November 13th, 2014 • 2h 58m

669: Strategic Patience

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TODAY

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Gerry Small Canon SX80 Projector for Ms Micky!

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Gene at nekkid shoot!

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John Cook also leaves intercept

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Notice - Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Iran

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Archived Version

Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 22:41

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

November 12, 2014

NOTICE

- - - - - - -

CONTINUATION OF THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY WITH RESPECT TO IRAN

On November 14, 1979, by Executive Order 12170, the President declared a national emergency with respect to Iran and, pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706), took related steps to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the situation in Iran. Because our relations with Iran have not yet returned to normal, and the process of implementing the agreements with Iran, dated January 19, 1981, is still under way, the national emergency declared on November 14, 1979, must continue in effect beyond November 14, 2014. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency with respect to Iran declared in Executive Order 12170. This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.

BARACK OBAMA

Letter - Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Iran

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Archived Version

Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 22:40

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

November 12, 2014

TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:

Section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless, within 90 days prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the President publishes in the FederalRegister and transmits to the Congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. In accordance with this provision, I have sent to the Federal Register for publication the enclosed notice stating that the national emergency with respect to Iran that was declared in Executive Order 12170 of November 14, 1979, is to continue in effect beyond November 14, 2014.

Because our relations with Iran have not yet returned to normal, and the process of implementing the agreements with Iran, dated January 19, 1981, is still under way, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared in Executive Order 12170 with respect to Iran.

BARACK OBAMA

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Smith Mundt Act - A reminder that you are living in a Smith-Mudt Act repealed media landscape

NDAA and Overturning of Smith-Mundt Act

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA) allows for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders and strikes down a long-time ban on the dissemination of such material in the country.[14][15][16]

Propaganda in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Archived Version

Sun, 21 Sep 2014 15:00

Propaganda in the United States is propaganda spread by government and media entities within the United States. Propaganda is information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to influence opinions. Propaganda is not only in advertising; it is also in radio, newspaper, posters, books, and anything else that might be sent out to the widespread public.

Domestic[edit]World War I[edit]The first large-scale use of propaganda by the U.S. government came during World War I. The government enlisted the help of citizens and children to help promote war bonds and stamps to help stimulate the economy. To keep the prices of war supplies down, the U.S. government produced posters that encouraged people to reduce waste and grow their own vegetables in "victory gardens." The public skepticism that was generated by the heavy-handed tactics of the Committee on Public Information would lead the postwar government to officially abandon the use of propaganda.[1]

World War II[edit]During World War II the U.S. officially had no propaganda, but the Roosevelt government used means to circumvent this official line. One such propaganda tool was the publicly owned but government funded Writers' War Board (WWB). The activities of the WWB were so extensive that it has been called the "greatest propaganda machine in history".[1]Why We Fight is a famous series of US government propaganda films made to justify US involvement in World War II.

In 1944 (lasting until 1948) prominent US policy makers launched a domestic propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the U.S. public to agree to a harsh peace for the German people, for example by removing the common view of the German people and the Nazi party as separate entities.[2] The core in this campaign was the Writers' War Board which was closely associated with the Roosevelt administration.[2]

Another means was the United States Office of War Information that Roosevelt established in June 1942, whose mandate was to promote understanding of the war policies under the director Elmer Davies. It dealt with posters, press, movies, exhibitions, and produced often slanted material conforming to US wartime purposes. Other large and influential non-governmental organizations during the war and immediate post war period were the Society for the Prevention of World War III and the Council on Books in Wartime.

Cold War[edit]During the Cold War, the U.S. government produced vast amounts of propaganda against communism and the Soviet bloc. Much of this propaganda was directed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover, who himself wrote the anti-communist tract Masters of Deceit. The FBI's COINTELPRO arm solicited journalists to produce fake news items discrediting communists and affiliated groups, such as H. Bruce Franklin and the Venceremos Organization.

War on Drugs[edit]The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, originally established by the National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988,[3][4] but now conducted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy under the Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998,[5] is a domestic propaganda campaign designed to "influence the attitudes of the public and the news media with respect to drug abuse" and for "reducing and preventing drug abuse among young people in the United States".[6][7] The Media Campaign cooperates with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other government and non-government organizations.[8]

Iraq War[edit]In early 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense launched an information operation, colloquially referred to as the Pentagon military analyst program.[9] The goal of the operation is "to spread the administrations's talking points on Iraq by briefing ... retired commanders for network and cable television appearances," where they have been presented as independent analysts.[10] On 22 May 2008, after this program was revealed in the New York Times, the House passed an amendment that would make permanent a domestic propaganda ban that until now has been enacted annually in the military authorization bill.[11]

The Shared values initiative was a public relations campaign that was intended to sell a "new" America to Muslims around the world by showing that American Muslims were living happily and freely, without persecution, in post-9/11 America.[12] Funded by the United States Department of State, the campaign created a public relations front group known as Council of American Muslims for Understanding (CAMU). The campaign was divided in phases; the first of which consisted of five mini-documentaries for television, radio, and print with shared values messages for key Muslim countries.[13]

NDAA and Overturning of Smith-Mundt Act[edit]The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA) allows for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders and strikes down a long-time ban on the dissemination of such material in the country.[14][15][16]

Ad Council[edit]The Ad Council, an American non-profit organization that distributes public service announcements on behalf of various private and federal government agency sponsors, has been labeled as "little more than a domestic propaganda arm of the federal government" given the Ad Council's historically close collaboration with the President of the United States and the federal government.[17]

International[edit]Through several international broadcasting operations, the US disseminates American cultural information, official positions on international affairs, and daily summaries of international news. These operations fall under the International Broadcasting Bureau, the successor of the United States Information Agency, established in 1953. IBB's operations include Voice of America, Radio Liberty, Alhurra and other programs. They broadcast mainly to countries where the United States finds that information about international events is limited, either due to poor infrastructure or government censorship. The Smith-Mundt Act prohibits the Voice of America from disseminating information to US citizens that was produced specifically for a foreign audience.

During the Cold War the US ran covert propaganda campaigns in countries that appeared likely to become Soviet satellites, such as Italy, Afghanistan, and Chile.

Recently The Pentagon announced the creation of a new unit aimed at spreading propaganda about supposedly "inaccurate" stories being spread about the Iraq War. These "inaccuracies" have been blamed on the enemy trying to decrease support for the war. Donald Rumsfeld has been quoted as saying these stories are something that keeps him up at night.[18]

Psychological operations[edit]The US military defines psychological operations, or PSYOP, as:

planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.[19]

The Smith-Mundt Act, adopted in 1948, explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at the US public.[20][21][22] Nevertheless, the current easy access to news and information from around the globe, makes it difficult to guarantee PSYOP programs do not reach the US public. Or, in the words of Army Col. James A. Treadwell, who commanded the U.S. military psyops unit in Iraq in 2003, in the Washington Post:

There's always going to be a certain amount of bleed-over with the global information environment.[23]

Agence France Presse reported on U.S. propaganda campaigns that:

The Pentagon acknowledged in a newly declassified document that the US public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations.[24]

Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the document referred to, which is titled "Information Operations Roadmap." [22][24] The document acknowledges the Smith-Mundt Act, but fails to offer any way of limiting the effect PSYOP programs have on domestic audiences.[20][21][25]

Several incidents in 2003 were documented by Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, which he saw as information-warfare campaigns that were intended for "foreign populations and the American public." Truth from These Podia,[26] as the treatise was called, reported that the way the Iraq war was fought resembled a political campaign, stressing the message instead of the truth.[22]

See also[edit]References[edit]^ abThomas Howell, The Writers' War Board: U.S. Domestic Propaganda in World War II, Historian, Volume 59 Issue 4, Pages 795 - 813^ abSteven Casey, (2005), The Campaign to sell a harsh peace for Germany to the American public, 1944 - 1948, [online]. London: LSE Research Online. [Available online at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/archive/00000736] Originally published in History, 90 (297). pp. 62-92 (2005) Blackwell Publishing^National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988 of the Anti''Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Pub.L. 100''690, 102 Stat. 4181, enacted November 18, 1988^Gamboa, Anthony H. (January 4, 2005), B-303495, Office of National Drug Control Policy '-- Video News Release, Government Accountability Office, footnote 6, page 3 ^Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998 (Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999), Pub.L. 105''277, 112 Stat. 268, enacted October 21, 1998^Gamboa, Anthony H. (January 4, 2005), B-303495, Office of National Drug Control Policy '-- Video News Release, Government Accountability Office, pp. 9''10 ^Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998 of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, Pub.L. 105''277, 112 Stat. 268, enacted October 21, 1998^Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2006, Pub.L. 109''469, 120 Stat. 3501, enacted December 29, 2006, codified at 21 U.S.C. § 1708^Barstow, David (2008-04-20). "Message Machine: Behind Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand". New York Times. ^Sessions, David (2008-04-20). "Onward T.V. Soldiers: The New York Times exposes a multi-armed Pentagon message machine". Slate. ^Barstow, David (2008-05-24). "2 Inquiries Set on Pentagon Publicity Effort". New York Times. ^Rampton, Sheldon (October 17, 2007). "Shared Values Revisited". Center for Media and Democracy. ^"U.S. Reaches Out to Muslim World with Shared Values Initiative". America.gov. January 16, 2003.

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Ebola

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FB & Google soliciting donations

Google doubling donations

Board of Directors | Network for Good

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Archived Version

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 20:36

The following individuals comprise the Board of Directors for the Network for Good Donor Advised Fund:

The following individuals comprise the Board of Directors for Network for Good, Inc.:

Board of Directors for the Network for Good Donor Advised Fund:

Scott CaseCo-Founder & CEO, Main Street GenomeFounding CEO, Startup America PartnershipChairman of Network for Good

Timothy "Scott" Case is a technologist, entrepreneur and inventor and was founding CTO of Priceline, the "Name Your Own Price" company that was one of only a handful of startups in US history to reach a billion dollars in annual sales in less than 24 months. As Chief Technology Officer, he was responsible for building the technology that enabled Priceline's hyper-growth.

Most recently, Scott co-founded Main Street Genome, a startup focused on developing a software representation of the entire Main Street Economy.

In 2011, Scott was named founding CEO of the Startup America Partnership, and now serves on the board of Up Global where he invests his energy to support high-growth startup communities in the U.S. and around the world.

Prior to joining the Startup America Partnership, Scott served as CEO of Malaria No More, where he worked to inspire individuals and institutions in the private sector to end deaths caused by malaria. Previously, Scott helped build a portfolio of intellectual property at the Walker Digital and is a named inventor on dozens of U.S. patents including the underlying portfolio for Priceline. Scott also co-founded Precision Training Software, a software company that developed the world's first PC-based simulated flight instructor and photo-realistic flight simulator.

Louise FeltonVP, Global Brand Management, Creative, & Marketing Communications, McAfee (part of Intel Security)

Louise joined McAfee in 2013 to lead the global brand management, creative, and marketing communications teams, with a specific focus on developing the brand strategy, messaging, creative, and digital marketing efforts for the company. Prior to McAfee, Louise spent nearly four years at Yahoo, leading the global brand management team, with responsibilities including brand strategy and messaging, brand creative expression, portfolio strategy, and corporate social responsibility strategy and execution.

