(AFP) – Weather-related catastrophes brought about by climate change are increasing, the top UN humanitarian official said Sunday as he warned of the possibility of “mega-disasters”.

John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, said one of the biggest challenges facing the aid community was the problems stemming from changing weather patterns.

“When it comes meteorological disasters, weather-related disasters, then there is a trend upwards connected with climate change,” Holmes, who is in Australia for high-level talks on humanitarian aid, told AFP.

“The trend is there is terms of floods, and cyclones, and droughts.”

Holmes, who is the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, said it had been a tough year due to January’s devastating earthquake in Haiti, which killed more than 250,000 people. Full article here

(C4L) – The spotlight remains on the Greek sovereign debt crisis as the riots continue. The terms of the Greek bailout from the IMF and Eurozone countries remain contentious with citizens on all sides. Europeans hate having their governments throw public money away as much as Americans do. The Greeks are not happy about having their taxes raised while their pensions and salaries are cut. Meanwhile, it is rumored by the Financial Times, AFP and others that Greece may spend more than it saves from austerity measures on arms deals with Germany, France and the US as a potential condition of receiving bailout funds. If true, it is certainly not unprecedented for the global military industrial complex to benefit from deals made by their friends in the central banking community. After all, war is the health of the state. The last thing big government proponents want is for peace to break out in the world. Read the rest of this entry »

(AmericanFreePress) – If, God forbid, Americans are ever rounded up in large numbers during a natural or manmade disaster, where could they be detained? Well, perhaps look no further than the school building next door, the office building around the corner or the stadium downtown. And besides existing military installations, state fair grounds, horse stables, airports “and maybe even a hotel” also could be used as detention centers. Read the rest of this entry »

(AmericanFreePress) – If, God forbid, Americans are ever rounded up in large numbers during a natural or manmade disaster, where could they be detained? Well, perhaps look no further than the school building next door, the office building around the corner or the stadium downtown. And besides existing military installations, state fair grounds, horse stables, airports “and maybe even a hotel” also could be used as detention centers. Read the rest of this entry »

(AFP) – France used soldiers as guinea pigs in nuclear tests in the 1960s, deliberately exposing them to radiation from atomic blasts to test the effects, according to a report revealed on Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry »

(AP) – A bomb attack killed a US service member in Afghanistan, NATO said Sunday, doubling the number of American soldiers killed in the country this year compared with 2008, according to an AFP tally. Read the rest of this entry »

(BBC) – France’s highest court has ruled that US agrochemical giant Monsanto had not told the truth about the safety of its best-selling weed-killer, Roundup. Read the rest of this entry »

(BBC) – France’s highest court has ruled that US agrochemical giant Monsanto had not told the truth about the safety of its best-selling weed-killer, Roundup. Read the rest of this entry »

Bilderberg has had front-men call anew for creating a global currency and establishing major European Union-style regions for the administrative convenience of a planned world government. Read the rest of this entry »

The Federal Government has unveiled plans to toughen its counter-terrorism laws, including a change to allow police to break into a suspect’s home without getting approval from a judge. Read the rest of this entry »

Dprogram.net’s complete coverage of the Iranian elections regarding U.s. involvement/propaganda – June 2009 Read the rest of this entry »

(AFP) – Amnesty International on Thursday accused Israeli forces of war crimes, saying they used children as human shields and conducted wanton attacks on civilians during their offensive in the Gaza Strip. Read the rest of this entry »

(AFP) — The son of the late shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, was Monday carrying in his breastpocket a photograph of the slain protester known as Neda said to have been killed in the Tehran protests. Read the rest of this entry »

(AFP) — The son of the late shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, was Monday carrying in his breastpocket a photograph of the slain protester known as Neda said to have been killed in the Tehran protests. Read the rest of this entry »

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election victory is disbelieved by hundreds of thousands of Iranians who have poured onto Tehran’s streets in protest, but experts say hard evidence of vote rigging is elusive. Read the rest of this entry »

See also: Lights turned off on media after elections: The AFP news agency reported that Iran’s wireless telephone network was shut down at 5:30pm GMT (10:00pm in Tehran), just as incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was making a television appearance to congratulate himself on a “great victory”. Read the rest of this entry »

(AFP) -Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across France Friday in May Day marches in a fresh show of force against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s handling of the economic crisis. Read the rest of this entry »

As swine flu continues to take its toll, claims surface that the deadly four-part flu virus could have been created for “bio-terror attacks.” Read the rest of this entry »

Attorneys seek to charge top officials, accuse Israel of ‘massive terror attacks’ in Gaza Read the rest of this entry »

Tel Aviv has reintroduced the idea of attacking Iran in the wake of a deadly military offensive in Gaza, which claimed over 1300 lives.

In a Saturday night meeting with Quartet envoy Tony Blair, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak claimed that Iran’s nuclear program threaten the stability of the region. Read the rest of this entry »