The Slaughterhouse Informer

A Compendiium of Various Official Lies, Business Scandals, Small Murders, Frauds, and Other Gross Defects of Our Current Political, Business and Religious Moral Lepers.

Presenting a new magazine that contains material that is not found elsewhere and is very difficult to post on the Internet. The ‘Voice of the White House’ will appear in each issue containing material not found on TBR News for very obvious reasons.This publication will appear once a week, on Wednesday, every week, will be ten pages in length and is available by subscription only. The price is $5.00 a month and can be paid via PayPal or by check, sent to ‘Morris Productions, 3015 E. New York St. Ste A2-190, Aurora, Il 60504.’ If you don’t like it, and Bush supporters can read the Drudge Report for free, you can cancel at any time.

Civil insurrection in America and government countermeasures: The official papers

By Bradley Moscrip

An in-depth study of official American plans to construct FEMA detention centers in America and specific recent U.S. Army domestic counterinsurgency plans. Here is a sampling of the ebook contents:

Gun Control by Confiscation

As the American general population is known to be the most heavily armed in the world, immediately upon the declaration of Martial Law and the execution by the military of counterinsurgency programs, it has been determined that the BATF, will begin the process of rounding up all rifles, pistols and so-called assault weaponry from the civil population. Lists of gun collectors obtained from firearms dealers, gun magazine subscription lists and other sources will be the basis for these mass confiscations. Gun owners will be supplied documentation by the BATF showing which pieces have been confiscated so that in the future, they will be told, they can recover their weapons when the state of emergency has passed. In actuality, weapons that do not have a high value or are not suitable for arming loyalist police forces, will be destroyed by order

This study is available from tbrnews at $5.00 by PayPal  

The Voice of the White House

            Washington, D.C., October 18, 2009: “Our blessed IRS is reporting a tax gap of $345 billion that reflects what is owed and what has been paid. Their new, but secret, plan? To go after sole proprietors, that is persons who own unincorporated businesses. Unlike wage and some investment income, sole proprietors’ income is not subject to withholding and only a portion is subject to information reporting to IRS by third parties. The IRS has forces several Swiss banks to disgorge the names of U.S. “secret” bank account holders and are going after them. They plan to rake in several billions but what about the $65 billion that Bernie Madoff hid in Israeli banks? Why not go after them? That find would be helpful to the IRS but oddly enough, we never hear about that, do we? Why not? Don’t ask stupid questions. While the overall marketplace is holding its own and rising a little, what is being studiously ignored is the large and growing number of unemployed, and unemployable citizens. Offshoring is part of the problem but times are changing and the United States, while still a great power, is no longer a major manufacturing country and the mass of unemployed is not going away. Taking care of friends in the banking community is one thing but if the unemployment situation is not corrected, this country is in for serious future problems. Why not tax the hell out of offshored companies? It might bring them back here where the jobs  belong, not in Manila or Mumbai. America First used to be a popular slogan so why not resurrect it again? And tax the shit out of the phony religious scams as well.”

Foreclosures Force Ex-Homeowners to Turn to Shelters

October 18, 2009

by Peter S. Gooodman

New York Times

CLEVELAND — The first night after she surrendered her house to foreclosure, Sheri West endured the darkness in her Hyundai sedan. She parked in her old driveway, with her flower-print dresses and hats piled in boxes on the back seat, and three cherished houseplants on the floor. She used her backyard as a restroom.

The second night, she stayed with a friend, and so it continued for more than a year: Ms. West — mother of three grown children, grandmother to six and great-grandmother to one — passed months on the couches of friends and relatives, and in the front seat of her car.

But this fall, she exhausted all options. She had once owned and overseen a group home for homeless people. Now, she succumbed to that status herself, checking in to a shelter.

“No one could have told me that in a million years: I’d wake up in a homeless shelter,” she said. “I had a house for homeless people. Now, I’m homeless.”

Growing numbers of Americans who have lost houses to foreclosure are landing in homeless shelters, according to social service groups and a recent report by a coalition of housing advocates.

Only three years ago, foreclosure was rarely a factor in how people became homeless. But among the homeless people that social service agencies have helped over the last year, an average of 10 percent lost homes to foreclosure, according to “Foreclosure to Homelessness 2009,” a survey produced by the National Coalition for the Homeless and six other advocacy groups.

In the Midwest, foreclosure played a role for 15 percent of newly homeless people, according to the survey, reflecting soaring rates of unemployment — Ohio’s reached 10.8 percent in August — and aggressive lending to people with damaged credit.

At a shelter for women and children run by the West Side Catholic Center in Cleveland, where Ms. West now lives, foreclosure accounted for zero arrivals in 2007, the center’s executive director, Gerald Skoch, said. Last year, two cases emerged. This year, the number has already reached four.

Similar increases have been reported at shelters in California, Michigan and Florida, where a combination of joblessness and the real estate bust have generated unusually severe rates of foreclosure.

Most people who become homeless because of foreclosure had been low-income renters whose landlords stopped making their mortgage payments, leaving them scrambling for new housing with little notice and scant savings, according to the survey and interviews with shelters.

But in recent months, there has been a visible increase in the number of former homeowners showing up in shelters. Like Ms. West, most have landed there after months trying to stave off that fate.

“These families never needed help before,” said Larry Haynes, executive director of Mercy House in Santa Ana, Calif. “They haven’t a clue about where to go, and they have all sorts of humiliation issues. They don’t even know what to say, what to ask for.”

Many start off camping out in cars, particularly in warmer places.

“We’ve seen a rise in people sleeping in their cars,” said Rick Cole, city manager in Ventura, Calif., which recently allowed car-camping in designated areas. “Some are foreclosed former homeowners, and some couldn’t afford their rent. People will give up their house before they give up their car.”

Those with means try to rent homes or apartments, though tainted credit often makes that impossible. Growing numbers are landing in motels that rent by the week, cramming whole families into single rooms and using hot plates as kitchens. But as unemployment expands, many are losing the wherewithal to remain.

Many take refuge with families and friends, occupying extra bedrooms, basements and attics. But such hospitality rarely lasts.

So, as lean times endure and paychecks disappear, homeless shelters are absorbing those who have run out of alternatives.