Prior to joining Yahoo, Louise spent 20 years working at leading advertising agencies on some of the strongest consumer goods, consumer services, and financial brands in the U.S. Her experience includes positioning regional brands for national strength, building national brands into category powerhouses, and repositioning old, tired brands to compete in today's competitive environment.

Louise's work with not-for-profits includes board positions with Family Caregiver Alliance and the San Francisco YMCA. She is also passionately involved with her children's schools and has volunteered in such diverse capacities as reading to terminally ill children in San Francisco hospitals and teaching orphaned, beached 300-pound elephant seals how to survive and thrive in the wild.

Alisa GravitzExecutive Director, Green America (formerly Co-op America)

A nationally recognized leader in social and environmental responsibility, Alisa Gravitz is currently the executive director of Green America, a nonprofit investor and consumer education organization. She manages programs galvanizing a consumer-citizen force of more than one million people to urge corporations to improve their social and environmental responsibility. She also co-authored Green America's guide to social investing. Alisa is also vice president of the Social Investment Forum, a national nonprofit investment industry association. Previously, Alisa worked in the Carter Administration on energy policy. She sits on the board of directors for the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics (CERES), the Social Venture Network, and the Positive Futures Network.

Alisa is the 1995 recipient of the Social Responsibility Investing Services Award and was recently named by Green Business Letter as one of the most important people who are changing the way companies think about the environment. She earned an MBA from Harvard and her bachelor's degree in economics and environmental sciences from Brandeis University.

Danica RemyManaging Director, Tides

Danica Remy has been with Tides since 2003 and serves as Managing Director, previously overseeing the operations and governance functions across Tides Network which includes Tides Foundation, Tides Center and Tides Shared Spaces. Since 2008 she has been leading Tides Advocacy Fund.

Previous to Tides, she served as an executive at several organizations including Vice President of Operations for Organic, an internet strategy firm; Vice President leading investments, acquisitions and IT operations for Knowledge Universe, a $3 billion global education company; and Vice President of Engineering for Inquisit, a business intelligence service.

Additionally, Danica was Vice President for The WELL the pioneering online service and co-founder of Global Business Network. Danica serves as an officer at Tides and currently serves on the board of directors as President for Point, publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog, Chair for Greenwood School as well as is a director for Network for Good.

Brian SasscerSenior VP, Strategic Operations, Case Foundation

For more than 20 years, Brian has worked in the private and not-for-profit sectors pioneering innovations in interactive online technologies. In 2005 Brian joined the Case Foundation to spearhead national cause-related campaigns -- applying his expertise in cutting edge technology and social media to the non-profit space. As Senior Vice President of Strategic Operations, he works with the senior management team and foundation principles to shape the overall direction and mission of one of the most innovative philanthropic organizations in the country. As part of his responsibilities, Brian oversees operations, interactive strategies and development of organization initiatives. Brian has helped to spearhead some of the country's most impactful online campaigns '' generating millions of dollars for charitable programs and inspiring hundreds thousands of people to leverage technology to make a difference. Brian's passion for his job is fueled by his desire to leverage new technologies and business strategies for social change on a local, regional, national and global level. An early online pioneer, he started his career in the late 1980's working for AOL '' America Online. As one of the company's early employees, Brian joined the small startup that would become a corporate icon. For more than a decade, Brian and his colleagues helped create a groundbreaking technology platform that allowed people for the first time ever to interact with one another and companies on the internet. As Executive Producer of E-Commerce for AOL, Brian oversaw the design, development and deployment of hundreds of E-commerce initiatives as well strategic advertising partnerships. As an expert in online giving platforms and the utilization of "tech for good", Brian serves on the board of directors and as treasurer for Network for Good, an organization which has processed more than $1 billion in online donations for over 100,000 nonprofits.

Maureen SullivanSVP of Corporate Communications and Marketing, AOL

As Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Marketing, Maureen Sullivan is one of the key strategists at AOL, overseeing global brand development and the company's marketing and corporate communication initiatives. Sullivan serves as head of the AOL Brand and is a member of AOL's executive management team.

In this role, she has successfully led the global re-branding of AOL as well as defining AOL's brand strategy and brand portfolio. She oversees all creative elements of the AOL Brand, including the AOL brand identity and AOL Artists program. Sullivan also manages brand positioning, architecture, and AOL's internal brand research capabilities. Sullivan oversees corporate marketing initiatives and media investments, including sponsorships and brand partnerships.

Prior to AOL, Sullivan served as Chief of Staff for Tim Armstrong at Google, where she managed partnership development, and business planning. Sullivan also served as an external liaison to valued advertising customers and partners. She worked across Google's product and engineering organizations to drive business development and new initiatives as well as managed communication strategies for key customers and partners.

Previously, Sullivan was an Agency Sales Representative at Google, developing relationships with agency partners. In addition to her roles in the sales organization, she began her tenure at Google as an Associate within the Google New York Engineering organization.

Sullivan graduated magna cum laude from Stanford University where she was selected as a participant for the Stanford Business Leadership Program hosted by the Stanford Business School. She also serves on the board of the non-profit, Network For Good, an organization committed to unleashing generosity by providing a scaled digital platform for charities around the world to empower giving.

Tien TzuoChief Executive Officer, Zuora, Inc.

Tien Tzuo joined Zuora after 9 years at salesforce.com. Tien was one of the ''original forces'' at salesforce.com, which he joined in 1999 as the 11th employee, when the company was still operating out of a house on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. In his 9 years at salesforce.com, Tien has held a variety of executive roles in salesforce.com's technology, marketing and strategy organizations, including building out the product management & marketing organization, serving as Chief Marketing Officer for two years and most recently as Chief Strategy Officer.

Tien personally oversaw the vision, direction, and design of the first 17 release of Salesforce.com's award winning product line, including overseeing the launch of Salesforce and the AppExchange. In 2004, Tzuo was named CMO of the Year Finalist by the CMO Council and BusinessWeek Magazine. Tien is also widely recognized as one of the thought leaders in the software-as-a-service industry. His podcast on the Secrets of Salesforce is widely cited and has been downloaded over 250,000 times since it was first published.

Prior to salesforce.com, Tien was at CrossWorlds Software, where he spearheaded CrossWorlds product, marketing and sales push into the Telecommunications vertical worldwide, and at Oracle Corporation in a variety of sales and professional services roles. Mr. Tzuo holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University and a master's in business administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Mike YutrzenkaSenior Director, Corporate Affairs, Cisco Systems, Inc.

Michael Yutrzenka is a Senior Director in Corporate Affairs, responsible for managing a team across the APAC region, US, and Canada. His team oversees program execution, stakeholder engagement, and field CSR/business interface for the Cisco Networking Academy and other CSR investments, while developing strategy and execution plans with government agencies, NGOs and other global partners. With nineteen years experience at Cisco in a variety of roles, Michael brings a broad understanding of Cisco and the community. He joined Cisco's Corporate Affairs team in June 2000 to lead the effort to help the nonprofit sector leverage Internet technology and build collaborative partnerships. In this role he has led several programs and initiatives including the Community Fellowship Program, Leadership Fellows Program, Philanthropy Employee Engagement, Matching Gifts, Volunteerism Initiatives, and Product and Cash Grant Programs. He was appointed Executive Director of the Cisco Foundation and served from 2003 -2010. Michael currently serves on the executive committee of the board of directors for Network for Good and Catholic Charities of Santa Clara Country. He has also served on the American Red Cross Corporate Advisory Council, the Conference Board Corporate Contributions Council, and the Mind Research Institute National Advisory Committee. Michael's 25+ years of international experience in business and program leadership includes roles in business development, acquisition integration, channel partnerships, strategic account management, systems analysis, software engineering, sales, and management. Michael earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of North Dakota. When not at work or in the community, he enjoys biking, skiing, swimming and hiking with his wife and three daughters.

Board of Directors for Network for Good, Inc.:

Scott CaseCo-Founder & CEO, Main Street GenomeFounding CEO, Startup America Partnership

Most recently, Scott co-founded Main Street Genome, a startup focused on developing a software representation of the entire Main Street Economy.

Bill StrathmannCEO, Network for Good

Bill Strathmann is Network for Good's CEO and is a member of its Board of Directors. He is a social entrepreneur, who throughout his career has traversed sectors, bringing good business practices to corporations and nonprofits alike. Bill came to Network for Good from BearingPoint, where he provided strategic planning and mergers and acquisitions consulting to corporations and nonprofit organizations across the nation. With Andersen Business Consulting, he developed and led a consulting practice serving large nonprofits including the Nature Conservancy, National Geographic Society, National Association of Home Builders, and the United Way.

Throughout his career, Bill has been an influential speaker on the topics of philanthropy, the role of technology in fundraising, corporate social responsibility, strategic planning, performance management and mergers and acquisitions. Bill is a co-author featured in the book, People to People Fundraising - How Individuals and Nonprofits can Leverage the Internet for Great Causes. He has a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Haverford College and a master's degree in business administration from the Darden School at the University of Virginia. Bill serves in advisory roles for the Nonprofit Congress, Independent Sector and the Social Enterprise Alliance, and he also serves on the boards of The Anacostia Watershed Society and The Shohola Scholarship Fund.

Vince TalbertChairman, Board of Directors at Network for Good

Vince is an investor, advisor and educator in the Baltimore philanthropic and education community supporting efforts to transform public education. He has 25 years of marketing, Internet and credit card experience. Vince is currently the chairman of the board for Network for Good. Vince joined Network for Good after the acquisition of GiveCorps where he was CEO. Prior to GiveCorps, he was a VP at PayPal. He joined PayPal through the $1 billion acquisition of Bill Me Later, Inc. in which he was a founder and led marketing. Prior to Bill Me Later, he led Internet Marketing for First USA where he was named IAB's 1999 "Marketer of the Year". He started his career at Citibank. Vince earned his MBA at the UVA and his BS at Towson University.

Tien TzuoChief Executive Officer, Zuora, Inc.

David WarnockManaging Partner, Camden

David is Senior Partner with Camden Partners and co-founded the firm in 1995. He has over 25 years of investment experience and focuses on investments in the business and education sectors. He serves as Chairman of New Horizons Worldwide, Inc. and Calvert Education Services, LLC. In addition, he is a director of National American University, Primo Water Corporation, Questar Assessment, Inc., Triumph Higher Education Group, Networks For Good, and Ranir, LLC. He formerly served on the board of American Public Education, Inc., Nobel Learning Communities, Inc. and, Towne Park, Ltd., all of which are Camden Partners portfolio companies.

David was employed by T. Rowe Price Associates from 1983-1995. He served as President of T. Rowe Price Strategic Partners I & II as well as co-manager of the T. Rowe Price New Horizons Fund. David started his career at Welch and Forbes, Boston-based private trustees.

David is also involved with numerous non-profit organizations. He is the Chairman of the Center for Urban Families as well as the Warnock Foundation. He is Founder and Trustee of the Green Street Academy in Baltimore City. He also serves on the board of the Greater Baltimore Committee and is a trustee of the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

David earned a B.A. degree from the University of Delaware and a M.S. (in Finance) from the University of Wisconsin. David is also a Chartered Financial Analyst Charterholder.

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FEMA's ''Pandemic Influenza Wave 1 Full Scale Exercise'' scheduled for November 13th | The Daily Unconstitutional

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Archived Version

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 23:07

Is an Ebola false flag event be about to unfold?FEMA's own website says ''yes'' '' but they are calling it a ''training exercise'' -unless they should decide to create another fake emergency for the media to broadcast, in which case it will become another false flag event.

