Luciferian News Hour
Friday, December
16
Good evening Luciferians
and guests. Welcome to the Luciferian News Hour, a time when we give our perspective of the news of the past week. I am your
host, Dragon Kloud and I am joined by show producer James Donahue for tonight’s presentation. Jim:
Thank you Dragon. Tonight
we are going to concentrate some attention on an event occurring in Hong Kong that you have not been hearing much about in the news. It is a meeting of representatives
of most of the nations of the world, including the United States,
who are members of the World Trade Organization. What happens at this meeting could have a major impact on everybody’s
future. In spite of an almost complete news blackout, here is what we have been able to learn:
Rich and poor nations were at odds as a World
Trade Organization meeting opened this week in Hong Kong, with trade ministers saying a breakthrough
is unlikely on the thorny issue of agricultural trade that has held up negotiations for months.
The six-day meeting beginning on Tuesday was meant to lay the groundwork
for a global treaty by the end of 2006 that would cut trade barriers across a wide array of sectors, from agriculture to services,
wrapping up the so-called Doha Round of talks.
But an impasse over farm trade has brought the negotiations to
a virtual halt, with developing nations accusing the US, EU and other rich economies of not cutting agricultural tariffs and
farm subsidies enough, in effect keeping out poorer nations that depend heavily on agriculture as an income source.
So what is the World Trade Organization and how does it affect
your lives?
The World Trade Organization is the most powerful legislative and judicial
body in the world. By promoting the "free trade" agenda of multinational corporations above the interests of local communities,
working families, and the environment, the WTO has systematically undermined democracy around the world.
In the ten years of its existence, WTO panels composed of corporate attorneys
have ruled that: the US law protecting
sea turtles was a barrier to "free trade"; that US clean air standards and laws protecting dolphins are too; that the European
Union law banning hormone-treated beef is illegal. According to the WTO, our democratically elected public officials no longer
have the rights to protect the environment and public health.
Unlike United Nations treaties, the International Labor Organization conventions,
or multilateral environmental agreements, WTO rules can be enforced through sanctions. This gives the WTO more power than
any other international body. The WTO's authority even eclipses national governments.
In November 1999, 50,000 people went to Seattle
to challenge this corporate agenda and to demand a more democratic, socially just and environmentally sustainable global economy.
The protests succeeded in shutting down the trade talks and derailing the expansion of the WTO.
The fourth ministerial took place in 2001 in Qatar, a country where free-speech rights are effectively nonexistent. Behind closed
doors and out of the civil-society and media spotlight, hard pressure was applied. Empty promises were made that this round
of negotiations would focus on development and the needs of the poorest countries—an implicit acknowledgment of the
unfairness of the current system. The US
and the EU thus succeeded in launching the so-called Doha Development Round, a misnomer of epic proportions.
In 2003 the process moved to Cancún,
Mexico, where the rich countries sought to expand the scope
of the WTO. But a remarkable new alliance of developing countries argued that the unfair global agricultural system had to
be cleaned up first, before new issues could come onto the table. The tragic suicide of Korean farmer Lee Kyung Hae brought
the collective rage of the outside civil-society mobilization inside the closed gates of the negotiating halls. Most important,
an alliance of the poorest countries stood their ground. The talks fell apart on the last day.
Then, in the summer of 2004, the most powerful countries cobbled together
a minimal consensus to get the negotiations back on track by giving false assurances that agriculture would be fairly reformed.
In 2005, negotiations are continuing on key issues including agriculture,
services, and market access for industrial goods and natural resources, but are mired in controversy.
This is what we know so far about the talks:
Global trade talks remained deadlocked after leading delegates meeting late into the night and
again Thursday morning failed to reach agreement on setting a date for ending export subsidies on farm goods, again blaming
European countries for blocking progress.
Amorim, a key figure representing developing countries, said the vast majority of the 30-some
World Trade Organization members participating in the predawn negotiations spoke in favor of setting a date, but "there were
at least two that were against, so there was no conclusion, because here everything is set by consensus."
Those two, he said, were the European Union and Switzerland.
