An example of how Zionist media controls US information: From the New York Times

Possibility of a Nuclear-Armed Iran Alarms Arabs

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: September 30, 2009

CAIRO — As the West raises the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, Arab governments, especially the small, oil-rich, nations in the Persian Gulf, are growing increasingly anxious. But they are concerned not only with the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran but also with the more immediate threat that Iran will destabilize the region if the West presses too hard, according to diplomats, regional analysts and former government officials.

Iranian Statement May Offer Window Into Nuclear Efforts (October 1, 2009)

On Thursday, Iran will meet with six world powers to discuss a variety of issues in what will be the first direct talks between Washington and Tehran since the 1979 Iranian revolution. Iran would appear to enter the discussions weakened by a bitter political dispute at home and by the recent revelation of a second, secret, nuclear enrichment plant near Qum.

But instead of showing contrition, Iran test-fired missiles — an example of the kind of behavior that has caused apprehension among some of its Arab neighbors. The cause and effect of conflict between Iran and the West is never experienced in Washington or London but instead plays out here, in the Middle East, where Iran has committed allies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

“If the West puts pressure on Iran, regardless of the means of this pressure, additional pressure, increased pressure, do you think the Iranians will retaliate or stand idly by and wait for their fate to fall on their head?” said Ambassador Hossam Zaki, spokesman for Egypt’s Foreign Ministry. “The most likely answer is they will retaliate. Where do you think they will retaliate?”

Among Iran’s Persian Gulf neighbors there is growing resignation that Iran cannot be stopped from developing nuclear arms, though Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful uses. Some analysts have predicted that a regional arms race will begin and that vulnerable states, like Bahrain, may be encouraged to invite nuclear powers to place weapons on their territories as a deterrent. The United States already has a Navy base in Manama, Bahrain’s capital.

“I think the gulf states are well advised now to develop strategies on the assumption that Iran is about to become a nuclear power,” said Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, a political science professor at United Arab Emirates University. “It’s a whole new ballgame. Iran is forcing everyone in the region now into an arms race.”

This realization, in turn, is raising new anxieties and shaking old assumptions.

Writing in the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi, for instance, the editor, Abdel-Beri Atwan, said that with recent developments “the Arab regimes, and the gulf ones in particular, will find themselves part of a new alliance against Iran alongside Israel.”

The head of a prominent research center in Dubai said that it might even be better if the West — or Israel — staged a military strike on Iran, rather than letting it emerge as a nuclear power. That kind of talk from Arabs was nearly unheard of before the revelation of the second enrichment plant, and while it is still rare, reflects growing alarm.

“Israel can start the attack but they can’t sustain it; the United States can start it and sustain it,” said Abdulaziz Sager, a Saudi businessman and former diplomat who is chairman of the Gulf Research Center in the United Arab Emirates. “The region can live with a limited retaliation from Iran better than living with a permanent nuclear deterrent. I favor getting the job done now instead of living the rest of my life with a nuclear hegemony in the region that Iran would like to impose.”

The Middle East is a region defined by many competing interests, among regional capitals, foreign governments and religious sects, and between people and their leaders. An action by one, in this case Iran, inevitably leads to a chain reaction of consequences. It is too early to say how the latest revelations will play out.

Some regional analysts have said that fear of a nuclear Iran could yield positive results, possibly inspiring officials in Saudi Arabia and Egypt to work harder at reconciling with leaders in Syria, which has grown closer to Iran in recent years as its ties have frayed with Arab states.

The report in Al Quds Al Arabi by Mr. Atwan said gulf states were taking measures to try to persuade Russia and China to stop supporting Iran. The report said that Saudi Arabia had offered to purchase billions of dollars of weapons from Russia if it agreed not to sell Iran sophisticated missiles. And it said gulf states might join together to offer China one million visas for its citizens to work in the region.

The latest conflict over Iran’s nuclear program has also allayed some longstanding fears. Arab capitals aligned with the West are now less worried, for example, that President Obama will strike a deal with Tehran that might undermine Arab interests, analysts, diplomats and regional experts said.

“It was a concern that, well, maybe the West was going to try to appease Iran on a number of regional issues in return for something,” Mr. Zaki said.

But that is a relatively small consolation, given concerns that Iran might go nuclear, or, if pushed, activate its allies, Hezbollah or Hamas, political analysts here said. Arab capitals already have accused Iran of fueling the recent fighting between Shiite rebels and the government in Yemen, and of inciting conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in places like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait — charges Iran has flatly denied. Egypt has accused Iran of using its ties with Hamas to undermine Palestinian reconciliation and negotiations with Israel, as well.

“There is no doubt, given the recent events, that the degree of threat and amount of fear has increased,” said Anwar Majid Eshki, director of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies in Jidda, Saudi Arabia.

But they are also not sure how the United States and its allies should proceed. Mr. Zaki and others offered little advice, other than to call on Washington to press to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which many see as the root cause of regional instability.

“No one said it was an easy situation,” Mr. Zaki said.

Not a word in the article about how Arabs view Israel's nuclear threat which given Israel's repeated history of invasion of its neighboring states makes Iran's beginning nuclear efforts look like peanuts in terms of nuclear terrorism. A story like this coming out of the pro-Israel N.Y.Times is meant to create more fear of Iran, making it seem the Middle East is fearful too. As they should be; Zionists are again making a concerted push to further destabilize the Middle East knowing that it often leads to others fighting Israel's war against its Muslim neighbors for them.

FREE MOHAMMAD NOW ! Call for protest action from the Internation Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Mohammad Othman is a Palestinian Human Rights activist and organizer committed to
non-violence. He is now held in detention, on unknown charges. He was arrested while
returning from a trip abroad, as punishment for his international promotion of BDS. Some of you may have met Mohammad at the Stop The Wall offices, in Jayyous and other places.
Israel's persecution and harassment of non-violent organizers is yet more evidence of the importance and effectiveness of BDS and the campaign against the Apartheid Wall. Israel resorts to intimidation and harassment in the hope of discouraging resistance. This must not be allowed to pass in silence. We need you to take action, to put pressure on Israel to release Mohammad and to pressure your own government to intervene.

There are many ways you can help. Please send messages to Israeli authorities, as well as to your embassy and foreign ministry. Please sign the petition, send a message of support to Mohammad and keep yourself informed of his case. Information on these and other actions is below. Please visit the website for the campaign for the latest updates and coordination: http://freemohammadothman.wordpress.com/

Please pass this message to your network and urge your friends to take action.

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A prisoner of conscience, arrested solely for his human rights work
Blog: http://www.freemohammadnow.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36429272741&ref=ts

September 22, Mohammad Othman was arrested by soldiers on the Allenby Bridge Crossing, the border from Jordan to Palestine. He is now being held in Huwara prison as a prisoner of conscience, arrested solely for his human rights work.

Mohammad, 33 years old, has dedicated the last ten years of his life to the defense of Palestinian human rights. He has campaigned with the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign against the dispossession of Palestinian farmers and against the involvement of Israeli and international business in the violations of Palestinian human rights.

His village, Jayyous, has been devastated by the Apartheid Wall and Zufim a
settlement, built by Lev Levievâ's companies. These companies are facing a successful boycott campaign because of their violations of Palestinian rights.

Mohammad was returning from one of his trip to Norway, during which he met with senior officials, including Norwegian Finance Minister Kristen Halvorsen. Norway’s national Pension Fund recently announced that it had divested from Elbit, the Israeli company which provides both Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and other military technology for Occupation forces, as well as security systems for the Wall and settlements.

This is not the first time Palestinian human rights defenders have been arrested after trips abroad. Recently, Muhammad Srour, an eye witness at the UN Fact Finding Mission on Gaza, was arrested on his way back from Geneva. This arrest was a clear act of reprisal against Srour for speaking out about Israel's violations of international law. Arresting Palestinians as they return from travel is yet another Israeli tactic to try to silence Palestinian human rights defenders. It complements the overall policy of isolation of the Palestinian people behind checkpoints, walls and razor wire.

We call on international solidarity and human rights organizations to act immediately to bring attention to this case and advocate for the release of Mohammad Othman by:

Recommended Actions: Encourage others to join this campaign through petitions, demonstrations and /or letter writing / phone calling. Please provide them with contact information and details;

Urge your representatives at consular offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem/Ramallah to
demand the immediate release of Mohammad Othman. (For your consular contacts, see: http://
www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-in/Israel#11725 );
Let the Israeli Embassy in your country know that you are campaigning for
Mohammad's release and for a just and lasting peace based on international law.
Sign the online petition for Mohammad on: http://www.petitiononline.com/stopwall/petition.html
Bring the case of Mohammad to the attention of local and national media outlets;
Follow the blog and facebook to free Mohammad Othman to see the latest updates and
action alerts.

Blog: http://www.freemohammadnow.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36429272741&ref=ts

Mohammad Othman represents only one of the 11,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli
prisons. More than 800 are being held in administrative detention, meaning that
they are imprisoned (indefinitely) without charge. International solidarity and
governments have to hold Israel accountable and achieve an end to the large scale
repression and mass imprisonment of Palestinians as part of their efforts to bring about an end to the occupation and the restoration of Palestinian rights.

**********************************************************
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TAKE ACTION!

