L'Autre Monde 28 novembre 2011: Provocation agressive de la Syrie et l'Iran - Les grands mouvements géopolitiques de l'heure

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L'Autre Monde 28 novembre 2011: Provocation agressive de la Syrie et l'Iran - Les grands mouvements géopolitiques de l'heure

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L'Autre Monde 28 novembre 2011
120 min / Radio de l'UQAM, CHOQ FM

	Diffusion en direct : Lundi à 15:00h Animation : François Marginean Réalisation: François Marginean Chronique : Stéphane Poutoire
Archives d'émission

Au programme cette semaine:

- Actualité mondiale - suivi de la situation avec l'Iran, Israël, la Syrie et le développement vers un conflit majeur qui risque fort d'entrainer le Pakistan maintenant, ainsi que la Chine et la Russie.

- Économie mondiale s'écroule, préparez-vous.

- Fukushima et le nucléaire, une situation qui ne cesse de se détériorer. Des taux de contamination à certains endroits au Japon sont 33 fois pires que ceux de Tchernobyl.

C'est en rendez-vous le lundi dès 15h pour l'émission la plus écoutée de CHOQ FM, la radio officielle de l'Université du Québec à Montréal !


***Hyperliens vers les sources des informations discutées sur l'émission d'aujourd'hui:

Image du jour

Auteur: Jo ^^

ESO NEWS

C’est vrai que ces robocops ont du manquer beaucoup d’affection dans leur vie, des petits calins ça pourrait surement leur faire du bien

Jo ^^

Top 10 Reasons Why the Mafia is Better than the State

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IErlI34-0so

10- La mafia a un sens de l’honneur, s’ils dissent qu’ils vont faire quelque chose, ils vont le faire. Personne dans le gouvernement n’a une idée de ce qu’est l’honneur.

9- Le code de conduite de la mafia est simple et clair, il n’est pas rempli de manipulations, double talk et de législation complexe et interminable.

8- Lorsque des familles mafieuses sont en compétition et vont en guerre, elles ne tuent pas d’innocents civils en tant que dommage collatéraux. La guerre est bonne pour l’État, mais pour la mafia, c’est mauvais pour la business

6- Lorsque vous achetez de la protection de la mafia, vous l’obtenez. La mafia essaie de limiter les crimes violents sur leur territoire. Mais vous pouvez mourir au bout du fil en appelant le 911 en les attendant.

5- La protection achetée de la mafia est de loin moins dispendieuse que celle de l’État. La mafia veut 10 à 15% de vos profits alors que l’État veut de 40 à 50%.

4- La mafia veut que votre commerce ait du succès. Ils savent que c’est mieux ainsi pour qu’ils puissent recevoir leur montant pour protection. Ils ne vous enterrent pas sous des millions de lois et autorités différentes et vous faire remplir des centaines de documents pour les impôts vous incriminant.

3- La mafia ne cherchera pas à vous désarmer, ils seront heureux de vous vendre des armes pour protéger votre famille et vous-même. Pas de permis.

PEPPER SPRAYING COP

HUMOR AND SATIRE

A new cultural icon for the 21st Century!

The pepper-spraying cop gets Photoshop justice

The casual way a policeman pepper-sprayed protesting students at UC Davis has caused outrage but also a mocking response.

Nature abhors a vacuum, it is said; and the internet abhors unexplained dissonance. When photographs emerged of police lieutenant John Pike pepper-spraying University of California Davis students, it wasn't just the violence in those images that captured the world's attention – it was the surreal juxtaposition of that violence with Pike's oddly casual body language and facial expression.

Will the Looming American Police State Unify the Resistance?

Activist Post

OWS has now turned a corner; the movement may still be about Wall Street corruption at its core, but it has now exposed the existence of a police state that rivals the most authoritarian dictatorships in the world. This is a glaring fact that the entire activist community needs to recognize and point out to the world so that this police brutality can take center stage in the public dialogue...

VIDEO: After Pepper-Spraying, A Powerfully Silent Protest At UC Davis

Campus police said the officers had ben surrounded by protesters and commanders have defended their actions. So did university Chancellor Linda P. B. Katehi- which led to a call from the school's faculty association for her resignation.

Peaceful demonstrations are a very, very powerful tool. The person advocating violence at any peaceful rally is most likely an agent-provocateur from one of the US alphabet soup spying agencies, wanting to create trouble.

Officers in pepper spray incident placed on leave

Officials at UC Davis refused to identify the two officers who were place on administrative leave

UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike uses pepper spray to move #OccupyUC protesters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys1gPp2Gkow

O’Reilly: No right to second-guess the police

"I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police. Particularly at a place like U.C. Davis, which is, you know, a fairly liberal campus, and they’re not running around. They camp to the point where … the Chancellor said “Look, you gotta get them out of there. We can’t operate a college like this.”

Well Bill, maybe you are too much of a pussy to stand up to tyrants, but the fact is that use of pepper spray is ILLEGAL in California except in cases of self defense. Nobody was attacking that police officer. His use of pepper spray is therefore a criminal violation. It is assault if not battery, and he should be in jail.

Fox News host Megyn Kelly calls pepper spray ‘a food product’

In the mind of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, the pepper spray administered to University of California-Davis students last weekend really just a one-sided food fight.

Kelly gave her causal assessment of the increasingly common police weapon on Tuesday’s broadcast of The O’Reilly Factor, seemingly defending the cops.

“It’s a derivative of actual pepper, it’s a food product, essentially,” she told host Bill O’Reilly.

“It’s a derivative of actual pepper, it’s a food product, essentially,” she told host Bill O’Reilly.

Ricin is a derivative of castor beans. Want to be sprayed with that, Megyn?

The Use of Pepper Spray On Peaceful Protesters Is Illegal … And Can Seriously Injure Or Kill

“An Army study concluded that pepper spray’s active ingredient, “is capable of producing carcinogenic effects, sensitization, cardiovascular toxicity, as well as possible human fatalities.”

Fox News leaves viewers knowing less, new survey shows

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/314919

The latest results from a new Fairleigh Dickinson University survey show some news outlets, especially Fox News, lead people to be even less informed than those who say they don’t watch any news at all.

Pepper Or Not -- Still A Potentially Lethal Chemical Weapon

Sayer Ji, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Were it not for the stoic immovability of the protestors in this picture, the image would resemble even more stunningly an exterminator dispassionately spraying a nest of roaches ... only, roaches know what to expect, which is why they scatter in all directions when approached with chemicals designed to harm them...

Pregnant Seattle protester miscarries after being kicked, pepper sprayed

“I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in,” Fox recalled. “I was screaming, ‘I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out.’”

She claimed that police hit her in the stomach twice before pepper spraying her. One officer struck her with his foot and another pushed his bicycle into her.

Those police are real MANLY men, aren't they; whupping on a pregnant lass like that?

I would like to make a point here. The police are not legally allowed to use force unless they themselves are under attack. So all these photos of police spraying pepper spray on peaceful protesters are cases of assault and battery by the cops, who should be in prison right now.

This Is How Protesters Are Dealt With In America: Pepper Spray To The Face, Rubber Bullets At Point Blank Range And Brutally Dragging Women By Their Hair

How in the world can the United States condemn other nations for how they are handling their protest movements when we treat our own protesters so brutally? No matter what you may think of Occupy Wall Street and the other protest movements that have sprung up across the United States, the truth is that you should be incredibly alarmed about the tactics that law enforcement authorities are choosing to use against them. If we decide to accept these tactics now, then the exact same "police state" tactics will be used against you when the time comes that you want to protest against the government. In recent weeks, we have seen law enforcement authorities brutally dragging female protesters to the ground by their hair.

The roots of the UC-Davis pepper-spraying

Pervasive police abuses and intimidation tactics applied to peaceful protesters — pepper-spray, assault rifles, tasers, tear gas and the rest — not only harm their victims but also the relationship of the citizenry to the government and the set of core political rights. Implanting fear of authorities in the heart of the citizenry is a far more effective means of tyranny than overtly denying rights. That’s exactly what incidents like this are intended to achieve.

When police believe they have the right to kick, run a bicycle into, and pepper-spray a pregnant woman, who miscarries as a a result of this abuse She claimed that police hit her in the stomach twice before pepper spraying her. One officer struck her with his foot and another pushed his bicycle into her. it is obvious that they believe that there will be no consequences for their actions.

Trust, me this was no accident, but a brutally logical response by police who believe they are empowered to maim and kill even people desperately attempting to get out of the way of demonstrations, to the point of killing their unborn children as well.

If these officers are identified, they should be tried for manslaughter.

University to pay medical bills of pepper spray victims

University of California officials said Tuesday they will pay the medical expenses of students who were pepper sprayed during an Occupy Davis protest last week.

Authorities have also decided to drop charges against 10 people who were arrested during the Friday protest on the campus of UC Davis. The university system has also created an advisory panel to look into the incident, University of California President Mark Yudof said.

UC Davis’ Chancellor Katehi Claims Police Defied Orders by Using Pepper Spray

The University of California at Davis’ chancellor, Linda Katehi, is now claiming that in using pepper spray on peaceful protesters the police were defying her orders.

Katehi’s statement was issued as public indignation over the brutal incident continues and the Davis Faculty Association called for her resignation on the 19th.

The UC Police’s attempt to remove the encampment backfired with alacrity, with groups erecting tents once again on Monday after a rally which drew thousands of students, faculty and supporters outside the UC Davis community.

Weapons Cache Found During Zuccotti Park Cleanup, Sources Say

Officials from the NYPD would only confirm that one knife was found buried in a planter on Tuesday.

Since when does one knife constitute a "weapons cache?" And given that it was buried, how do we know OWS had anything to do with it, as opposed to one of the homeless wanting to protect themselves by having a nearby weapon?

Bloomberg blows up bomb scare to distract from OWS?

http://rt.com/usa/news/bloomberg-nypd-pimentel-terror-865/

During a press conference in New York this weekend, officials alleged that a Manhattan man has been plotting a series of terrorist attacks across the city using homemade bombs. The FBI, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with it.

During the two years of NYPD-sanctioned surveillance, the Department had repeatedly approached the FBI about opening an investigation of their own in order to pursue terrorism-related charges against Pimentel. Maybe the FBI didn’t feel threatened by the Christmas decorations — or maybe it was something else — but despite their ongoing pleas, the FBI refused to take on the case.

Sources speaking to both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal tell the papers that the Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to become involved in the manhunt for Pimentel because they had “issues” with the case that the NYPD was building. According to sources speaking under condition on anonymity, the FBI reviewed the evidence that the NYPD provided in hopes of establishing federal terrorism charges, though the FBI remained unconcerned.

In an AP report Monday morning, an FBI source says that Pimentel lacked “predisposition or the ability to carry out the plot.”

This marks the second time this year that federal authorities passed on terrorism-charges that the NYPD was pressuring them to follow through on.

It also marks the arrival of a welcoming distraction for Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD as outlets across the world report on the mishandling of Occupy Wall Street protesters — only the latest scandal that the city’s officials have engrossed themselves in.

As RT reported on Friday, at least six accredited journalists were arrested by the NYPD last week for covering the Occupy Wall Street protests, despite having press credentials issued by the Police Department themselves. Other journalists reported being struck by the fists and batons of NYPD officers and peaceful protesters were shown being dragged away from demonstrations in New York, bruised and bloody. Two months into the Occupy movement, a series of assaults and raids on protesters continues and city officials seem unapologetic.

Olbermann Calls For Mayor Bloomberg's Resignation Because Of His Fake Terror Plot

FBI Was Concerned NYPD’s ‘Lone Wolf’ Case Raised Issues Of Entrapment

The Associated Press also reported that the FBI passed on the case — involving a bomb plot against New York City post offices and police stations. They believe Pimentel lacked the capability — financial and otherwise — to pull off a plot and wouldn’t have done it had it not been for the NYPD Intelligence Division’s cooperating source.

Busted! Memo Shows Boehner Aides Pitch Million Dollar Anti-OWS Attack Campaign to Bankers

On Saturday morning, November 19, Chris Hayes, broke the story on his weekend show, Up With Chris Hayes, that the Washington D.C. lobbying firm of Clark, Lytle, Geduldig and Cranford (CLGC), sent an unsolicited memorandum to the American Banker's Association outlining a plan to neutralize any impact the Occupy Wall Street movement might have upon the upcoming 2012 elections.

The memo in question is quintessentially Republican; it seeks to instill fear in the Banker's Association that Democratic candidates will embrace "the growing and increasingly organized Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement to prevent Republican gains in Congress and the White House next year." ...

Feds Admit Water Pump Failure Was Not Cyber Attack

Despite a Department of Homeland Security advisor hastily telling the Washington Post that foreign hackers were responsible for the failure of a pump at an Illinois water plant earlier this month in a bid to drum up support for more government control over the Internet, federal authorities have been forced to admit that there is no evidence to support the claim.

