L'Autre Monde 16 juillet 2012 : Finale de la saison!

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L'Autre Monde 16 juillet 2012 : Finale de la saison!
 

Pour écouter, ou pour télécharger, simplement cliquer sur le lien ici:

L'Autre Monde 16 juillet 2012
120 min / Radio de l'UQAM, CHOQ FM

 

 

	Nombre d'émission: 215 Diffusion en direct : Lundi à 15:00h Animateur(trice) : François Marginean Réalisateur(trice) : François Marginean
Archives d'émission

Au programme cette semaine: 

Actualité mondiale, économie et santé.

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: 

Smart meters are 'massive surveillance' tech - privacy supremo - The Register
 
The European Data Protection Supervisor has warned that smart meters are a significant privacy threat and wants limits on the retention and use of customer data before it's too late.
The EDPS is an independent authority figure tasked with identifying where EU policies might represent a risk to privacy. He reckons next-generation meters, which precisely monitor electricity use within homes, are a very likely candidate unless his concerns are addressed ahead of time.
Peter Hustinx, who fills the role with the assistance of Giovanni Buttarelli, admits there are advantages of smart metering, but warns that the technology will "also enable massive collection of personal data which can track what members of a household do within the privacy of their own homes". He pulls up examples of baby monitors and medical devices, which have identifiable patterns of energy consumption and could therefore be used to monitor what people are doing.

 

WOW - What will be a Legendary Rant From illinois Representative on Congressional Floor! Awesome!

This is so completely Awesome! What will be a legendary Rant from an Illinois Representative on the Congressional Floor!
All of our Elected Officials Should stand UP this Way for The People! I am not sure who it is that is in the video at this time, but when I find out I will put it here.
His name is Mike Bost - from Illinois General Assembly (I have his full info on the blog, including his email address to Thank him)

 

HAITI: Humanitarian Aid for Earthquake Victims Used to Build Five Star Hotels

by Julie Lévesque

Global Research, June 28, 2012

As some 500 000 Haitians still live in displaced camps, five star hotels are being built amid shanty towns.
It is worth noting that Western governments have insisted that aid money for Haiti be given to NGOs and foundations rather than to the Haitian government, which they consider to be "corrupt".
In the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake, people in the US, Canada and the EU, who made donations to those humanitarian organisations and NGOs did not realize that their contribution to Haiti's reconstruction would be channeled towards the building of five star hotels to house foreign businessmen. Their expectation was that the money would be used to provide food and housing for the Haitian people.

We were wrong on peak oil. There's enough to fry us all
July 2, 2012, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/02/peak-oil-we-we-wrong
For the past 10 years an unlikely coalition of geologists, oil drillers, bankers, military strategists and environmentalists has been warning that peak oil – the decline of global supplies – is just around the corner. We had some strong reasons for doing so: production had slowed, the price had risen sharply, depletion was widespread and appeared to be escalating. The first of the great resource crunches seemed about to strike. Some of us made vague predictions, others were more specific. In all cases we were wrong. Peak oil hasn't happened, and it's unlikely to happen for a very long time. ["Oil - The Next Revolution"] by the oil executive Leonardo Maugeri, published by Harvard University, provides compelling evidence that a new oil boom has begun. The constraints on oil supply over the past 10 years appear to have had more to do with money than geology. The low prices before 2003 had discouraged investors from developing difficult fields. The high prices of the past few years have changed that. Maugeri's analysis of projects in 23 countries suggests that global oil supplies are likely to rise by a net 17m barrels per day (to 110m) by 2020. This, he says, is "the largest potential addition to the world's oil supply capacity since the 1980s". The investments required to make this boom happen depend on a long-term price of $70 a barrel – the current cost of Brent crude is $95. Money is now flooding into new oil: a trillion dollars has been spent in the past two years; a record $600bn is lined up for 2012.

BP Announces that Venezuela Now Have the Largest Oil Reserves in the World

BP has just released its annual Statistical Review of World Energy in which it claims that Venezuela now holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world, overtaking the original leader Saudi Arabia.
The South American nation’s oil deposits were increased from last year’s figure to an estimated at 296.5 billion barrels, more than Saudi Arabia’s 265.4 billion barrels.
Global reserves have been increased by 1.9 percent from last year’s 1.62 trillion barrels to 1.65 trillion. Robert Wine, a spokesman from BP, explained that the reason for the revisions is that BP’s review is published in June, before most countries issue their annual reserve figures.
Watch further efforts to destabilize an ailing Chavez' government by the US, in order to install a more US-Centric government which will remove their oil industry from its nationalized state, and allow private development.

