NTD TV | Jan 27, 2012

January 22nd, 2012, the eve of Chinese New Year. Chinese officials in the Tibet Autonomous Region held a ceremony to unveil a portrait of four Communist leaders: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. They go on to state that they will send these portraits, as well as Communist flags, to villages, homes, and temples in the region.

It’s estimated that one million of these items have already been sent.

Chair of the Chinese Social Democratic Party, Liu Yinquan, believes the Chinese Communist Party is trying to use its symbols to replace those of traditional Tibetan Buddhism.

[Liu Yinquan, Chair of Chinese Social Democratic Party]:

“The Communist regime uses its single party rule and its party culture and symbols to slowly eliminate the Buddhist faith. This is in accordance with the religious policy that the Communist Party has always had. The Chinese Communist Party, on the surface, its constitution allows religious freedom, but it is actually changing religion, using religion to strengthen its single party rule, turning religion into a tool for its united front.”

In December 2011, authorities in Tibet introduced the “Nine Must-Haves” policy. It dictates nine items that all temples must display or carry portraits of Communist leaders, the Communist flag and a copy of the state-run People’s Daily.

[Liu Yinquan, Chair of Chinese Social Democratic Party]:
“Every situation has its specified ornaments, a temple is a place to worship the Buddha. So it should have the Buddhist scriptures, a Buddha statue, it has to have these things that are related to Buddhism. If you bring these other things in, it will make it all messed up.”

On the Lunar New Year itself, and just one day after the portrait ceremony, Chinese forces opened fire on Tibetan protesters in a Tibetan region of Sichuan. Recent clashes have left dozens of people wounded, with reports of several deaths.

The Chinese regime will close Tibet from February 20th until March 30th. That’s during the Tibetan New Year and the anniversary of the 2008 Tibetan riots, both sensitive dates for the regime.

Daily Mail | Jan 24, 2012

By Vanessa Allen

Financier Nat Rothschild, has denied claims he took Lord Mandelson to Siberia to clinch a £500million deal

Millionaire financier Nat Rothschild invited Peter Mandelson to Siberia for a sightseeing break, not to ‘bless’ a £500million deal, he said yesterday.

The 2005 invitation to the then EU trade chief was made because Mr Rothschild knew he had no weekend plans, he told the High Court.

The hedge fund manager was giving evidence at the start of his libel case against the Daily Mail over a 2010 article which said he invited Lord Mandelson in an effort to impress Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Lawyers for Mr Rothschild, 40, who is financial adviser to Mr Deripaska, said the article painted him as a ‘puppet-master’ involved in ‘dubious games’ with the former New Labour spin doctor and Russia’s richest man.

Hugh Tomlinson QC, for Mr Rothschild, said it was ‘fanciful’ to suggest the trip was engineered to allow discussions between the newly appointed European trade commissioner and Mr Deripaska.

Related

Nathaniel Rothschild says sauna with Lord Mandelson was purely pleasure, not business

Lord Mandelson’s relationship with the oligarch came under the spotlight in 2008, when he was Business Secretary.

He faced criticism over a potential conflict of interest surrounding a summer visit to the billionaire’s yacht in Corfu, along with then Shadow Chancellor George Osborne.

The 2010 Mail article raised questions about Lord Mandelson’s presence at a January 2005 dinner in Moscow, which was said to have resulted in a £500millon deal between Mr Deripaska and U.S. aluminium executives.

Mr Tomlinson said Lord Mandelson was not a guest at the dinner, but had visited the table briefly while he waited for his host, a Russian minister, to arrive at the restaurant.

He told the High Court that the deal was done before the dinner without any involvement from the former New Labour architect.

Mr Tomlinson said Lord Mandelson and Mr Deripaska were both at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a week earlier and could have discussed the EU’s position on aluminium tariffs then, if there had been any need for them to do so.

They did not need to do so at the dinner, he said, nor during the subsequent 24-hour visit to Mr Deripaska’s holiday home in a Siberian ski resort.

In written evidence to the court, Mr Rothschild said he invited Lord Mandelson on the trip because ‘he had no plans for the weekend and did not know people in Brussels’.