Federal agency orchestrated ''drills'', also called ''training exercises'' in federal agency lingo, have been connected with every recent major American news event that has had anything to do with possible endangerment to public safety.

What's really motivating and driving the actions of the DHS, FEMA, FBI, CIA, and a host of other agencies who claim to be working for our public safety?

Who is the SIFMA?The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) recently published this recap of the event sequence of a training exercise apparently designed to prepare federal agencies for response in case of the development of an Ebola pandemic. According to this document, the program is currently scheduled to begin taking place in the next few days.

Did you get that title, Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association? According to SIFMA's website, the group ''represents hundreds of securities firms, banks, and asset managers.'' That sounds reasonable '' an investment information group.

What could a professional group which manages investments and securities have to do with FEMA emergency pandemic exercises? When you donate a dollar to help find a cure for Ebola, where is your dollar going?

I don't have any answers, but I do know that there appears to be a connection. I'm just asking some questions.This page detailing the planned Ebola pandemic training drill,

http://www.sifma.org/uploadedfiles/services/bcp/pandemic-final-ttx-presentation4-5-13.pdf?n=52619

appears on the SIFMA website. One of the contacts on this FEMA document is a man named Karl Schimmick, a CEO of the SIFMA.

An overview of the pandemic training exercise and schedule is also found there. http://www.sifma.org/services/bcp/fema-pandemic-exercise-series/.

DHS training drills and major news event history in the United StatesNumerous federally conducted ''drills'' presented in recent years to the public as actual events have turned out to be full scale faked emergencies. The public is led to believe in the reality of these events via manipulated media presentations. ''False flag'' events have historically been popular methods by which governments have deceptively achieved specific political objectives.

The history of American false flag eventsFalse flag events are politically motivated. In the most extreme cases, a false flag event is used to justify war. The creation of fabricated news events in the pursuit of political objectives is nothing new. The United States has for nearly two centuries staged false flag events as a pretense to war. An informative summary of the American history false flags can be found on 911review.com.

The Boston Marathon ''Bombing''The so-called Boston marathon bombing didn't go down as it was presented by mainstream media reports. Interestingly, the DHS admits that the entire event was planned as a training exercise months before the alleged bombing took place. ''Operation Urban Shield'' was planned many months before the Boston Marathon. Eyewitness accounts reported the presence of bomb sniffing dogs under the control of bomb squads along the marathon route on the morning of the event. Yet nothing was uncovered. The line of distinction between the ''training exercise'' and the alleged bombing itself is blurry. Evidence points strongly to the possibility that the bombing was an integral part of a ''training exercise'' funded by a $200,000 Homeland Security grant.

The ''bombing'' was then followed by a test of the willingness of the American people to endure martial law in exchange for a false sense of security. Under the direction if the FBI, police SWAT teams performed unwarranted house to house searches on Boston residences in the pursuit of an alleged criminal.

The Sandy Hook ''Shootings''Significant evidence supports the position that this event also was pulled off by government insiders. It's quite possible that nobody at all died at Sandy Hook. The alleged incident may have been trumped up for the purpose of creating public fervor for panic legislation which would outlaw ''assault rifles'' Errors in the cover up are just too numerous to ignore. Sandy Hook, too may have been one huge deceptive government orchestrated scam.

The 911 ''Terror Attacks''Perhaps the largest hoax ever perpetrated upon the American people was the events which took place on September 11, 2001.

More than 3,000 people died on September 11, 2001, but it's possible that the real terrorists are operating within, and as, our own federal agencies. Informed readers are familiar with a growing mountain of scientifically backed physical evidence, as well as testimonial evidence from high offices, that the lives of more than 3,000 people were sacrificed by Washington insiders as pretence to wage war on Iraq.

Could an Ebola false flag event be coming?Check out the links above from FEMA and the SIFMA and draw your own conclusions. The drill might be turned into a false flag event, or perhaps it won't. The facts remain that the drill is scheduled to take place, and that many previous drills have been turned into dramatic faked newsworthy events.

If American people were to become proactive in exposing the deceptive actions of our supposed ''security'' agencies, false flag events and their consequences could be more easily prevented. Innocent lives would be spared in proportion as Americans learn to replace their trust in mainstream news sources with real grass roots information

Be prepared and don't be surprised if a supposed Ebola pandemic in the northeast is announced in conjunction with FEMA's training exercises in the next couple of days, or in coming weeks.

It might happen, or it might not happen. The truth is powerful. For open minded readers, here are a few more links to contemplate. If you're serious about discovering the truth, you'll be busy for a while.

http://www.storyleak.com/dhs-boston-training-drill-backpack-explosives/

https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/images/70968

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting_conspiracy_theories

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/18/your_comprehensive_answer_to_every_sandy_hook_conspiracy_theory/

http://truthfrequencyradio.com/covertreport/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68LUHa_-OlA

http://www.scientistsfor911truth.org/

http://www.911truth.org/

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MSF says new strategy needed to fight Ebola - Africa - Al Jazeera English

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Archived Version

Tue, 11 Nov 2014 17:15

The medical aid agency Doctors Without Borders has called for a change of strategy in the fight against Ebola in Liberia, urging donors to finance rapid-response teams rather than huge isolation units.

MSF said on Monday it was seeing a decline in the number of patients admitted to case-management centres in Liberia for the first time since the outbreak started, but warned that new hotspots continue to emerge.

The global response must adapt to this new phase of the epidemic, MSF said.

"Priority should be given to a more flexible approach that allows a rapid response to new outbreaks and gets the regular healthcare system safely up and running again," Fasil Tezera, MSF head of operations in Liberia, said.

"Isolation units in Monrovia and some other parts of the country now have adequate capacity and we must adapt the strategy if we want to stay ahead of the curve and beat the epidemic."

MSF said the fight to contain the epidemic should now focus on deploying teams quickly to new hotspots to isolate patients, trace people who have been in contact with the sick, organise safe burials and carry out disinfection.

It says its 250-bed ELWA3 centre in Monrovia is treating around 50 patients, while in the northern town of Foya, at the epicentre of the outbreak, the number of patients fell to zero on October 30, with no confirmed cases since.

Signficant dips

MSF says the case numbers could rise again, as happened in Guinea following two significant dips in admissions to the charity's facilities.

"In Foya, we believe this comprehensive approach, as well as active engagement by the community, has led to a steady reduction of cases across the county," Nico Heijenberg, MSF emergency coordinator, said.

The charity has about 3,300 staff across Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Ebola virus disease, a tropical fever which is estimated to have a fatality rate of around 70 percent in the current outbreak, is transmitted through contact with infected bodily fluids.

The UN World Health Organisation is reporting about 5,000 deaths and 13,000 infections globally, although it has warned that this official toll could be the tip of the iceberg.

WHO has also confirmed a slowdown in the spread of the virus in hardest-hit Liberia, where 2,697 people have died out of a total of 6,525 cases.

But officials from various UN agencies and the Liberian government have warned against complacency.

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Ebola virus: Second outbreak in Mali as imam and nurse who treated him die of disease - Africa - World - The Independent

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Wed, 12 Nov 2014 23:03

Tests did not confirm the cause of their illness until Tuesday, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) had already released a statement saying ''confidence was growing'' that the deadly virus would not spread in Mali almost three weeks after the death of its first victim.

The latest fatalities are not believed to be linked to the two-year-old girl who died from Ebola on 24 October after travelling from Guinea '' one of the three countries worst-hit by the disease.

The news is an alarming setback for Malian health authorities trying to shield the country from the epidemic, which has killed almost 5,000 people so far.

Dozens of staff at the clinic where the imam died, in the capital of Bamako, have been quarantined along with the victims' friends and families.

The 70-year-old imam, from the border town of Kouremale, was never tested for Ebola and his body was washed in Mali before being returned to Guinea for burial without any precautions, raising the risk of transmission.

No infectious procedures were activated because the man was not diagnosed with Ebola Officials are searching the city of two million for those who helped prepare the body after he died on 27 October.

The head of Polyclinique Pasteur said that when the imam arrived late at night two days before, he was too ill to tell staff information about his symptoms.

''His family did not give us all the information that would have led us to suspect Ebola,'' Dramane Maiga told the Associated Press.

Read more: Two-year-old dies of Ebola in Mali'No Ebola vaccine because only affected poor African countries'This is how much of Africa is really affectedUnaware of the cause of his illness, doctors at the Bamako hospital treated him for renal insufficiency, which can result from kidney disease but is also a symptom of late-stage Ebola, when vital organs begin to shut down.

The nurse was hospitalised on Saturday but officials did not alert the health ministry until Monday morning and by the time the test results came back on Tuesday, she was already dead.

Two aid workers said that another person who lived in the house where the imam stayed in Bamako had died this week and a doctor at the Polyclinique Pasteur is also believed to have contracted Ebola.

Emergency programs coordinator at Mali's Health Ministry Samba Sow (2nd R) speaks to journalists ''For the moment we have 30 people under observation at Polyclinique Pasteur - including 16 patients - along with 45 family members,'' said Ousmane Doumbia, secretary-general for the Malian health ministry.

The latest outbreak demonstrates the continued difficulty of stopping the transmission of Ebola and diagnosing the disease, which shares early symptoms with many less serious illnesses.

Mali's first outbreak started with a two-year-old girl who had travelled with relatives on a bus from Guinea to Mali with a bleeding nose. About 50 other people who had possible contact with her remain under observation in Kayes, 375 miles from Bamako.

They will be released from quarantine in four days if they show no symptoms.

In a statement on Tuesday, WHO said the toddler was being taken away from her home country into the care of relatives because her father '' a Red Cross worker in contact with Ebola patients '' grandfather, grandmother and two uncles had died.

The first deaths were classified as ''unknown causes'' and the father fled his village because he was deemed the victim of a bad-luck ''curse''.

It was not until the final men who died tested positive for Ebola that officials realised that was the probable cause of all illness in the family.

A spokesperson for WHO said an isolation facility at the Centre for Vaccine Development in Bamako was available for use, as well as biosafety level three laboratory to conduct Ebola tests.

Additional reporting by agencies

allAfrica.com: Mali Confirms New Case of Ebola

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Wed, 12 Nov 2014 14:24

By Boakai FofanaMonrovia '-- Officials in Mali have confirmed the country's second case of Ebola, the BBC is reporting.

The new case - a nurse who died after treating a man from Guinea - is said to be unrelated to the first victim, a two-year-old Guinean girl who died in October.

This comes just as the World Health Organization started to lift the quarantine it had placed on scores of people who might have come in contact with the "index case" '' a public health reference to the first case. Information Minister Mahamadou Camara posted on Twitter that "preventative measures" were being taken. Police have been deployed outside a clinic in Bamako which authorities say is being quarantined, according to Reuters.

Mali becomes the sixth West Africa country affected by Ebola, although WHO has since declared Nigeria and Senegal free of the virus. Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone remain the worst-affected nations. Nearly 5,000 people have died from the disease since the outbreak began in March.

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Band Aid 30 | BUY THE SONG. STOP THE VIRUS. #BandAid30

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Wed, 12 Nov 2014 23:57

The Band Aid team is gifting an opportunity of a lifetime for one lucky winner and their guest to attend the live recording of the Band Aid 30 official single this weekend. The winner will attend the day's recording alongside the best of British music.

