The Zionist Story. (Full Documentary) & Israeli Myths & Propaganda. Ilan Pappe

The Zionist Story. (Full Documentary)



The Zionist Story, an independent film by Ronen Berelovich, is the story of ethnic cleansing, colonialism and apartheid to produce a demographically Jewish State.

Ronen successfully combines archival footage with commentary from himself and others such as Ilan Pappe, Terry Boullata, Alan Hart and Jeff Halper.

"I have recently finished an independent documentary, The Zionist Story, in which I aim to present not just the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but also the core reason for it: the Zionist ideology, its goals (past and present) and its firm grip not only on Israeli society, but also, increasingly, on the perception of Middle East issues in Western democracies.

These concepts have already been demonstrated in the excellent 'Occupation 101′ documentary made by Abdallah Omeish and Sufyan Omeish, but in my documentary I approach the subject from the perspective of an Israeli, ex-reserve soldier and someone who has spent his entire life in the shadow of Zionism.

I hope you can find a moment to watch The Zionist Story and, if you like it, please feel free to share it with others. (As both the documentary and the archived footage used are for educational purposes only, the film can be freely distributed).

I have made this documentary entirely by myself, with virtually no budget, although doing my best to achieve high professional standard, and I hope that this 'home-spun' production will be of interest to viewers." - Ronen Berelovich





Full Interview: Professor Ilan Pappe reveals the truth about the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Source: Global Information Services.
http://vimeo.com/6977939

150 comments:

Anonymous said...

O, wonder of wonders, James is back. So glad, you can't imagine. The video looks good, too. back later with views, if any new ones acquired. Thanks, though, for helping us out.

Anonymous said...

I have just finished watching the Zionist Story video and I found it hugely painful - I always do when it comes to Palestine - but excellent both as regards presentation and information. My first untameable fury was aroused by the master hypocrites, the British. The Zionists then came in second place, before charging far forward over British in my list of people with neither honour nor sense.

Thank you for the opportunity to learn more about the myths of Israeli supremacy. I look forward now to listening to that courageous man, Professor Ilan Pappe.

Anonymous said...

28.6.11

- That bitch (sorry, but that's what she is, one on the most corrupt women in French politics) Lagarde becomes the new head of the IMF.

- Greece grinds to a halt as general strike gets underway

Workers across Greece walked off the job on Tuesday, kicking off a crippling 48-hour strike with a mass protest in the capital, Athens, as parliament debated a new austerity plan. Police fired tear gas in clashes with protesters.

- With a lot of hue and cry, the Gaza Flotilla has set sale with a lot of material to cover the needs of the world's biggest open air prison, the Gaza Strip. Will it ever reach, will it ever be allowed to deliver its consignment, all unanswered questions at the moment.

Anonymous said...

I assure you all, it is very hard to feel any respect whatsoever for the people installed in Israel today, specially after watching the Zionist Story. By the time one gets to the Ilan Pappe Story, one is filled with so much hostility, one has to force oneself to listen to him. But, then, the change does come about gradually. Here, thinks one, is a man of moral stature, however much he may once have been a part of the victimisers himself. Ilan Pappe, we salute you and your courage.

Anonymous said...

US drone goes down in Afghanistan
Tue Jun 28, 2011 6:1PM

The Taliban claim they have shot down two unmanned drones belonging to the US-led forces in Afghanistan in the past 24 hours.
An unmanned aircraft belonging to US-led forces has reportedly crashed in Afghanistan's troubled eastern province of Kunar.

The US has not commented on the cause of the crash, which marks the second US unmanned plane going down in Afghanistan in the past 24 hours.

On Monday, another US drone crashed in Kapisa province. The Taliban claim they have shot down both planes.

The militants have proven resilient despite the presence of 150,000 US-led forces in Afghanistan. They have steadily stepped up their attacks on the US-led forces, inflicting heavy casualties and damage.

The developments also come as Taliban militants have been making inroads in different parts of Afghanistan.

The Taliban claim they have shot down several aircraft and NATO choppers in different parts of Afghanistan over the past few months.

JR/PKH/AKM

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/186673.html

Anonymous said...

Ilan Pappe has a loads of charm and a lot of intelligence to back it up as well. Still, I can't help but think that he too might simply be an establishment asset, the truth-speaking part of it, let's say, so that Israel can point out its freedom of speech agenda.

Also, I don't agree with everything he says. When he talks about the choices facing Israel and then adds, it might become a theocracy "like Iran", I stongly suspect intellectual dishonesty at work. Firstly, if Iran is a theocracy at all, it has no walls and whatnot to protect it from God knows what dangers.Secondly, the people of Iran are a prayful, God-fearing people. Israel, on the other hand would be a "theocracy" without believers, just as it is a "democracy" without democrats.

Anonymous said...

In GB, Public sector pensions strike begins with walkout - 29.6.11

Travel chaos anticipated as public sector workers including teachers and Border Agency staff begin strike.

Whereas in Greece, Parliament has voted in favour of austerity measures.

Anonymous said...

Clashes return to Tahrir Square - 29.6.11

Clashes between protesters and security forces have returned to Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the 18-day uprising that ousted former president Hosni Mubarak in February.

Violence began when police forces tried to clear a sit-in outside the state-TV building where families of the more than 840 people killed during the uprising gathered demanding justice.

(History shows us the pattern. The French Revolution was not a single revolt, but several in a row.) WRH - Actually, the French Revolution lasted well into the late 19th century. The 21st century might well see its return.

Anonymous said...

What awaits the Greeks. These are some of the things they are fighting against:

1. Taxes will increase by 2.32 billion euros this year and 3.38 billion, 152 million and 699 million in the three subsequent years. There will be higher property taxes and an increase in the value-added tax (VAT) from 19 percent to 23 percent.

2. Luxury levies will be introduced on yachts, pools and cars and there will be special levies on profitable firms, high-value properties and people with high incomes.

3. Excise taxes on fuel, cigarettes and alcohol will rise by one-third.

4. Public sector wages will be cut by 15 percent.

5. Defense spending will be cut by 200 million euros in 2012 and 333 million each year from 2013 to 2015.

6. Education spending will be cut by closing or merging 1,976 schools.

Anonymous said...

And now for two examples of the fertile, fertile imagination of the prison guards:

- Irish flotilla ship badly sabotaged, incapable of continuing the journey to Gaza. Marvellous!

- Israel passes draft law requiring Palestinians to pay for their own home demolitions

A Committee of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) passed a first draft of a law that will require that Palestinians whose homes are destroyed by Israeli forces pay the Israeli government for the demolition costs.

(So, Ilan Pappe, what have you got to say to all this, you, the man with the tranquil conscience?)

Anonymous said...

The Greek Tragedy - Financial warfare at its best

Greece veers on financial theater of the absurd. Of course some special interest always benefits from systemic absurdity, banal as it may be. Financial markets already have priced in the expectation that Greece will default in the end. It is only a question of when. Banks are using the time to take as much as they can and pass the losses onto the ECB, EU and IMF – “public” institutions that have more leverage than private creditors. So bankers become the sponsors of absurdity – and of the junk economics spouted so unthinkingly by the enforcers, cheerleaders for the banality of evil. It doesn’t really matter if their names are Trichet, Geithner or Papandreou. They are just kindred lumps on the vampire squid of creditor claims.

The Greek crowds demonstrating before Parliament in Syntagma Square are providing their counterpart to “Arab spring.” But what really can they do, short of violence – as long as the police and military side with the government that itself is siding with foreign creditors?

The most effective tactic is to demand a national referendum on whether to accept the ECB’s terms for austerity, tax increases, public spending cutbacks and selloffs. This is how Iceland’s President stopped his country’s Social Democratic leadership from committing the economy to ruinous (and legally unnecessary) payments to Gordon Brown’s Labour Party demands and those of the Dutch for the Icesave and even the Kaupthing bailouts.

The only legal basis for demanding payment of the EU’s bailout of French and German banks – and U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s demand that debts be sacrosanct, not the lives of citizens – is public acceptance and acquiescence in such policy. Otherwise the imposition of debt may be treated simply as an act of financial warfare.

Anonymous said...

US Poodle IMF

I'm not sure how seriously anyone takes the International Monetary Fund in the US these days, but there was a small lifeline thrown in the President's direction this week in the form of the IMF's annual health check of the US economy.

More needs to be done on fiscal consolidation, the IMF said, "as debt dynamics are unsustainable and losing fiscal credibility would be extremely damaging". Mmm. Maybe not so good for the White House after all. But here's the sop, no doubt squeezed from reluctant IMF officials by their largest shareholder with a shotgun held to their head. "Excessively large upfront fiscal adjustment could significantly weaken domestic demand," the IMF says. In other words, consolidate by all means, but do it later once the President is back in office.

Well, blow me down. Isn't that what President Obama and supporters in economic academia such as the lugubrious Larry Summers have been saying all along? And now the IMF agrees. Strangely, the IMF came to the exact opposite conclusion in its recent assessment of the UK economy, where the Coalition's front end-loaded fiscal consolidation was praised to the rafters as possibly the most impressive example of grabbing the bull by the horns in the Western world.

Of course, what's judged good for the UK could be inappropriate for the US, with its central position at the heart of the world economy as consumer of last resort. But that's not the way I see it. As ever, the IMF is the incumbent administration's poodle. It largely says what it is told to.

(MSM's usual broth of truth mixed with lies).

Anonymous said...

On the subject of the IMF again: The case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn seems to be unravelling. Now that Lagarde has triumphantly taken over his place, we can think of letting DSK go? Prediction: He'll be vindicated, go back and run for Presidency of France - and win. Unless they bump him off first, of course. Though Jews don't usually do that to their fellow Jews. Just ruin them.

Anonymous said...

Chavez Is Back - 1.7.11

Venezuela's flamboyant socialist leader Hugo Chavez said on Thursday he had undergone a successful operation in Cuba to remove cancerous cells from a tumor and was on the road to full recovery.

Anonymous said...

Ilan Pappe talks the talks all right. But when he walks the walk, only then will we rise ourselves and wlk behind him. Until such time, a voice will always be wispering in hour ears, be careful he's not just another Israel-critical, pro-Establishment puppet like the famous Noam Chomsky in USA.

Anonymous said...

50 Afghan-US cowards killed, 3 helicopters destroyed in martyrdom operation July 01

After days of bloody battle fought by joint Mujahideen of the Nooristan and Kunar provinces, Watapur district was completely cleared of the US-NATO invaders and their cowardly puppets, making the enemy forces abandon the district with severe losses last night. Mujahideen officials say from Kunar province that a total of 37 US-NATO and their puppets have been killed and 13 were severely wounded, whereas 2 helicopters and a spy plane have been annihilated over the last couple of days during the fighting. The reports add on Thursday night at about 9:00 pm, local time, Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate carried a martyr attack targeting two of the US invaders’ attack helicopters in Watapur district of Kunar province, eliminating both helicopters besides killing more that 19 US invaders and wounding several more. However, the area was bombarded for days, resulting in flattening four houses of the civilians as well as leaving 23 civilians martyred, while 13 Mujahideen became martyrs and 10 more wounded in the bombings and fighting. Two women and a child apart from men have been among those martyred in the airstrikes.

Anonymous said...

Bolivian President Fights GMOs
1.7.11

Bolivian President Evo Morales signed a groundbreaking law in June which would effectively increase the nation’s food security for generations to come. A large component of the plan is the establishment of state-owned companies to produce seeds and fertilizers.

The creation of a a state seed bank for native plants, which would preserve the rich biodiversity of region is also planned. This is an exciting prospect for Bolivia, not only because it is a blow for sustainability and heritage breeds in the face of current food engineering trends, but because Bolivia has some of the greatest remaining biodiversity on the planet.

Anonymous said...

2.7.11 - News of the day, econ and miscellaneous

First-time U.S. jobless claims above 400,000 for 12th straight week

For the 12th week in a row, initial claims for unemployment benefits in the U.S. were above 400,000 last week, the Labor Department said. The seasonally adjusted figure fell slightly to 428,000. The four-week average has remained at 426,000 for a month, the department said.

The Stockmarkets are doing fine according to recent estimations. And Goldman Sachs claims the US consumer will be back within no time, spending as if there were no tomorrow. In other words, we'll be back in the non-productive, debt economy again, nothing learnt, everything forgotten. Meanwhile, Europe is selling off its state assets at a breathtaking rate.

Under miscellaneous: we have the whole Gaza flottila crippled beyond rescue. So no goods for Gaza. And ex-IMF chief DSK once again might have a chance at grabbing the French presidency now that Lagarde has taken over from him as IMF boss. All this sounds very much like false flags to me. Or perhaps we've simply developped a sick imagination over time.

Anonymous said...

US states slash spending, cut jobs: The majority of US states begin their new fiscal year July 1, with budgets that impose crippling reductions in public services, particularly health care and education, and destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Anonymous said...

People Power is Stronger than any Occupation
By Joharah Baker - July 1, 2011

It struck me the other day just how mind-blowing people power really is. In Palestine, people have the opportunity each and every day to prove this in the face of Israel’s unrelenting measures of occupation. On one of the many days I had to stand among dozens of others waiting to cross the Qalandiya checkpoint, the soldier behind bullet proof glass began screaming at the people to step back. Apparently, too many Palestinians at once proved to be a bit too unnerving for him. After waiting for half an hour just to get into the iron caged cubicle facing the soldiers inside, no one was willing to just go back. So, in a moment of amazing defiance, we all decided that we simply would not go back, come what may.

After the initial anxiety of what the soldiers might do - including the very plausible possibility that they would shut down the checkpoint and we would be stranded there indefinitely - we knew that nothing could harm us. "Let them shut it down," we told each other. "We’re not moving." And guess what? We were let through after the soldier threw up his hands in resignation. Such a tiny gesture suddenly felt huge.

On a much larger scale, the same theory has been proven elsewhere. After four years of weekly protests, the village of Bilin has finally begun to crack the surface of Israel’s pretentious security justifications, in this case for the separation barrier. Finally, after the nonviolent protests that brought together Palestinians, internationals and Israeli peace activists, Israel has said it would reroute a part of the wall that separates the people of Bilin from their land. While this may seem like a small step in the bigger scheme of things, it is huge in terms of Palestinian popular resistance that takes a higher ground. In the face of the world’s fourth most powerful military which does not shy away from using brute force, Palestinians in Bilin, Nilin, Nabi Saleh and numerous other areas have shown Israel that they will resist them with their determination and the power of sheer numbers.

Of course, the people of Bilin say the battle is far from over. The wall continues to separate them from their land, cutting deep into the village in contravention of international law. But it is a baby step and a direct result of a resistance that has proven its effectiveness throughout history and across peoples and nations.

Not one Gaza Flotilla ship has been allowed to reach its destination, yet this experiment in people power adopted by the Palestinians now will carry on.

Anonymous said...

