Arne Løining's List: Current affairs

• The MEK traces its roots back to the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeg.
• its overall value as an intelligence resource is negatively impacted by the fact that it is the sole source of human intelligence in Iran. As such, the group has taken to exaggerating and fabricating reports to serve its own political agenda. In this way, there is little to differentiate the MEK from another Middle Eastern expatriate opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, which infamously supplied inaccurate intelligence to the United States and other governments and helped influence the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein.
• The fact that this computer is acknowledged as coming from the MEK and the fact that a proper forensic investigation would probably demonstrate the fabricated nature of the data contained are why the U.S. government will never agree to such an investigation being done.
• The problem has never been, and will never be, Iran’s enrichment program. The problem is American policy objectives of regime change in Iran, pushed by a combination of American desires for global hegemony and an activist Israeli agenda which seeks regional security, in perpetuity, through military and economic supremacy.
• A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House.

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• • SOTT: While some of these things may come to happen, do not take the report too seriously. Apart from the fact that it is next to impossible to make accurate long term predictions, the authors are making a few assumptions based on propaganda; for example, that "Islamic revolutionary groups" represent a significant threat, or that climate change means global warming.
    
    Some of their propositions also suffer from naivety. The assertion that there will be an "increase in human life span" seems to imply that this will be the case for the majority of the population. Most likely, advances in medicine will come at a high price, making them a privilege of the elite.
    
    Likewise, the idea that countries will look for natural resources in space overlooks the fact that the cost of current space programs hugely outweighs the value of the resources that can be gathered from our solar system. Unless of course governments have much more advanced secret space technology at their disposal; but in that case, there is no reason why they would use it for the benefit of everyone.
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• Water scarcity will be a major issue, U.S. economic crisis is likely, a pandemic may happen, and the global financial system may fail;

• The situation in the Gaza Strip is worse, there the 'prison' is already in place, and because of the resistance by the Palestinians to the imprisonment, Israel launches an escalating policy of massive killings. The world seems indifferent, and the Arab world uninterested.
• A society that endorses a 40-year occupation of another people cannot be a liberal one. A society that discriminates against 20 percent of its population because they are not Jews cannot be described as progressive. The problem in Israel is not the role of religion or tradition; it is the role of Zionism, a very clear ideology of exclusion, racism and expulsion. This ideology allows the army to play a significant role in most of the domestic and foreign policies, and it is probably right to say that Israel is not a state with an army, but an army with a state.

• "After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

• it is lawful for European governments and companies to transfer personal information to the United States, and vice versa
• race, religion, political opinion, health or “sexual life” may not be used by a government “unless domestic law provides appropriate safeguards.

• with the   new law granting   immunity to   telecom   companies and   granting the   federal   government wide   discretionary   powers in spying   on our   communications   (which has   become far   simpler in this   electronic day   and age), the   Imperial rubber   stamp arm of the   federal   government has   brutally   murdered another   of our precious   rights: the 4th   Amendment which   states: "The   right of the   people to be   secure in their   persons, houses,   papers, and   effects, against   unreasonable   searches and   seizures, shall   not be violated,   and no Warrants   shall issue, but   upon probable   cause, supported   by Oath or   affirmation, and   particularly   describing the   place to be   searched, and   the persons or   things to be   seized."
  

• A perfect storm seems to be gathering in late summer or early fall,

• In the immediate area of the two attacks, our calculations show that within 48 hours, an estimated 2.6 million people would die.
• Over 1,000,000 people would suffer immediate injuries including thermal and flash burns, radiation sickness, broken limbs, lacerations, blindness, crush injuries, burst eardrums and other traumas. In the wider region, over 10.5 million people would be exposed to significant radiation from fallout (those in the light green to pink zones on the map above), leading to radiation sickness, future excess cancer deaths, genetic abnormalities in future generations, as well as high rates of stillbirths, miscarriages, malignancies and hypothyroidism. Most if not all medical facilities near the two attack sites would be destroyed, or located within the radiation "hot zone" and thus unusable. Little or no medical care would be available to the injured in the aftermath of an attack, leading to many avoidable deaths.