DoD Blocks Millions of Computers From Viewing Alternative News

After the initial surge of web traffic to alternative news websites following The Guardian breaking the NSA spying story, traffic has slowed considerably despite the continued interest in the NSA story as well as other alternative headlines.

This dramatic drop in traffic may be due to broad censorship by the Department of Defense on “millions of computers”.

What began as a rumor that the military brass was ordering soldiers not to view news about the whistleblower revelations that the NSA is spying on all Americans has swelled into a confirmed military-wide censorship campaign using a high-tech computer filtering system.

The US News and World Report is reporting that the DoD is blocking access to all articles related to the NSA scandal from all DoD computers. The filter reportedly effects millions of computers and potentially thousands of alternative news and civil liberties websites.

According to U.S. News:

The Department of Defense is blocking online access to news reports about classified National Security Agency documents made public by Edward Snowden. The blackout affects all of the department’s computers and is part of a department-wide directive.

“Any website that runs information that the Department of Defense still considers classified” is affected, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickart told U.S. News in a phone interview.
According to Pickart, news websites that re-report information first published by The Guardian or other primary sources are also affected.

“If that particular website runs an article that our filters determine has classified information… the particular content on that website will remain inaccessible,” he said.
Pickart said the blackout affects “millions” of computers on “all Department of Defense networks and systems.”

This is perhaps one of the most shocking displays of blatant censorship in the history of the United States. The idea that classified information should still be treated as “off limits” to regular military personnel after its broad release to the public makes no sense.

Unless, of course, they don’t want soldiers learning the truth about what their government is doing for fear that they may recognize who the true enemies of the Constitution are.

Or this may simply be a beta test of the government’s technical capability to filter Internet traffic away from certain news stories and the websites that carry them.

In either case, this should be a HUGE story in itself.  Draconian Internet censorship has finally arrived in a big way.



Eric Blair

They 'Will Lie, Trick, and Deceive'

Jailed CIA Whistleblower's Advice to Snowden

'Don’t make the same mistakes that I made,' says John Kiriakou from behind bars

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou—currently serving a 30-month sentence for blowing the whistle on the systemic use of torture within the agency—penned a public letter of support and advice for Edward Snowden from his Loretto, Pennsylvania prison cell.

In the handwritten note—published by FiredogLake Tuesday—Kiriakou declares his admiration for Snowden's leaking of documents detailing NSA spying programs.

"Thank you for your revelations of government wrong-doing over the past week. You have done the country a great public service," Kiriakou writes.

From one whistleblower to another, Kiriakou shares his own lessons in best practices when facing severe crackdown, which in Snowden's case has led to an international manhunt. Kiriakou explains, "I wanted to offer you the benefit of my own whistleblowing experience and aftermath so that you don’t make the same mistakes that I made."

His 'most important' advice? Never, ever cooperate with the FBI. Kiriakou—who is a former FBI employee—instructs Snowden:

DO NOT, under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI. FBI agents will lie, trick, and deceive you. They will twist your words and play on your patriotism to entrap you. They will pretend to be people they are not – supporters, well-wishers, and friends – all the while wearing wires to record your out-of-context statements to use against you. The FBI is the enemy; it’s a part of the problem, not the solution.

He also urges Snowden to find good legal representation and build infrastructure for international support campaigns, including a website. Furthermore, Kiriakou suggests that Snowden seek the support of 'prominent' groups and individuals, including supporters in Congress, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Government Accountability Project.

Kiriakou, who worked for the CIA from 1990-2004, stepped forward in 2007 as the first CIA employee to acknowledge agency-wide practices of using torture, including waterboarding and other brutal tactics. He was sentenced for allegedly leaking the name of a CIA employee to a reporter, but Kiriakou and his supporters say he was really punished for blowing the whistle.

“In truth, [my prison sentence] is my punishment for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s illegal torture program and for telling the public that torture was official U.S. government policy,” he wrote in a previous letter from prison. “But that’s a different story.”


Sarah Lazare

UK Government Bans GMOs From Its Own Parliament restaurants while telling public to embrace genetic poisons

Since the mid-to-late 1990s when genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) were first being thrust onto the market by governments working in lockstep with the biotechnology industry, the U.K. Parliament has effectively barred their use in all food items served to government officials at Parliament restaurants, according to new reports. 

This, despite the fact that prominent elected officials in the U.K. are right now pushing GMOs on a public that is largely opposed to them, effectively shining the spotlight on their own insane hypocrisy with regards to the GMO issue.

As recently reported by the U.K.’s Daily Mail, news of the Parliament’s ban on GMOs at its own restaurants comes amid the procurement of a massive pro-GMO propaganda campaign being led by this very same Parliament against the interests of its own people. Biotech industry hacks like Conservative Secretary of State for the Environment Owen Paterson, for instance, who actually claims GMOs are safer than non-GMOs, is currently pushing for more GMO acceptance in his country even though he does not eat GMOs himself.

Paterson, who regularly dines on only the highest quality non-GMO fare at fancy Parliament restaurants like the Portcullis House and the Pavilion buffet, is quoted as blaming starvation in third world countries on widespread rejection of GMOs in the U.K. and elsewhere. Resistance to GM “Golden Rice,” for instance, is apparently the reason why millions of children have gone blind or died, according to Paterson, whose vehement advocacy of GMOs borders on maniacal.

“Over the last 15 years, despite offering the seeds for free to those who would need them, every attempt to deploy this Golden Rice has been thwarted,” exclaimed Paterson in a recent nonsensical statement. Completely untrue in every sense, as Golden Rice has never been approved anywhere, nor has it ever been offered for free to any country, Paterson’s fantasy views reflect the same lunatic sentiments as those held by many others in the Parliament, who themselves have opposed GMOs from the very beginning.


Sanctimonious government officials order the people to do as they say, not as they do

In essence, the common folk are basically expected to openly embrace untested GMOs while their overlords in government gorge on all-natural foods that have not been shown to cause cancerous tumors, digestive destruction, and other major health problems. This is further evidenced by a recent statement put forth by the company that prepares and serves food for the Parliament, which admits that Parliament members do not personally want to ingest GMOs.

