Musharraf had not been immediately taken into custody.

During a campaign trip to Baluchistan, the election frontrunner, Nawaz Sharif, said that the police had been in contempt of court by letting Musharraf flee without being arrested on Thursday.

“If any common man would have done what Musharraf did, then he would’ve surely been behind bars right now,” said Sharif, a former two-time prime minister whose last time in office was cut short by the military coup orchestrated by Musharraf in 1999.

“Why was he escorted home safely by Islamabad police? Because he was an army chief earlier?” He was quoted as saying by local media.

Musharraf has faced a series of setbacks since he flew into Karachi from his self-imposed exile in Dubai on 23 March, announcing he was going to “save” Pakistan. He appeared to be unaware that his political support in the country has largely evaporated since he left in 2008.

He has received scant support from the public or any of the leading political parties in his attempt to get elected in next month’s historic polls.

His dream of re-entering politics has been crushed by election officials who ruled this week that he was ineligible to stand for any of the four seats he had applied for.

Many analysts believe that the country’s still-powerful military establishment, anxious to prevent civilian courts trying former officers, will try to intervene to help him.

Others are not so sure. “I don’t think the army was in favour of him returning and tried to dissuade him,” said General Hamid Khan, a former senior army commander. “But he decided to come, and now he has to face this. The army is staying out of it.”

Supporters of former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf protest

Supporters of former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf protest as Islamabad High Court orders his arrest. Photograph: Arshad Arbab/EPA
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| Russia buries journalist and eco-campaigner who died after beating!

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Russia buries journalist and eco-campaigner who died after beating ~ RT.

About 100 people, most of them journalists and environmental activists, have attended a memorial service for Mikhail Beketov, the award-winning journalist who was crippled in a brutal attack in 2008 and died in hospital this Monday, April 8.

The ceremony was held in the Moscow House of Journalists, and was followed by a Russian Orthodox service in the Church of St. Cosmas and Damian. Beketov was buried at the Novoluzhino cemetery in his home town of Khimki, in Moscow’s suburbs. He was 55 at the time of his death.

Beketov was the editor-in-chief of the Khimki Pravda newspaper, and became famous for his active stance against the destruction of the Khimki Forest – a small piece of woodland that had to be cut down to build a highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. In November 2008, Beketov was badly beaten by unidentified attackers, leaving him disabled and unable to speak.

He was bedridden for several years, and only started walking again about 18 months ago with the help of crutches and a prosthetic limb. On Monday, Beketov was taken to a hospital in the town of Noginsk for a pre-scheduled rehabilitation course, but died a few hours after checking in.

Russian police launched an investigation into the beating, classifying it as attempted murder, but to this day the probe has yielded no results, according to official reports. The regional branch of the agency for high-profile crimes – the Investigative Committee – said it has also launched an investigation into the man’s death, adding that a preliminary investigation showed that Beketov choked on food.

The 2008 attack sparked widespread condemnation in Russian society and abroad. Beketov’s colleagues called on authorities to find and punish those responsible.  A major rally was held in Moscow in which activists demanded that authorities take measures to prevent violence against reporters and sack the mayor of Khimki, who publicly opposed Beketov.

In 2010, Beketov received the award ‘For Courage and Professionalism’ from the Russian Union of Journalists, and the ‘Free Eastern Europe Press’ international award. In 2011, the reporter received the Russian government’s print media award.

During the memorial ceremony, chair of the Russian Union of Journalism Vsevolod Bogdanov praised Beketov’s activism, saying that the late editor worked to effect positive change and refused to “live in the time of bad consciousness.” Bogdanov also reminded the audience that over 350 journalists have been killed in Russia over the past 20 years.

Bogdanov said that Beketov managed to stir up the mass media, and showed other journalists that it was important to never stop working until you succeed: “For me, as the head of the Journalists’ Union, he is a holy icon.”

Bogdanov also read a letter of condolence from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The service was attended by heads of several Russian environmental movements, such as the leader of the Alliance of the Greens party Oleg Mitvol, and the leader of the For Khimki Forest movement Yevganiya Chirikova. The activists voiced suggestions that a street in Khimki should be named after Beketov.

Presidential plenipotentiary for Human Rights Vladimir Lukin again urged authorities to find and punish the attackers who crippled the reporter, as well as those who orchestrated the beating: “It is absolutely obvious that the circle of suspects is very close, and the circle of sponsors is even closer.”

“Mikhail Beketov lived and died like a human being in a very inhumane time. He is without doubt a hero. He is a great hero,” Lukin concluded.

RIA Novosti / Vladimir Astapkovich

RIA Novosti / Vladimir Astapkovich
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