For Ms. West, whose youthful appearance belies her age, in her mid-50s, the nights spent on couches in other people’s homes were uncomfortably familiar. She grew up an only child in a housing project in Neptune, N.J., where her mother slept in the lone bedroom, and she occupied a pullout sofa in the living room.

“I’ve always had this dream of doing better,” she said. “I always wanted to own my own house.”

She realized that dream shortly after arriving in Cleveland with her husband and two children in the early 1990s. At first, they rented. But one fall afternoon, Ms. West found herself on a block lined with leafy trees in Mount Pleasant, a neighborhood east of the Cuyahoga River that was a magnet for middle-class black families like hers. Red brick homes with wooden porches sat on ample lots. Public schools were a few blocks away.

When she saw an ad in the Sunday paper offering a house on that very block, she bought it for $45,000; for the $9,000 down payment she used the savings her mother had left her when she died. She and her husband assumed the mortgage from the previous owner, with affordable payments of less than $400 a month.

Ms. West then had a job as a maintenance worker at an apartment complex for about $9 an hour. Her husband earned about $10 an hour as a truck driver. As the years passed, they added shrubbery to the front yard and photos of children’s birthday parties to the walls.

“I thought that was going to be my house,” she said.

She tapped her inheritance to buy another house on nearby Union Street, paying $15,000 in cash for a light-blue, vinyl-sided A-frame. She turned the house into a home for five homeless people. She did their laundry, reminded them to take their medications and cooked meals, while collecting payments of up to $750 a person each month from the agencies that placed them.

Over the years, Ms. West and her husband spent more than they earned. They used credit cards to finance restaurant meals. They bought a new S.U.V.

At the group home, Ms. West’s compensation slipped as the state limited benefit payments. Yet every month brought the same thicket of bills — water, electricity, gas, plus food for the people under her charge.

In 2001, Ms. West and her husband took out a $67,000 mortgage on the Union Street house — which had increased considerably in value — to refinance high-interest debts, assuming payments of nearly $700 a month.

Two years later, her husband left her.

“It just took the life out me,” she said. “I was in a very bad state, a very depressed situation. Things just kind of went downhill. I just didn’t care anymore.”

By 2005, she was broke. She sold the brick house to her cousin, disbanded the group home and moved in. She paid what bills she could through temporary jobs as a signature collector for petition drives. But as many months passed without work, the bills piled up past due.

By the next year, terse letters were coming from the mortgage company — notices of delinquency, then threats of foreclosure. Much of the neighborhood was in a similar state. Broken windows sat unrepaired at a two-story apartment block across the street, where tattered curtains flapped in the breeze. The city boarded up abandoned homes to deter vagrants, drug addicts and prostitutes.

Ms. West wrote to her mortgage company, seeking lower payments. But with tainted credit and no full-time job, she was not a candidate for a deal. Fliers beckoned with relief as companies offered to negotiate with her lender for lower payments. But when she called, the companies demanded upfront payments as high as $500.

“I told them, ‘if I had that money, I wouldn’t be going into foreclosure,’ ” she said.

In the spring of 2008, Ms. West accepted an offer from the mortgage company: move out, hand over the keys and collect $2,500. She sold what furniture she could and put the rest on the street — tables, beds, a couch.

            Her uncle had said she could stay with him for a while. But when she called him to say she was on the way, he told her that his girlfriend was uncomfortable with the arrangement. Ms. West’s daughter was in a cramped rented house with her boyfriend and her two children. Her son was in a rooming house.

            So Ms. West, a stylish woman with a penchant for shiny lipstick and glittering jewelry, wound up camping in her car. She listened to the radio to drown out the voices of prostitutes trawling the street. She meditated. (“Just blank out everything in your mind,” she said. “Just go to a place that’s peaceful, like a beach.”) She prayed.

            “It was scary,” she said. “Here I am, alone, and I don’t have nowhere to go.”

            The next day, she moved in with a friend, remaining there for about three months. For several more months, she stayed with the cousin who had bought her old brick house and was living there with her husband and seven children. Toys lay scattered across the floor. The walls vibrated with music, television and the sounds of children. She lay awake on the couch, a vagabond in the one place that had once felt so solid.

            “I was losing my mind,” she said.

            She was grateful to be inside — particularly during the Cleveland winter — yet never comfortable or stable enough to plan beyond the next day.

            “You know in the back of your mind that people don’t really want you there,” she said.

Sometimes, she lived out of her car, spending days at the public library, where she washed up in the restroom and used a computer to scan meager job listings.

            Finally, a woman she met on the street took her in and helped her formulate a recovery plan. She signed up for food stamps. She enrolled at a community college in a three-month, state-financed training program that would give her a certificate for an entry-level job in biotechnology, putting her in position to earn as much as $16 an hour.

            In September, she got a bed at the homeless shelter, reluctantly accepting that she needed her own space to re-establish her life.

            “I never wanted to go to the shelter because of the stigma,” she said. “I’m a very independent person. I felt like I got myself into this situation, and I’ve got to get myself out. But I knew I couldn’t just keep going back and forth and staying with these people and not moving forward with my life.”

            She sleeps in a twin bed with a flower-print duvet, in a small room painted lavender. Her plants line the windowsill. She keeps to herself, reading motivational books, as she prepares to start classes next month.

            She is working again, taking care of senior citizens in their homes part time, and saving money.

By December, she will exhaust the shelter’s 90-day limit, so she is hurrying to line up a house to rent while arranging a subsidy through the West Side Catholic Center.

            She is still shaken by the past and anxious about the future, but she is again looking ahead.

            “I do want to eventually own a house again,” she said. “That’s the American dream. That’s what everybody wants.”

Obama Renews Bush's 9/11 State of Emergency

October 16, 2009

by Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg

CommonDreams.org

            On September 10^th, President Obama reinstituted the national State of Emergency first declared by George W. Bush on September 14, 2001 by placing the following language in the Federal Register.

The terrorist threat that led to the declaration on September 14, 2001, of a national emergency continues. For this reason, I have determined that it is necessary to continue in effect after September 14, 2009, the national emergency with respect to the terrorist threat.

