Posted on 03/27/2006 2:04:00 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
1. Report: China Selling Prisoners' Body Parts
Chinese doctors are "harvesting" kidneys, corneas and other organs from live concentration camp inmates and selling them for up to $100,000 apiece.
That's the shocking report from a former employee at Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, where the organ removal has allegedly been taking place.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, the ex-employee said the Sujiatun Concentration Camp in Shenyang City is part of the hospital and since 2001 has secretly detained approximately 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners - none of whom has left the camp alive.
"The hospital removed many kidneys, livers, and corneas from the practitioners," according to The Epoch Times, a New York-based news organization specializing in Chinese coverage.
"After the organ removal, the practitioners were thrown into an incinerator, which was converted from a boiler. Their ashes were dumped together with burned charcoal."
The Chinese Communist Party persecutes Falun Gong, but medical personnel were told Falun Gong practitioners were facing death because they killed people, or they had become insane from practicing Falun Gong, the former staff member at the hospital said.
The Epoch Times ran a transcript of the interview with the ex-staffer. Her comments read in part:
"Organs harvested from live bodies are worth far more than organs taken from dead bodies. Many Falun Gong practitioners were still alive when their organs were taken. After their organs were cut out, some of these people were thrown directly into the crematorium to be burnt, thus leaving no evidence.
"For some others, after their organs were stolen, the doctor sewed up the wound and asked the family or family representative to give a signature for cremation. Family members did not know at all that the dead had their organs taken out...
"It is also said by the employees in the hospital [that] some were still alive when being thrown into the boiler...
"Three-quarters of these 6,000 people have died, having their hearts, kidneys, retinas, and skins harvested and their bodies disposed of. I think now about 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners are still in this hospital."
The harvested organs "are mainly sold to Thailand, but I believe they are also sold to other regions of the world. Nowadays, there are many patients in China who need human skin, corneas, and kidneys for organ transplant surgeries."
Currently, a kidney can be sold for $30,000 to $100,000, the former employee added.
"The profit from selling organs is simply too great. The people who benefit from this are not only the top leaders of hospitals and the officials of the Chinese Communist Party's Heath Department ... People ranging from government officials to doctors to organ sellers are all involved in this and are profiting greatly.
"I am not a Falun Gong practitioner. But as a former staff member of the hospital, I have the responsibility to expose the truth, and let the world save those Falun Gong practitioners who are still alive."
2. Chief Russian Communist Blames U.S. for Bird Flu
For the second time this year, the head of Russia's Communist Party has made a wild accusation against the U.S., saying America is responsible for the spread of bird flu in Europe.
"The forms of warfare are changing. It's strange that not a single duck has died in America - they are all dying in Russia and European countries," Gennady Zyuganov said at a press conference in Moscow.
"This makes one seriously wonder why."
Zyuganov said he learned about biological warfare during his time in the Russian Red Army.
"I tested all kinds of war gases at a range myself," he was quoted by UPI as saying.
Asked whether he thinks the bird flu outbreak could be a deliberate attack by the U.S., Zyuganov declared: "I not only suggest this, I know very well how this can be arranged. There is nothing strange here."
An outbreak of bird flu was first reported in Central Siberia in August 2005. Russian researchers, unlike Zyuganov, believe the flu was carried into Russia by migratory birds.
This is the same Zyuganov who told a news conference in February that the publication of cartoons offensive to Muslims was part of a U.S. plot.
He said the publication of the cartoons was a "well-thought-out major provocation using newspapers and magazines to aggravate the situation, the relationship between the European countries and the Muslim world."
He claimed that the riots sparked by the cartoons could only benefit the U.S. and said "those who have raised this hysteria, insulted religious feelings of one and a half billion Muslims, are pushing Europe into the arms of the American military clique."
3. Liberals Sour on Nancy Pelosi
A poll by a major left-wing blog, Daily Kos, shows that liberals strongly support Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean - but turn thumbs down on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Results of the ongoing poll on March 21 showed that a solid 84 percent of respondents approved of the way Dean is doing his job.
Only 50 percent said they approved of the job Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was doing.