The six-day Hong Kong talks, aimed at setting a framework for a global trade treaty, also have
been snarled by an impasse over how much to cut rich countries‘ farm subsidies, which developing nations say give wealthy
nations an unfair trade advantage. Export subsidies, a key area of contention in the talks, are funds paid by governments
to domestic producers to promote exports.
The negotiators also were discussing how to move forward with negotiations on manufacturing trade
even as efforts continued to persuade the EU to concede more ground in agriculture, according to the official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The talks fell into disarray today as rich nations feuded over long-protected farm markets, and
developing countries vowed to block any deal unless they get better prices for bananas, sugar and cotton. “It is hard
to see where progress can be achieved in Hong Kong if the talks continue in their present
direction,” European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said. The talks, however, will continue for two more days.
We will give you a final report next week.
Several dozen protesters struck security forces with bamboo sticks and tried to ram through a
police roadblock Tuesday as the World Trade Organization meeting opened.
The confrontation occurred after thousands of protesters marched through the city against the
WTO and globalization, which many of them believe benefit primarily the rich and powerful. Protesters - mainly South Korean
farmers - punched their fists in the air, beat drums and gongs and waved signs reading "RIP WTO" and "World Threatening Organization."
Police said the protest, which also included Japanese, Indian, Filipino and Brazilian farmers,
drew 4,500 people. Organizers put the turnout at 5,200.
In other
news:
The cost of a Great Lakes cleanup plan unveiled Monday by a White House-backed group of federal, state and local governments
could reach $20 billion. To ensure the health of the world’s largest collective body of fresh water which 35 million
North Americans rely on for their drinking water, the report calls for extensive refurbishing of municipal sewer systems,
clean up of toxic hot spots, stopping the arrival of invasive plants and animals from other parts of the world, and the restoration
of wetlands. Washington, embroiled in spending billions on its war in Iraq, says it cannot afford the price tag. To hell with the
environment. And that should not surprise anybody.
European Union ministers
approved a landmark bill this week designed to protect the public from toxic chemicals. They did it despite opposition from
industry and cries from activists that the measure was too weak. The compromise requires properties of roughly 30,000 chemicals
produced or imported in the EU to be registered with a central agency. Those of highest concern, like the carcinogens, will
require testing and authorization before they can be used.
In Global Warming news:
Catastrophic storms like
Hurricanes Katrina and Stan took weather extremes to new levels in 2005, with flooding and heat waves touching almost every
continent, the United Nations weather body (WMO) said this week.
In an annual review,
WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said that while high temperatures and heavy rains could probably be linked to global
warming, he was still reluctant to blame the summer Caribbean hurricanes on a warmer Earth.
“This year is currently
the second warmest on record, and could end up being the warmest once all the figures are in,” Jarraud said. “It
has certainly been exceptional in the intensity of its storms.” He also said extreme heat, often bringing severe drought,
spread across all continents but Europe.
Europe, he noted, especially in the eastern and southeastern regions, suffered torrential rains and flooding.
Flooding also occurred in Bangladesh, China,
New Zealand and Guyana,
South Africa.
The tropical systems
that swept the Gulf of Mexico trailing destruction and human tragedy were the worst ever,
with 26 named storms. They broke the previous record of 21 set in 1933. Of these storms, 14 became hurricanes, two more than
the previous record set in 1969. Seven of the hurricanes were classified as major hurricanes, including Katrina which devastated
New Orleans and other U.S. Gulf cities in August, killing
an estimated 1,300 people.
Santa Claus may have to swap his sleigh for water wings sooner
than expected as global warming melts his Arctic home, environmental group WWF said on Friday.
A new study for the organization formerly known as the Worldwide
Fund for Nature predicts that the earth could warm by two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels as early as 2026
-- and by triple that amount in the Arctic.
"This ... could result in Santa's home changing forever," said
the report by Mark New of Oxford University.
And Rudolph and his fellow reindeer are not the only creatures
under threat -- polar bears, ice-dwelling seals and several forms of Arctic vegetation are also at risk.
"We are already seeing signs of significant change in the Arctic
with mountain glaciers retreating, snow cover disappearing, the Greenland ice sheet thinning and Arctic sea ice cover declining,"
said WWF climate campaigner Andrew Lee.