A chance to witness history in the making, he or she will be mixing with the likes of ''Expected artists include'': One Direction, Ed Sheeran, Ellie Goulding, Sam Smith, Emeli Sande, Elbow, plus many more.

To be in with a chance of winning this phenomenal prize, text AID to 88833. Texts cost £1.50 plus standard network rate and all profits from the competition will be made as donation to Band Aid to help the intervention and prevention of the spread of Ebola.

Competition closes midday Thursday 13th November. The winner will be selected and contacted by Friday 14th November, and must be available on Saturday 15th November to facilitate the prize. Free entry and terms and conditions Texts cost £1.50 plus standard network rates. 100% of your entry (subject to VAT @ 20%) will be donated to Band Aid 30.

WOODCHARM LIMITED Free and instant access to Director and Shareholder details. Credit Reports online instantly.

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Thu, 13 Nov 2014 00:07

Directors and SecretariesWOODCHARM LIMITED is run by 2 directors. Directory and secretary details are extracted from Annual Returns submitted to Companies House. The latest Annual Return for WOODCHARM LIMITED was filed for the period up to 30/11/2012. Visit the Documents tab to download the latest Annual Return.

Number of EmployeesThis business has not provided employee information.

Company OfficersCurrent directors and company secretary details are extracted from the latest Annual Return filed at Companies House, along with any amendments filed since the Return, including terminations, appointments, changes in share holdings and share capital. View the Filing History for WOODCHARM LIMITED to review details of latest changes.

EmployeesThe total number of employess within a company are shown for each year where they have been provided. Only large full filing companies are required to file employee figures.

Need a little help? Try our list of FAQs or contact us.If you're a Pro customer, login to your dashboard and use the help section for VIP priority support.

View accounts LIVE AID

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The Charities Act 2011 requires all registered charities to prepare a Trustees' Annual Report (TAR) and accounts.

Registered charities with a financial period ending on or after 1 April 2009 must send their TAR and accounts to the Commission if their income was greater than £25,000. For financial periods earlier than this charities were required to send the documents if the income was greater than £10,000.

We make copies of the accounts and Trustees' Annual Reports (TARs) that we receive publicly available. Accounts and TARs for charities with an income over £25,000 are available for download. Please click the appropriate link below.

The links below will open a pdf document for you to view the Trustees' Annual Report and accounts in printable form.

If you do not have Adobe Reader, please follow this link

Harvey Goldsmith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Harvey GoldsmithCBEBorn(1946-03-04)4 March 1946Edgware, Middlesex,England, UKNationalityEnglishCitizenshipUKOccupationPromoter of The Performing ArtsYears active1966-presentEmployerHarvey GoldsmithEntertainments LtdHarvey GoldsmithProductions LtdArtiste ManagementProductions LtdKnown forPerforming Arts promotions, Live Aid, Live 8TitleHarvey Goldsmith CBEWebsiteHarveygoldsmith.comHarvey GoldsmithCBE (born 4 March 1946 in Edgware, Middlesex) is an Englishperforming arts promoter. He is best known as promoter of rock concerts, charity concerts, television broadcasts for the Prince's Trust and more recently the Teenage Cancer Trust shows at the Royal Albert Hall.

During early 2007 he appeared on the Channel 4 programme Get Your Act Together with Harvey Goldsmith. In October the same year he promoted a reunion concert for surviving members of Led Zeppelin in memory of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Erteg¼n, which was held at The O2 Arena.[1]

Harvey Goldsmith has produced, managed and promoted shows with most of the world's major artists including; Yes, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, The Eagles, Elton John, U2, Rolf Harris, Madonna, Andrea Bocelli, Muse (band), Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bruce Springsteen, Santana, Luciano Pavarotti, Sheryl Crow, Shania Twain, Bee Gees, Jools Holland, Marti Pellow, Oasis, Paul Weller, Rod Stewart, Diana Ross, Saxon, Shirley Bassey, Family, Ronan Keating, Gabrielle, Richard Hawley, Coldplay, Nigel Kennedy, Eric Clapton, Richard Ashcroft, Ash, Asian Dub Foundation, Supergrass, Doves, Madness, Aswad, David Gray, Streetwalkers, The Black Eyed Peas, John Legend, Nelly Furtado, Scissor Sisters, Van Morrison, Iron Maiden, Whitesnake, Passionate Friends, Sting and many others. In 2009 Goldsmith became manager for the rock guitarist Jeff Beck.[2]

Born on 4 March 1946 to a Jewish family in Edgware, Middlesex, Goldsmith started out as a pharmacy student in Brighton, East Sussex[1] where he founded Club 66, a successful weekly student livemusic venue and organized larger events at the Brighton Metropole. By the end of that decade Goldsmith had created rock music events, such as the Crystal Palace Garden Parties. A decade later the concerts had moved to larger Stadiums and he had established Wembley Stadium as a major venue for the top artists of the world. In 1975, he was the promoter behind the Loftus Road Concert at Queens Park Rangers Stadium for Yes, when they were touring their Relayer album.

During 1978 Goldsmith promoted the first major global TV event The Concerts for Kampuchea at Hammersmith Odeon, London, featuring artists including Paul McCartney, Queen and The Who. The event raised over $2 million from worldwide sales.

In 1985, Goldsmith organised Live Aid with Bob Geldof which became a £140 million fundraising venture within ten weeks. Live Aid was the first ever "Global Juke Box" featuring two simultaneous concerts, at Wembley Stadium in the UK and JFK Stadium in the US, with over sixty countries showing the seventeen-hour event live on television.

Following the success of Live Aid Goldsmith became involved with concerts in aid of Human Rights, including a worldwide Amnesty Tour. He joined the The Prince's Trust in 1982 and produced the first Princes Trust Rock Gala. Goldsmith then became a member of the The Prince's Trust Board and Vice Chairman of Prince's Trust Trading Ltd.[1]

In 1986, he promotedLuciano Pavarotti at Wembley Arena. It was because of Goldsmith's expertise in staging charity events that his company Harvey Goldsmith Artiste Management productions was brought in as executive producers of the 1990 live performance of Pink Floyd's The Wall, from Berlin. Due to the success of these concerts, Pavrotti agreed to perform at a free concert in Hyde Park, which was organised by Goldsmith in 1991. This concert was part of Pavarotti's 30th anniversary celebrations and attracted 125,000 people.[3]

In 1992 Goldsmith organized A Tribute to Freddie Mercury to increase Aids awareness and this was a live TV success. In the same year he became Chairman of the first National Music Day, which was instigated to promote the importance of music in UK and Goldsmith arranged a programme of fifteen-hundred musical events nationwide, covering all musical styles. Goldsmith persuaded Pavarotti to return and perform again in UK at the Leeds Castle in Kent during 1993. In 1994 under the auspices of HRH The Prince of Wales and President Havel of the Czech Republic, Goldsmith was appointed Executive Producer of The Prague Heritage Fund Gala Classical Concert. This concert featured Sir Georg Solti, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Murray Perahia also Gabriela BeÅaÄkov and was televised worldwide.

In 1994 Harvey Goldsmith started to work with Cirque du Soleil. This has been one of most successful shows to perform in the UK, returning to London's Royal Albert Hall on a regular basis. The show is seen by around 183,000 people and sells in the region of 98% of tickets. In 2005 Goldsmith managed the show in London, Birmingham and Manchester. This marked the first time in Europe for having three different productions in the same Country. He continues to promotes this show. Between 1996 and 1998 Harvey Goldsmith oversaw spectacular productions of the Lord of the Dance musical, which featured Michael Flatley in the leading role. he also promoted Pavarotti for a fourth time, in Manchester during 1997.

In October 2002 Goldsmith promoted Bruce Springsteen at Wembley Arena, the tickets for this show sold out in forty minutes making it one of his most successful promotions to date. This was followed by three sell out stadium shows in May 2003. In November 2006 Harvey produced the UK Arena dates of Bruce Springsteen's sell-out tour with the Seeger Sessions band.

In January 2006 Harvey was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French Minister of Culture. he presented the dance spectacular The Merchants of Bollywood, the first ever Bollywood production to tour straight from Film City in Mumbai. The show toured the UK and opened at the Hammersmith Apollo in London on 21 December 2006. Goldsmith was honoured with the 15th Music Industry Trust's Award (MITS) in October 2006, one of the highest accolades to be awarded in the music industry, in recognition of his contribution to the music industry.[4] In the same year, Midem[5] honoured The Live Aid founders and Live 8 producers Harvey Goldsmith, Bob Geldof and John Kennedy OBE, with the Midem Personality of the Year Award, which was awarded in recognition of their outstanding work in bringing the music industry together to help alleviate poverty and famine in Africa. It was the first time in the seventeen-year history of Midem, that this accolade was awarded to more than one person.[6] In the Queen's Birthday Honours 2007 Goldsmith was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his work in the entertainment industry.[citation needed] In the same year he promoted a six month European tour of The Merchants of Bollywood.[1]

In May and June 2008 Harvey brought Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band back to the UK. They played at Manchester Old Trafford Stadium, London Emirates Stadium and Cardiff Millennium Stadium. This was the first concert ever held at the Emirates Football Stadium. In October 2008 Harvey produced 'Salute Petra', the official tribute concert to the life of Luciano Pavarotti held in Petra, Jordan under the patronage of HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein. The tribute featured artists from the world of Opera (Angela Gheorghiu, Andrea Bocelli, Jos(C) Carreras, Plcido Domingo to name a few) as well as pop artists such as Sting, Zucchero, Laura Pausini and many more. The spectacular concert was filmed and made into a DVD, whose sales raised money for the UN Fund for Refugees. In November 2008 Harvey was honoured with the Armand de Brignac VIP Award from Classic Rock Magazine and he also picked up the award for Event of the Year for the Led Zeppelin concert at the O2 Arena in honour of Ahmet Ertegun. In December 2008 Harvey took over the management of Jeff Beck after the two saw each other at the Classic Rock awards where they were both collecting awards.

The National Outdoor Events Association(NOEA) presented Harvey with the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Outdoor Events Industry in February 2009. The British Music Experience opened at the O2 Arena in March 2009 and Harvey is Chairman of the Foundation and Chairman of the Board. The BME is a registered charity and is the UK's museum of music history, with the purpose to advance the education and appreciation of the art, history and science of music in Britain. Already it has helped over 14,000 students in the last year and administered over £140,000 in Education Grants for the local community. In September 2009 Harvey produced the Tower Festival in the Tower of London which ran for 10 days and weeks later 'Last Night of the Poms' starring Dame Edna and Sir Les Patterson went on Tour around the UK reviving the hit show from 28 years ago. Before the year was out, Harvey produced Andrea Bocelli's UK tour in conjunction with Kilimanjaro, and also produced the first tour by Yusuf (formerly known as Cat Stevens) for nearly thirty years. The tour ended with an incredible night at the Royal Albert Hall, which featured a preview section of Yusuf's new musical 'Moonshadow'.

2010 has seen the release of Jeff Beck's first studio album in over six years, released on Rhino. In support of this album, entitled 'Emotion & Commotion' Jeff Beck has embarked on a major World Tour of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, USA and Europe. This summer will also see Harvey put legendary rock band Faces back together to perform a handful of UK dates. In April 2010 Harvey was honoured with the International Music Person of The Year for his outstanding contributions to the Music Industry at the Musexpo by the City of West Hollywood.