            As Dr. Harold C. Relyea, a specialist in national government with the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress, has written, “when the President formally declares a national emergency, he may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens.”

            Yet, while Dr. Relyea opines that Congress and the judiciary, as well as public opinion, “can restrain the executive regarding emergency powers,” nothing of the sort has occurred. 

            Under the 1976 National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601-1651), Congress is required to review presidentially declared emergencies.  Specifically, “not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated.”  Over the past eight years, Congress has failed to obey its own law, a fact that casts doubt on the legality of the state of emergency.

As far as public opinion is concerned, how many Americans are even aware that a state of emergency even exists.  For that matter, how many members of Congress know?

             Homeland Security Committee member Peter DeFazio (D-OR).  DeFazio took to the House floor in late 2007 to express his anger at being denied access to an executive branch document (National Security Presidential Directive 51 or NSPD-51) that “establish[es] a comprehensive national policy for the continuity of federal government structures” in a national emergency.

            The New York Times, in a 2007 editorial titled “Making Martial Law Easier”, offered these words regarding NSPD-51:  “Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the President may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack, or to any ‘other condition.’ Changes of this magnitude should be made only after a thorough public airing.”

            It’s noteworthy that this particular Times editorial was written a year before NorthCom, “unified combatant command of the U.S. military” covering the U.S., Canada and Mexico, began stationing troops on U.S. soil.  Established a year after 9/11, NorthCom is the first such command to cover the “domestic battlefield.” It is charged with “the protection of the United States homeland, and the support of local, state, and federal authorities.”

            In 1878, Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act with the intention of substantially limiting the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement.  By 2008, however, the 3^rd infantry’s 1^st brigade combat team (BCT) had been stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia.  This force, known, as the Consequence Management Response Force (CCMRF) “may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios.”  Plans for the stationing of more brigades are swiftly being enacted.  As the Army Times pointed out,

            “This mission marks the first time an active unit of the U.S. military has been given a domestic assignment.” 

            The demise of posse comitatus—a critical protection for ordinary citizens from the predations of overreaching government—has occurred without media comment or public resistance.

Despite campaign pronouncements that cheered civil libertarians, President Obama has largely maintained Bush era policies regarding rendition/torture, surveillance and preventive detention. 

            The denial of what has often been called “the Great Writ” of habeus corpus should send a shudder down the spine of every American citizen.  The United States Constitution states in Article 1 Section 5 that “the privilege of the writ of habeus corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of rebellion or Invasion the public safety may require it.”  The Obama administration is essentially arguing that the United States is currently in a state of resisting foreign invasion a full eight years after the attacks of 9/11!

            This is ludicrous.  Dr. Relyea argues that Congress and the judiciary, as “co-equal branches of constitutional government,” serve as a check on the executive power.  As we have seen, Congress has either been shut out of this process, or, as in so many cases, it has capitulated.  Dr. Relyea then offers that public opinion can restrain the executive.  But the public doesn’t even know they’re living under a state of emergency.  The media doesn’t report it, and the government is certainly not in the business of providing information that might raise the hackles of real Americans.

            It’s time for the American people to rise to this challenge.  Write your member of Congress, and your senators.  Tell them to obey their own laws.  Tell them to end this phony and treacherous state of emergency that imperils the freedom of us all.

Dan Hamburg, a former US representative, is executive director of Voice of the Environment.  Lewis Seiler is president of Voice of the Environment.

20 Killed Including Senior IRG Officers in Attack in Eastern Iran
October 18, 2009
Almanar          

            A massive explosion in eastern Iran Sunday killed and injured more than 60 people including senior officers in the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps including deputy chief of the ground forces Brigadier General Nour Ali Shishtari. .

            The explosion took place in the city of Pisheen in the south eastern province of Sistan-Bluchestan near the border with Pakistan and at least 20 people were killed.

            The strike took place when officers from the Guards were preparing to stage a meeting between local leaders of Shiite and Sunni communities. Some local tribal heads and several senior officers of the Guards were among the slain. "In this terrorist act, General Nur-Ali Shushtari, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, General Mohammad-Zadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Sistan-Baluchestan province, the Guards' commander for the town of Iranshahr and the commander of the Amir al-Momenin unit died," the Fars news agency reported.

             Parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani confirmed the officers' death in an announcement to parliament which was broadcast on television. Iran has previously accused shadowy group Jundallah (Soldiers of God) of launching regular attacks in the province, which borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
 

Iran vows reprisals after bombing kills dozens

October 19, 2009

by Ali Akbar Dareini and Brian Murphy 

Associated Press

            TEHRAN, Iran - Iran vowed retaliation Monday after accusing Pakistan, the U.S. and Britain of aiding Sunni militants who stunned the Islamic regime with a suicide bombing that killed top Revolutionary Guard commanders and dozens of others.

            A commentary by the official news agency called on Iranian security forces "to seriously deal with Pakistan once and for all." And President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his Pakistani counterpart that his nation must hunt down suspected members of Jundallah, or Soldiers of God.

            "The presence of terrorist elements in Pakistan is not justifiable and the Pakistani government needs to help arrest and punish the criminals as soon as possible," state TV quoted Ahmadinejad as telling President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday.

            Iran made no specific threats against the U.S. or Britain, but the accusations came as talks began in Vienna over Iran's nuclear program. The U.S. is part of those talks, which observers said made little headway Monday beyond spelling out each side's position.

            Iran has often claimed that Western powers use groups such as Jundallah to try to destabilize the country. But the direct finger-pointing at Pakistan - and the warnings of a stepped-up offensive - present a different and risky scenario for Iran's leaders.

             Sunday's attack occurred in a region that is home to several minority Sunni tribes in rugged southeastern Iran. It is one of the country's most restive areas. Until now, authorities have avoided widespread security offensives that could draw in outside extremists such as al-Qaida.

            Sharper tensions with Pakistan could severely hurt Iran's efforts to battle drug trafficking and jeopardize important trade deals at a time when Tehran could face more sanctions over its nuclear program. In May, the two countries signed a landmark pact for a natural gas pipeline into Pakistan.