“In line with its procurement policy, the House of Commons Catering Service avoids, wherever identifiable, the procurement of foods that contain genetically modified organisms,” reads a statement by the U.K. Parliament’s food supplier. “To this end, as part of the tendering process, food suppliers are required to work to a strict GM organisms policy and give assurances that goods supplied be free from genetically modified materials,” adds the group, noting that “customer choice” is responsible for keeping GMOs out of Parliament cafeterias.

In other words, GMOs are unacceptable for the self-appointed elite in the highest ranks of the government, who have decided to personally reject them in favor of real food. But for everyone else, GMOs are needed to end world hunger, save the planet, and return the global ecosystem to some type of Garden of Eden where nobody goes hungry and everybody lives forever, or something along these farcical lines.

“GM crops are not the solution to the food challenges we face,” says Clare Oxborrow from Friends of the Earth, countering the blatant dissimulation being propagated by corrupt individuals like Paterson. “They are largely being developed to benefit multinational biotech firms that are gaining control of the seed industry, not to feed poor people in developing countries. World food production needs a radical overhaul, but this should be based on less intensive practices that increase agricultural diversity, deliver resilience to the impacts of climate change and benefit local communities.”


Sources for this article include:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk


Contributed by NaturalNews Network of NaturalNews.com
Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

60 billion exoplanets in our galaxy

Looking for life beyond Earth? You now have twice as many planets to explore.

According to a study published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, there may be as many as 60 billion exoplanets in our galaxy alone in the so-called habitable zone around their stars - double what was previously thought.

Why the jump? Because a team of scientists from the University of Chicago and Northwestern University has created a 3-D model of how clouds would affect temperatures on alien worlds.

To be in a habitable zone, a planet needs to be just the right distance from its star so that liquid water (considered a requisite for life as we know it)  can exist on the planet's surface.

If the planet is too near its star, the liquid water would turn to vapor; too far away, and the water would turn to ice.

For decades, scientists have determined whether a planet is in this liquid-water-friendly Goldilocks zone by calculating how far the planet is from its star, and how hot the star is burning.

But in the new study, astronomers at the University of Chicago show how cloud patterns can alter the temperature of a planet enough that planets that were previously considered too close to their stars to support liquid water might be able to support it after all.

                                                                             Simulated cloud coverage on a tidally locked planet

Using a 3-D climate model originally created to forecast global warming on Earth, the scientists were able to model cloud patterns on planets that orbit red dwarf stars, the most common star in our galaxy.                                           

Red dwarf stars are less massive and cooler than our sun, and planets have to get pretty close to them in order to get enough heat to keep liquid water from freezing on their surface. Because the planets are so close to the star, they eventually get tidally locked with  it, meaning the same side of the planet is always facing the star.

According to the researchers' models, thick, giant clouds develop over the part of the planet that directly faces the star, reflecting light and heat back at the star and keeping the planet from getting too warm.

Dorian Abbot, an associate professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago and one of the study's authors, said his team's findings could easily be tested using the James Webb Space Telescope, which will go into orbit in 2018.

"Normally you would expect a planet to be hotter on the day side than on the night side," he said. "But a planet with a weather pattern like this will be colder on the day side than on the night side. If you see that reversal, we were right."


 Los Angeles Times

U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

Leslie James Pickering, the owner of a bookstore in Buffalo, was targeted by a tracking program from the United States Postal Service.

Leslie James Pickering noticed something odd in his mail last September: a handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake, with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the letters and packages sent to his home.

“Show all mail to supv” — supervisor — “for copying prior to going out on the street,” read the card. It included Mr. Pickering’s name, address and the type of mail that needed to be monitored. The word “confidential” was highlighted in green.

“It was a bit of a shock to see it,” said Mr. Pickering, who with his wife owns a small bookstore in Buffalo. More than a decade ago, he was a spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group labeled eco-terrorists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Postal officials subsequently confirmed they were indeed tracking Mr. Pickering’s mail but told him nothing else.

As the world focuses on the high-tech spying of the National Security Agency, the misplaced card offers a rare glimpse inside the seemingly low-tech but prevalent snooping of the United States Postal Service.

Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.

Together, the two programs show that postal mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail.

The mail covers program, used to monitor Mr. Pickering, is more than a century old but is still considered a powerful tool. At the request of law enforcement officials, postal workers record information from the outside of letters and parcels before they are delivered. (Opening the mail would require a warrant.) The information is sent to the law enforcement agency that asked for it. Tens of thousands of pieces of mail each year undergo this scrutiny.

The Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program was created after the anthrax attacks in late 2001 that killed five people, including two postal workers. Highly secret, it seeped into public view last month when the F.B.I. cited it in its investigation of ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. It enables the Postal Service to retrace the path of mail at the request of law enforcement. No one disputes that it is sweeping.

“In the past, mail covers were used when you had a reason to suspect someone of a crime,” said Mark D. Rasch, who started a computer crimes unit in the fraud section of the criminal division of the Justice Department and worked on several fraud cases using mail covers. “Now it seems to be, ‘Let’s record everyone’s mail so in the future we might go back and see who you were communicating with.’ Essentially you’ve added mail covers on millions of Americans.”

Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert and an author, said whether it was a postal worker taking down information or a computer taking images, the program was still an invasion of privacy.

“Basically they are doing the same thing as the other programs, collecting the information on the outside of your mail, the metadata, if you will, of names, addresses, return addresses and postmark locations, which gives the government a pretty good map of your contacts, even if they aren’t reading the contents,” he said.

But law enforcement officials said mail covers and the automatic mail tracking program are invaluable, even in an era of smartphones and e-mail.

In a criminal complaint filed June 7 in Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the F.B.I. said a postal investigator tracing the ricin letters was able to narrow the search to Shannon Guess Richardson, an actress in New Boston, Tex., by examining information from the front and back images of 60 pieces of mail scanned immediately before and after the tainted letters sent to Mr. Obama and Mr. Bloomberg showing return addresses near her home. Ms. Richardson had originally accused her husband of mailing the letters, but investigators determined that he was at work during the time they were mailed.

In 2007, the F.B.I., the Internal Revenue Service and the local police in Charlotte, N.C., used information gleaned from the mail cover program to arrest Sallie Wamsley-Saxon and her husband, Donald, charging both with running a prostitution ring that took in $3 million over six years. Prosecutors said it was one of the largest and most successful such operations in the country. Investigators also used mail covers to help track banking activity and other businesses the couple operated under different names.