Enough of this Greek farce: everyone knows default is coming - 2.7.11

The EU and IMF bureaucrats overseeing the programme know that it’s preposterous, just as they know that the tax and spend forecasts are preposterous – and just as they know, deep down, that Greece can’t grow in the absence of a devaluation. The whole process is a farce, aimed at stringing out the crisis until the financial institutions exposed in Greece have shuffled off their liabilities on to the taxpayer. The moment governments and international institutions have taken over the banks’ debts, Athens will default. Everyone knows it. Why insult us with this choreography?




Weak economy may force second bailout of Ireland

As Europe struggles to put together a second bailout of Greece, to supplement the rescue effort launched last year, the crisis may force a second bailout of another indebted country in the region: Ireland.

(Victim after victim of the terminal prolapse, the funeral pyres burning high. A very slight hope of some kind of a better future lies in the people who are gradually rediscovering their humanity perhaps. Greek protesters and those on Tahrir Square have now begun talking to one another, planning their next moves together, while Spain still needs to get the message. World Revolution tomorrow maybe?)

Anonymous said...

I wonder what Ilan Pappe would have to say about the Gaza flotilla rigmarole.

And forget about the dollar's reserve currency status. It's now no longer even legal tender in the State of Utah, replaced henceforth by gold and silver.

Anonymous said...

THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM OF US INSOLVENCY

US officials have grotesquely misdiagnosed the problem. It is not one of liquidity. Rather the problem is widespread systemic insolvency and absence of industry for legitimate income and high level bank corruption that has caused a national sclerosis. Inefficiency reigns supreme, like with any fascist business model climax. The corporate leaders and political leaders sold out two to three decades ago. As long as the national policy is off the mark on recognition of the ultimate problem, no solution will come. Jamming a solution after a wrong diagnosis leads to tragic results. All the problems in the USEconomy from summer 2008 are actually worse today. No solution is even attempted. Mountains of money have been wasted, undermining the USDollar. The diagnosis is intentionally made incorrect in order to continue the elite largesse. The blunt instruments of the USFed are obviously from the wrong toolbag.

TURNING POINT, NOT BROKEN BRETTON WOODS

The turning point for the dollar was not breaking the Bretton Woods Accord in 1971, the movement off the gold standard. Obviously, that was an extremely significant event, but analysts miss the original wart that changed the financial complexion. The turning point was the Vietnam War, whose costs forced the federal deficits to an extreme, the first $1 trillion in the national debt. That first trillion was hugely important. The reaction was the broken Bretton Woods Accord in order to avoid a run on the national gold treasury held by the USGovt. The ultimate irony is that 20 years later, the Rubin Gang lowered the gold lease rate, enabled raids on Fort Knox for $trillion profit by the Wall Street gangsters in private gains. The USDollar has had no collateral ever since, the basis for a vaporous currency, and a grand setup for debt default. The emphasis on war remains a high priority, even a sacred topic not permitted in debate. The budget battle has effectively removed the military budget when making proposals for spending cuts, precisely as forecasted two months ago.

Anonymous said...

Scientists Say California Mega-Quake Imminent
Jun 27, 2011

The San Andreas fault is highlighted in red. It strikes through the heart of Southern California, including the Salton Sea.

Like a steaming kettle with the top on, pressure is building beneath the surface of California that could unleash a monster earthquake at any time. That's according to a new study from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

Geologists say Southern California is long overdue for a huge earthquake that could unleash widespread damage.

It all comes down to the Salton Sea, which lies to the east of San Diego. The Salton Sea lies directly on the San Andreas Fault and covers more than 350 square miles.

A big earthquake has hit the lake bed about every 180 years. But when officials started damming the Colorado River to reduce floods downstream (including in the Salton Sea), the moderate earthquakes stopped for the Salton.

Sounds like a good thing, right? Not necessarily. Seismologists think the damming stopped moderate stress-relieving earthquakes on the Salton. Now, they fear the pressure is building and the area could be as many as 100 years overdue for a mega-quake quake, measuring 7.5 or larger.

(Hope everyone's keeping an eye on all the natural disasters, including forest fires and floods, which have overtaken US at the moment. The possibility of that California earthquake must also be borne in mind).

Anonymous said...

4/7/11 21:42

Really?
:)


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Anonymous said...

Well, let's put it this way. Some natural disaster on a transcendental scale has long been overdue in the EE. A California earthquake seems to be just about right. Unless, of course, it's the Yellowstone calderon which explodes and puts paid to imperial ambitions.

Anonymous said...

Some things coem out of a gun, others simply through casting a vote. Thailand's Red Shirts tried the bullet and failed. Now success has rushed in through the ballot box. Thailand gets its first woman PM in the person of Yingluck Shimawatra, sister of ousted PM in exile, Thaksin Shimawatra. Yingluck led the Puea Thai party to a huge electoral victory in the weekend elections. We knew they would be back sooner or later. Well, now the Reds can hope once again that the deprived and downtrodden, that is to say the majority of the Thais, can look forward to a better existence.

Anonymous said...

LAST MINUTE FLOTILLA UPDATES

Two boats from France – a cargo ship and a smaller passenger boat – are in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. (They did not set sail from Greece.) We are not sure what they are planning on doing.

All other boats of diverse nationalities have been prevented from going any further. The US contribution, Audacity of Hope, was the most surprising catch of all for the Zionists. It had no goods of any kind aboard, only messages of encouragement for the Palestinians. This one they are not going to live down so easily.

Anonymous said...

French Ship “Dignity” has Set Sail - 5.7.11

In a press release issued today, Rami Abdo, spokesman for ECESG, said that the French Ship “Dignity,” or “Karama” in Arabic, has left the French port of Corscica and is now in international waters sailing to the Gaza Strip.

“Dignity” has six crew members and is carrying aid supplies to Gaza. The ship was forbidden from leaving in the past few weeks after a campaign by pro-Israeli groups in France was launched against it.

So the smallest of ships is now on its way to Gaza, or so we hope. We wish them the very best on this journey into the unknown of how far Israeli lawlessness can go.

Anonymous said...

@ 5/7/11 07:52

Reeaaaaally?
:)


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Anonymous said...

Hello Reealy. Is it the flotilla which urges you to such heights of eloguence. Or is it life in general?

Anonymous said...

Portugal downgrade hits European bank shares

Moody's slashed Portugal's credit rating by four notches from Baa1 to Ba2 with a negative outlook after markets closed on Tuesday - 6.7.11

Fears that the eurozone crisis was entering a new stage intensified on Wednesday after Portugal's credit rating was slashed to junk, with European bank shares falling sharply and some government bonds coming under renewed pressure.

Portuguese bank shares tumbled in early trading, while the yield - or interest rate - demanded by traders to hold the country's debt jumped sharply. UK banks also lost ground, pulling the FTSE 100 down. UK government bonds, known as gilts, benefited, however, as investors ploughed into safe-haven government bonds.

The euro lost value against the dollar, dropping nearly one cent to $1.438.

Traders were alarmed by Moody's warning that Portugal - like Greece- will need a second bailout, as it became the first credit ratings agency to cut the country's debt to junk status.

"This will weaken hopes that the recently agreed aid for Portugal will put a line under the nation's woes and could trigger worry's that Portugal could follow Greece down the path of possible default," said Jane Foley, senior currency strategist at Rabobank, who also stated that the eurozone sovereign debt crisis was "back in full swing".

The yield on the Portuguese 10-year government bond climbed to 12.719% from 12.185% on Tuesday. The yield on the two-year bond leapt by nearly 1.5 percentage points to 14.8%. Irish, Spanish and Greek bond yields were also up. The downgrade is likely to push up Portugal's borrowing costs when it attempts to auction up to €1bn (£900m) of three-month Treasury bills later on Wednesday.

(Let me repeat this once more. This is two-sided. On the one hand, the prolapse marches on, on the other, the currency wars have seen another pitched battle take place. The beauty of the whole thing is that both sides are predestined to concede defeat).

Anonymous said...

We keep being told that Germany's Supreme Court judges hold the fate of the euro in their hands. Any chances there they will declare EU bailouts illegal?

Anonymous said...

One can't be sure, of course, but I personally don't believe the German judges are going to upset the euro apple cart, whether legal or illegal. A few exceptions apart, everyone is on the same page nowadays.

Anonymous said...

Mujahideen shot down US invaders helicopter in Parwan July 06 – Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate in the province’s Ghurband district shot down one of the US helicopter while flying at a low altitude killing all the US invaders and their crew last night at about 10:00 pm local time. However, in the morning hours of the day the enemy vehicles approached the scene to retrieve the corpses of the dead US invaders and other sensitive stuff from the helicopter.

Anonymous said...

Split in the prolapsimg west and China's firm stand

Moody's has now threatened to reduce Ireland's debt to JUNK status. Suddenly the Europeans seemed to have blinked open one eye and begun protesting as they have already done once before. But this time, too, one doesn't expect anything other than some grumbling and groaning.

The Chinese, however, are a different kettle of fish. Their rating agency has already stated without equivocation that US is already in a condition of sovereign debt default. Interesting to see what China does next.

Anonymous said...

We have been given all kinds of reasons for the continuation of the current wars. In a brief summary, it goes something as follows:

- To stave off west economic prolapse.
- A clash of civilisations. Weaken the Muslim world to the point of extinction, if possible.
- To fulfil the Zionist dream of Greater Israel.
- To bring about the New World Order. The one world government to be led by corporations and banks, all under Jewish control.

Let's add to the above: the unrestricted worship of the god Usury according to the principle of honouring Fiat money alone and getting rid of the one semi-organised ideology which refuses interest, namely the Muslim set of beliefs. This would explain in part the attacks on Iraq and Libya now. It would still leave Aghanistan, the beiggest blunder the west could ever have made, unexplained. Unless it be simply foolishness coupled with sheer ignorance of history.

Anonymous said...

The “War On Terror” Is A $6 Trillion Racket, Exceeding The Total Cost Of World War II
7.7.11

When Obama launched his re-election propaganda campaign to trick the American public into thinking that he intends to end the Af-Pak War, he said that the “War on Terror” had cost $1 trillion over the past decade. While that is a staggering amount of money, he was being deceitful once again. The real cost is closer to 6 trillion and the only objective achieve has been to bring the world that much closer to the
outbreak of WW3, part two which must inevitably follow if WW3, part one, the Muslim Wars ia not brought to a swift conclusion.

Anonymous said...

Huge NATO cargo plane avoids Taliban by crashing into mountain
8.7.11

A cargo plane has crashed in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least nine crew members and causing a major fire on a mountain top. The aircraft hit a mountain peak some 50 km north of the Afghan capital of Kabul late Tuesday.

Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, has claimed responsibility for the incident, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Other great battles where doomed armies were air supplied.

1. Nazis at Stalingrad

2. French at Dien Bien Phu

3. NATO defending Europe in Afghanistan

Anonymous said...

Canada's combat role in the Afghan War has now come to an end. Combat troops have returned home. Those still remaining in Afghanistan will take on a non-combat, training position.

Anonymous said...

US jobs growth slows - 8.7.11

US employers added 18,000 workers in June, the fewest in nine months

Anonymous said...

It came in with the bond markets and it will go out with the bond markets
Cailean Bochanan - 1st July, 2011

We have a sense that capitalism is coming to an end. If by capitalism we mean that system which was introduced into England subsequent to the Dutch invasion of 1688 then that is true.

With the setting up in 1694 of the Bank of England, a consortium of private financiers came to the fore or rather came to exercise their power from behind the scenes of Britain’s political facade. In this original public-private partnership, they lent to the government at interest and used the bonds issued as the basis for leveraged banking. Swift defined concisely this new interest:

“that set of people, who are called the Monied Men; such as had raised vast Sums by Trading with Stocks and Bonds, and lending upon great interest and Premiums; whose perpetual Harvest is War, and whose beneficial way of Traffick must very much decline by a Peace”

Elsewhere he talks “a new estate” to whom every house and foot of land in England paid a rent-charge, free of all taxes and defalcations” and where “the gentlemen of estates were, in effect, but tenants to these new landlords”

A whole class, “these new landlords” on behalf of whom the entire nation is taxed. Does this not ring a bell in post-bailout Britain?: the whole nation is mortgaged to the banker elite, which for all that their methods have evolved since the early seventeen hundreds, are essentially the same “interest” as Swift was describing and warning us about. At least, in Swift’s day the consortium’s original loan was from their own funds, however ill-gotten: today the banks are lending back to the government the funds they received from the government to bail them out, basic usury as conceived then has become the fraudulent shenanigans of the notorious “carry trade”. Now that there is no longer even the pretence that banking is about investing in business, understood as legitimate business, and now that the various bubbles from the dot.com through the housing market to commodities have exploded in our faces the monied men limit themselves to milking the state for all its worth and the ultimate bankruptcy of the system is the bankruptcy of the state itself. Curiously, the flow of funds into government bonds is being characterised as a “flight to safety”, yet the returns provided fall well short of inflation generated by endless treasury money issuance. Where then is the profit in the profit system? Wealth creation is over and the financiers are limiting their ambition to, instead of creating new wealth, monopolising all that already exists. It’s not at all clear where, if anywhere, the rest of us fit into the picture. We’ll soon find out: the peril of the “flight to safety” is becoming evident and nothing will glitter which is not gold. The burst of the bond bubble and the collapse of the dollar/pound will be dramatic events indeed, the cue for our long awaited awakening or our plunge into the abyss.

Anonymous said...

One Third of Libya Turns Out to Support Qaddafi in World’s Largest March Ever

1.7 million people, or around 95% of the population of Tripoli, one third of the entire population of Libya, have turned out in perhaps the largest demonstration ever in world history last Friday, to demand an end to the NATO bombings of Libya.

With support like this, can anyone tell me how west expects to win in this dastardly attack on a sovereign nation?

Syria ditto. The vast majority of the population back up their present leader and yet west just goes on and on fomenting trouble.

The Muslim wars are entering their phase of defeat. Pakistan, plagued by a corrupt government though it is, will still not fall into their laps because it is simply too big for the enemy to take on. Afghanistan and Iraq are sending the enemy to the grave every day that passes. And Muslim Africa will carry on defending the mighty continent until the west no longer has two coins to rub together to further finance their killings.

Anonymous said...

08 July 2011
Another Misconception About Israel is Exposed

Poor wee israel, so very misunderstood by the world, and I agree. Countless arguments many have said "It's the israeli Government, not the population" well, there's another myth exposed, because except for a very small quantity of decent Jewish people the majority are absolute lawless nutters who are simply so used to literally "getting away with murder" that they know no boundaries, never a good thing. What happens when a journalist from the Jerusalem Post arrives at Ben Gurion Airport to cover the "Flytilla" So lets' all take a look at what un-checked lawlessness looks like:

Anybody who believes the platitude that the people want peace, it’s just the leaders who want war, should have been at Ben-Gurion Airport today. It’s a good thing those Free Palestine activists got arrested; otherwise, the little mob that formed spontaneously would have punched them up pretty good.

