Germany: Court Shoots Down Computer Surveillance

Government surveillance of personal computers would violate the individual right to privacy, Germany's
highest court found Wednesday, in a ruling that German investigators say will restrict their ability to pursue
terrorists.

The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court said in a precedent-setting decision that data stored or exchanged on a
personal computer is effectively covered under principles of the constitution that enshrine the right to personal privacy.

"Collecting such data directly encroaches on a citizen's rights, given that fear of being observed ... can prevent
unselfconscious personal communication," presiding judge Hans-Juergen Papier said in his ruling.

While the ruling directly addressed a state law that had widely permitted authorities to monitor criminal suspects'
personal computer use, it also set out the ground rules for a hotly disputed federal law governing secret services' ability
to use virus-like software to monitor suspected terrorists' online activity.

"Given the gravity of the intrusion, the secret infiltration of an IT system in such a way that use of the system and its
data can be searched can only be constitutionally allowed if clear evidence of a concrete threat to a prominent object of
legal protection exists," Papier said.

Authorities would be allowed to spy on suspects' computers using virus software in exceptional cases, according to the
ruling. However, any such action must have the approval of a judge...

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Global Hunger 'Perfect Storm'

The United Nations warned yesterday that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay this year in the face of a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices, which have created a "new face of hunger".

"We will have a problem in coming months," said Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). "We will have a significant gap if commodity prices remain this high, and we will need an extra half billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs."

With voluntary contributions from the world's wealthy nations, the WFP feeds 73 million people in 78 countries, less than a 10th of the total number of the world's undernourished. Its agreed budget for 2008 was $2.9bn (£1.5bn). But with annual food price increases around the world of up to 40% and dramatic hikes in fuel costs, that budget is no longer enough even to maintain current food deliveries.

The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Afghanistan has recently added an extra 2.5 million people to the number it says are at risk of malnutrition

"This is the new face of hunger," Sheeran said. "There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before."

WFP officials say the extraordinary increases in the global price of basic foods were caused by a "perfect storm" of factors: a rise in demand for animal feed from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels, and climate change.

The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety...

~ From Feed the world? We are fighting a losing battle, UN admits ~

Rense: Brzezinski Seizing Control Over US Policy In Slow-Motion Coup

Events of the past few days indicate that the Zbigniew Brzezinski faction of lunatic Russia haters have now won the upper hand inside the secret councils of the Anglo-American finance oligarchy, displacing the hitherto dominant George Shultz-neocon faction. Although George Bush and his cronies still occupy the White House, the policies that are being carried out are coming from the Brzezinski left CIA machine. Brzezinski has returned to public prominence in recent months due to his role as top establishment controller for the Obama campaign. But Brzezinski is not waiting for the outcome of the November elections to take over key parts of the US government. Brzezinski and his left CIA allies are already moving to assert their strategy, even as the neocons and their characteristic obsessions are moved to the back burner. The probability of an attack on Iran or Syria is declining, even as the danger of confrontation with Russia, China, and Pakistan ­ all much more dangerous targets to trifle with ­ increases exponentially.

1. KOSOVO - The independence of Kosovo has opened a new crisis front in Eastern Europe, with the potential for very nasty complications in regard to Russia. This is the essence of the Brzezinski anti-Russian policy. Kosovo independence is of course a flagrant violation of all existing norms of international law, most notably the Helsinki CSCE treaty of 1975 which finally put an end to World War II by declaring that all borders in Europe were to be considered final unless and until any changes had been agreed through mutual consultation of the interested parties. Since the Serbian government in Belgrade is vehemently opposed to Kosovo independence, the unilateral actions of the US, British, and NATO are the very essence of international anarchy. The new regime in Kosovo goes far beyond the usual kleptocracy of NATO puppets favored by Brzezinski and his circles. The new regime in Kosovo is essentially the terrorist KLA, an organization devoted to gun-running, drug-running, and trafficking in human slaves. The KLA is a Balkan version of Al Qaeda, and both are wholly owned creations of the CIA and British intelligence. With Kosovo independence, the US, British, and NATO stand ready to use armed force to defend the right of a terrorist gang to assert sovereignty over a segment of modern Europe. The criminal obscenity of this policy could hardly be greater, but for Brzezinski all methods are legitimate provided that they increase tension with Moscow, and in that respect Kosovo independence is already a glowing success.