Other agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, have used mail covers to track drug smugglers and Medicare fraud.

“It’s a treasure trove of information,” said James J. Wedick, a former F.B.I. agent who spent 34 years at the agency and who said he used mail covers in a number of investigations, including one that led to the prosecution of several elected officials in California on corruption charges. “Looking at just the outside of letters and other mail, I can see who you bank with, who you communicate with — all kinds of useful information that gives investigators leads that they can then follow up on with a subpoena.”

But, he said: “It can be easily abused because it’s so easy to use and you don’t have to go through a judge to get the information. You just fill out a form.”

For mail cover requests, law enforcement agencies submit a letter to the Postal Service, which can grant or deny a request without judicial review. Law enforcement officials say the Postal Service rarely denies a request. In other government surveillance programs, like wiretaps, a federal judge must sign off on the requests.

The mail cover surveillance requests are granted for about 30 days, and can be extended for up to 120 days. There are two kinds of mail covers: those related to criminal activity and those requested to protect national security. Criminal activity requests average 15,000 to 20,000 per year, said law enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are prohibited by law from discussing them. The number of requests for antiterrorism mail covers has not been made public.

Law enforcement officials need warrants to open the mail, although President George W. Bush asserted in a signing statement in 2007 that the federal government had the authority to open mail without warrants in emergencies or in foreign intelligence cases.

Court challenges to mail covers have generally failed because judges have ruled that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy for information contained on the outside of a letter. Officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations, in fact, have used the mail-cover court rulings to justify the N.S.A.’s surveillance programs, saying the electronic monitoring amounts to the same thing as a mail cover. Congress briefly conducted hearings on mail cover programs in 1976, but has not revisited the issue.

The program has led to sporadic reports of abuse. In May 2012, Mary Rose Wilcox, a Maricopa County supervisor in Arizona, was awarded nearly $1 million by a federal judge after winning a lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The sheriff, known for his immigration raids, had obtained mail covers from the Postal Service to track her mail. The judge called the investigation into Ms. Wilcox politically motivated because she had been a frequent critic of Mr. Arpaio’s, objecting to what she considered the targeting of Hispanics in his immigration sweeps. The case is being appealed.

In the mid-1970s the Church Committee, a Senate panel that documented C.I.A. abuses, faulted a program created in the 1950s in New York that used mail covers to trace and sometimes open mail going to the Soviet Union from the United States.

A suit brought in 1973 by a high school student in New Jersey, whose letter to the Socialist Workers Party was traced by the F.B.I. as part of an investigation into the group, led to a rebuke from a federal judge.

Postal officials refused to discuss either mail covers or the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program.

Mr. Pickering says he suspects that the F.B.I. requested the mail cover to monitor his mail because a former associate said the bureau had called with questions about him. Last month, he filed a lawsuit against the Postal Service, the F.B.I. and other agencies, saying they were improperly withholding information.

A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. in Buffalo declined to comment.

Mr. Pickering said that although he was arrested two dozen times for acts of civil disobedience and convicted of a handful of misdemeanors, he was never involved in the arson attacks the Earth Liberation Front carried out. He said he became tired of focusing only on environmental activism and moved back to Buffalo to finish college, open his bookstore, Burning Books, and start a family.

“I’m no terrorist,” he said. “I’m an activist.”

Mr. Pickering has written books sympathetic to the liberation front, but he said his political views and past association should not make him the target of a federal investigation. “I’m just a guy who runs a bookstore and has a wife and a kid,” he said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 3, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the Justice Department position once held by Mark Rasch. He started a computer crimes unit in the criminal division’s fraud section, but he was not the head of its computer crimes unit, which was created after his departure. 

New York Times

  

Hubble Space Telescope snaps first pictures of super-fast Comet ISON

The Comet ISON shines like a cosmic skyrocket in a new video from the Hubble Space Telescope as the icy wanderer, which some astronomers have billed as a potential “comet of the century,” streaks through our solar system at a staggering 48,000 mph. 

The new Comet ISON video, which NASA released Tuesday (July 2), is a time-lapse view created from images of the comet obtained using the Hubble telescope on May 8. At the time, the comet was about 403 million miles (648 million kilometers) from Earth and crossing between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars. NASA officials likened the comet’s extreme speed to a skyrocket on the Fourth of July.

“The movie shows a sequence of Hubble observations taken over a 43-minute span and compresses this into just five seconds,” NASA officials explained in a video description. “The comet travels 34,000 miles in this brief video, or 7 percent of the distance between Earth and the moon. The deep-space visitor streaks silently against the background stars.”

The blue hue of ISON in the new video is actually a false-color view of the comet as it appeared through the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Comet ISON was discovered by amateur astronomers in September 2012 and is headed for a close encounter with the sun in late November of this year.

The comet’s swing through the inner solar system is much anticipated by professional and amateur astronomers because of its extremely close approach to the sun. On Nov. 28, Comet ISON will swing within 800,000 miles (1.2 million km) of the sun’s surface. That close encounter could cause the comet to flare up into a brilliant night sky sight visible to the unaided eye by November. But the comet could also fizzle out in a fabulous bust, so NASA scientists and astronomers around the world are keeping a close watch on Comet ISON to see if it lives up to its hype. While NASA has likened Comet ISON to a cosmic firework in the new Hubble video, the comet itself is not exploding. “Its skyrocket-looking tail is really a streamer of gas and dust bleeding off the icy nucleus, which is surrounded by a bright star-like-looking coma,” NASA officials wrote. “The pressure of the solar wind sweeps the material into a tail, like a breeze blowing a windsock.” As the comet zooms closer to the sun and warms up, it is expected to grow, NASA officials added. ISON’s tail will also grow longer over time. In April, Comet ISON’s tail stretched across 57,000 miles (92,000 km) in images snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope. At the time, the comet’s nucleus was estimated to be about 4 miles (6.5 km) across. Because of ISON’s potential to be a spectacular night sky object, NASA and astronomers around the world have assembled a Comet ISON Observing Campaign to track the object’s progress across the solar system.

 Anticipated STEREO observations of Comet ISON

University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP)
Space
NASA

Putin throws down Obama

Not so fast Mr. Hope and Change. Haven't you heard? There's a new Sheriff in town in the Middle East. 