             Pakistan's president quickly condemned the attack that killed at least 42 people - including five senior Revolutionary Guard officers - in a district near Iran's border with Pakistan. The dry canyons and hills are crisscrossed by smuggling routes and home to Sunni Muslim ethnic groups known as Baluchi.

             Jundallah gained notice more than five years ago with sporadic attacks and kidnappings, claiming the minority Sunni tribes in southeastern Iran suffer at the hands of Iran's Shiite leadership. Its leader, Abdulmalik Rigi, has been quoted as saying the group does not seek to break from Iran but that violence is necessary to draw attention to discrimination.

            Most experts estimate Jundallah has no more than 1,000 main fighters from Baluchi clans, whose territory extends into Pakistan and Afghanistan. Iran has claimed the group has ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban, but most analysts say no evidence has been produced.

             Jundallah has targeted the powerful Revolutionary Guard before, including a February 2007 car bombing that killed 11 members. The group also claimed responsibility for a May suicide bomb that killed 25 worshippers in a Shiite mosque.

             Sunday's blast was the most deadly. Reports said a suicide bomber ambushed a high-level delegation of Guard commanders arriving for talks on promoting Sunni-Shiite reconciliation with tribal leaders in Pishin near the Pakstani border.

             Revolutionary Guard chief Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari vowed to deliver a "crushing" response and said an Iranian delegation would travel to Pakistan soon to present evidence of links to its agents.

            Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a statement on his official Web site vowing to punish those behind the attack.

            Several analysts who have studied Jundallah say the group likely receives inspiration and material support from Baluchi nationalists in Pakistan, but no direct backing from militant factions.

             "Evidence shows that U.S., British and Pakistani intelligence supported the group," state TV quoted Jafari as saying.

            The State Department and Britain's Foreign Office strongly rejected claims of any involvement.

            Zardari called the incident "gruesome and barbaric" and pledged full Pakistani support to fight the militants, according to a statement from his office.

            Peiman Forouzesh, an Iranian lawmaker representing the region where the attack took place, called on the Guard to carry out military operations inside the Pakistani soil against Jundallah.

            A statement in the name of Jundallah said the attack was carried out in "retaliation for the Iranian regime's crimes against the unarmed people of Baluchistan."

            The victims of the attack included the deputy commander of the Guard's ground forces, Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, as well as a chief provincial Guard commander, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh. The others killed were Guard members or tribal leaders.

---

             Associated Press Writers Asif Shahzad in Islamabad and Sebastian Abbot and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report. Murphy reported from Dubai.

Russian analyst expects more suicide bombings in Iran

October 19, 2009

RIA Novosti

MOSCOW, October 19 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian analyst said on Monday further suicide bomb attacks could not be ruled out in Iran as radical groups intensify their activities.

A suicide bomb attack on the Revolutionary Guards in the country's volatile southeast Sunday killed between 42 and 49, according to different sources. Several commanders of the elite force died in the attack.

"I believe that such acts will be repeated. After all, the situation is not getting any better," said Yelena Melkunyan, a professor at the Russian State Humanitarian University and senior research associate at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies.

"The authorities have not reached a compromise solution; they insisted on their decision [the outcome of June presidential elections], ignoring the interests of other parties involved, other political forces. Needless to say, in this situation, such acts could continue."

She linked Sunday's attack, which was reportedly claimed by a Sunni insurgent group, to "general instability in Iran."

Iranian President Ahmadinejad won a landslide victory in June 12 elections amid opposition claims that the vote was rigged. Iran's constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, confirmed the election results.

Melkunyan said that since the presidential elections, the opposition, including radical organizations that use terrorist methods, "has intensified its activity, galvanizing into action all those unhappy with the ruling regime."

President Dmitry Medvedev said earlier on Monday that Russia was willing to cooperate with Iran in the fight against terrorism and extremism.

In a message to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Medvedev condemned Sunday's terrorist attack and expressed condolences to the victims.

Dozens of people were injured in the attack, which took place in the city of Pisheen, in Sistan-Baluchistan Province near the border with Pakistan.

. 

Arctic ice to vanish in summer, report says

October 15, 2009

CNN

             LONDON, England (CNN) -- New data released Thursday suggests that the Arctic Ocean will be "largely ice free" during summer within a decade. The report, complied by the UK-based Catlin Arctic Survey and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is the latest research into ice thickness in the Arctic.

Researchers predict that within 20 years ice cover will be completely gone during the warmer months.

The expedition, which was completed in May, was led by UK explorer Pen Hadow.

He and his team collected data by manually drilling into the ice and noting its thickness along a 450-kilometer route across the northern part of the Beaufort Sea.

They found that the area surveyed was comprised almost exclusively of first year ice.

Scientists think this is significant because traditionally the region has been made up of much older, thicker ice.

“Discovering this area of younger ice provides another body of information that supports the rapidly emerging scientific consensus that it's going to be nearer 10 years from now that we will see roughly 80-85 percent free waters in the Arctic Ocean," Hadow told CNN.

Measurements taken by Hadow and his team report that the ice-floes were on average 1.8 meters thick -- which, according to scientists, is too thin to survive next summer's ice melt.

Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the UK's University of Cambridge said: "With a large part of the region now first year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable. The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone."

Professor Wadhams, who has analyzed the expedition data, added: "The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and much of that decrease will be happening within 10 years.”

Martin Sommerkorn from the WWF International Arctic Program believes that the changes in sea-ice cover in the region are likely to increase global temperatures further.

"Such a loss of Arctic sea ice has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself," Sommerkorn said.

"Arctic sea ice holds a central position in our Earth's climate system. Take it out of the equation and we are left with a dramatically warmer world," he added.

Hadow fears that the current climate models developed by scientists may not be extreme enough. But he is hopeful that this new data will spur world leaders into action.

"We are now in a loss period," Hadow told CNN. "Maybe losing this sea ice, this roof on the top of our planet in going to be an important moment, a big visual aid to the science that in combination can bring about some sort of global agreement on emissions."

Billionaire among 6 nabbed in inside trading case

October 16, 2009

by Larry Neumeister and Candice Choi

Associated Press

NEW YORK - One of America's wealthiest men was among six hedge fund managers and corporate executives arrested Friday in a hedge fund insider trading case that authorities say generated more than $25 million in illegal profits and was a wake-up call for Wall Street.