Only minutes after I got to the Arrivals hall, a few activists stood in front of the phalanx of reporters and cameramen, held up their little signs and started chanting “Israel Apartheid” and ”Free Palestine!” The cops tore the signs from their hands and started pushing them toward the exit.

A couple of dozen people, mainly men but also a few women, followed very close behind the tightly-bunched demonstrators, cops and reporters to the police van. “Throw them in the garbage,” shouted one woman. An old man tried to get at one of the activists, but the police stopped him.

I was there ostensibly as a journalist, and I was scribbling notes, but I felt cowardly not saying anything to these nationalist hooligans, so I started telling them in Hebrew, “What are these people doing?” The woman who wanted them thrown in the garbage said, “They’re hurting us!” I said, “They’re talking,” and the little mob turned on me, a couple of the men raised their fists. The woman told me, “Go back home, get out of here,” I said, “I live here.” The cops mistook me for a demonstrator, put me in the police van, but when I showed them my press card, they let me go.

Let me repeat – the police started off arresting the demonstrators, but very shortly their main task was to keep them from being assaulted. They had to hold back the herd = and that’s what these people were, a herd incited by the idea that these protesters, non-violent protesters trying to get to the West Bank, were a menace, an immediate threat to their security.

Which is why these foreign activists on these flotillas, whatever I or anybody else thinks of the totality of their politics, are absolutely vital not only to the Palestinians, but to Israel. They’re bringing oxygen to a suffocating nation.

Anonymous said...

European markets slide over Italy stability fears
European stock markets have tumbled due to fears that the eurozone's debt crisis will engulf Italy.

Investors are worried that Giulio Tremonti, Italy's finance minister, is threatened by corruption accusations against a former aide
9.7.11

Italy's benchmark index, the FTSE Mib, closed 3.5pc down amid worries that political jostling in Rome threatens the country's fiscal stability. France's CAC 40 Index also suffered, dropping 1.6pc, and Germany's DAX lost 0.9pc. In Spain, the Ibex fell 2.6pc, while Portugal's PSI 20 ended 1.3pc lower.

The flight from Italian government debt saw the yield, or return, on its 10-year bonds touch 5.3pc, a euro-era high.

Mike Riddell, a fund manager at M&G, described the situation as a "bloodbath". "Whatever your view is or was [of Italy's finances], the reality now is that those pesky bond vigilantes have caught sight of Italy, and that is basically all that matters," he said.

Investors are worried that Giulio Tremonti, Italy's finance minister, is threatened by corruption accusations against a former aide and seems to have lost the support of his prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. "He thinks he's a genius and that everyone else is stupid," Mr Berlusconi said yesterday.

The fear is that if Mr Tremonti is forced out of government it could derail the austerity measures he has pushed through to bring down Italy's huge debt, which amounts to around 120pc of its GDP.

Anonymous said...

Some kind of come-uppance for MSM?

'A criminal cover-up' at Murdoch HQ: Cameron abandons Rebekah amid claims of an email wipe-out

Sensational allegations of a criminal cover-up were made against Rupert Murdoch’s faltering media empire last night as the phone hacking scandal reached the door of Downing Street.

Police are investigating claims that News International deleted millions of emails from an internal archive in an apparent attempt to obstruct a police inquiry.

All this came as the Prime Minister made the extraordinary suggestion that Mr Murdoch’s son and heir apparent James had ‘questions to answer’ to police after admitting paying hush money to victims of hacking by the News of the World, which impossible paper has now seen its last edition roll off the presses.

Anonymous said...

We've been saying it all along on ID. Now the MSM seems to have got the message, too. Read below: (Source: Daily Telegraph)

The West is in for a rude awakening after years of abusing 'risk-free' debt - 9.7.11

The global economy faces a unique double threat. The eurozone, of course, remains on the brink of a major, perhaps terminal, crisis. Then there's the small matter of the US Congress
possibly "closing down" the government of the largest economy on Earth.

Although separate, these dangers are intimately related. Both have their roots in grotesque and utterly unsustainable levels of government debt. For it's the massive sovereign liabilities not just of the eurozone "periphery", but some of the "core" nations too, that could yet cause the single currency to break up – an end-game "cranks" like me have been predicting for almost 20 years, but which now even the most slavish Europhiles must accept is possible. A "euroquake", were it to happen, would send financial shockwaves across the world.

Similarly, it is the possible refusal of American lawmakers to raise their country's sovereign debt ceiling that could yet cause a "run" on US Treasuries. This outcome too, were it to take place, would seriously undermine global markets given the habit, nay culturally conditioned reflex in some cases, of so many big institutional investors to use Uncle Sam's IOUs as a "safe haven" to park their funds.

Commentary on these twin tribulations has focused on whether, by this time next year, either will have sparked another "Lehman moment", or whether both the eurozone and the US will have "gotten away with it" and "muddled through". I certainly hope it's the latter. But I can't help thinking that, even if the fudge is liberally applied, arms being twisted and political deals done to stave off an immediate crisis, the current predicaments of both the US and eurozone will still have an enormously detrimental impact on the Western world, the implications staying with us for decades to come.

For even if we get through this, something has "snapped", if not yet in terms of how the West perceives itself, then in terms of how we are viewed by the rest of the world.

On Friday, the eurozone's debt crisis intensified, amidst the first serious signs that "fiscal contagion" is spreading to Italy. Domestic political tensions – with Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's ludicrous prime minister, attacking the finance minister, Giulio Tremonti – caused Italian bond yields to leap to a nine-year high. Without Tremonti to rein him in, Berlusconi would surely show the same irresponsibility towards Italy's finances as he has in so many other aspects of his so-called leadership. That's why, as Berlusconi threatened to sack Tremonti, investors felt Italian default risks were more acute and demanded higher returns to hold Italy's sovereign debt.

Anonymous said...

Civil unrest spreads to Malaysia, MSM report, rallies yesterday and 1.400 persons were apparently arrested. All in the usual course of things or has the CIA been busy destabilising yet another Muslim country? More when we know more.

Anonymous said...

A magnitude 7 quake jolts Japan's northeast Honshu province once again this morning. A tsunami warning was also issued by the authorities. So far, however, there has been no report of any damage.

Anonymous said...

Update on Flotilla-Flytilla

It all came t naught, Friend "Reeally". We expected it as well, more or less, but still believed the effort had to be made. Swedish writer Henning Mankell, to name only him, roundly condemned the antics of Israeli partner Greece and swore he would return on the earliest occasion.

For now, just one surviving boat, the French yacht Dignité with ten activists on board has been released by the Greek authorities and is steaming towards God knows which destination. Is it to be Rhodes or Gaza or neither of the two? A last-ditch, face-saving venture for all concerned?

Anonymous said...

Mathias Chang, the Malaysian activist who has also played an important role in the Flotilla movement, writing about the demo in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, assures us that Malaysia is not Tunisia or Egypt or any Arab country in an uproar. What is happening there is a grassroots movement led by the political opposition to demand electoral reform and other changes. For more, Chang can be read on his own blog here, Future Fast Forward.

Anonymous said...

Italy and Spain must pray for a miracle
10.7.11

Once again Europe's debt crisis has metastasized, and once again the financial authorities face systemic contagion unless they take immediate and dramatic action.

Spanish 10-year bond yields have punched even higher, through the danger line of 5.7pc Photo: AP By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

If the ECB's Jean-Claude Trichet is right in claiming that Europe was on the brink of a 1930s financial cataclysm a year ago - and I think he is - it is hard see how the threat is any less serious right now.

Fall-out from Greece flattened Portugal and Ireland last week. It is engulfing Spain and Italy, countries with €6.3 trillion of public and private debt between them.

Yields on Italian 10-year bonds hit a post-EMU high of 5.3pc on Friday. This is not just a theoretical price: the Italian treasury has to roll over €69bn (£61bn) in August and September; it must tap the markets for €500bn before the end of 2013. The interest burden on Italy's €1.84 trillion stock of public debt is about to rise very fast.

Spanish yields punched even higher, through the danger line of 5.7pc. The bond markets of both countries are replicating the pattern seen in Greece, Portugal, and Ireland before each spiraled into insolvency. And the virus is moving up the European map. French banks alone have $472bn (£394bn) of exposure to Italy and $175bn to Spain, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

"We believe the European sovereign crisis might be entering a new phase with contagion reaching the larger economies," said Jacques Cailloux, chief Europe economist at RBS.

Anonymous said...

9/11 and 7/7 both insider work, that is to say false flag events

As 'Principal Intelligence Officer' for the South Yorkshire Police, Tony Farrell had to produce a yearly ‘Strategic Threat Assessment Matrix’ to determine how the police force should prioritise its activities.

Part of this exercise involved analysis and predictive numerical weightings related to various aspects of the 'terror threat' presented by Islamic extremists in South Yorkshire.

Shortly before presenting his annual report in July 2010, Mr Farrell became convinced (over the course of about 8 days) that the major source of the 'terror threat' was neither external nor Islamic but came from within the UK government. Like many millions before him, having come across unreported evidence relating to 9/11 and 7/7, Tony Farrell quite quickly realised (with certainty) that both these attacks were classic false-flag events.

Mr Farrell is a Christian. He understood how unacceptable his views would be to the police hierarchy. He knew that delivering his rather alternative analysis and recommendations could only get him in deep trouble.

Nevertheless, if anything is an issue of conscience, this was just such an issue.

He presented his ‘Strategic Threat Assessment Matrix’ report to a roomful of stunned superiors. They listened respectfully.

Tony Farrell was sacked, of course, and is now awaiting an appeal against his dismissal and will charge his employers with 'unfair dismissal' at an Employment Tribunal in September. His grounds are that it is unlawful to dismiss anyone because of their belief.

Anonymous said...

Iceland “ready to support Palestinian independence” - 10.7.11

Icelandic foreign minister Ossur Skarphedinsson has told his Palestinian colleagues at their meeting this week in Ramallah that the Icelandic government is enthusiastic to support Palestinian independence, should the proposed motion be put before the United Nations this autumn.

No longer a slave to the international bankers, Iceland again shows the world how to be a moral and just nation.

Anonymous said...

Cyprus navy base explosion leaves several deadAt least 10 people killed as blast rips through base, knocking out island's largest power plant and damaging nearby resort

guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 July 2011

An explosion has ripped through a naval base in southern Cyprus, killing at least 10 people, injuring dozens more and knocking out the island's largest power plant.

The blast – which happened at the Evangelos Florakis base just before 6am local time on Monday – is thought to have been triggered when a brush fire set light to containers of confiscated gunpowder that had been stored at the facility.

According to state radio the dead include two members of the Cypriot navy, two soldiers and five firefighters.

The injured have been taken to hospitals in Nicosia, Limassol and Larnaca and the authorities are appealing for people to give blood.

Anonymous said...

There's a somewhat complicated reason for the above posting. Why Cyprus? one wonders. Well, here's one possible answer. In an agreement reached by Turkey's Erdogan and France's Sarkozy sometime in 2010, one of the points made was France would take over Syria with Turkey's help and, in return, Turkey would get some Syrian border areas and Cyprus. So, our question, is this perhaps the first chapter in that Turkish takeover of Cyprus?

Another possibility, the confiscated gunpowder referred to above was taken from an Iranian ship apparently bound for some place forbidden by international Diktat. Could it be that this is some way of involving Iran is so-called "terrorist" activities?

Anonymous said...

Protests spread in Egypt as discontent with military rule grows - 10.7.11

Protests have brought Egypt's administrative and commercial nerve centres to a standstill , as government attempts to stem a growing wave of opposition to military rule succeeded only in galvanising demonstrators further.

The interim prime minister, Essam Sharaf, took to the airwaves late on Saturday pledging to "meet the people's demands", following mass rallies across the country in which Egyptians accused the ruling council of army generals of betraying the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak this year.

In a short and strained address to the nation, Sharaf said all police officers accused of killing protesters would be stopped from working, and promised that the trials of former Mubarak ministers and other regime officials would proceed "as soon as possible". He insisted that social and economic problems would be reviewed by the army-appointed transitional cabinet.

But activists dismissed the announcement as empty rhetoric and claimed it contained nothing substantive. "His speech sounded like one of these tricks of the old government," Sherif, an engineer in his late 20s, told local news website Ahram Online. "If this government is unable to take serious steps, it should resign."

Anonymous said...

Econ News, 11.7.11

Greece seems to be a dress rehearsal for what's going on right now in the US. The authorities have begun reselling land, roads, port authority, water and sewage facilities exactly like in Illinois or Chicago or many another US State. Ownership of the public domain is slowly changing hands. In other words, the financial sector is stripping the govenrment of its assets.

In Europe, this is particularly true of all the Socialist-run countries, since the modern-day Socialists end to favour the financial sector above all and feel no qualms about privatising public ownership.

In the case of Greece, whose sovereign debt default comes closer daily, what is happening is that the French and German banks are playing for time. Firstly they want to dump their losses onto the central banks, i.e. the taxpayers. Then they want to buy up all the public assets governments are forces to sell under distressed conditions.

The idea is now gaining ground that if Greece, Portugal, Spain and now Italy left the EU, they would form a union of their own, which is a thought not devoid of interest at this point in time.

Anonymous said...

As Eric <msrgolis puts it, "Finance is the new state religion" of the west.

As for 19.57, please to note that apart from French and German banks, Swiss and Belgian banks are also holders of large chunks of Greek debt. Greek default will send waves of panic through all these European countries.

Anonymous said...

Bond Vigilantes Strike; Crisis in Italy Escalates; Portugal 2-Year Debt Hits 18.36%, Greece 31.34%, Ireland 17.83%; New Record High Spreads

The “Bond Vigilantes” are out in force in the European Sovereign Debt markets. What is at risk here is not Italy, rather it is the Euro itself.

The Euro-zone suffers from an incomplete financial system. The collection of sovereign states that adopted the Euro have toothless central banks that in turn depend on a toothless ECB. The ECB is not a central bank equivalent to the U.S. Federal Reserve or the Bank of England as there is no European Treasury and no central taxing authority. Rather the Euro-zone states depend on the support of individual banks and those banks are all over levered with too much sovereign debt.

The assumption was that these banks did not have to have reserves against sovereign debt as there was no default risk. As the real problem of default was recognized, these banks bought Credit Default Swap insurance but the “insurers” cannot pay off.

The PIIGS have the power to bring the Euro down. That is their hole card. The German public has the power to bring the Euro down. That is Berlin’s hole card. The French have no hole card and across the border in Belgium you have a sovereign state largely dependent on its hosting of many EU bureaucrats.

Many European banks are on life-support from the U.S. Federal Reserve since the EU is toothless. Thus, the U.S. is a hidden party to these negotiations.