President Putin reminded Barry that he's in charge. He already reminded Netanyahu recently after Israel fired into Damascus in early May. Afterward, Bibi sang a different tune. Putin's talent as a Judo expert is always useful in these situations. When Obama was continually arming Syrian rebels; declaring no fly zones and moving his Marines into Jordan Putin took quick action. Obama sang a different tune as well and even said, "and finally we compared notes on President Putin's expertise in Judo and my declining skills in basketball". The following video is in English and Russian:

The weak eyed Obama went on further to say, "And we both agree as you get older it takes more time to recover. "  He unbelievably even talked about the removal of the Jackson-Vanik Act. Obama nervously looked over his notes as Putin spoke clearly from his memory and intelligence. At meetings end Obama then went on to try and slap a handshake. It was met with President Putin's stone hand which withered Obama's smile away. Putin's firm grip declared who's top dog in this world.

Obama got the message. Russia has a naval base in Tartus and Russia's fleet is continually growing in the Mediterranean.  I'm sure all the loose change and hope fell out of Mr. Hope and Change during one of Putin's judo throws. Obama has now become aware of Putin's arms race. While Obama was having his many expensive vacations Putin had no choice but to increase military spending to halt US aggression. A Russian military having already an edge over the US as seen in this video.

The US is broke and Russia is the world's largest oil producer with a growing economy. Russia is not backing down and they have China to back them up. Who will back the US? Tiny Britain? Americans are turning gay and Russian men are looking more like the Klitschko brothers. The US is the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah while Christianity triumphs in Russia. No ACLU in Russia suing Christians to be sure.  The largest country in the world shows only contempt at the US Bomb & Missile Diplomacy.

The western media will warp the truth as usual. They will not show the entire video of Putin and Obama fearing that Americans will see things as they are and wise up. No mention of Christianity under attack in the Middle East and North Africa. Loud music and commanding voices will tell American citizens what to think and who to hate as they become mesmerized by their idiot boxes. Little is mentioned of Christians or priests murdered in Syria or the Christian Bishops that were kidnapped. Again the western cry is here reiterated, "What difference does it make! Assad must go!" Amerikan Demonocracy foaming at the mouth rabid with hate.

Standing firmly against these maniacs is Putin with Christian Russia solidly behind him. There has been finger pointing between the West and Russia but the political rhetoric is ignored by President Vladimir Putin as he calmly directs stability in the Middle East. Obama said, "By working together we... also help lead the world to a better place." We know your record Obama and it stinks of death. The only leading going on is Vladimir leading you by the nose. Putin made sure there will be a follow up to this meeting in Geneva. Lest O'bomber forgets.


Xavier Lerma,
Pravda

Another Compound in Broccoli Found to Have Cancer-Fighting Abilities

Over the last several years, we’ve seen numerous studies on the cancer-fighting benefits of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli. 

But many people don’t understand how these powerful plants can help fight one of the most deadly diseases in the U.S. In the case of breast cancer, scientists know that broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and others contain something known as indole-3-carbinol (I3C). This compound is considered a jewel in cancer prevention.


Compound in Broccoli Reduces Tumor Size by 65% in Rats

Researchers with Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center at Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital as well as the Richard J. Solove Research Institute say that it’s I3C that actually works to combat a molecule known as Cdc25A, which is responsible for cell growth and proliferation.

Cdc25A occurs at high levels in breast, prostate, liver, endometrium, colon, and esophageal cancer, among others. It is also elevated in Alzheimer’s disease. According to Xianghong Zou, assistant professor of pathology, “Cdc25A is present at abnormally high levels in about half of breast cancer cases, and it is associated with a poor prognosis.”

So what’s the link between I3C and Cdc25A? I3C, the beneficial compound in broccoli, destroys Cdc25A.

“I3C can have striking effects on cancer cells, and a better understanding of this mechanism may lead to the use of this dietary supplement as an effective and safe strategy for treating a variety of cancers and other human diseases associated with the overexpression of Cdc25A,” said Dr. Zou.

Using laboratory rats, the researchers added I3C to breast cancer cell lines. The I3C caused the destruction of Cdc25A. They also gave I3C to mice bread to develop breast cancer and found it to reduce their tumor size by up to 65%.


To put it technically, according to the study:

“The present in vitro and in vivo studies together show that I3C-induced activation of the ATM-Chk2 pathway and degradation of Cdc25A represent a novel molecular mechanism of I3C in arresting the G1cell cycle and inhibiting the growth of breast cancer cells. The finding that I3C induces Cdc25A degradation underscores the potential use of this agent for preventing and treating cancers and other human diseases with Cdc25A overexpression.”

The best news is that you don’t have to wait to get your hands on I3C; you can find it at your local grocery store and start reaping the cancer-prevention benefits immediately. The research is similar to past research coming to similar conclusions. For example, researchers with the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University found that a compound in broccoli known as sulforaphane can work to not only suppress tumor growth, but also stop the spread or onset of cancer.

Though knowing how it works isn’t a requirement for reaping the benefits, it can certainly help justify an increased consumption of broccoli and other plants like it.



Elizabeth Renter

New Study: Bee Venom Found to Destroy HIV

More than 34 million people worldwide are living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but research recently conducted at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has shown that bee venom, and its main active component, melittin, carried via nanoparticles, is able to destroy unhealthy cells and tumors caused by viruses like HIV.

Melittin is a potent toxin in bee venom, which can poke holes in the protective envelope which surrounds HIV, as well as numerous other viruses. Thankfully and surprisingly, this toxin doesn’t harm healthy cells, only the ones infected with the virus.

While some might argue that AIDS is not caused by HIV, it seems particularly odd that bee venom so effectively treats the HIV virus. HIV is contracted by more than 3 million people under the age of 15 almost every year, so even if the virus doesn’t cause AIDS, it definitely doesn’t lead to our perfected health.

“If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document.”- Dr. Kary Mullis, Biochemist, 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

All of this would be great news, except that bee populations are being wiped out at staggering rates in almost every country around the world. Bee colonies are disappearing so fast that the fertilization of major crops through pollination is considered a world-wide concern.