"All these changes tell us there is no time to lose -- we need
to take drastic action now to combat climate change."
And by the way:
British
scientists have calculated 2005 WAS the warmest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere, at least
since records began being kept in the 1860s. The average temperature was 0.65 C above average for 1961-90. From the number
of storms generated there, it should not be surprising that the Northern Hemisphere Atlantic Ocean also has been the warmest
on record.
Three environmental groups are hoping a lawsuit they filed for endangered species status will
force the Bush administration to face the issue of global warming. They say the world has been consistently getting hotter
with each passing year.
No natural climate cycles can explain the heat. It must be caused, in large measure at least,
by manmade greenhouse-gas emissions, NASA scientists said.
As for humans, new studies in the journal Nature have confirmed the World Health Organization
estimates that, conservatively, 150,000 more people die each year — and five million more get sick — because manmade
global warming is helping insect- and water-borne diseases to spread, especially among poorer nations.
Scientists in the tropics have reported that warming is drying forests, spurring a growing number
of extinctions, and threatening even the many species of wild orchids that rely on near-constant mist in the cloud forests.
"If it gets any warmer, I don't see how extinction can be avoided," said Karen Masters, an American
scientist working on wild orchids in Costa Rica's
Monte Verde Cloud Forest.
Flash floods triggered by prolonged rains in central Vietnam have killed at least 32 people in recent weeks and
damaged rice crops. Rains which began in late November have inundated more than 74,130 acres of newly-planted rice crops in
the central provinces. "The weather is quite abnormal this
year, waters in rivers in the central region have started to recede but we expect new rains over the weekend so people should
stay alert," said an official from the central city of Danang.
The number of scientific
experiments on animals rose by 63,000 last year to just over 2.85 million, according to statistics acquired by the UK Guardian.
Most of the increase was from work on rats and mice; the number of procedures on non-human primates dropped by 12% in the
same period compared with 2003. Robin Lovell-Badge of the National Institute for Medical Research said the increase could
be accounted for by the ever-expanding number of genetically modified animals used. That represents a lot of pain and suffering
by the innocent little creatures of the world.
About Mabus:
U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice this week accused the international community of shirking its obligation to help prosecute ousted Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein by effectively boycotting his trial. Without naming specific countries, Rice said she was saddened that many
nations were doing so little to help prosecute Saddam.
Other than sit by and
proclaim “hurrah, kill the bastard,” what more are they expected to do in this horrible drama? I somehow wonder
if that is the sentiment even going through the minds of other world leaders at this time. Many European states are not cooperating
because they oppose the death penalty, which is being sought in this trial.
Speaking to the Heritage
Foundation think tank, Rice said: “All who expressed their devotion to human rights and the rule of law have a special
obligation to help the Iraqis bring to justice one of the world’s most murderous tyrants.”
Indeed, is this Saddam
or is it George W. Bush she was speaking of?
One of the big stories
from the war front this week was the Iraqi election.
The people in that war
torn country turned out in overwhelming numbers Thursday to cast their votes in a complex election that pits many candidates
representing various versions of the three ethnic groups that share that country. This time the Sunni Arabs, who boycotted
the first election, came out to vote. The polling stations were kept open an extra hour to take care of the lines of voters
waiting at the doors. An estimated 10 million votes were cast.
The cities were on virtual
lock-down all day, with military forces patrolling the streets and looking for signs of trouble. The election was largely
peaceful.
While officials say it
may take days or even weeks to count and ballots and determine the winners, a straw poll conducted by Reuters reporters showed
the dominant Shiite Islamist bloc retaining a strong following. This was challenged by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s
secular group. There also appears to be support in Shiite areas for the United Iraqi Alliance, the senior partner in a ruling
coalition with the Kurds.
In other words, nobody
knows who won seats in government office, or how it all will shake out in the long run. All we know is that George W. Bush
appears to be banking on success in this election to gain political favor at home and in the history books.