Raj Rajaratnam, a portfolio manager for Galleon Group, a hedge fund with up to $7 billion in assets under management, was accused of conspiring with others to use insider information to trade securities in several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas F. Eaton set bail at $100 million to be secured by $20 million in collateral despite a request by prosecutors to deny bail. He also ordered Rajaratnam, who has both U.S. and Sri Lankan citizenship, to stay within 110 miles (177 kilometers) of New York City.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference it was the largest hedge fund case ever prosecuted and marked the first use of court-authorized wiretaps to capture conversations by suspects in an insider trading case.

He said the case should cause financial professionals considering insider trades in the future to wonder whether law enforcement is listening.

"Greed is not good," Bharara said. "This case should be a wake-up call for Wall Street."

Joseph Demarest Jr., the head of the New York FBI office, said it was clear that "the $20 million in illicit profits come at the expense of the average public investor."

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which brought separate civil charges, said the scheme generated more than $25 million in illegal profits.

Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement at the SEC, said the charges show Rajaratnam's "secret of success was not genius trading strategies."

"He is not the master of the universe. He is a master of the Rolodex," Khuzami said.

Galleon Group LLP said in a statement it was shocked to learn of Rajaratnam's arrest at his apartment. "We had no knowledge of the investigation before it was made public and we intend to cooperate fully with the relevant authorities," the statement said.

The firm added that Galleon "continues to operate and is highly liquid."

Rajaratnam, 52, was ranked No. 559 by Forbes magazine this year among the world's wealthiest billionaires, with a $1.3 billion net worth.

According to the Federal Election Commission, he is a generous contributor to Democratic candidates and causes. The FEC said he made over $87,000 in contributions to President Barack Obama's campaign, the Democratic National Committee and various campaigns on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and New Jersey U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez in the past five years. The Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, said he has given a total of $118,000 since 2004 - all but one contribution, for $5,000, to Democrats.

The Associated Press has learned that even before his arrest, Rajaratnam was under scrutiny for helping bankroll Sri Lankan militants notorious for suicide bombings.

Papers filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn allege that Rajaratnam worked closely with a phony charity that channeled funds to the Tamil Tiger terrorist organization. Those papers refer to him only as "Individual B." But U.S. law enforcement and government officials familiar with the case have confirmed that the individual is Rajaratnam.

At an initial court appearance in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Klein sought detention for Rajaratnam, saying there was "a grave concern about flight risk" given Rajaratnam's wealth and his frequent travels around the world.

His lawyer, Jim Walden, called his client a "citizen of the world," who has made more than $20 million in charitable donations in the last five years and had risen from humble beginnings in the finance profession to oversee hedge funds responsible for nearly $8 billion.

Walden promised "there's a lot more to this case" and his client was ready to prepare for it from home. Rajaratnam lives in a $10 million condominium with his wife of 20 years, their three children and two elderly parents. Walden noted that many of his employees were in court ready to sign a bail package on his behalf.

Rajaratnam - born in Sri Lanka and a graduate of University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business - has been described as a savvy manager of billions of dollars in technology and health care hedge funds at Galleon, which he started in 1996. The firm is based in New York City with offices in California, China, Taiwan and India. He lives in New York.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Rajaratnam obtained insider information and then caused the Galleon Technology Funds to execute trades that earned a profit of more than $12.7 million between January 2006 and July 2007. Other schemes garnered millions more and continued into this year, authorities said.

Bharara said the defendants benefited from tips about the earnings, earnings guidance and acquisition plans of various companies. Sometimes, those who provided tips received financial benefits and sometimes they just traded tips for more inside information, he added.

The timing of the arrests might be explained by a footnote in the complaint against Rajaratnam. In it, an FBI agent said he had learned that Rajaratnam had been warned to be careful and that Rajaratnam, in response, had said that a former employee of the Galleon Group was likely to be wearing a "wire."

The agent said he learned from federal authorities that Rajaratnam had a ticket to fly from Kennedy International Airport to London on Friday and to return to New York from Geneva, Switzerland next Thursday.

Also charged in the scheme are Rajiv Goel, 51, of Los Altos, California, a director of strategic investments at Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel Corp., Anil Kumar, 51, of Santa Clara, California, a director at McKinsey & Co. Inc., a global management consulting firm, and Robert Moffat, 53, of Ridgefield, Connecticut, senior vice president and group executive at International Business Machines Corp.'s Systems and Technology Group.

The others charged in the case were identified as Danielle Chiesi, 43, of New York City, and Mark Kurland, 60, also of New York City.

According to court papers, Chiesi worked for New Castle, the equity hedge fund group of Bear Stearns Asset Management Inc. that had assets worth about $1 billion under management. Kurland is a top executive at New Castle.

Kumar's lawyer, Isabelle Kirshner, said of her client: "He's distraught." He was freed on $5 million bail, secured in part by his $2.5 million California home.

Kerry Lawrence, an attorney representing Moffat, said: "He's shocked by the charges."

Bail for Kurland was set at $3 million while bail for Moffat and Chiesi was set at $2 million each. Lawyers for Moffat and Chiesi said their clients will plead not guilty. The law firm representing Kurland did not immediately return a phone call for comment.

A message left at Goel's residence was not immediately returned. He was released on bail after an appearance in California.

A criminal complaint filed in the case shows that an unidentified person involved in the insider trading scheme began cooperating and authorities obtained wiretaps of conversations between the defendants.

In one conversation about a pending deal that was described in a criminal complaint, Chiesi is quoted as saying: "I'm dead if this leaks. I really am. ... and my career is over. I'll be like Martha (expletive) Stewart."

Stewart, the homemaking maven, was convicted in 2004 of lying to the government about the sale of her shares in a friend's company whose stock plummeted after a negative public announcement. She served five months in prison and five months of home confinement.

Prosecutors charged those arrested Friday with conspiracy and securities fraud.

A separate criminal complaint in the case said Chiesi and Moffat conspired to engage in insider trading in the securities of International Business Machines Corp.