“Curran-Gardner water district officials are happy that federal officials have ruled out a cyber attack as the cause of a water pump failure at the district,” reports The State-Journal Register.

G20 case reveals 'largest ever' police spy operation (in Canada)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/11/22/g20-police-operation.html

Police organizations across the country co-operated to spy on community organizations and activists in what the RCMP called one of the largest domestic intelligence operations in Canadian history, documents reveal.

Information about the extensive police surveillance in advance of last year's G8 and G20 meetings in southern Ontario comes from evidence presented in the case of 17 people accused of orchestrating street turmoil during the summits.

The court case ended Tuesday before it went to trial. Six of the defendants pleaded guilty to counselling mischief and two of those to an additional count of counselling to obstruct police, while 11 people had their criminal charges dropped.

Why We Must Occupy Democracy

The First Amendment Upside Down. Why We Must Occupy Democracy

You’ve been seeing this across the country … Americans assaulted, clubbed, dragged, pepper-sprayed … Why? For exercising their right to free speech and assembly — protesting the increasing concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top.

And what’s Washington’s response? Nothing.

Smart Meters Interfering With Home Electronics

Security Week

About 200 customers of the Central Maine Power Company recently noticed something odd after the utility installed smart meters in their homes: in some cases other wireless devices stopped working, or behaved erratically.

The 425,000 installed smart meters all broadcast in the 2.4GHz frequency range. Unfortunately, so do many of the consumer gadgets we take for granted these days including routers, electric garage doors, fire alarms, clocks, electric pet fences, answering machines, and baby monitors.

European bank pulls out of Israel after pressure from boycott campaign

The French bank BNP Paribas has decided to pull out of its operations in Israel, after the bank was targeted by the international Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which aims to use economic pressure to get Israel to adhere to its obligations under international law.

Although the bank stated that its withdrawal from Israel was not due to the pressure campaign, but instead due to heavy losses sustained during the Greek financial crisis, Israeli officials and bankers have stated that they believe the bank gave in to pressure from European human rights groups to pull out of Israel.

GOOD!

UN rejects US-backed cluster bombs regulation bid

UN member states have rejected a US-backed plan to introduce new regulations on cluster bombs - munitions which break up into hundreds of smaller bomblets.

The plan would have eliminated all cluster munitions made before 1980.

But human rights groups argued that an international convention banning such bombs already exists and that the new protocol would dilute its provisions.

The US said that it was "deeply disappointed" by the decision.

"We will cluster-bomb you for that!" -- Official White Horse Souse

Baltic Gitmo: CIA 'black site' to land Lithuania in court

Malaysian ‘tribunal’ finds Bush, Blair guilty of war crimes

A symbolic tribunal in Malaysia ruled unanimously Tuesday that former U.S. President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair were both guilty of “crimes against peace” for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, part of an initiative by former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad – a fierce critic of the Iraq war – found the former leaders guilty after a four-day hearing.

While the court is modeled after the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunal, it carries no legal weight.

While the weight may not be legal in this determination, it is a moral judgement which cannot be ignored.

War crimes tribunal tries Bush, Blair

A War Crimes Tribunal in the Malaysian capital has begun its hearing against George W. Bush and Tony Blair, charging the former officials for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, Press TV reports.

Bill Moyers: Change cannot come from within the two parties today. They are frozen, paralyzed, purchased.

We have two parties serving corporate business America and no party that serves … ideally … that serves the middle class or working people. And so I, I’m without a party, Dick. I know we always have to make some choices in election … you make a slight degree of … you’ve got to cast your vote so it’s this decision based on this differentiation.

But, as a whole, both parties are, are, are critical reasons for the crisis in our democracy.

Our democracy is dysfunctional. It isn’t working. It isn’t solving a single problem. The Senate might as well not be there.

It is … what it was a hundred years ago when David Graham Phillips, a great muckraker in the, in the vein of Upton Sinclair and Nellie Bly and others wrote a book called The Treason of the Senate. Well, the Senate has betrayed its Constitutional obligations. And so both parties today are contributing to the dysfunction of democracy.

Police 'killed deaf cyclist with stun gun after he failed to obey instructions to stop'

A police officer killed an elderly, deaf and mentally disabled man riding his bicycle by shooting him with a Taser stun gun after he failed to obey instructions to stop.

Roger Anthony, 61, was killed as he made his way home in Scotland Neck, South Carolina, after officers responded to a 911 call about a man who had fallen off his bicycle in a car park.

The caller told dispatchers that the man appeared drunk and that it looked like he had hurt himself.

Officers said they repeatedly told Mr Anthony to get off his bike, but when he didn't respond, they shocked him.

Gunwalker scandal broadens--the FBI connection

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/gunwalker-scandal-broadens-the-fbi-connection?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Confidential informants who are participating in the Congressional probe of the Project Gunwalker (Operation Fast and Furious) scandal have now zeroed in on the FBI connection. Such a connection has been hinted at in the past, but information relayed today shows that FBI involvement was much deeper than anyone imagined.

The investigation into Gunwalker has revealed a scandal involving multiple departments of the Obama Administration--Justice, FBI, ATF, ICE, DEA, DHS, and State. These connections have been verified through previously hidden emails and documents, and sworn testimony of whistleblowers.

But the FBI connection is one that could be potentially the biggest one yet, indicating that the bureau not only was involved in Gunwalker but has been up to its neck in a scandal all its own--a program called 'PATCON,' or 'Patriot Conspiracy.'

A paid confidential informant enlisted under PATCON indicated a long history of the covert program spanning several decades which include such debacles as the Ruby Ridge murders, the Waco murders of a religious cult, the Oklahoma City bombing, and Project Gunwalker.

Newsweek Magazine had received this information which they had planned to include in a major story today, according to citizen investigative journalist Mike Vanderboegh. But before the story went to press, the facts were gutted out of the final copy. There is no mention of PATCON or its various tyrannical operations that have resulted in countless deaths.

Vanderboegh stated,

I also knew from sources, living and dead, that PATCON was the worst scandal that the FBI ever perpetrated. PATCON could sink the FBI, perhaps permanently, and along with the Gunwalker Scandal, totally discredit the teflon coating that the Bureau has excreted around its corrupt core and thoroughly debunk the myth that the FBI is anything but an agency of arsonists posing as firemen.

Finally, I knew that Newsweek would run the story tomorrow. I have been hinting about this story for weeks, and now it was about to happen.

But Newsweek editor Tina Brown nixed the heart of the story by removing key facts concerning the paid confidential informant, PATCON, Ruby Ridge, Waco, the OKC bombing, and the Clinton Administration.

Confidential sources who are cooperating with the Congressional probe of Gunwalker indicate that the FBI and the White House were so frightened by the prospects of this story getting out to the public that they used the authority and power of their government offices to pressure Newsweek to omit key facts. And that they did. The story, which was published today, makes no mention of the bombshell information that makes the story the story.

Mexican drug suspect: U.S. gave me immunity

Prosecutors say Vicente Zambada-Niebla oversaw drug running on a massive scale into the U.S. But now, from behind bars at a maximum security prison in Chicago, he's making his own explosive accusations -- that U.S. government agents have been aiding Mexico's infamous Sinaloa cartel -- even tipping off leaders on how to avoid capture.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This is Iran-Contra all over again!

"If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched." -- George Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter

Honduras Becomes Cocaine Transit Hub

Now the REAL reason why Obama and Hillary supported the coup is coming to light

Police find drug tunnel under US-Mexico border

A "major cross-border drug tunnel" measuring around 400 yards in length and linking warehouses in an industrial park south of San Diego and the Mexican border city of Tijuana has been found by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The tunnel was discovered under the floor of a warehouse. At the bottom of a 20-foot shaft was a passageway measuring about 5ft by 3ft feet with structural supports, electricity and ventilation. The clandestine passageway even had an icon of the Virgin Mary attached to the wall.

Fast and Furious: Case Files on Terry Murder Have Disappeared, Gone

The Arizona Daily Star's Tim Stellar is reporting the federal case file against illegal Mexican bandits accused of killing Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, has disappeared.

The case against the alleged killers of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has disappeared from federal court records, apparently sealed by a federal judge.

This is starting to smell more and more like a new version of the Iran-Contra affair. Know what I Mena?

BP Gets Gulf Oil Drilling Permit Amid 28,000 Unmonitored Abandoned Wells

Since BP’s catastrophic Macondo Blowout in the Gulf of Mexico last year, the Obama Administration has granted nearly 300 new drilling permits [1] and shirked plans to plug 3,600 of more than 28,000 abandoned wells, which pose significant threats to the severely damaged sea.

Among those granted new permits for drilling in the Gulf, on Friday Obama granted BP permission to explore for oil in the Gulf, allowing it to bid on new leases that will be sold at auction in December.

Reports Dow Jones:

“The upcoming lease sale, scheduled for Dec. 14 in New Orleans, involves leases in the western Gulf of Mexico. The leases cover about 21 million acres, in water depths of up to 11,000 feet. It will be the first lease auction since the Deepwater Horizon spill.”

Attorney Says Macondo Well Still Leaks Oil From Seafloor

Sabrina Canfield
Courthouse News Service

NEW ORLEANS (CN) - An environmental attorney said oil is still leaking from BP's Macondo Formation more than 16 months after the well was declared sealed. The attorney said the only explanation for fresh oil bearing the Macondo fingerprint that's washed ashore on barrier islands is that the seafloor was damaged during the Deepwater Horizon blowout, and oil is seeping through.

The April 20, 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 people and dumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days, until the well was declared capped, on July 15, 2010.

But attorney Stuart Smith told Courthouse News that new oil is washing up on barrier islands in Louisiana and Mississippi.

"There's a deafening silence on the issue," from the Coast Guard and from BP, Smith said.

Read Full Article

The Mysterious Deaths of Nine Gulf Oil Spill Whistleblowers

In the past year, nine vocal critics or potential whistle-blowers of the Gulf oil spill all died in extremely mysterious ways. Their deaths could be strange, unrelated coincidences. Or they could have been killed as part of a conspiracy to silence those who were speaking out against the worst oil spill in American history.

http://theintelhub.com/2011/10/27/bp-oil-spill-whistleblowers-and-expe...

US shifts drones from Iraq to Turkey: Pentagon

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has deployed Predator drones to Turkey from Iraq for surveillance flights in support of Ankara's fight against Kurdish rebels, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday...

Kabul insists on Iran ties 'at any cost'

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/210404.html

Addressing the opening session of the country's “Loya Jirga,” or grand council on Wednesday, Karzai said that Kabul will deepen its ties with Tehran despite the sour US-Iran relationship.

The president said that Afghans are thankful to the Iranian nation for extending assistance to Afghan refugees during the past three decades.

About 2,000 elders and power brokers are meeting in the Afghan capital of Kabul to discuss the future of the US military presence in the war-torn country.

It is painfully ironic, when one speaks of unintended consequences of the US's invasion and occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan, that these actions have pushed those countries more closely into the orbit of Tehran.

That someone, SOMEWHERE, in the Pentagon, State Department, or White House didn't see this coming, betrays a catastrophic failure of imagination on the part of the US government.

US must stop night raids if it wants to keep bases in Afghanistan past 2014, Hamid Karzai warns

The Afghan president told 2,000 elders and power brokers he wanted to maintain close ties with Nato and America after their deadline to handover security duties to Kabul – "but with conditions".

Mr Karzai told the loya jirga, or grand council, convened to discuss America’s future in Afghanistan that he wanted a new strategic pact between “independent countries”.

In a speech rich in nationalist rhetoric, he told the audience: “We want our national sovereignty, and an end to night raids and to the detention of our countrymen.

It looks as though, finally, emboldened by Iraq's leadership kicking out the US out at the end of this year, that Karzai has begun to grow a pair, in behalf of his own people.

Égypte:

Clashes erupt in Tahrir Square ahead of elections

Egypt uprising part 2.
Protestors standing against the Army and the Police.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians protest army 'dictatorship'

Tens of thousands of Egyptians rallied Friday in Cairo's Tahrir square with Islamists in the forefront to protest against what they say are attempts by the country's military rulers to designate themselves as the guardians of a new Egypt. It was one of the largest rallies in Egypt in recent months.

Egyptian army agrees to form civilian government - Channel 4 News

Jonathan Rugman reports from Egypt, where military rulers have offered to bring forward elections to next summer, promising to hand power to a civilian president by July.

POURQUOI PAS MAINTENANT???

Repression worse now than under Mubarak, says report

It said that Egypt's Supreme Council of Armed Forces, which assumed control after the 18-day uprising that toppled Mr Mubarak in February, had made only empty promises to improve human rights.

