Protesting Farmers Spray EU Parliament with Milk

Farmers used a platform to hose the European Parliament with milk

Angry farmers protesting at falling dairy prices in the EU have sprayed fresh milk at the European Parliament and riot police in Brussels.

Thousands of dairy farmers, accompanied by hundreds of tractors, descended on the Belgian capital on Monday for two days of demonstrations.

Disruption has continued, with EU officials hindered from reaching their offices by tractors blocking roads.

Farmers want an increase of up to 25% in their prices to cover costs.

EU milk is often sold at below production costs due to a drop in international demand and increased competition.

The European Milk Board (EMB), which is co-ordinating the protest, says small farmers are being forced out of business.

In Belgium, for example, the wholesale price for a litre of milk is 0.26 euros (£0.21; $0.34) but the cost of producing it is 0.40 euros, the board said.

Dairy farmers in Shropshire, England, recently won a price increase to £0.29 (0.36 euros) per litre from a leading processor but reported that the cost of production was still £0.31 (0.38 euros).

The EU is the world's largest milk producer and in 2010 nearly 47% of its 123bn euro budget went on subsidies and other forms of financial aid for farmers, including dairy producers.

'Killing us'
 
Police guarding the European Parliament found themselves being squirted with jets of milk on Monday as protesters directed hoses at the building.

 A trailer of hay was set alight on the nearby Place du Luxembourg, where a mock gallows was erected with what appeared to be a hanging dummy of a farmer.

"Politics are really killing us," Belgian farmer Julien Husquet was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

"It has to change very quickly at the European level. The way it is going, we are in big trouble."

"It's very simple: you can't live off milk anymore," French farmer Leopold Gruget told AFP news agency.

"If I go on, it's thanks to European aid... If they do it [phase out subsidies] there will be no more small and medium producers here in five years."

Some of the largest farmers' contingents have come from Denmark, France, Germany, the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, the EU Observer reports.

Erwin Schopges, head of the EMB in Belgium, said Tuesday's protests would be "symbolic" and calmer.

Arafat's Widow Speaks Out After Exhumation

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Government Tells NJ Hurricane Victims to Demolish Their Homes Immediately or pay $2,000 Per Week

By JG Vibes
theintelhub.com


After hurricane Sandy hit the east coast, all of the mainstream media sources were praising FEMA and the governments overall response to the disaster.

However, since the dust has settled and reality has set in, it seems that most of the actual help is coming from people in the community and the government is actually doing more harm then they are doing good.
 
This week, residents of one of the most hard hit areas on the east coast, Seaside Heights, New Jersey, were told that they had to demolish their homes or face heavy fines.
According to a local newspaper:

“This weekend, Joe Biden visited this oceanfront community in Ocean County, but local residents, some who saw their homes for the first time, were also greeted by demolition notices.
Dated November 13th, one noticed by a resident who wishes to remain anonymous, stated “Your structure has possible structural of footing failures.”

It went on to say the structure would be demolished by November 30, 2012, just 17 days from the notice.   The order allowed the residents to request a hearing, but also threatened by fines of up to $2,000 per week if they did not comply with the order and fix their homes before the 30th.

To date, homeowners have been allowed to hire contractors for damage assessments, quotes, winterizations and insurance inspections, but no plans have yet been made for any reconstruction, leaving homeowners in a difficult position with very little time to decide what to do before their homes are demolished by the township.”

People should be able to move at their own pace with this, especially because these are decisions that are being made with their own property.  The government has no right to tell these people what to do with their property.

FEMA shut down a few weeks ago “due to bad weather”, during which time Occupy Sandy and other independent voluntary organizations continued to provide aid to hurricane victims.

Although mainstream media sources have been reporting that FEMA has done a great job, people who are actually forced to interact with FEMA have an entirely different story.

Some people who have no choice but to live in the “tent cities” set up by FEMA say that they are treated like criminals and actually feel like they are “in a concentration camp”.

Many on the east coast are still without power, lighting or housing and it seems that in many ways the natural good will of peaceful human beings is outshining the inefficient programs that are put forward by corrupt governments.

Message from Spain to The United States of America GET READY!!! You are the next victim!!