According to another criminal complaint in the case, Chiesi and Rajaratnam were heard on a government wiretap of a Sept. 26, 2008, phone conversation discussing whether Chiesi's friend Moffat should move from IBM to a different technology company to aid the scheme.

"Put him in some company where we can trade well," Rajaratnam was quoted in the court papers as saying.

The complaint said Chiesi replied: "I know, I know. I'm thinking that too. Or just keep him at IBM, you know, because this guy is giving me more information. ... I'd like to keep him at IBM right now because that's a very powerful place for him. For us, too."

According to the court papers, Rajaratnam replied: "Only if he becomes CEO." And Chiesi was quoted as replying: "Well, not really. I mean, come on. ... you know, we nailed it."

The criminal complaints in the case also captured what authorities said were efforts by the defendants to hide their conversations from authorities.

In one conversation, Chiesi was heard telling Rajaratnam that she was "glad that we talk on a secure line, I appreciate that," to which Rajaratnam replied: "I never call you on my cell phone," the complaint said. It added that Chiesi said she was "nervous" about being investigated.

---

Associated Press Writers Tom Hays in Riverside, California, and Beth Fouhy in New York contributed to this story.

Mystery continues to cloak hijacked cargo ship

October 11, 2009

by Michael Schwirtz

New York Times

             Moscow - The eight men who were said to have commandeered a cargo ship in the Baltic Sea in July were locked up weeks ago. They were hunted down by the Russian navy, captured without a fight and marched before television cameras to a Moscow jail.

But rather than ending there, the swashbuckling tale has grown more mysterious. What exactly befell the Maltese-flagged ship, the Arctic Sea, is still largely unknown. Nearly eight weeks after it was supposedly liberated by the Russians, the ship is said to remain at sea under military control. Four members of the crew have not been able to leave.

As if the situation were not grounds enough for conspiracy theories, a bizarre detail has emerged: After seizing the ship, which lost contact off Portugal in late July, the hijackers sought to change its name by painting a new one, Jon Jin 2, on its hull, Russian officials said. The new name happened to be already registered to a North Korean ship.

”Something certainly happened out there, but we are not allowed to talk about it,” Yevgeny Falin, who was second in command on the Arctic Sea, said by telephone from Arkhangelsk, the northern Russian port city where the crew is based.

Like the other 10 crew members who were permitted to leave the ship and flown to Russia, Falin said he was under orders from Russian prosecutors not to provide details about his ordeal. He did, however, insist that the Arctic Sea was not carrying a secret cargo. “There was only lumber on board,” Falin said.

Russian investigators have said the same thing, but the assertions have done little to dampen the rumors. Why would eight men attempt a brazen act of piracy in heavily monitored European waters? Why would Russia send warships from its Black Sea Fleet to chase them?

In September, a secret visit to Russia by Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, sparked fresh talk among some analysts, who suggested, without proof, that Israeli intelligence had uncovered a plot to smuggle weapons aboard the Arctic Sea to a so-called rogue country. Russia's president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, confirmed Netanyahu's visit but said only that they “discussed a wide range of issues.”

Meanwhile, the hijackers - two Latvians, two Russians and four Estonians - continue to deny wrongdoing, maintaining that they were ecologists conducting research when they encountered inclement weather and sought refuge aboard the Arctic Sea

Mussolini paid well as British agent in WWI

October 14, 2009

AP

             LONDON- AP – A historian says Benito Mussolini was well paid as a British agent during World War I.

            The Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday that Peter Martland of Cambridge University discovered that Mussolini was paid 100 pounds a week by Britain in 1917 — equal to about 6,000 pounds ($9,600) today.

            The late Samuel Hoare, in charge of British agents in Rome at that time, revealed in his memoirs 55 years ago that Mussolini was a paid agent. Martland found more details in Hoare's papers, including that Mussolini also sent Italian army veterans to beat up peace protesters in Milan, a dry run for his fascist blackshirt units.

            "The last thing Britain wanted were pro-peace strikes bringing the factories in Milan to a halt. It was a lot of money to pay a man who was a journalist at the time, but compared to the 4 million pounds Britain was spending on the war every day, it was petty cash," The Guardian quoted Martland as saying.

            The salary detail also was in historian Christopher Andrew's newly published history of the British intelligence agency MI5, to which Martland contributed.

            In 1917, the future Italian dictator was editor of the Il Popolo d'Italia newspaper, which campaigned to keep Italy on the allied side in the war.

God Introduces New Bird

October 9, 2009 | Issue 45•41

The Onion

Who's in Big Brother's Database?

by James Bamford

The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency
by Matthew M. Aid
Bloomsbury, 423 pp., $30.00

            In the near decade since September 11, the tectonic plates beneath the American intelligence community have undergone a seismic shift, knocking the director of the CIA from the top of the organizational chart and replacing him with the new director of national intelligence, a desk-bound espiocrat with a large staff but little else. Not only surviving the earthquake but emerging as the most powerful chief the spy world has ever known was the director of the NSA. He is in charge of an organization three times the size of the CIA and empowered in 2008 by Congress to spy on Americans to an unprecedented degree, despite public criticism of the Bush administration's use of the agency to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance as part of the "war on terror." The legislation also largely freed him of the nettlesome Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA). And in another significant move, he was recently named to head the new Cyber Command, which also places him in charge of the nation's growing force of cyber warriors. Wasting no time, the agency has launched a building boom, doubling the size of its headquarters, expanding its listening posts, and constructing enormous data factories.

            Just how much information will be stored in these windowless cybertemples? A clue comes from a recent report prepared by the MITRE Corporation, a Pentagon think tank. "As the sensors associated with the various surveillance missions improve," says the report, referring to a variety of technical collection methods, "the data volumes are increasing with a projection that sensor data volume could potentially increase to the level of Yottabytes (1024 Bytes) by 2015." Roughly equal to about a septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text, numbers beyond Yottabytes haven't yet been named. Once vacuumed up and stored in these near-infinite "libraries," the data are then analyzed by powerful infoweapons, supercomputers running complex algorithmic programs, to determine who among us may be—or may one day become—a terrorist. In the NSA's world of automated surveillance on steroids, every bit has a history and every keystroke tells a story.