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Sign the Petition
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To sign the petition for the immediate and unconditional release of Mohammad, click here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/stopwall/petition.html

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Write to your embassy or consulate
---------------------------

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Write to the Israeli embassy or consulate
---------------------------
Let the Israeli Embassy in your country know that you are campaigning for Mohammad's
release and for a just and lasting peace based on international law. (Click here to find contact information for the Israeli Embassy in your country)

---------------------------
Get creative !
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Norway protests against the release of Mohammad Othman

Approximately 250 people participated in a demonstration in Oslo today calling for the immediate and unconditional release of prisoner of conscience Mohammad Othman. The demonstration was held in front of the Israeli embassy, but demonstrators were prevented from reaching the embassy by police. Speeches were given by MP Ã…got Valle (Socialist
Left Party) and MP Truls Wickholm (Labour).

Demonstrators and speakers accused Israel of repressing freedom of speech and human
rights, and called for the continuation of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
against Israel. On Monday activists from the Socialist Youth of Oslo will launch a week of direct action in response to the detention of Mohammad. The first day will include targeting local vegetable and import stores to convince them to remove Israeli goods from their shops.

See pictures at the facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36429272741&ref=
ts


www.StopTheWall.org - Visit the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign web site.

Anger at Jerusalem shrine clash

Clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem Old City, Sunday
Clashes spread from the mosque compound into the narrow Old City streets

Palestinian leaders have blamed Israel for raising tension in Jerusalem after a day of clashes at the city's most sensitive religious site.

Police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse 150 Palestinian protesters who had thrown rocks at non-Muslims who entered the al-Aqsa mosque compound.

The site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, is sacred to both religions.

Israeli police said the visitors were foreign tourists, but Palestinians said they were Jewish extremists.

"At a time when (the US administration) is trying to bridge the divide... Israel is deliberately escalating tensions in Jerusalem," said Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat.

"We've seen this before, and we know what the consequences are," he added.

In the past the al-Aqsa/Temple Mount compound has been a flashpoint for Israel-Palestinian violence, notably after the visit of then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon in 2000.

Protests were quelled by Sunday afternoon, with dozens of police patrolling the streets of the walled Old City and blocking some of its gates.

Different versions

There are conflicting accounts as to who was the initial target of Muslim anger.


AL-AQSA/TEMPLE MOUNT
SACRED TO MUSLIMS:
First direction of prayer for Muslims, site of Prophet Muhammad's ascent into, home to al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock

SACRED TO JEWS:
Site of first and second Temples and the rock on which Abraham offered his son as a sacrifice. As the visible remnant of the Temple, the Western Wall is the holiest site in Judaism

Where archaeology is politics

Palestinian sources said about 15 people from the Temple Mount Guardians group managed to enter the compound and performed acts of worship in contravention of agreements putting the compound under Muslim control.

At first, Israeli police confirmed this, but later issued a clarification saying the group was in fact made up of non-Jewish French tourists.

Police said Palestinian worshippers had started protesting at immodest clothing worn by the visitors.

Other accounts say the tourists were mistaken for members of a large group of religious and right-wing Jews which had gathered at one gate of the compound to press for entry.

Mr Erekat accused the Israeli authorities of escorting hardline Jewish settlers from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, "whose presence is deliberately designed to provoke a reaction", around the mosque.

At least 10 Palestinians were injured in the clashes and several Israeli police were lightly hurt.

The Arab League expressed "extreme anger... at the premeditated aggression" at the Israeli security forces for allowing "Zionist extremists" into al-Aqsa.

The incident happened hours before the start of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar, and Israeli security officials were unavailable for further comment.

More torpedoing of any peace initiatives by Israel who never have had any intention of stopping their harassment and dissolution of Palestinian society. How did we sink so low as to not learn from our own mistakes in colonizing the Americas, Australia, and Africa? How is it that Americans who should know better support such a heartless group of European religious fanatics taking over another 3rd World country? It's done by brainwashing Americans with news manufactured like the above incident and a one-sided "history" provided the world media by Zionists who control so many news outlets such as Rupert Murdock with his Fox News affiliates.

Angry Reaction 'Shocked' Head of Iran's Nuclear Program

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 26, 2009; 1:52 PM

TEHRAN, Sept. 26 -- The head of Iran's nuclear program said he was "shocked" by the West's angry reaction to news that his country is opening a second uranium enrichment facility, which he said was disclosed a year earlier than required by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, state television reported Saturday.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said the facility 60 miles south of Tehran would be completed within "a year and a half to two years," the Arabic language state news channel Al Alam quoted him as saying.

He stressed that the facility, like other declared nuclear sites in the country, would be open to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The United States, France and Britain denounced Iran's plans Friday at the Group of 20 conference in Pittsburgh.

"Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow," President Obama said, condemning the site as a "covert uranium enrichment facility" that Western intelligence discovered years ago and has since been monitoring.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the facility a legal and proper attempt to provide nuclear energy for his people.

Salehi said the Western leaders' "embarrassing reaction and their unbalanced response has shocked us" and that Iran had acted within the framework of IAEA laws. "We have to inform the agency of the building of nuclear facilities 180 days before insertion of nuclear fuel, but we informed them even sooner," he said.
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Salehi said the Western reactions were planned and accused the United States, France and Britain of hatching a conspiracy against Iran. "The plot was that the three big Western countries were to speak against Iran at the G-20 summit and spin the story to make the world opinion united against Iran," he said.

Another Iranian official, Hassan Ghashghavi, said Iran's declaration of the new site was on time and a sign of goodwill. "But unfortunately, some Western governments resorted to propaganda and incorrectly created a biased atmosphere," he said, according to the state news agency IRNA.

Other Iranian officials reacted more defiantly. "This new plant, God willing, will soon become operational," said Mohammad Mohammadi-Golpayegani, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported. Mohammadi-Golpayegani heads the office of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Salehi told state television on Friday that the new site was built to protect the country's nuclear program. "We built a new installation that could guarantee the continuation of our nuclear activities. Iran's nuclear activities will not be stopped under any circumstances," he said.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

Friday's announcement came in the run-up to the first international talks about Iran's nuclear program in more than a year. On Thursday, a senior Iranian diplomat is scheduled to meet in Geneva with counterparts from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, a group known as the P5 plus one. U.S. officials have described the meeting as a key moment in the long nuclear standoff.

Meanwhile, Iran's revolutionary Guards Corp, which is celebrating armed forces week, announced plans for large-scale missile drills on Sunday. Code-named Great Prophet-4, the aim of the maneuvers is to "carry out annual defense missions and maintain and enhance the deterrent capabilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran's armed forces," the Guards Corps' public relations said, according to Fars news.

Hypocrites in action

"Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow," said Mr Obama, He added that Iran was endangering the global non-proliferation regime and threatening the stability and security of the world."

Is this a joke of Obama? Iran is a member state of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has complied with all inspection demands. Israel refuses to be a member and will not allow international inspections. Iran has not invaded any country while Israel has invaded several and is threatening to do so again. Israel continually breaks international laws with its illegal settlement building. Israel's army is documented as committing crimes against humanity. Yet we see the Big Bullies trying to smear Iran's reputation continually and bully Iran into submission to the desires of the Big Bullies to keep Iran from power, literally.

Please remember what Iran just announced as Obama and Zionists blitz to paint Iran evil. Look at the Afghan terrorist in custody to see how they go about priming Americans to associate Iran and Islam with terrorism.

"Iran's nuclear chief confirms that the newly-announced under-construction uranium enrichment facility will be in full compliance with the country's treaty obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iran declared the construction of a new small uranium enrichment facility to the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on September 21.

"In line with the preservation and enjoyment of its obvious rights to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, in a new and successful step, the Islamic Republic of Iran has moved to construct a semi-industrial-scale plant for the enrichment of nuclear fuel," the director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said in a statement on Friday, Mehr News Agency reported."

Obama sure is a big disappointment so far in his inability to get out from under the puppet/master relationship of Israel and Zionists. One has to wonder what sorts of political and economic pressure Zionists with their world banking ties have brought to bear on Western nations to get them to support such obviously hypocritical actions against Iran.

Iran defiant amid new nuclear row

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Ahmadinejad said Iran worked within rules set by the UN

Iran's newly-revealed nuclear facility is open for inspection by UN experts, the country's president has said.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that the plant, thought to be under construction near the holy city of Qom, was being built in line with UN regulations.

Leaders of the US, UK and France have accused Iran of building a new plant to enrich uranium, in breach of UN rules.

They raised the prospect of new, tough sanctions against Iran if it does not fully co-operate with global powers.

However, at a news conference in New York, where he has been attending the United Nations General Assembly, Mr Ahmadinejad firmly rebutted the Western criticism.

Those leaders who had complained about the plant had made a big mistake and would regret the move, he said.

"We don't have any problems with inspections of the facility. We have no fears," he said, referring to calls for immediate access to the site by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN watchdog.

Mr Obama is not a nuclear expert. We have to leave it to the IAEA to carry out its duties

He justified Iran's apparent concealment of the plant by saying there were no international requirements to declare any nuclear facility until 180 days before fissile material was introduced into it.

There was a flat denial of the claims - by US President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown - that the plant was a secret facility.

"If it was, why would we have informed the IAEA about it a year ahead of time?" Mr Ahmadinejad was reported as saying.

He reiterated Tehran's position that Iran was not interested in developing nuclear weapons, describing them as "against humanity".

'Serial deception'

Mr Ahmadinejad spoke out hours after Mr Obama, Mr Sarkozy and Mr Brown took to the stage in Pittsburgh - site of a G20 summit - to condemn the building of the new plant.

