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"No presidential statement or White House press briefing was held on it. In fact, all that can be found about it on the official White House Web site is the Dec. 17 announcement and one-paragraph text of President Obama's Executive Order 12425, with this innocuous headline: "Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions, and immunities."In fact, this new directive from Obama may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American constitutional civil liberties. No wonder the White House said as little as possible about it. There are multiple reasons why this Obama decision is so deeply disturbing. First, the Obama order reverses a 1983 Reagan administration decision in order to grant Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, two key privileges. First, Obama has granted Interpol the ability to operate within the territorial limits of the United States without being subject to the same constitutional restraints that apply to all domestic law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. Second, Obama has exempted Interpol's domestic facilities -- including its office within the U.S. Department of Justice -- from search and seizure by U.S. authorities and from disclosure of archived documents in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by U.S. citizens. Think very carefully about what you just read: Obama has given an international law enforcement organization that is accountable to no other national authority the ability to operate as it pleases within our own borders, and he has freed it from the most basic measure of official transparency and accountability, the FOIA. The Examiner has asked for but not yet received from the White House press office an explanation of why the president signed this executive order and who among his advisers was involved in the process leading to his doing so. Unless the White House can provide credible reasons to t

"A nuclear Iran would set off an unprecedented arms race in the Middle East, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon warned Wednesday. "A nuclear Iran would destroy the world order," Ayalon told a gathering in Jerusalem. "We would see a nuclear arms race which we have never seen before." Advertisement He urged the international community to form a "united front" against Iranian nuclear aspirations. Iran was an especially dangerous state to possess an atom bomb because of its "radical, fundamentalist" regime, its "extremist policy" and its support of Islamic militant factions, he charged. Tehran was "banking on driving a wedge between the different members of the security council and the international community. "Suffice to say that I take the American president and secretary of state at their word and they are right to say and to state that all options are on the table," Ayalon warned, alluding to the possibility of a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities in case international sanctions failed. Speculation has been rife as to whether Israel is planning such a military strike and whether it would carry out such a plan even without US support. Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that they prefer tough international sanctions, but have equally often threatened that it would not rule out military action. "

"Executive Order -- Amending Executive Order 12425 EXECUTIVE ORDER - - - - - - - AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words "except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act" and the semicolon that immediately precedes them. BARACK OBAMA"

"There is something about the Arab-Israeli conflict that does strange things to people. Even otherwise distinguished personalities, who in every other context are rational, sensible thinkers, become unrecognizable. The international law of self-defense is a case in point. United Nations. United Nations. Photo: AP [file] It is trite to say that the first and most basic human instinct is that of self-preservation. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which enshrines "the inherent right" of self-defense, emanates from this. The occurrence of "an armed attack" triggers the right. In the context of Israel's incursion into Gaza last year, in response to several thousand rockets which had been fired from there into Israel over a period of years, a letter appeared in The Times of London, exactly a year ago today, signed by 31 lawyers. The lead signatory was Sir Ian Brownlie, professor emeritus of public international law at Oxford University, undoubtedly one of the world's preeminent international law authorities. The letter asserted, in so many words, the astonishing proposition that the thousands of rockets which landed in Israel (and were aimed at civilian populations and centers) "do not, in terms of scale and effect, amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defense." "

"Taking advantage of the ado surrounding the failed airliner bombing and the new prominence of the al Qaeda peril, the Obama administration has finally given up its sanctions strategy for averting the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was tasked with the public announcement: "The Obama administration wants to keep the door to dialogue open with Iran," she said Jan. 4, then added a remark which let Iran off completely of the American hook: "…although the United States has avoided using the term deadline, it cannot wait indefinitely to hear form Iran." Her words explicitly backtracked on statements by other senior administration officials, including National Security Adviser James Jones, in recent interviews that Tehran's deadline for responding to international proposals expired on Dec. 31. DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that Tehran sees Washington as so eager to reach the negotiating table that it is falling back from effective penalties step by step, including an embargo on refined oils and benzene, and even willing to forgive Iran's failure to meet a highly publicized international deadline. "Our goal is to pressure the Iranian government, particularly the Revolutionary Guards elements without contributing to the suffering of Iranians," Clinton explained. Threatening Iran's Revolutionary Guards instead of its regime is nothing but a feeble face-saver, our Iranian sources maintain, since the IRGC, whose financial operations and its management of Iran's nuclear program subsist on alternative "black market" economic mechanisms is hardly vulnerable to international sanctions."