Crackdowns on dissent have claimed numerous lives, including at least 33 people who have been killed in Cairo's Tahrir Square over the past few days as throngs returned to the crucible of the earlier pro-democracy protests.

Revolution. Repeat as necessary.

Egypt cabinet resigns as Cairo protests intensify

*1 Million man march planned for today.

Revolution: Egypt army-backed govt quits after 3-day bloodbath

Egypt's government has resigned amid huge protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Since Friday up to 33 have died in clashes between protesters and security forces, with riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets against stone-throwing demonstrators.

Egyptian Military Using Nerve Gas on Protesters

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/egyptian-military-nerve-gas/2011/11/23/id/418927?s=al&promo_code=D935-1

The Egyptian military has been using a banned chemical agent to deal with hundreds of thousands of protesters, according to several news sources.

At least 23 Egyptians have died and more than 1,700 have succumbed to a lethal gas military forces have been using during the past three days in clashes in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square.

The International Business Times reports that demonstrators have been struck with "dangerous levels of CR gas over the past two days of protests" and Australia's The Age said Wednesday that the canisters are marked "Made in the USA."

Egypt: American Tear Gas, Policy Loom Over Tahrir Square

At the foot of Mohamed Mahmoud Street, just a few feet from the resounding crowds in Tahrir Square, a group of people gathered around a man holding four canisters above his head.

"Tear gas! Rubber bullets! Nerve gas!" he cried out, displaying the spent metal canisters.

"Where are they from, America?" people asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes, America," the man replied furiously. The crowd murmured with unsurprised disdain. Like many gas canisters in Tahrir, one of his was marked with blue letters that read "Made in USA" and bore the name of the company that produced it: Combined Tactical Systems, in Jamestown, PA.

People don't hate Americans "because we are (allegedly) free": they hate us when we are supporting the very governments which are suppressing them, many times through the use of chemical agents like this.

Egyptian military say their tactics are no worse than the methods used by US police against Occupy protesters

The Egyptian military, battling renewed demonstrations in Tahrir Square, have defended their used of force against protesters by comparing themselves to police in the US who are dealing with the Occupy protests.

According to various sources, officials on Egyptian TV have asked why they are being criticised when similar tactics are allegedly being used against peaceful protesters in America.

Egyptian court orders release of 3 US Agents Provocateurs

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A court in Egypt has ordered the release of three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo, a lawyer in Philadelphia confirmed Thursday.

Derrik Sweeney, Luke Gates and Gregory Porter, who attend the American University in Cairo, were arrested on the roof of a university building near Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Sunday. Officials accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters.

Egyptian Protesters: US Stooge "ElBaradei for President"

Egypt's "revolutionaries" prove again the unfathomable fraud that is the "Arab Spring."

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Once again after yet another disingenuous campaign by the corporate media, the "Arab Spring" mobs filling Egypt's Tahrir Square have revealed their true agenda, calling for US corporate-funded International Crisis Group trustee Mohammed ElBaradei to be named by the military as the next "president" of Egypt...

US asks for speedy transfer of power in Egypt

WASHINGTON (AFP) - With violence gripping the streets of Cairo, the United States demanded Friday a speedy handover of power to a civilian government in Egypt, giving it real authority immediately...

Egypt's gas pipeline to Israel attacked

An explosion has hit an Egyptian pipeline supplying natural gas to Israel, making it the eighth assault on the energy route since February.

Witnesses said several masked saboteurs planted explosives under the pipeline, which is located around 60 kilometers (40 miles) west of the town of al-Arish in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, before fleeing, AFP reported on Friday.

The blast caused little damage and did not start a fire because little gas was flowing through the pipeline at the time due to repair work from a previous attack on November 10.

A recent opinion poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Egyptians oppose the terms of the country's gas deal with the Israeli regime.

Kuwaiti protesters storm parliament

Thousands of Kuwaitis have stormed the parliament in the capital after security forces beat up protesters who marched towards the prime minister's home to call for his resignation.

Looks like "Occupy Kuwait City" has begun in earnest!

Bahrain, US joint war games continue

The maneuvers, dubbed “rapid reaction,” started on November 14 and will continue until November 23, Mehr News Agency reported.

Handling explosions, defusing marine mines, preparation and planning for marine combat and taking defensive positions are among the exercises during the war games.

Major goals of the maneuvers include increased preparedness for various combat situations by using the latest technologies and bolstering the capacity of Bahrain's naval forces.

The United States, whose navy's Fifth Fleet is stationed in the Bahraini capital, Manama, has provided support for the Al Khalifa regime during months of crackdown on peaceful protesters in the Persian Gulf state.

I notice that the US government appears to be pathologically incapable of not supporting strategically situated regional thugs who oppress their people, then appears bewildered when an anti-government revolution is successful.

John Kennedy said it most succinctly: "when peaceful revolution is impossible, violent revolution is inevitable." This is going to be absolutely true for the Al Khaifa Sunni monarchy, ruling over a country of predominantly Shiia citizenry; it's only a matter of time.

If the Al Khaifa ruling family is really smart, they will make the effort to develop a true constitutional monarchy, with a reasonable system of due process, and transparent representation for all of Bahrain's people. This would go a long way to redress the complaints of Bahrain's citizens.

It may also incentivize the House of Saud to make some major, positive changes in the way it governs its citizens.

But if nothing happens to address its citizens concerns in Bahrain, not all the Saudi imported cops in the world are going to be able to stop a landslide of discontent.

US Escalates Role in Somalia War

Antiwar

With the latest invasion by Ethiopian forces, the US has yet another proxy force on the ground in Somalia, fighting against the al-Shabaab militant faction, which itself exists primarily in response to foreign invasions...

Venezuela:

Obama urged to place Venezuela on "Terrorist Sponsor List"

During Friday's hearing of the House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, Chairman Connie Mack (R-14)
again called on the Obama Administration to cease their delaying of placing Venezuela on the "State Sponsor of Terrorism List."

"Because we need a good excuse to invade and steal their oil while Chavez is still in the hospital!" -- Official White Horse Souse

US says won't rule out options on Venezuela sanctions

WASHINGTON (AFP) - (AFP) - The United States said Friday it was monitoring Venezuela's ties to Iran and "no option" is off the table for potential sanctions against President Hugo Chavez's government in Caracas.

Kevin Whitaker, the acting deputy assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, said Washington was monitoring Venezuela for "patterns of support for acts of international terrorism."

"No option is ever off the table, and the department will continue to assess what additional actions might be warranted in the future," he told a congressional hearing.

"The department strongly urged Venezuela to pursue a path of cooperation and responsibility rather than further isolation and we will continue to do so."...

Venezuela cuts ties with US over Iran

Venezuela has severed its relations with the US after Washington imposed sanctions against Venezuela's state-owned oil company for supplying gasoline to Iran.

According to examiner.com, Venezuela officially “froze” relations with the United States on Sunday, a top diplomat from President Hugo Chavez's government said.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro also hinted that re-establishing relations with the US would be "impossible."

White House sanctions on Iran drives Venezuela oil towards Russia!

Russia's Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of state-controlled energy giant Gazprom, wants to start oil production at the Junin-6 block in the oil-rich Orinoco River belt in Venezuela in 2013, CEO Alexander Dyukov said on Thursday.

"We are discussing a possible launch of early production in 2013 with the Venezuelans," Dyukov told an annual shareholders meeting, adding that Gazprom Neft planned to make exploratory drillings at the deposit in 2011.

Junin-6 is developed by the National Oil Consortium (NOC), which includes Russia's large oil companies Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, TNK-BP, Surgutneftegas and LUKoil. The NOC plans to develop Junin-6 Block as part of a joint venture with Venezuelan state-controlled oil company PdVSA, or Petroleos de Venezuela, Sociedad Anonima, which has a 60 percent stake in the joint venture.

Geological reserves of the Junin-6 block are 52.6 billion barrels of oil, while recoverable reserves amount to 10.96 billion barrels. The block area totals 447.85 square kilometers.

MOSCOW, June 9 (RIA Novosti)

Chine:

US, Australian rulers deepen military ties, target China

Before Australia, Obama hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Hawaii where further progress was made toward setting up a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that excludes China, the world’s largest exporter. The pact includes Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States.

What Obama has done, in these actions, is tantamount to an economic declaration of war against China; unfortunately, this will come back to haunt both him and the US, both economically and geopolitically.

It appears that Obama has taken a page from the FDR "playbook", when the US government was attempting to goad Japan into attacking US assets in Hawaii.

China-US Energy Geopolitics: The Battle for Oil in the South China Sea

A new area of potential confrontation is developing between China and the U.S. According to reports, Exxon Mobil which has acquired exploration and production rights from Vietnam has discovered substantial gas reserves in the South China Sea off the coast of North Vietnam.

"U.S. oil company ExxonMobil is reporting a "potentially significant" gas discovery off the coast of Vietnam, stating in a press release, "We can confirm ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Vietnam Limited drilled its second exploration well offshore Danang in August 2011 and encountered hydrocarbons."

Obama Vows to 'Project Power' in Asia-Pacific Region, Letting China Know U.S. Is 'Here to Stay'

"The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay," he declared in a speech to the Australian Parliament, sending an unmistakable message to Beijing.

Translation: "We can't pay back China the money we owe them, so we're gonna declare war so we can stiff them and get away with it!" -- Official White Horse Souse

U.S. troops headed to Australia, irking China

CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA — The Obama administration announced plans Wednesday to establish a permanent military presence in Australia, part of the president’s high-profileforeign policy shift toward Asia that is intended as a counterbalance to China’s growing power.

Eying China, U.S. Expands Military Ties to Australia

President Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia announced plans on Wednesday for the first sustained American military presence in Australia, a relatively small deployment that is still a major symbol of American intentions to use regional alliances to counterbalance a rising China.

Permanent US Military Presence in Australia

After months of assuring a skeptical and disgruntled Australian public that the US military would not be getting a permanent base in Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported a "US Marine Base for Darwin." ...

Obama to China: 'Act like a grown-up'

Ouch! It's strong stuff, and hardly the most diplomatic way for the leader of the world's biggest economy to talk about the world's second-biggest economy.

To be fair Barack Obama was a little more circumspect about the way he put it, but it's still a pretty extraordinary statement to make.

He was careful to begin by saying he welcomed China's "peaceful rise", and believed there could be "friendly and constructive competition" between the two.

But China's leaders, he said, need "to understand that their role is different now than it might have been 20 years ago or 30 years ago when, if they were breaking some rules, it didn't really matter, it didn't have a significant impact".

"Now they have grown up. They are going to have to help manage this process in a responsible way."

Translation: "You're going to have to screw your own people the way the new government of Italy and Greece are screwing theirs in order to serve the dollar hegemony. Or we'll do to you what we did to Gadaffi for his impertinent "Gold Dinar!"

Ahem.

Obama's choice of language when speaking to Hu Jintao is quite revealing, as is Obama's comment that "Americans are losing patience with China". Actually, it is Obama and the Private Bankers that are losing patience with China; we Americans understand that China is under no obligation to hurt their own people to save the US Government from their self-made economic disaster.

But the language Obama has been using suggests that Obama is throwing a minor diplomatic tantrum, i.e. he did not get what he needed from Asia.

Local rumors confirms this; that China/Japan/Korea are not about to loan the US more money, nor to conceal their concern that they cannot get the money back already loaned to the US Government.

I suspect that the iron-fisted security for APEC was not out of fear of physical attack on the delegates. After all, Hawaiians tend to be very peaceful people (with the obvious exception of the President himself). I think the shutting down of all overpasses was to prevent the delegates from seeing Occupy protesters waving signs saying, "We Refuse To Pay For Government Mistakes and Wall Street Crimes." Obama had to use APEC to send a message to the Asians he needs to borrow money from that he has America on total lock-down and is still able to force us to make good on bad government debt.

Pentagon chief calls India, China 'threats'

GROTON, Connecticut (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta referred to India and China as "threats" on Thursday, but his spokesman quickly sought to clarify his remarks...

Hillary Clinton and the New American (Pacific) Century

Secret no more, US moves openly to block the rise of China.
by Tony Cartalucci

November 16, 2011 - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently published in Foreign Policy magazine, "America's Pacific Century," a Hitlerian declaration of imperial intent for American "leadership" in Asia for the next 100 years. The piece, which could just as easily been penned by Neo-Con policy makers begins with, "the future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action. "

Asia-Pacific: US Ramps Up Global War Agenda

Like a schoolyard bully, President Barack Obama is flexing American military muscle as he currently sweeps through the Asia-Pacific region. The nominal impetus for the tour was the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Hawaii last week. But rather than discussing “economics” (the E in APEC), the salient focus for Obama and his entourage appears to be “war” – and in particular laying down battle lines to China.