Mr Tomlinson said: ‘The case now put forward by the newspaper is that Mr Rothschild took Lord Mandelson on a trip to Siberia in order to impress Mr Deripaska when he knew, or ought to have known, that if anyone had found out about it, Lord Mandelson would have been compromised.

‘It is also said there were grounds for believing that Lord Mandelson discussed aluminium tariffs with Mr Deripaska on that trip and the claimant encouraged the inappropriate relationship. Our case is that there is no truth in any of that.’

Swiss-based Mr Rothschild said he was ‘incredibly upset and distressed’ by the article, adding: ‘It had absolutely no bearing to the truth whatsoever. It was fiction.’

He is seeking ‘very substantial damages’ from Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail. The hearing continues.

Bitter cold winter weather broke some records last week in Merritt and around the world.

The thermometer’s Jan. 18 reading of a high of -21 degrees in Merritt was the coldest Jan. 18 since Environment Canada began recording temperatures in 1968. An arctic front plunged the Nicola Valley and much of the province into a deep freeze last week, with Environment Canada issuing extreme wind chill alerts that brought temperatures down between -35 and -45.

The following day, Jan. 19, the AMSU satellite of 251.858K recorded the coldest day of the year globally since 2002, based on the daily global average temperature.

Things warmed up considerably in the valley by the weekend with temperatures hovering just below and above zero.

Environment Canada forecasts mild temperatures throughout the week and this weekend with highs and lows between -5 and 7 degrees.

merrittnews.net | Jan 26, 2012

by Kenneth Foo

Hongkongers shivered through the coldest Lunar New Year holiday in 16 years, with the mercury plunging to seven degrees Celsius in urban areas yesterday and going under three degrees in Ngong Ping on Lantau.

The third day of the Year of the Water Dragon brought frost to high places in the Northern New Territories and a chilling 5.6 degrees outdoors for residents.

The Hong Kong Observatory said it was the coldest Lunar New Year holiday since 1996 and that the cold snap will continue for a few days, though it will be slightly warmer at the weekend.

Hong Kong Union Hospital said 13 people were admitted to its accident and emergency ward with hypothermia over the past two days.

The Home Affairs Department opened temporary shelters throughout the territory last night.

But the cold snap failed to stop thousands of worshippers from flocking to Che Kung temple in Sha Tin in search of luck, fortune and blessings.

Businessman Ronnie Loh Kim-sum was one of them, taking his wife and three children along.

“Year after year, I come to pray for my family’s health as no amount of money or power can buy you good health,” said Loh.

Teacher Amy Ko Kin-yam said she prayed for the recovery of her father, who suffered a stroke last year and is bedridden.

Most worshippers stuck to plan – drawing fortune sticks carrying inscribed numbers, a traditional Taoist practice that is said to predict one’s fortune in the year ahead.

Property agent Lee Soon-fai was told he would have a
“sudden windfall” shortly after his 36th birthday this year.

On Tuesday, Heung Yee Kuk chairman Lau Wong-fat drew, on behalf of the people of Hong Kong, “average” stick number 29.

A fortune stick reader said Hong Kong faces problems in the year ahead, but if they are resolved, the rewards can be great.

Renowned fortune-teller James Lee Shing-chak said the stick indicates Hong Kong will see a lot of falsehood and gossip this year.

Meanwhile, many vendors at the Che Kung Festival Fair said the many patches of drizzle and biting cold hit profits, forcing business down by 20 to 30 percent and sending many of them home early.

CBS | Jan 26, 2012

Morgellons Disease images from the Charles E. Holman Foundation http://www.thecehf.org (click photo to see a graphic zoom into Morgellons fibers)

DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) – Five years ago, CBS 11 News began investigating a bizarre medical condition known as Morgellons Disease. Those who claim to have it describe unusual symptoms like strange fibers poking through their skin. But, the question all along has been is it real, or is it just in the patient’s mind?

In 2008, CBS 11 was the first to report that the Centers For Disease Control would be launching its own investigation to determine if Morgellons was in fact a new and real disease. (Click here to read the CDC Morgellons press release.) Now, the agency is making its findings public in this report. But, it may not be what patients hoped to hear.

