UK-MORE than 1,000 atom bomb test veterans claiming hundreds of millions in compensation from the Ministry of Defence will discover the fate of a government bid to derail their claims on Friday.

A widow from north Hampshire, whose husband died from "unusual cancers", is among those taking part in the High Court battle against the MoD.

Edna Ellis’s husband Stuart was a scientist aboard HMS Diana, which travelled to the South Pacific in 1956 to monitor atomic testing.

Despite leading a healthy lifestyle, he died in 1989 at the age of 63, with a consultant surgeon describing his cancer as the "the most unusual presentation" he had ever encountered.

ROB GILLIES,

KINGSTON, Ontario (AP) — A top Cuban official on Thursday said Cuba is willing to discuss everything with the Obama administration, but it won't give up its form of government in talks to improve relations.

The director of Cuba's Foreign Ministry's North American Department said Cuba won't negotiate sovereignty or its political and social system. She said dialogue should occur without preconditions.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US spy agencies are still hamstrung by the same turf battles and financial mismanagement that led to massive intelligence failures revealed by the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq war, an internal report has found.

The report, made public on Wednesday, was the most detailed of its kind on challenges facing the 16 spy agencies.

"In a way the creation of the ODNI was a little bit like, sort of like a corporate merger. When you do that, many, many mergers fail."

How the C.I.A. and Italian Mafia Worked to Overthrow Democracy

Assasination, International Intrique, Lies, and Deception feed the Secret Government

Though many Latin American governments have practiced the dark arts of "disappearances" and "death squads," the history of Guatemala's security operations is perhaps the best documented because the Clinton administration declassified scores of the secret U.S. documents in the late 1990s.

The original Guatemalan death squads took shape in the mid-1960s under anti-terrorist training provided by a U.S. public safety adviser named John Longon, according to the documents. In January 1966, Longon reported to his superiors about both overt and covert components of his anti-terrorist strategies.

On the covert side, Longon pressed for "a safe house [to] be immediately set up" for coordination of security intelligence.  "A room was immediately prepared in the [Presidential] Palace for this purpose and Guatemalans were immediately designated to put this operation into effect," according to Longon's report.

President Kennedy imposed an economic and trade embargo on Cuba on 7 February 1962 after Fidel Castro's government expropriated US property on the island. Known by Cubans as el bloqueo, the blockade, elements have been toughened and relaxed under succeeding US presidents. Exceptions have been made for food and medicine exports. George Bush added restrictions on travel and remittancesUS companies are queuing up as the president moves to ease restrictions on travel and trade, raising hopes of warmer relations and an end to the embargo

STORIES OF COLLABORATION AS A POW

A RECORD OF SUPPORTING COMMUNIST VIETNAM AND WORKING AGAINST MIA/POW RECOVERY EFFORTS

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER

We have all read the stories about McCains temper and his attacks on the families of other POWs.  We have all read about his votes against Veterans.  We all know of his trips to Vietnam, his meetings with the Communists, the hugging, his apologies, his confessions.  We all know he has supported Communist Vietnam as their chief lobbyist and friend in the US for decades.  Investors Business Daily states about McCain: "To establish normal trade relations with the Vietnamese, McCain put aside the past and forgave those who tortured him as a prisoner of war. He then faced down the wrath of his own party in the era of Rambo, when many believed Vietnam was still holding POWs."  Were his motives free trade or something much darker?

Many of us have read the stories in the US Veterans Dispatch, the Conservative journal that supported Swift Boat attack on Kerry.  These sources claim McCain may actually be a Communist spy.    Claims from other POWs and reports by McCain himself along with information out of Russia may indicate he was interviewed by the KGB and possibly subjected to "brainwashing" techniques.

The possible result:  McCain may still be a "sleeper agent" of Russia, which could give them control of the President of the United States.

Is this possible?  Maybe.  McCain was certainly interviewed alot by communists from Cuba, Spain and France and was filmed by them as a POW.  McCain also spent time in a Russian military hospital in Vietnam, something we know of no other POW doing.  Rumors that McCain actually went to Russia while a POW are not proven, however.  All we have is years of erratic behavior, years of voting to support Communist Vietnam and many reports, some verified, some not, claiming McCain was a collaborator and may actually be a Russian spy.