Testy relations with China is nothing new for Washington given recent months of US haranguing over trade and finance, but what Obama’s bombast signals is a sinister ramping up of the militarist agenda towards Beijing.

US assures Philippines of 2nd warship amid South China Sea territorial disputes

The United States will provide a second warship to the ill-equipped Philippine military as it confronts China in increasingly tense territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a Philippine official said Thursday.

Territory got nothing to do with it. If the US can find a reason to declare war on China, then the US Government can stiff China for the money they borrowed, just like they did with Social Security.

Is the U.S. goading China in the South China Sea dispute?

During U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Australia this week, he told the Australian Parliament, “Our enduring interests in the region demand our enduring presence in this region. The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.”

Along with making this quite bothersome promise, at least for those of us that don’t fancy perpetual war plaguing the entire planet in the name of “freedom” and “democracy” on the American taxpayer’s dime, Obama said that American military expansion is a top priority.

That’s right, Obama actually said that despite the fact that the U.S. debt is so massive it makes one’s head spin with incredulity, military expansion is a top priority.

Memo to President Obama; sir, you have domestic economy in ruins; infrastructure crumbling; homeless Veterans sleeping in our streets; and 32% of this country's children now live in poverty.
In 2010, the Census survey indicated that over 32 percent of children across the country were living in poverty, compared to nearly 31 percent in 2009, bringing the number of poverty-stricken US children to 15.7 million from the previously recorded 14.7 million, Reuters reported on Thursday.

When I supported you, marginally over John McCain in 08, I really thought you understood what the agenda was the American people wanted you to tackle. But the track that this country has taken under your watch, both domestically, and internationally, has been the same, if not worse, than what I would have expected from the McCain administration.

Wars have been expanded exponentially; extrajudicial assassinations, without any hint of due process, have been institutionalized; the alleged "transparency" you promised us has been just about as transparent as squid ink; and the incredible debt into which borrowing to support these wars grows every second, courtesy of compound interest.

The bottom line is, you haven't remedied any problem you faced when you took the Oath of Office; but you have managed to exacerbate all of those problems, by making some absolutely catastrophically bad decisions. You have nothing to run on but serial failures in foreign and domestic policy issues, so how are you trying to deflect the genuine - and well-deserved - anger of the American people?

By finding another war,ANY WAR, to stop Americans from thinking, "Is my life better than it was 4 years ago?!?" And sir, the answer to that question, on the part of all but the one percent in this country, is a big, fat, hairy, resounding "HELL, NO!!"

Ex-Soviet states take first step to ‘Eurasian Union’

Three ex-Soviet states were Friday to agree the first steps towards creating a Eurasian economic union, a project backed by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to bind closer the former USSR.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Kazakhstan and Belarus counterparts Nursultan Nazarbayev and Alexander Lukashenko were to sign a declaration on further economic integration at a summit in Moscow, the Kremlin said in a statement

This will mean a great boost for Russia, but a body blow to American interests in the region.

Obama receives chilly welcome in Bali

"We reject the summit as it's not important because in our opinion, the Indonesian government had better concentrate on their own country because all internal crises are caused by the country's wealth being taken by other countries," said protest coordinator Hendry Saragih said.

The Indonesian demonstrators also called on Washington to stop its economic and military initiatives in the Asia-Pacific and instead mind the massive anti-corporatism protests it has been faced with over the past two months.

Activists attack Clinton convoy

Left-wing youth activists attacked the convoy of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she left Malacanang Palace following talks with President Benigno Aquino III Wednesday afternoon.

The activists managed to stop the convoy and briefly turn it back before they were pushed back by policemen and troops of the Presidential Security Group.

In the scuffle, a PSG trooper was pushed to the ground. A burly US Secret Service agent attempted to stop news photographers from taking pictures of the incident and of a black car with the license plate 1233.

Apparently, the Filipino people are not happy with a United States which still backs a government culpable of massive human rights abuses there. The Philippine government has failed to investigate and prosecute extrajudicial killings tied to the country's military, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] announced [press release] Tuesday. In a report [text, PDF] entitled "No Justice Just Adds to the Pain: Killings, Disappearances, and Impunity in the Philippines," HRW presents evidence indicating that the Philippine military was involved in seven murders and three disappearances of leftist activists since President Benigno Aquino III [official website] took office in June 2010.

Imaginez, dans ces conditions, quelqu’un qui disparait ou qui est exécuté de manière totalement arbitraire et sans processus juridique neutre et légitime par des agents du gouvernement ou des militaires seulement parce qu’il n’est pas d’accord avec les politiques ou agissements de son gouvernement et qu’il ait osé l’exprimer ou le manifester ouvertement.

Réalisez-vous, maintenant, que cette situation est la même aux États-Unis, en Angleterre, au Canada et dans plusieurs autres pays que l’on croirait au-dessus de tels dérapages totalitaire ?

Santé:

Québec : Une adolescente vaccinée de force en subit les effets secondaires

'Anthrax isn't scary at all compared to this': Man-made flu virus with potential to wipe out many millions if it ever escaped is created in research lab

A group of scientists is pushing to publish research about how they created a man-made flu virus that could potentially wipe out civilisation.

The deadly virus is a genetically tweaked version of the H5N1 bird flu strain, but is far more infectious and could pass easily between millions of people at a time.

The research has caused a storm of controversy and divided scientists, with some saying it should never have been carried out.

I agree. Who paid to create this horror and more to the point, why publish the instructions for it, which as I understand it involves only 12 steps to get from the current H5N1 to "Captain Trips!"

Man-made super-flu could kill half humanity

A virus with the potential to kill up to half the world’s population has been made in a lab.

Who funded this research and why, or is this something the boys and girls in the white coats cooked up for the hell of it because there is nothing good on TV right now?

Scientists Brace for Media Storm Around Controversial Flu Studies

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/11/scientists-brace-for-media-storm.html

ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS—Locked up in the bowels of the medical faculty building here and accessible to only a handful of scientists lies a man-made flu virus that could change world history if it were ever set free.

The virus is an H5N1 avian influenza strain that has been genetically altered and is now easily transmissible between ferrets, the animals that most closely mimic the human response to flu. Scientists believe it's likely that the pathogen, if it emerged in nature or were released, would trigger an influenza pandemic, quite possibly with many millions of deaths.

In a 17th floor office in the same building, virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center calmly explains why his team created what he says is "probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make"—and why he wants to publish a paper describing how they did it. Fouchier is also bracing for a media storm. After he talked to ScienceInsider yesterday, he had an appointment with an institutional press officer to chart a communication strategy.

Fouchier's paper is one of two studies that have triggered an intense debate about the limits of scientific freedom and that could portend changes in the way U.S. researchers handle so-called dual-use research: studies that have a potential public health benefit but could also be useful for nefarious purposes like biowarfare or bioterrorism.

"I can't think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one," adds Keim, who has worked on anthrax for many years. "I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this."

Some scientists say that's reason enough not to do such research. The virus could escape from the lab, or bioterrorists or rogue nations could use the published results to fashion a bioweapon with the potential for mass destruction, they say. "This work should never have been done," says Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute who has a strong interest in biosecurity issues.

Bird Flu Research Rattles Bioterrorism Field

The H5N1 virus has been circulating among birds and other animals in recent years. It's also infected about 500 people. More than half died. But this dangerous virus has not caused widespread human disease because, so far, sick people haven't been very contagious.

If the virus evolves to spread as easily between people as seasonal flu, however, it could cause a devastating global pandemic. So in an attempt to stay ahead of H5N1, scientists have been tweaking its genes in the lab to learn more about how this virus works, and what it is capable of.

And just who funded this work?

ClimateGate:

Yet Another ClimateGate?

The title of the uploaded file — FOIA.zip – suggests that the emails released today have been taken from CRU servers by the same person, or group of persons, who were responsible for the 2009 leak.

As then, the release comes just weeks before a United Nations climate summit. The two-week meeting in Durban, South Africa, starts on 28 November.

University hit by new climate leak ahead of talks

The British university whose stolen emails caused a global climate science controversy in 2009 says those behind the breach have apparently released a second and potentially far larger batch of old messages.

University of East Anglia spokesman Simon Dunford said that while academics didn't have the chance yet to examine the roughly 5,000 emails apparently dumped into the public domain Tuesday, a small sample examined by the university "appears to be genuine."

Climategate scientists DID collude with government officials to hide research that didn't fit their apocalyptic global warming

#5,000 leaked emails reveal scientists deleted evidence that cast doubt on claims climate change was man-made

#Experts were under orders from US and UK officials to come up with a 'strong message'

#Critics claim: 'The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering'

#Scientist asks, 'What if they find that climate change is a natural fluctuation? They'll kill us all'

When discussing conspiracies like the JFK assassination, or 9-11, one of the most often arguments one hears from the protectors of the orthodoxy is that conspiracies large enough to assassinate a President or fake a terror attack at the World Trade Towers simply cannot exist. There required size makes it impossible, or so goes the non-reasoning.

Climategate proves that such vast conspiracies do exist. In this case, the players include the scientists given millions of dollars to provide fancy looking graphs that politicians like Al gore used to scare us all into agreeing to carbon taxes and a one-world government, officials in the US, the UK, and at the UN's IPCC, and financial players intending to reap rich rewards off of quite literally hot air, such as Goldman Sachs.

Climate scientists are to real environmentalists what tele-evangelists are to faith.

Regardless of how you personally feel about whether the Earth is getting warmer or colder, and whether it is the sun or your plastic grocery bags causing it, Climategate proves that the scientists whored themselves to a political agenda to bring about a one-world government through fraud and deception.

I oppose such a charade for a very simple reason. Any government that comes into existence through fraud and deception is a government that cannot allow freedom of speech or thought. Merely to survive, a government that comes into existence through fraud and deception must be history's greatest tyranny merely to survive its own creation.

But the sheer scale of Climategate proves that vast conspiracies not only do happen, but are the normal course of events. For every one that stands exposed, such as this one, expect ten more not yet revealed.

Yes, Virginia, there really are conspiracies!

Why climategate is a catastrophe for science

The emails are not new: they come from the same trove as those released on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009. That earlier batch included an email in which Professor Phil Jones of UEA suggested to Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania that he delete certain emails, and another in which a professor discussed bullying a journal that had published a dissenting paper. Those sympathetic to the fight against climate change have dismissed the importance of these leaks. They are wrong. The emails weakened public support for the climate change fight. In the US they probably killed it.

Climategate is NOT a catastrophe for science. Climategate is a disaster for political propaganda and the carbonazis' greed and lust for global control, but it is not a catastrophe for science because in the end, the science won out. The Earth has gone into a cooling phase, and all the King's horses and all the King's men cannot put carbon taxes back together again!

Climategate is a vindication for the scientific method because it reminds us that individual scientists are just as corruptible as politicians.

ClimateGate 2.0: 5,000 New Emails Confirm Pattern of Deception and Collusion by Alarmists

Almost exactly two years since damning email messages were released from Great Britain’s University of East Anglia showing a pattern of deception and collusion between scientists involved in spreading the global warming myth, a new batch of such correspondence has emerged that seems destined to get as little press coverage as the original ClimateGate scandal did in November 2009.

Climategate 2.0: Read 20 ‘Juicy’ emails – ‘They validate EVERYTHING the skeptics have been saying’

Junk Science

More devastating Climategate e-mails were released today. We’ve covered juicy ones in the posts listed below. More on the way. Read ‘em all. They validate EVERYTHING the skeptics have been saying. Viva les sceptiques!

• Alarmist introspection admits dishonesty on hockey stick
• Jones laments blogsites as allowing deniers to find one another
• Systematic deletion of e-mails
• How Phil Jones misleads journalists
• Santer angry over not being able to silence skeptics
• Mann says true temp anomaly not known well
• Silence of the alarmists
• Wigley accuses ‘Mike’, other IPCC-ers of deception, dishonesty
• Spun science isn’t going to end well
• Department of Energy involved in hiding temperature data?
• Jones advises e-mail deletion to avoid FOIA
• Mann says Curry not helping ‘the cause’
• ‘All models wrong’
• IPCC models not worth a darn
• Hulme hired to be the hand of God
• Praying for the ‘Day After Tomorrow’ to work
• Catholicism an ‘extreme’ religion?
• Mann a dead-ender
• Mann paper slammed by colleague as ‘pathetic’
• ‘Hockey stick’ debunking confirmed
• Hide the dissent
• Feelings more important than truth
• Kjellén has a better name for global warming
• Jones bans dissent on extreme weather
• Medieval Warm Period tough to erase
• Mann said skeptics ‘losing’
• Climategate 2.0?

ClimateGate 2.0: 5,000 New Emails Confirm Pattern of Deception and Collusion by Alarmists

Almost exactly two years since damning email messages were released from Great Britain’s University of East Anglia showing a pattern of deception and collusion between scientists involved in spreading the global warming myth, a new batch of such correspondence has emerged that seems destined to get as little press coverage as the original ClimateGate scandal did in November 2009.

