T.G.O.H

Source: LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE

The breakdown of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations signals a “new world order” in which the West can no longer unilaterally impose its will on the rest of the world, Norway’s foreign minister said Wednesday.

“I may have been present as the world order crumbled. But at the same time, I have witnessed the emergence of a new world order where all of the world’s countries are present and defend their rights,” Jonas Gahr Stoere wrote in an opinion piece in the Norwegian paper of reference Aftenposten.

“Just a few years ago, the United States and the EU resolved all disputes. When they agreed on a solution, that was often the way it turned out. Those days are numbered,” he wrote, pointing to the mounting influence of countries like China, India and Brazil.

The Geneva talks collapsed Tuesday after nine gruelling days of negotiations aimed at reaching a consensus on subsidy levels and import tariffs for a new deal under the WTO’s seven-year-old Doha Round.

“The failure in Geneva should encourage us to develop a world order that is in line with a new era,” Stoere said, insisting that the aborted talks should not be the final word on the matter.

Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, has traditionally imposed high duties on imported agricultural goods to protect its heavily subsidised farmers.

Source: Yahoo! News

Iran’s president on Tuesday blamed the U.S. and other “big powers” for global ills such as nuclear proliferation and AIDS, and accused them of exploiting the U.N. for their own gain and the developing world’s loss.

But, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, time was on the poor countries’ side.

“The big powers are going down,” Ahmadinejad told foreign ministers of the Nonaligned Movement meeting in Tehran. “They have come to the end of their power, and the world is on the verge of entering a new, promising era.”

The more than 100-member NAM is made up of such diverse members as communist Cuba, Jamaica and India and depicts itself as bloc-free. But most members share a critical view of the U.S and the developed world in general.

And with Iran assuming the chairmanship of the conference Tuesday, Ahmadinejad’s keynote speech was tailored to reflect the struggle that some NAM members see themselves in against the world’s rich and powerful countries.

Something far more insidious is at work here, it’s not just a matter of more money for shops.

Source; Mail Online

Millions of passengers flying from British airports will be fingerprinted from next year under the latest controversial Government anti-terror plans.

The measures, which will apply to both domestic and international passengers, are being introduced despite opposition from the Information Commissioner, Britain’s privacy watchdog.

The Commissioner forced Heathrow to abandon a similar plan earlier this year after warning that it was potentially illegal under data protection laws.

Critics say the main reason for the scheme is that airport operators want to maximise profits by ensuring all passengers are able to spend money in ‘duty-free’ shops.

As a result, ‘common departure lounges’, where both domestic and international passengers can mix freely, are being introduced at all major UK airports.

This poses an obvious security risk in that an incoming international passenger – possibly a terrorist or a criminal – could switch tickets with an accomplice booked on a domestic flight.

The international passenger would then be able to fly elsewhere in Britain and enter the country without being checked by immigration authorities.

Now, the Home Office is putting the finishing touches to new rules requiring compulsory fingerprinting for all passengers.

The amendments to national aviation security rules will require fingerprints to be scanned when passengers pass through security into the airside terminal. Passengers will be fingerprint-scanned again at their flight departure gate.

It is likely that the scheme will later be expanded to cover passengers at major seaports and the Channel Tunnel rail links.

The measures will enable police and the Security Services to check fingerprints against international watch lists and Interpol databases, searching for suspects travelling on false identities.

Behind-the-scenes discussions are well advanced and the Home Office’s Border and Immigration Agency is expected to issue new orders to airport operators before Christmas. The changes can be introduced under existing legislation, without the need for a debate in Parliament.

Last night, a Border Agency spokesman said: ‘We are considering using fingerprint checks to confirm passenger identities before boarding at UK airports.’

He said the Government was determined to ‘strengthen our borders using new technology’. And he said it was already fingerprinting people applying for visas to enter Britain, using electronic checks to count people in and out – and would require foreign nationals to carry ID cards from November.

But the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has said it has concerns about any proposals to fingerprint passengers.

It asked why fingerprinting was necessary to confirm people’s identities at airports when the authorities have, until now, successfully relied on ‘less intrusive’ photographs.

At the time, the Deputy Information Commissioner said that any passengers asked to give their fingerprints at airports should do so only ‘under protest’.

Last night, an ICO spokesman said: ‘We have raised the data protection implications of the proposals with BAA and UK Borders Agency. We have requested more information about the requirements the agency may have for fingerprint checks.’

Until now, airports with common terminals such as Gatwick and Manchester have taken digital photos as people pass through security and have then rechecked their identities at departure gates. But the Home Office says this is no longer sufficient.

And the Spanish-owned BAA said the scanners were necessary so that all passengers could mix in the terminals’ huge airside shopping mall, which includes BAA-owned World Duty Free stores.