"Dubai: The government of Dubai on Thursday announced that it is fully prepared to host the headquarters of the United Nations if its officials decide to move from New York where the organisation is currently located. According to an official source in the Dubai government, the announcement was made in light of the UAE's - and Dubai's - appreciation of the vital role the United Nations plays in all areas, and in the protection of international peace and security and economic development in particular. The source said Dubai welcomes dialogue with UN officials to provide them with full information on the capabilities which the emirate can provide and which could make it the optimal choice as the new seat of the UN headquarters if a final decision is taken to move out of New York. Among the capabilities which Dubai possesses are suitable geographical location and world-class infrastructure and air, land and sea transport systems which make the emirate an easily accessible meeting point in the middle of the world, noted the source. Dubai's offer is part of efforts the UAE is making to assume its full role as a responsible and effective member of the international community and to find alternatives to contribute to stronger international joint actions."

"I spent twenty-two years serving in the Colorado criminal justice arena. I worked as a municipal police patrolman, a police detective, a patrol sergeant, and as a uniformed county sheriff's deputy and detective. Following twenty years as a cop, I also spent two years on the other side of t he Courtroom as an Investigator for the Colorado State Public Defender's Office. So, I saw crime and punishment from both sides of the Courtroom. I spent my share of time at crime scenes gathering facts and evidence, then in Courts of Law, presenting the evidence and testifying under oath in trials. Sometimes, warrant in hand, I actually kicked in doors and made arrests at gunpoint, but not exactly like this Clint Eastwood "Dirty Harry" operation. Real cops don't get to do business like Dirty Harry did - but it is fun to watch his movies. To convince a judge to sign a search or arrest warrant I had to first make sure that in preparing my affidavit for arrest or search warrant I had jumped through all of the hoops within the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees protection from unreasonable police searches of our homes, and capricious or illegal arrests. All of my reports, photos, and collected evidence were a matter of public record, available to defense attorneys through motions for discovery, to lay members of the public, and to members of the press via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Imagine now a foreign international police department that does not have to worry about the constraints of the Fourth Amendment, an agency that has license to bypass American Courts of Law, can investigate and arrest American citizens within our own borders, haul them off to Court in a foreign land, and does not have to reveal any records or documents to anyone in the United States. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. I can foresee American military officers and enlisted personnel, CIA agents, former White House policy makers, even Dick Cheney and George Bush in jeo

"In September 2009, Interpol inaugurated The Office of the Special Representative of Interpol to the European Union (EU). Interpol said it marked "a milestone in the continuing collaboration between the two organisations." (Interpol media release, 25th Sept., 2009). This 'non-police' police 'database' certainly gets around! Notice how it is linking up with huge international groups, such as the UN and EU? Also note that the UN, EU and Interpol are socialist, with socialist intentions. Interpol said this is "the latest step in identifying and developing new areas for cooperation between the two institutions in joint efforts to enhance regional and global security." President of Interpol, Khoo Boon Hui, believes the new office "demonstrated the collective commitment of the EU and Interpol to work hand in hand to make the world a safer place." Safer for whom? And who defines what a threat is? And where is the proof that we need a global police state? Security is a key excuse used by socialism to grab control of the world. So, Interpol is handed total freedom to act within the USA and outside it, and also within and outside the EU! I would call that global governance, wouldn't you? And whilst many are critical of references to Interpol as a 'police organisation', it is what its own president calls it: "Interpol (is) the world's largest police organisation." ! Secretary General, Ronald Noble, speaks of Interpol "looking beyond regional and political borders, particularly when globalisation means that events and crises on the opposite side of the world now have international repercussions." This, though, is NOT an argument for Interpol to become the world's policeman. It is, rather, an argument for each country developing its own professionalism and assisting other countries that might need its expertise and information. The Special Representative, Pierre Reuland, has his offices and staff in Brussels, the EU's home. Rueland