Climategate 2.0: No data sharing for Jones

From the CLimaetgate 2.0 collection, amid an exchange over how to discredit Martin Durkin’s documentary, “The Great Global Warming Swindle” (which, BTW, ought to be a separate posting), Phil Jones writes to Bob Ward of Risk Management Solutions,

Climategate 2.0: Fresh trove of embarrassing emails

“The science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run,” laments one scientist, Peter Thorne. While Professor Jagadish Shukla, a lead IPCC author, IGES founder, and one of the most senior climate experts writes that, “It is inconceivable that policymakers will be willing to make billion-and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the projected regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and simulate the processes that are the building blocks of climate variability.”

Climategate II, 5,000 New Emails Released Detailing Climate Change Hoax

<1939> Thorne/MetO:
Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical
troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a
wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the
uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these
further if necessary [...]

Climategate 2.0: New E-Mails Rock The Global Warming Debate

Three themes are emerging from the newly released emails: (1) prominent scientists central to the global warming debate are taking measures to conceal rather than disseminate underlying data and discussions; (2) these scientists view global warming as a political “cause” rather than a balanced scientific inquiry and (3) many of these scientists frankly admit to each other that much of the science is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of facts and data.

Climategate 2: The Global Warming Hockey Stick is stone cold dead

Wigley:
Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [...]

Wils:
[2007] What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably [...]

Climategate 2.0: Alarmist admits ‘not especially honest’ on hockey stick

How should we deal with flaws inside the climate community? I think,
that “our” reaction on the errors found in Mike Mann’s work were not
especially honest.

Climategate 2.0: ‘Hockey stick’ debunking confirmed

From the Climate 2.0 collection, alarmist Rob Wilson (?) confirms Steve McIntyre’s debunking of Michael Mann’s hockey stick:

I thought I’d play around with some randomly generated time-series and see if I could ‘reconstruct’ northern hemisphere temperatures. [...] The reconstructions clearly show a ‘hockey-stick’ trend. I guess this is precisely the phenomenon that Macintyre has been going on about.

McIntyre had reported that Mann’s temperature reconstruction model produced a hockey stick no matter what temperature data was input to it.

Here's a (partial) list of the specific glaciers that are growing

Climategate 2.0: Medieval Warm Period tough to erase

How does one erase 300 years of inconvenient warming?

From the Climategate 2.0 e-mail collection, someone named Pollack (possibly alarmist Henry Pollack)

But it will be very difficult to make the MWP [Medieval Warm Period] go away in Greenland.

The chart below from the IPCC First Assessment Report in 1990 shows why alarmists want to erase the MWP.

Read Climategate 2.0.

This one email all by itself proves the actual data was being manipulated to sell a political agenda.

Climatologists Trade Tips on Destroying Evidence, Evangelizing Warming

In one email Professor Jones explains to researchers how to best hide their work to prevent anyone from being able to replicate it and find errors:

I've been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process. Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden. I've discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.

The crumbling edifice of the IPCC

A book published last month by Canadian investigative journalist, Donna Laframboise details an astonishing array of flaws, omissions and misinformation contained within the 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These revelations completely undermine the already tarnished integrity of the report.

Laframboise spent two years researching the content and references of the report before she wrote The Delinquent Teenager, an appalling account of how the world has been hoodwinked by an unaccountable bureaucracy that does not even abide by its own rules.

Laframboise's diligent research shows that numerous graduate students were lead authors of the report and conclusions were drawn from papers not then peer-reviewed – let alone published.

This has the appearance of a circular, incestuous process that saw IPCC chapters written while the necessary referenced papers were published after the fact in peer-reviewed journals under the influence of IPCC authors.

Large numbers of contributors to the report, like Bill Hare, were directly linked to organisations such as Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature; five out of ten contributors to one chapter have a formal, documented link to WWF, 28 out of 44 chapters of the report included at least one individual affiliated with WWF.

The all important Working Group 1 chapters, the scientific foundation of the report, contained 431 references to non peer-reviewed material. In the complete report 5,587 references were not peer-reviewed, 30 per cent of all references, of these, only six were flagged as such.

Sources used to support IPCC assertions were newspaper and magazine articles, unpublished Masters and Doctoral theses, Greenpeace and WWF documents as well as press releases.

These revelations do not inspire confidence in an organisation that claims to be, and is portrayed, as basing its conclusions on peer-reviewed literature.

Key contributing author, Dr Phil Jones of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit fame admitted during testimony before a House of Commons committee that peer-reviewers never contacted him to examine raw data for papers he submitted for publication.

EPA Glacier Fraud

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/indicators/pdfs/climate_indicators_slideshow.pdf

They forgot to mention that there was 10 times as much ice loss at that glacier prior to 1941.

http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2001/07/glacierbaymap.gif

Isn’t official government fraud fun? The EPA used the meaningless date of 1960 to intentionally fool people into believing their CO2 agenda.

Climate Minister buys a castle with 16 bathrooms... and a massive carbon footprint

He is the climate change minister who pledged to ‘lead by example’ in the fight against global warming.

But Charles Hendry is facing accusations of hypocrisy after buying himself a 20-bedroom castle – with a potentially massive carbon footprint – as a second home.

Blair Castle in Ayrshire, which went on the market for £2.5million, has three storeys, 16 bathrooms and a heated outdoor swimming pool set in 260 acres of beautiful countryside.

Pakistan:

Officials: NATO choppers kill up to 28 Pakistani troops

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45442885/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/#.TtG3CPLaxoF

NATO aircraft attacked a military checkpoint in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing up to 28 troops and prompting Pakistan to shut the vital supply route for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said.

In a statement sent to reporters, the Pakistan military blamed NATO for Friday's attack in the Mohmand tribal area, saying helicopters "carried out unprovoked and indiscriminate firing."

So, this is how NATO defines "winning the hearts and minds of Pakistani military and civilian leadership"!

And to those in the bowels of power in NATO who bluster that "Pakistan cannot live without us!", I would like to remind them that China and Pakistan just held war games together earlier this month.

Pakistan and China are staging joint military exercises, showcasing their relationship as Islamabad's ties with Washington suffer. The war games that began Monday follow remarks by Pakistani officials suggesting that China could step into the economic, military and diplomatic void if Pakistan's relationship with the United States collapsed.

'NATO strike revenge for Pakistan crackdown on CIA assets'

An RT video.. 5 min

A NATO air strike on an army checkpoint in northwest Pakistan has killed up to 25 soldiers, according to the country's military officials. Islamabad has now blocked the alliance's vital supply lines into Afghanistan in response. The incident threatens to put more pressure on relations between Pakistan and the military alliance, already strained by continued U.S. drone attacks. Ahmed Quraishi, President of Pakistan's biggest lobbying group - the PakNationalists forum, thinks this accident was a deliberate act of punishment.

The escalation begins..

Anonymous said...

There is no way this is an accident. These Pakistani soldiers were murdered in their beds. There was no fighting anywhere nearby. This is another act of murder like the phony Ben Laden attack. The pakistanis have shut down the US supply route to Afganistan. This endangers the Banks heroin supply so the US will have to apologize and pay big bribes to reopen the supply route.

Nato air attack on Pakistani troops was self-defence, says senior western official

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/26/nato-air-attack-pakistan-soldiers

An attack by Nato aircraft on Pakistani troops that allegedly killed as many as 28 soldiers and looks set to further poison relations between the US and Pakistan was an act of self-defence, a senior western official has claimed.

According to the Kabul-based official, a joint US-Afghan force operating in the mountainous Afghan frontier province of Kunar was the first to come under attack in the early hours of Saturday morning, forcing them to return fire.

The high death toll from an incident between two supposed allies suggests Nato helicopters and jets strafed Pakistani positions with heavy weapons.

COULD NATO HIGH COMMAND POSSIBLY BE MORE DENSE, THAN ACTUALLY SHOOTING AT A PAKISTANI MILITARY OUTPOST, THEN HAVING THE TEMERITY TO CHARACTERIZE IT AS "SELF DEFENSE"?!?!?

This was an act of complete stupidity, and has probably wound up costing NATO and the US any access through Pakistan into Afghanistan from henceforward, period, end of discussion.
Pakistan shut down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan - used for sending in nearly half of the alliance's land shipments - in retaliation for the worst such incident since Islamabad uneasily allied itself with Washington following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

One has to wonder if a lower than average IQ is a prerequisite to obtaining senior management for NATO military high command.

US scrambles to repair Pakistan relations

Pakistan’s army chief on Sunday honoured 24 soldiers killed by Nato fighter jets and helicopters near the border with Afghanistan, as the incident sent relations with the US in to a new crisis.

Television footage showed General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani raising his hands in prayer in front of the coffins of the soldiers at a military base in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Gen Kayani over the weekend condemned the killings as “blatant and unacceptable”.

All-out War in Pakistan: Pakistan Army warns of Retaliation in the Case of Future NATO Attacks

Pakistan’s military will take serious action if any Nato attack took place in its territory, said a statement issued here on Saturday.

The statement noted that Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani has strongly condemned the Nato attack in Mohmand Agency and ordered the military to make arrangements to retaliate against such irresponsible action befittingly.

Islamabad has collectively decided that NATO stupidity will be painful.

I would like to hope that NATO takes what Kayani is saying very seriously.

Imran asks rulers to end alliance in ‘war on terror’

(PTI) Chief Imran Khan on Saturday strongly condemned the unprovoked Nato attack on Salala Check Post in the Momand Agency and called upon civilian leadership to immediately withdraw from its alliance from US-led war against terrorism.

While terming the attack as an insane and immoral brutality, Khan said such attacks reflected the hollowness and counter-productivity of Pakistan’s involvement in the aimless ‘war on terror’ that had been unleashed to subdue the proud people of the region.

He said Pakistan had already sacrificed 40,000 people and an equal number of people had been maimed and become handicapped. Pakistan had also incurred a loss of over $75 billion in the bargain, yet it was being incessantly targeted by the forces of its so-called ‘ally’, he added.

This guy might ultimately be a force for positive change for the Pakistani people, if he lives long enough: I do hope he's wearing his Kevlar undies, because what he is saying is what a majority of the Pakistani people understand to be true right now for their country.

Pakistan orders US to vacate airbase

The Pakistani government has ordered the US to vacate an airbase within 15 days following a deadly airstrike near the Afghan-Pakistan border, Press TV reported.

Syrie:

Public Relations Campaign for Military Intervention in Syria Begins

France’s foreign minister, Alain Juppé, has raised the prospect of Syrian intervention.

After a meeting in Paris with Burhan Ghalioun of the Syrian national council, Juppé said “humanitarian corridors or humanitarian zones” should be established to protect civilians from the alleged abuses of the al-Assad regime.

The effort mirrors an earlier one in Libya. In February, the Libyan League, the National Endowment for Democracy (established to do the dirty work of the CIA abroad) and various NGOs petitioned the United Nations to suspend Libya from the UN Human Rights Council.

NATO Conceals Preparations for Military Action against Syria

What consequences may Russia face as a result of the US decision? Pravda.Ru asked an expert opinion from the director of the Center for Military Forecasts, Anatoly Tsyganok.

"Why did it take the United States four years to decide not to inform Russia about military redeployments?"

"Apparently, it is connected with the situation in the Mediterranean Sea. One may assume that NATO will create a military group near Russia's southern borders to strike Syria. They will most likely raise this issue at a NATO meeting in December. They will try to analyze Syria's actions in case NATO conducts a military operation against the country, like it already happened in Libya."

The possibility of a NATO action against Syria which could involve Russia, taking the current Syrian government's side, is, I would like to hope, not something any sane NATO commander would contemplate.

However, sanity hasn't quite been the primary mover for recent NATO operations, such as the one in Libya.

In the midst of having generated what can only be described as a still on-going civil war, NATO is looking at arming Syrian dissidents and actually having Libyans on the ground fighting with them.

According to officials familiar with the situation, a meeting between Libya’s new regime, the NATO-backed National Transitional Council (NTC) and members of the Syrian National Council (SNC) ended with a request for the NTC to send arms to the opposition, and potentially to get involved even more.

US Deploys Aircraft Carrier to Syrian Coast

Violence continued in Syria today, with a number of civilian protesters killed. The focus however was off the coast, where America’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS George H. W. Bush, has taken up a position just outside of Syrian territorial waters, after a deployment near the Straits of Hormuz.

There was no official explanation for why the US would deploy the carrier there, but it comes amid growing speculation that NATO-ally Turkey is poised to launch an invasion of Syria, and the possibility that a US-backed regime change may be in the offing.