In Afghanistan,
a new parliament will meet for the first time on Monday following elections there that put a strange mixture of characters
in power. Lineups of the 249-seat lower house and a 102-member upper house read like a Who’s Who of protagonists of
the country’s bloody past. Former Communists, leaders of guerrilla groups that overthrew them and ex-Taliban will sit
side by side in a political body that emerged from UN-backed September elections. Also seated will be a clutch of idealistic
new politicians including technocrats and women’s rights activists. Lots
o’luck on that one.
In Other Important News
Indonesia has confirmed its ninth human death from bird flu, senior Health Ministry officials
said on Tuesday, taking the global death toll from the disease to 71, all in Asia. A Hong Kong laboratory affiliated with the World Health Organization confirmed an Indonesian had died
from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, which scientists fear will mutate into an easily spread human virus and spark a pandemic
in which millions could die.
The maker of a nasal
spray flu vaccine, Med-immune Inc., said it has developed an easier-to-store version that significantly reduces the number
of flu cases in a clinical trial. In a late-stage study of the vaccine, only 3.9 percent of patients that took the vaccine
came down with flu, compared with 8.6 percent of patients receiving conventional flu shots. But will it work against H5N1?
Only time will tell.
The Environmental group Greenpeace said this week that thousands of workers
involved in the ship breaking industry are likely to have died in the past two decades due to accidents or exposure to toxic
waste on the old ships
At the global release of a report titled "End of Life Ships
-- The Human Cost of Breaking Ships", the organization said steps must be taken to ensure that established safety guidelines
are observed by all parties involved in the industry.
"India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China and Turkey
are the homes to the world's ship breaking facilities," said the report, prepared by Greenpeace and the International Federation
for Human Rights (FIDH).
"Every year the shipping industry sends around 600 ships of
all types to be dismantled on their beaches. The yards provide work, directly or indirectly, to thousands of people. Yet working
at a ship breaking yard is a dirty and dangerous job."
The organizations said as per their estimates, every year hundreds
of workers become victims of accidents at ship breaking yards or fall sick breathing toxic fumes.
"Greenpeace and FIDH estimate that the total death toll of ship
breaking practices in the world over the last 20 years might be in the thousands," the report said.
It added if workers were not dying or getting seriously injured
in accidents, they suffered a big risk of falling ill or dying from toxic-waste-related diseases often because the ships were
being sent for scrap without removing toxic waste.
"At the yard and in their sleeping quarters, they breathe toxic
fumes and asbestos dust," the report said.
British surgeons are
preparing to carry out an unprecedented full face transplant operation next year after being granted ethical approval to actively
seek patients. The 30-strong team headed by Peter Butler, a leading plastic surgeon at the Royal
Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, was given the go-ahead by the hospital's bioethics committee yesterday. The announcement
follows the partial face transplant in France
last month of a woman whose face was mutilated by a dog. It is hard to imagine looking at yourself in the mirror every morning
and being shocked that the face you see is no longer your own. And what about the cellular memories of the person whose face
you are now wearing? Will your personality be changed along with the new face? And what if the body repels the transplant
and you end up with no face at all?
Business News:
Hollywood ends its most disappointing year in nearly two decades. Plunging movie ticket sales,
after a string of uninspiring remakes and movie sequels coupled with an explosion of the DVD and video game markets, are keeping
audiences at home and have sent Hollywood into a deep existential
crisis.
"This industry is facing significant challenges said Jack Kyser, chief economist
of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp, a business support and research body.
Ticket sale revenues dropped five percent in the first 11 months of 2005 while
the number of Americans going to the cinema fell by 6.2 percent compared with the same period in 2004, according to box office
trackers Exhibitor Relations Co Inc.
The result is Tinseltown's most disappointing box office performance in 15
years as audiences, dazzled by their entertainment choices and disappointed by the mediocre films on offer, turned away from
the cinema in droves.
DuPont Co. agreed to pay $10.25 million in fines and $6.25 million for environmental
projects to settle allegations by the Environmental Protection Agency that the company hid information about the dangers of
a toxic chemical used to make the non-stick coating Teflon.
General Motors Corp. is suspending contributions to its 401(k) retirement
savings plan for salaried workers, a spokesman said on Thursday. The world's largest automaker was also dropping the requirement
that up to 3 percent of worker's contributions and 100 percent of the automaker's contribution be invested in GM shares.