"n a sign of the growing confidence of the Chinese military, Admiral Yin Zhuo said that the country may set up a base in the Gulf of Aden in order to support missions against Somali pirates. Since the end of last year, China has sent four flotillas to the Middle East in order to take part in anti-piracy operations together with US, European, Indian and Russian warships. The latest mission, which departed from China in October, involved two missile frigates. Mr Yin said a permanent base in the region would help supply Chinese ships. "We are not saying we need our navy everywhere in order to fulfil our international commitments," he said, cautiously. "We are saying to fulfil our international commitments, we need to strengthen our supply capacity." His words, which came just a few days after China rescued 25 sailors from Somali pirates, were posted in an interview on the Defence ministry website. China is reported to have paid a USD4 million (Pounds2.5 million) ransom to free the De Xin Hai, a coal carrier. Mr Yin, who is a senior researcher at the navy's Equipment Research centre, pointed out that the first Chinese ships in the Gulf of Aden spent 124 days at sea without docking, a logistical challenge. However, Chinese ships have since been permitted to dock at a French base. "If China establishes a similar long-term supply base, I believe that the nations in the region and the other countries involved with the (anti-pirate) escorts would understand," he said. "I think a permanent, stable base would be good for our operations.""

"The Obama administration says the internal unrest in Iran and signs of unexpected delays in their nuclear program make the Iranian government especially vulnerable to swift and serious sanctions, the New York Times reported on Sunday. An administration official said current circumstances "give us a window to impose the first sanctions that may make the Iranians think the nuclear program isn't worth the price tag." Despite the political unrest, Iran's political and military leaders are remaining steadfast in their determination to develop nuclear weapons, advisers to U.S. President Barack Obama said. But the unrest coupled with the Iranian government's internal turmoil has caused a deceleration in production of nuclear fuel in recent months. Advertisement The White House is interested in focusing new sanctions on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is thought to be the driving force behind the country's nuclear weapons program. The Obama government believes that Iran's bomb making efforts were hurt following the exposure of a secret uranium enrichment plant three months ago in the city of Qum. The plant's exposure prevents Iran from enriching uranium at the high levels necessary for creating fuel for a nuclear weapon. Nuclear inspectors report that in Iran's plant in Natanz, the operation of centrifuges has dropped by 20 percent since the summer, which experts attribute to technical problems. "

"A military strike on Iran could have the unintended consequence of stirring nationalist sentiment to the benefit of Tehran's hard-line government, U.S. General David Petraeus told Reuters. Iran's June election gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term but sparked the worst internal crisis in the Islamic Republic's history, putting internal pressure on a government already facing the threat of more sanctions over its nuclear program. "It's possible (a strike) could be used to play to nationalist tendencies," Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command region, which includes Iran, said in an interview this week. "There is certainly a history, in other countries, of fairly autocratic regimes almost creating incidents that inflame nationalist sentiment. So that could be among the many different, second, third, or even fourth order effects (of a strike)." Tensions over Iran's nuclear program have set off speculation that Israel could make good on veiled threats to hit its arch-foe pre-emptively. But Israel's envoy to Washington said in December the U.S.-Israeli dialogue on Iran has not reached the point of discussing the military option. U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have warned that any strike on Iran would not stop the Islamic Republic from pursuing nuclear weapons. Instead, it would only delay Tehran, an opinion Petraeus said he shared. Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told Congress on Tuesday that Iran was keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons but that it remained unclear whether Tehran had the political will to do so. Petraeus, commenting on advances of Iran's nuclear program, said: "On the one hand, there is no question that there has been a continuation of various aspects of the nuclear program but I'm not sure it has always proceeded as rapidly as has been projected at various times." GRADUAL BOOST IN DEFENSES Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran was ready to send its enriched uraniu