This deployment is very interesting, particularly in light of the fact that 3 Russian warships have just entered Syrian territorial waters. Monday, Nov. 21, presidential sources in Damascus announced three warships had entered Syrian territorial waters outside Tartus port. Those sources stressed the Russian ships would not anchor in the Syrian port, indicating that their mission was not just to show the flag for the Assad regime but was on operational duty along its coasts to resist any foreign intervention in Syria unrest…

Aircraft Carrier CVN-77 Parks Next Door To Syria Just As US Urges Americans To Leave Country "Immediately"

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57330452/u.s-urges-americans-to-leave-syria-immediately/

Yesterday we reported that the Arab League (with European and US support) are preparing to institute a no fly zone over Syria. Today, we get an escalation which confirms we may be on the edge. Just out from CBS: "The U.S. Embassy in Damascus urged its citizens in Syria to depart "immediately," and Turkey's foreign ministry urged Turkish pilgrims to opt for flights to return home from Saudi Arabia to avoid traveling through Syria." But probably the most damning evidence that the "western world" is about to do the unthinkable and invade Syria, and in the process force Iran to retaliate, is the weekly naval update from Stratfor, which always has some very interesting if always controversial view on geopolitics, where we find that for the first time in many months, CVN 77 George H.W. Bush has left its traditional theater of operations just off the Straits of Hormuz, a critical choke point, where it traditionally accompanies the Stennis, and has parked... right next to Syria.

From Stratfor:

And from CBS:

"The U.S. Embassy continues to urge U.S. citizens in Syria to depart immediately while commercial transportation is available," said a statement issued to the American community in Syria Wednesday and posted on the Embassy's website. "The number of airlines serving Syria has decreased significantly since the summer, while many of those airlines remaining have reduced their number of flights."

The warning followed an announcement in Washington this week that Ambassador Robert Ford would not return to Syria this month as planned, indicating concerns over his safety.

The Obama administration quietly pulled Ford out of Syria last month, citing credible personal threats against him.

The Turkish foreign ministry on Wednesday urged Turkish pilgrims to opt for flights to return home from Saudi Arabia and avoid traveling through Syria for security reasons.

The warning came two days after Syrian soldiers opened fire on at least two buses carrying Turkish citizens, witnesses and officials said, apparent retaliation for Turkey's criticism of Assad. The Turks were returning from Saudi Arabia after performing the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Uh...Got Brent?

Canadian frigate to remain on guard during unrest

As the situation in Syria worsens, the frigate HMCS Vancouver will stay in the Mediterranean Sea until early 2012.

"HMCS Vancouver will be tasked, while on Operation Active Endeavour, to take part in such events as locating, tracking, reporting (and) boarding vessels of interest suspected of international terrorism," Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced after the conclusion of the Halifax International Security Forum.
The ship was already in the region following the end of her mission off the coast of Libya.

MacKay also noted a Royal Canadian Navy presence in the Mediterranean Sea would continue until the end of next year, with HMCS Charlottetown eventually relieving HMCS Vancouver.

As America collapses, Canada does Israel's dirty work.

Arab League approves Syria sanctions

Arab states voted on Sunday to impose economic sanctions on Syria immediately following President Bashar Assad's failure to halt a crackdown on an eight-month uprising against his rule.

Nineteen of the Arab League's 22 members voted for sanctions that include a travel ban on senior Syrian officials, freezing Syrian government assets, halting trade dealings with the central bank and stopping Arab investment.

"The decision should be executed immediately, starting today," Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told a news conference after he chaired a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.

The very thing the Arab League has done, allegedly to prevent foreign "humanitarian intervention" in Syria (as was done in Libya) absolutely guarantees that that there will be some kind of massive foreign intervention in Syria, and soon. One has to wonder what the Western "quid pro quo" was to get such a vote to happen.

And if these actions are to start today, I wouldn't bet against that intervention coming to Syria very rapidly.

As Predicted, Arab League and Turkey Reportedly Plan No-Fly Zone Over Syria With U.S. Logistical Support

I have been reporting on the real possibility of yet another foreign intervention under the false pretense of humanitarianism in Syria for months now, and quite unfortunately it seems that I was right.

Indeed I first brought up this issue on April 16^th and April 26^th, followed by several other articles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) outlining how the West was moving towards yet another “humanitarian intervention” that will leave countless civilians dead in the name of “democracy.”

I have not been the only researcher and writer covering the Syrian debacle in detail with an eye for the truth, indeed.

France raises issue of Syrian intervention

Alain Juppé, France’s foreign minister, has raised the possibility that western powers could intervene directly intervene to protect civilians in Syria from the Assad regime.

He suggested that “humanitarian corridors or humanitarian zones” could be established to protect those under attack.

As the Assad regime presses ahead with its attacks on Syrian rebels, Mr Juppé has become the first senior western figure to raise the possibility of such an intervention. He said the issue would be discussed by European Union foreign ministers at a meeting next month.

Apparently, France's Foreign Minister Juppé, has not yet received the memo, stating that Russian warships are now just off the coast of Syria, in order to prevent the same kind of allegedly "humanitarian intervention" which has led to civil war, torture, and extrajudicial assassinations in Libya.

Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov accused Western nations of "political provocation" by urging the Syrian opposition to refuse to negotiate a settlement with Assad.

France raises issue of Syrian intervention

Here's your parachute, Sarkozy. Here's your rifle. Watch your step climbing into that aircraft and we'll call call Syria and tell them you are on your way to whip their asses all by yourself!

France Working With Rebels to Fight Syrian Military

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/212224.html

A newspaper in Turkey has published a story that French military advisers are working with Syrian insurgents to fight the country’s government...

Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested "assistance" from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.

"There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria," said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see."

The Telegraph has also learned that preliminary discussions about arms supplies took place when members of the Syrian National Council [SNC] – the country's main opposition movement – visited Libya earlier this month.

Libya’s New Regime May Attack Syria

According to officials familiar with the situation, a meeting between Libya’s new regime, the NATO-backed National Transitional Council (NTC) and members of the Syrian National Council (SNC) ended with a request for the NTC to send arms to the opposition, and potentially to get involved even more.

“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” one Libyan source said. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”

Translation: NATO is very keen to use its poster-child proxy of the month, Libya, as its way of toppling the Assad regime.

NATO will do the funding and training, and provide weapons. The only real question is, what country will be tasked to actually provide air cover for such an operation to commence and succeed.

However, before NATO preemptively celebrates its coming "victory" in Syria, I would like to remind them of the following: Russia has dispatched warships off the coast of the Syrian city of Tarsus
Amidst calls for all US citizens to leave Syria, the USS George H.W. Bush has arrived off the coast of Syria in clear defiance of Russian warships sent to help deter NATO from any action in Syria.

Will NATO and/or the US flirt with war nuclear-armed Russia over Syria?!? Let us hope cooler heads in the bowels of power in the US and Brussels will prevail.

Tarpley: Snipers are Randomly Shooting at Syrian Civilians to Create Instability

Same tactic used in Libya.

Russia Arms Syria With Missiles To Defend Against NATO Attack

We now know what those six Russian warships that reportedly entered Syrian territorial waters last week were carrying. Aside from representing a show of strength to discourage NATO powers from launching a military attack, on board were Russian technical experts ready to help Damascus set up a sophisticated missile defense system sold to them by Moscow.

Russia has stopped playing Neville Chamberlain to the US Hitler. Appeasement is over. Only fools would press further.

Russia Retaliates Against US: Puts Radar Station On Combat Alert, Prepares To Take Out European Missile Defense Systems

Cutting straight to the chase - in a nationally televised appearance by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev: "in response to what the Russian believes is an active incursion and a potential act of eventual aggression on behalf of NATO countries in Eastern Europe (and hence the US), he he said the following (7 minutes in): "First, I am instructing the Defense Ministry to immediately put the missile attack early warning radar station in Kaliningrad on combat alert. Second, protective cover of Russia's strategic nuclear weapons, will be reinforced as a priority measure under the programme to develop out air and space defenses.

Risking war with Russia over Syria is an insane proposition.

However, unfortunately, just because something would be a catastrophically wrong, ham-fisted, ill-advised military misadventure on the part of the US and NATO, is absolutely no guarantee that they won't do it.

'Syria turns missiles towards Turkey'

Turkish sources say that Syria has turned its Russian-made SCUD missiles towards Turkey, Press TV reports.

The sources said that the missiles have been deployed in Syria's Kamisili and Ayn Diwar regions, Press TV's Ankara correspondent reported on Saturday.

The two regions are close to the borders of Turkey and Iraq.

This comes as Turkey has recently stepped up its rhetoric against the Syrian government. Reports have also emerged suggesting that Turkey is harboring Syrian armed opposition groups.

The ‘Israeli Puppets’ against Syria

Turkey’s top daily, Milliyet, has reported that French military forces are training Syrian rebels belonging to the US-Israel sponsored ‘Free Syrian Army’ in Turkey and Lebanon. The daily has also claimed that France, Britain and Turkey have agreed to send arms into Syria to bring a regime change in Damascus.

The Turkish daily also stated that the governments of the three countries have received green light from Washington to support the Syrian rebels in every possible way.

Gulf states advise nationals to leave Syria

Bahrain and Qatar on Sunday called on their citizens to leave unrest-swept Syria after the United Arab Emirates also advised its citizens to stay away.

The call, issued on the day the Arab League was deciding on sanctions against Damascus over its deadly crackdown on dissent, was issued because of instability in Syria, said Bahrain’s foreign ministry.

In Doha, the foreign ministry urged Qataris to leave Syria “as soon as possible,” while Abu Dhabi earlier in the week advised Emiratis to delay travel plans to Syria.

We may well see a proxy force, led by Libyans (NATO's "flavor of the month" revolutionaries) join the Syrian "rebels" for another moment of regime change in the Middle East.

Think it outlandish?!? Then, please think again.

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested "assistance" from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers. "There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria," said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see."

Iran:

Ex-inspector rejects IAEA Iran bomb claim

A former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repudiated its major new claim that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion.

The IAEA claim that a foreign scientist - identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko - had been involved in building the alleged containment chamber has now been denied firmly by Danilenko himself in an interview with Radio Free Europe published last Friday.

Cracks Open in Iran Nuke Charges

Many Washington pundits who championed the false tales about Iraq’s WMD have returned to center stage in the new accusations about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. And some of the Iran charges are falling apart just like the Iraq ones, as Gareth Porter reports.

A former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repudiated its major new claim that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion.

The IAEA claim that a foreign scientist – identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko – had been involved in building the alleged containment chamber also has now been denied firmly by Danilenko himself in an interview with Radio Free Europe published on Friday.

The latest report by the IAEA cited “information provided by Member States” that Iran had constructed “a large explosives containment vessel in which to conduct hydrodynamic experiments” – meaning simulated explosions of nuclear weapons – in its Parchin military complex in 2000.

IAEA Iran Report Spins Intelligence — Gareth Porter expounds:

The report said it had “confirmed” that a “large cylindrical object” housed at the same complex had been “designed to contain the detonation of up to 70 kilograms of high explosives”. That amount of explosives, it said, would be “appropriate” for testing a detonation system to trigger a nuclear weapon.

Robert Kelley is an American nuclear scientist and a former director in the International Atomic Energy Agency or IAEA

But former IAEA inspector Robert Kelley has denounced the agency’s claims about such a containment chamber as “highly misleading”.

Kelley, a nuclear engineer who was the IAEA’s chief weapons inspector in Iraq and is now a senior research fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, pointed out in an interview with the Real News Network that a cylindrical chamber designed to contain 70 kg of explosives, as claimed by the IAEA, could not possibly have been used for hydrodynamic testing of a nuclear weapon design, contrary to the IAEA claim.

“There are far more explosives in that bomb than could be contained by this container,” Kelley said, referring to the simulated explosion of a nuclear weapon in a hydrodynamic experiment.

Kelley also observed that hydrodynamic testing would not have been done in a container inside a building in any case. “You have to be crazy to do hydrodynamic explosives in a container,” he said. “There’s no reason to do it. They’re done outdoors on firing tables.”

Israel Slams Calls for Nuclear Transparency

Officials say that the criticism of Israel was nowhere near as broad as they expected at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s conference of a “nuclear-free Middle East,” a conference which was held entirely behind closed doors.

At the same time, it was pointed out by members that Israel’s massive nuclear arsenal and total lack of transparency are going to make the goal of a nuclear-free Middle East entirely impossible.

"Only anti-Semites think we have nuclear weapons!!!" -- Noddin' Yahoo

US, UK, Canada sanction Iran banks & petro-chem

RT

The UK has declared it's severing all ties with Iranian banks. The U.S. has also announced it's joining Britain and Canada in targeting hit Iran's economy with new sanctions over its controversial nuclear program.

UK to cut financial ties with Iranian banks

The U.K. will cut financial ties with Iranian banks over fears about its nuclear program, Britain's Treasury chief George Osborne said Monday.