So in the Euro-zone we have insolvent banks, insolvent governments, and a currency union that lacks the full set of tools to survive. No wonder the Bond Vigilantes are out in full force.

Anonymous said...

@ 11/7/11 20:35

Really?

:)

---

Anonymous said...

Hi, really, glad you're having fun. Now this one is "really" for you. It has to do with the war on Libya. Suddenly it seems to be coming to a close. One of the most belligerent proponents of that shameless military venture, France's Sarkozy has suddenly changed his mind completely and is now talking againt NATO intervention and working towards peace. Italy and Britain are also backing him up. Germany, on the other hand, recently supplied NATO with a new stock of bombs, etc. And US keeps insisting it is only carrying uot its UN mandate, although Libya hasn't set ut an aerial raid over the Benghazi area for over a hundred days now.

So what's brought on the change of heart in that idiot Sarkozy? the basis of my own personal theory, really, is to be found in someof the the posts above. I think French banks are hitting back at the US whose rating agencies have now brought even Italy into danger. Italy goes, then France does. We've been reciting this mantra for months now. And now suddenly it has taken on considerable meaning.

Also, there might well be a Chinese-Russian agreement between France, etc. over ending the war in Libya. So, really, what's your take on the war in Libya?

Anonymous said...

Belfast erupts in riots - 12,7,11

Heavy police presence separates loyalist parade and nationalist protesters after night of violence in Belfast

Anonymous said...

Blast hits Egyptian gas pipeline - 12.7.11

Operator to seek $8bn in damages after attack cuts off supplies to Israel and Jordan for fourth time since Arab spring began

Israel wants control over the Nile water and the Suez Canal. Well, let's hope it will get neither the one nor the other, any more than it will be able to steal dirt cheap gas from its neighbours.

Anonymous said...

European debt crisis: stock markets tumble as Italy fears mount

Economists have warned that Italian borrowing costs are approaching unsustainable levels

World stock markets accelerated their falls on Tuesday as Italy struggled to avoid being sucked into the escalating European debt crisis, and Greece moved closer to a default.

Bank shares were in retreat across Europe, driven by fears that Italy will soon be unable to borrow on the international money markets. The euro continued to lose value rapidly and hit a low of $1.388 – it has now lost more than 3 cents against the dollar since Monday morning.

The FTSE 100 was 52 points lower at 5876. Barclays fell as much as 6.5% to 218p followed by Lloyds, down 4.7% at 42p.

Losses were also heavy across Europe. The German DAX was down as much as 2.1%, with France's CAC 2.3% lower.

In the bond markets, the yield – or interest rate – on Italian 10-year bonds approached 6%, the highest in at least a decade. Spanish yields hit 6.2%. Economists have warned that these borrowing costs are approaching unsustainable levels.

Italy succeeded in selling €6.75bn (£6bn) of 12-month Italian bonds on Tuesday morning, but at an average yield of 3.67% – the highest interest rate on such debt since September 2008, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

This helped the main Italian index, the FTSE MIB, to recover some losses. It tumbled by 4.1% in early trading – with shares in Italy's biggest bank, Unicredit, being temporarily suspended after falling more than 7%.

On Monday, finance minister Giulio Tremonti pledged an unprecedented package of austerity measures to reassure the markets.

The slump in the euro illustrates the pressure that is building up against the single currency as Europe's debt crisis rumbles on.

"The contagion that is eating its way through the Spanish and Italian and other European bond markets has a self-prophesying element to it. The greater its foothold the more difficult it will be for affected countries to keep their debt maintenance costs and budgets in line," said one analyst.

"Too much more delay and EMU [Economic and Monetary Union] could implode," she added.

Anonymous said...

the younger brother of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan has been assassinated by his bodyguard, we are told. This will prove a bit of a setback for the invading forces since they were counting on the Karzai brother to ensure "security" in the province that had been alloted him. Will Hamid, the elder, be the next victim?

Anonymous said...

Afghan CIA Drug Kingpin Shot Dead by Own Bodyguard

Ahmad Wali Karzai, the half brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards Tuesday morning. Friend and trusted head of security Sardar Mohammed shot him in the head and chest. Mohammed was in turn shot and killed by fellow bodyguards. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assassination.

In 2009 it was reported that Karzai was a major player in the Afghan opium trade. According to reports, other members of the Karzai family are involved “head-to-heels” in the drug business.

Ahmad Wali Karzai also worked for the CIA.

“The CIA has been complicit in the global drug trade for years,” a former intelligence official told the press in 2002. “The CIA did almost the identical thing during the Vietnam War, which had catastrophic consequences – the increase in the heroin trade in the USA, for instance, beginning in the 1970s is directly attributable to the CIA.”

According to a report in Presscore, the former Unocal employee Hamid Karzai and his family are heavily involved in the CIA’s drug business.

“85 per cent of all drugs produced in Afghanistan is being shipped aboard US aircraft. Foreign diplomats have stated that the United States military buy drugs from local Afghan drug lords who deal with field commanders overseeing eradication of drug production,” states the report. The CIA provides protection for the enterprise.

The CIA has been in the drug running business since the 1950s. In Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Latin America, and Afghanistan, the CIA — also known as the “Cocaine Import Agency” — has remained at the forefront of the international illicit drug trade. The journalist Gary Webb and the San Jose Mercury News tied the CIA and the Contras to a large crack cocaine ring in Los Angeles. Webb paid with his life for revealing this information to the public.

Before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban had imposed a ban on opium production. This resulted in opium production collapsing by more than 90 per cent. It was the U.S. supported Northern Alliance that came to the rescue and began protecting the production of raw opium.

Anonymous said...

Million-man march in Tahrir Square gets underway
12.7.11

Tens of thousands of protesters are marching right now in Tahrir Square, responding to an invitation for a million-man march that is planned to head towards the cabinet office.

Some of the protesters chanted slogans against the Ministry of Interior and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

Others called on Field Marshal, and de-facto president, Hussein Tantawi to step down.

And while you are at it, Free Dr. Hawass!

Anonymous said...

Moody's cut Ireland's credit rating to junk on Tuesday, warning that the debt-laden country would likely need a second bailout -- just the latest move amid heightening concerns about Europe's ability to address its debt crisis and prevent it from spreading.

Moody's move comes a week after it slashed Portugal to junk status with a similar warning about the need for a second round of rescue funds. It reflects the credit rating agency's view that any further financial assistance from Brussels will require private investors to share part of the pain, possibly through a debt rollover or swap.

European finance ministers have acknowledged for the first time that some form of Greek default may be needed to cut Athens' debts, and if that materializes, Ireland's rating, never before in junk territory, could be set for a further round of cuts.

(Make no mistake about it, This is a falling out among thieves. US economic drone attacks on its EU slave-allies.)

Anonymous said...

News in Brief - 13.7.11

- Murdoch gives up on BSkyB bid. So, is that some sort of an end to the Murdoch media dictatorship in Britain at least? Probably not, but one can always keep hope alive.

- India has probably launched under false flag with the three separate attacks on busses, etc. it has reported today. Just hold on: They're going to blame the whole thing on Pakistan, no doubt with as usual no evidence whatsoever to prove their allegations. But then who needs evidence when the MSM has assigned itself the role of judge and jury in all such matters?

- EU once again is fuming over the high-handedness of US rating agencies in their latest venture: degrading Irish debt to junk status. Not the first time they've screamed their heads off over a rating agency decision. Whether this time they'll really get round to doing something about it remains to be seen. Knowing EU, it's all just words and actually they have no intention of changing their slave status to US and Co.

Anonymous said...

China’s scramble for Europe

China is using its growing economic strength to buy up strategic assets in Europe, from companies to government debt and infrastructure contracts.

A new brief published by ECFR – ‘The scramble for Europe’ – explores the extent and nature of China’s game-changing presence in Europe.

China has moved on from buying African ports and building Saudi railways, taking advantage of its economic strength and European weakness to buy up Europe. Its acquisitions include infrastructure such as ports and motorways, symbolic car companies like Volvo and MG, and high tech firms. It has bought large quantities of debt in the EU’s troubled periphery and won government contracts while excluding European companies from bidding for Chinese contracts

Please to note as well, the infamous Moody's has now attempted to hit back at the Chinese by claiming that 64 Chinese companies quoted on the US stockmarket have falsified their earning figures. The value of their shares has of course gone down following such reliable "revelations".

Anonymous said...

What's next for Libya?

What is taking place is a US/NATO aggression against Libya and the so-called "opposition" is composed of CIA/MI6/DGSE/Mossad puppets.

Whatever the past successes and failures of the Gaddafi regime in the past, it is now objectively fighting to keep Libya a free country. One need not admire this regime to admit that it is now the sole political force defending the sovereignty and independence of Libya.

NATO has now flown 15'000 sorties, including close to 6'000 bombing missions. For comparison, over Kosovo NATO few 38'000 sorties and 10'000 bombing missions. In both of these air campaigns NATO has achieved exactly nothing. The corporate media is doing its best not to notice this abject failure of NATO airpower.

As in Bosnia and Kosovo, a massive static PSYOP propaganda campaign is underway. While the laughable "Viagra as a weapon of war" canard has faded away, the demonization of Gaddafi, his entourage and his regime will continue. If NATO is seriously contemplating a ground operation against Gaddafi, then a Libyan "Markale market attack" or "Racak massacre" is probably already being prepared by CIA/MI6/DGSE/Mossad.

Unlike Milosevic - Gaddafi will not believe that the Empire will let him a way out and he will not surrender Benghazi or any other part of Libya like Milosevic betrayed the Bosnian Serbs and handed Kosovo to the USA.

In Kosovo the threat of a land invasion was probably real, and many observers are warning that an land invasion of Libya might be next. I am not so sure. Yes, just like in Kosovo, Iraq or Afghanistan, the entry of the invading force into Libya would probably swift and only sporadically opposed. But unlike Kosovo and Afghanistan where the Empire could count on local paramilitary forces and militias to assist the invading force, there are no indications that the mostly hapless Libyan insurgency can provide much support to the NATO invasion.

Two more factors would complicate an invasion: Libya is a very large country and, by all accounts, the population has been armed to the teeth by Gaddafi (this, by the way, contradicts the thesis that the regime has no support in the general population).

Lastly, it would be hard to distinguish a viable exit strategy for any invading force. If anything at all, the examples of Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that it is far easier to invade a country than to then withdraw from it.

So, if no invasion, then what? After all, it is quite unthinkable for our imperial overlords to admit that they screwed up and that their "short and easy" war on Libya has failed. In the absence of victory and in the absence of (admitted) defeat, the Empire will have to fall back to the "solution" it has adopted in Afghanistan and Pakistan: a punitive "Somalization" of Libya which could last for decades. After all, it is far easier (and cheaper!) to destroy then to built, and turning a rather prosperous country into yet another "failed state" is well within the means of this basically broke Empire.

Anonymous said...

Fitch ratings agency downgrades Greek sovereign debt : Greece suffered another sovereign downgrade on Wednesday, when the Fitch agency slashed its credit worthiness by three notches further into junk status and only one grade above default. (13.7.11)

Anonymous said...

Taliban deliver hammer blow to NATO

Considering the Taliban may actually control as much as 70% of the country, the assassination of Hamid Karazi's brother is a sterling coup, with responsibility duly claimed by the Taliban via spokesman Usuf Ahmadi: "This is one of our biggest achievements since the spring operation began. We assigned Sardar Mohammad to kill him recently and Sardar Mohammad is also martyred."

A counter-spin in Kandahar has Sardar Mohammad, a trusted Karzai commander issued from the same Popolzai tribe, killing Ahmed Wali with two shots on the head, "on drugs", and for personal reasons.

The Taliban anyway are already winning the public relations war. Since the spring of 2010, the Taliban have managed to kill the provincial chief of police of Kandahar, the deputy governor, the district chief for Arghandab, and the deputy mayor of Kandahar City.

Now they got rid of the major pro-Washington actor not only in Kandahar but in the whole south of Afghanistan - where NATO has been involved en masse to crush the Taliban in their spiritual home and favored grounds. The assassination smashes to bits the hegemonic "NATO is winning" narrative.

Anonymous said...

Japan is investing 8 trillion yen in new energy technology; oil and nuclear power will be phased out.

The Fukushima nuclear crisis is turning out to have a silver lining because it has convinced the Japanese political and business establishment to phase out nuclear power and oil as energy sources, writes Benjamin Fulford. In particular, he goes on to say, Japanese tycoon Masayoshi Son has teamed up with Prime Minister Naoto Kan to invest 8 trillion yen or about $100 billion to develop alternative energy technologies, according to Japanese government sources. Also, in yet another sign the old world order is ending, the US and European governments are having to dip into emergency oil stocks because their fiat currencies are no longer being accepted as payment for oil.

Anonymous said...

The Fourth Estate is Bankrupt

i.e. the Murdoch Case

From the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth imperialism was the dominant national ideology in Britain, transcending class and party divisions. Britain was saturated in the ethos and attitudes of empire. They infused plays and books and, later, films. They informed school textbooks. They inspired paintings, prints and engravings. They filled newspapers and magazines. They figured in advertisements and packaging. The impact was arguably greater than that of any previous dominant ideology because its pre-eminence coincided with the rise of the mass market and the mass media. -- 'Imperialism and juvenile literature' edited By Jeffrey Richards. Manchester University Press, 1989

So what’s changed? Not much really. Today of course, the ideology of imperial expansion now masks itself as ‘humanitarian intervention’ or ‘democracy-building’.

Britian's Victorian ancestors were less coy about colonizing, claiming to be on a ‘civilizing mission’. But ‘civilizing’ the Libyans, the Iraqis or the Afghans would be a step too far in these allegedly politically correct times but it’s the same thing by another name.

Yet the abysmal failings of Western ‘democracy’ are all around us. The West has governments that regardless that an ‘opposition’ exists are effectively one-party states and have been ever since the early years of the 20th century. In Britian, from 1945 to 2009, it was a Tory/Labour ‘coalition’ and now they are back to the pre-WWI war Tory/Liberal version. It makes little difference that every five years people vote for one or the other. Successive governments are an intrinsic part of an ossified and corrupt state self-’regulated’ for generations—and it still is—the expenses scandals and now the News of the World/News Corp fiasco notwithstanding.

The ever-expanding scale of the criminal enterprise that is Murdoch’s News Corp, reveals the awful truth about capitalism’s version of democracy; namely that it only works for those in power and for those with power. For a single corporation to have direct access and control at the very heart of government smacks of the days of William Randolph Hearst, made famous by Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, where rich and powerful individuals are able to determine the fate of a nation.

Anonymous said...

Putin Slams US

By Pak Alert

In a withering speech before members of the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow, Prime Minister Putin branded the United States current monetary policy as “hooliganism” and stated, “We, thankfully or not, cannot print a reserve currency. But what are they (the Americans) doing? They simply spit nails, turn on the printing press and throw money to the world, in order to resolve their urgent problems.”