Iran's decision to build a secret facility represented a "direct challenge to the basic compact" of the global non-proliferation regime, Mr Obama said.

ANALYSIS
Paul Reynolds
BBC World Affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds

Iranian ambitions for this site are not known. It could be that they wanted a back-up in case their main plant at Natanz was attacked. But another fear is that they intended to enrich uranium more highly at the secret plant, to a level suitable for a nuclear explosion.

The discovery will strengthen the demands by the US and its allies for further sanctions to be imposed on Iran unless it suspends all enrichment, as required by the Security Council.
Iran on defensive over secret site

Despite Iran's assertions that the facility was for peaceful purposes, the new plant was "not consistent" with that goal, the US president said.

Speaking after Mr Obama, Mr Brown accused the Iranians of "serial deception" and said: "Iran must abandon any military ambitions for its nuclear programme."

Mr Sarkozy described the situation as a challenge to the entire international community.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he was "seriously concerned", and China urged Iran to work within the IAEA framework.

Talks due

The existence of Iran's first enrichment plant, at Natanz, was only confirmed after intelligence emerged from Iranian exile groups several years ago.

Western governments are said to have known of the existence of the new enrichment plant for some time.

In Washington, US officials said the Western nations decided to reveal their intelligence assessments when the Iranians realised the plant's secrecy was compromised.

Iran insists that all its nuclear facilities are for energy, not military purposes
Bushehr: Nuclear power plant
Isfahan: Uranium conversion plant
Natanz: Uranium enrichment plant, 4,592 working centrifuges, with 3,716 more installed
Second enrichment plant: Existence revealed to IAEA in Sept 2009. Separate reports say it is near Qom, and not yet operational
Arak: Heavy water plant


The new facility is said to be underground at a mountain on the site of a former missile site belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, north-east of the holy city of Qom.

Construction on the facility - believed by the US to be large enough to contain 3,000 centrifuges, not large enough for commercial work - started in earnest in mid-2006, diplomatic sources said.

Iran's letter to the UN watchdog, the IAEA, on Monday informed it that "a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction".

Iran told the agency that no nuclear material had been introduced into the plant, and enrichment levels would only be high enough to make nuclear fuel, not a bomb.

In response, the IAEA requested Iran to "provide specific information and access to the facility as soon as possible".

The disclosure of the new plant comes one day after world leaders stressed the need for greater co-operation against nuclear proliferation and shortly before Iran is due to resume talks with international powers on the issue.

Earlier this month, Tehran agreed to "comprehensive" discussions on a range of security issues - but made no mention of its own nuclear programme.

The talks are due to be held in Geneva on 1 October with Tehran and the five permanent UN Security Council members - US, UK, Russia, China and France - plus Germany.

You got to hand it to Iran for standing up against the Big Bullies running the U.N. through their control of the Security Council and armed with nukes, massive armies and ready and willing to invade any country they accuse of being a threat to them. This is our United Nations organization in operation and no wonder we have nothing but war after war after war with the Big Bullies in charge of what was once hoped to be the democratic solution to world peace. Iran doesn't have armed nukes like the Big Bullies do and hasn't invaded any country unlike the Big Bullies and their puppet master Israel. Why doesn't the U.N. demand Israel come clean about its nuclear weapons program? We know why because Zionists and oil interests are controlling U.S. foreign policy, UK foreign policy, France's foreign policy, Germany's foreign policy, and China goes along because China is as guilty of foreign invasion and occupation of Tibet as European Zionists are of Palestine. Also China has a serious Muslim problem on their western borders and none of the Big Bullies wants to see Muslim nations armed with nukes unless their governments are under the thumb of Western powers, like Pakistan, the homeland of Al Qida. Notice how a Muslim terrorist is conveniently in the U.S. news just in time for Iran's U.N. appearance and the Big Bullies orchestrated attempt to control Iran's nuclear program but not their own. Can't have any powerful Muslim state next to those Mideast oil reserves..

Palau pioneers 'shark sanctuary'

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website


Hammerhead shark
Hammerheads are among hundreds of species found in Palau's waters

Palau is to create the world's first "shark sanctuary", banning all commercial shark fishing in its waters.

The President of the tiny Pacific republic, Johnson Toribiong, will announce the ban during Friday's session of the UN General Assembly.

With half of the world's oceanic sharks at risk of extinction, conservationists regard the move as "game-changing".

It will protect about 600,000 sq km (230,000 sq miles) of ocean, an area about the size of France.

President Toribiong will also call for a global ban on shark-finning, the practice of removing the fins at sea.

The need to protect the sharks outweighs the need to enjoy a bowl of soup
President Johnson Toribiong

Fins are a lucrative commodity on the international market where they are bought for use in shark fin soup.

As many as 100 million sharks are killed each year around the world.

"These creatures are being slaughtered and are perhaps at the brink of extinction unless we take positive action to protect them," said President Toribiong.

"Their physical beauty and strength, in my opinion, reflects the health of the oceans; they stand out," he told BBC News from UN headquarters in New York.

Local benefits

A number of developed nations have implemented catch limits and restrictions on finning.

Some developing countries such as The Maldives have also taken measures to protect the creatures; but Palau's initiative takes things to a new level, according to conservationists close to the project.

"Palau has recognised how important sharks are to healthy marine environments, and they've decided to do what no other nation has done and declare their entire Exclusive Economic Zone a shark sanctuary," said Matt Rand, director of global shark conservation at the Pew Environment Group.


Bodies without fins

"They are leading the world in shark conservation."

Mr Rand said that about 130 threatened species of shark frequented waters close to Palau and would be likely to gain from the initiative.

Although the country has only 20,000 inhabitants, its territory encompasses 200 scattered islands, which means that its territorial waters are much bigger than many nations a thousand times more populous.

Economics is clearly an incentive for the Palau government, which derives most of its income from tourism.

Sharks are themselves a big attraction for scuba-divers, and may also play a role in keeping coral reef ecosystems healthy.

Globally, 21% of shark species whose extinction risk has been assessed fall into the "threatened" categories, and 18% are "near threatened". For a further 35%, there is not enough data to decide.

Over half of the species that spend most of their time in the upper layers of the ocean, exposed to fishing, are on the threatened list.

Illegal shark-finning is the main cause; but there are legal targeted hunts for fins and meat, and sharks are also caught accidentally on longlines set for fish such as marlin and tuna.

Port side catches

Enforcing the ban will be an issue for Palau, which possesses just one patrol boat capable of monitoring its waters.

A recent aerial survey found fishing 70 vessels in the area, most of them illegally.

But Carl-Gustaf Lundin, who heads the marine programme at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said there were other ways of tackling the illegal trade.



The time for setting aside tiny areas of sea that only protect a few sedentary species is over
Carl-Gustaf Lundin, IUCN

"For example, the US has been sharing lists of illegal vessels with established fishing companies, so that they can report on their dishonest or non-decent peers," he said.

"We're also exploring what options there are for monitoring remotely at low cost.

"And you don't need to catch people out there in the ocean; everyone needs to land their fish, so as long as you have most nations signed up to oppose illegal fishing, your chances of catching them are pretty decent."

Dr Lundin noted that earlier this week, another Pacific island state, Kiribati, signed off a collaboration with the US that establishes the largest marine reserve on the planet.

"The time for setting aside tiny areas of sea that only protect a few sedentary species is over; and it (the Palau sanctuary) is important because it shows the way in terms of putting large areas aside."

Considered position

In organisations such as the International Whaling Commission and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Palau has in recent years regularly sided with pro-hunting countries such as Japan.
Map of Palau

Mr Toribiong told BBC News that before going to New York for the UN General Assembly, he had planned to "state to the world that Palau will revisit its current position" on whaling.

But following the recent change of government in Japan, and because of the two countries' "close relationship", he said there would now be a bilateral meeting.

"My position is to reconsider our current position in light of the most recent scientific data to ensure that the current position that Palau takes will not lead to the depletion and extinction of whales," he said.

But when it came to sharks, the president said he was sure that the sanctuary is backed by science - sharks are threatened as a group of species, and sanctuaries can help.

"Not all nations consider shark fins as delicacies," he said.

"And we feel that the need to protect the sharks outweighs the need to enjoy a bowl of soup."

Asked what he would be urging other leaders to do in his UN speech, he said simply: "To follow suit."

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Netanyahu Blasts Ahmadinejad at U.N.

By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS
Associated Press


Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu holds up Nazi documents during his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a blistering attack on the floor of the United Nations Thursday on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying the hearing granted the Iranian president the night before amounted to a "disgrace of the U.N. charter."

Mr. Netanyahu dramatically held up copies of minutes of the meeting of Nazi officials in 1942 where plans were made for the extermination of the Jews, as well as constructions plans of Nazi concentration camps.

"Are these protocols lies?" he asked, waving them in his hand. "Are the successive German governments that have kept these documents for posterity all liars?"
More From the U.N.

* Security Council Backs Nuclear Measure
* Obama Gains Russian Support on Iran
* Opinion: The U.N.'s Anti-Antiterror Report
* Ahmadinejad Rails Against West

He opened his remarks by saying that the greatest threat to the U.N. effort to prevent a repetition of the carnage of the World War II is the "assault on truth."

"Yesterday the president of Iran stood at this very podium and spewed his anti-Semitic rants," he said. "Just a few days earlier he claimed that the Holocaust was a lie." He then described how he had obtained the documents he held up before the assembly.

"Nearly one-third of all Jews at the time perished in the Holocaust," he said. "Nearly every family was affected, including my own."