Osborne said all UK financial institutions will cease business relationships and transactions with all Iranian banks, including the Central Bank of Iran from 3 p.m. GMT (10 a.m. EST) Monday. The ban extends to all branches and subsidiaries of Iranian banks.

This is tantamount to an economic declaration of war against Iran by the UK.

Iran's parliament votes to expel British ambassador

Iran's parliament has voted to expel the British ambassador in Tehran in retaliation against economic sanctions imposed by the west over the Islamic republic's disputed nuclear programme.

Iran general threatens retaliation against Israel nuclear sites

General Yadollah Javano of the Revolutionary Guards says that Iran could attack any part of Israel in response to an Israeli strike on Iran.

"No you can't! We have million of dumb American goyim to absorb your bullets and missiles with! Nyah, nyah, nyah!" -- Noddin' Yahoo

Dirty dozen: Iran claims arrest of 12 CIA agents

Iran has arrested 12 US Central Intelligence Agency agents, the Iranian news agency reported on Thursday, quoting an influential parliamentarian who said the CIA operatives were intent on damaging Iran “from inside and outside”.

Parviz Sorouri, from the powerful committee on foreign policy and national security, reported the arrest of the spy ring to the official IRNA news agency.

He said the agents were co-operating with Israel’s Mossad and posed a threat to Iran`s security, military forces and nuclear program.

Israeli DM: ‘Time Has Come’ to Move Against Iran

In an interview on CNN today, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met a question about Israel’s repeated threats to attack Iran with scorn, saying it was not “a subject for public discussion.”

Barak went on in his explanation to say that “people understand that the time has come,” raising further speculation that Israel may be launching such an attack in the next few weeks, before the winter weather makes it inconvenient.

Memo to Ehud Barak: sir, I do NOT, nor do thinking people I know, believe, for one millisecond ,that "...the time has come..." to attack Iran, and I bitterly resent the "face time" CNN has given you, and to Bibi Netanyahu, in order to "sell" this as a war of necessity for the American government, and people, BECAUSE IT IS NOT!

The US government is about to collapse from its own moral and fiscal bankruptcy; our infrastructure is crumbling; homeless Veterans are sleeping in our streets; and 32% of US children now live in poverty. The US Census Bureau says the number of poor children in America has surged by one million in 2010, reflecting the country's worst economic woes since the Great Depression.

We can ill-afford any military conflict with Iran right now; with a 13 trillion dollar deficit, no lender in their collective right mind would loan us the money to pursue such a war; we no longer have the manufacturing infrastructure to be able to replace critical components quickly enough to win such a conflict; and our troop strength is stretched to capacity.

Then, there is the issue of Russia, which has positioned warships off the coast of Syria as I type this, to prevent the kind of catastrophe which happened to Libya from happening in Syria.

Are you absolutely certain, even though Israel is a nuclear -armed power, that you want to risk war with Russia in order to attack Iran? I would suggest that you and your buddies in the Knesset re-evaluate the cost-benefit ratio on that one.

So, sir, in summation, what part of "Absolutely, no, HELL, no!" are you having difficulty understanding? I would like to hope, NONE!

Half of US voters say bomb Iran if sanctions fail

Fifty percent of Americans believe military action should be taken to stop Iran's nuclear program if sanctions do not work, a national poll released on Wednesday said.

The Quinnipiac University survey also found that more Americans disapprove, by 50 percent to 44 percent, of the job President Barack Obama is doing -- although more people than not approve of the way he has handled foreign policy, including his management of thorny US relations with Tehran.

Some 55 percent of respondents said the United States should not take immediate military action against Iran, with 36 percent in favor.

The number in favor of using force increases to 50 percent however if sanctions fail, with 38 percent against.

This polling institute appears to be playing fast and loose with the numbers. There are infinite ways with which to skew polling to create numbers, making it appear that people were in support of a specific issue, when they in fact were not.

No thinking person with whom I have spoken believes that it is a good idea for the US to bomb Iran, and for the following reasons:

Report: Dozens of U.S. spies captured in Lebanon and Iran

Dozens of spies working for the CIA were captured recently in Lebanon and Iran, current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press and ABC News on Monday.

The CIA’s operations in Lebanon have been badly damaged after Hezbollah identified and captured a number of the U.S. spies, officials told The Associated Press.

Russia Threatens Use of Nuclear Weapons

According to Russian news agencies, Makarov stated that “under certain conditions local and regional conflicts may develop into a full-scale war involving nuclear weapons.” The general said: “The possibility of local armed conflicts along nearly the whole border has increased dramatically. In certain conditions, I do not rule out local and regional armed conflicts developing into a large-scale war, including using nuclear weapons.”

Medvedev: Russia may target missile defense sites

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will deploy new missiles aimed at U.S. missile defense sites in Europe if Washington goes ahead with the planned shield despite Russia's concerns, President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday.

Russia will station missiles in its westernmost Kaliningrad region and other areas if Russia and NATO fail to reach a deal on the U.S.-led missile defense plans, he said in a tough statement that seemed to be aimed at rallying domestic support.

Russia considers the plans for missile shields in Europe, including in Romania and Poland, to be a threat to its nuclear forces, but the Obama administration insists they are meant to fend off a potential threat from Iran.

The Russian Bear Is Back, The Soviet Union Is Being Revived And The Cold War Is Not Over

If you believe that the United States is the "sole superpower" in the world, then you really need to read the rest of this article. Most Americans have very little idea what is actually going on in the rest of the world and how the global balance of power is shifting. For example, can you name the country that is the number one oil producer in the world, the number one oil exporter in the world, the number one exporter of natural gas in the world and that also has the second most powerful military in the entire world? In case you need a hint, it is not Saudi Arabia, it is not China and it is not the United States. The correct answer is Russia. The Russian Bear is back in a big way.

Libye:

Leaked UN report reveals torture, lynchings and abuse in post-Gaddafi Libya

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/leaked-un-report-reveals-torture-lynchings-and-abuse-in-postgaddafi-libya-6266636.html

Thousands of people, including women and children, are being illegally detained by rebel militias in Libya, according to a report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Many of the prisoners are suffering torture and systematic mistreatment while being held in private jails outside the control of the country's new government.

The document, seen by The Independent, states that while political prisoners being held by the Gaddafi regime have been released, their places have been taken by up to 7,000 new “enemies of the state”, "disappeared" in a dysfunctional system, with no recourse to the law.

The report will come as uncomfortable reading for the Western governments, including Britain, which backed the campaign to oust Gaddafi. A UN resolution was secured in March in order to protect civilians from abuses by the regime, which was at the time mercilessly suppressing the uprising against the Gaddafi regime.

"A small price to pay to rid the world of Gaddafi's Gold Dinar and make the world safe for private central banking and endless debt slavery!"" -- Official White Horse Souse

Leaked UN report reveals torture, lynchings and abuse in post-Gaddafi Libya

http://uruknet.com/?p=m83341&hd=&size=1&l=e

Thousands of people, including women and children, are being illegally detained by rebel militias in Libya, according to a report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Many of the prisoners are suffering torture and systematic mistreatment while being held in private jails outside the control of the country's new government.

The document, seen by The Independent, states that while political prisoners being held by the Gaddafi regime have been released, their places have been taken by up to 7,000 new "enemies of the state", "disappeared" in a dysfunctional system, with no recourse to the law.

"But, but but.... THE OIL IS FLOWING!" - official NATO souse.

7,000 held in Libya's new reign of fear and torture

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2065570/7-000-held-Libyas-new-reign-fear-torture.html

Thousands of people including women and children are being held illegally and tortured by rebels who helped oust Colonel Gaddafi, according to a UN report.

Around 7,000, many of them foreigners, are behind bars in private prisons and makeshift detention centres, beyond the control of the new Libyan government and without access to any legal redress.

The report by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will be embarrassing for Britain and other governments which supported the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime despite concerns about who would take power in their place.

Palestine-Israël:

Mike Gravel: "Netanyahu is a liar"

Lately Iran has been a key topic and Mike Gravel, a former US Senator, has been outspoken about what could happen if the US goes to war with Iran. Gravel accuses Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime minister, of being a liar for his allegations against Iran. He sits down with RT.

Mahmoud Abbas hails new era of partnership between Fatah and Hamas

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/8913830/Mahmoud-Abbas-hails-new-era-of-partnership-between-Fatah-and-Hamas.html

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, risked the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of US aid on Thursday by hailing a new era of partnership with Hamas

Israeli FM Rules Out Future Negotiation With Palestinians

Insists Israel Will Continue to Withhold Tax Funds

Israel threatens to cut Gaza water, power

Israel has threatened to cut the supply of water and electricity to the Gaza Strip if rival Palestinian movements, Fatah and Hamas, establish a unity government.

"The foreign ministry is examining the possibility of Israel pulling out of the Gaza Strip in terms of infrastructure," AFP quoted Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as telling the daily Yediot Aharonot's website on Saturday.

Ayalon, a Knesset (Israeli parliament) deputy for the leftist Yisrael Beitenu party, said a Palestinian unity government “would put an end to any hope for a peace agreement" with Tel Aviv.

Israel to keep holding Palestinian Authority funds, against advice of security officials

Cabinet meeting ends with no decision on $100 million in tax revenues that were frozen by Israel after PA was admitted to UN cultural body.

Reverend Allan Boesak calls Israeli apartheid "more terrifying" than South Africa ever was

http://uruknet.com/?p=m83211&hd=&size=1&l=e

Hanan Chahata: You were one of the signatories of the South African Christian response to the Kairos Palestine Document. In this you said that the Palestinian experience of apartheid is "in its practical manifestation even worse than South African apartheid". Can you explain what you meant by this?

Allan Boesak: It is worse, not in the sense that apartheid was not an absolutely terrifying system in South Africa, but in the ways in which the Israelis have taken the apartheid system and perfected it, so to speak; sharpened it.

When a South African minister characterizes Israel's apartheid policies as even worse than what he endured in South Africa, you KNOW it has to be pretty bad.

Right-wing Israeli group creates booklet listing businesses that employ Palestinians

A grandson of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, best known for his belief that Arabs should be ethnically cleansed from historic Palestine, is leading a movement to document and boycott all businesses in Israel that employ Palestinians.

The plan was discovered when 19-year old Meir Ettinger was reported to the police for walking around the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem and asking merchants whether they employ Arabs. One Palestinian merchant became suspicious that Ettinger may be planning an attack against himself or other Palestinians working at the market, and called the Israeli police.

NOT that the guy is being racist against Palestinians, or anything like that, right?!?!?

Palestinians on a Bus: Israel Rails at ‘Provocation’

The action could be the start of what Israeli military officials have been fearing for quite some time, a growing use of non-violent civil disobedience as a tactic against the occupation. The Israeli military has said if broad peaceful protest broke out in the West Bank the regime would not be able to crush it.

Two of my great heroes of the 20th century were Gandhi and Martin Luther King, who both chose non-violence as a way to achieve their goals.

It appears that the Palestinian organizers against the occupation clearly understand the benefits of this kind of an approach.

Go, non-violent Palestinians! :-)

Israeli Military Chief Calls for ‘Major’ Invasion of Gaza Strip

Speaking today before the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Israeli Knesset, Israeli military chief Benny Gantz insisted that a “major offensive” against the Gaza Strip needed to be launched soon.

This time, this Israeli government will kill as many as many Gazan Palestinians as it feels it can get away with.

Genocide is simply Israel's official policy against the Palestinians, and no other national power on earth appears to want to stop it.

One would have thought that after the horrors of World War II visited upon Jews in Germany, those who founded the country of Israel would be the poster children for responsible, tolerant, just behaviour toward others.

Unfortunately, however, the country has devolved completely away from those values. And what we have now is a wretchedly apartheid, self-proclaimed theocracy with nukes.

Bibi’s Official Genocide Policy

http://uruknet.com/?p=m83217&hd=&size=1&l=e

Much is made in the rush to war with Iran of Ahmadinejad’s alleged saying that Israel should be "wiped off the map". I am not an Iranian speaker and not qualified to enter the debate as to whether that is, or is not, an accurate statement. I view Ahmadinejad as a thug anyway, irrespective of any linguistic quibble.

But it is quite astonishing that Netanyahu’s declared, published and open intention to wipe the Palestinians from the map gets nil publicity in the west. The source for this is impeccable: Likud’s party platform as presented on the website of the Knesset.

This is absolutely compulsory reading for anybody who was taken in by the opposition to Palestinain statehood "without negotiation" as explained by the Israeli stooges in western governments. This is the actual, official Israeli policy:

The Jordan Valley and the territories that dominate it shall be under Israeli sovereignty. The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.

So Likud says all of the West Bank belongs to Israel

The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting.