            Rather than give the NSA more money for more power—electrical and political—some have instead suggested just pulling the plug. "NSA can point to things they have obtained that have been useful," Aid quotes former senior State Department official Herbert Levin, a longtime customer of the agency, "but whether they're worth the billions that are spent, is a genuine question in my mind."

            Based on the NSA's history of often being on the wrong end of a surprise and a tendency to mistakenly get the country into, rather than out of, wars, it seems to have a rather disastrous cost-benefit ratio. Were it a corporation, it would likely have gone belly-up years ago. The September 11 attacks are a case in point. For more than a year and a half the NSA was eavesdropping on two of the lead hijackers, knowing they had been sent by bin Laden, while they were in the US preparing for the attacks. The terrorists even chose as their command center a motel in Laurel, Maryland, almost within eyesight of the director's office. Yet the agency never once sought an easy-to-obtain FISA warrant to pinpoint their locations, or even informed the CIA  or FBI of their presence.

            But pulling the plug, or even allowing the lights to dim, seems unlikely given President Obama's hawkish policies in Afghanistan. However, if the war there turns out to be the train wreck many predict, then Obama may decide to take a much closer look at the spy world's most lavish spender. It is a prospect that has some in the Library of Babel very nervous. "It was a great ride while it lasted," said one.

The Afghan Death Toll: October 2009  28

October 19, 2009

by Brian Harring

Afghanistan Command Confirms Policy Against Images of U.S. Dead

October 14, 2009

by John M. Donnelly

CQ

The U.S. military command in Bagram, Afghanistan, confirmed Wednesday that it has barred reporters who embed with its forces from videotaping or photographing U.S. military personnel killed in action.

Several senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee — including the chairman, Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, and the ranking Republican, John McCain of Arizona — said Wednesday they were not aware of the change in policy and wanted to find out more about it. “My reaction is I’d like to talk to the commander and I’d like to talk to the secretary of Defense,” said Levin.

The new policy applies to the eastern region of Afghanistan and it was not immediately clear if the directive is being implemented elsewhere in Afghanistan or Iraq.

The ban on taking certain battlefield pictures has potentially huge implications for how the public perceives the conflict in Afghanistan. It also raises questions about censorship during wartime. Images of dead soldiers have affected the public’s view of wars from Antietam through Vietnam and up to a present-day controversy over photos of returning flag-draped caskets.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the change could lead to sanitized war coverage.

“War photographers should not be careless when photographing combat, but they should be allowed to record reality,” Dalglish said. “That’s what serves us as a nation.”

The policy change in Afghanistan was made without announcement in early September and is partly a reaction to the Associated Press’s publication days before of photographs of a dying Marine, a spokesman for the command said. When the AP ran images of mortally wounded Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates wrote the president of AP to protest its decision.

Typically, embedded reporters in Afghanistan must agree to withhold publication of photographs of a wounded service member until he or she gives permission for release of the images. In the event the person is killed, the news organization must wait until the family has been notified and an official announcement of the death occurs before it is allowed to release the person’s name or any images associated with the death. Then it is up to the news organization to decide whether to publish the photos.

There are other restrictions on what reporters can publish from war zones based on protection of operational security.

The new policy keeps all the previous restrictions for written coverage of slain military personnel. But for pictures, it now says: “Media will not be allowed to photograph or record video of U.S. personnel killed in action.”

President Obama earlier this year reversed the policy of the George W. Bush administration that had barred photographs of caskets bearing the remains of dead military personnel as they came back to the United States.

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg , D-N.J., who had criticized the Bush administration for its ban on photographing caskets, said he would like to learn more about the new policy on taking battlefield pictures

“I’d have to look at this to see what kind of rationale they attach to it,” he said.

Army Master Sgt. Thomas Clementson, a spokesman for Regional Command East, said in a statement that commanders were trying to strike a balance with the new policy.

While the publication of Lance Cpl. Bernard’s photos was certainly a factor, a clarification was needed in order to balance the level of unique and intimate access given to reporters who choose to embed while also protecting the privacy of our service members and maintaining a reasonable level of propriety. It’s important to note that embedding is an individual reporter’s choice and we leave it to each reporter to determine whether they wish to embed under the ground rules or pursue their work outside the embed program, as many do.”

The Web site of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press disclosed on Oct. 9 what appeared to be a change in U.S. policy on images of fallen soldiers. The site posted a mid-September document describing how the embed rules for reporters in eastern Afghanistan differed from a previously published version

October 1, 2009

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

            Spc. Ross E. Vogel, III, 27, of Red Lion, Pa., died Sept. 29 in Kut, Iraq, of injuries suffered from a non-combat related incident.  He was assigned to the 67th Signal Battalion, 35th Signal Brigade, Fort Gordon, Ga.      

            The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.    

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

             Staff Sgt. Alex French IV, 31, of Milledgeville, Ga., died Sept. 30 in Kwhost, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit using an improvised-explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, Lawrenceville, Ga.

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.  They died Sept. 29 in Jolo Island, the Philippines, from the detonation of an improvised-explosive device.  The soldiers were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, Fort Lewis, Wash.

            Killed were:

            Sgt. 1st Class Christopher D. Shaw, 37, of Markham, Ill. 

            Staff Sgt. Jack M. Martin III, 26, of Bethany, Okla.

October 3, 2009

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

             Spc. Russell S. Hercules Jr., 22 of Murfreesboro, Tenn., died Oct. 1 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire  He was assigned to the 4^th Battalion, 101^st Aviation Regiment, 159^th Combat Aviation Brigade, 101^st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. 

            Sgt. Ryan C. Adams, 26 of Rhinelander, Wisc., died Oct. 2 in Logar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle using rocket-propelled grenade fire. He was assigned to the 951st Engineer Company (Sapper), Wisconsin Army National Guard, Rhinelander, Wisc.

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. 

            Sgt. Roberto D. Sanchez, 24 of Satellite Beach, Fla., died Oct. 1 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.  He was assigned to the 1^st Battalion, 75^th Ranger Regiment, Hunter Army Airfield Ga.

October 4, 2009

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.  They died Oct. 2 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when enemy forces attacked their unit using small arms fire.