The United States printing of money out of thin air is called Quantitative Easing (QE) and is an unconventional monetary policy tool used to stimulate their national economy since conventional monetary policy has become ineffective. The US Federal Reserve began their policy of Quantitative Easing by purchasing financial assets from banks and other private sector businesses with new money that it had created electronically, but which has no hard assets backing it up.

Though the US began the practice of creating money out of thin air after the Great Economic Collapse of 2008, it has not been alone as the Bank of England, The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have, likewise, over the past nearly 3 years printed in excess of over $4 Trillion in currency that when joined with the $5 Trillion printed by the Americans have left our world awash in paper money that has near worthless value.

According to top Russian economists, the greatest danger posed to the entire global economic structure by the Western nations flooding world markets with near worthless money is the staggering weight it has put on those few currencies that our based on sound measures and backed with real worth, but whose markets are now flooded with foreign buyers seeking safety for their assets, which at the same time is pricing their products out of reach due to the appreciation of their money.

Perhaps no nation has been hurt more than the South American nation of Brazil whose economy remains one of the soundest in the entire world, but whose Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, warned this past week that the “global currency war shows no signs of ending” and are, indeed, about to get worse.

Unbeknownst to the vast majority of Western peoples is that for the first time in history their entire civilization is on the brink of total collapse as the United States, Europe and Japan are all poised to see their economies crash, and there is no one in the world that can stop it.

The worst, by far, of this triad of global powers that underpin the entire Western World is the United States whose debt woes can only be described in the most apocalyptic of terms as their total debt is over $54 Trillion and their unfunded liabilities have reached the impossible to pay amount of $114 Trillion.

Not being understood by the American people about this crisis is that it centers on the $114 Trillion owed to them under what are called entitlement programmes, such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, which all are insolvent as the monies paid into them over these past 5 decades have been looted to pay for wars, corporate subsidies, tax breaks for their elite classes, and too many other extravagant programmes to mention.

This theft will be done wholly legally, based on a 1960 US Supreme Court ruling that US citizens do not have any “earned rights” to any Social Security benefits, or any other government entitlement programme.

Though the United States is the largest of the Western nations rushing toward total economic collapse they are far from being alone as the European Union today stands on the brink of oblivion and the catastrophic disasters of nuclear meltdowns, earthquake and tsunami damage have all but eviscerated Japan from ever rising again as a major power.

To the most catastrophic outcome now being faced by the Western world is their fulfilling the “vision” of the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who in their 1848 book Manifesto of the Communist Party
predicting the death of capitalism.

Anonymous said...

West casualty figures from Afghan-Iraq wars slowly emerging:

The Iraq war first: 73,846 US Soldiers Dead from both Gulf Wars. In other words, Iraq war deaths exceed Vietnam war numbers.

http://www.federaljack.com/?p=22683

And today, for the first time, I came across a likely figure for Afghanistan US casualties, namely: Afghanistan will have left over 150,000 American troops killed, wounded or permanently disabled at a financial cost of over $1.2 trillion dollars over the next 20 years.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/06/24/afghanistan-an-american-rape/

I don't know where this leaves NATO deaths, but if we are patient long enough, those will reach the public as well.

Not bad going for two unarmed countries against the most sophisticated military power in the world.

Anonymous said...

Here is a bit about what the PIIGS are facing:

- Italian austerity budget passes Senate: The deficit-reduction package is a mix of revenue-raising measures, such as higher hospital fees and a tax on holdings of state bonds, and cuts in spending by the central and local governments that come mainly into force in 2013 and 2014. A freeze on public sector wages and hiring will be extended by a year.

- Italy to allow rape of citizens investments: Italy eyes privatization as market tension eases: The Italian government bolstered an austerity package on Wednesday with plans to sell stakes in state-owned companies, and political consensus on debt-cutting measures helped calm nervous markets.

- Euro plunges deeper into crisis as Greece's credit rating slashed to 'junk': Credit rating agency Fitch yesterday indicated it expected the Greek government to default on its loans, cutting the country’s rating from B+ to CCC.

Anonymous said...

The US debt

China Daily has just reported that according to the notorious … Dagong rating agency, ”The US’ sovereign credit rating is likely to be downgraded regardless of whether the US Congress reaches an agreement on raising its statutory debt limit or not “If the debt limit is raised and the public debt continues to grow, it will further damage the US’ debt-paying ability, which is a key factor in Dagong’s evaluation, and we will consider lowering its ratings accordingly,” said Guan Jianzhong, chairman and CEO of Dagong. “If the raised limit fails to pass and the US faces default, the rating will be immediately and substantially downgraded,” he said. According to Guan, the downgrading is really just “a matter of time and extent”.

Dagong’s rating was downgraded from AA on Nov 9 after the US government announced a second round of quantitative easing (QE2).

“Raising the limit is just a legislative measure to allow the government to borrow more money, but it does not change the fact that the US lacks momentum for economic growth,” Guan said, adding that if the inflation and unemployment rates remain unchanged, the US government might turn to QE3.

The fundamental problem is that the US’ ability to generate wealth is far from compensating its increasing debt, and “paying debts by borrowing more is not a solution,” he said.

“Neither the $2 trillion QE nor raising the debt limit is an effective measure. And the sovereign debt crisis will continue,” Guan said, explaining that the US government spent huge amounts on consumption and social security, and had limited resources left for economic development

In fact, Dagong said last month that the U.S. had already defaulted.

Anonymous said...

A Word Or Two on What Isn’t Being Said

Who is Rupert Murdoch?

What he is not is an Australian “right wing” billionaire. Murdoch, though born in Australia is an Israeli citizen and Jewish.
Why is this important?

Murdoch is now admitted to have controlled the political systems in Britain and America for two decades. He has had the power to choose national leaders, make policy, pass laws at will. Where did the power come from?

We now know it came from spying, blackmail, bribery and propaganda.

What is his agenda? Ah, there’s the rub.

Was it about selling newspapers using scandals or spying in the name of Israel to push Britain and the United States into wars for Israel? There is a simple answer.

Anonymous said...

Return of the Gold Standard as world order unravels - 14,7,11

As the twin pillars of international monetary system threaten to come tumbling down in unison, gold has reclaimed its ancient status as the anchor of stability.

On one side of the Atlantic, the eurozone debt crisis has spread to the countries that may be too big to save - Spain and Italy - though some think a €3.5 trillion rescue fund would ensure survival of Europe's currency union.

On the other side, the recovery has sputtered out and the printing presses are being oiled again. Brinkmanship between the Congress and the White House over the US debt ceiling has compelled Moody's to warn of a "very small but rising risk" that the world's paramount power may default within two weeks.

Fed chair Ben Bernanke confessed to Congress that growth has failed to gain traction. "Deflationary risks might re-emerge, implying a need for additional policy support," he said.

The bar to QE3 - yet more bond purchases - is even lower than markets had thought. The new intake of hard-money men on the voting committee has not shifted Fed thinking, despite global anger at dollar debasement under QE2.

Fuelling the blaze, the emerging powers of Asia are almost all running loose monetary policies. Most have negative real interest rates that push citizens out of bank accounts and into gold, or property. China is an arch-inflater. Prices are rising at 6.4pc, yet the one-year deposit rate is just 3.5pc. India's central bank is far behind the curve.

China, Russia, Brazil, India, the Mid-East petro-powers have diversified their $7 trillion reserves into euros over the last decade to limit dollar exposure. As Europe's monetary union itself faces an existential crisis, there is no other safe-haven currency able to absorb the flows. The Swiss franc, Canada's loonie, the Aussie, and Korea's won are too small.

Xia Bin, an adviser to China's central bank, said in June that the country's reserve strategy needs an "urgent" overhaul. Instead of buying paper IOU's from a prostrate West, China should invest in strategic assets and accumulate gold by "buying the dips".

Step by step, the world is edging towards a revived Gold Standard as it becomes clearer that Japan and the West have reached debt saturation.

A new Gold Standard would probably be based on a variant of the 'Bancor' proposed by Keynes in the late 1940s. This was a basket of 30 commodities intended to be less deflationary than pure gold, which had compounded in the Great Depression. The idea was revived by China's central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan two years ago as a way of curbing the "credit-based" excess.

Anonymous said...

Libya heralds the awakening of the mighty continent of Africa

Western Fallacies

Let us put one fallacy to rest forever – Europeans do not have a monopoly on the theory and practice of democracy. It is not my intention here to enter into what is a huge discussion of what constitutes democracy. Suffice to say, that Western Europe and the US, which continue to this day to brutally enforce their undemocratic systems of colonialism, neo-colonialism and capitalism worldwide, are not in either a moral or historical position to lecture the world on what is or is not democratic.

Those who promote democracy, European and US style, must be aware that the Fathers of the American revolution excluded the indigenous peoples and the captured Africans from their ‘democratic’ project. Same with the French revolutionaries, who in 1789 were proclaiming ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’, but were not prepared to extend these principles to the captured Africans working their plantations in the Caribbean.

However fallacious the Western notion of democracy may be, the only thing that matters from an African perspective is that the West is prevented from continuing to impose this fallacious notion on us. They can, as far as we are concerned, have whatever political system they choose. The point is, so can we as Africans. This is what we are fighting for – our inalienable right to self-determination – to freely decide our own destiny.

That is what it means to finally throw off the yoke of colonialism and imperialism, and that is what Libya dared to do under the leadership of Muammar Qaddafi. And Qaddafi dared to extend this vision to the entire African continent.

In the words of the Afrocentric intellectual warrior, Dr Molefi Kete Asante:

“The work of the Brother Leader, as he is sometimes called, has been to raise African consciousness to the point that some of the nations on the continent of Africa begin to reject the loyalty they hold for their colonial masters…Qaddafi has proposed that Africa do away with travel restrictions, create a common currency and ease trade tariffs and barriers. This African solidarity is not only a threat to the West – some who identify as Arabs have a difficult time accepting the Africanity promoted by Qaddafi.”

The battle for African self-determination did not start in Libya or with Qaddafi – it is a very long battle stretching back to the earliest incursions into Africa. And it is not the first time that Africans have faced such a sophisticated and deadly European attack – we can look way back at the battle of Isandlwana in 1879, where the arrogant British army, one of the most technologically advanced in the world at that time, was humbled by the Zulu fighters under the leadership of the great African king, Cetshwayo.

What this ‘Coalition of Demons’ currently attacking Libya, armed with the most sophisticated weaponry known to humankind, is slowly coming to realize, is that they could well be defeated by the will of the Libyan people armed with their faith, revolutionary consciousness and kalashnikovs.

Fear of a Black Planet

‘Up you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will’ – Marcus Garvey

‘The Black race shall prevail throughout the world’ – Muammar Qaddafi

This is a defining moment for Africa and Africans all over the world. It is a moment in history that we must seize.

Read the whole important piece:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25634

Anonymous said...

Thanks, 12:01. For anyone who has the least interest in the future of the Black Continent, this article is a must read. I haven't felt so optimistic about Africa in ages.

Anonymous said...

Israel" Eyeing Reoccupation of Sinai - 15.7.11

An “Israeli” official in Washington refuses to comment on the prospect that its military forces may try toreoccupy the Sinai Peninsula in response to an Egyptian pull-back of its police, the continued sabotage of a natural gas pipeline that supplies the Jewish state with more than 40 percent of its energy, and the growing perception that the Zionist state could face attacks from there.

In laying groundwork for such an event, high level “Israeli” officials are pointing to what they say is increasing infiltration by al-Qaida and Hamas who could launch attacks from the Sinai into "Israel."

Anonymous said...

Arab League to Request U.N. Recognition of Palestine

The Arab League will submit to the United Nations a request for recognition of a Palestinian state, Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi said on Thursday in Doha.

The Arab peace initiative committee "has decided to submit a call to the member states of the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state," Arabi told a news conference after a meeting of the committee in the Qatari capital.

It would "move to present a request for full membership of a Palestinian state in the General Assembly and the Security Council," Arabi added.

15.7.11

Anonymous said...

World Says China Will Overtake America
July 15, 2011

In the past decade, anti-Americanism grew around the world. This was in response to concerns about the unchecked global power of the U.S., when it invaded Iraq in the face of very wide international opposition. In sharp contrast, today America is seen as on its way to losing its status as the dominant global superpower.

A new Pew Global Attitudes survey released today finds that while the U.S. is better regarded around the world now than it was in the Bush years (?), in 15 of 22 nations surveyed most say that China either will replace or already has replaced America as the world’s “leading superpower.” This view is especially widespread in Western Europe, where at least six in 10 respondents in Britain, France, Germany and Spain see China eventually overtaking the U.S.

The emerging perception of China’s superpower status no doubt reflects global recognition of its growing economic might, and the fact that the U.S. is increasingly seen as trailing China economically. Nowhere is this more evident than in Western Europe, where the percentage naming China as the world’s “leading economic power” has increased markedly over the past two years, along with the view that it will eclipse the U.S. as global superpower.

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable, but true:

U.S. Considers Asset Sale To Pay Bills If Debt Limit Is Not Raised

Federal officials have reached out to banks and investors to discuss the government's plans for its paying obligations after August 2 in the event the debt ceiling isn't raised.

Among the options being considered to raise revenues while borrowing is prohibited, are the suspension of non-critical payments, and the sale of federally-owned student loans, mortgages, and even gold reserves...

(Selling off debts to run more debts! As for gold reserves, what gold reserves, the tungsten-coated bars of lead? Why don't they just confiscate the wealth of the rich? That might make some slight difference, although that wouldn't suffice either to get them out of their present mess. That plus reducing the Pentagon to the absolute basics might bring some relief.)

Anonymous said...

The 15 countries with the highest debt to GDP ratio:

15. Portugal (debt as percent of GDP) - 83%
14. France - 83.5%
13. Sri Lanka - 86.7%
12. Sudan - 94.2%
11. Ireland - 94.2%
10. Belgium - 98.6%
9. Singapore - 102.4%
8. Italy - 119%
7. Jamaica - 123.2%
6. Iceland - 123.8%
5. Greece - 144%
4. Zimbabwe - 149%
3. Lebanon - 150.7%
2. St Kitts & Nevis - 196.3%
1. Japan - 226.8%

Anonymous said...

No US in the list? I've just come across this sentence about the US debt:

*The United States Federal government has a total debt of over 100% of the nation’s GDP, and is consistently running deficits of over 11% year after year—unsustainable levels of debt."

So US should at least be in the No. 9 spot in the list, between Belgium and Singapore or even lower. What do you say?

Anonymous said...

Ok, 23:54, good question, difficult to answer. My own particular list was posted by Brit historian Nigel Ferguson. But I should have known he would not touch his beloved US or GB towards which he still maintains some kind of a loyalty. The problem is we've got so many conflicting figures for the US, etc., in fact for practically all of them, we no longer know what to think. Here for instance is one set of figures:

United States: 95%
Canada: 60%
Spain: 151%
UK: 375%
Germany: 160%

Compare above with Russia: 9.5% and China: 5%.