"Jordan has asked Canada to seize the selected parchments of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls that have been on display in Toronto, invoking international law in a bid to keep the artifacts out of Israel's hands until their "disputed ownership" is settled, the Toronto-based Globe and Mail reported last week. The Isaiah Scroll portion of... The Isaiah Scroll portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Photo: The Israel Museum SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World In its request, Jordan invoked the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which is concerned with safeguarding cultural property during wartime. The 1954 convention requires signatories "to take into its custody cultural property imported into its territory either directly or indirectly from any occupied territory." The Jordanians claim Israel acted illegally when it seized the scrolls from the Rockefeller Museum, located in eastern Jerusalem, during the Six Day War. On Sunday, Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum ended its exhibit "Words That Changed the World," which featured scroll fragments on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority. "

WASHINGTON - The United States has warned that Iran could use its proxies to spark a war in the Middle East as an increasingly restive Iranian population continues to challenge the regime. ShareThis U.S. National Securit Adviser James Jones said Iran could be ready to order such proxies as Hamas and Hizbullah to launch hostilities that would spark a regional war. Jones said Iran could use the two Islamic militias to target Israel from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. "History shows that when regimes are feeling pressure as Iran is internally and will externally in the near future, it often lashes out through its surrogates, including in Iran's case, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza," Jones said.

Quake kills at least 164, injures more than 6,700 in China China's worst earthquake in three years on Saturday killed at least 157 people and injured more than 5,700. NBC's Ian Williams reports. By Michael Martina, Reuters Rescuers poured into a remote corner of southwestern China on Sunday as the death toll from the country's worst earthquake in three years climbed to 164 with more than 6,700 injured, state media said. Follow @NBCNewsWorld The 6.6 magnitude quake struck in Lushan county, near the city of Ya'an in the southwestern province of Sichuan, at a depth of 7.5 miles, close to where a devastating 7.9 temblor hit in May 2008 killing some 70,000. Most of the deaths were concentrated in Lushan, a short drive up the valley from Ya'an, but rescuers' access was hampered by the narrowness of the road and landslides. "The Lushan county centre is getting back to normal, but the need is still considerable in terms of shelter and materials," said Kevin Xia of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. "Supplies have had difficulty getting into the region because of the traffic jams. Most of our supplies are still on the way," Xia said. Pictures on state television showed toppled buildings and people in bloodied bandages being treated in tents outside the Lushan hospital. Water and electricity in the area were cut off by the quake.

A recent report says the visit by Israeli National Security Council Head Yaakov Amidror to Turkey is aimed at securing an airbase in Iran's neighbor to pave the way for a military attack against the Islamic Republic. PressTV In an article, the Sunday Times said that during his visit on Sunday, Amidror is expected to solicit Turkey's agreement with regard to the deployment of Israeli fighter jets in Akinci airbase, northwest of Ankara, in exchange for advanced military equipments and technology, the Times of Israel reported. "Until the recent crisis, Turkey was our biggest aircraft carrier. Using the Turkish airbases could make the difference between success and failure once a showdown with Iran gets underway," Sunday Times quoted an unnamed Israeli military source as saying. Ankara agreed to restore relations with Tel Aviv on March 22 after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Turkey for the deaths of nine Turkish activists in a 2010 Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound international flotilla. Israel also agreed to pay compensation to the families of those who were killed by Israeli commandos. The apology was brokered by US President Barack Obama during his recent visit to Israel. The Israeli source added that the regime's military has been "lobbying hard for the politicians to find a form of apology, in order to restore the Israeli-Turkish alliance against Syria and Iran."

"The moon may not be made of Swiss cheese, but it appears to have at least one deep hole, a vertical skylight that could serve as a protective lunar base for future astronauts. "We discovered a vertical hole on the moon," an international team of scientists recently announced. The gaping, dark pit on the near side of the moon is as big as a city block and deep as a modest skyscraper. It is thought to be a collapsed lava tube, created perhaps billions of years ago when the moon was warmer and volcanically active. The moon, overall, is more than 4 billion years old. The discovery, detailed in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in October, was made using data from the moon-orbiting Japanese SELENE spacecraft. It was not widely reported at the time, and the journal announced it today. The work was led by Junichi Haruyama of the Japanese Space Agency JAXA."