            Killed were:

            Sgt. Aaron M. Smith, 25, of Manhattan, Kan. He was assigned to the 2^nd Battalion, 87^th Infantry Regiment, 3^rd Brigade Combat Team, 10^th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.

            Pfc. Brandon A. Owens, 21, of Memphis, Tenn. He was assigned to the 118^th Military Police Company, 503^rd Military Police Battalion, 16^th Military Police Brigade, XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, N.C.

October 5, 2009

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

            Staff Sgt. Thomas D. Rabjohn, 39, of Litchfield Park, Ariz., died Oct. 3 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated during an attempt to disarm it.  He was assigned to the 363rd Explosive Ordnance Detachment, Coolidge, Ariz.

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

 Spc. Paul E. Andersen, 49, of Dowagiac, Mich., died Oct. 1 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his camp using indirect fire. He was assigned to the 855th Quartermaster Company, South Bend, Ind.

October 7, 2009

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

             Maj. Tad T. Hervas, 48, of Coon Rapids, Minn., died Oct. 6 at Contingency Operating Base Basra, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 34th Infantry Division, Rosemont, Minn.

             The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of eight soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.  They died Oct. 3 in Kamdesh, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their contingency outpost with small arms, rocket-propelled grenade and indirect fires. They were assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.

            Killed were:

 Staff Sgt. Vernon W. Martin, 25 of Savannah, Ga.

 Sgt. Justin T. Gallegos, 27, of Tucson, Ariz.

 Sgt. Joshua M. Hardt, 24, of Applegate, Calif.

 Sgt. Joshua J. Kirk, 30, of South Portland, Maine.

 Sgt. Michael P. Scusa, 22, of Villas, N.J.

 Spc. Christopher T. Griffin, 24, of Kincheloe, Mich.

 Spc. Stephan L. Mace, 21, of Lovettsville, Va.

 Pfc. Kevin C. Thomson, 22, of Reno, Nev.

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

                        Spc. Kevin O. Hill, 23, of Brooklyn, N.Y., died Oct. 4 at Contingency Outpost Dehanna, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit using small arms and indirect fires. He was assigned to the 576th Mobility Augmentation Company, Fort Carson, Colo.

Army Releases September Suicide Data

            The Army today released suicide data for the month of September.  Among active-duty soldiers, there were seven potential suicides.  One has been confirmed as a suicide, and six are pending determination of the manner of death.  For August, the Army reported 11 potential suicides among active-duty soldiers.  Since the release of that report, four have been confirmed as suicides and seven remain under investigation.

            There were 117 reported active-duty Army suicides from January 2009 through September 2009.  Of those, 81 have been confirmed, and 36 are pending determination of manner of death.  For the same period in 2008, there were 103 suicides among active-duty soldiers.

            During September 2009, among reserve component soldiers who were not on active duty, there were seven potential suicides.  Among that same group, from January 2009 through September 2009, there were 35 confirmed suicides.  Twenty-five potential suicides are currently under investigation to determine the manner of death.  For the same period in 2008, there were 40 suicides among reserve soldiers who were not on active duty.

            Over the past year, the Army has engaged in a sustained effort to reduce the rate of suicide within its ranks.  This effort has included an Army-wide suicide prevention stand-down and chain teach for every soldier; the implementation of the Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention; the establishment of both a Suicide Prevention Task Force and Suicide Prevention Council; a long-term partnership with the National Institute of Mental Health to carry out the largest ever study of suicide and behavioral health among military personnel; and more than 160 specific improvements to Army suicide prevention policies, doctrine, training and resources.

            “Whether it’s additional resources, improved training or ensuring those in our Army community can readily identify the warning signs of suicidal behavior, all our efforts often come down to one soldier caring enough about another soldier to step in when they see something wrong, “ said Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire, Director, Army Suicide Prevention Task Force.  “Soldiers will be willing to do that if they know help is available, if they believe there is no stigma attached to asking for that help, and if they are certain that Army leaders remain absolutely committed to the resiliency of our entire Army Family.”

            Soldiers and families in need of crisis assistance can contact Military OneSource or the Defense Center of Excellence (DCOE) for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury Outreach Center.  Trained consultants are available from both organizations 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

            The Military OneSource toll-free number for those residing in the continental U.S. is 1-800-342-9647, their Web site address is http://www.militaryonesource.com.

            Overseas personnel should refer to the Military OneSource Web site for dialing instructions for their specific location.

            The DCOE Outreach Center can be contacted at 1-866-966-1020, via electronic mail at Resources@DCoEOutreach.org and at http://www.dcoe.health.mil .

The Army's most current suicide prevention information is located at http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/suicide/default.asp .

October 9. 2009

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

             Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth W. Westbrook, 41, of Shiprock, N.M., died Oct. 7 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., of wounds suffered Sept. 8 when insurgents attacked his unit in the Ganjigal Valley, Afghanistan, using small arms and indirect fire. He was assigned to the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.

October 12, 2009

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

             Spc. George W. Cauley, 24, of Walker, Minn., died Oct. 10 in Bagram, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device on Oct. 7 in Helmand province. He was assigned to the 114th Truck Company of the Minnesota Army National Guard in Duluth, Minn.

October 13, 2009-

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

          Lance Cpl. Alfonso Ochoa Jr., 20, of Armona, Calif., died Oct. 10 while supporting combat operations in Farah province, Afghanistan.  He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay.

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

            Staff Sgt. Aaron J. Taylor, 27, of Bovey, Minn., died Oct. 9 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.  He was assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 372, Marine Wing Support Group 37, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

October 17, 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

            Sgt. Christopher M. Rudzinski, 28, of Rantoul, Ill., died Oct. 16 near Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.  He was assigned to 293rd Military Police Company, 385th Military Police Battalion, 16th Military Police Brigade (Airborne), Fort Stewart, Ga.

       The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.  They died Oct. 16 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with an improvised explosive device.  The soldiers were assigned to the 143rd Infantry Detachment, Austin, Texas.

             Killed were:

             Staff Sgt. Chris N. Staats, 32, of Fredericksburg, Texas.

             Spc. Anthony G. Green, 28, of Matthews, N.C.