Harvey promoted a concert at the beginning of 2011 for the charity Killing Cancer with a line up of artists including Richard Ashcroft, Bryan Adams, Jeff Beck, Debbie Harry and The Who. In February 2011 Harvey produced 'City Rocks'. An iconic event which was in support of the Lord Mayor's Appeal, attended by The Rt Hon, The Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Michael Bear and the Lady Mayoress, Barbara Bear. City Rocks was the first major rock concert to be held in the City of London. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to the institution's music education, Harvey was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from Ravensbourne, the university sector college innovating in digital media and design in September 2011. Harvey Chaired the Judges Panel for the Editorial Intelligence Awards in October 2011 and became a Board Member.The Lord Mayor of London honoured Harvey with The Freedom of the City in November 2011.In December 2011, Harvey became Event 100 Club's most influential person in the Events business. As Chairman of Ignite, Harvey took the agency to new levels in 2011.

As part of HM The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations in May 2012, Harvey received The Diamond Award, for his contribution to The Arts.

July 2012, The University of Brighton presented Harvey with an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Arts.

In August 2014, Goldsmith was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.[7]

Promotion companies[edit]In 1973 he formed Artiste Management Productions Limited, to produce and manage Artists in the Music Industry.[1]In 1976 Harvey Goldsmith Entertainments Limited was formed which became the UK's leading Promoter of Concerts and Events.[1]In 2002 Harvey Goldsmith Productions was formed to carry on the legacy of leading Concert and Events promotions.[8]References[edit]External links[edit]PersondataNameGoldsmith, HarveyAlternative namesShort descriptionBritish music promoterDate of birth1946-05-04Place of birthEdgware, Middlesex, UKDate of deathPlace of death

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California Nurses Say They'll Strike, Without Talking Wages : Shots - Health News : NPR

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Wed, 12 Nov 2014 20:58

A nurse at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco protests lack of Ebola preparedness in October. The issue will be the focus of national demonstrations Wednesday. Justin Sullivan/Getty Imageshide caption

itoggle caption Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesA nurse at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco protests lack of Ebola preparedness in October. The issue will be the focus of national demonstrations Wednesday.

Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesAs many as 18,000 nurses in Northern California are preparing for a two-day strike that will start Tuesday. Nurses plan to leave their posts at 7 a.m. and picket outside 21 Kaiser Permanente medical centers and clinics.

The placards nurses carry and the chants they repeat will say little about salaries or pensions. No economic proposals have even been put on the bargaining table yet.

"This seems awfully quick to go to a strike," says Joanne Spetz, an economics professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing. "I can't recall a situation where a strike has come up where there has not been some kind of disagreement about wages and benefits as part of the package."

Instead, nurses are focusing on more than 35 operational proposals that remain unresolved after three months of bargaining. These demands include a call to fill more than 2,000 nursing positions that have been vacated in the last three years, better protections for use of sick leave or more flexibility over breaks, and more training and education.

Both sides have leaned on the recent Ebola scare to try to win PR points with the public. Nurses have demanded better protective gear and more training for caring with potential Ebola patients '-- calls that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention heeded by updating its federal guidelines last month. Kaiser nurses say they still want more, and have timed the second day of their strike to coincide with nurse demonstrations across the country in a "National Day of Action" over Ebola preparedness.

The hospital system has tried to turn that argument around in light of the work stoppage.

"We are baffled by the union's tactics at this critical time," read an ad that Kaiser ran in Northern California newspapers Monday. Calling a strike now, "just as we are entering flu season, and when the nation and our members are concerned about the risk of Ebola, seems particularly irresponsible."

Kaiser Permanente is running ads in Northern California papers in advance of the proposed strike. Lisa Aliferis/KQEDhide caption

itoggle caption Lisa Aliferis/KQEDThe hospital system has hired and trained more than 2,800 temporary nurses to staff its medical centers while its regular nurses are on strike, a stopgap that costs as much as $20 million per day, Kaiser says. Some elective surgeries and non-urgent appointments will be rescheduled to ease pressure on the system.

"Our main concern is patient care issues and safe staffing," says Zenei Cortez, co-president of the California Nurses Association and chair of the bargaining team for the Kaiser nurses.

She says Kaiser will only agree to changes that are "cost neutral," which is one reason the proposals are stuck in limbo.

The main tension in the negotiations is over what's not being said. Nurses say they are eager to incorporate the subject of wages and benefits into the negotiation. While they have made no formal economic proposals, they have stated that they are seeking the status quo: no cuts.

Kaiser is quiet on this. It has not put forward any of its own proposals yet. The hospital system said in a statement that it prefers to resolve a majority of the "other issues the union has already put on the table and then add our wage and benefit proposals to the mix."

Experts say this is all unusual. But the move to isolate patient care demands from economics could be a strategy on either side, says Spetz.

Because the nurses' patient-care proposals would both cost money and create a benefit to nurses in their working conditions '-- by reducing workload, for example '-- it makes sense that they would want to balance these requests against any proposed changes to salary and benefits.

"Usually these all get negotiated as a group," says Spetz.

Kaiser may prefer to separate the issues as a way to strengthen its position when negotiating over wages and pensions. Nurses in California are among the few private professions to still have pensions.

But nurses may benefit from the separation, too, now that they've called a strike.

"To the extent the union can clearly state what exactly their concerns are and argue that Kaiser is not listening, that can bring a lot of public sympathy," Spetz says. "It does not benefit Kaiser to be perceived as (being) against patient safety."

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Tetanus vaccines found spiked with sterilization chemical to carry out race-based genocide against Africans - NaturalNews.com

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Wed, 12 Nov 2014 20:52

(NaturalNews) Tetanus vaccines given to millions of young women in Kenya have been confirmed by laboratories to contain a sterilization chemical that causes miscarriages, reports the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, a pro-vaccine organization.A whopping 2.3 million young girls and women are in the process of being given the vaccine, pushed by UNICEF and the World Health Organization.

"We sent six samples from around Kenya to laboratories in South Africa. They tested positive for the HCG antigen," Dr. Muhame Ngare of the Mercy Medical Centre in Nairobi told LifeSiteNews. "They were all laced with HCG."

HCG is a chemical developed by the World Health Organization for sterilization purposes. When injected into the body of a young woman, it causes a pregnancy to be destroyed by the body's own antibody response to the HCG, resulting in a spontaneous abortion. Its effectiveness lasts for years, causing abortions in women up to three years after the injections.Dr. Ngare explained "...this WHO campaign is not about eradicating neonatal tetanus but a well-coordinated forceful population control mass sterilization exercise using a proven fertility regulating vaccine."

The Kenyan government, of course, insists the vaccine is perfectly safe. Dr. Tabu of Kenya's Health Ministry even told the media that because some young women are still having babies, the vaccine therefore must not contain any sterilization agent. However, this claim belies the fact that HCG doesn't work 100% of the time. It only sterilizes the majority of those injected with it, not all of them.

More importantly, the Kenyan Catholic Church is a pro-vaccine organization. "What reason do the Catholic doctors have for lying?" asked Dr. Ngare as reported in the LifeSiteNews article linked above. "The Catholic Church has been here in Kenya providing health care and vaccinating for 100 years for longer than Kenya has existed as a country."

In other words, the very group exposing the sterilization agenda of the tetanus vaccines is in fact a pro-vaccination group. Yet even they have now come to realize the horrifying truth: vaccines are the perfect vector for governments to deviously insert covert chemical or viral agents which are never revealed to the public.

What really raised red flags about this so-called tetanus vaccine was the highly unusual inoculation schedule. This vaccine demanded five shots over two years -- a schedule that isn't used for tetanus."The only time tetanus vaccine has been given in five doses is when it is used as a carrier in fertility regulating vaccines laced with the pregnancy hormone, Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) developed by WHO in 1992." explained Dr. Ngare.

Furthermore, the vaccine was only being given to women of child-bearing years, not men or women beyond the age of fertility.

As Dr. Ngare explains, the same vaccine sterilization campaign was used in 1993 in Mexico and both Nicaragua and the Philippines in 1994. WHO attempted to bring it to Kenya in the 1990's, Ngare says, but the effort was stopped by the Catholic Church.

According to Brian Clowes of Human Life International, the United Nations is not refuting the laboratory testing and confirmation of HCG in the vaccines. Instead, it claims some vaccines were "contaminated" in the manufacturing process -- an absurd claim that no reasonable person would believe because HCG should never even be anywhere near a vaccine manufacturing operation unless someone put it there deliberately.

LifeSiteNews reports that it:

has obtained a UN report on an August 1992 meeting at its world headquarters in Geneva of 10 scientists from "Australia, Europe, India and the U.S.A" and 10 "women's health advocates" from around the world, to discuss the use of "fertility regulating vaccines." It describes the "anti-Human Chorionic Gonadotropin vaccine" as the most advanced.

Read the full report from LifeSiteNews at:http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/a-mass-ster...

You will not see this news reported by any mainstream media outlet in the United States. All truth about vaccines is censored, even if the truth is that the United Nations is deliberately engaged in a campaign of vaccine genocide against people of Africa.What is happening in Kenya is a crime against humanity, and it is a crime committed with deliberate racial discrimination. Normally, the liberal media in the United States would be all over a story involving racial discrimination and genocide -- or even a single police shooting of a black teenager -- but because this genocide is being committed with vaccines, the entire mainstream media excuses it. Apparently, medical crimes against black people are perfectly acceptable to the liberal media as long as vaccines are used as the weapon.

As this story clearly demonstrates, "vaccine violence" is very real in our world. Vaccines are the perfect weapon for population control for several reasons:

1) Nobody really knows what's in them.2) They can be easily spiked with hidden chemicals.3) They can be administered under the cover of "public health."4) All governments and establishment media will deliberately collaborate with the genocide in order to protect vaccines from being recognized as medical weapons against women.

Thus, vaccines can be routinely used to inject populations with birth control chemicals or even stealth cancer viruses. In fact, this is exactly what happened to as many as 98 million Americans during the mass polio vaccinations of the 1960's and 70's. The CDC even documented the "accidental" injection of millions of Americans with the cancer-causing SV40 simian virus, but the agency scrubbed all that history from its website in 2013.

In Kenya today, government authorities also claim the sterilization chemical was an "accidental" contamination. That's the excuse that can always be used as a cover story in weaponized vaccination schemes, where governments deliberately taint vaccines with known chemicals that end life, promote cancer or cause spontaneous abortions.

The deliberate adding of HCG to vaccines without full disclosure to the population is a heinous violation of human rights and human dignity. Here are just a few of the crimes now being committed against humanity under the guise of vaccinations:CRIME #1) No informed consent. None of these women in Kenya were told the truth that they were being injected with a sterilization chemical designed to cause infertility.

CRIME #2) Race-based genocide. The targeting of Kenyan women with this vaccine is a deliberate selection based on their race. By any reasonable standard, this would be called a racially-motivated hate crime resulting in genocide.

CRIME #3) The deliberate killing of a human being. The spontaneous abortions caused by these HCG-spiked vaccines results in the ending of a human life inside the mother's body. These killings take place without the consent or permission of the mother, nor any opportunity for defense of the life of the unborn child.

CRIME #4) Violation of Geneva Convention limitations on medical experimentation. All these Kenyan women injected with this vaccine are being used as human guinea pigs in a covert, criminal medical experiment. None of these women voluntarily signed up for this medical experiment, nor were they even informed. This is a medical crime against human beings.