From The Bah Humbug Department:
Christmas is damaging the environment, says a new report by
the Australian Conservation Foundation. The report titled "The Hidden Cost of Christmas" calculated the environmental impact
of spending on books, clothes, alcohol, electrical appliances and rich foods during the festive season. Every dollar Australians
spend on new clothes as gifts consumes four gallons of water and requires 37 sq. feet of land in the manufacturing process,
it said. Last Christmas, Australians spent $1.1 billion on clothes, which required more than 1.2 million acres of land to
produce, it said.
Water that would approximately fill 42,000 Olympic-sized swimming
pools was used in the production of Christmas drinks last December -- most was used to grow barley for beer and grapes for
wine. "If your bank account is straining under the pressure of Christmas shopping, spare a thought for our environment," Don
Henry, the foundation's executive director, said in a statement. "It's paying for our Christmas presents with water, land,
air and resources. These costs are hidden in the products we buy."
The report said that gifts like DVD players and coffee makers
generated 780,000 tons of greenhouse pollution, even before they were unwrapped and used. A third was due to fuel consumption
during production. Even a box of $30 chocolates this Christmas, will consume 44 pounds of natural materials and 207 gallons
of water. "We can all tread more lightly on the earth this Christmas by eating, drinking and giving gifts in moderation, and
by giving gifts with a low environmental cost, such as vouchers for services, tickets to entertainment, memberships to gyms,
museums or sports clubs, and donations to charities," said Henry.
An outbreak of opportunistic mistletoe rustling is threatening
a Christmas kissing crisis, British environmental experts said Wednesday. The Wildlife Trusts said over-harvesting of the
plant that only grows in the wild and is mainly found on old apple trees meant it was becoming increasingly rare.
"Mistletoe is being taken in increasingly large quantities from
orchards, hedgerows and ancient trees to be sold at markets to Christmas shoppers," said The Wildlife Trusts -- a partnership
of 47 British wildlife organizations. "There are cases of mistletoe rustling, and once the whole plant has been removed from
its host tree it won't grow back."
The parasitic green plant with white berries has been associated
with fertility since the time of the ancient Druids and kissing under the mistletoe has long been a Christmas party tradition.
About That Patriot Act
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales traveled to Capitol Hill
on Tuesday to increase pressure on legislators to renew the USA Patriot Act and warned that letting the measure expire would
hurt law enforcement efforts against terrorism.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday
to renew the USA Patriot Act, setting up a showdown with the Senate over the centerpiece of President George W. Bush's war
on terrorism.
On a 251-174 vote, the House approved the measure, with lawmakers
saying it would properly balance civil liberties with the need to bolster national security.
But a group of Democrats and Republicans vowed to oppose the
legislation in the Senate, which is expected to take up the bill in coming days. They charged that despite increased congressional
and judicial oversight, it would still give the government too much power to pry into the lives of Americans, including their
medical, gun and library records.
Today, I am happy to report, the Senate refused to reauthorize
major portions of the Act. The vote of 52 to 47 dealt a huge defeat to the Bush Administration and Republican leaders.
Parts of the Patriot Act, which was swiftly enacted after the
September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States,
will expire on December 31.
In a somewhat related story, U.S.
lawmakers were expressing shock at a New York Times report today that the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping
on telephone calls by people within the United States
without acquiring warrants from a judge. The question now is, who gave the NSA such powers? Is it written in the Patriot Act?
Or was the agency acting outside of the law? Hearings are expected on this matter, probably early next year.
The Evolution Debate
Nearly seven months after
schools in a suburban Atlanta county were forced to peel off
textbook stickers that called evolution a theory, not fact, a federal appeals court is set to consider whether the disclaimers
were unconstitutional.
In January, a federal judge ordered Cobb County,
Georgia, school officials to immediately remove the stickers,
saying they were an endorsement of religion. The ruling was appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will
hear arguments on Thursday.
Advocates on both sides say the appeals court's decision will go a long way toward shaping
a debate between science and religion that has cropped up in various forms around the country.
