Twelfth Bough

updated below... Another family on board the underpants bomber plane says that a man videotaped the entire flight. The FBI is looking for him intensely. Did he get away? How could he possible walk off with his videotape of the entire flight. Another human error? They were sitting about 20 rows behind Abdulmutallab, in a center aisle with her husband and daughter a row ahead of her and their two new adopted children, a six-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy. Her daughter said that ahead of them was a man who videotaped the entire flight, including the attempted detonation. "He sat up and videotaped the entire thing, very calmly," said Patricia. "We do know that the FBI is looking for him intensely. Since then, we've heard nothing about it." They were returning home with their newly adopted children from Ethiopia. "As the seriousness progressed, and we knew that this could possibly be it, my husband and daughter put their hand through their seats and we...

Naharnet News reports al Qaeda in Lebanon, plotting with Fatah and a wanted Palestinian fighter, according to a "well-informed source." The al Qaeda militants, from Pakistan, supposedly enter Lebanon from Turkey, Greece and Syria, and they hide out in Lebanese apartments before infiltrating Palestinian refugee camps, where they train other militants, also in the camps, to attack UN peacekeepers. Mm hmm. So, if some UN peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL) get attacked, that will justify bombing Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, because they harbor al Qaeda terrorists. Right? Al-Qaida militants are plotting terrorist attacks against state institutions and foreign missions in coordination with Fatah al-Islam and wanted Palestinian fighter Abdel Rahman Awad, a well-informed security source told An Nahar daily. The source said that Lebanese security agencies have also received information about the infiltration of al-Qaida militants into the country from Pakistan via Turkey, Greec...

So, who is the sharp-dressed man who arranged for Mutallab to get on the plane in Amsterdam? A Michigan man who was aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 says he witnessed Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab trying to board the plane in Amsterdam without a passport. Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., who posted an earlier comment about his experience , talked exclusively with MLive.com and confirmed he was on the flight by sending a picture of his boarding pass. He and his wife, Lori, were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA flight on Friday. Haskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man. Kurt and Lori Haskell are attorneys with Haskell Law Firm in Taylor. Their expertise includes bankruptcy, family law and estate planning. Let's see the earlier comment: MLive.com commenter, Pug , says he was aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 and saw suspecte...

Look at Kazakhstan. Involved in the Thai plane incident. Making big pipeline deals with the Chinese. New city Astana full of symbolic buildings. Strategic partner of Israel. Sparsely populated but with vast natural resources. Kazakhstan is next door to much smaller Kyrgyzstan. Look at these amazing pictures of Kyrgyzstan from March of this year. Late last month, the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan voted - by an overwhelming margin - to terminate their lease to the United States of Manas Air Base, and required the Americans to vacate the base within six months. The vote followed closely on the heels of an earlier announcement that Russia would be providing over $2 billion in financial aid to Kyrgyzstan. Manas is a crucial air base for operations in and around Afghanistan, and U.S. officials remain hopeful that there may still be room for negotiation. The majority of Kyrgyzstan's population appears to have little concern about the closure, instead focusing on their own struggles to get by...

Boss...the plane, the plane... Wayne Madsen reports that it was a CIA sting operation to embarrass North Korea. Maybe. WMR's Asian intelligence sources strongly suspect that an Ilyushin-76 cargo plane seized in Bangkok on December 12 transporting 40 tons of North Korean weapons was a CIA sting operation designed to obtain, using a "front" airline and regular arms smuggling route, the latest North Korean weaponry available for purchase on the black market. Salient points: 1. The plane was registered in Georgia, close ally of the US and Israel. 2. Before that the plane was registered to two separate Kazakhstan private airlines, where it had allegedly been involved in arms smuggling to places like Eritrea, Somalia, India and possibly Hanoi. 3. A New Zealand company which also does business in Ukraine chartered the flight. 4. The New Zealand company's parent company is registered in Vanuatu. 5. The owner of these businesses is a Mr. Geoffrey Taylor, of New Zealand, who h...