Mr. Netanyahu continued about Mr. Ahmadinejad, "Perhaps some of you think this man and his odious regime only threaten the Jews. Well, if you think that you are wrong, dead wrong.

"What starts as attacks on Jews always ends up engulfing others … this regime embodies the extremes of Islamic fundamentalism."

He concluded his remarks by quoting Winston Churchill, and his warnings about mounting threats in the run-up to World War II.

"The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront these forces or just accommodate them," he said.

Netanyahu still isn't addressing Ahmadinajad's point: Why do Palestinians have to pay the price for Europe's crime against humanity?

Ahmadinejad: Why focus on Holocaust?

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:20:30 GMT


Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks to CBS News Anchor Katie Couric, New York, September 23.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called on the US media to shift their focus away from the Holocaust into other massacres that have taken place in the world.

“There are many historical events, similar historical events. Why is this one in particular so important to you?... During World War II, 60 million people were killed. Why are we just focusing on this special group alone?” Ahmadinejad asked in an interview with CBS.

When the CBS reporter answered that all the attention that is being paid to the matter is because he was 'denying it', Ahmadinejad responded by saying that he was 'sorry for all the 60 million people that lost their lives, equally'.

“All of them were human beings. And it doesn't matter whether they were Christians or Jews or Buddhists or Muslims. They were killed. So, we're sorry for everyone,” said Ahmadinejad.

In another interview with American paper the Washington Post, Ahmadinejad asked whether from the point of view of US media the Holocaust was an isolated issue, or one that still affected world affairs.

“You do agree that it is an important topic. Do you believe that the Holocaust still carries through to this day in terms of its effects today? Could you explain to me how it affects issues today?” he said.

“What I am saying is extremely clear. It is an academic approach to a crucial subject and also one based on humanitarian considerations. We have several specific questions with regard to the events of World War II,” Ahmadinejad added later on.

The president continued that he did not believe the answers to those questions could be 'found through the propaganda that is promoted by the media'.

“In the end, the questions need convincing answers. The first question that I have to try and understand is why in the midst of all that happened in World War II, the Holocaust is emphasized more than any other [event]?” he asked.

“The second question is, why do Western politicians focus on this issue so much? The third question is how does that event connect with issues that we see around us in the world today?

“We should ask ourselves whether the event did take place; if so, where did it happen, who were the perpetrators, and, what was the role of the Palestinian people? What crime have they committed to deserve what they have received as a result?”

Ahmadinejad said since the beginning of the Israeli occupation, over 5 million Palestinians have become refugees.

“Why is the Holocaust used as a pretext to usurp the land of other people? Why should the Palestinian people give their lives up for it? Who is the occupier here? The United Nations resolutions condemn which occupying regime?” he asked.

“What fair-minded person can accept that an event that happened in Europe [results] in having his or her land occupied elsewhere in the world?

“Unfortunately Western politicians refuse to answer these questions and egress into other areas… We see the Holocaust as a pretext to commit genocide against the Palestinian people.”

Israel established itself in 1948 after forcing out millions of native Palestinians out of their land, because of their Arab race and Islamic religion, although they too were Semites.

According to the United Nations regulations, Palestinian refugees have an undeniable 'Right to Return' to their homeland, like all other indigenous people of a country who have been displaced by force.

MJ/MTM/AKM

Despite calls for unity, Iran, Libya blast UN

By EDITH M. LEDERER (AP) – 35 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS — On a day when the U.N. and Western nations appealed for global unity, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Wednesday denounced what they called an unjust world dominated by five powers.

The Iranian leader, touting his victory in "glorious" June elections, which the opposition claimed were stolen, did not mention the country's nuclear program in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly. He addressed the annual gathering immediately after six global powers who have been trying to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions announced they expect a "serious response" from Tehran in nuclear discussions on Oct. 1.

Ahmadinejad lashed out at what he said was the rapacious capitalism of the United States, its Western allies and Israel, which he accused of stealing Palestinian land. But he also offered a hand of friendship to any country that "honestly" extends one.

His comment followed an Associated Press interview Tuesday night in which he urged President Barack Obama to view Iran as a potential friend instead of a threat.

While Ahmadinejad announced a new Iranian commitment to help build "a durable peace and security worldwide for all nations," his speech was laced with anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic language which prompted a U.S. walkout. "It is disappointing that Mr. Ahmadinejad has once again chosen to espouse hateful, offensive and anti-Semitic rhetoric," said Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the U.N.

The seats of Israel, Canada and other countries also were empty in the sparsely filled assembly chamber.

Ahmadinejad predicted that "expansionist capitalism" will meet the same fate as Marxism, accusing unnamed powers of "using the ugliest methods of intimidation and deceit under the mantle of freedom."

He told the assembly that "most nations including the people of the United States are waiting for real and profound change."

Earlier, Libya's Gadhafi chastised the United Nations for failing to prevent dozens of wars and accused its most powerful members of treating other nations as "second-class, despised" countries.

In his first speech to the General Assembly in his 40 years as ruler of Libya, Gadhafi focused on the inequality of the U.N. Security Council where five permanent members — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — have veto power.

"It should be called the 'terror council,'" he said, calling for the veto to be abolished and membership to be expanded with a greater voice for Africa, Latin America, Arab and Muslim nations.

Gadhafi swept up the stairs to the podium in brown robes after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. President Barack Obama called for greater global engagement to move toward a world without nuclear weapons, tackle the threat of catastrophic climate change, and combat a global financial crisis that is expected to add 100 million people to the ranks of the world's poor this year.

"We have sought — in word and deed — a new era of engagement with the world," Obama told world leaders and diplomats from the 192 U.N. member states. "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the 64th ministerial meeting — more than 100 heads of state and government attended — with an appeal "to create a United Nations of genuine collective action" to respond to the global financial, food and energy crises and the swine flu pandemic.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy stressed the urgency of immediate action.

"We are right in the middle of an unprecedented financial and economic crisis. We are on the threshold of a planetary ecological disaster. We must right now invent a new world where the follies of yesterday will no longer be possible," the French leader said.

China's President Hu Jintao said "the trend towards peace, development and cooperation, which represent the call of our times, has grown stronger than ever."

And Russian President Dmitry Medvedev echoed his colleagues, saying: "The unification agenda has been dictated by life itself."

"We must act now, together," South African President Jacob Zuma said, "to halt the degradation of the environment ... (and) to prevent the global economic crisis from undoing the gains that we have achieved over decades."

While speaker after speaker focused on the future, Gadhafi was consumed by the past, accusing the world body of failing to prevent or intervene in 65 wars since the U.N. was founded in 1945, demanding massive reparations for the colonization of Africa, urging additional investigation into the deaths of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold in 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963, American civil rights leader Martin Luther King in 1968 and others.

Leaders are asked to speak for 15 minutes — and a red light goes on after that. Obama ignored the light and spoke for 38 minutes, but Gadhafi, perhaps making up for 40 years of avoiding the General Assembly, topped him by nearly an hour. He went on for 1 hour and 36 minutes, throwing the schedules of speakers after him into turmoil and disrupting Ban's luncheon in honor of delegates.

But Gadhafi's speech was far from the longest: Cuba's Fidel Castro spoke for 4 hours and 29 minutes in the 1960s, according to U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq.

Presidents, prime ministers and diplomats crowded into the General Assembly chamber for the opening speeches and Obama was applauded warmly though he didn't get a standing ovation. Gadhafi joined in the applause but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was scheduled to speak Wednesday night, did not.

As Gadhafi rambled on, referring repeatedly to handwritten notes in Arabic, the assembly chamber emptied.

At one point, he held up the U.N. Charter and made a small tear in the cover, signaling his disdain.

"How can we be happy about the world security if the world is controlled by four or five powers?" he complained. "We are just like a decor."

He called the General Assembly "the parliament of the world" — a 192-member body that should be dictating decisions to the Security Council.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking later, retorted: "I stand here to reaffirm the United Nations Charter, not to tear it up."

There has been much speculation on whether Obama will cross paths with Gadhafi and Ahmadinejad.

After Obama finished speaking, there was a 15 minute break, and the U.S. leader was long gone before Gadhafi spoke. All leaders were invited to the secretary-general's lunch — which was a possible meeting point — and Obama showed up and gave the traditional toast from the host nation. Gadhafi and Ahmadinejad skipped the lunch.

Tensions with the Libyan leader are high after Scotland recently released Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a Libyan who was convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, in which 270 people died.

When Ahmadinejad takes the rostrum, the world will be carefully listening for any words suggesting a shift in Tehran's nuclear policy.

While Iran insists that its nuclear program is purely peaceful, the U.S. and its Western allies believe it is pursuing nuclear weapons. The Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions to pressure Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program and start negotiations. So far, sanctions have had no affect Iran's position.

Foreign ministers from the five permanent council nations and Germany, who have been trying to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, met behind closed doors with the European Union's top negotiator on Wednesday to discuss prospects and expectations for lower-level talks with Iranian officials on Oct. 1 in Geneva.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Uh oh, there goes Obama's image of hope in the Muslim world unless he can wiggle out of Iran and Libya's accusations which would require making the U.N. democratic. Interesting times we live in wherein the West has literally run out of SCARY enemies like they used to have and now have to manufacture them out of peoples without any significant means of mass military invasion or mass destruction.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Wednesday denounced the structure of the U.N. Security Council

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Wednesday denounced the structure of the U.N. Security Council, criticizing the permanent seats and veto power granted to a limited number of nations.


Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.

Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly's annual debate session, Gadhafi called for world unity in confronting global crises such as climate change and food shortages.

But he elaborated on what he believes is the unfairness of the structure of the Security Council, which has five permanent members -- the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain. Each of those nations has veto power.

"No one is objecting to the preamble [of the U.N. charter], but everything that came after that is contradiction of the preamble," he said through an interpreter. "The preamble says the nations are equal whether they are small or big. Are we equal in permanent seats? No, we're not equals." Video Watch Gadhafi demand equality »

Citing the history of colonization and persecution of Africans, he said there needs to be a permanent African presence on the body, calling that a "priority" for the United Nations.

He also said that despite the fact that the United Nations says there should be no resorting to military force unless it is a collective decision, 65 wars broke out after the establishment of the United Nations, and the Security Council didn't do anything to stop the conflicts.

Gadhafi said the Security Council hasn't provided security, but "terror and sanctions."

He slammed U.S. military actions in places like Korea, Vietnam, and Grenada. He called the invasion of Iraq "the mother of all evils," criticizing the hanging of deposed leader Saddam Hussein and the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

He also said there should be investigations into many incidents, such as the Afghan war, the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp during the Lebanese civil war, Israel's Gaza offensive, and the killings in the 1960s of former President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

Gadhafi also broached the idea of taking the U.N. headquarters out of the United States and putting it in another location.

Have none of you ever wondered why the U.N. seems so weak when it comes to stopping wars? Try looking at the permanent members of the Security Council for starters. We've got major arms manufacturers in America, China, Israel, who do not want to see business slow down. Gadhafi sees no Muslim nations on the permanent Security Council and even China has a vested interest in supporting Zionists because China is doing to Tibet what European Jews with Security Council nation's blessings did to Palestine: mass immigration in order to take over the native population. The U.N. cannot be a democratic organization until all member states are equal in voting on critical issues. Until all states are equal, the U.N. remains a puppet of the permanent Security Council member states.

Urging Israeli-Palestinian talks, Obama backs down on settlements

At the UN Tuesday, Obama appeared to drop his demand that Israel freeze settlement growth as a precondition to negotiations by calling on it to “restrain” activity instead.

By Kristen Chick |
Christian Science Monitor Correspondent
09.23.09

Urging Israeli-Palestinian talks, Obama backs down on settlements

President Barack Obama may be dropping – or at least softening – his administration’s demand that Israel freeze settlement growth in the West Bank as a precondition to starting peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

That would mark a stark change for the administration, which had pressed Israel to declare a full freeze to all settlement growth in the West Bank to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Mr. Obama met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday.

Officials from all three sides said after the meeting that Obama had abandoned the ultimatum he had given Israel, according to some news reports.

CNN reports that United States special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell said the US is “not identifying any issue as being a precondition or an impediment to negotiation.”

Abandoning the terminology the US has been using in months of urging a halt to growth in the Israeli outposts on land claimed by Palestinians, Obama Tuesday referred to “restraining” settlement activity, rather than freezing it.

“Obama told Abbas that he couldn’t get the settlement freeze and promised to keep trying, but that it shouldn’t be a condition for talks and it was time to move on,” one Palestinian aide to Abbas said.

Several U.S. officials said that Obama told Abbas that although the U.S. believe a settlement freeze would create a better atmosphere for talks to begin, the lack of one should not be used an as excuse not to talk.

“Let’s not have the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Obama told Abbas, according to the officials.

The Los Angeles Times reports that White House officials say Obama’s position on settlements remains the same.

Administration officials insisted later that the U.S. position on Jewish settlements had not changed. But the shift in language was widely interpreted by Palestinians and Israelis as a sign the Obama administration was jettisoning a U.S. stance that had alienated many Israelis and their U.S. supporters.

About 300,000 Israeli settlers now live in 121 settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 war and where Palestinians hope to establish their future state. (Read the Christian Science Monitor’s briefing on where, when, and why Israeli settlements are built.)

It is unclear where this move leaves the possible peace negotiations. Mr. Abbas has so far refused to begin negotiations with Israel until it declares a full halt to the growth of the outposts. According to the conservative Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu told Israeli reporters after the meeting that Abbas had dropped preconditions for the talks, and discussions were now focused on the framework of negotiations.

But Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said any move away from demanding a full freeze of settlements would impede the peace negotiations, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Obama had hoped to be able to announce a breakthrough in negotiations by now. Instead, he had to make do with the first meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in a year. Reuters reports that the US and Israel may be pushing for entering full-blown negotiations before resolving the settlement issue.

“They are trying to finesse settlements now,” said [Daniel Kurtzer], a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. “Having been unable to reach an agreement to freeze settlements in a meaningful way, they are going to leave it out there as a disagreement between us but not as a road block or an impediment to negotiations.”

After the meeting Tuesday, Obama expressed determination to move forward, saying, “It is absolutely critical that we get this issue resolved,” the Monitor reported.

He … directed top foreign policy aides, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and special Mideast envoy George Mitchell, to continue the intense contacts with Israeli and Palestinian officials the US has pursued since Obama took office.

Mr. Mitchell said he would meet with his counterparts from both parties again Thursday, while Secretary Clinton is to report back to the president by mid-October on where diplomatic efforts stand.

Well, here it is. What I feared would happen is happening. Obama is showing his weakness and caving into Zionists demands which of course are aimed at torpedoing any real peace resolution between Israelis and Palestinians. Why do Israelis want to sabotage the peace process? Because it disallows them to keep taking more and more of Palestinian land for Israeli settlement building. Some day, Americans will get it, will wake up to what is really happening in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, that all along Zionists have had no intention of playing fair with Pals. Zionists want Greater Israel, i.e., as much territory of all Palestine, much of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq as they can get their hands on to reproduce the Jewish mythical Greater Israel of King David, a fabulously rich kingdom according to the Bible that archeologists curiously cannot find any trace of unlike the real ancient kingdoms of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Canaan. Zionists are making innocent people die for Jewish myths of origin. Let's hope Obama grow some cojones..

Ranking: U.S. 1st in health care spending, 37th in health

September 20, 2009
By ANNE GEGGIS
Staff Writer

For the money spent on health care, Americans are getting rooked.

It seems health is one of those things that money can't buy. All international studies show that Americans spend the most, as measured by the percentage of gross national product spent on health.

But all that spending has only bought the country 37th place in overall health-system performance, as measured by indicators such as a nation's overall health and the effectiveness of its system, according to the World Health Organization's ranking of nations. The ranking was formulated in 2000 but is still used as a primary resource by governments and health organizations.

From the academic side, here's the most common diagnosis for the high price of U.S. health care: a highly complex and fragmented payment system that weakens the demand for health care and has high administrative costs that don't improve anyone's health.

"The system not only is unnecessarily complex, duplicative, ineffective and dangerous, but also poorly functioning," said Les Beitsch, associate dean at Florida State University College of Medicine and director of the Center for Medicine and Public Health as well as the Division of Health Affairs.

But ask Halifax Health Chief Executive Officer Jeff Feasel, and he has two words to describe the cure for what's ailing the U.S. health care system: "more money."

The continual shortfalls in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements undoubtedly frames his perspective. As the government's reimbursement for health care of the elderly and the poor shrinks or stagnates, so does 65 percent of Halifax Health's revenues. Technically, area doctors haven't had a raise from one of their biggest single payers -- Medicare -- since 2002.

BEST IN THE WORLD?

Still, in town-hall meetings nationally, it's become apparent that some of the discomfort with reforming U.S. health care stems from the belief that the system is the most advanced in the world and reform will dismantle that. And those observers have a point, says Florida State's Beitsch.

"There are parts of the health care system that are extremely high-functioning -- happening on the individual level -- not on the system's level," Beitsch said.

The ways in which the U.S. health system stacks up against the systems that the World Health Organization ranks as better functioning offers insights into ways Americans stand out, good and bad.

We smoke less than almost every country, but we're the world's heavyweights. If magnetic resonance imaging scanners could cure, rather than just diagnose, we'd be the world's healthiest: The United States has more MRIs than any other industrialized nation per 100,000 people.

To address the system's problems, some argue, reform has to come not only for how health care is paid for, but how much is needed and how it's used.

"We don't have a health care system, we have a disease-care system," said Dr. Bonnie Sorensen, chief of the Volusia County Health Department.

"We wait until people are sick before they enter the health care system and then spend gargantuan amounts on disease care," she said. "For the health system to be reformed, we need to be spending more time and money on prevention efforts."

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

Health care dollars are disproportionately focused on a small percentage of the population sick with a handful of ailments, studies show.

In 2002, the 5 percent of people with the greatest health care expenses in the U.S. population spent 49 percent of the overall health care dollar. Meanwhile, the lower 50 percent of spenders accounted for 3 percent of the national health care dollar, according to the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

The government report singles out obesity as the major driver of increased growth in spending. In three of the five most expensive chronic conditions -- mood disorders, diabetes, heart disease, asthma and hypertension -- obesity is often related to the condition.

It presents a personal challenge for each resident living in the nation with the highest density of McDonald's restaurants. Cecil Wilson, a Winter Park physician who's the president of the American Medical Association, said costs cannot be contained without Americans taking more personal responsibility for their health. The diabetes expenses alone are enough to convince him.

"It's the largest piece of the pie," he said of diabetes management, which is commonly needed as a result of poor diet and exercise habits.