What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
June 20, 2012, CBC News (Canada's public broadcasting system)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/06/20/f-trans-pacific-partnership-explained.html
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) may soon be an acronym as recognizable as NAFTA — but this free trade venture could have much more economic strength and impact than its North American predecessor. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a free trade deal aimed at further expanding the flow of goods, services and capital across borders. Its four founding members — New Zealand, Chile, Singapore and Brunei – soon caught the attention of five other nations: the United States, Australia, Peru, Vietnam and Malaysia, who joined in 2008. The nine partners currently have a combined GDP of more than $17 trillion. Canada and Mexico are now being considered for membership, subject to the approval of the nine countries already involved. Add to this the possibility that Japan could join the TPP, despite mounting protests in that country, and the economic and political traction of the group increases. In fact, the TPP could become the world's largest free-trade zone. "It's really a trade agreement for the one per cent and their corporate interests," said Maude Barlow, the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, which opposed and continues to criticize NAFTA. "This is not going to be a good deal for Canadians."
Note: A later Toronto Star article reveals that the agreements of the TPP are secret.

Looking For 10% Yields? Go Online For Peer To Peer Lending
June 6, 2012, Forbes Magazine
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisbarth/2012/06/06/looking-for-10-yields-go-online-for-peer-to-peer-lending/
Today a tidal wave of aging boomers want income, but traditional sources are lacking. But there’s [a] source of high yield that relatively few consider. Peer-to-peer lending, or making personal loans via the Internet using websites like LendingClub.com and Prosper.com. After six years of experience and some bumps, including a financial crisis and ensuing recession, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending has finally earned its place on an income investor’s menu. The basic premise of these bank disintermediaries is that they harness the networking power of the Web to match people who have excess cash with people in need of it or those who simply want to refinance credit card debt. The key to its success has been how the sites have managed the inherent riskiness of unsecured personal loans. Believe it or not, it is now possible to earn yields of 6% or more, making relatively safe loans to complete strangers. San Francisco’s Lending Club is the largest P2P lender, followed by its crosstown rival Prosper. Lending Club and Prosper have loaned a total of more than $1 billion since inception, in 112,000 loans. Lending Club currently issues about $45 million in loans a month versus Prosper’s $13 million per month. Of course defaults happen. Lending Club’s top-rated three-year loans expect a default rate of around 1.4%, and the riskiest loans, offering rates as high as 25%, have a 9.8% default rate.
Note: A 1.4 default rate is much lower than that of the average bank. For those who want to borrow or loan money free of the banks with excellent rates, check out www.lendingclub.com and www.prosper.com.

 

NATO-FSA False Flag Alert: US Claims Syria 'Moving Nerve Gas Out of Storage'

Tony Cartalucci, Contributor
Activist Post
Citing no evidence, and on the heels of yet another baseless "activist" report claiming a massacre has taken place in Homs, nameless US officials claimed to the Wall Street Journal that the Syrian government is taking chemical weapons out of storage for possible use "against anti-regime rebels or civilians, possibly in an ethnic cleansing campaign."
Despite claiming to possess this information, the US officials refused to disclose the location these weapons were being moved to, nor the actual nomenclature of the weapons, stating only "they are most worried about Syria's stockpiles of sarin gas." ...

 

Syrian rebels aim to use chemical weapons, blame Damascus – report

The armed Syrian opposition has got their hands on chemical weapons, which they acquired from Libya, a media report claims. They allegedly plan to use it against civilians and pin the atrocity on the Bashar al-Assad regime.
­The report by DamPress claims the opposition group in possession of the weapons is being trained in its use inside Turkey. No further detail on the alleged conspiracy is given.

 

US hires rebels to remove govt. of President al-Assad: Analyst

The United States has hired Syrian rebels to fulfill one of its main foreign policy objectives in the Arab country, that is the removal of President Bashar al-Assad, an anti-war activist tells Press TV.
“The purpose of the arms insurgency is regime change. This is the US-backed military force,” Don Debar said in an interview with Press TV on Monday.
Accordingly, the armed opposition refused to put down arms and negotiate the peace plan proposed by UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, Debar also said.

 

Russian Ship Tries Again to Deliver Syrian Helicopters

The Russian cargo ship the Alaed has left Russian waters again on an attempt to deliver refurbished Syrian helicopters back to the Syrian military. The last shipping attempt failed after British officials, under US pressure, forced the revocation of their insurance.
Being a Russian-flagged ship removes the insurance obstacle, and the close proximity of the flotilla presumably will prevent Britain from giving serious consideration to attacking it when it gets close to British waters.