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• Weird X-Files skin disease treated as a psychological disorder
• Morgellons: Terrifying New Disease Reaching Pandemic Status
• Brain shrink linked to Gulf War syndrome

I feel the itchy and the creepy crawly,” said Cindy Casey when we first met her in 2007. “It’s been extremely disfiguring… every part of my body, hands, legs, arms, and back.”

Casey has been dealing with effects of a mysterious illness for more than a decade.

“I don’t escape it for one moment of the day,” she said. “I’m constantly aware of it.”

She’s one of thousands around the country who claim to have the condition known as Morgellons Disease. Symptoms include lesions, and the sensation of bugs crawling under the skin. But, the most unusual of all the symptoms are tiny fibers that patients say literally grow out of their skin.

“It’s miserable,” Casey said. “It feels like splinters, like you have splinters coming out all over.”

Casey and many other patients have been turned away from numerous doctors who tell them it’s all in their head.

“He basically told me I was delusional,” said another patient. “Delusional Parasitosis is the common diagnosis.”

In January 2008, patients saw hope when the CDC announced it was launching an investigation to determine if Morgellons was indeed a newfound infectious disease.

“We believe that the suffering many people associate with this condition is best addressed by a careful objective scientific analysis,” Dr. Michele Pearson, with the CDC, explained during a 2008 conference call to announce the study.

Four years later, that study is complete, and CBS 11 obtained a copy. Inside, the CDC concludes that “no…infectious source was identified.”

Click here to read the entire CDC Morgellons study

As for the fibers found on the patients in the study, the CDC says those fibers were “consistent with skin fragments or materials such as cotton.”

But, the CDC stops short of saying the condition is all in the patient’s mind. The study says they were “unable to conclude whether this unexplained dermopathy represents a new condition, or a wider recognition of an existing condition such as delusional infestation.”

Doctors Rhonda Casey and Randy Wymore – who research Morgellons at Oklahoma State University and believe it’s a real condition – say while the study doesn’t offer much hope for those suffering, it did not exactly shut the door all together.

“Morgellons is real,” said Dr. Casey. “We know it’s real. What they decided is these patients don’t have this thing we’ve looked at.”

“If this was a delusional disorder and their study proved that, they would’ve said it,” said Dr. Wymore.

We also spoke to Cindy Casey – the North Texas patient – about the findings. She said she’s thankful the CDC made some kind of effort, but doesn’t believe it was a fair study.

Click here to read Cindy’s full response to the CDC findings

While the CDC’s investigation came to a conclusion about the fibers, it did not determine what was causing the lesions on the patient’s bodies. CBS 11 asked if the CDC was planning any further studies, but a spokesperson said further CDC involvement was unnecessary.

.   .   .

Response from Cindy Casey, Morgellons patient and founder of the Charles E. Holman Foundation:

First and foremost, I want to thank the CDC for making a very preliminary effort to investigate this emerging infectious disease that should be of great concern to everybody worldwide.

The study is flawed from the very beginning in the method of patient selections. Only one of these patients was familiar to me and was known to have the symptoms and manifestations we identify as Morgellons Disease.

Sadly, that patient is now deceased. The CDC was strongly resistant to any dialogue with those of us who offered to provide information on what we describe as manifestations of Morgellons Disease.

The CDC describes purulent drainage and associated with the lesions which were investigated in the study. I have seen thousands of Morgellons lesions and one remarkable finding is that Morgellons lesions are never purulent and rarely ever is a Morgellons patient found to have any signs of infection within or surrounding the lesion. It appears that the patients selected by the CDC for this study were not patients who exhibited the characteristic symptoms that we know to be consistent with Morgellons.

It is unfortunate for all that valuable resources were used rather recklessly and no advancement was made in the understanding of this unique pathological condition. In the absence of and resistance to any dialogue or collaboration, the CDC has unfortunately chosen the wrong patient population to study. Thus the results lend no further insight into this mysterious condition.

Delusional Parasitosis and neurotic excoriations are conditions that could easily be mistaken for Morgellons, especially if the investigators are unfamiliar with what we have found to be consistent with Morgellons.