So what could be happening here? There's some research pointing to unusually high concentrations of parasites and fungi — which are normally present in bee colonies — but nobody knows why the levels are so high. Pesticides, genetically modified crops and climate change are all being investigated. A theory that cell phone radiation might be a factor was quickly dismissed after briefly topping media reports.

Furthermore, as evidenced in the recent seizure of Terence Ingram’s bees that were resistant to Monsanto’s chemicals, and more than 30 years of his bee research was destroyed, we can hardly look at what other benefits, aside from crop pollination, and the conquering of the HIV virus that bees might offer us. In the meantime, here are five ways you can help the bees and stop colony collapse disorder:
Let's get buzzin'!



Plant things that bees like

Bees are all about pollen. If you want to support the many different varieties of bees which range through your yard, plant some things which will feed them.

The good news here is that bee-friendly plants are easy to grow. Scatter a variety through your yard, ensuring a good supply of pollen through the warm months. A few general pointers: avoid horticultural plants that are "double." These usually have extra petals instead of anthers. And bees prefer flowers that are blue, purple or yellow.

Clover is a great choice. Bees love it, and clover makes attractive and robust ground cover. There are organic varieties available.

Other bee-yummy plants: sage, salvia, oregano, lavender, ironweed, yarrow, yellow hyssop, alfalfa, honeywort, dragonhead, echinacea, bee balm (guess where the name comes from?), buttercup, goldenrod and English thyme.

Flowering trees are also attractive to bees. Try tulip poplars, tupelos, oranges and sourwoods. Don't forget that bees need sources of shallow water. Nichols Garden Nursery has several items to help foster mason bees, an increasingly important variety in view of the domestic honeybee's troubles.

Unless you have particular bee allergies, don't be afraid of attracting pollinators to your property. The "bees" that give most people trouble — yellowjackets, wasps and hornets — aren’t really bees at all, and won’t be attracted by bee-friendly plants.



Provide bee habitat

A secure place to live is crucial to solitary and colony bees. Unlike honeybees, which live in the waxy hives with which we're all familiar, natural bees make use of many kinds of shelter: abandoned animal burrows, dead trees and branches and in underground nest tunnels.

You can help wood-nesting bees by setting out a few inexpensive bee blocks. These are basically blocks of wood with holes of various sizes. Providing a mound or two of loose earth — particularly if they're close to a water source — is like opening a rent-free apartment complex for burrowing bees.

Hosting a few bee shelters will give you the opportunity to watch your visitors thrive.



Eliminate garden pesticides

Pesticides are bad for humans. They're worse for bees. Investigate organic and natural means of pest control.

You'll find plenty of tips at OrganicGardenPests.com. Moving in the direction of organic gardening and natural lawn care is a healthy choice, in any case.

Vibrant, chemical-free plants and gardens are a friendly invitation to wild bees.


Let your veggies bolt

If at all possible, allow a few leafy vegetables in your home garden to "bolt," or go to seed, after harvest.

Seeding plants are a bee's best chance to stock up on food before the colder months. Unlike their wasp and yellowjacket cousins, which die out each winter, real bees slow down and wait for spring. Making sure their larder is stocked will help them snap back once the weather warms.


Support your local beekeepers

Beekeeping as a hobby has declined in recent years. Commercial pressures and unstable bee populations has made raising bees less attractive, but we still rely heavily on domesticated honeybees to pollinate our crops and gardens. Seek out your local beekeepers and buy their honey. There are health benefits to eating local honey, and keeping small beekeepers in business is good for everyone. You're likely to find them selling honey at local farmer's markets and weekend flea markets. Treat yourself to some filtered or comb honey and enjoy one of nature's treasures.

Do you have kids? One of the best things you can do is tour a local beekeeper's hives. Teaching children the interdependence of living creatures is something which will stay with them forever. You'll probably put a smile on some beekeeper's face, too.
You can find your local bee keeper at Friends of Honey Bees.




Additional Sources:

MedicalNewsToday

International Medical Press

The Huffington Post

Mother Nature Network

Mary Rodwell: ETs, Souls, The New Humans and a coming global Shift

Mary Rodwell is Director of  ACERN 

& also a professional counsellor, hypnotherapist, ufologist researcher and metaphysician.

In an interview with Alfred Lambremont Webre covering her new article "Extraterrestrials, Human consciousness and dimensions of soul: The intimate connection", Extraterrestrial researcher Mary Rodwell shared details of a coming global shift that she has discovered in her investigations of more than 2000 cases of conscious interaction with extraterrestrials, including at the Soul level.

The coming shift is described as including an awakening and transformation of human consciousness, along with dramatic changes in the way human society functions on the Earth.

source

Supporters of Egyptian president say military coup is underway

An adviser to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi said Wednesday that a military coup was underway, that tanks were on the move outside Cairo and that communication with the president had been cut off.

As a military deadline came and went for Morsi to step aside, the army took control of state television, and boisterous crowds opposed to the president cheered, danced and set off fireworks in Tahrir Square. Pro-Morsi forces rallied elsewhere in the Egyptian capital.
The president’s whereabouts were not clear. The Morsi adviser, Jihad Haddad, told NBC News that he could not confirm or deny whether Morsi had moved from Republican Guard headquarters. It was not clear whether the military had ordered the Republican Guard to keep him there.

Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, which supports Morsi, said that some of its leaders had been rounded up and arrested.
Earlier in the day, both the president and the military had sworn a fight to the death. The military leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, said it would be an honor to die rather than subject the Egyptian people to threats or terror.
In something of a call to arms, the military posted on Facebook: “We swear to God to sacrifice with our blood for Egypt and its people against any terrorist, extremist or ignoramus. Long live Egypt and its proud people.”

The government said at least 16 people had been killed and about 200 injured in clashes with security forces at Cairo University.

Egypt elected Morsi one year ago after throwing out Hosni Mubarak, the autocrat who led the country for three decades. But Egyptians have been frustrated by a weak economy, poor services and what they see as a power grab by the Morsi government.

The military was believed to have given Morsi until 5 p.m. local time, or 11 a.m. ET, to meet the demands of the protesters. The precise time was not clear. The ultimatum, issued Monday, has been denounced by supporters of Morsi as a military coup.
Hours ahead of the deadline, civilian political leaders were summoned to meet with the top generals. Those civilian leaders included Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the U.N. nuclear weapons agency and a critic of Morsi.
The Associated Press reported that a leading Muslim cleric and the head of Egypt’s Coptic Christians were also at the meeting.