But the role of individual behavior in health care reform is controversial, according to Niccie L. McKay, an associate professor and director of the master's program in health administration at the University of Florida.

"It smacks of blaming the victim," she said.

But part of what's fueling opposition to the government's plan to distribute health care to more people is the feeling that the need for it is often the result of poor choices.

"I'm getting to be what society would consider to be old. . . but I'm in better shape than people who are half my age," said Jim Oddie, a Wilbur-by-the-Sea businessman who also worked as a district representative for former U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo. He allows that there are some people who are born with illness and become sick through no fault of their own.

But largely, he said, "I don't have sickness because I take care of myself."

anne.geggis@news-jrnl.com

Less Bang for Health-Care Bucks?

No. 37 is where the United States' health status was ranked by the World Health Organization. Here's how U.S. health care stacks up in other ways (in most recent statistics available):

· No. 1 in total health costs as a percentage of gross domestic product.

· $878 per person spent on pharmaceuticals -- the most among the world's 30 largest economies.

· 2.4 practicing physicians per 1,000 people in the United States. Countries with fewer physicians per 1,000 are Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea and Turkey.

· 3.1 hospital beds per 1,000 people -- the fewest beds per 1,000 among the world's 30 largest economies, except for Mexico, where there are 1.7 beds per 1,000.

· 34.3 percent of Americans are obese (with a body mass index of 30 or higher), the most of any developed country.

· 25.9 magnetic resonance imaging units per million people makes the United States No. 1 among the world's largest economies. The United Kingdom, in contrast, has about one third the number of the U.S.

· 84.5 coronary bypasses per 100,000 people makes the U.S. the second most bypassed among developed nations, topped by Germany which has 131.8 bypasses for every 100,000 people.

· 15.4 percent of the U.S. population are daily smokers -- the second smallest percentage among the world's 30 largest economies (only the Swedes smoke less).

SOURCES: World Health Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

More information:
· Compare the U.S. to the world in key health indicators

These statistics should be the only real thing to concern Americans yet they are being herded like cattle by capitalists into ignoring health costs Americans are paying for what benefits? We have to ask ourselves exactly who benefits from America's health system? It isn't your average American citizen.

Obama to meet Middle East leaders

Building work at Har Homa in east Jerusalem

The US wants Israeli settlement building to be frozen

President Barack Obama will meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday to try to relaunch peace talks.

Mr Obama will hold separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, before a joint meeting.

Efforts to restart the peace process have so far been blocked by disagreements over Israeli settlements.

A senior US official told the BBC that there was no expectation of an announcement after Tuesday's meetings.

He said the meetings are "clear sign of the President's personal commitment to this issue."

But he added that it was critical to put the discussions "in context".

"Nine months ago there was a war in Gaza," he said. "The Israeli government has only existed for five months.

"And now these three leaders are going to sit down in the same room and continue to narrow the gaps."

Mr Netenyahu's office issued a statement welcoming the invitation to talks and saying they would be held "without preconditions", Reuters news agency reported.

'Deep commitment'

The announcement of the meetings, which will take place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, came after US envoy George Mitchell's latest round of shuttle diplomacy ended without agreement.

The White House said the meetings next week would continue efforts by Mr Obama, Mr Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "to lay the groundwork for the relaunch of negotiations".

The road is now blocked
Mahmoud Abbas
Palestinian president

Mr Mitchell said Mr Obama's desire to personally engage at this juncture showed his "deep commitment to comprehensive peace".

The US envoy held a series of meetings with Mr Netanyahu last week in a fresh attempt at getting a deal on Jewish settlement activity.

He also went to the West Bank to talk to Mr Abbas.

Mr Mitchell was hoping for a consensus before all sides attend the UN General Assembly, but he returned to the US without reaching any agreement.

Mr Abbas and the US administration have been demanding a complete freeze on Israeli construction activity.

Mr Netanyahu had previously offered a temporary freeze for several months, but not in East Jerusalem or in cases where homes have already been approved.

He noted this week that there had been a slowdown in settlement construction, but that work would continue on 2,400 units currently being built.

'New conditions'

On Saturday, both sides were reported as blaming each other for the lack of any agreement to resume the peace process following Mr Mitchell's visit.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yossi Levi said the Palestinian Authority was "preventing the resumption of the peace process by making conditions that it has not made in the past", AFP news agency said.

It was not reported which conditions he was referring to.

But Mr Abbas said Israel was to blame for not agreeing to a total freeze in settlement building.

"The road is now blocked," he told journalists in Cairo.

"There is no more work [for Mr Mitchell] with the Western or Palestinian sides because we are complying with all our duties.

"The focus has to be on the Israeli side."

This will be a good test of U.S. resolve for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. For most of the U.S. history of involvement, Israel has benefited from an almost blanket approval of anything they did to Palestinians. Abbas and his PA do not represent Palestinian society in total because Abbas' political position is only there and guaranteed by U.S. and Israel support so he's always suspect if he negotiates Palestinian land and rights away in any deal where his PA winds up in control of the West Bank and Gaza. Zionists with their ties to Jewish owned and/or controlled banks have a great financial hold on American and European money systems. Israel represents the American and Europeans protection of their oil interests in the Middle East. With both Jewish pressure points always on American foreign policy is it any wonder we've caved into Israel's foreign policy demands for war against Israel's enemy states in the Middle East? The Clinton's know precisely how easy it is to ruin a politician's career and who know's what's being held over Obama's head. We'll see if he is a strong US president or weak like his predecessors when it comes to dealing with Israel and the Palestinians.

The Jewish Holocaust: Independent research confirms Ahmadinejad's scepticism

Ahmadinejad's statement that the Holocaust was "a myth" is "totally unacceptable"
is part and parcel of the Zionist movement to marginalize anyone who criticizes Jewish holocaust history as crazy or worse, terrorists. But if Ahmadinejad is crazy, then so are a number of professional historians who have reviewed the Jewish figures and arrived at much different conclusions. I've reposted this article from the Institute for Historical Review, a group which the last time I checked their website was under attack by Jewish organizations for publishing "anti-Semetic" information. It's getting to the point that when ADL or AIPAC or Israel put that label of "anti-Semite" on anyone it means we should look especially hard at the evidence these people are bringing to the world's attention. After all, Zionists accuse Jimmy Carter of being "anti-Semitic" as well as Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is right for calling for an independent investigation of Jewish holocaust claims because no people should pay for a crime against humanity they never committed which is exactly what Zionist Jews have made Palestinians pay with their lives and land.


Institute for Historical Review

Debunking the Genocide Myth
Conclusion: Six Million Exterminated Jews -- Fact or Fiction

Logic demands that this demographic study end with general statistics which include the following four items for each of the European nations which I have surveyed:

1. The number of Jews who were living there just before Beck's accession to power in Poland (1932) and Hitler's accession to power in Germany (1933);
2. The number of Jews among them who, to escape persecution, emigrated between 1932 and 1945;
3. The number of Jews who remained in Europe and who were still alive there in 1945;
4. The number of Jews who cannot be accounted for and who, hence, are presumed to be dead.

In order to give the exact truth of this dark story, these statistics should be accompanied by others giving the structure of the world Jewish population at the end of 1962. And, in four sections also, for each of the nations of the other continents:

1. The numberer of Jews living there before the rise to power in Poland of Beck, and in Germany of Hitler;
2. The natural increase in the Jewish population from 1932 to 1962;
3. The census of the Jewish population at the end of 1962;
4. The number of Jewish immigrants calculated from the difference between the total figures of items 2 and 3. (There is no doubt that this difference comes near the 4,419,908 figure that is mentioned in the preceding section.)

This was my intention at the beginning. Now, this double labor turns out to be impossible; the second statistics cannot be determined unless and until the leadership of international Zionism agrees to undertake a census of the world Jewish population, and we have seen that Zionist leaders are not about to accept this idea. As for the first statistics, there is a long series of other difficulties that still present obstacles in spite of all the specific data that the preceding study has produced.

The most insurmountable of these difficulties, and which sums them all up, is the following: if we now know that a minimum of 4,419,908 Jews succeeded in leaving Europe between 1931 and 1945, we are much less well informed on their nationalities. For countries like Denmark, Norway, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and one or two others -- the Baltic countries for example, even Greece -- there is no problem; they were not on the route of the Jewish migration; the Germans found only national Jews in those countries and everything is clear. But it is not the same in the other countries -- Holland, Belgium, France, Italy, Hungary, Rumania -- which were countries into which to escape, or to go through, before they became occupied by German troops. There, the Jews were arrested and deported pell-mell, and it is impossible for us to determine accurately the nationalities of those who managed not to get arrested as well as those who were. Hungary is the archetype of this difficulty: there, we did succeed in determining that out of the 800,000 Jews who were living there on March 19, 1944, 543,000 had not been deported; that about 200,000 had been deported; that 57,000 had very probably been massacred in police operations; and that 343,000 had managed to emigrate. But, in each of these categories, it was impossible to determine who was Hungarian, who was Yugoslavian, who was Czechoslovakian, and who was Polish. The same questions hold for Rumania, where we found 147,650 massacred, and 652,350 survivors, 227,350 of whom emigrated. The same questions are found again for Holland, for Belgium, for Luxemburg and for France. In France, we found that only 81,000 Jews of one nationality or the other could have been arrested and deported; we know also that there were no Belgians among them, that the number of French was necessarily between 6,000 and 11,999, and that the number of the Luxemburgers was between 0 and 2,000, the others being Dutch. But these are, all the same, figures which are insufficiently exact to be called statistics. In Poland, we know that 729,040 Jews were arrested, either on their national land or on the emigration route toward the west; but of the 289,300 who tried to emigrate by the Danubian route, how many were arrested in Hungary and how many in Rumania? So many questions for which there are no answers and which can equally be applied to the Czechoslovakians who fled to Hungary and the Yugoslavians who fled to Italy.