CRIME #5) Crimes against women. Only women were selected for this targeted sterilization vaccine effort, proving that this is not only a race-based crime but also a gender-based crime against women.

If you add all this up, you've got weaponized vaccines being intentionally spiked with a known sterilization chemical developed by the WHO, then deployed in a racially-motivated genocidal manner that targets women to be used in an illegal medical experiment administered via vaccine inoculations.

Yet, despite all this, the mainstream media is perfectly okay with this activity. The World Health Organizations endorses it. The United Nations organizes it. Governments help fund it. Vaccine-pushing scientists excuse it. Media outlets cover it up and censor the story, hoping you don't read Natural News or Life Site News to learn the truth.When pharmacies in your neighborhood push flu shots and other vaccines, they don't tell you they are part of a branch of medicine steeped in genocide, racially-motivated hate crimes and a medical war on women. They don't tell you that flu shots still contain toxic mercury at concentrations 100 times the mercury found in ocean fish. They don't tell you anything about what's in those vaccines for the same reason that women in Kenya are never told what's in them, either.

The truth is that vaccines are easily deployed as weapons against humanity under the false cover story that they are saving humanity. What better way to pursue deliberate chemically-induced population control than to convince people they are being injected "for their own good?"This is precisely why Bill Gates famously said:

The world today has 6.8 billion people... that's headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.

Why would Bill Gates be talking about vaccines REDUCING human population if vaccines didn't secretly contain sterilization agents? Remember, Gates is the same person who has funded all sorts of sterilization technologies including one that blasts men's scrotums with high-intensity sound waves to make them infertile.

Gates is part of a covert medical cabal that believes aggressive human depopulation is urgently necessary to save the planet. This group, which includes many scientists and virologists, believe that the most effective tools for human depopulation are:1) Vaccines which are covertly spiked with sterilization chemicals.2) Genetically engineered viruses with a high mortality rate, possibly engineered to target specific races and genetic profiles.

For example, Dr. Charles Arntzen, head of The Biodesign Institute for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology recently joked about using an engineered virus to cull the human population, saying "That's the answer! Go out and use genetic engineering to create a better virus. (laughter) Twenty-five percent of the population is supposed to go in Contagion."

As I wrote on October 22, 2014, many virologists believe humans are nothing more than a "parasite" to be consumed by viruses which are the planet's "immune response" to human overpopulation. Here's a passage from the book "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston, summarizing the way these scientists think:

...the earth is mounting an immune response against the human species. It is beginning to react to the human parasite, the flooding infection of people, the dead spots of concrete all over the planet, the cancerous rot-outs in Europe, Japan and the United States, thick with replicating primates [i.e. humans], the colonies enlarging and spreading and threatening to shock the biosphere with mass extinctions.

Perhaps the biosphere does not "like" the idea of five billion humans. Or it could also be said that the extreme amplification of the human race, which has occurred only in the past hundred years or so, has suddenly produced a very large quantity of meat, which is sitting everywhere in the biosphere and may not be able to defend itself against a life form that might want to consume it...

The earth's immune system, so to speak, has recognized the presence of the human species and is starting to kick in. The earth is attempting to rid itself of an infection by the human parasite.

What's extraordinary in all this -- both with vaccines and viruses engineered as weapons -- is how the most influential people in the scientific community have come to view humanity as an enemy to be destroyed via tools of medicine and science. Frighteningly, modern medical science has the tools to carry out its genocidal assaults on humankind through "accidental" releases of deadly viruses or "accidental" contamination of vaccines with sterilization chemicals.

The evidence of deliberate sterilization chemicals in United Nations vaccines raises the obvious question: Was the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa also intentional? And what else might scientists, vaccine pushers, world health authorities and governments have in mind for human depopulation in the years ahead?

Is there already something in the food supply that causes sterilization? The answer is a definite YES, and just like the pandemic viruses, it too is genetically engineered.

These are the vectors for the science-based genocidal assault on humanity:1) Vaccines2) Viruses3) Food4) Water5) Chemtrails (i.e. atmospheric deployment of chemicals)

All five of these vectors present "opportunities" for genocidal scientists to achieve their goal of human sterilization and depopulation. That is precisely why anyone who wishes to survive the great human culling now under way must take extraordinary steps to isolate themselves from institutionally-produced food, water and medicine. The only safe food, water and medicine is that which was produced independently and far outside the control of Big Food, Big Ag and Big Pharma.

Don't drink the city water without filtering it first, and read my laboratory testing results for all popular water filters at www.WaterFilterLabs.com

Don't eat factory-produced food. Don't allow yourself to be injected with weaponized vaccines. Don't take Big Pharma's deadly medicines. Be smart by being skeptical about the claimed "safety" of all those things created by institutions and authorities that quite literally want to kill off a significant percentage of the existing world population.

If you're smart and resourceful, you might just survive this great human culling. On the other hand, those who anxiously line up to be injected with the seasonal flu shots are all admitting they are too stupid and gullible to last long in a world where "science" has declared a covert war on human life.

Sources for this article include:[1] http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/a-mass-ster...[2] http://www.naturalnews.com/041345_cdc_polio_...[3] http://www.naturalnews.com/047358_ebola_outb...[4] http://www.naturalnews.com/029911_vaccines_b...[5] http://www.naturalnews.com/046347_ebola_vacc...

About the author:Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is the founding editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's No. 1 natural health news website, now reaching 7 million unique readers a month.

In late 2013, Adams launched the Natural News Forensic Food Lab, where he conducts atomic spectroscopy research into food contaminants using high-end ICP-MS instrumentation. With this research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products to low levels by July 1, 2015.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource now featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed "strange fibers" found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health "gurus," dangerous "detox" products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released ten popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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North Korea

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U.N. human rights report says it's time to hold North Korea to account '-- in court - The Washington Post

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Thu, 13 Nov 2014 00:35

TOKYO '-- The United Nations' point man on North Korea's human rights violations called Tuesday for Pyongyang to be referred to the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity, saying it is time to take actions against the regime ''to a new level.''

The damning report from Marzuki Darusman, the United Nations' special rapporteur dealing with North Korea, comes six months after a U.N. commission of inquiry released a 372-page report detailing brainwashing, torture, starvation and imprisonment for ''crimes'' such as questioning the system or trying to escape it, or secret Christianity.

That report contained a litany of human rights abuses and seems to have marked a turning point for North Korea, which now appears genuinely alarmed by the prospect that leader Kim Jong Un and his cronies could be called before an international tribunal.

''The international community must seize this unique opportunity and momentum created by the commission of inquiry to help to make a difference in the lives of the people of [North] Korea, including victims, and to ensure accountability of those responsible for serious violations of human rights, including crimes against humanity,'' Darusman wrote in his report, published Tuesday.

He noted, however, that North Korea has not accepted any of the commission's findings.

''This sadly reflects its continued state of denial of the widespread, grave and systematic human rights violations and crimes against humanity reported by the commission, and the need for fundamental change,'' he wrote.

Pyongyang has traditionally refused to talk about its well-documented human rights violations, threatening to walk out of nuclear negotiations if the issue was raised. But North Korean diplomats and propagandists, with their trademark colorful language, are now actively engaging critics, apparently alarmed that snowballing international pressure could lead the country's top officials '-- including Kim '-- to be charged with crimes against humanity.

Unusually, a North Korean delegation attended a panel on the country's human rights violations at the United Nations in New York last week, at which Michael Kirby, the Australian judge who led the commission of inquiry, and two North Korean defectors spoke.

Kim Song, the head of the North Korean delegation, called their allegations a product of a ''political conspiracy of the United States and hostile forces in their attempt to overthrow our political and social system.'' North Korean officials very obviously videotaped the testimony of the two defectors, in what attendees said was a clear attempt to intimidate them.

In a continuation of these efforts, Pyongyang released a character-assassination video Tuesday titled ''Lie and Truth,'' in which the father of defector Shin Dong-hyuk says his son's testimony is false.

Shin '-- who was born in a prison camp and lived a life of starvation, hard labor and torture until he escaped at age 22 '-- has become one of the most prominent critics of North Korea.

In the video, a man identified as Shin's father urges Shin to ''come to your senses and return to the embrace of the [Workers'] Party.''

''The dictator is holding my father hostage,'' Shin wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday, confirming that the man was indeed his father, whom he had assumed was dead. ''No matter what the dictator does to my father, they cannot cover my eyes; no matter what the dictator does, they can not cover up my mouth,'' he wrote.

Another North Korean official caused surprise at a U.N. briefing this month when he admitted to the practice of ''reform through labor detention camps,'' although what he described was a long way from the brutal gulags depicted by escapees such as Shin.

And before Darusman released his report, North Korean officials invited him to visit the country, a sharp change from their previous practice of denying entry to anyone investigating the human rights situation.

Engaging on questions of human rights, even bombastically, appears to be North Korea's way of trying to tackle the growing chorus of voices calling for its leaders to be put on trial for crimes against humanity, analysts and defectors said.

The calls for North Korea's senior leaders to go before a tribunal have ''shaken'' them into discussion, said one Western diplomat who has dealt with Pyongyang and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ''They want to remove that risk.''

Pyongyang's is an isolated regime that easily becomes paranoid, the diplomat said. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Kim Jong Il, the country's leader at the time, reportedly went underground for two weeks, afraid that North Korea would be next.

Ahn Myong-chol, a former North Korean prison guard who defected to the South and has become an outspoken detractor, agreed that Pyongyang is spooked by the efforts to lay the blame at the top.

''For the first time, the resolution demands punishment of the dictators, and North Korea is responding to this because when its leader Kim Jong Un becomes the target, it has to respond,'' Ahn said.

''The international community must keep pushing North Korea by mentioning Kim Jong Un's name until North Korea runs out of space to stand,'' he said.

Analysts say the chances of the Security Council agreeing to refer North Korea to the ICC are slim, noting that permanent members Russia and China would have to agree not to veto such a move.

But Kim Jong Un's regime is trying to avoid finding out the hard way whether a resolution would pass the Security Council '-- although stopping well short of reforming its system.

Supporters of the growing movement to hold North Korea to account called its actions another exercise in deceit.

''They've created this big circus and are doing all these things to try to deny that any crimes have been committed in North Korea,'' said Joanna Hosaniak of the Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, a Seoul-based nongovernmental organization. ''It's a total hoax.''

Even if Darusman goes to North Korea, he ''will not be able to visit places ad hoc or speak independently to people,'' she said.

The Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's biggest newspaper, reported Tuesday that the North is preparing a Potemkin prison in anticipation of foreign inspections. It is secretly moving political prisoners out of its notorious Yodok concentration camp, in the northern part of the country, to make it look like a collective farm, it reported.

''The regime is transferring the inmates one by one during the night so that their movement can't be detected by satellites,'' the Chosun Ilbo quoted an unnamed source as saying.

Yoonjung Seo in Seoul contributed to this report.

Anna Fifield is The Post's bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.

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North Korea: US Sports Agent Offers Himself For Prisoner

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Thu, 13 Nov 2014 13:05

North Korea recently returned American prisoner Kenneth Bae from a hospital to a labor camp.

According to an APreport, his sister, Terri Chung is concerned about his health and well-being. Chung had this to say about her brother, who reportedly was hospitalized after rapidly losing 50 pounds:

''He's back to eight-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week hard labor. We can't help but be concerned about that.''