Lets take a look at absolute debt number. Out of roughly $54 Trillion dollars of external debt globally:

United States: $14 trillion
United Kingdom: $13 Trillion

So here we see that $27 Trillion of the world's $54 Trillion of debt is held by just two countries. That is 50% of it all belongs to US and the Brits. Hope I answered your question somewhat.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/162185-some-scary-implications-of-u-s-debt

Anonymous said...

Who benefits from the Greek bail-out?

The French and German banks, of course. Who else?

While France and Germany were urging Greece to cut its spending on social services and public sector employees (who account for 25% of the workforce), they were bullying Greece behind the scenes to confirm billions of euros in arms deals from France and Germany, including submarines, a fleet of warships, helicopters and war planes. One Euro-MP alleged that Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy blackmailed the Greek Prime Minister by making the Franco-German contributions to the bailout dependent upon the arms deals going through, which was signed by the previous Greek Prime Minister. Sarkozy apparently told the Greek Prime Minister Papandreou, “We’re going to raise the money to help you, but you are going to have to continue to pay the arms contracts that we have with you.” The arms deals run into the billions, with 2.5 billion euros simply for French frigates.[66] Greece is in fact the largest purchaser of arms (as a percentage of GDP) in the European Union, and was planning to make more purchases:

Greece has said it needs 40 fighter jets, and both Germany and France are vying for the contract: Germany wants Greece to buy Eurofighter planes — made by a consortium of German, Italian, Spanish and British companies — while France is eager to sell Athens its Rafale fighter aircraft, produced by Dassault.

Germany is Greece’s largest supplier of arms, according to a report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in March, with Athens receiving 35 percent of the weapons it bought last year from there. Germany sent 13 percent of its arms exports to Greece, making Greece the second largest recipient behind Turkey, SIPRI said.[67]

Thus, France and Germany insist upon French and German arms manufacturers making money at the expense of the standard of living of the Greek people. Financially extorting Greece to purchase weapons and military equipment while demanding the country make spending cuts in all other areas (while increasing the taxes on the population) reveals the true hypocrisy of the whole endeavour, and the nature of who is really being ‘bailed out.

Anonymous said...

The end of the banker’s reign is near and that is a really good thing. Up to this point, bankers have managed to turn humanity into pile of debt slaves.

Since the advent of paper money, bankers have tended to form an unholy alliance with elected governments to expand debt and both parties have prospered until now; the time has come when debt can no longer be repaid.

Darryl Robert Schoon writes, “The global economic collapse is perhaps humanity’s greatest hope for escaping the debt slavery the world’s financiers and bankers have planned for the world.

However, to escape slavery one must first know he is a slave.”

Debt is the slavery of the free.
Publius Syrus, 50 BC

“Now everybody understands that Greece needs to be helped to exit recession as soon as possible. The relevant negotiations are making progress, and I hope they are completed as soon as possible,” Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou said. Some people are very serious about their delusions and want us to believe in them too.

How is an economic backwater country like Greece going to be helped out of a recession when the rest of the world is on the verge of financial and economic calamity? And how is any person or country in debt helped by taking on more debt?

Don’t tell anyone but a massacre is going to occur in the banking industry, for haircuts are not what are in the offering but instead full-field scalping as countries default on their debts. It’s only a matter of time.

Sheldon Filger says, “policymakers have no real solutions, and have just about run out of gimmicks and short-term fixes. The global economic crisis that began with the financial collapse of 2008, far from being resolved or a clear path to recovery being underway, is entering a more dangerous phase, in which sovereign debt reaches the level of unsustainability.

The result could very well be paralyzing insolvency among the advanced economies, which could destroy the economic future of an entire generation.” Monty Pelerin writes, “The circus surrounding the debt ceiling makes interesting theater but all the babble is irrelevant. How the debt ceiling is eventually resolved only changes the timing and extent of the economic collapse.”

Read more:

http://theintelhub.com/2011/07/17/the-party-is-over-for-bankers/

Anonymous said...

On a lighter note: While the world is teetering on the brink of economic dissolution, Germany's biggest trade union asks the government to allow German workers time off for a daily siesta, claiming this will do wonders for productivity. Who says the world has lost its penchant for the absurd?

Anonymous said...

Russia criticises US for recognising Libyan rebel governmentDecision to designate national transitional council as legitimate government is taking sides in civil war, says Moscow (18.7.11)

Russia has criticised the US and other countries for recognising the Libyan rebels' national transitional council as a legitimate government, saying they are taking sides in the civil war.

"Those who declare recognition stand fully on the side of one political force in a civil war," the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, announced the recognition of the rebels on Friday when she was in Turkey for a meeting of an international contact group on Libya.

The major diplomatic step could unblock billions of dollars in frozen Libyan funds for the campaign to end the 41-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi, who has resisted Nato bombing for nearly four months.

Russia, along with China, has taken a softer line towards Gaddafi. They were both invited to the Istanbul contact group meeting but did not attend.

"Supporters of such a decision are supporters of a policy of isolation, in this case the isolation of those forces that represent Tripoli," said Lavrov, adding that Moscow was in contact with both Tripoli and the rebels.

Russia abstained from voting on a resolution that authorised western force against Gaddafi to protect civilians. It has increasingly criticised the scope of the Nato campaign as well as the role of the Libya contact group.

Anonymous said...

Syria recognizes state of Palestine - 18.7.11

An official source at the Foreign Ministry on Monday issued the following statement: The Syrian Arab Republic recognizes the state of Palestine on the lines of July 4th 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital on the basis of preserving the legitimate Palestinian rights.

(Hop Syria! That's the spirit. Never ever give in to intimidation.)

Anonymous said...

17:13 - Too little too late, Lavrov. Russia, along with foolish China, should never have agreed not to veto the UN resolution allowing NATO to bomb Libya. Hope they won't make the same mistake a second time. As for the Libyan sovereign funds, as far as we know, they have already been pocketed by Goldman Sachs, so I wonder what it is they are supposed to hand over to the people they have recognised as the legitimate government of Libya.

17:29 - Brave move on the part of Syria. Hope Gaddafi follows suit.

Anonymous said...

Debt Fears Lead to US Downgrade - 18.7.11

Egan-Jones has become the first US rating agency to downgrade the country’s sovereign credit rating from triple A to double A plus as it focuses on the rapid rise in outstanding debt over the past five years.

Anonymous said...

Putin brands US as 'hooligans' for printing money - RIA Novosti, 17.07.2011

The Russian authorities have said they would like to see a basket of currencies including the ruble replacing the dollar as the main reserve currency,

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the US of hooliganism on Monday over the US government's efforts to ease its financial problems by injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy.

"Thank God, or unfortunately, we do not print a reserve currency but what are they doing? They are behaving like hooligans, switching on the printing press and tossing them around the whole world, forgetting their main obligations," Putin told a meeting of economic experts at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Putin's comments came in the wake of the completion of the US' quantitative easing (QE) 2 program on June 30, in which the Federal Reserve bought $600 billion worth of its Treasury bonds. The Fed's first round of QE, which ended in March last year, amounted to less than half the size of QE2.

The Russian authorities have said they would like to see a basket of currencies including the ruble replacing the dollar as the main reserve currency, although most analysts have said a more realistic target for Russia would be if the ruble became a regional reserve currency for the CIS.

Anonymous said...

Portugal's Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho discovers 'colossal' budget hole - 19.7.11

Portugal's new leader Pedro Passos Coelho has told the nation to brace for further austerity measures after his government discovered a "colossal" €2bn (£1.7bn) hole in the public accounts left by the outgoing Socialists.

Pedro Passos Coelho also appeared to caution the European authorities that his government will not tolerate heavy-handed interference in his country

Yields on two-year Portuguese debt rose to a fresh record of 20.3pc on Monday, reflecting fears by investors that the country would struggle to pull itself out of downward spiral without some form of debt restructuring.

Mr Passos Coelho also appeared to caution the European authorities that his government will not tolerate heavy-handed interference in the country.

"We want to take part in an ambitious European project and make our contribution so Europe can confront its problems in the most ambitious way, but as prime minister I will not stand by and let Europe govern Portugal," he told a party gathering.

There is growing rancor in Lisbon over the term of the €78bn rescue by the EU and the International Monetary Fund, and the sweeping powers of the inspectors as they impose a "structural adjustment" on the economy.

The penal rate of interest charged by the EU is expected to top 5.5pc and risks trapping the country in debt-deflation. At the same time fiscal austerity, without offsetting monetary stimulus or devaluation, may tip the economy into an even deeper downturn.

Anonymous said...

Financial implosion anyone?

1 - The yield on 2 year Portuguese bonds is now over 20 percent, the yield on 2 year Irish bonds is now over 23 percent and the yield on 2 year Greek bonds is now over 35 percent.

2 - Shares of Italy’s largest bank dropped by a whopping 6.4% on Monday.

3 - On Monday, the yield on 10 year Italian bonds was the highest it has been since the euro was adopted.

4 - On Monday, the yield on 10 year Spanish bonds was also the highest it has been since the euro was adopted.

5 - Shares of Germany’s largest bank fell by a staggering 7% on Monday and are down a total of 22% so far this month.

6 - Citigroup’s chief economist, William Buiter, says that without direct intervention by the ECB there is going to be a wave of sovereign defaultsacross Europe….

“Nothing stands in the way of multiple sovereign defaults except the ECB: they are the only game in town, there is nothing else”

7 - Cisco US has announced plans to axe 16 percent of its workers.

8 - Borders Group US has announced that it will be liquidating all remaining assets. That means that 399 stores will be closed and 10,700 workers will lose their jobs.

9 - During times of great crisis, many investors seek safe havens for their money. On Monday, the price of gold shot past $1600 an ounce.

Anonymous said...

Only Germany can save EMU as contagion turns systemic - 20.7.11

Europe's leaders have finally run out of time. If they fail to agree on some form of debt pooling and shared fiscal destiny at Thursday's emergency summit, they risk a full-fledged run on South Europe's bond markets and a disorderly collapse of monetary union.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned there will be no 'spectacular step' at the EU meeting on Thursday

"We are heading towards fiscal union or break-up," said David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC. "Talk is no longer enough as the fire threatens to leap over the firebreak into Spain and Italy.

"What the market is worried about is Germany's long-term committment to the euro project. If we see unreserved and absolute backing from the political establishment of Germany, that will be a soothing balm."

Chancellor Angela Merkel seemed in little hurry on Tuesday to convey such a message. There will be no "spectacular step" at the Justus Lipsius building on Thursday; just a "controlled process of gradual steps and measures", she said with unflappable calm. Given the simmering wrath from top to bottom of German society, it may be impossible for her to do much more.

Jens Weidmann, the Bundesbank's president, has made her task that much harder by telling the eurosceptic Bild Zeitung that "nothing would destroy the incentives for a solid budget policy more quickly and more permanently than joint liability for national debts. European and especially German taxpayers would have to answer for the entire state debt of Greece. That would be a step toward a transfer union."

Days earlier he shot down proposals for issuance of eurobonds or use of Europe's rescue fund to buy Spanish and Italian bonds on the open market, crucial steps to prevent Italy and Spain being drawn into the maelstrom. "It has a high cost, limited use, and dangerous secondary effects," he said, departing radically from the script of the European Central Bank.

Anonymous said...

Greece Bonds Collapse, Interest Rates Surge To Near 40% As ECB Announces They Will Allow "Temporary Default"

European bankers have announced they will allow a temporary default on Greece sovereign debt which in turn caused Greek bonds to crash and send interest rates for the nation skyrocketing to a nearly 40% yield on their 2 year bond.

(Interesting experiment. Now let's see where we go from here. From "temporary" to "permanent" and departure from the Eurozone?)

Anonymous said...

Is Britain's Triple A Rating Safe?

As the eurozone lurches from one crisis to the next, UK gilts have become seen as something of a safe haven asset. The yield on ten year gilts is not quite at Germany or US levels, but it’s not far off. Everything is relative; compared to some parts of the eurozone, British economic woes seem trivial. Or do they?

As can be seen on vaiours charts, taking all debt together, private, public and financial sector, Britain is the most indebted nation in the world, far exceeding the eurozone countries now in so much trouble. Twenty years ago, they were round about average for the major advanced economies. Today they are way out there at the top of the leader board with Japan. There’s plenty of room for argument about the accuracy or even meaningfulness of such debt comparisons. Since most debt liabilities are backed by an equal and opposite value of assets, you might argue that it’s actually a rather good thing to have so much of the stuff, as it also indicates high comparative wealth.

None the less, it’s a pretty scarey thing to have such a giant debt overhang at a time of economic and financial calamity. Historically, what tends to happen after a big debt build up is that there is a crisis followed by a prolonged period of “deleveraging”, during which debt is brought back into alignment with lower asset values. This process will inevitably be a big drag on growth. So the triple A of Britain is indeed in danger, though, of course, Britian always has the possibility of printing money to get it out of its economic hole.

Anonymous said...

Iran Opens Oil Bourse – Harbinger of Trouble for New York and London? - 20.7.11

And a strong motive for the US to invade and force the Iranians back to using the dollar for all oil transactions, like they did in Iraq? The date of September is now being used more and more for that brilliant day when Iran is attacked. But somehow, in spite of everything, I don't think it is going to happen. And you?

Anonymous said...

Gaddafi Could Possibly Stay In Libya: French Official - 20.7.11

France's foreign minister suggested Wednesday that a possible way out of Libya's civil war would be to allow Muammar Gaddafi to stay in the country if he relinquishes power.

Gaddafi insists he will neither step down nor flee the country he has led for four decades. With the NATO-led air campaign against Gaddafi's forces entering its fifth month and the fighting in a stalemate, the international community is seeking exit strategies

Anonymous said...

The Ongoing Revolutions:

- Tunisia, This one is very sparsely reported. The demo masses seem to have dispersed somewhat. Elections are still awaited.

- Egypt, this is the big one and it's still ongoing. At regular intervals, Tahrir Square is taken over by protesters and demands are formulated. Those yearned for elections seem to be round the corner and today the Egyptians have said they'll not tolerate any foreign observers in their forthcoming polling booths.

- Bahrain: We all know what's happened to Bahraini revolutionary forces: perfect repression. Today's news, however, carries an important item: The US 5th Fleet might be removed from Bahrain and transferred to another Gulf State. If this were to happen, it would be a great victory for the Bahraini Shiites.

- Yemen, ongoing and now we are told a civil war might be in the works. As though it hadn't started right from the word go. Trust the MSM to treat their readers like morons.

Anonymous said...

We'll be back in a while with the False Revolutions, Libya and Syria. For now simply these snippets from Venezuela whose ailing President Chavez is fighting his battle against cancer in a Cuban hospital.