Science is a moving target, and as new scientific information emerges the views of scientists will shift. We are at the very beginning of the Morgellons saga in terms of scientific investigation, and people need to keep an open mind about a disease that is disfiguring, disabling, poorly understood and very frightening. As more physicians and researchers are becoming actively involved with the condition WE identify as Morgellons, science will be forthcoming and a better understanding of the etiology will be determined.

The Charles E. Holman Foundation will be holding our annual conference in Austin, TX on March 24th and 25th of 2012. A lot of new information will be presented by Morgellons researchers. This year we have some interesting new speakers. Dermatologist Peter Mayne will discuss a structured dermatological approach to Morgellons Disease. Microbiologist Marianne Middelveen will discuss her findings from examining the evidence under light microscopy. The conference is geared primarily toward medical professionals but everyone is invited to attend. For more information on our upcoming conference, please visit our website at www.thecehf.org

Zionist Freemason Anders Behring Breivik

Norwegian authorities are reportedly considering building a one-man’s psychiatric hospital unit to accommodate confessed terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, inside the prison where’s now being held. Meanwhile Breivik refuses to answer more questions from police until they promise him ongoing access to a computer.

Breivik, who spent years plotting his attacks on government headquarters and the Labour Party’s youth organization last summer, is proving to be one tough inmate. Court authorities have already decided to remodel Oslo’s city courthouse, at a cost of millions, to accommodate Breivik’s trial. He’s also being held in no less than three cells inside the high-security Ila Prison in suburban Bærum, where he can use one for exercising, one for relaxing and sleeping, and one as a sort of living room.

Special treatment

Now, reports newspaper VG, a special psychiatric unit may be needed as well inside the prison. Breivik was declared insane by court-appointed psychiatrists, and although that decision is subject to re-evaluation, the 32-year-old Norwegian who killed 77 persons on July 22 may be committed to a psychiatric institution instead of being sentenced to prison.

There are concerns, however, that Norway’s highest-security psychiatric institution, Dikemark Sykehus in Asker west of Oslo, may not have high-enough security to hold Breivik. VG reported that corrections authorities don’t think Breivik could be prevented from escaping from Dikemark, nor are they confident that an attempt from the outside to free him could be hindered.

Thought is thus being given to creating a private, high-security psychiatric unit inside Ila Prison. He’s already isolated there from other prisoners, not least for his own safety.

A state secretary from the Labour Party confirmed that authorities are “looking at a variety of alternatives to accommodate his own security needs and to protect society.” He wouldn’t confirm specific plans, however.

Breivik makes demands

Newspaper Aftenposten reported that Breivik, meanwhile, has stopped cooperating with the rounds of questioning conducted by police since his arrest at the scene of his massacre on the island of Utøya six months ago. He says he won’t answer more questions until police guarantee that he’ll be allowed access to a computer and printer for the duration of his custody. Police can’t make such a guarantee, so the questioning has ceased.

Breivik also wants the computer to have a text program because he reportedly intends to write a book about his attacks and his ideology. Newspaper Dagsavisen has reported that justice ministry officials are considering proposing a law that would seize any income from books written by convicts. Convicts can already be prevented from working at their professions while in jail, with artist Odd Nerdrum most recently being denied the right to paint if his appeals fail and he’s sentenced to on tax evasion charges.

Villiage Voice | Jan 25 2012

By Tony Ortega

We were stunned when Debrah Kitchings said it: in the 26 years since she investigated the odd death of Mary Florence “Flo” Barnett for the Los Angeles County Coroner, she has not once been asked by a reporter about what she remembers of the case.

Only once in that time, she says, was she ever asked about it at all.

“I think her daughter or a relative sent a letter, an inquiry, I think,” Kitchings says.

Today, Kitchings is retired and lives in Riverside County, California, but in 1985, she was an investigator with the LA Department of Coroner when, on the night of September 8, she was called to Dominguez Valley Hospital in Compton to conduct a gunshot residue test on the hands of the dead woman.

Despite the passage of time, Kitchings remembers the case well. And she suspects that there’s a reason I’m interested in this one death out of the many she handled over her career.

“It has something to do with Scientology, right?”