BREAKING: Russia to deliver air defense systems to Syria

Russia says it has no plans to impose an arms embargo on Syria and intends to fulfill a contract for delivering air defense systems to the country.

 

Russian warships on maneuvers, will re-supply in Syria

A dozen Russian warships from three fleets are participating in a joint three-month exercise. The group is to visit the Syrian port city of Tartus, where a Russian base is located. The drills are not related to the Syrian conflict, the military say.
The warships and supply ships are derived from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Northern Fleet and Baltic fleet, the Defense Ministry said. The exercise’s main goal is to test inter-fleet coordination during the joint maneuvers.

Russia prepares army for Syrian deployment

Given the worsening crisis in Syria, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reported that the Russian army is apparently being prepared for a mission in Syria. Citing anonymous sources in the military leadership, the newspaper said that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the general staff to work out a plan for military operations outside Russia, including in Syria.

Moscow's Marines Head for Syria

The Russian defense ministry has dispatched a group of ships to the Mediterranean. Among their destinations is the Syrian port of Tartus.

President Shimon Peres cancels Olympics trip over Shabbat observance

President Shimon Peres has cancelled his visit to the Olympic Games in London due to the refusal of the Olympic organizing committee to allow him to sleep in the Olympic village over Shabbat night.
The Israeli president, despite not being religious, does not travel publicly on Shabbat and will therefore not be able to attend the Olympic opening ceremony.
...
Sources in the organizing committee were mystified by the president's announcement, since there are at least two suitable hotels at walking distance from the Olympic village.
See IS SHIMON PERES THE TERRORIST MASTERMIND BEHIND 9-11?

‘WMD’ + ‘ethnic cleansings’ = case to bomb Syria?

It's Deja Vu all over again-Yogi Berra
US officials say Damascus is moving parts of its chemical weapons arsenal, an allegation denied by Syrian authorities. Some in Washington imply that the weapons may be used for “ethnic cleansing”.
­Syria is believed to have a large arsenal of chemical weapons, including sarin nerve agent, mustard gas and cyanide, which is undeclared due to the country not being a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The Wall Street Journal cites unnamed US officials as saying that parts of the arsenal are being relocated from their storage facilities.
The Syrian government denied the alleged move when asked for comments.

US predicts another Houla-style massacre in Syria

The United States has predicted that another Houla-style massacre will occur in Syria and has even mentioned exact locations.
Might as well put up a flashing neon sign that blinks "False-flag attack in progress. Proceed with recklessness because we're gonna blame Assad for your dead corpse anyway!"

U.S.-Israeli War Against Syria Moves To The Next Stage: A Media Coup

The U.S., NATO, Saudi Arabia, and Israel continue to stir up trouble in Syria to get a larger war going in the region. It is now being reported that the Obama administration wants to impose an illegal no-fly zone on Syria. Paul Joseph Watson breaks down this latest development in his article, “Report: Obama Prepares Air Strikes On Syria”:
“The likelihood of military intervention has been brought forward by reports that opposition rebels are planning to use chemical weapons and then blame the atrocity on Assad’s regime.
Rebels attempted to stage a similar ‘false flag’ recently when British Channel 4 reporter Alex Thomson was purposefully led by rebels into a trap whereby it was hoped he would be killed by government troops and his death used as a propaganda stunt.
I very frankly would time the coming of one industrial-strength false flag here with a stopwatch.
And please be aware: Russia's President Putin has asked his military leadership to come up with a plan to deploy Russian soldiers in Syria on the side of the Assad regime.
Russian Defense Ministry launched an intensive training units for operations abroad, including in Syria. Preparation for combat operations in this country, may lead Pskov 76th air assault division of Airborne, the 15th Brigade combined arms in Samara, as well as special units staffed by the Chechens, who had previously served in the GRU spetsbatalonah “West” and “East” writes, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”, citing anonymous sources in the military. Pskov Airborne Division – one of the most combat-ready connections in the Russian army, the newspaper notes. Its officers, NCOs and men participated in the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo in 1999-2001, in both Chechen wars in 1994-1996 and 1999-2007, and in the war with Georgia in August 2008.
I wish that there were a law in this country, that if any person runs for national office, their kids had to be in the front lines of the US military by the time they would start their term of service, and would be the first to see action when this country goes to war.
I would be willing to bet you one whole cent that should such a law be in place, the US government wouldn't see war as the only way of resolving geopolitical conflicts.
Of course, for politicians on the national level, it's always assumed that it will be other people's children (who are of no interest or value because they are not obscenely wealthy) who should fight, get maimed for life, and die in wars; almost never their own.