Bae reportedly has liver problems, an enlarged heart, diabetes and back pain.

Bae's family isn't alone in their concern. U.S. government officials have weighed in and now, according to a CNNreport, sports agent David Sugarman has joined the effort to return Bae to the United States. Sugarman represents retired NBA star Kenny Anderson '' who joined Dennis Rodman in his infamous visit to North Korea.

According to CNN, Sugarman had this to say in his appeal to Kim Jong Un of North Korea:

''Human to human, I'm asking you to release Kenneth Bae. I'm going to take it a step further: If the North Korea government actually needs somebody in North Korea, take David Sugarman. Allow me to go there. I'm younger. I'm healthier. You have released prisoners before, and I'm asking you to release Kenneth Bae.''

While it's a magnanimous gesture, it's unlikely that the North Korean dictator would agree to that kind of prisoner exchange.

Bae has been accused of trying to overthrow the North Korean government through religious activity.

Kenneth Bae is a devout Christian. He runs a company that specializes in North Korean tours. The company is based in neighboring China. President Obama described Bae as a missionary while calling for his release at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday. According to the AP report, the president said:

''We pray for Kenneth Bae, a Christian missionary who has been held in North Korea for 15 months. His family wants him home, and the United States will continue to do everything in our power to secure his release because Kenneth Bae deserves to be free.''

Bae admitted to conducting anti-government activities in a Jan. 20 news conference. He apologized to the North Korean government, claimed he has not been abused and added, ''I believe that my problem can be solved by close cooperation and agreement between the American government and the government of this country.''

The US State Department has indicated that they are ready to send an ambassador to discuss Bae's situation with representatives of North Korea. As of this time, there don't appear to be any plans to send sports agent David Sugarman, but according to CNN, US Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) said:

''People like David (Sugarman) should be all over the country. Churches and synagogues should be pleading to this government that this has nothing to do with communism and the United States of America. It's a brother and a father and a son, and they should be responding to this effort.''

What do you think? Will it help for Americans '' and particularly American religious organizations '' to put pressure on North Korea to release Kenneth Bae?

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Lockheed, Raytheon to share planned $1.4 billion missile sale to South Korea - Washington Business Journal

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Archived Version

Tue, 11 Nov 2014 18:38

Nov 6, 2014, 12:33pm EST Updated: Nov 6, 2014, 1:45pm EST

Enlarge Photo

Lockheed Martin Corp.

Lockheed and Raytheon could share a planned $1.4 billion missile sale to South Korea.

A $1.4 billion deal with South Korea, now awaiting Congressional approval, would include 136 Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missiles manufactured by Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, a well as as two flight test targets and various support systems and services. Raytheon will serve as the systems integrator for the PAC-3 missile.

According to the announcement from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which coordinates foreign military sales between the Pentagon and allies, the sale will provide South Korea with the capability to defeat lower-tier ballistic missile defense threats, and decrease its reliance on U.S. combat forces to maintain stability in the region. It also increases interoperability between South Korea's ground and sea-based ballistic missile defense forces and U.S. forces located in the region.

The U.S. is scheduled to hand over command of South Korea's wartime defenses in December 2015, so missile-defense capabilities are vital.

South Korea "is one of the major political and economic powers in East Asia and the Western Pacific and a key partner of the United States in ensuring peace and stability in that region," the Pentagon announcement noted. "It is vital to U.S. national interests to assist our Korean ally in developing and maintaining a strong and ready self-defense capability."

In June, Bloomberg reported the PAC-3 and Lockheed's longer-range Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, known as Thaad, were among the missile systems that South Korea's military was eyeing. At the time, the U.S. was performing analysis with Korean officials "to help them reach a decision about the capabilities they would have."

This deal comes only a month after Lockheed and Raytheon won a $1.75 billion deal to replenish Saudi Arabia's aging stockpile of PAC-3 missiles.

Jill R. Aitoro covers federal contracting.

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JCD Questions for DPG

How serious is NK about creating a tourist destination

Why did they grab the basketball tour guide?

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Packet Equality

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NET NEURTRALITRY BINGO-AP News : Obama dives into Internet regulation debate

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Archived Version

Tue, 11 Nov 2014 16:43

By ANNE FLAHERTYPublished: TodayWASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is embracing a radical change in how the government treats Internet service, coming down on the side of consumer activists who fear slower download speeds and higher costs but angering Republicans and the nation's cable giants who say the plan would kill jobs.

Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to more heavily regulate Internet providers and treat broadband much as it would any other public utility. He said the FCC should explicitly prohibit Internet providers like Verizon and AT&T from charging data hogs like Netflix extra to move their content more quickly. The announcement sent cable stocks tumbling.

The FCC, an independent regulatory body led by political appointees, is nearing a decision on whether broadband providers should be allowed to cut deals with the content providers but is stumbling over the legal complexities.

"We are stunned the president would abandon the longstanding, bipartisan policy of lightly regulating the Internet and calling for extreme" regulation, said Michael Powell, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the primary lobbying arm of the cable industry, which supplies much of the nation's Internet access.

This "tectonic shift in national policy, should it be adopted, would create devastating results," added Powell, who chaired the FCC during the Bush administration until 2005.

Consumer groups and content providers hailed Obama's move, with Netflix posting to its Facebook page that "consumers should pick winners and losers on the Internet, not broadband gatekeepers."

"Net neutrality" is the idea that Internet service providers shouldn't block, slow or manipulate data moving across its networks. As long as content isn't against the law, such as child pornography or pirated music, a file or video posted on one site will load generally at the same speed as a similarly sized file or video on another site.

In 2010, the FCC embraced the concept in a rule. But last January, a federal appeals court struck down the regulation because the court said the FCC didn't technically have the legal authority to tell broadband providers how to manage their networks.

The uncertainty has prompted the public to file some 3.7 million comments with the FCC - more than double the number filed after Janet Jackson's infamous wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl.

On Monday, Obama waded into the fray and gave a major boost to Internet activists by saying the FCC should explicitly ban any "paid prioritization" on the Internet. Obama also suggested that the FCC reclassify consumer broadband as a public utility under the 1934 Communications Act so there's no legal ambiguity. That would mean the Internet would be regulated more heavily in the way phone service is.

"It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information - whether a phone call, or a packet of data," Obama said.

This approach is exactly what industry lobbyists have spent months fighting against. While Internet providers say they support the concept of an open Internet, they want flexibility to think up new ways to package and sell Internet services. And, given the billions of dollars spent to improve network infrastructure, some officials say it's only fair to make data hogs like Netflix bear some of the costs of handling heavy traffic.

AT&T on Monday threatened legal action if the FCC adopted Obama's plan, while Comcast Corp. said reclassifying broadband regulation would be "a radical reversal that would harm investment and innovation, as today's immediate stock market reaction demonstrates." Similar statements were released by Time Warner Cable Inc., Cox Communications and several industry groups including CTIA-The Wireless Association, USTelecom, the Telecommunications Industry Association and Broadband for America.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, traveling with Obama in China, said the president "felt this was an appropriate time" to make his views known because of the FCC's regulatory timeline, and that the timing wasn't related to Obama's trip this week to Asia and Australia.

Asked whether Comcast had been consulted on the issue, Earnest said only that the White House had been in touch with the business community on a variety of issues.

"There are members of Congress on both sides of this," he added.

Many Republicans including House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sided with industry in denouncing the plan as government overreach.

"'Net Neutrality' is Obamacare for the Internet," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a tea party favorite, declared on Twitter. "The Internet should not operate at the speed of government."

The Internet Association, which represents many content providers like Netflix, Twitter, eBay and Google, applauded Obama's proposal.

On Monday, as the Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up slightly, stock prices fell for big cable companies, including Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cablevision and Charter Communications.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a former industry lobbyist and venture capitalist, has said he is open to using a "hybrid" approach that would draw from both Title II of the 1934 law and the 1996 Telecommunications Act. On Monday, Wheeler said he welcomed the president's comments, but suggested that his proposal was easier said than done.

"The more deeply we examined the issues around the various legal options, the more it has become plain that there is more work to do," Wheeler said. "The reclassification and hybrid approaches before us raise substantive legal questions. We found we would need more time to examine these to ensure that whatever approach is taken, it can withstand any legal challenges it may face."

The FCC isn't under a deadline to make a decision.

The president's statement all but guarantees that the major cable companies will spend the next few months trying to encourage Congress to step in to protect their interests. Still, Internet activists are hoping that Obama's position will go a long way, even as his popularity among his party has waned.

"When the leader of the free world says the Internet should remain free, that's a game changer," said Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

___

AP business writers Michael Liedtke in San Francisco and Ken Sweet in New York and AP writer Josh Lederman in Beijing contributed to this report.

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Follow Anne Flaherty on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AnneKFlaherty

Obama's Plan to Save the Internet

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Mon, 10 Nov 2014 16:39

Good news, America. Our president, Barack Obama, is finally standing up for the internet, and asking the FCC to classify it as a public utility. In other words, he's asking the agency not to allow destructive things like fast lanes (a.k.a. paid prioritization) or throttling. It's a great day!

At least, today's news is a great step in the right direction.

It's unclear so far exactly how the FCC will react to the president's splashy statements about net neutrality. Chairman Tom Wheeler and his cronies could simply decide to ignore Obama. But when the Commander-in-Chief says something like this, you'd hope the government agencies he's sort of* in charge of will listen:

More than any other invention of our time, the Internet has unlocked possibilities we could just barely imagine a generation ago. And here's a big reason we've seen such incredible growth and innovation: Most Internet providers have treated Internet traffic equally. That's a principle known as "net neutrality" '-- and it says that an entrepreneur's fledgling company should have the same chance to succeed as established corporations, and that access to a high school student's blog shouldn't be unfairly slowed down to make way for advertisers with more money.

Inspirational, right? Obama's good at that. I said "sort of " above because, as Obama is careful to point out in his statement: "The FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone." So they could just ignore him. But let's get into the details before we really consider that option.

The PlanSo Obama's asked the FCC to reclassify the internet as a public utility, like electricity or water. This means a lot of things. Suffice it to say that the internet gets a better square on the Monopoly board. Instead of just being a regular piece of real estate that can be bought or sold or modified or destroyed, the internet would enjoy a number of regulatory protections if it were classified under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

The White House points out in a blog post about Obama's statement that the reclassification would represent a "basic acknowledgement of the services ISPs provide to American homes and businesses, and the straightforward obligations necessary to ensure the network works for everyone'--not just one or two companies." That sounds about right. The internet was designed to be a free and open tool for communications.

So Obama's presenting a four point plan. You can read his full explanation of each point in the full statement below, but here are the important, pretty self-explanatory bullet points:

No blocking.No throttling.Increased transparency.No paid prioritization.No block and no throttling are obvious. Increased transparency is vague, but we'll come back to that in a second. Meanwhile, you've heard a lot about paid prioritization (fast lanes) from the big fight over the summer, when the FCC invited the public to comment on its pretty shitty rules. As we all know, lots of people'--over 4 million to be exact'--did just that, breaking pretty much every record the FCC had for public involvement in its regulations. So the president agreeing with the public is a terrific thing! But, again, it does not mean that this solves the problem of protecting net neutrality for good.

What It MeansNow, let's get into the dirty details, because that's where this policy shift will either make or break the future of the internet. And there is most definitely a big asterisk on Obama's plan, an exception that some think spoils the whole thing.