Indeed, it does. Over the years, interest in the death of Flo Barnett has endured because of her connection to the Church of Scientology — Barnett’s daughter, Michelle “Shelly” Barnett, in 1981 married David Miscavige, who today is the supreme leader of the worldwide religion. Flo was Miscavige’s mother-in-law, and Shelly herself has not been seen in public with her husband since 2006. But that’s a story we’ll be going into on another day.

There is another reason why Flo Barnett’s death is still a matter of interest on the Internet, I told Kitchings.

Quite a few of us, I explained to her, wonder how Barnett managed to shoot herself three times in the chest and once in the head — with a long rifle — in what the County Medical Examiner ruled was a suicide.

“It is very unusual,” Kitchings told me Monday night when we talked by telephone.

We spent some time going over her report of the incident, a document that can be found online. She wanted to confirm the facts in her report with what she remembered: that she didn’t respond to the scene of the incident, but was called by Sheriff’s Office personnel to the hospital, where Barnett had already been pronounced dead.

Kitchings wanted me to understand why that made a difference. Normally, if death is pronounced at a hospital, it’s not a pressing case, and student workers in the Coroner’s office would go down in the next couple of days to retrieve the body. Instead, in this case, Kitchings was personally called down to the hospital the same night Barnett’s body was taken there.

“The detective must have had some concern. We respond because they have a question,” she said.

That concern was pretty obvious, and something Kitchings put in her report that night: “Detectives felt, at the time of this report, the decedent may be the victim of a homicide due to the number of times she was shot. However, they were still interviewing at the time of this report.”

After performing an autopsy, however, medical examiner Joan Shipley decided that Barnett’s death was a suicide: “The case is that of a 52-year-old woman who died as the result of multiple gunshot wounds which were self-inflicted,” reads Shipley’s report, which came out more than a month after the incident. I asked Kitchings how an autopsy determined that cause.

“I’ll tell you how. It doesn’t mean it was a suicide, but I’ll tell you how they came to that conclusion,” Kitchings answered. “It’s real easy to get away with murder anyway. It’s only as good as the investigator.”

She explained that a medical examiner like Shipley could describe wounds and other conditions of a corpse, but she couldn’t tell by looking how a wound came to happen.

She gave me a hypothetical example of a man with a gunshot wound to the head. “A doctor has no clue whether the man shot his head off, which is a suicide; or died playing Russian Roulette, which is an accident; or if somebody shot him, which is homicide. The doctor cannot tell you whether it was accidental or on purpose. They have to rely on the investigator. So it depends on several things.”

She pointed out that there was no question that what killed Barnett was the shot to the head: “The gunshot wound of the head was immediately fatal and occurred following the 3 gunshot wounds to the chest,” reads the autopsy report.

But the detective would also perform what Kitchings calls a “psychological autopsy,” interviewing people at the scene — such as Barnett’s husband, James Miller, who found his wife’s body and was initially treated as a possible suspect.

“Here you’ve got what appears to be a homicide. But you run into these other factors,” she said. “The hesitation marks on the wrists, for example. Were they fresh or were they healing?”

That was another odd detail in the case: Barnett not only had four bullet wounds, her wrists also showed evidence that they had been slashed.

According to the coroner, Barnett’s wrists had likely been sliced days before: “The wounds are consistent with those of several days’ age but are extremely superficial and may be more acute,” the autopsy report reads, suggesting a possible suicide attempt a few days prior to Barnett’s actual death.

On the other hand, Kitchings says, there were the multiple gunshots.

“Of course it’s unusual to have that many gunshots. And with a rifle? Totally bizarre. But if you think that case is bad, you should hear about this other one, Crystal Spencer,” Kitchings said, referring to a 1988 death. After telling me some things about that case, she came back to the matter at hand.

“It is very unusual and the sheriff’s detective thought it was important,” she said, referring again to her being called down to the hospital that night. “That’s a good detective and that tells me a lot right there. The detective was smart enough to say, ‘Come now.’ And believe me, that was a time we were incredibly busy. The gang problem was never worse than in those years.”

That the Coroner’s Office ultimately ruled it a suicide, however, said more about the detective and his investigation than it did about the autopsy.

“The doctor must have been convinced that it was a suicide based on what the detective told her. The doctor has no clue, and cannot tell you how or why.”