Passengers passing through security place a hand on an electronic scanner which records four fingerprints. They then face a camera and are photographed.

BAA’s website said at the time: ‘We are transforming Heathrow to make big improvements for all passengers.

‘Domestic passengers will in future use the same departure lounges as international passengers. That means all our passengers will enjoy the same wide choice of shops and restaurants.’

Since 2004, visitors to America have been fingerprint-scanned and digitally photographed on arrival.

From next year, the US authorities also intend to fingerprint-scan people departing the country.

Source: globalresearch.ca

Operating with little ethical oversight, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been tapping cutting-edge advances in neuroscience, computers and robotics in a quest to build the “perfect warfighter.”

Dovetailing precisely with other projects to “dominate” the urban “battlespace” of global south and “homeland” cities, DARPA researchers are stretching moral boundaries where clear distinctions between “human” and “machine” are being consciously blurred. (see “Simulating Urban Warfare” and “America’s Cyborg Warriors”)

As the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics warns,

The right of a person to liberty, autonomy, and privacy over his or her own intellect is situated at the core of what it means to be a free person. This principle is what gives life to some of our most well-established and cherished rights. Today, as new drugs and other technologies are being developed for augmenting, monitoring, and manipulating mental processes, it is more important than ever to ensure that our legal system recognizes and protects cognitive liberty as a fundamental right. (CCLE, “Frequently Asked Questions,” September 15, 2003)

Not only is the right to “liberty, autonomy, and privacy” being undermined by militarizing the life sciences, but the legal system itself is ill-equipped to deal with advances–and emerging threats–to “cognitive liberty” as America’s corporatist surveillance state seek new means to elicit compliance and control over individuals as biological science is securitized under the rubric of “national security.”

Source: Iowa Independent

On the third floor of an unnamed building in the shadow of the state Capitol sits the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center, an organization tasked with helping to stop future acts of terrorism.

Russell Porter, director of the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center, was one of a group of people who help lay the groundwork for the fusion center concept around the country.

Russell Porter, director of the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center, was one of a group of people who helped lay the groundwork for the fusion center concept around the country.

Made up of law enforcement personnel and state and federal intelligence analysts, the center has six regional offices around the state and nearly 50 staff members.

Law enforcement says it’s an essential tool. Civil liberties advocates worry that creating one-stop shops for sensitive information could lead to abuses. But the fusion center concept is expanding across the country, and in the process, creating a nationwide intelligence network whose activities are barely known to the public.

Traditionally, police had little to do with counterterrorism. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it became obvious that al-Qaeda members had prepared not only in far-off Afghan training camps but also in Minnesota and flight schools in Florida. An unwitting Maryland state trooper actually stopped one of the future hijackers for speeding.

Fusion centers are where the federal, state and local cops share intelligence, sift data for clues, run down reports of suspicious packages, and connect dots in an effort to detect and thwart drug smuggling, gang fighting and other menaces to society.

Russell Porter, director of the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center, said the center has been very successful at its mission since it was first established 3 1/2 years ago.

“There are challenges and concerns, and we are very aware of that,” he said. “It works for Iowa because we have worked to give authority to local officials to dictate the fusion center’s direction.”

Porter’s career in Iowa law enforcement dates back to 1978, with a focus on intelligence since 1984. In the national intelligence community, Porter is well-known and respected. He was working on his doctoral thesis on intelligence gathering in law enforcement when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks happened, and along with a number of groups and organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Porter helped craft a plan to fix what went wrong with domestic intelligence gathering while protecting fundamental rights of privacy and civil liberties.

“When 9/11 happened, suddenly there was the political will in Washington and around the country to do something,” he said. “A few of us put together the IACP Criminal Intelligence Sharing Summit in March of 2002. A colleague of mine and I served as the technical writers for that report, which was published in August of 2002. It called for the creation of a national criminal intelligence sharing plan and a criminal intelligence coordinating council.”

That laid the groundwork for “fusion centers,” with an underlying goal of keep Americans safe. Whether or not that has happened is something that is difficult to quantify. Porter, for one, does not see terrorism as the biggest threat facing Iowans.

“It’s a cliché, but, yes, Americans are safer, but we are not yet safe,” he said. “We need to keep a realistic perspective on the threats that we face. In cities across America, we still have significant gang problems. There are still issues with domestic violence. We still face those community problems. We’re stronger at how we deal with those things, and I think we’re better informed, but the danger persists.”

While the initial idea behind creating these centers around the country was to combat terrorism, the mission in Iowa has evolved to the point where its biggest successes deal with home-grown crime.

Full story at Iowa Independent
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