In the final analysis, rather than to circulate statistics based on nationalities, every datum of which might have been open to question, and to add to the confusion created by the historians and the statisticians who voice the line of international Zionism, I have preferred to draw up these statistics on the only plane where we are sure of ourselves, that is in Europe. Here, no serious debate is possible: we have affirmed that a minimum of 4,419,908 European Jews managed to emigrate early enough to escape arrest and deportation to concentration camps, and we can add them to those that the historians and statisticians who support the Zionist "genocide" fiction, found living in Europe in 1945.

Here then, on information from the World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation, are our statistics on the European scale in four sections, with the integration, for 1931, of the 300,000 German Jews and the 180,000 Austrian Jews who are admitted to have left Europe to flee from Hitler together with the million Jews who were in the part of the Russia that was never occupied by the German troops.

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Description 1931 1945 Official Losses Emigrants Traced Actual Losses1
Statist. totals from p. 302 8,297,500 2,288,100 6,009,400 -- -- -- --
Known German Emigrants 300,000 300,000 -- -- -- -- -- --
Austrian Emigrants Ackowledged 180,000 180,000 -- -- -- -- -- --
Russian Jews saved by Soviet 1,000,000 1,000,000 -- -- -- -- -- --
Actual totals from WCJD 9,777,500 3,768,100 6,009,400 -- -- -- --
Ac. totals as arrived at in this study 9,777,500 3,768,100 ___ 4,419,908 1,589,492

Here again are the same statistics, but this time based on the information of Mr. Raul Hilberg who did not divide Russia into the two zones, but who, too, acknowledged that there were 300,000 German and 180,000 Austrian Jewish emigrants.

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Description 1931 1945 Official Losses Emigrants Traced Actual Losses
Totals from p. 302 9,190,000 3,782,500 5,407,000 -- - -- --
Known German Emigrants 300,000 300,000 -- -- -- -- -- --
Austrian Emigrants aknowledged 180,000 180,000 -- -- - -- -- -- --
Totals of Mr. Hilberg for 1945 9,670,000 4,262,500 5,407,500 -- -- -- --
totals as arrived at in this study 9,670,000 4,262,500 -- -- - 4,419,908 987,592

On the basis of the preceding analysis, this is where we stand now: First, out of the study of the statistics of the World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation and from its own data, we find 1,589,492 European Jews dead or missing as a consequence of Nazi persecutions in concentration camps or in some other way. Second, out of the study of Mr. Raul Hilberg's data we find only 987,592 dead or missing Jews.

Twice I took up this problem: first in Ulysse trahi par les siens, published in France in 1960, and, second, in an article for the German review Deutsche Hochschullehrer-Zeitung (Tubingen, 12, February 1963). Each time that I reviewed the problems, I did it in terms of the data from Jewish sources that had been published at the time. But, the first time, neither the judgment of the Jerusalem Tribunal, nor, more significantly, the study of The Jewish Communities of the World of February 1963 had been brought out. And, in terms of what was already known, my conviction had been that the number of Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, in concentration camps or otherwise, should be placed at about 1,000,000, more or less. The second time, I had in my hands the Judgment of the Jerusalem Tribunal, and I had followed day by day the hearings of the Trial, but I still was not acquainted with the study of the Jewish Communities of he World, then not yet published. As a conclusion to my writing for the Deutsche Hochschullehrer-Zeitung (pp.61, 62) I had claimed that if the number were greater than 1,000,000 it could not by any means exceed 1,655,300 victims. Today, with all the documents at hand which were lacking then, it can be said that, based on data prior to that of the World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation, the number of victims is 1,589,492. On the other hand, the figure is 987,592, based on Mr. Raul Hilberg's data. To achieve greater exactness, we must wait for the new Zionist leaders like Salo Baron, Leon Poliakov, and Michel Borwicz, among others, to give new avowals, or for another trial like the Jerusalem one, to bring us new light on the question. As well as we know these Zionist circles, neither one nor the other of these hypothesis is excluded, but, rather, both are more likely than not to occur. In those circles, indeed, neither talkers without conscience, seeking cheap publicity, nor, alas, judges looking for vengeance, are lacking. I shall bet a good deal on two other things: the latent and continuous dissensions which exist between Mr. Ben Gurion and Mr. Nahum Goldmann, and the fracas between Khrushchev and Mao Tse-tung.

For a long time now Mr. Nahum Goldmann has been showing signs of fatigue and impatience with the policies of Mr. Ben Gurion with regard to Germany. For example, he had stated publicly that he was not enthusiastic about the arrest of Eichmann and the trial which followed. Through various indiscretions we learn that he does not place much value on all the trials in Germany, aimed at former members of one or another of the Nazi organizations of Hitler's time. In Israel itself, there is a very serious divergence between his group and that of Mr. Ben Gurion, each time the latter finds a German minister stupid enough to accept an invitation sent him with the sole object of having him publicly insulted in Israel by his partisans, and thus of making an issue that attracts the attention of the whole world to the debt which Germany, because she rallied to Hitler in 1933, assumed with regard to Israel. Everything takes place as if, not daring publicly to take a position in opposition to Mr. Ben Gurion with regard to his policy toward Germany, Mr. Nahum Goldmann were trying behind the scenes, to silence him on his main theme. And, the fact that, with regard to the Jews who were exterminated, the statistics which we have from the American partisans of the Zionist line are generally more moderate than those which come from the European branch (as is illustrated by the figures of Mr. Raul Hilberg compared with those of the World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation) could very well reflect the dissentions between the two men. This would then explain the divergencies and contradictions revealed in the Jewish sources in their statistics.

As for the quarrel between Khrushchev and Mao Tse-tung, it could be of consequence in that, along with that of the United States, the Jewish population of Russia is one of the greatest enigmas weighing on the problem. The Institute of Jewish Affairs of London and the Jewish Communities of the World both told us clearly in 1962 that there were 2.3 million Jews in Russia. But Mr. Raul Hilberg revealed to us that there were 2,600,000 in 1946, and that estimate, which can be considered to be confirmed by the journalist, David Bergelson (in Die Einheit, December 5, 1942), can also be considered closer to the truth. In that case, it is not 2.3 million Jews that were in Russia in 1962, but 3,016,000, adjusted for a natural increase at the rate of sixteen per cent. If we take Professor Salo Baron at his word, that figure would be even greater: 3,120,000. But, let us not be tempted. However, we could justify the use of a larger figure, all the less, because in reality there are surely many more than 3,016,000, since the Jewish journalist, David Bergelson, also told us, let us not forget, that eighty per cent of the Baltic Jews, the Poles, and the Rumanians, who found themselves behind the Russian lines as they fled before the German troops in 1941-1942, were saved and sent on their way toward Central Asia by the Soviet authorities. At the end of 1942, Bergelson estimated that there were about 5.2 million Jews on Soviet territory, 3 million of them Russian, and in that he agrees with the statistics of April 17, 1943, of Mr. Richard Korherr, which have already been referred to. Question: what happened to those 2.2 million non-Russian Jews? Answer: some of them managed to escape and reach either the American continent or Israel; the rest of them did not. How many were in each group? We cannot tell. But, we can be sure that as long as Khrushchev and Mao Tse-tung were getting along together it surely was not easy for Jews who had been transported to Central Asia during the war, to make it to the American continent via China; those who have been able to manage the trip in the postwar period must have managed it clandestinely. The subsequent quarrel between these two grand men of Bolshevism could result in Mao Tse-tung aiding the Jews to leave Soviet territory, just as the China of Chiang Kai-shek aided them before World War II, and for the same reasons. In that case, it could happen that one day a very significant number of Jews might turn up suddenly in all of the countries of the American continent, and perhaps also in Israel. And, unless it is kept hidden in the dark, a new light will be shed on the statistics of world Jewry. Neither is this hypothesis excluded. And, if the United States should adopt a rational policy toward Russia, the truth would come out very fast.

But to return to the problem as it exists in the data that we actually have: we know that the number of European Jews who died as victims of Nazi persecutions is either 1,589,492 persons, established on the basis of data from the World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation compared with the Exhibits of the Tribunal at Jerusalem and the study, The Jewish Communities of the World, which came out in February 1963, or is 987,952 persons, based on the data of Mr. Raul Hilberg compared in the same manner. It still remains to be discovered how the 4,419,908 Jews, who were living in 1945, were divided among the other countries of the world, and who, not being listed as living in the European statistics of Jewish sources, are necessarily thought to have left Europe between 1931 and 1945. That is the problem for the second statistical analysis, which, in my opinion, should present by country the structure of the world Jewish population in 1962. And, as is pointed out in a preceding paragraph, these statistics are impossible to establish at the present time.

We already know one thing which was revealed to us in the study of the Israeli Jewish population, and that is that it includes 1,048,368 European Jews who immigrated to Israel between 1931 and 1962. It remains to be seen how the remaining 3,371,540 European Jews are distributed around the rest of the world.

