Italy Court Ups Sentences For 23 CIA Agents

By Nicole Winfield, AP

An Italian appeals court on Wednesday increased the sentences against 23 Americans convicted in the kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect who was part of the CIA's extraordinary renditions program.

In upholding the convictions, the court added one year to the eight-year term handed down to former Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady and two years to the five-year terms given to 22 other Americans convicted along with him, defense lawyers said.

They were never in Italian custody and were tried and convicted in absentia but risk arrest if they travel to Europe.

The Americans and two Italians were convicted last year of involvement in the kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003 — the first convictions anywhere in the world against people involved in the CIA's practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries where torture was permitted.

The cleric was transferred to U.S. military bases in Italy and Germany before being moved to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. He has since been released.

Amnesty International praised Wednesday's decision as a step toward demanding greater accountability in Europe for the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

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"Which Party is Actually 'Evil' ... Becomes a Question of Perspective"

Perspective

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."
—C. G. Jung

In a hierarchical society free will is generally proportional to your position within the hierarchy, which allows you power and freedom to take more from those below and also create systems to allow this process to be self perpetuating. This positive feedback cycle generally leads to an expansion of the hierarchy until those at the bottom cannot sustain those at the top and a point of collapse is reached. It is at this point where we find ourselves today and it is at this point where a decision is made to collapse with conscious intention for positive creation or if collapse is simply an unconscious process into a controlled dystopia.

The most obvious example of this is the financial system where debt money funnels energy to the elite with absolute certainty, creating scarcity for the general population until it is replaced. Another example is the whole concept of 'evil' people who are really just people born with less free will and the process of judgment is a system which further reduces their free will and amplifies the very 'evil' which is being judged. Over time most of the consciousness of humanity ends up in 'hell' with little free will being judged by tiny egos in heaven, preventing the species individuating and easily controlled by higher intelligence. Which party is actually 'evil' in this case becomes a question of perspective. Light and dark are relative polarities with one simply being defined by the other with one persons good being another persons evil and the whole system able to rise or fall depending on the collective consciousness. With the understanding that we are all connected the decision to punish as opposed to heal can be recognized as a form of insanity.

There are many polarizations in the world today such as consciousness, knowledge, money, energy, love and technology and as each of these is balanced and spread evenly around the planet a golden age can be created. The free will taken by those at the top in a service to self capacity can be returned and evenly distributed to the larger body and the whole system can evolve to a higher expression providing the opportunity to move from a system of separate individuals to a collective conscious planetary body.

The financial elite have planed for many decades to institute a global new world order based on scarcity and control. This group has nearly unlimited resources and responsibility to understand the processes of global creation in terms of increasing free will for the planet and her people and yet choose to minimize free will and limit creation with consequences lasting millennia. On one level they are simply corrupt and seeking temporal benefit for their brief existence at the expense of a planetary body and their own children, on another level they are unconscious and on another they are mind control victims, pawns of higher intelligence, so its just a question of perspective.

A parent controls a child, the government control the population, the elite control the government, the global managers control the elite, whilst et's control the entire planetary system. These are all just fractals of the teacher-student ordering of the universe. We could assume that the alien race is organized in a similar manner to the elites dystopia, where children are raised in state sponsored care centers where their creativity is stifled, both parents burdened with debt working meaningless jobs, where thought and action are closely monitored and controlled to maximize fear, the species DNA segregated by conflict and polluted with chemicals to prevent unifying as a planetary body leading to a process of devolution. They are most likely a synthetic race lacking DNA so naturally try to create a planet of clones in their own image where free will is minimized rather than one mirroring our DNA holographic fractal matrix where each persons individuality, creativity and free will is maximized for the benefit of the whole. A technological transfer program would allow the human population to be more easily controlled, with decisions being made by super computers programmed to see humans as 'useless eaters' rather than co-creators. Potentially 'consciousness' could eventually be gently encouraged onto a technological platform where the fear of death would gradually see humanity self replicate into the same synthetic race. So from one perspective we find ourselves in a system of control which attempts to prevent the free will of the planetary body extending beyond a certain level and from another its a preset planetary initiation created to help evolve the consciousness of humanity.

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Europe's Last Dictator? 'Rigged Vote' Brings Thousands to Streets of Belarus Capital Minsk

Police have cracked down on thousands of opposition supporters in the Belarusian capital Minsk, as they tried to storm government buildings in protest over the presidential election. Incumbent leader Aleksandr Lukashenko has won a fourth term in office, but his opponents say the poll was rigged. Katerina Azarova reports from Minsk.

South Korea Concludes Artillery Drill, Scrambles Jet Fighters

By Steve Herman, VOA

South Koreans are anxiously waiting to see if North Korea will make good on its threat to take military action in response to an artillery drill on Yeonpyeong island. The exercise came just hours after an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council failed to ease tensions, and after an American politician said North Korea is willing to accept nuclear inspections.

South Korea defied diplomatic pressure and went ahead Monday with firing artillery into the Yellow Sea for 94 minutes, escalating its confrontation with the communist North.

Defense officials stress the shelling was to the southwest, away from North Korea. But North Korea claims that area is its territory and, in the days since the drill was announced, has warned it could lead to war.

In Seoul, Foreign Ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun termed the live-fire exercise routine and legitimate.

Kim says the artillery drill is for self-defense and part of the country's sovereign right.

A few hours before the exercise, the United Nations Security Council failed to reach a consensus on lowering tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Diplomats say China, among other nations, would not back a statement condemning North Korea for recent aggressive behavior, including the shelling of Yeonpyeong island last month.

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Ralph Nader: Julian Assange Prosecution a 'Distraction' from Executive Branch Secrecy

ABC News' Devin Dwyer reports: Ralph Nader, a leading consumer advocate and former presidential candidate, delivered a spirited public defense of WikiLeaks Thursday and called the prosecution of Julian Assange a “distraction” from a more disconcerting issue: the Obama and Bush administrations’ fixation with secrecy.

“If you take all of the present and probably future disclosures under the WikiLeaks initiative, the vast majority should never have been classified,” Nader told a House Judiciary Committee hearing on legal and constitutional issues surrounding WikiLeaks’ publication of secret government documents.

“The vast majority are reprehensible use of people employing taxpayer dollars, the vast majority should have been disclosed, if not never stated, for the benefit of the American people to hold their government accountable,” he said.

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