The specific mandates that Obama lays out in his statement are exactly that: specific. It's important that he specifically forbids blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization, because pretty much everybody agrees that these are bad for the internet'--everybody except, maybe, the ISPs like Verizon and Comcast who stand to profit from these practices. The FCC got into trouble with the American public for not specifically forbidding certain practices, namely paid prioritization.

The more general aspects of the Obama's plan raise a few questions. The president is very clear when he explains what being classified under the Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1934 means:

For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business. That is why a phone call from a customer of one phone company can reliably reach a customer of a different one, and why you will not be penalized solely for calling someone who is using another provider.

Almost a century! The Telecommunications Act is an old law, but it's a good one. Its provisions attempt to guarantee that consumers don't get screwed on services that are integral to daily life. In 1934, that meant telephones. Now, Obama's saying that it should also mean broadband internet. In his own words, this is just "common sense."

But there's a caveat here'--that asterisk I mentioned at the top of this post. Right after his "common sense" remark, Obama says this:

"Forbearing" is the key word there. The legal term is forbearance, which literally means "the action of refraining from exercising a legal right." In this context, forbearance means that some parts of the Telecommunications Act would not apply to the regulation of broadband internet, namely "rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services." That line reads like a hat tip to ISPs, a signal that the government is giving them a little bit of wiggle room'--or a lot. It's kind of unclear.

It's long been argued that forbearance would be the key to preserving net neutrality. After all, until the government decides that it will become an ISP and provide Americans with internet access, broadband is a business. To preserve the free and open aspects of the internet, some compromises will have to be made for business interests.

At face value, the fact that Obama is offering ISPs forbearance on an undetermined number of aspects of Title II sounds like a trick. It's one of those devil-you-don't-know situations. Sure, he forbids bad things like fast lanes and throttling, but he's also saying that ISPs will get off the hook for an undisclosed number of regulations. Rate regulation is one that he does name. This means that regulators won't be able to tell ISPs how much they can charge customers. Obviously, ISPs like this idea. But what else won't regulators be able to do?

So keep an eye on this forbearance issue. It might become pretty problematic for the average consumer. Then again, it might be the trade-off we have to make so that the FCC'--and the companies that spend millions so that the agency respects their wishes'--actually approves an acceptable set of net neutrality rules.

Will It Work?Once again, Obama's statement about net neutrality is great news. Great news always has its caveats, but look at it this way. About an hour after the White House released the statement, Tim Wu tweeted:

Tim Wu is the Columbia Law School professor who invented the term "net neutrality." So if he likes Obama's policy, today is a terrific day for the internet. And it actually sounds like he loves the policy.

Keep this in mind when you wonder if it'll work. Will the FCC actually write new rules that conform to the president's wishes? We don't know. We can't know until they do or they don't!

Think of it this way, though. The FCC is not the American people's favorite agency right now. More than one individual commissioner has even admitted that the existing rules are bad. Meanwhile, the experts who understand how the internet works better than the FCC does say that Obama's plan is "100% on target."

It's the FCC's job to listen to experts and do what's best for the American people. Now would be a good time for the FCC to do its job.

Read Obama's full statement below:

An open Internet is essential to the American economy, and increasingly to our very way of life. By lowering the cost of launching a new idea, igniting new political movements, and bringing communities closer together, it has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known.

"Net neutrality" has been built into the fabric of the Internet since its creation '-- but it is also a principle that we cannot take for granted. We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas. That is why today, I am asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to answer the call of almost 4 million public comments, and implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality.

When I was a candidate for this office, I made clear my commitment to a free and open Internet, and my commitment remains as strong as ever. Four years ago, the FCC tried to implement rules that would protect net neutrality with little to no impact on the telecommunications companies that make important investments in our economy. After the rules were challenged, the court reviewing the rules agreed with the FCC that net neutrality was essential for preserving an environment that encourages new investment in the network, new online services and content, and everything else that makes up the Internet as we now know it. Unfortunately, the court ultimately struck down the rules '-- not because it disagreed with the need to protect net neutrality, but because it believed the FCC had taken the wrong legal approach.

The FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone. I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online. The rules I am asking for are simple, common-sense steps that reflect the Internet you and I use every day, and that some ISPs already observe. These bright-line rules include:

No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others '-- through a process often called "throttling" '-- based on the type of service or your ISP's preferences.

Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs '-- the so-called "last mile" '-- is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet.

No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a "slow lane" because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet's growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.

If carefully designed, these rules should not create any undue burden for ISPs, and can have clear, monitored exceptions for reasonable network management and for specialized services such as dedicated, mission-critical networks serving a hospital. But combined, these rules mean everything for preserving the Internet's openness.

The rules also have to reflect the way people use the Internet today, which increasingly means on a mobile device. I believe the FCC should make these rules fully applicable to mobile broadband as well, while recognizing the special challenges that come with managing wireless networks.

To be current, these rules must also build on the lessons of the past. For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business. That is why a phone call from a customer of one phone company can reliably reach a customer of a different one, and why you will not be penalized solely for calling someone who is using another provider. It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information '-- whether a phone call, or a packet of data.

So the time has come for the FCC to recognize that broadband service is of the same importance and must carry the same obligations as so many of the other vital services do. To do that, I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act '-- while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services. This is a basic acknowledgment of the services ISPs provide to American homes and businesses, and the straightforward obligations necessary to ensure the network works for everyone '-- not just one or two companies.

Investment in wired and wireless networks has supported jobs and made America the center of a vibrant ecosystem of digital devices, apps, and platforms that fuel growth and expand opportunity. Importantly, network investment remained strong under the previous net neutrality regime, before it was struck down by the court; in fact, the court agreed that protecting net neutrality helps foster more investment and innovation. If the FCC appropriately forbears from the Title II regulations that are not needed to implement the principles above '-- principles that most ISPs have followed for years '-- it will help ensure new rules are consistent with incentives for further investment in the infrastructure of the Internet.

The Internet has been one of the greatest gifts our economy '-- and our society '-- has ever known. The FCC was chartered to promote competition, innovation, and investment in our networks. In service of that mission, there is no higher calling than protecting an open, accessible, and free Internet. I thank the Commissioners for having served this cause with distinction and integrity, and I respectfully ask them to adopt the policies I have outlined here, to preserve this technology's promise for today, and future generations to come.

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FCC confirms delay of net neutrality decision until 2015

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Wed, 12 Nov 2014 14:11

'; var _rdtb =''; var _lib1 = ''; var _lib2 = 'President Obama's heralded push to preserve net neutrality won't result in any meaningful progress, at least not this year.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the government regulatory body that's spent much of 2014 deliberating whether to make the Internet a public utility, will abandon its earlier promise to make a decision on new net neutrality rules this year.

Instead, FCC Press Secretary Kim Hart told the Daily Dot in an email, "there will not be a vote on open internet rules on the December meeting agenda. That would mean rules would now be finalized in 2015."

Obama campaigned on a promise of net neutrality, the general concept that Internet providers shouldn't be able to dictate the rules of how fast customers can access certain sites. But Internet freedom advocates' optimism that the president would deliver waned as years of his presidency passed without any progress. And they threw up their hands when he appointed Tom Wheeler, a former cable lobbyist, to head the FCC.

Since then, the issue has become almost stereotypically political. Though Wheeler was Obama's pick, the FCC is an independent body. After the Democrats were shellacked in the midterm elections last week, Obama on Tuesday launched a campaign to enshrine net neutrality into law, and openly called on Wheeler to make the Internet a utility. But Wheeler fired back with a press release that effectively called Obama just another of the almost four million Americans who had written to the FCC to express an opinion on the issue. (It's worth noting that, except for those written by Internet providers, comments were almost unanimously in favor of net neutrality.)

News that the FCC will delay its decision is particularly devastating for net neutrality proponents, because the issue has suddenly become more partisan than before the most recent election, and is very unlikely to improve with a Republican-held Congress. In one heavily-mocked tweet, Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called net neutrality "Obamacare for the Internet," a statement so nonsensical that Cruz deleted it some hours later. Other powerful Republicans in Congress, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and likely 2015 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), also expressed their opposition to Obama's plan.

H/T Politico. | Photo via Nathan (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed

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Cable stocks fall as Obama calls on FCC to protect net neutrality - MarketWatch

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Wed, 12 Nov 2014 21:01

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) '-- Shares of leading cable and Internet service providers dropped on Monday after President Barack Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules to save and support net neutrality.

Comcast CMCSA, +1.08% Time Warner Cable TWC, +1.15% Cablevision Systems Corp. CVC, +0.39% and Charter Communications CHTR, +1.59% all saw their stock fall following Obama's comments on upholding net neutrality and not allowing content providers to pay cable providers and ISPs for access to so-called fast lanes.

Shares of Netflix NFLX, +0.42% , a major user of Internet bandwidth, edged higher.

''In plain English, I'm asking them to recognize that for most Americans the Internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and everyday life,'' the president said.

He also issued a video accompanying the statement.

Verizon, VZ, +0.51% has already released a statement admonishing the president's proposal.

In its statement, Verizon said reclassifying Internet service to define providers as common carriers ''would be a radical reversal... that would in and of itself threaten great harm to an open Internet.''

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler released a subsequent statement welcoming President Obama's thoughts and ideas. He also acknowledged the legal bumps of creating rules regarding net neutrality and said this is process that may take more time.

The agency had been targeting the release of rules by the end of the year.

''We must take the time to get the job done correctly, once and for all, in order to successfully protect consumers and innovators online,'' Wheeler said in a statement released Monday.

AT&T to pause fiber spending on net neutrality uncertainty

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Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:32

AT&T to pause fiber spending on net neutrality uncertaintyTop News

AT&T to pause fiber spending on net neutrality uncertainty

Wed, Nov 12 12:56 PM EST

By Marina Lopes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - AT&T Inc (T.N) will stop investing in new high-speed Internet connections in 100 U.S. cities until regulators decide whether to enact tough "net neutrality" rules proposed by President Obama, Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said on Wednesday.

The investment pause is the most dramatic action yet by a telecommunications or cable company after Obama on Monday urged the Federal Communications Commission to regulate Internet service providers more like public utilities.

At the same time, AT&T had been spending heavily acquisitions and had cut its capital spending estimate for 2015.

Companies and industry groups have already protested Obama's proposal, saying it would stifle growth and investment.

"We can't go out and invest that kind of money deploying fiber to 100 cities not knowing under what rules those investments will be governed," Stephenson said at an analyst conference.

In April, AT&T said it would deploy its high-speed fiber network in 100 cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami.

A primary goal for the FCC in recent years has been to ensure quality Internet access across the country, especially in rural communities.

AT&T pushed back against Obama's comments on Monday and said it would take the government to court if the FCC follows through on his request.

The company, which is buying DirecTV (DTV.O) for $48.5 billion, said on Friday that it would also pay $1.7 billion to acquire Mexican wireless operator Iusacell. It trimmed its 2015 capital spending outlook to $18 billion from $21 billion. [ID:nL1N0SX2RQ]

At the same conference on Wednesday, Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo struck a somewhat lighter tone.

"I think the independent agency of the FCC will make the right decision," Shammo said.

He said the FCC could restrict "paid prioritization" deals, where content companies pay for faster downloads of some websites or applications, without pursuing utility-style regulations under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

"We don't need to bring Title II into this," he said.

(Reporting by Marina Lopes, Editing by Franklin Paul and Lisa Von Ahn)