It is in this latter matter that the Jewish sources are the most secretive. Rarely do we find, for example, in the study of the Jewish Communities of the World and in the World Almanac of 1963, non-European countries where the admitted Jewish population is greater than it would have been by natural increase based upon the statistics of Mr. Arthur Ruppin for the period of 1926-1928. There are some places where even the natural rate of increase has not been reached; that is the case with the United States, where, if we can believe the aforementioned publications, the population has not risen more than from 4,461,184 in 1936 to 5,500,000 in 1962. However, we have seen that at the natural rate of increase of one per cent there cannot be fewer than 5,550,489 Jews in the United States, and that, at the natural rate of increase, which Mr. Salo Baron gives, there should be 6,170,837. The few countries on continents other than Europe, where the Zionists concede that there is a Jewish population greater than what it would have been by natural increase, based on the Ruppin statistics, are the following: Argentina, Canada, Brazil, and South Africa. For these four countries, these are the statistics that can be drawn up:

Page 394
Country 1926 population Natural increase 36% 1962 Populat. Natural 1962 Populat. conceded Immigration2
Argentina 240,000 86,400 326,000 450,000 123,600
Canada 170,000 61,200 231200 254,000 22,800
Brazil 40,000 14,400 54,400 140,000 85,600
South Africa 60,000 21,600 87,600 110,000 28,400
TOTAL 510,000 183,600 693,600 954,0003 260,400

By making an allowance for the natural increase, we get close to 200,000 immigrants of European origin for these four countries, assuming that the figures published in the aforementioned authorities for 1962 are exact, and it would be astonishing if they were. If they are, we still have 3,171,540 European Jews to locate. To do that we would have to be able to draw up figures for all of the countries of the world in the same manner as we did for Argentina, Canada, Brazil, and South Africa. But we cannot, since the latter are the only ones given by the Zionists which concede any immigration.

Still, something must be done, since, if they are not in Europe and not in Israel, these 3,171,540 Jews who were certainly living in 1945 must be somewhere else -- together with the additional number that they have accumulated at the natural rate of population expansion. Where? In order to say that with any real certainty we shall have to wait once again for new revelations that the publicity-seeking Zionist movement will not fail one day inadvertently to produce. Until then we can only conjecture, and that is not my method. I shall, therefore, limit myself to stating my basic principles which have defined the direction that my research has taken, and which I continue to pursue.

1. It is not probable, but it is possible -- that in August 1945, the date when Mr. Poliakov told us (Le Troisieme Reich et les Juifs, p. 196) that the European Jewish communities had begun to make an inventory of their losses for Justice Jackson and had come up with only 3,768,100 survivors according to the World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation, or 4,262,500 according to Mr. Raul Hilberg -- that they gave figures considerably understated for reasons of propaganda. I say it is possible, for two reasons: there was such a chaos of displaced persons in Europe at that time that any serious census was out of the question; and the method used in the Jewish communities, which everywhere counted only Jews of the nationality of the country, might have distorted the results.

2. Even if the result of this Jewish census of 1945 was not out of line (which is not admitted), it is certain that, if all the Jews who had left Europe between 1931 and 1945 had not returned by 1945, many of them came back later, at least to Western Europe, since we can assume that those who returned to the other side of the Iron Curtain were the exceptions. France, in this case, is typical: 300,000 Jews in 1939 and between 450,000 and 500,000 at the end of 1962, with about 130,000 Algerian Jews and about 20,000 Moroccan and Tunisian Jews who came seeking refuge, after the granting of independence to those three countries. 300,000 to 350,000 French Jewish nationals is a normal figure in relation to the entire French population in 1962. But the statistics of the World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation continue to claim 180,000 in 1945 plus the natural increase rate of 16 per cent, or 208,000 (216,000 if we use the natural increase rate of Mr. Salo Baron). It is very probable that if one went to the trouble, one could make similar statements for Belgium (where, in addition, 20,000 to 25,000 Jews returned from the Congo), Holland, Austria, and perhaps even Germany. However, all of the Jews who returned to Europe after the month of August 1945, whose number we cannot know exactly as long as the Zionists refuse to give it to us, since official census-taking will "bring down the wrath of God," surely must amount to several hundreds of thousands and must belong with those 3,171,540 which no Jewish source allocates to any place.

3. The problem of the Polish, Baltic and Rumanian Jews, who in the years 1941-1942 were evacuated to Central Asia and who, if one can believe the Jewish journalist, David Bergelson, should have numbered between 2 and 2.2 million in 1942, since there were 3 million Jews in Russian in 1939, and at the end of 1942, there were about 5.2 million. How many of these Jews are still living in "Central Asia" (read, Siberia) with their offspring? How many have succeeded in escaping in the past 16 years? Where have they gone? Everything points to the fact that those who managed to escape secretly from the U.S.S.R. reached the American continent, which was for them the easiest to get to. Concerning that supposition, a hypothesis, for what it is worth, and which I do not offer as a certainty, runs through my mind: in 16 years, it is possible that half of them, at a cost of immeasurable difficulties, managed to leave Central Asia for the American continent. If that is so, and since the Zionist demographers have not located them in Canada, Brazil, or in any other country in the Western Hemisphere, they must be in the United States. Thus, the following statistics could be drawn up for Russia and the United States:

A. Russia

1. Jews found still living by Mr. Raul Hilberg in 1945: 2,600,000

2. Jews still living in Central Asia, according to Mr. David Bergelson: 2,200,000

3. Total Jewish population in Russia in 1945: 4,800,000

4. Jews who succeeded in leaving Central Asia for the united States: 1,100,000

5. Jews who were left in Russia; 3,700,000

6. Jewish natural increase of 16% since 1947: 592,000

7. Total Jewish population in Russia in 1962: 4,292,000

B. United States

1. Jewish population for 1926 (official figure): 4,081,242

2. Jewish natural increase of 36% since 1926: 1,469,247

3. Total Jewish population in 1962: 5,550,489

4. Jewish immigrants from Central Asia since 1946: 1,100,000

5. Their natural increase of 16% since 1946: 176,000

6. Total Jewish population from Asia together with progeny: 1,276,000

7. Total Jewish population in the United States in 1962: 6,826,489

But, this total of 6,826,489 includes only immigration from Central Asia, and, therefore, it excludes all of those who, like Mme. Hannah Arendt and Mr. Robert W. Kempner, came to the United States by some other route from Europe. We can surely say that they number more than two, but, how many we do not know, or, at least, not yet. All that can be said is that they are there and that surely the Jewish population of the United States is greater than 6,826,489 persons. It can also be stated that the claim of the National Observer (July 2, 1962) that there were 12,000,000 Jews in the United States in 1962 may be an exaggeration toward the other extreme, but, I would not be astonished if one day soon a Zionist leader inadvertently reveals that there were about 8 million Jews in the United States. The estimate of 12,000,000 in the United States has been repeated several times with an attempt at numerical documentation by the Economic Council Letter published in New York City.

I repeat that the preceding analysis is only conjectural and is not a fact; it is, however, the hypothesis that is necessary to every work as a basis from which to conduct further research; it is the hypothesis which orients mine. To my, mind, it is plausible and it expresses, all the better, my profound conviction which, until now, has not led me to any impasse or error and which has made it possible for me to state some ten years ago the conclusions that were to be drawn later from the Jerusalem Trial and the study of the Jewish Communities of the World.

The actual Jewish population of the world in 1962 is very close to being the following, at least in the order of magnitude of the figures. By using statistics for each country of the world dated for 1926, or 1927, or 1928, as the case was, Mr. Arthur Ruppin estimated that world Jewry had reached a total of 15,800,000 persons as of that date. We have seen that the World Almanac of 1951 estimated the world Jewish population at 16,643,120 for 1939. The natural rate of increase having considerably dropped between 1926 and 1939 (Poliakov dixit, cf p. 295), but when it is compared with that of Mr. Arthur Ruppin, this estimate is allowable. Here, then is the Jewish population of the world in 1962, calculated on the corrected data of the World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation.

1. World Jewish population in 1939: 16,643,120

2. Jewish victims of Nazism: 1,589,492

3. World Jewish population living in 1945(l): 15,053,628

4. Jewish natural increase of 16% since 1946: 2,408,580

5. Total Jewish population on 1962(2): 17,552,208

And here is the same as calculated on the corrected data of Mr. Raul Hilberg:

1. World Jewish population in 1939: 16,643,120

2. Jewish victims of Nazism: 987,592

3. World Jewish population living in 1946: 15,655,528

4. Jewish increase of 16% since 1946: 2,504,884

5. Total Jewish population in 1962: 18,160,412

And, here we are at the end of this study. It remains for me only to make an apology to the reader: this study has clearly been very long, and difficult to follow, like all that is technical by nature. But a demographic study can only be of such a technical nature. What the reader must recognize is that, until now, the proponents of the Zionist line -- whose "official" contentions on the horrors of the war I have been following -- have never been faced with arguments other than those from journalists, which have been often vague and specious, factors that have been the main reason for their lack of success. The only way to shatter their arguments was to set up against them the arguments of a specialist. And, that is what I have tried to do.
Notes

1. Between 15 and 18 million in 1947," as Hanson W. Baldwin has said (cf p. 294 above).

2. It must not be forgotten that this total comes out of the study of Jewish sources, that is, those which have been published under the sanction of the Zionist movement or by the Rabbinate, after investigation of the synagogues. But, if it is true, as claimed by Arthur Koestler (A l'ombre du Dinosaure), that not more than two-thirds of the world's Jews are registered in the synagogues, then there is room to wonder if this figure should not be augmented in the same proportion.