Twelfth Bough

US to terrorists: Do you need anything.... passports.... guns.... a place to stay.... anything? Read aangirfan. Similar situation unfolding in the Philippines with Abu Sayyaf. Due to other pressing issues my blogging will be light for several more days, but there's a lot going on so I will be back to it just as soon as possible.

  October 2006: source Think you had a good weekend? Think again. Brad, Angelina and the kids, currently in Pune, India, hopped a private charter flight to Goa, India for a little R&R. Reports are rolling in that the couple needed a break from the 'razzi and left Pune on Friday night around 9pm on a small jet. Goa's fame and beauty have attracted multiple old-school Hollywood types, as well as India's wealthiest families (think private beach houses, etc.) The Pitt's apparently checked into a guesthouse in Ashvem Beach in North Goa about 50 miles away from the Dabolim international airport there. Is Goa the Hamptons of India? Hm....The word is that North Goa is much more vibrant that South Goa, so we think it'd be like East Hampton vs. South Hampton perhaps. Shhh! Don't let Lizzie Grubman find out. Actually, sometime between then and now, Goa fell apart. I think, possibly, there's a connection between the influx of the Hollywood types and wealt...

Remember a little while back how they told us that al qaeda was recruiting Western-looking women to do terrorist attacks? Defne Bayrak anyone? And shortly after that, several other stories pushed the idea along.  LONDON: Al-Qaida in Yemen has trained a group of woman suicide bombers with 'non-Arab' appearance to attack Western targets, including airliners and power stations, US officials have warned. Details of the bombers emerged just hours after Britain raised the UK threat state to "severe" [naturally! timing is everything - ed.] amid fears that al-Qaida was planning a wave of attacks against western targets, 'The Sunday Telegraph' reported. The woman suicide bombers, who may be travelling on Western passports, have been prepared for their missions by al-Qaida's branch in Yemen responsible for the botched Christmas Day attempt to blow up a US airliner, it said. Etc. And see? Now we know that some of those three dozen American terrorists...

Quick history of the Falun Gong, condensed from here ... Founder Li Hongzhi was born in 1951 Qigong fitness movement sweeps China in the 1980s Li Hongzhi creates Falun Gong in 1984, a more accessible variant of training he had practiced since childhood By 1992 Falun Gong is joined to the qigong fitness movement and popularity grows steadily All is well through the mid 1990s as people discover many health benefits of Falun Gong Things get more political around 1995 as the movement expands internationally and pressure grows to control it (and reap the rewards?) Late 1990s the Chinese government starts harassing Falun Gong as a "heretical cult" while 70 million people practice it February 14, 1999: Chinese official tells U.S. News & World Report that as many as 100 million may have taken up the practice and highlights the costs the practice is saving China's national health care system... ...and it was pretty much all downhill from there. ^^^^^^^ Also note...

At think tanks, experts figure out how to get from point A to point B. First they decide on point B, and then they reverse engineer how to arrive there from point A. When insiders do this, they call it "brainstorming" or "war games" or "simulations." When outsiders do this, they call it "terrorism." ^^^^^^^ The exposure of military plots in Turkey has finally gained momentum, after several weeks. This morning we learn of over 50 arrests of current and retired military officers in connection with the alleged Ergenekon coup plots: Sledgehammer and Cage. Former Naval Forces Adm. Özden Örnek kept detailed journals between 2000-2004 on some of the plans. Naturally, some of the plotting came under cover of think tanks , including the General Staff's Strategic Research and Study Center (SAREM), a foundation affiliated with the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).  The Sledgehammer plan, revealed in January by a Turkish newspaper, was more than sim...

Note: I posted this series earlier today with an error on the date of the earthquake. My apologies. Some questions surround the timeline of ZAKA's activities. When did the ZAKA team depart for Mexico to get to the Moshe Saba Masri helicopter crash? The story given in most reports -- that the ZAKA team arrived in Mexico from Tel Aviv on the morning of January 11th is, frankly, not possible given the other information reported. One possibility is that the team left Israel on the afternoon of January 10th. However, the helicopter crashed on the evening of the same day, according to reports. So why would they leave for a crash that hadn't occurred yet? Another possibility is that they didn't leave from Tel Aviv, but from a closer location. But if so, why lie? Both possibilities imply they had foreknowledge. Also, who was in the helicopter, and who or what was in the ambulance? ^^^^^^^ Quick and dirty timeline: 1/10/10 – 8pm? – Saba helicopter reportedly...

As I wrote the other day, a ZAKA team rushed to Haiti from Mexico, where they had been working the crash site of Moshe Saba's (Moises Saba Masri) helicopter. The crash occurred on Sunday night, 1/10/10. News reports said nobody on the ground was hurt. Apparently there's a deep ravine next to the house or the three story building or the billboard, or whatever the helicopter supposedly hit before bursting into flames while in the air, on on the ground, on the outskirts of Mexico City, in the foothills, in the fog, killing five or maybe six people.  responders at the crash site it is nighttime According to this source: The family had arrived at the international airport in Toluca, 35 miles (55 kilometers) west of the capital, on a flight from New York City and was heading home to Mexico City. Moreno said it was unusual for a helicopter to be flying in the area at night, especially since the foothills were covered in fog...."The question is who authori...

Would someone want Saba Masri dead? Maybe. He had a lot of different business interests, and he definitely locked horns with a few people along the way. Saba Masri, 46, did not participate in his family's main business, pharmaceuticals distributor Grupo Casa Saba. Instead, he struck out as an investor in diverse areas, including telephones, Internet service and real estate.   In 2007 he made an unsuccessful bid for a government-held stake in one of the country's two main airlines, Aeromexico. [He lost in a fierce bidding war against Citigroup.] Saba Masri was an early investor in TV Azteca, Mexico's second-largest network, and in the Unefon telephone company, where he sold his stake in 2007. He owned a stake in at least one hotel in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged him in 2004 with manipulative securities trading, though the charges were later dismissed...

In Part I, we learned that ZAKA is a non-governmental volunteer agency also considered part of Israel's security services. They travel around the world to assist at accident and disaster sites and to collect Jewish remains for burial. In Part II, we learned from highly credible Jewish sources (who use a lot of Jewish words that non-Jews have to look up), that Saba Masri left the Brooklyn New York Syrian community after a family engagement party, accompanied by his family members and at least one member of Flatbush Hatzolah. Hatzolah means volunteer EMS.  This unnamed person is also, according to the source, a highly recognized Askan in the Syrian community. Askan means Jewish lobbyist. (http://www.thekathrynreport.com/2010/01/tragedy-philanthropist-mogul-moises.html) ^^^^^^^ So, come to find out that some Jewish communities have their own ambulance services -- Hatzolah! Like ZAKA, except local. Who knew? This causes some problems, as you might imagine. (http://www.h...