Veterans of Cold War experiments cannot get help, recognition from DOD or the Army
by Michael Bailey 

Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirmed what many veterans have known: that the Department of Defense (DOD) stopped trying to find those who participated in the military’s chemical and biological experiments.  In 2003, they gave up and have no plan to continue.

Between 1953 and 1975, thousands of soldiers – on ships, on the ground, and in the air – participated in Operation SHAD, also known as Project 112.  Edgewood Arsenal's chemical weapon and drug tests and Fort Detrick’s Biological Weapon tests exposed volunteers to many different drugs such as LSD and PCP, and other toxins. Most programs never conducted follow-up medical studies.

I am in contact with fifteen other "test vets" or "med vols," and to a man we cannot get recognition from DOD or the Army. Many have attempted to get the promised awards, medals and certificates of appreciation, without success. Some veterans say they were promised the Soldier's Medal, awarded to peacetime soldiers who risk their lives to save others...

Use Disability as excuse 2-09-08

Written by Peter Macdonald 465 Packersfalls rd Lee NH 03824 603-659-6217 NH.red.sox@gmail.com

It would be easy for me to claim that my disabilities were the cause of my problems. I do have a TBI Traumatic Brain Injury. I remember nothing before my 17 birthday. I have problems reading and writing. I slip in and out of reality at any moment with out warning. Some things I remember, others I forget with in seconds. I have a broken back which limits my ability to do things. I have a loss of hearing in both ears from being blown of the runway more than once. The percentage of each disability when added together is 120%. I received two of the three injuries during separate combat support missions during the Vietnam Conflict. I am a U.S. Marine.

Paul Newell wrote a note describing our responsibilities to our country. Paul is a Canadian citizen. I appreciate Paul’s letter and I wish many more people would write and tell the news media, publishers and editors that I stand for a cause, a very important cause that is and will devastate every United States citizen if not corrected. Freedom of speech and the manner in which the U.S. treats returning Veterans is appalling. What I write is the truth and I have lived through what I talk about.

Dedicated to Those  in Denial

World War III Started the Day The Berlin Wall Came Down

by E Paul Newell

World War III started without you. You didn’t notice. Why?  Because your head was up you’re a**. Let’s get down to brass tacks. WWIII started the day the Berlin Wall came down.

Why then because up to that point the wall acted as a check and balance. It gave good reasons not to fight. We didn’t need to because we had a fence. A line in the sand if you will. You do what you do on your side of the fence and we’ll do what we do on our side. So it was a safety net. With each side peering in on the others business, using rhetoric, and saber rattling as communication to tell the rest of the world what was happening. All along building coalition on both sides.

Cold War Veterans fight uphill battle to receive medal they earned
by Roxana Tiron 

Anyone willing to spend $24.95 can go online and buy a medal commemorating service in the Cold War, even people who didn’t actually serve.

For a group of real veterans, though, getting Congress to approve an actual award has been an uphill fight.

Cold War veterans and their supporters have spent the last eight years lobbying Congress to authorize a medal that can be worn on a military uniform. One big obstacle to their campaign has been the Pentagon.

Defense planners, while routinely requesting billions of dollars for V-22s, C-17s and the Future Combat Systems, have blanched at the cost of awarding medals to the approximately 24 million Americans who served in the armed forces from Sept. 2, 1945, to Dec. 26, 1991.

The Pentagon argues that making and distributing each medal would cost $10, raising the total potential costs of a Cold War medal to a not-insignificant $240 million...

Secret documents provide new details about how the CIA illegally spied on Americans decades ago
by Mark Mazzetti and Tim Weiner 

Left, Richard Helms with President Richard M. Nixon at the White House in 1973.  

WASHINGTON— Long-secret documents released Tuesday provide new details about how the Central Intelligence Agency illegally spied on Americans decades ago, including trying to bug a Las Vegas hotel room for evidence of infidelity and tracking down an expert lock-picker for a Watergate conspirator.

Known inside the agency as the “family jewels,” the 702 pages of documents released Tuesday catalog domestic wiretapping operations, failed assassination plots, mind-control experiments and spying on journalists from the early years of the C.I.A.

The papers provide evidence of paranoia and occasional incompetence as the agency began a string of illegal spying operations in the 1960s and 1970s, often to hunt links between Communist governments and the domestic protests that roiled the nation in that period...