This clearly claims all of Gaza – and Judea and Samaria – as land to which Israeli people have an "inalienable right". It is the apotheosis of religious fanatic claims to a "Greater Israel", elevated into the policy of the ruling party.

Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem, including the plan to divide the city presented to the Knesset by the Arab factions and supported by many members of Labor and Meretz.

So all of Jerusalem is to be taken too.

Likud specifically lays claim to absolutely all of the lands under at least semi-autonomous Palestinian control, and they say these claims are inalienable. There is no hint of any room for negotiation in the language of these statements. The UK and US governments who pretend that it is the Palestinians who are blocking negotiations, do so knowing they are lying, and because the majority of our politicians are tied in to the Israeli lobby with golden cords.

Netanyahu’s platform, claiming every inch occupied by Palestinians, is a programme for genocide. It can be described as nothing else.

There is absolutely no room left to argue that Netanyahu does not intend to wipe the Palestinians off the map.

Source

This is truly Netanyahu's "Final Solution" for the Palestinian people.

Five Republican congressmen take Christian Zionist solidarity tour of settlements

Welcome to new America,when Zionism and Congress members are in bed together.

One would think these members are sitting in the Congress solving our serious debt, unemployment, and balancing the budget problems, to find out later that are in Israel making a trip as usual, and promising more support to Israel.

Did any of these members visited or showed any support for 99% protesters demands...?.

Économie:

Romney: Cut health care for the poor, not defense spending

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Monday suggested using drastic cuts to health care for the poorest Americans to fund the Department of Defense.

Speaking to employees of BAE Systems, one of the nation’s largest defense contractors, the candidate said that President Barack Obama and members of the “super committee” should agree to scale back the Medicaid program in order to prevent $600 billion in cuts to defense spending over ten years.

Hey, BAE probably has the best weapons for executing those the Federal death panels say shouldn't be alive anyway!

New military contracts and the immediate elimination of those "useless eaters" who have the misfortune of being sick and poor at the same time: WHAT A DEAL!!

(Ahem): Candidate Romney,has just demonstrated in these remarks, that he has already had his conscience surgically removed. Is this what the American people need or deserve in their next President? I think, not.

$707,568,901,000,000: How (And Why) Banks Increased Total Outstanding Derivatives By A Record $107 Trillion In 6 Months

While everyone was focused on the impending European collapse, the latest soon to be refuted rumors of a quick fix from the Welt am Sonntag notwithstanding, the Bank of International Settlements (Banque des règlements internationaux) reported a number that quietly slipped through the cracks of the broader media. Which is paradoxical because it is the biggest ever reported in the financial world: the number in question is $707,568,901,000,000 and represents the latest total amount of all notional Over The Counter (read unregulated) outstanding derivatives reported by the world's financial institutions to the BIS for its semi-annual OTC derivatives report titled "OTC derivatives market activity in the first half of 2011.

Have You Heard About the Biggest Municipal Bankruptcy in U.S. History?

Last week, a three-year ordeal came to an end as Jefferson County, Alabama, declared the biggest municipal bankruptcy in American history, a casualty of the rapid economic growth of the boom that ended so abruptly with the credit crisis of 2008.

Home to 660,000 people, Jefferson County was struggling under $3.0 billion in sewer-system debt. By a vote of four-to-one, the municipality voted on November 9 to file Chapter 9 bankruptcy, leaving JP Morgan facing the brunt of the loss.

Credit Suisse Goes For Broke: Predicts End Of Euro, Bank Runs

Escalating Bank Runs On “Strongest European Banks”

Zero Hedge

Just because Credit Suisse bankers are people too (even if 1% people, but still people), and just because they know too damn well that “no ECB intervention” means “no bonus”, and very likely “no job”, they go for broke and join Deutsche Bank, JPM, RBS, and everyone else (but, again, not Goldman), in predicting the end of Europe unless Draghi does his rightful duty and remembers that without banker support he will also be lining up at the jobless claims office very soon...

Bankers Have Seized Europe: Goldman Sachs Has Taken Over

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Activist Post

On November 25, two days after a failed German government bond auction in which Germany was unable to sell 35% of its offerings of 10-year bonds, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble said that Germany might retreat from its demands that the private banks that hold the troubled sovereign debt from Greece, Italy, and Spain must accept part of the cost of their bailout by writing off some of the debt.

Hungary's debt slashed to junk - Moody's

Moody's has cut Hungary's government bond rating to "junk", citing high debt levels, weak growth prospects and uncertainty about its ability to meet fiscal goals, in what the government called part of "financial attacks" against the country.

Italy's borrowing rates skyrocket, Monti scrambles

A week into his new job, Premier Mario Monti is running out of time to reassure nervous investors that his government has a strategy to deal with Italy's crippling debts.

The nation's borrowing rates skyrocketed Friday after a grim set of bond auctions, with a new auction looming Tuesday. Another borrowing debacle could ratchet up fears that Italy has entered a debt spiral driving it toward bankruptcy and the 17-nation eurozone into its most acute crisis yet.

Monti's government of so-called "technocrats" is battling to convince investors that it has a successful strategy to reduce the country's €1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion) debt. But Friday's dismal bond auction results for the eurozone's third largest economy temporarily battered Europe's stock markets.

S&P's lowers sovereign credit rating on Belgium

Standard & Poor's lowered its long-term sovereign credit rating for Belgium on Friday, citing the country's lack of a permanent government and a looming European recession that threatens the country's exports.

In a sign that financial contagion is spreading across Europe, the agency cut Belgium's credit rating from AA+ to AA, a moved that sent shocked politicians immediately back into new negotiations Friday night.

Dow, S&P Log Worst Thanksgiving Week Since 1932

Stocks closed in negative territory in thin, shortened trading Friday as investors were reluctant to go long ahead of the weekend and amid ongoing worries over the euro zone.

The Dow and S&P posted their worst Thanksgiving week since the Great Depression on a percentage basis.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average erased their gains to finish lower, led by H-P [ HPQ 25.39 -0.39 (-1.51%) ] and Chevron [ CVX 92.29 -1.46 (-1.56%) ].

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also ended lower, logging a seventh consecutive decline. Some traders are watching for 1,150 on the S&P as the next key level.

The CBOE Volatility Index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, ended above 34.

Among key S&P sectors, consumer staples and utilities led the gainers, while energy and techs lagged.

Europe liquidity crisis has a number: $30 trillion according to Sarkozy

http://www.examiner.com/finance-examiner-in-national/europe-liquidity-crisis-has-a-number-30-trillion-according-to-sarkozy

On November 23rd. Olivier Sarkozy, brother of French President Nicholas Sarkozy, and head of the Carlyle Financial Group, spoke on CNBC and laid out the cost of the liquidity crisis that is overtaking Europe. The total numbers are staggering, with $30 Trillion being the overall debt holding the Euro Zone hostage.

So if you want to stabilize that $30 trillion and in my view it's not that you want to, it's that you have to, you do not have a choice, you're going to have to be at least at 2.1 trillion and i suspect it may need to be more." Q.E.D. – Sarkozy on CNBC via Zerohedge

$30 trillion is the overall exposure, however, only a percentage of this is necessary to stabilize those debt instruments. This is where the figure of $2.1 trillion comes in, and is a gigantic requirement nonetheless to secure the overall liability in the Euro banking system.

This is where fractionalized banking and leverage can get countries into very serious financial problems, because there is no 11th marble!

Moody's cuts Hungary to "junk," government sees attack

Credit rating agency Moody's cut Hungary's debt to "junk" grade late on Thursday, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Viktor Orban's unorthodox economic policies and prompting his government to denounce the move as a "financial attack."

Moody's threaten US downgrade

Could another downgrade of America’s credit rating be on the way? Moody’s Investor Service on Wednesday warned that that might exactly be the case.

The rating agency issued a statement today saying that while the congressional supercommittee’s failure to come to a compromise on the US deficit dilemma won’t necessarily trigger a downgrade, a change to the automatic cuts that are now set to go into play in 2013 will.

Now UK faces a £5bn bill to bail out Spain... as ministers plan for euro collapse

Britain was last night planning for the collapse of the eurozone as Spain weighed up a bailout that could cost UK taxpayers £5billion.

The Government is preparing for the biggest mass default in history and the break-up of the single currency bloc.

Analysts warned that euro meltdown would wreak havoc in the banking system and plunge the global economy back into recession.

Whitehall sources said contingency plans are being drawn up – and indicated that the longer the euro limps on, the more time Britain has to prepare.

Portugal gets knocked down to junk status

http://rt.com/business/news/fitch-portugal-downgrade-133/

Fitch Rating agency downgrades Portugal to junk status due to the country’s high debts.

Portugal's Long term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) went down from 'BBB-' to'BB+' .

The agency says the country’s high debt and bad macroeconomic outlook mean their credit profile doesn’t match an investment-grade rating.

The rating carries a negative outlook, which means a further cut is possible.

The tough economic situation around Europe contributed to the pessimistic overview of the country.

Fitch believes the country's GDP will contract by 12 per cent in 2012.

The Portuguese government has so far failed to get a set of austerity measures through the parliament.

C’est comme ça que les banquiers vous tiennent par les couilles !

General strike cripples Portugal

Public transportation and flights disrupted as trade unions protest against austerity measures.

Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns

As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.

Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.

The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.

This cannot but impact US banks negatively, due to many banks' exposure to deep European bank debt.

Venezuela brings home gold reserves

A shipment of gold has been deposited in Venezuela's central bank in Caracas after President Hugo Chavez ordered the repatriation of most of the country's bullion reserves from overseas banks.

Cheering crowds lined the streets on Friday as the shipment was escorted by armoured trucks to the bank from the Venezuelan capital's Maiquetia airport, beginning a process that will eventually see up to 160 tonnes of gold, worth more than $11bn, brought home.

Chavez ordered the repatriation of 85 per cent of the country's bullion, which has mostly been held in European and US banks, saying the move would protect Venezuela's reserves from global economic turbulence.

If Chavez declares a value-based currency. look for an immediate US invasion because of ... well, some bullshit or other they make up.

Currency Wars - Russia Officially Adds 19.5 Tonnes of Gold Reserves in October Alone

Market participants continue to be surprised by gold’s continuing weakness and some are even questioning gold’s safe haven status. However, the fundamentals of broad based global physical demand remain very sound as evidenced by the central bank gold buying data today.

Russia bought 19.5 metric tons of gold in October bringing their total gold reserves to 871.1 tons according to IMF data released today.

Gold is weak only because it is being manipulated downward to keep the sheep from deserting the banks and stock exchanges. While preserving short-term liquidity, the long term effect of such manipulations to keep gold prices down is that it allows governments that are smart enough to see through the sham (like Russia) to acquire more gold at bargain prices, to the long-term detriment of the US.

Italy government borrowing rates hit euro-era high

The Italian government's borrowing cost has risen as fears grow over political uncertainty in Rome.

The yield on Italian 10-year bonds rose from 6.37% to a euro-era high of 6.64%, before retreating to 6.53%.

Breaking News: Italian government changes, bond yields don't!

After a weekend of political wrangling and a change in leadership in Italy, its government bonds yields remain unsustainably high!

An Italian government 5-year auction today had relatively good demand (1.469 bid-to-cover ratio) and a lower yield than 5-year Italian government bonds were trading in the secondary market, but, the yield was still 6.29% for the 3 billion euro sale.

Given the fact that Italy will have to refinance 1.9 trillion euro however, this yield level is not an option going forward!

Deepening Debt Contagion

With pressure building on Europe and America, something's got to give. Progressive Radio News Hour regular Bob Chapman says Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Nicolas Sarkozy search for solutions that don't exist.

Nothing's agreed on to be implemented. Austerity weakens failing Eurozone economies. French and other banks are selling bonds. Yields are rising. So is economic, financial and political uncertainty.

Europe's in disarray. Germany printed Deutsch Marks just in case. It "has to come to terms with cutting loose six loser countries. That means leaving the euro and perhaps the EU. We see no other choice in this unnatural" union.

When the Eurozone comes undone, the intense exposure American banks have to European bank debt will have a huge domino effect.

Euro on ‘Death Watch’ After Investors Spurn German Bonds

Investors began to fear the worst for the euro after unusually weak demand at an auction for bonds from Germany, the region’s largest economy. One analyst went so far as to put the currency on a “death watch.”

Germany sold just 60 percent of the 6 billion euros in 10-year bunds it brought to auction, about the weakest demand seen for the country’s debt in the currency’s 16-year history, economists said. The rejection of debt from Europe’s safe harbor marks a new stage for the crisis.

“No bunds wanted equals no Euros wanted equals the Euro death watch,” wrote Mark Steele, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets. “We have seen many poor German auctions. This is not the issue. The issue is how badly the euro is doing after the weak auction.

The Eurozone could unravel completely, and very quickly.