And relying on a homicide detective bureau was not any kind of assurance that the correct conclusion would be reached.

“If it was the LAPD, I’d tell you it was automatically bad. But it was the Sheriff’s Office. And Havercroft, he was good,” she says when I tell her the name of the detective on the reports.

“I didn’t hear anything more in that case, so the doctor relied on the detective. If it was iffy, they would have gone with homicide. But they must have done enough interviews with the husband to convince them that it was a suicide,” she said. “It does sound very suspicious to me. It does. But it was out of my hands.”

I thanked Kitchings for being so helpful, and for not only telling me what she remembered of the case, but for taking the time to explain how a cause of death would be determined.

It was now crystal clear: I needed to track down retired LA Sheriff’s Office detective Bob Havercroft and ask him how he had come to the conclusion that a small, frail woman could kill herself with four rifle shots.

Yesterday, I managed to get him on the phone. Having retired to Oregon, Havercroft was traveling in Southern California, enjoying the warm weather.

I told him why I was calling, and hoped that he remembered the Flo Barnett case out of the many he must have investigated.

“I remember that one,” he said. “This one was very, very, very unusual. But it was a suicide.”

But how, I asked, could Barnett have managed to shoot herself four times?

“Very easily,” Havercroft answered.

“We reconstructed the scene. My lieutenant was there. It was fairly simple to do. The way she was positioned on her bed, the way the rifle was in her hand. I think we even recovered a bullet from next door — this was a trailer park,” he said.

“It was obvious what she was doing, which was typical of some women. She was trying to shoot herself in the chest, and in a critical area. There was a gunshot wound to a breast,” he said.

“When we finished the investigation I was absolutely convinced it was a suicide. There was no question,” he said, adding that he remembered a suicide note being found. In fact, two notes were found.

“I have never heard another word about this case since it was investigated. And I worked another 10, 11 years after that,” Havercroft said.

Again, he acknowledged that the situation was extremely unusual, and that on its surface, it seemed to suggest a different conclusion.

“Hey, I can tell you my patrol deputy who was there was ready to take the husband to jail for murder. I had to cool him off. I walked him through it,” he said, and explained that eventually, his deputy came to the same conclusion.

“There’s no question,” he added. “It’s never a murder until it’s a murder. We never got beyond suicide. It was easy to reconstruct with the body and the position of the gun and so on. There was no cover-up. It was a suicide. It was not a murder,” he said. “It was one of those very, very interesting cases.”

Interesting, to be sure. And one wonders why Barnett was so determined to kill herself that she endured what she did.

Full Story

Daily Mail | Jan 24, 2012

By Thomas Durante

For some, going to the dentist is already an anxiety-inducing matter, but an appointment with this guy could have brought on potential health risks.

Michael Clair, 53, pleaded guilty Friday to a slew of accusations stemming from his substandard dental practice in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Among the charges are illegally prescribing prescription drugs, assault and battery, witness intimidation and conning Medicaid out of $130,000.

In addition, Clair is accused of trying to save a few bucks by using a paper clip instead of a stainless steel bar for a root canal procedure.

Using anything other than stainless steel puts patients at risk of pain and even infection.

Prosecutors said Clair was suspended by Medicaid in 2002, but continued to file claims from August 2003 to June 2005 using the names of other dentists in his practice, located in the New Harbour Mall.

The Herald News reported that Clair’s trial was scheduled to start yesterday but took a new course when Clair changed his plea to guilty.

He will be sentenced on January 30 at New Bedford Superior Court.

Clair’s attorney, John Dingee of Taunton, Massachusetts, did not immediately return a call for comment.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley told Fox 25 that the case ‘paints a picture of someone who shouldn’t be practicing dentistry in Massachusetts, or anywhere else for that matter’.

Clair, whose dental licence expired in 2008, had his licence revoked in the states of Florida, West Virginia and Maryland, the Herald News reported.

Coakley’s office is recommending that anyone who may have been treated by Clair see a dentist as soon as possible.

In Iraq, residents of the Euphrates river town of Haditha were angered by the fact that not one of the eight Marines initially charged will be convicted of manslaughter.