"If it's unconstitutional
to tell students to study evolution with an open mind, then what's not unconstitutional?" said John West, a senior fellow
with the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that supports intelligent design, the belief that the universe is
so complex it must have been created by a higher power. "The judge is basically trying to make it unconstitutional for anyone
to have a divergent view, and we think that has a chilling effect on free speech."
Opponents of the sticker campaign
see it as a backdoor attempt to introduce the biblical story of creation into the public schools – something the U.S.
Supreme Court disallowed in a 1987 case from Louisiana.
An Israeli Attack On
Iran?
Israel’s
armed forces have been ordered by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret
uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military
sources have revealed. The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in
civilian locations. Israel's army chief said on Tuesday Tehran could start enriching uranium by March 2006 and might be capable of producing nuclear
bombs within three years.
A rising new Bolivian
Socialist leader appears to be Evo Morales, the man who appears to be in the lead in a race for the office of the nation’s
president in next week’s elections. Morales threatens to be “a nightmare for the United
States government” because he is a socialist with strong ties to Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba.
Not only this, but Morales is a coco farmer who promises to reverse a U.S.-backed campaign to stamp out production of the
leaf that is used to make cocaine. The coco also has been chewed for years by the Bolivian people for spiritual reasons.
Earth's north magnetic
pole is drifting away from North America and toward Siberia at such a clip that Alaska
might lose its spectacular Northern Lights in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday. Despite accelerated movement over
the past century, the possibility that Earth's modestly fading magnetic field will collapse is remote. But the shift could
mean Alaska may no longer see the sky lights known as auroras, which might then be more visible
in more southerly areas of Siberia and Europe.
An outbreak
of geysers spewing mud and gas into the air in rural Kingfisher County,
Oklahoma, is puzzling state and local officials. The geysers have appeared throughout
the countryside of rural Kingfisher, with stretches of up to 12 miles between spots, and some as short as a quarter of a mile.
Local Fire Chief John Crawford says the threat of the gas igniting is unlikely, but he says there is a possible danger and
is warning residents to watch for leaks getting in basements.
A Nigerian plane carrying
110 passengers and crew crashed and burst into flames in Port Harcourt
Saturday killing 106. There were four survivors. The plane was carrying 75 secondary school students from a Jesuit college
in Abuja, the Nigerian capital. The plane was traveling from
Abuja to Port Harcourt when
it crashed in bad weather.
At least 30 people died
when firecrackers exploded on a bus carrying guests from a wedding party in Lahore, eastern
Pakistan, Sunday. Police said there were
about 50 people, mostly women and children, on the bus. One report said the bus was engulfed in flames within seconds, trapping
passengers. There was only one exit.
Residents of Hemel Hempstead, England, a northern suburb of London, were shocked out of their beds by a series of massive explosions
that destroyed a major fuel depot. Dozens of people were injured, doors were blown off buildings, windows blasted out of their
frames, light bulbs exploded and walls and ceilings were cracked by the force of the blast that was felt for miles away. Police
said the explosions appeared to be accidental although they occurred just four days after an al-Qaida videotape appeared calling
for attacks on the facilities carrying oil “stolen” from the Middle East. The
fire had all but burned itself out by Tuesday. Black smoke from the fire could be seen as far away as France. The cause of the disaster was still under investigation.
There were no injuries.
A fire
at the largest hospital in the northeastern Chinese city of Liaoyuan
killed 33 people on Thursday, the official news agency reported. A provincial government official said rescuers found 19 bodies
at the scene and 14 other people died after they were transferred to other hospitals for treatment.
In Sidney, Australia,
thousands of young white and Moslem youths clashed in a severe racial riot sparked by reports that youths of Lebanese descent
assaulted two lifeguards on a Sidney beach. The youths went
on a rampage first on the beach and later in various parts of the city, fighting with police and smashing about 40 cars with
sticks and bats. Thirty-one people were injured and 28 arrested. The rioting continued for a second night, spreading to the
nearby city of Cronulla. The rioting and unrest continued
for days.
Some dropped to their knees in prayer, others held candles but
many in the crowd of thousands that gathered to protest the execution on Tuesday of Stanley
“Tookie” Williams simply waited silently for the inevitable. Dozens of police officers lined the road and television
news helicopters hovered above the crowd. Residents stood on their stoops and climbed onto roofs to get a clear view of speakers
that included Jesse Jackson, actor Mike Farrell, former gang members and leaders of the Nation of Islam.