The Speaker in this video sounds like Judge Napolitano....  The Youtube user that uploaded this video; TheLipperTube, states that it is the Judge...

Arafat’s Body ‘to be Exhumed Tuesday’ for Poison Tests to Establish the Truth of Allegations that Israel may have Poisoned the Iconic Palestinian Leader

Palestinian official say Yasser Arafat will be reburied with full military honours after his exhumation next week (AFP)

By AFP 
Ramallah
 

Palestinian officials said Saturday they would exhume the body of their leader Yasser Arafat next week to see if Israel poisoned him with a Russian-produced radioactive isotope.

The controversial announcement came as a group of international experts arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah to take samples of the remains of the iconic leader’s bones and clothing for further study in European labs.
 

“The tomb will be opened on (Tuesday) and experts will take samples the same day within a matter of a few hours,” Tawfiq Tirawi told reporters in Ramallah.

He said a reburial ceremony would be held with full military honours later the same day in Arafat’s mausoleum at the heart of his Muqataa headquarters. Family members had earlier indicated the exhumation would probably go ahead on Monday.

Tirawi did not explain the apparent delay while stressing the procedure was painful but necessary to establish the truth of allegations that Israel may have poisoned the iconic Palestinian leader.

“November 27 will be one of the most painful days of my life for personal reasons as well as patriotic, political and religious ones,” the Palestinian inquiry chief said.

“But it is necessary in order to get to the painful truth behind Yasser Arafat’s death.”

Tirawi added that members of his commission remained convinced that Israel had used the radioactive element polonium to kill Arafat -- the same poison used to assassinate Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.

“As patriotic Palestinians, we remain convinced that the Israelis assassinated president Arafat, and at the inquiry level, we have evidence leading in this direction,” he said.

Rumors and speculation have surrounded Arafat’s death ever since a quick deterioration of his condition saw him pass away at the Percy military hospital in suburban Paris in November 2004 at the age of 75.

French doctors were unable to say what killed him and a post-mortem was never performed.

But many Palestinians believed he was poisoned by Israel -- a theory that gained ground in July when Al-Jazeera reported Swiss findings showing abnormal quantities of the radioactive substance polonium on Arafat’s personal effects.

France followed that up in late August by opening a formal murder inquiry at his widow’s request.

The experts who will be performing Tuesday’s operation under Palestinian command originate from Switzerland and Russia. They will accompany three French criminal investigators who will also be taking samples back home to Paris.

Tirawi said analysis of the samples will be conducted in all three countries.

But he added that any additional investigative work -- including interviews with witnesses that may be required by Paris investigators -- will be conducted either by or in the presence of Palestinian government representatives.

“All the testimonies of the Palestinians must be collected by Palestinian prosecutors in the presence of French investigators,” Tirawi said.

Large Blast Destroys Egypt Intelligence Building in Sinai

An Egyptian soldier keeps watch on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border. (Reuters)

By Al Arabiya

An explosion in the Egyptian city of Rafah near Gaza Strip destroyed part of an intelligence building, Al Arabiya correspondent reported early on Sunday.

Large numbers of security forces were deployed at the scene of the explosion and sealed off the area while search for possible explosives was underway.

The cause of the blast was not immediately known, but Egypt has been fighting Islamist militants in Sinai for several months. The collapse of the former regime and the deterioration of security conditions in Egypt created a security vacuum in the desert peninsula.

The security lax was exploited by armed militants seeking who have both attacked Egyptian and Israeli forces.

2 American News Anchors Get Fed Up With Political Propaganda and Quit Jobs on Air

By JG Vibes
theintelhub.com
November 23, 2012

Two news anchors in Bangor, Maine quit their jobs on the air this week, after becoming frustrated with management over the course of many years.  The reporters also complained of being forced to put forward “unbalanced” political information.

According to Bangor Daily News:

“News co-anchors Cindy Michaels and Tony Consiglio announced their resignations at the end of Tuesday’s 6 p.m. newscast.

Michaels and Consiglio, who have a combined 12½ years’ service at WVII (Channel 7) and sister station WFVX (Channel 22), shocked staff members and viewers with their joint resignations Tuesday evening.”