Associated Press | Jan 25, 2012

By JULIE WATSON

CAMP PENDLETON, California (AP) — A Marine sergeant who led a squad that killed 24 unarmed Iraqis avoided serving any time Tuesday for his role in one of the darkest chapters of the Iraq war, winning leniency through a plea deal that carried no real punishment beyond a reduction in rank.

Military judge Lt. Col. David Jones said he did not realize until after he recommended that Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich serve three months in the brig that his hands were tied by a deal that prevented any jail time.

Wuterich pleaded guilty Monday to negligent dereliction of duty as part of the agreement with prosecutors. The minor charge carries a maximum sentence of 90 days.

But because of the way the military system works, the terms of the deal with prosecutors immediately known to the judge.

The judge also said he would recommend that Wuterich’s rank be reduced to private but had decided not to dock his pay because the divorced father has sole custody of three young daughters.

The recommendation will now go to the commander of Marine Corps Forces Central Command for approval.

Earlier in the sentencing hearing, prosecutors asked Jones to give Wuterich the maximum sentence of three months confinement, a reduction in rank and forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay.

They said his knee-jerk reaction of sending the squad to assault nearby homes without positively identifying any threat went against his training and led to the deaths of the 10 women and children.

“That is a horrific result from that derelict order of shooting first, ask questions later,” Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan told the court.

The assault on the homes was ordered after a roadside bombing killed a Marine.

Wuterich has acknowledged ordering his squad to “shoot first, ask questions later” after a roadside bomb took the life of a fellow Marine, but he said Tuesday he did not shoot any of the 10 women and children killed in nearby homes that he stormed with his men.

“The truth is: I never fired my weapon at any women or children that day,” Wuterich told Jones.

The surprise contention by Wuterich contradicts prosecutors who implicated him in 19 of the 24 deaths. It also counters testimony from a former squad mate who said he joined Wuterich in firing in a dark back bedroom where a woman and children were killed.

Defense attorney Neal Puckett said Wuterich has lived under the cloud of being labeled a killer who carried out a massacre in Iraq. Lawyers also said he has been exonerated of directly causing the deaths of civilians in the two homes and insisted his only intent was to protect his Marines, calling it “honorable and noble.”

“The appropriate punishment in this case, your honor, is no punishment,” Puckett said.

Wuterich, 31, told the court that his guilty plea should not suggest that he believes his men behaved badly or that they acted in any way that was dishonorable to their country. He said he ordered his men to “shoot first, ask questions later” so they would not hesitate in attacking the enemy, but he never intended to harm any civilians.

The plea deal that halted Wuterich’s manslaughter trial has sparked outrage in Iraq, where many said it proves the United States does not hold its military accountable for its actions.

In Iraq, residents of the Euphrates river town of Haditha were angered by the fact that not one of the eight Marines initially charged will be convicted of manslaughter. A survivor of the killings, Awis Fahmi Hussein, showed his scars from being hit by a bullet in the back.

“I was expecting that the American judiciary would sentence this person to life in prison and that he would appear and confess in front of the whole world that he committed this crime, so that America could show itself as democratic and fair,” he said.

In his statement, Wuterich also addressed family members of the Iraqi victims, saying there were no words to ease their pain.

“I wish to assure you that on that day, it was never my intention to harm you or your families. I know that you are the real victims of Nov. 19, 2005,” he said.

A former squad mate testified during the trial that he joined Wuterich in firing in a dark back bedroom of one of the homes where he saw small silhouettes. Later, when former Cpl. Stephen Tatum returned, he said he found woman and children had been killed.

Military prosecutors worked for more than six years to bring Wuterich to trial on manslaughter charges that could have sent him away to prison for life.

But only weeks after the long-awaited trial started, they offered Wuterich the deal that stopped the proceedings and dropped the nine counts of manslaughter.

It was a stunning outcome for the last defendant in the case once compared with the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. The seven other Marines initially charged were exonerated or had their cases dropped.

The Haditha attack is considered among the war’s defining moments, further tainting America’s reputation when it was already at a low point after the release of photos of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison.