Sources told NBC News that the army had control of state television. Non-essential staff were told to go home early, and Reuters reported that the building was being guarded by armored vehicles. The Associated Press reported that military officers were monitoring broadcasts.
There were other signs that support for Morsi was slipping, even among sympathizers. A senior member of a hardline Islamist party allied with the president told Reuters that the party was trying to broker a peaceful transfer of power to avoid bloodshed.

“We find ourselves faced with the necessity of convincing the president to accept a referendum on early presidential elections,” Tarek al-Zumar of Gamaa Islamiya said in a telephone interview. “This is what we hope will be reached in the next few hours.”

The Obama administration and the United Nations have encouraged Morsi to listen to his people. President Barack Obama called Morsi on Monday and said the United States is committed to democracy and does not support any single person or group.
Pentagon officials said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had called his Egyptian counterpart. Spokesman George Little called the situation in Egypt a crisis and added the hope that “this period of tension can be resolved in a peaceful manner and violence can be avoided.”
Tamarod, a protest movement, called for supporters to rally at the headquarters of the Republican Guard, where Morsi was believed to be staying.

The opposition Dustour Party, whose name means Constitution, said Morsi was leading the country toward violence. It asked the army to protect the people “after Morsi lost his mind and incited bloodshed of Egyptians.”
The military has said it will impose its own “road map” for the future if Morsi does not meet the protesters’ demands.

In his speech, which was loud and passionate, Morsi blamed loyalists of Mubarak, his predecessor, for fighting against democracy and challenging his leadership through the current wave of protests.

He asked Egyptians not to confront the military or use violence against its forces, the police or the interior ministry. Earlier in the day, he had demanded that the armed forces withdraw their ultimatum.

The Muslim Brotherhood, backing Morsi, called for counter-demonstrations, and a pro-Morsi rally in a Cairo suburb appeared to attract about 100,000 people, journalists for Reuters said.
The U.S. Embassy warned Americans in Egypt to avoid large gatherings and monitor local news.

“Even demonstrations or events intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence,” it said, adding the embassy was closed.
The crisis could have a significant effect on the global economy. The benchmark price of crude oil for delivery in August rose by $2.22 to $101.82 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since early May last year.

Egypt’s control of the Suez Canal — one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, which links the Mediterranean with the Red Sea — gives it a crucial role in maintaining global energy supplies.


By Richard Engel, Charlene Gubash and Erin McClam,
NBC News


Reuters' Livestream here

NBC Livestream here

RT Livestream here

CBC Livestream here

AL-Jazeera Livestream here

Youtube Livestream here


RT Live updates here

New York Times Live updates here

Haaretz Live updates here

_______________________________________ 

Egypt is undergoing a full-scale military coup. President Mohamed Morsi has been stripped of his power by the Egyptian army and the constitution has been suspended, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said in a statement. Egypt’s chief justice of the constitutional court will become the interim president.

Al Arabiya reports, The Egyptian army chief ousted Islamist President Mohammad Mursi on Wednesday and announced the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court caretaker leader.

“President Mohammad Mursi has failed to meet the demands of the Egyptian people,” Abdel Fattah al-Sissi said in a televised address to the nation.

He said that the Islamist-drafted constitution will be suspended and early presidential and parliamentary elections will be held, adding that a technocrat cabinet will be appointed to run the country during a transition period, which he did not specify.

The military chief said there will be a committee tasked with reviewing the constitution.

_________________________________________

CNN TURNS ON OBAMA!

CNN: Protestors 'Anti-Obama' As Well As Anti-Morsi 

____________________________________________

FBI Planned to Kill Occupy Leaders

Would you be shocked to learn that the FBI apparently knew that some organization, perhaps even a law enforcement agency or private security outfit, had contingency plans to assassinate peaceful protestors in a major American city — and did nothing to intervene?

Would you be surprised to learn that this intelligence comes not from a shadowy whistle-blower but from the FBI itself – specifically, from a document obtained from Houston FBI office last December, as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Washington, DC-based Partnership for Civil Justice Fund?

To repeat: this comes from the FBI itself. The question, then, is: What did the FBI do about it?


The Plot

Remember the Occupy Movement? The peaceful crowds that camped out in the center of a number of cities in the fall of 2011, calling for some recognition by local, state and federal authorities that our democratic system was out of whack, controlled by corporate interests, and in need of immediate repair?

That movement swept the US beginning in mid-September 2011. When, in early October, the movement came to Houston, Texas, law enforcement officials and the city’s banking and oil industry executives freaked out  perhaps even more so than they did in some other cities. The push-back took the form of violent assaults by police on Occupy activists, federal and local surveillance of people seen as organizers, infiltration by police provocateurs—and, as crazy as it sounds, some kind of plot to assassinate the “leaders” of this non-violent and leaderless movement.

But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what the document obtained from the Houston FBI, said:

 An identified [DELETED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors (sic) in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified [DELETED] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [DELETED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper
rifles. (Note: protests continued throughout the weekend with approximately 6000 persons in NYC. ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests have spread to about half of all states in the US, over a dozen European and Asian cities, including protests in Cleveland (10/6-8/11) at Willard Park which was initially attended by hundreds of protesters.)




Occupiers Astounded—But Not Entirely

Paul Kennedy, the National Lawyers Guild attorney in Houston who represented a number of Occupy Houston activists arrested during the protests, had not heard of the sniper plot, but said, “I find it hard to believe that such information would have been known to the FBI and that we would not have been told about it.”  He then added darkly, “If it had been some right-wing group plotting such an action, something would have been done. But if it is something law enforcement was planning, then nothing would have been done. It might seem hard to believe that a law enforcement agency would do such a thing, but I wouldn’t put it past them.”

He adds, “The use of the phrase ‘if deemed necessary,’ sounds like it was some kind of official organization that was doing the planning.” In other words, the “identified [DELETED” mentioned in the Houston FBI document may have been some other agency with jurisdiction in the area, which was calculatedly making plans to kill Occupy activists.