The execution by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison
followed a frenzied but failed effort to reopen the case by supporters of Williams, who repudiated gang life during his 24
years on Death Row. The case has generated widespread interest and fierce debate over the death penalty in the United States.
California's execution of Williams outraged many in Europe who regard the practice as barbaric, and politicians
in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's native Austria
called for his name to be removed from a sports stadium in his hometown. At the Vatican,
Pope Benedict XVI's top official for justice matters denounced the death penalty for going against redemption and human dignity.
The incident may have
intensified racial unrest in the United States.
We may have not heard the last of the Tookie Williams case.
In the last five years,
the FBI has opened more than 300 cases of crime on the high seas. With sexual assault being the most prevalent type of crime
on cruise ships, women and minors appear to be the most vulnerable passengers. Forty-five percent of the FBI cases were sexual
assaults; 22 percent involved physical assaults. Missing-persons cases accounted for 10 percent of the reported crimes. In
75 percent of those cases, a body was never found. The numbers released by the FBI have relatives and lawmakers pointing the
finger at the cruise-ship industry.
On The Lighter Side of
the News:
Researchers
at the Salk Institute in San Diego report the creation of
mice with small amounts of human brain cells for scientific studies involving neurological disorders in humans. About 100,000
human embryonic stem cells were injected per mouse. The mice were born with about 0.1 percent of human cells in their heads,
which the research team assures us that the animals were not “humanized.” They say it illustrates that injecting
human stem cells into animal brains does not restructure the brain. They also are injecting human embryonic stem cells into
monkeys. “It’s true that there is a huge amount of similarity, but the differences are huge,” said researcher
Dr. Evan Snyder. “You will never ever have a little human trapped inside a mouse or monkey’s body.”
Pope Benedict
warned that rampant materialism is polluting the spirit of Christmas. Well, yeah…..?
Police in Derbyshire, England,
are posting cardboard cutouts of a local police officer to help deter crime. The “cardboard copper” is pictured
from the back, wearing a trademark British policeman’s hat, a reflective yellow jacket and with his arms folded. It
looks like the real thing from afar and authorities say it is being used as gasoline stations to deter thieves from driving
off without paying.
Also in the UK, a 91-year-old man staked a 500-pound bet that
he would be dead by the end of the first week in December. Arthur King-Robinson said he placed the bet on at odds of 6 to
1 at the start of the year because his wife would have faced an inheritance tax bill of 3,000 pounds if he died during that
period. He lost the bet because he remained alive, which was both good and bad news we suppose.
A Chinese man who repeatedly broke into the home of a neighbor
he secretly loved, at one point sneaking out with a bra and some photos, has been let off the hook by a Chinese court. Police
caught him red-handed in November walking out of the neighbor's apartment with a key to her door, a bra, two photographs and
her MP3 player. But the court in Harbin, capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province, dismissed harassment charges against the burglar. It heard that on
the times he entered the woman's apartment while she was out, he had washed her dishes, done her laundry, left her snacks
and even fixed her computer.
A hazardous slick of broken eggs caused traffic chaos in rural
Ireland Thursday after a truck carrying
thousands of broody hens lost its load. "Chickens have begun to lay eggs on the roads and the conditions are quite treacherous
at the moment, very slippy," AA Roadwatch said on its traffic advice line, warning up to 7,000 chickens were on the loose.
Then there is the guy in San
Francisco who has invented . . . or re-invented the bidet, a toilet designed to wash your behind with
a spray of warm water so toilet paper is not necessary. The top of the line comes with heated seats and a warm-air dryer.
He calls it a Swash and it retails for $429 to $529. Bottom washing toilets have been known in Europe, but they never caught
on in the US. Until recently, that is.
And that is the news for another week from the Luciferians.
Tune in each week at this same time for the Luciferian News Hour.
And don’t forget to listen every Sunday evening to Psychic
and Prophet Aaron C. Donahue and his Psychic sister, Jennifer Sharpe during the Voice of Lucifer.
Thanks for listening.