- Venezuela's Chavez urges Libyan leader to resist: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday sent a message of support to embattled Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, urging him to resist and calling on European nations to worry about their own domestic issues.

- Venezuela tops world oil reserves: Venezuela surpassed Saudi Arabia in oil reserves, OPEC reported. But analysts say the quality of those reserves is an issue.

Anonymous said...

The False Insurgencies: Libya and Syria

I'm not getting into the debate on whether ALL the recent uprisings were engineered by the CIA or not. A rough division into partially genuine and wholly fabricated is all I'll allow myself.

Among the latter, there is, of course, the two odd men out of Africa and the Middle East, Libya and Syria.

About Libya we hear that the oil-rich town of Brega is still safe in loyalist hands, whereas the reputation of the lying, looting, murderous rebels and their confederates, the west forces have been killing and maiming wherever they got a chance. Libya, it is our fond hope, will not go to the west, not even in the form of Balkanisation.

Syria, now, seems to be managing its affairs with greater efficiency. But dangers still abound. Apparently Bashar al-Assad is to give yet another speech today and there is even talk of his offering to hold presidential elections. Whatever, our biggest discovery in the whole Syria story has been the double-game Turkey has been playing all along, on the one hand, a friend to the Muslim countries, on the other, a diehard partisan of the west. For Syria, too, we see a favourable outcome to the stand off in the sense that Bashar al-Assad will continue in office and inflict total defeat on enemy forces.

Anonymous said...

Bailed out – again. Eurozone throws Greece €109bn lifelineBailout fund turned into much more ambitious instrument in deal hatched following months of dithering - 22.7.11

European leaders have sealed a new €109bn bailout for Greece and erected defences against the debt crisis spreading to Italy and Spain by turning the eurozone's 15-month-old bailout fund into a much more ambitious instrument resembling an infant European monetary fund.

The deal, hatched at an emergency summit in Brussels of eurozone leaders, following months of dithering and division, also entailed large losses for Athens' private creditors, making it almost certain that Greece would become the first eurozone country to be deemed to be in some form of default on its sovereign debt.

A 16-point blueprint provided for a vast expansion in the role and powers of the €440bn bailout fund established in May last year. The package agreed after weeks of bad-tempered, intense haggling and only resolved at the last minute, was the biggest response from the eurozone since it created the bailout fund.

Currently the fund can only be used as a "last resort" to rescue a eurozone country whose plight jeopardises the stability of the euro as a whole.

Under the radical action, the fund will be able to intervene on the secondary markets to buy up the bonds of struggling debtor countries, to take preemptive or "precautionary" action to nip a debt crisis in the bud by, for example, agreeing lines of credit, and to supply loans to struggling eurozone countries who would use the money to shore up and recapitalise their banks. Such aid would apply, unlike at present, to countries not already in bailout programmes.

"By the end of the summer, Angela Merkel and I will be making joint proposals on economic government in the eurozone. Our ambition is to seize the Greek crisis to make a quantum leap in eurozone government," pledged French president Nicolas Sarkozy. "The very words were once taboo. We will give a clearer vision of the way we see the eurozone evolving. We have done something historic. There is no European Monetary Fund yet – but nearly."

Anonymous said...

Great news, isn't it? Well just let^s wait and see what the big shot econ analysts have to say about it all. No one can imagine how sorely I miss poiuytr at this juncture. Well, no use crying over what cannot be undone, is there? And below, then, we have one account of what may happen to the Eurozone before long which will make some chortle with glee.

Anonymous said...

Following the new eurozone bailout Fund plan:

Now the second part of the mechanism was never an issue further demonstrated by the plunge in net notional in Greek CDS as core banks no longer needed to hedge exposure and instead opted to divest their holdings. This is merely a red herring that attempts to confuse the issues associated with the first, and far more important concept: the nuances of the EFSF and its imminent expansion. And expand it will have to, because in reality what is happening is that the net debt of the countries will end up growing even more over time for one simple reason: this is not a restructuring of existing debt from the perspective of the host country! Simply said Greek debt will continue growing as a percentage of its GDP, meaning it, and Ireland, and Portugal, and soon thereafter Italy and Spain will be forced to borrow exclusively from the EFSF. Therein lies the rub. In a just released report by Bernstein, which has actually done the math on the required contributions to the EFSF by the core countries, the bottom line is that for an enlarged EFSF (which is what its blank check expansion today provided) to be effective, it will need to cover Italy and Belgium. As AB says, "its firepower would have to rise to €1.45trn backed by a total of €1.7trn guarantees." And here is where the whole premise breaks down, if not from a financial standpoint, then certainly from a political one: "As the guarantees of the periphery including Italy are worthless, the Guarantee Germany would have to provide rises to €790bn or 32% of GDP." That's right: by not monetizing European debt on its books, the ECB has effectively left Germany holding the bag to the entire European bailout via the blank check SPV. The cost if things go wrong: a third of the country economic output, and the worst case scenario: a depression the likes of which Germany has not seen since the 1920-30s. Oh, and if France gets downgraded, Germany's pro rata share of funding the EFSF jumps to a mindboggling €1.385 trillion, or 56% of German GDP!

The Europarliament, ECB and IMF may have won their Pyrrhic victory today... But what happens tomorrow when every German (in a population of 82 very efficient million) wakes up to newspaper headlines screaming that their country is now on the hook to 32% of its GDP in order to keep insolvent Greece, with its 50-some year old retirement age, not to mention Ireland, Portugal, and soon Italy and Spain, as part of the Eurozone? What happens when these same 82 million realize that they are on the hook to sacrificing hundreds of years of welfare state entitlements (recall that Otto von Bismark was the original welfare state progentior) just so a few peripheral national can continue to lie about their deficits (the 6 month Greek deficit already is missing Its full year benchmark target by about 20%) and enjoy generous socialist benefits up to an including guaranteed pensions? What happens when an already mortally wounded in the polls Angela Merkel finds herself in the next general election and experiences an epic electoral loss? We will find out very, very shortly.

Anonymous said...

Fed's Plosser Admits 'Helicopter Bernanke' Is Planning For Potential U.S. Debt Default

The US Federal Reserve is actively preparing for the possibility that the United States could default as a deadline for raising the government's $14.3 trillion borrowing limit looms, a top Fed policymaker said on Wednesday.

Charles Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, said the U.S. central bank has for the past few months been working closely with Treasury, ironing out what to do if the world's biggest economy runs out of cash on August 2.

One aspect of the Fed's contingency planning is purely operational: the Fed is developing procedures about how the Treasury would notify it on which checks would get cleared and which wouldn't, Plosser said.

"We are developing processes and procedures by which the Treasury communicates to us what we are going to do," Plosser said, adding that the task was manageable. He went on to say that there are difficult questions that the Fed itself had to grapple with.

The Fed lends to banks at the discount window against good collateral. But what happens if U.S. Treasuries no longer fit that bill?

"Do we treat them as if they didn't default, in which case we would be saying we are pretending it never happened? Or do we treat them as if they defaulted and don't lend against them?" Plosser said. "Those are more policy questions."

Plosser was a vocal critic of some of the Fed's extraordinary lending during the 2008 financial crisis.

Anonymous said...

The Latest False Flag, the Oslo Bombing

Number of victims from one then two has now climbed to seven. True or False?

PM Jens Stoltenberg chose today of all days to work at home instead of his office which was subsequently bombed

et another motive for Oslo bombs - Norway pension fund divested Israeli shares.

Muslims are being blamed for it before events even really got started.

More reasons will emerge as we go along. So who did it, after all. Take a look at this:

Oslo says EUR450bn oil fund has excluded two Israeli firms for ethical reasons.

- Norway wanted to support a Palestinian state at the UN

- Norway is pulling out of the Libya invasion.

- Norway divested Israeli stock.

- Strike three, and you're OUTTATHERE!!!!!!!
(WRH)
- Oh, yes, and Norway also has the bad habit of occasionally celebrating the talent of one its greatest writers Knut Hamsun, who was sympathetic to the Nazi world view. What more do you want?

Anonymous said...

Terrorist Bomb Attack in Oslo, Norway ... Who Dunnit? - 22.7.11

Norway is an odd choice as a Muslim terror target:

Norway has endorsed Palestinian statehood.

Norway has excluded Isareli investments. As Haaertz reported last year: Norway’s 450 billion euro oil-riches fund has excluded two Israeli firms involved in developing settlements ... on ethical grounds, Norway’s finance ministry said on Monday.

Indeed, Senator Lieberman has accused Norway of promoting anti-semitism

Norway has also announced its plan to withdraw from the Libyan war

This is hardly the profile of a normal Muslim terrorist target.

Therefore, many are alleging that it is another false flag terror attack.

And this morning we've learnt that the lone
(?) shooter who killed 87 at the Labour party meeting on a Norwegian island was an ethnic Norwegian described as an Anti-Islam, Christian Nationalist on his own Facebook page.

It gets curiouser and curiouser as we go along.

Anonymous said...

Eurozone debt crisis: Europe's politicians will be punished for a deal dripping with moral hazard

It is time for a reality check. Part of the reason Thursday's flawed deal came across as a triumph was because each of the eurozone packages which preceded it over the previous 18 months was so disappointing.

O, yes, and Greece also defaulted. The process is complex. Private investors will be served up a sour menu comprising four alternative schemes which scrape some of the value off their investments, with the bottom line being that according to the Institute of International Finance their bonds will be worth 21pc less afterwards – and Greece's debt pile €13.5bn (£11.9bn) lighter.

There are quibbles with both parts of the deal. The Greek default may not go far enough in dragging the country back towards solvency: it still needs to borrow to pay its interest. It is unclear where the EFSF will get the necessary extra billions of euros it will need to prevent Spain and Italy from sliding further towards the precipice.

But these pale in comparison with the deeper problems. First off, the deal is dripping with moral hazard. Not only has a eurozone member been allowed to default, it has been promised a package of economic aid measures to set it back on the road to prosperity (and, one presumes, profligacy). Second, and most importantly of all, the people of Europe have yet to assent to this new-look eurozone.

Anonymous said...

Protesters ( Indignados ). 23.7.11

This huge protest centred in Madrid is not capturing International attention as the organisers had hoped because of the ghastly atrocity that has occurred in Norway,
Nevertheless there ar thousands of Spaniards massed in PUERTA del SOL square; with the marchers from Santiago Del Campostelo outside the MONCLOA PALACE chanting " THERE IS THE CAVE OF ALI BABA REPRESENTING US, "
" THEY CALL IT A DEMOCRACY: BUT IT IS NOT."
One indignado placed a T shirt on the fence emblazoned with ( SANTIAGO de CAMPOSTERLA - MADRID 600 KM TWO BOILED EGGS." ).

The gathering in Puerta del Sol has been entertained with activities and concerts albeit impromptu performances,

Locals inconvenienced by the indignados protests have tried to persuade them where to sleep but little heed is being taken. However it is a credit to the organisers that they have specifically requested there is no unruliness and so far nonhe has been reported.
This inconveniencing protest will continue through to Monday and during this time further demonstrations by 15 - M will bewe planned for the future.
The world media's attention may not be on this event; but for sure the EU ministers will be observing and being reminded just how fragile the European Union economy really is.
One thing almost certain is that Prime Minister Zapatero will not be addressing the throng nor any of his cabinet.

Nussiminen said...

Regarding the atrocities in Oslo, I guess you could say that by his own criminal rampage, Norwegian mass murderer Breivik has pledged allegiance to the very global terror organisation his own country is a long-time member of. Poor Breivik failed, however, to mind the complexion and social status of his victims. Not good for him, that’s for sure.

Anonymous said...

Nussiminen, very well put. I'm still busy trying to make up my mind about the whole murky affair. How come the police held a drill days before the shooting, reminding us of the MO before 9/11, 7/7 and Madrid, no doubt. How come the police took so long to reach the island? How come they knew the shooter's name before being introduced to him. What of the second shooter, the other "cells", etc.? More questions are left unanswered than have received some kind of a response. NATO-Mossad agent? In any case he's going to be sent off to a madhouse, this one. No other punishment will be inflicted, I suppose.

Anonymous said...

Moody's has cut Greece's debt rating 3 notches to Caa, just one level above default saying the chance of a default is virtually 100%. Economist warns Spain, Italy and Belgium are next.

Anonymous said...

US Economic News

- Jim Rogers: U.S. Already Has Lost AAA Rating : Famed investor Jim Rogers says the U.S., in effect, already has lost its AAA credit rating amid fiscal mismanagement, and he remains pessimistic on the country's outlook. He calls the current debt negotiations in Washington a political "charade."

- Max Keiser: 'US will see social and civil unrest': The Pentagon which is fighting yesterday's war, funding military operations that don't address the fact that we are in the 21 century currency war. It has nothing to do with the land based war; it has nothing to do with missiles, rockets, and submarines. It is about the currency.

N.B. poiuytr would have agreed with both these statements, no doubt.

Anonymous said...

Congress Planning Obama Impeachment After Bipartisan Debt Plan Rejected

The U.S congress is planning to file Articles of Impeachment against President Obama after he rejected another bipartisan debt plan to prevent U.S from a credit default.

Interesting, if true. What does all this infighting really mean, any idea anyone?

Anonymous said...

EU Exploits Norway Massacre to Stifle Dissent

European Union to launch “extremist” early warning system, despite the fact that EU treats legitimate criticism of its own institution as “extremism” - Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Wasting little time in exploiting the freshly dead bodies of dozens of Norwegian teenagers to push its draconian agenda, the European Union has swiftly announced that it plans to set up an “early warning system” to combat “extremism,” the problem being that the EU treats legitimate criticism of its own corrupt institution as extremist.

“The European Commission is building a security system to issue early warnings on threats of extremism, xenophobia and other forms of radicalism, EC spokesman Michele Cercone said on Tuesday,” reports RIA Novosti.

EU officials also met on Monday in a bid to “curb sales of firearms” to law-abiding citizens, despite the fact that it was Norway’s policy on not allowing police instant access to firearms that contributed to the scale of last week’s attack.

Eurosceptisim is on the rise across the contintent, which is why the neo-liberal elite are busy implying that people who oppose being ruled by an unelected, unaccountable, Soviet-style buearacratic tyranny are in league with Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik.

Anonymous said...

The US Debt Ceiling? - It is a con.

Mr. Obama has come to bury Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, not to save but them. This was clear from the outset of his administration when he appointed his Deficit Reduction Commission, headed by avowed enemies of Social Security Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming, and President Clinton’s Rubinomics chief of staff Erskine Bowles. Mr. Obama’s more recent choice of Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats be delegated by Congress to rewrite the tax code on a bipartisan manner – so that it cannot be challenged – is a ploy to pass a tax “reform” that democratically elected representatives never could be expected to do.