And when it came to Pelosi, a paltry 19 percent approved.
Daily Kos notes: "A critic might say that Pelosi's numbers are suffering because of the beating she's taken on this site and the larger blogosphere the past week or two. However, Reid is very much praised around these parts, yet he got a bare majority approval rating."
A beating, indeed. Kossack Matt Stoller has chastised the congresswoman from California a number of times, including this posting: "Nancy Pelosi isn't doing a good job as minority leader... She doesn't stand up for her fellow members when they are fighting the Republicans. She creates incentives against aggressive behavior. She enforces an ethics truce, and lies about it. Despite all of this, she can still come around and be a good leader. And if she doesn't come around and start leading, it could cost us in 2006."
Another posting reads: "Pelosi and Reid are part of the old school that sits tight and waits for the results of the focus groups before getting on an issue. Good politicians and great leaders, like Dean, have a nose for where the important issues are and know how to get out in front of them."
Yet another: "She's two steps behind and never has a plan for what's obviously coming down the pipe. Find somebody who really wants to do the job, not somebody who likes having the title on her business card."
4. European Constitution 'Not Dead' [EU will shove its constitution down the throats of the French and the Dutch --TSR]
European leaders are forging ahead with implementing the provisions of the European constitution even though it was rejected by voters in two major members of the European Union.
In June 2004, the 25 members of the EU signed the Constitutional Treaty, which then had to be approved by the individual nations either by referendums or parliamentary procedures. So far 13 have done so.
But 54.8 percent of voters in France rejected the constitution, as did 61.6 percent in the Netherlands, while the remaining nations have yet to decide.
Nevertheless, the "Eurocrats" have worked out a deft way of getting around the rejections, according to Daniel Hannan, a Member of the European Parliament from Britain.
Hannan writes in the UK's Telegraph:
"First, they will shove through as many of the constitution's contents as they can under the existing legal framework.
"Around 85 per cent of the text can, with some creative interpretation, be implemented this way.
"True, there are one or two clauses that will require a formal treaty amendment: a European president to replace the system whereby the member nations take turns to chair EU meetings; a new voting system; legal personality for the Union.
"These outstanding items will be formalized at a miniature inter-governmental conference, probably in 2007. There will be no need to debate them again: all 25 governments accepted them in principle when they signed the constitution.
"We shall then be told that these are detailed and technical changes, far too abstruse to be worth pestering the voters with.
"The EU will thus have equipped itself with 100 percent of the constitution, but without having held any more referendums. Clever, no?"
A number of European officials have gone on the record saying that the French and Dutch rejections have not killed the constitution.
Wolfgang Schussel, Chancellor of Austria and the EU's current president, said: "The constitution is not dead."
Angela Merkel of Germany declared: "We are willing to make whatever contribution is necessary to bring the constitution into force."
And Valery Giscard d'Estaing of France, the constitution's author, pronounced several weeks ago: "The rejection of the constitution was a mistake that will have to be corrected."
5. Cheney's Hotel Demands: Fox News, No Caffeine
The document that Dick Cheney's advance team delivers to a hotel where he plans to stay shows that the vice president needs to have his suite at exactly 68 degrees - and suggests that a "gift" might be left in the room.
The document, obtained by the Smoking Gun Web site from a hotel employee, reveals that Cheney wants all televisions in the suite "tuned to Fox News."
He also demands that a pot of decaf coffee be already brewed when he arrives, and requests four cans of Diet Caffeine-free Sprite, in addition to four to six bottles of water.
He requires a queen- or king-sized bed, a menu from the hotel's restaurant, and asks that all lights should be turned on.
The document shows that Cheney demands two bottles of sparkling water - Calistoga or Perrier - when his wife Lynn is traveling with him.
The end of the typewritten document reads: "If the Hotel would like to put a gift in the Suite please let Advance Officer know ASAP."
Handwritten notations also request the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the local paper - and extra lamps.
6. Bloomberg: Kosovo Offers Iraq Lesson
Those calling on the U.S. to cut and run in Iraq might look to another conflict-ridden region, Kosovo, opines Bloomberg.com columnist Amity Shlaes.
