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IRBIL, Iraq (AP) -- Time is running out for the Iraqi government to decide on a power-sharing agreement to end a political crisis roiling the country, the president of Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region warned Wednesday....

LONDON (AP) -- British police on Wednesday asked Portugal to reopen the case of missing girl Madeleine McCann, saying that as the fifth anniversary of her disappearance approaches there is a possibility she is still alive....

LONDON (AP) -- British police on Wednesday asked Portugal to reopen the case of missing girl Madeleine McCann, saying that as the fifth anniversary of her disappearance approaches there is a possibility she is still alive....

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Mass killer Anders Behring Breivik slammed a psychiatric report that declared him insane, insisting Wednesday it was based on "evil fabrications" meant to portray him as irrational and unintelligent....

PANMUNJOM, Korea (AP) -- Soldiers from rival North and South Korea eye one another across a thin strip of no-man's land that - just barely - keeps their armies apart. The tension, they insist on both sides, is palpable....

BEIRUT (AP) -- Syria's main opposition council is crumbling under the weight of infighting and divisions over issues that cut to the heart of the revolution, including accusations that the movement is becoming as autocratic as the regime it wants to drive out....

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A new report Wednesday by a Kabul-based think tank accuses international forces of misleading the public by calling military operations "Afghan-led" even in cases where NATO or U.S. forces are the only troops on the ground....

LONDON (AP) -- Britain's economy has fallen back into recession for the first time since 2009 after official figures Wednesday showed that it unexpectedly contracted during the first three months of the year....

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is set to return to the stand in an attempt to prove to the court trying him on terror charges that he is not insane....

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Pakistan successfully launched an upgraded ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead Wednesday, days after its neighbor and archenemy India conducted its own missile test, the Pakistani military said....

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Pakistan successfully launched an upgraded ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead Wednesday, days after its neighbor and archenemy India conducted its own missile test, the Pakistani military said....

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Pakistan successfully launched an upgraded ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead Wednesday, days after its neighbor and archenemy India conducted its own missile test, the Pakistani military said....

LONDON (AP) -- News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch is being grilled on his relationship with British politicians at the country's media ethics inquiry, while a government minister is battling accusations he gave News Corp. privileged access in its bid to take over a major broadcaster....

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) -- An African elephant has killed a zookeeper caring for her at the New Zealand zoo where the animal was retired after performing in circuses for decades....

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Activists say an Israeli military court has ordered the release of a prominent Palestinian protest leader....

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- North Korea is armed with "powerful modern weapons" capable of defeating the United States, a top military chief in Pyongyang said Wednesday amid increased speculation abroad about the nation's missile arsenal and nuclear ambitions....

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel's military chief says he does not believe Iran will decide to build nuclear weapons, and that diplomatic and economic sanctions are successful in putting pressure on the Islamic Republic....

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- U.N. diplomats say international envoy Kofi Annan is urging the divided Security Council to unite and act immediately to pressure the Syrian government to implement his peace plan and keep the escalating conflict from spiraling out of control....

by Greg Palast – Special for Buzzflash at Truthout

The Justice Department went big game hunting and bagged a teeny-weeny scapegoat.  More like a scape-kid, really.

Today, Justice arrested former BP engineer Kurt Mix for destroying evidence in the Deepwater Horizon blow-out.

I once ran a Justice Department racketeering case and damned if I would have 'cuffed some poor schmuck like Mix––especially when there's hot, smoking guns showing greater crimes by BP higher ups.

Last week, I released evidence we uncovered that BP top executives concealed evidence of a prior blow-out.  Had they not covered up the 2008 blow-out in then Caspian Sea, then the Deepwater Horizon probably would not have blown out two years later in 2010. [Watch the film and read the stories.]

I urge you to read the affidavit of FBI agent Barbara O'Donnell which the government filed in arresting Mix.  His crime is deleting texts from his phone indicating that the blown-out Macondo well was gushing over 15,000 barrels of oil a day, not 5,000 as BP told the public and government.  If true, it's a crime, destruction of evidence.  But Mix is a minnow.  What about the sharks?  The texts were obviously sent to someone (named only "SUPERVISOR" by the FBI).  If "Supervisor" knew, then undoubtedly so did BP managers higher up.  Presumably, even CEO Tony Hayward would have gotten the message on his racing yacht.

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Destruction of evidence is not nice, but concealment of evidence and fraud by corporate bigs, is the bigger crime.  I hope, I assume, I demand that we find out what Supervisor's supervisors knew and when they knew it––and didn't tell us.

And far, far, far more important:  when is the Justice Department going to go after the greater wrongdoing? Let's begin with the cover-up before the spill that the drilling methods used on the Deepwater Horizon had led to a blow-out nearly two years earlier.

Let's face it:  to go after the bigger crime means going after the entire industry.  The earlier blow-out was concealed by BP as well as its partners Exxon and Chevron and, by the US State Department under Condoleezza Rice.  [If you want to get that story, please check out Part II:  BP Covered Up Prior Oil Spill at Ecowatch.org.]

One point in Mr. Mix's defense.  During my investigation of the Deepwater Horizon, I found that employees who provide evidence against BP find their careers floating face down in the Gulf.

BP and other oil companies punish troublemakers by writing "NRB" on their record.  That means "Not Required Back"––and the worker is banned from the offshore rigs.  No doubt, Mr. Mix thought long and hard about what would happen to his career if his texts came to light.  Not an excuse for crime, but it's a fact.  It's the guys on top putting on this kind of pressure that should be doing the perp walk:  the Big Bad BP Wolves, not their mixxed-up scapegoat.

****

Re-prints permitted with credit to Greg Palast

Greg Palast is the author of Vultures’ Picnic, which centers on his investigation of BP, bribery and corruption in the oil industry. Palast's, reports can be seen on BBC-TV and Britain’s Channel 4.

You can read Vultures' Picnic, "Chapter 1: Goldfinger," or download it, at no charge: click here.

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- International envoy Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council Tuesday that the situation in Syria is "bleak" and expressed alarm at reports that government troops are still carrying out military operations in towns where U.N. observers are not present....