Legal experts said the case was fraught with errors made by investigators and the prosecution that let it drag on for years. The prosecution was also hampered by squad mates who acknowledged they had lied to investigators initially and later testified in exchange for having their cases dropped, bringing into question their credibility.

In addition, Wuterich was seen as taking the fall for senior leaders and more seasoned combat veterans, analysts said. It was his first time in combat.

Brian Rooney, an attorney for another former defendant, said cases like Haditha are difficult to prosecute because a military jury is unlikely to question decisions made in combat unless wrongdoing is clear-cut and egregious, like rape.

“If it’s a gray area, fog-of-war, you can’t put yourself in a Marine’s situation where he’s legitimately trying to do the best he can,” said Rooney, who represented Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the highest-ranking Marine charged in the case. “When you’re in a town like Haditha or Fallujah, you’ve got bad guys trying to kill you and trying to do it in very surreptitious ways.”

During the trial before a jury of combat Marines who served in Iraq, prosecutors argued he lost control after seeing the body of his friend blown apart by the bomb and led his men on a rampage in which they stormed two nearby homes, blasting their way in with gunfire and grenades. Among the dead was a man in a wheelchair.

Wuterich said his orders were based on the guidance of his platoon commander at the time. He has acknowledged the squad did not take any gunfire during the 45-minute raid.

Many of his squad mates testified that they do not believe to this day that they did anything wrong because they feared insurgents were inside hiding.

Haditha prompted commanders to demand troops be more careful in distinguishing between civilians and combatants.

By Christina England

Babies Stacy and Lesly Sirjacobs

The end of last year was masked with sadness for Belgium parents Raphaël Sirjacobs & Béatrice Dupont, as their nine week old daughter Stacy Sirjacobs lost her fight for life. Stacy died just one week after her first vaccinations and left her twin sister Lesly behind. Devastated by their loss their parents are convinced that vaccines and hospital failures were the cause of their beautiful daughters death.

Stacy and Lesly were born one month premature by Caesarean section and spent the next four days in an incubator. Stacy needed resuscitation at birth.

Following medical advice parents Sirjacobs and Dupont decided to have the twins vaccinated. Stacy was slightly unwell with a cold on the day of her vaccinations but doctors assured her parents that it was safe to give her the vaccinations.

(It is worth noting that there is a history of Sudden Infant Death and allergies in the family. The twins were being prescribed a milk supplement due to a milk allergy at the time Stacy became ill)

The twins received Prevenar, a vaccine against meningitis and pneumonia, Infanrix Hexa, a six in one vaccination for diphtheria, tetanus, polio, pertussis, hepatitis B and Haemophilus type B, and finally the Rotarix, a preventive vaccine for gastroenteritis.

This means that these tiny vulnerable babies received a staggering nine vaccines in one day, vaccines that may have caused one of them to die.

A week after her vaccinations Stacy became unwell with a fever of 39.9 degrees C. Her parents decided to administer Perdolan to lower her fever. As their daughter was still very poorly they called the hospital who advised them to bring their daughter in.

The medical staff diagnosed Stacy with a slight chest infection and infection in her blood and told her parents not to worry as this was “not serious”. Stacy was then given medication and put on a drip feed and kept in for observation.

Stacy’s father informed me that all links to the vaccines were strongly denied.

Despite Stacy having a heartbeat of 200 to 230 beats per minute the pediatrician told her parents that she was fine and that she was probably suffering from gastroenteritis (an illness that this little girl had been vaccinated against!).

The worried couple decided not to leave their daughter and remained by her bedside. During the evening they informed the nurse that their daughter had diarrhea but to their astonishment, they were told that the baby had been changed and they were to let her get some sleep and change her when she woke up.

During the night, Stacy continued to suffer ‘abnormal diarrhea’, and despite frantic pleas from her parents the nurse refused to do anything, even though by this time Stacy was restless and in obvious distress. Stacy’s father says that they reported to nursing staff that Stacy was covered in small red spots and had difficulty breathing.

According to Stacy’s father, Stacy’s medical records states that at 19.45 a doctor telephoned his brother to ask his permission to do a lumbar puncture and put Stacy on the antibiotic Ampire, while they were awaiting the results. Authorization was denied …

Stacy died a short time later.

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