Kennedy knows first-hand the extent to which combined federal-state-local law enforcement forces in Houston were focused on disrupting and breaking up the Occupy action in that city. He represented seven people who were charged with felonies for a protest that attempted to block the operation of Houston’s port facility. That case fell apart when in the course of discovery, the prosecution disclosed that the Occupiers had been infiltrated by three undercover officers from the Austin Police department, who came up with the idea of using a device called a “sleeping dragon” -- actually chains inside of PVC pipe -- which are devilishly hard to cut through, for chaining protesters together blocking port access. The police provocateurs, Kennedy says, actually purchased the materials and constructed the “criminal instruments” themselves, supplying them to the protesters. As a result of this discovery, the judge tossed out the felony charges.


FBI Response

WhoWhatWhy contacted FBI headquarters in Washington, and asked about this document—which, despite its stunning revelation and despite PCFJ press releases, was (notwithstanding a few online mentions) generally ignored by mainstream and “alternative” press alike.

The agency confirmed that it is genuine and that it originated in the Houston FBI office. (The plot is also referenced in a second document obtained in PCJF’s FOIA response, in this case from the FBI’s Gainesville, Fla., office, which cites the Houston FBI as the source.)  That second document actually suggests that the assassination plot, which never was activated, might still be operative should Occupy decisively re-emerge in the area. It states:

On 13 October 20111, writer sent via email an excerpt from the daily [DELETED] regarding FBI Houston’s [DELETED] to all IAs, SSRAs and SSA [DELETED] This [DELETED] identified the exploitation of the Occupy Movement by [LENGTHY DELETION] interested in developing a long-term plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire.

Asked why solid information about an assassination plot against American citizens exercising their Constitutional right to free speech and assembly never led to exposure of the plotters’ identity or an arrest—as happened with so many other terrorist schemes the agency has publicized—Paul Bresson, head of the FBI media office, offered a typically elliptical response:

The FOIA documents that you reference are redacted in several places pursuant to FOIA and privacy laws that govern the release of such information so therefore I am unable to help fill in the blanks that you are seeking.  Exemptions are cited in each place where a redaction is made.  As far as the question about the murder plot, I am unable to comment further, but rest assured if the FBI was aware of credible and specific information involving a murder plot, law enforcement would have responded with appropriate action.

Note that the privacy being “protected” in this instance (by a government that we now know has so little respect for our privacy) was of someone or some organization that was actively contemplating violating other people’s Constitutional rights— by murdering them. That should leave us less than confident about Bresson’s assertion that law enforcement would have responded appropriately to a “credible” threat.


Houston Cops Not Warned?

The Houston FBI office stonewalled our requests for information about the sniper-rifle assassination plot and why nobody was ever arrested for planning to kill demonstrators. Meanwhile, the Houston Police, who had the job of controlling the demonstrations, and of maintaining order and public safety, displayed remarkably little interest in the plot:  “We haven’t heard about it,” said Keith Smith, a public affairs officer for the department, who told us he inquired about the matter with senior department officials.

Asked whether he was concerned that, if what he was saying was correct, it meant the FBI had not warned local police about a possible terrorist act being planned in his city, he said, “No. You’d have to ask the Houston FBI about that.”


Craft International Again

Sniper action by law enforcement officials in Texas would not be anything new. Last October, a border patrol officer with the Texas Department of Public Safety, riding in a helicopter, used a sniper rifle to fire at a fast-moving pickup truck carrying nine illegal immigrants into the state from Mexico, killing two and wounding a third, and causing the vehicle to crash and overturn. It turns out that Border Patrol agents, like a number of Texas law enforcement organizations, had been receiving special sniper training from a Dallas-based mercenary-for-hire organization called Craft International LLC.  It seems likely that Houston Police have also received such training, possibly from Craft, which has a contract for such law-enforcement training funded by the US Department of Homeland Security.

Efforts to obtain comment from Craft International have been unsuccessful, but the company’s website features photos of Craft instructors training law enforcement officers in sniper rifle use (the company was founded in 2009 by Chris Kyle, a celebrated Army sniper who last year was slain by a combat veteran he had accompanied to a shooting range). A number of men wearing Craft-issued clothing and gear, and bearing the company’s distinctive skull logo, were spotted around the finish line of the April Boston Marathon, both before and after the bombing. Some were wearing large black backpacks with markings resembling what was seen on an exploded backpack image released by the FBI.(For more on the backpacks that allegedly contained the bombs, see this piece we did in May.)


An Activist Responds

Remington Alessi, an Occupy Houston activist who played a prominent role during the Occupy events, was one of the seven defendants whose felony charge was dropped because of police entrapment. He says of the sniper plot information, which first came to light last December as one of hundreds of pages of FBI files obtained by PCJF, “We have speculated heavily about it. The ‘if deemed necessary’ phrase seems to indicate it was an organization. It could have been the police or a private security group.”

Alessi, who hails from a law-enforcement family and who ran last year for sheriff of Houston’s Harris County on the Texas Green Party ticket, garnering 22,000 votes, agrees with attorney Kennedy that the plotters were not from some right-wing organization. “If it had been that, the FBI would have acted on it,” he agrees. “I believe the sniper attack was one strategy being discussed for dealing with the occupation.” He adds:

I assume I would have been one of the targets, because I led a few of the protest actions, and I hosted an Occupy show on KPFT.  I wish I could say I’m surprised that this was seriously discussed, but remember, this is the same federal government that murdered (Black Panther Party leader) Fred Hampton. We have a government that traditionally murders people who are threats. I guess being a target is sort of an honor.

There, Alessi is referring to evidence made public in the Church Committee hearings of the 1970s which revealed that the FBI was orchestrating local police attacks (in Chicago, San Francisco and New York) on Panther leaders. (For more on that, see this, starting at p. 185, esp. pp. 220-223; also see this .)

Alessi suspects that the assassination plot cited in the FBI memo was

probably developed in the Houston Fusion Center (where federal, state and local intelligence people work hand-in-glove). During our trial we learned that they were all over our stuff, tracking Twitter feeds etc.  It seems to me that based on the access they were getting they were using what we now know as the NSA’s PRISM program.

He notes, correctly, that in documents obtained from the FBI and Homeland Security by the PCJF’s FOIA search, the Occupy Movement is classed as a “terrorist” activity.