The southern enclave of the old Yugoslavia was a battleground between Albanian Muslims and Christian Serbs in the late 1990s, when Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic launched an effort at ethnic cleansing.
NATO intervened with a bombing campaign against the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Milosevic relented, and both NATO and the United Nations sent in troops to keep the peace. Around 1,600 American troops remain there among the more than 15,000 peacekeepers in Kosovo.
The results, more than six years later, suggest that President Bush's plan to remain in Iraq through his second term might prove a wise one, according to Shlaes.
"Many Americans are coming to believe that posting soldiers to spend years defending a beleaguered Muslim population in some dangerous backwater is a suicide mission," Shlaes writes from the region's capital, Pristina.
"This week I am visiting a place that may disprove all those ideas -- and in the end provide a powerful precedent for Bush's Iraq plan."
Everyone in Kosovo wants the Americans to stay, Shlaes says.
"Sometimes they don't ask. They insist.
"'There will be no more war in the Balkans,' Ardian Gjini, a cabinet member in Kosovo's provisionary government, said in a meeting this week in Pristina. 'The U.S. presence is why.'"
When asked how long the U.S. must stay in Kosovo, a Serbian official told Shlaes: "At least 10 or 15 years."
A member of Shlaes' group in Pristina asked an official if Europeans soldiers might replace Americans in Kosovo.
"Europeans are good fellows," the official replied. "They operate in two speeds. Slow and slower."
Shlaes concludes: "The former Yugoslavia is worth looking at twice.
"People in the U.S. just now may doubt the value of flying the flag in these places. But in Kosovo and Belgrade, they don't."
Item 6 contains some info obtained from Bloomberg.com, so feel free to edit if you need to.
PING!
The PRC is one sick puppy!
Item number 5 is such crap!!! I mean he is NOT demanding!!!! I am more demanding than him...LOL. These folks are nuts.
Warning! Warning! Dangerous new trend. This is the same rationale being used by the Afghani's to persecute a Christian in Afghanistan. The trend tends to be if you are not part of us then you must be insane. Bet you see this from the liberals pretty soon.
Specifies the temp, asks for a few bottles of water and wants the TV on, so what? The man's the VP of the world's only Hyperpower. Ever see a pop star's rider of what they 'demand'?
He's not asking for a gift, they want to know if any item is going to be placed in his room - security reasons.
I know it is crazy for them to continuously complain about these little requests. The press already said that the Vice President can not compare himself to the pop star's because tax payers don't pay their bills. But even still, these are extremely normal and you are right that security is needed to be first.
Further, Cheney's not "demanding" gifts . . . he's stipulating that if someone wants to leave one, it should be cleared first, which frankly is only common sense, but there's no story in common sense.
Absolutely!!!
Cheney doesn't ask for much.
Water and Fox news.
Not only does he demand a container for ice, he also demands to know where the ice machine is! The man is so power-mad that he has to go get his own ice!
Monster!
re: number 5
here is a link to the document:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0322061cheney1.html
and here is a link to Kerry's modest requirements:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com//archive/0327061kerry1.html
How dare he!!!!! I think that we should impeach him immediately...LOL.
aren't they just swell
JK likes this, this makes JK happy, JK always needs...
Please, what a putz.
Indeed. I suspect that there have been incidents where the Secret Service advance crew has found unexpected packages in the room, and gone into full alert mode. Very unsettling to the other guests in the hotel, no doubt.
We have "status" at a few mid-to-upper level chains and this is standard fare: you fill out a card with your preferences for snacks, magazines, etc and there they are when you check in.
Milano cookies are yummy! Bottled water, even, sometimes, the ice bucket filled while we are checking in. Not demanding, it's just called SERVICE, you know, from the service industry.
How exactly does one define "exactly 68 degrees"? Will 68.1 degrees get the desk clerk shot in the face?
Absolutely. I worked for an Admiral for five years and believe me I know how those lists work. I filled out quite a few for him. This is just more garbage that the lib media is making a big deal about. Another one of those "non stories". They just love them don't they?
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