2. US EMBASSY, BELGRADE - The attack on the US embassy in Belgrade, Serbia by gangs of drunken students is a classic Brzezinski operation. The tactic of having an incensed rent-a-mob of swarming adolescent patsies attack the US Embassy in order to gin up a crisis is one of Zbigniew's signature specialties. During the time that Brzezinski was running the foreign policy of Trilateral puppet Jimmy Carter, there were bloody attacks on the US embassies in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, both countries that featured prominently in Brzezinski's arc of crisis theory. Most famous of all was of course the attack on the US embassy in Teheran, Iran, which led to the taking of hostages and the huge international crisis which helped to doom the Carter administration to extinction at the polls. If US diplomats or State Department personnel are taken hostage anywhere in the world in the weeks and months to come, this must be attributed to Brzezinski...

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Libya slams Germany over arms sale

The eldest son of the Libyan leader has criticized Germany over its double standards towards selling weapons to different countries.

Seif al-Islam, who is increasingly seen as the successor to his father Moamer Kadhafi, made the remarks Wednesday in a letter addressed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, posted on the website of his Kadhafi Foundation charity, AFP reported.

Seif al-Islam said that while Germany refuses to grant licenses to export the simplest defense equipments and engines to Arab countries, including Libya, it is building two Dolphin-class submarines, which can be fitted with nuclear missiles, for Israel.

He also said Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert had asked the Germans to speed up the process of building the two submarines during a visit last week to Berlin for talks with Merkel that according to Tel Aviv's officials focused on Iranian nuclear program.

~ Link ~

Malta ‘is Blackwater’s operational base’ -- MEP report [The Independent]

" ... A European Parliament working document drawn up by Giovanni Claudio Fava has claimed “Malta is the operational base of Blackwater, the organiser of private military militia which are increasingly taking on more and more roles which used to be undertaken by US forces in Iraq and elsewhere”.

[ ... ]

Eric Prince's parents, Edgar Prince and his wife Elsa Prince Broekhuizen, through their foundation finance the Council for National Policy, an ultra-secret society which met in Salt Lake City on 28 September to hear Dick Cjheney argue the case for an attack on Iran.

Prince Senior is one of the pillars of Christian Coalition of Gary Bauer and of the Family Research Council of James Dobson.

Eric Prince, through his own foundation, the Freiheit Foundation, finances Christendom College, the Institute for World Politics, Crisis Magazine and the Prison Fellowship of Chuck Colson. Prince also finances the Legionnaires du Christ and Christian Freedom International.

When still 27 years old, Eric Prince founded Blackwater USA. He and those who soon joined him have profited from the more than $1,000 million they have taken as contracts from 2000 to 2006.

In 2004, Cofer Black passed from CIA to the State Department and thence became Blackwater's vice-president. While still in the CIA, Black was in charge of the “special extraditions” organising the secret transfer of prisoners from Iraq or Afghanistan to countries less rigid against the practice of torture, such as Poland, Romania, Egypt, and so on.

These planes, which travelled between Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Afghanistan often made stopovers in many European countries such as the UK, Italy, France, Germany and Malta many times without the countries themselves being informed what was going on.

Now the Swiss procurator Dick Marty has sent documents regarding the “CIA's flying prisons” to the European Parliament and names two Blackwater subsidiaries – Presidential Airways and Aviation Worldwide Services.

The Giovanni Claudio Fava document on behalf of the European Parliament says the two companies used CASA C-212 planes, usually used to transport paratroops and big cargoes and also able to land on improvised landing spots. ... "

~ Full article ~