So the lovely lady Mossad spies in the psychiatric ward has sparked considerable curiosity. Hat tip to Peter for spotting it over at his place. In looking around, however, the story just dead-ends. There's the one article on Ynet, and that's it for official explanations. Is it a red herring or something? Something’s wrong with this story. Our alarm bells are going off because of the following: 1. Despite the fact that Israel has (by far) the loosest censorship laws in the Middle East, official and unofficial censorship still exists in all issues related to intelligence and national security. This means that either the Mossad let this article be published, that Yedioth ’s reporter still managed to finagle the story, that censors let the story slide or some combination of the three. 2. The Mossad is a well-funded government agency that presumably has on-staff psychiatrists, mental health professionals and on-site medical facilities. Presumably, in the agency’s 50+ year history,...

Q: Is the US's top diplomat for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, Jewish? What is his short resume? A: Jeffery Feltman is identified as white not Jewish he was the US Ambassador to Lebanon (2004-08). He went to Ball State. Oooohh, he's just "white." Mmhmm, that explains everything. Actually, according to Jeffrey, he's a Presbytarian from Greenville, Ohio. So no, the US top diplomat for the Middle East is not a Jew, he just acts like one.

So aangirfan has the Headley fish on the line. It's a big one. He was over there in Mumbai interrogating the alleged terrorists *after* the attacks, introducing himself as CIA *before* the attacks. His visa papers go missing in Chicago -- oh wait breaking news they have been found! Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Saturday said that the missing visa application papers of Mumbai terror suspect David Coleman Headley, have been found. “Yes, it has been found. It is being looked at. Far more important is to find out what he did in India. The investigations are on,” Tharoor said on the sidelines of a CII conference. The visa application papers found by the Indian Consulate in Chicago will be sent to the External Affairs Ministry headquarters. Indian Consulate in Chicago had earlier found the visa papers of the other suspected conspirator — Tahawwur Rana. The External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash had then asserted that it was not “accurate to con...

1. DynCorp 2. DynCorp Stiglitz notes that in 2007 private security guards working for firms like Blackwater and Dyncorp were earning up to $1,222 a day or $445,000 a year. By contrast, an Army sergeant earned $140 to $190 a day in pay and benefits, a total of $51,100 to $69,350 a year. Since U.S. taxpayers are underwriting private soldiers’ paychecks, where’s the savings? It is money from taxpayer’s pockets that has made these shadow armies great. 3. DynCorp ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The American defense contractor DynCorp is suspected of having bribed a personal assistant to the country’s interior minister to get a cache of sophisticated weapons into Pakistan without clearance from Pakistani security authorities. Mr. Qadir, a personal assistant [P.S.] to Minister of State for Interior Tasnim Qureshi, is currently under arrest with the Federal Investigation Agency. He along with three others is suspected of receiving up to US $ 270,000 as bribe in exchange for issuing licenses to ...

Read at the dentist's office today: BusinessWeek: As BusinessWeek reports this week, global investors are snapping up thousands of acres of farmland in Africa. Money from everywhere—from Saudi Arabia to Wall Street-backed funds—is pouring in. Why the sudden focus on Africa? Jim Rogers: The gigantic acreage in Africa has been underfarmed because there is not much infrastructure, not much machinery, not much expertise, not much fertilizer. I think the world is going to have huge food problems in the next few years. Other people seem to see that, too, so they’re buying up farm land . You can either buy it or lease it. It’s very, very cheap, it’s incredibly fertile, and it hasn’t been overexploited. And if you take in some expertise and some machinery and some fertilizer, you should make a lot of money. The labor’s cheap, everything’s cheap. BusinessWeek: So you think Africa is a good investment opportunity? Jim Rogers: I think it’s a fantastic investor opportunity. Now there are ove...

Several companies did very well in the latest Iraq oil auction, especially Russia and China. American companies...not so much. A Petronas-Shell alliance got the highly coveted Majnoon (reserves of more than 12 billion barrels, projected output of 1.8 million bpd), near the Iranian border. Russia's Lukoil (85%), with junior partner Statoil (15%), got phase 2 of the immense West Qurna (located 65 kilometers northwest of Basra; about 12 billion barrels of reserves; projected production of 1.8 million bpd) - which in theory it had already bagged under Saddam Hussein. When Lukoil was stripped of its contract by Saddam, it blamed US-instigated United Nations sanctions, while Saddam blamed Lukoil itself. ... What the early 2010s will definitely see is the rise of a relatively wealthy, Shi'ite-controlled Iraq friendly with Iran and Lebanon's...