"In a luxury hotel at Suweima, on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea, the Russians held a "Track II" conference this week designed to send a clear message to the Arab world: "We are back." Medvedev talks alongside... Medvedev talks alongside Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, not pictured, after they signed bilateral accords at the Presidential Palace in Cairo on Tuesday. Photo: AP The conference, covered widely in the Arab world but hardly at all in Israel, took place just weeks after the re-launch - after an absence of some 18 years - of an Arabic version of the Moscow News. It also comes at a time of diplomatic stagnation in the Middle East that has led to increased calls from many quarters - particularly the Palestinians and the EU - for various actors in the international community to step in and impose a solution on the parties. Russia, obviously, wants to be one of these actors. Hence the two-day conference, part of the Valdai Discussion Club, put on jointly by the Ria Novosti, the Russian News and Information Agency funded by the government, and the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, the equivalent to the Council on Foreign relations in the US. The organizers invited a slew of Mideast experts from Russia and the region - including Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the "State of Palestine," Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, with a couple of people from the UK, US and France thrown in for good measure - to discuss whether a comprehensive settlement is possible in the Middle East by 2020. The hope of the conference, said Sergei Karaganov of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy at its outset, was to "generate fresh ideas." Forget about it. The real agenda, it seems, was to implant in the Arab public a sense that Russia has returned to the region and is a player. Some 50 Arab media outlets covered the conference, according to its organizers, and Ria Novosti quoted Al Jazeera as saying, "This is perhaps the first large-scale

"The Burj Dubai tower officially opened yesterday, six years after construction began on the $4.1 billion, half-mile-high skyscraper. Conceived as a monument to the Arab city-state's economic ambitions, the Burj today looks more like a modern-day Tower of Babel. Dubai has been wracked by a debt crisis, and the building stands mostly empty and unwanted by the international tenants for whom it was supposedly built. But then, the main argument for these monuments has never been purely economic. In early 20th-century New York, one tycoon after another vied to build the world's tallest building, adding their marks to Manhattan's iconic skyline. Both General Motors and Chrysler in their day saw fit to build testaments to their economic might in the form of tall towers. Later on, the gods of vanity shifted to the Far East, where Malaysia's Petronas Towers and more recently Taiwan's Taipei 101 vied to be the world's tallest. Today a half-dozen Asian skyscrapers put Chicago's Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) in the shade. As for Dubai, the Burj is merely the most recent bauble in a quest for excess that includes the world's largest man-made islands, indoor shopping mall and indoor ski resort. It even boasts the world's heaviest gold ring, weighing in at something like 62 kilos. The economic theory behind all this, we suppose, is that being the land of superlatives confers a comparative advantage to a place of otherwise few charms and little human capital-though we do wonder who proposes to wear that ring. If the past century has taught us anything, it's that there will always be another, bigger building built somewhere, and Dubai cannot hope to keep up indefinitely. By contrast, in cities such as Houston and Hong Kong the skylines are not the cause of their economic prosperity, but merely one visible manifestation of it. That's a prosperity that has been built over the years on the basis of those old reliables: economic freedom, the rule of law, hard work and sound ma

"In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto's GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats. According to the study, which was summarized by Adam Shake at Twilight Earth, "Three varieties of Monsanto's GM corn - Mon 863, insecticide-producing Mon 810, and Roundup® herbicide-absorbing NK 603 - were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities." Monsanto gathered its own crude statistical data after conducting a 90-day study, even though chronic problems can rarely be found after 90 days, and concluded that the corn was safe for consumption. The stamp of approval may have been premature, however. In the conclusion of the IJBS study, researchers wrote: "Effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail differed with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted. As there normally exists sex differences in liver and kidney metabolism, the highly statistically significant disturbances in the function of these organs, seen between male and female rats, cannot be dismissed as biologically insignificant as has been proposed by others. We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity....These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown.""

"Haitians are lining bodies along the streets of Port-au-Prince, where thousands are feared dead after a massive earthquake destroyed much of the capital. The 7.0 magnitude quake that struck Tuesday was the most powerful to hit the Caribbean nation in 200 years. The temblor collapsed the presidential palace, ministries, homes, schools, monuments and the city's largest hospital. The International Red Cross says up to 3 million people have been affected. Bodies were pulled Wednesday from the collapsed United Nations headquarters in Port-au-Prince. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says more than 100 U.N. personnel are missing, including the mission chief, Hedi Annabi. "