The devil is always in the details. And Wall Street lobbyists always have such details tucked away in their briefcases to put in the hands of their favored congressmen and dedicated senators. And in this case they have the President, who has taken their advice as to whom to appoint as his cabinet to act as factotums to capture the government on their behalf and create “socialism for the rich.”

There is no such thing, of course. When governments are run by the rich, it is called oligarchy. Plato’s dialogues made clear that rather than viewing societies as democracies or oligarchies, it was best to view them in motion. Democracies tended to polarize economically (mainly between creditors and debtors) into oligarchies. These in turn tended to make themselves into hereditary aristocracies. In time, leading families would fight among themselves, and one group (such as Kleisthenes in Athens in 507 BC) would “take the people into his party” and create a democracy. And so the eternal political triangle would go on.

This is what is happening today. Instead of enjoying what the Progressive Era anticipated – an evolution into socialism, with government providing basic infrastructure and other needs on a subsidized basis – we are seeing a lapse back into neo-feudalism. The difference, of course, is that this time around society is not controlled by military grabbers of the land. Finance today achieves what military force did in times past. Instead of being tied to the land as under feudalism, families today may live wherever they want – as long as they take on a lifetime of debt to pay the mortgage on whatever home they buy.

And instead of society paying land rent and tribute to conquerors, we pay the bankers. Just as access to the land was a precondition for families to feed themselves under feudalism, one needs access to credit, to water, medical care, pensions or Social Security and other basic needs today – and must pay interest, fees and monopoly rent to the neo-feudal oligarchy that is now making its deft move from the United States to Ireland and Greece.

Anonymous said...

The armed forces of the world's mightiest military alliance, Nato, have failed twice now to win a war. American, British, French and other foreign troops are preparing to withdraw from a combat role in Afghanistan, the first war in which Nato deployed ground forces, while the US, Britain and France again also appear to be on the point of giving up the fight in Libya, saying Gaddafi can stay there after all, provided he gives up power.

Since Iraq, a US-led war waged by a "coalition of the willing", the number of willing has gradually decreased. Now, after Afghanistan and Libya, they are likely to be fewer than ever.

Nato countries have spent billions – Britain more than £14bn at the last count – failing to counter an insurgency in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, in Libya, they have conducted more than 6,000 strike sorties – with Britain destroying more than 700 targets at a cost of well over £120m at the last count.

Anonymous said...

Europe's hot summer as Italy and Cyprus join sick list

Fears of recession in Italy and the Germans' reluctance to back the EU's bail-out fund with real muscle have set off fresh eurozone tremors, pushing yields on Southern European bonds back to levels seen before last week's emergency summit. - 27.7.11

The darkening picture in Cyprus raises concerns that a fourth eurozone country might soon need some sort of rescue.

News that Moody's had downgraded Cyprus two notches from A2 to Baa1 due to "fractious politics" and exposure to Greece compounded fears Europe's crisis is far from resolved.

The darkening picture in Cyprus raises concerns that a fourth eurozone country might soon need some sort of rescue, exhausting bail-out tolerance in Germany, Holland, Finland and Slovakia, where a wing of the coalition has denounced the EU accord.

"The markets have started to see all the flaws in the summit deal," said David Owen, of Jefferies Fixed Income. "They know there has been no increase in the size of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and that it will not be any position to intervene in the Spanish and Italian markets for quite some time because the changes have to be ratified by all parliaments."

"Unless the European Central Bank (ECB) steps in to buy bonds, this is going to be tested by markets over the summer. EU leaders have sent absolutely the wrong signal by thinking they have done the job and can now go on holiday," he added.

Yields on Italian 10-year bonds spiked to 5.8pc on Wednesday while Spanish yields punched through 6pc once again. Analysts remain perplexed by the decision of Italy's treasury to cancel bond auctions in mid August due to lack of liquidity and "reduced financing needs". Italy was expected to raise €68bn (£60bn) in August and September.

Anonymous said...

The US has its problems for whatever they are worth. The Brits are cooing because they have now turned into "the safe haven" for speculators and the EU chiefs have all gone on holiday as the post above implies, convinced their problems have all been solved after their ground-breaking last "summit". Well, the prolapse is coming along nicely, indeed, and poiuytr would have been more than happy for being such a true "prophet".

Anonymous said...

Now France is being dragged into global financial crisis as credit rating could be cut
27.7.11

France was dragged into the global financial crisis last night with warnings it could be stripped of its top-notch credit rating without ‘more efforts’ to tackle its debts.

The International Monetary Fund told Nicolas Sarkozy’s government that further spending cuts were needed for the country to hit its budget targets in the face of weak economic growth.

N.B. Similar threats have also been uttered against Great Britain. We're coming along nicely, aren't we?

Anonymous said...

IMF Banksters' worst fear : Egyptian Sovereign Debt Default

Mubarak took the loan. Mubarak stole the money. So the IMF banksters should go after Mubarak. It could also lead to a series of sovereign debt defaults around the world from Pakistan to the Philippines. This was done before by Argentina in the 90's and Ecuador more recently.

Anonymous said...

Norway PM Vows to Fight Terror with Democracy

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said it's still possible to have an open society with security without being naïve, despite last week's terror attacks.

"I think what we have seen is that there is going to be one Norway before and one Norway after July 22," the prime minister said during a news conference Wednesday.

"But I hope and also believe that the Norway we will see after will be more open, a more tolerant society than what we had before," he said.

(Brave words from a brave from a brave man. Just compare with what Bush spewed out in 2001.)

Anonymous said...

Costs of British military operations in Afghanistan estimated at £18bn

Official figures by Commons defence committee also estimate cost of Libyan no-fly zone and bombing at £260m.

Anonymous said...

The Commander of the Libyan Rebel Forces Killed

Some say his own forces killed him, others that pro-Gadhafi forces did. Much is unclear. What is not is that NATO, whatever it does - and it's doing its damnedest to destroy the country totally and introduce imperial re-colinisation - will finally have to admit defeat. If it's foreign boots on the ground after this, then it will be a military defeat and whatever Libyan money they may have already stolen will be largely dwarfed by what they will need to spend on maintaining their forces there. If it's more of the bombing, horrific though it is, they will have to give up at some point in time when their money runs out and still the Libyans refuse to give up on Gadhafi, the only man who can beat NATO at its own game.

Anonymous said...

They say 'time heals' emotional wounds. If that is so why don't I feel less enraged as the days go by since the outrageous invasion of Libya on ludicrous false pretences four months ago? Yes, Libya is under invasion from air and sea bombardments directed by foreign special forces on Libyan soil. The purpose of the invasion is regime change. The aim of the bombs that are killing people and laying Tripoli to waste is for one purpose only, to help a rebel group they formed and armed to overthrow the Colonel Gaddafi regime.

The air bombardments were initiated in the false expectation that once bombs started falling in Tripoli, Libyans in Tripoli would rise up against Gaddafi and in this murky situation the armed group would march in from Benghazi and take power. As time goes by, the strategy gets desperate. It has now become 'anything to kill or oust Gaddafi and his sons will do'. This is reminiscent of the 1960s when the same actors used not so dissimilar tactics to overthrow governments they didn't like. The plan failed, which is why four months into the carnage, Gaddafi still pops out of the hole he is hiding in to scream insults at his invaders.

The invasion was planned. In the case of the US involvement, as far back as George Bush Junior's 'war on the axis of evil'. In the case of the French, active planning may have been since October 2010. The planning most likely included ensuring that weapons and forces were ready in Benghazi when the moment came. This is why the civil protest in Benghazi, which started in a similar manner as the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of unarmed civilians, turned into an armed rebellion in two days, and in less than a month, the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation)/French invasion had began. This incredible speed of events is far from spontaneous. I'm still betting on the govt to win.

Anonymous said...

Bahrainis to stage anti-US Friday sit-in
Posted by seumasach on July 29, 2011

PressTV - 29th July, 2011

Bahrain’s February 14 Movement has called for a mass sit-in in front of the US embassy in Manama to condemn Washington’s interference in the internal affairs of the Persian Gulf country.

The spokesman of the Bahraini movement, Abdul Raouf al-Shayeb, said that the demonstrators intend to voice their opposition on Friday against the US support of the Al Khalifa regime.

The protesters seek to maintain the right to determine their own destiny, al-Shayeb added.

The main Bahraini opposition group, al-Wefaq, has also called for fresh rallies on Friday.

Al-Shayeb’s remarks come as Saudi-backed Bahraini regime forces continue cracking down on peaceful demonstrators.

On Wednesday, the regime forces attacked the protesters in the village of Nuwaidrat, according to witnesses.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed their first batch of military forces to Bahrain in mid-March.

On Saturday, Saudi Arabia deployed more forces in Bahrain in an attempt to further help the ruling regime clamp down on anti-regime demonstrators.

In June, a military court in Bahrain tried seven opposition activists including al-Shayeb in absentia for “plotting to overthrow the ruling system.” The opposition spokesman was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

Anti-regime protesters have been holding demonstrations across the country since mid-February, calling on the ruling family to relinquish power.

Scores of protesters have been killed — many under torture — and numerous others detained and transferred to unknown locations during the regime’s brutal onslaught on protesters.

Anonymous said...

US economic growth slows down sharply in 2011

• First quarter economic growth revised down to 0.4%

• Consumer spending grew 0.1% in second quarter

• Shares fall sharply

Anonymous said...

Spain downgrade threat adds to eurozone debt woes
Moody's threatened to downgrade Spanish on Friday, adding to concerns that a Greek rescue package has done little to halt the spread of the eurozone debt crisis. - 29.7.11

The euro sank after the rating agency put Spain's Aa2 government bond ratings on review, citing concerns over growth and high funding costs in the wake of last week's deal.

Stock markets, already nervous about US debt crisis, dropped, with the FTSE 100 slipping 1pc, Spain's Ibex 1.4pc, Italy's FTSE MIB 1.5pc, Germany's Dax 1pcx and France's CAC 1.1pc.

Spain's rating is still set at a high investment grade, far above those of Greece, Portugal and Ireland - the countries bailed out in the crisis so far. And weak growth puts Britain's AAA credit rating also at risk

Spain's costs - and Italy's - rose further in the aftermath of the Moody's warning, showing they are both caught in the firing line.

The yield on Spain's 10-year bonds ratcheted up another 0.10 percentage point in early trading on Friday to 6.10pc. That means that the difference between Spain's rate and the benchmark German rate stands at 3.5 percentage points.

Its current rating for Spain is in line with S&P's AA setting, while Fitch has the country one notch higher at AA+.

Anonymous said...

Norway to fly last Libya mission - 29.7.11

Norway will fly its last combat mission in Libya on Saturday, two days before the official end of its role in the Nato-led air war, an alliance official told AFP.

Norway, one of eight Nato members that have conducted air strikes in the four-month-old operation, was the first to set an end-date for its participation when it decided last month to withdraw on August 01.

"The last day Norwegian aircraft will fly on July 30," the Nato official said.

Anonymous said...

Credit Suisse slashes jobs
28.07.2011 | Source: Pravda.Ru

Swiss bank Credit Suisse is cutting about 2,000 jobs after a second quarter hit by weak trading activity and the strong Swiss franc. UBS is to follow suit.

CS net profit fell to 768 million Swiss francs ($958.9 million), the bank said on Thursday, below average analyst forecasts for 1 billion. Net new assets in private banking were 11.5 billion, below average analyst forecasts for 14.2 billion.

Investment banking has been hit by slow trading due to the debt crises in the euro zoneand United States as well as post-crisis regulations aimed at forcing banks to hold more capital to protect them from future shocks.

Anonymous said...

A False Flag Crisis or for Real?


US debt crisis: default fears worsen as Senate blocks Republican bill

Congress warned they are "playing with fire" as Democrat-controlled US Senate blocks a Republican debt proposal just two hours after it was narrowly passed in the House of Representatives.

Anonymous said...

False Flag Crisis or For Real?

US debt crisis: default fears worsen as Senate blocks Republican bill

Congress warned they are "playing with fire" as Democrat-controlled US Senate blocks a Republican debt proposal just two hours after it was narrowly passed in the House of Representatives.

Anonymous said...

Socoal Upheaval in Israel - Netanyahu's Popularity Reels. Down to 30% in the polls

As a late-July heat wave rolls up Israel from the Sinai desert, the country has been seized by a different kind of Egyptian fever: massive and unrelenting social protests taking over almost every last inch of public space.

What started as two unrelated social actions over a month ago — a Facebook campaign against inflated cottage cheese prices (an Israeli staple) and a doctors’ strike — has blossomed into a nationwide, multipronged collective revolt, the Tenants' Uprising, unprecedented in recent Israeli history.

It has also caught the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unprepared as he faces what is turning out to be the first serious threat to his government’s stability.

Anonymous said...

The Chinese rating agency, which hit headlines earlier this year for its AA-view on the United States, is back, with another US downgrade, A simply

From the 10-Page Downgrade Report

The serious defects in the United States economic development and management model will lead to the long-term recession of its national economy, fundamentally lowering the national solvency. The new round of quantitative easing monetary policy adopted by the Federal Reserve has brought about an obvious trend of depreciation of the U.S. dollar, and the continuation and deepening of credit crisis in the U.S.

Such a move entirely encroaches on the interests of the creditors, indicating the decline of the U.S. government’s intention of debt repayment. Analysis shows that the crisis confronting the U.S. cannot be ultimately resolved through currency depreciation. On the contrary, it is likely that an overall crisis might be triggered by the U.S. government’s policy to continuously depreciate the U.S. dollar against the will of creditors.

In addition, due to the high economic financialization, more than half of the profits in the real economy come from the returns of financial activities. If we exclude the factor of virtual economy, the U.S. actual GDP is about 5 trillion U.S. dollars in 2009, per capita GDP about $ 15,000. Meanwhile, the total domestic consumption was 10.0 trillion U.S. dollars and government expenditure was 4.5 trillion U.S. dollars.

Dagong Global Credit Rating Company

Anonymous said...

Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and UBS are already preparing to cut hundreds of London-based employees, but with revenues from trading and securities underwriting collapsing as the eurozone and US debt crisis hits investor activity, many other banks are expected to follow their lead and begin cutting jobs.

Based on sources and other estimates, The Telegraph believes that as many as 16,000 jobs could be cut by investment banks across the Square Mile by the end of the calendar year.

The cuts, the majority of which have yet to be announced, will strike a blow to the UK's financial services sector, which remains one of the country's largest employers, despite the job losses in the wake of the financial crisis.

Estimates vary, but a 5pc reduction by the end of the year in the total number of "City-type" jobs is thought likely. This would equal a loss of about 16,000 jobs in the next five months.

Based on an average salary of £150,000 and income tax of 50pc, employer national insurance of 2pc and employee national insurance of 2pc, this works out an average lost tax income per lost City job of £81,000, or a total loss of about £1.3bn in tax revenue.

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