Ironically, while the Occupy Movement was actually peaceful, the FBI, at best, was simply standing aside while some organization plotted to assassinate the movement’s prominent activists.

The FBI’s stonewalling response to inquiries about this story, and the agency’s evident failure to take any action regarding a known deadly threat to Occupy protesters in Houston, will likely make protesters at future demonstrations look differently at the sniper-rifle equipped law-enforcement personnel often seen on rooftops during such events. What are they there for? Who are the threats they are looking for and potentially targeting? Who are they protecting?  And are they using “suppressed” sniper rifles?  Would this indicate they have no plans to take responsibility for any shots silently fired?  Or that they plan to frame someone else?


Dave Lindorff

Relaxation Response Practice Like Deep Breathing or Meditation Found to Alter Genes

The well known and once Harvard doctor Herbert Benson who coined the term ‘relaxation response’ has been providing insightful research to explain what seekers and adepts have known for centuries, namely that practices which induce ‘deep rest’ like prayer, meditation, yoga, biofeedback, progressive muscle relaxation, and deep breathing produce very measurable results in the immune system, energy metabolism and insulin secretion. 

Further, these practices also lead to a host of other beneficial physiological changes. Now a study published in PLOS ONE which combined advanced profiling of genes and the relaxation response has helped to determine the true potential of those physiological changes on our overall health.

While many studies have shown that meditation, yoga, breathing, etc. have a deep impact on our health, “we can now identify the key physiological hubs through which these benefits might be induced.” This is what Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute and co-senior author of the PLOS ONE report tells us. We can now see exactly how the genes are affected by these practices to positively affect diseases like hypertension, severe anxiety, insomnia, and even premature aging.

“Many studies have shown that mind/body interventions like the relaxation response can reduce stress and enhance wellness in healthy individuals and counteract the adverse clinical effects of stress in conditions like hypertension, anxiety, diabetes and aging,” says Herbert Benson, MD. “Now for the first time we’ve identified the key physiological hubs through which these benefits might be induced.”


Even the NY Times has reported on the relaxation response, touting surprising benefits like:

• Reduced asthmatic outbreaks
• Lowering of blood pressure
• Lessening of disease due to increased immune response
• Slowing of heart and respiratory rates
• Improved mood
• Increased cognitive functioning 

As modern society works to reverse the fight-or-flight syndrome, sometimes called hyper-arousal, a left over sympathetic nervous system response to stress, either real or imagined, there is evidence of alteration of gene expression within individuals, and this is big news. Now there is more science to back up practices that were once thought to be contrived or ‘new age’ at best. Where once yoga and meditation was considered a cult, now it has peer-reviewed, scientific articles in mainstream western institutions to support its efficacy. It looks like the yoga and meditation ‘high’ that many people report (and essentially what Benson describes as the relaxation response) is not imagined after all.

“The combination of genomics and systems biology in this study provided great insight into the key molecules and physiological gene interaction networks that might be involved in relaying beneficial effects of relaxation response in healthy subjects,” says Manoj K. Bhasin, PhD, co-lead author of the study and co-director of the BIDMC Genomics,  Proteomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Center.


Christina Sarich

Top Vatican bank managers resign after Monsignor's arrest

President of the Vatican bank Ernst von Freyberg poses in his office at the Vatican June 10, 2013. Picture take June 10, 2013.

Two top managers of the scandal-plagued Vatican bank resigned on Monday following the arrest of a high-ranking cleric with close ties to the financial institution, in the latest of a string of embarrassments for the Holy See.

Director Paolo Cipriani and deputy-director Massimo Tulli stepped down three days after the Vatican was rocked by the arrest of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who is accused of plotting with two other people to smuggle 20 million euros into Italy from Switzerland.

Ernst von Freyberg, a German who earlier this year became president of the bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), will assume the role of bank director until a permanent replacement is appointed.

The bank has also established a new position of chief risk officer who will be charged with improving compliance with financial regulations at a bank which has long been a byword for secrecy and lack of transparency.

Scarano, 61, who worked as a senior accountant in the Vatican's financial administration, was arrested along with an Italian secret service agent and a financial intermediary.

According to transcripts from a judge's report, Scarano, who is under two separate investigations by Italian magistrates in Rome and Milan, mentioned the director in phone conversations tapped by police investigators.

The judge's report, obtained by Reuters, says Scarano controlled vast amounts of money and felt he could act with impunity because of his connections to the Vatican bank.

Only last Wednesday, two days before the arrests, Pope Francis set up a commission of inquiry into the Vatican bank, which has been hit by a number of scandals in the past decades.

Scarano was for years a senior accountant for a Vatican department known as APSA, whose official title is the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See.


SUSPENDED

Magistrates have said there is no indication so far that the Vatican bank was directly involved in the attempt to bring the money into Italy, but that the investigation was continuing and more searches were under way.

Scarano was suspended from his duties several weeks ago when he was placed under investigation by magistrates in Salerno.

In that investigation, his lawyer Silverio Sica said wealthy friends had donated money to Scarano in order for him to build a home for the terminally ill.

According to Sica, his client wanted to use that money to pay off his mortgage so he could sell a property in Salerno and use the proceeds to build the care home.

Scarano has been accused of taking 560,000 euros in cash out of his account in the Vatican bank and giving various amounts to friends who gave him checks in exchange, apparently in a bid to cover his tracks. He then deposited the checks into an Italian bank account to pay off the mortgage.

The case against Scarano came as an embarrassment to Francis, who, since his election in March, has pointedly eschewed many of the trappings of office and sought to stress the importance of a simple life of devotion.

The IOR, tarnished by accusations of failing to meet international transparency standards intended to combat money laundering and tax evasion, is trying to clean up its image after a long history of scandals.

Its most notorious incident came in 1982 when it was enmeshed in the bankruptcy of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano, whose chairman Roberto Calvi was found hanging from London's Blackfriars Bridge.

In 2010, Rome magistrates investigating money laundering froze 23 million euros ($33 million) held by the IOR in an Italian bank. The IOR said it was transferring its own funds between accounts in Italy and Germany. The money was released in June 2011 but the investigation continues.

The European anti-money laundering committee, Moneyval, said in a July report that the IOR still had to enact more reforms in order to meet international standards against money laundering.

The Vatican is due to give Moneyval a progress report this year.


Philip Pullella