The news anchors decided not to tell anyone about their departure before making the announcement on the air because they feared that management would not allow them to say goodbye to the audience after they resigned.

Michaels explained to the local newspaper one of the main reasons for their frustration, saying that:

“It’s a culmination of ongoing occurrences that took place the last several years and basically involved upper management practices that we both strongly disagreed with,” she explained. “It’s a little complicated, but we were expected to do somewhat unbalanced news, politically, in general.”

Michaels continued:

“There was a constant disrespecting and belittling of staff and we both felt there was a lack of knowledge from ownership and upper management in running a newsroom to the extent that I was not allowed to structure and direct them professionally,” Michaels explained. “I couldn’t do everything I wanted to as a news director. There was a regular undoing of decisions.”

Both of them also said that they had very little freedom in the issues that they covered and that they were forced to present controversial information from a propagandized perspective.  This definitely speaks to the immense amount of control that comes from the top down in the media, which is the reason why only one version of reality is presented through mainstream sources.

For these massive corporations that run the media to actually control the political and philosophical dialogue they are dependent upon the talking heads to make the sales.  At the end of the day, most of the talking heads throughout the world are just average people, at least at local stations anyway.  These human beings have the ability to withdraw support whenever they choose to.

Especially now with the internet, any one of these local news anchors that quit still have the ability to do the exact same thing they were doing before, but less restricted, on the internet.  These particular news anchors have expressed taking different directions in their lives, writing novels, or working in the media in other ways.  It would be great to see more people from the media, even on a local level withdraw their support in this kind of way.

These newscasters, and many others who are still in the field will agree that what is on television is not the news, it is a propagandized version of events that is crafted by the corporations that advertise on the station and the government that regulates the airwaves.

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Officials: Israel's Gaza Offensive Was Training For A Possible Fight With Iran

Israel's eight-day Gaza offensive was a dry run for any future armed confrontation with Iran, U.S. and Israeli officials told The New York Times.

“In Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel was not confronting Gaza, but Iran,” Israeli ambassador to the U.S. States and military historian Michael B. Oren told the Times.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) employed F-16 fighter jets to drop bunker-busting bombs on underground tunnels as well as Apache helicopters and drones to hit more than 1,500 targets in Gaza.

The first strike of the conflict may have been Oct. 22 when fighter jets bombed an Iranian arms factory in Sudan. Israel has been mum about the strike, but everyone from Sudan to the U.N. believes four Israeli stealth jets targeted the factory because it was used to supply arms — including Fajr rockets like those fired at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem — to Hamas in Gaza.

Learning and reducing the capabilities of Iran's surrogates — Hamas and (especially) Islamic Jihad in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — is important to Israel because those groups would contribute to the 200,000 rockets and missiles that could strike Israel during any military confrontation with Iran.

And as Moran Stern wrote in The Atlantic, the operation also went toward preparing Israel's military and populace for consequences that would follow a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Israel's Iron Dome, partially funded by the U.S., intercepted 84 percent of the 1,506 rockets fired from Gaza that were targeted, but it wouldn't deter Hezbollah's medium-range rockets or Iran's long-range missiles because it is designed to counter only short-range rockets launched from 50 miles of less.

“The general lesson is that missile defense is effective, it can work,” said Uzi Rubin, the former head of Israel’s missile defense program, told The Washington Post. “But Iron Dome has nothing to do with threats from Iran.”

To that end Israel is developing a medium-range missile defense system, called David’s Sling, which was tested in computer simulations during the recent American-Israeli exercise (i.e. Austere Challenge), and has fielded a long-range system called Arrow.

“Nobody has really had to manage this kind of a battle before,” Jeffrey White, a defense fellow for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the Times. “There [would be] lots of rockets coming in all over half the country, and there are all different kinds of rockets being fired.”

Operation Pillar of Cloud likely decimated Hamas' arsenal of 10,000 to 12,000 rockets, but the offensive didn't come close to the firepower and strategy needed to attack Iran.

What it did was bring the U.S. deeper into the mix: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton helped prevent a Israeli ground invasion, three U.S. warships were sent to Israel and President Barack Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the U.S. would intensify efforts to help Israel address the smuggling of weapons and explosives into Gaza.

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