Syrian Rebel Terrorists Bomb Another Gas Pipeline

Armed groups fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have blown up another gas pipeline in the crisis-hit eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

 

Implosion of The Houla Massacre Story — Is Anyone Paying Attention?

A respected mainstream publication, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung(FAZ), has reported that the infamous Houla massacre in Syria, which the US and NATO hoped would be the casus belli for their planned invasion, was in fact carried out by rebel forces.
Highlighted in the National Review, of all places, the FAZ investigation was exhaustive and convincing.
NRO reports on the original FAZ story:

 

Military: Syria Chemical Stocks Threaten Israel

Israel's deputy military chief has warned that Syria's large chemical weapons stocks could be trained on Israel.
I remember when Israel said the same thing about Saddam's chemical stocks .. which turned out not to exist!

 

Syrian rebels take over air base, missile batteries, near Homs

Syrian rebels took control of a Syrian air force base near the city of Homs Sunday, according to a report in Al-Arabiya.
The fighters gained control of a number of surface-to-air missile batteries, giving them an extra edge as they battle forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
According to the report, officers and soldiers at the base defected and joined rebel forces. The base’s battalion commander had asked the soldiers to choose between joining the rebellion or going home.
Looks as though this might be a real turning point in this proxy war by foreign assets to depose Assad.
And remember: the faster the current regime in Damascus goes down, the more rapidly we are most probably approaching a date for an attack against Iran.

 

Insurgents Named Responsible for Syrian Massacres

SANA state media’s documentary discussed the Damascus incident. It named Western-recruited Jabhet al-Nusra terrorists responsible. They also carried out earlier attacks.
A Syrian documentary aired on June 9, and a June 7 report by Germany’s leading broadsheet provide more evidence. Both refutes Western and scoundrel media misinformation.
Russian journalist Marat Musin revealed the same thing. Based on firsthand observations and eyewitness testimonies, he refuted Western misinformation and lies.
Western-enlisted death squads bear full responsibility. Government forces and/or so-called pro-Assad shabbiha had no involvement.

 

Propaganda War: The Houla Massacre Committed by The West’s “Free Syrian Army” But They Accuse Syrian Gov’t

[The] 108 bodies were laid out by the Free ’Syrian’ Army [1] in a mosque in Houla. According to the rebels, these were the remains of civilians massacred on 25 May 2012 by pro-government militia known as ‘Shabbihas’.
The Syrian government appeared completely shocked by the news. It immediately condemned the killings, which it attributed to the armed opposition.
While the national news agency, SANA, was unable to provide details with certainty, the Syrian Catholic news agency, Vox Clamantis, immediately issued a testimony of some of the events formally accusing the opposition [2].
Five days later, the Russian news channel Rossiya 24 (exVesti) aired a very detailed 45-minute report, which remains to date the most comprehensive public inquiry [3].

 

Propagande guerrière de l’OTAN: le gouvernement syrien accusé des atrocités commises par les escadrons de la mort

- par Tony Cartalucci - 2012-06-01

Il est de plus en plus évident que le gouvernement syrien n’est pas responsable des tirs d’artillerie qui ont tué 32 enfants et leurs parents... Tout semble indiquer au contraire que c’est l’oeuvre d’escadrons de la mort financés par les USA.

SYRIE. Opération terroriste appuyée par les États-Unis: Tuer des civils innocents pour justifier une guerre humanitaire

- par Michel Chossudovsky - 2012-05-30

La doctrine militaire américaine envisage le rôle central “d’évènements produisant un nombre important de victimes” et dans lesquels des civils innocents sont tués...

 

Israel sees Iranian hand in Syria killings

"Iran and Hezbollah are an inseparable part of the Syrian atrocities, and the world needs to act against them too," Netanyahu was quoted as saying.
"Iran blew up the Hindenburg. Really, they did! And they sank the Titanic, and shot down both Challenger and Columbia. They tear the tags off of seat cushions. They fart in elevators.That adds to global warming! They drove the dinosaurs to extinction! These are really nasty people, and you should kill them for us!" -- Nodding Yahoo

Syria: The media and bogus causes for intervention

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The BBC was busted using a photo of a room full of corpses from
Iraq (2003) as 'evidence' of a massacre in Syria last week.

The massacre itself was the act of Al Qaeda in Syria, though
Western media and the UN are trying desperately to convince us that
the Syrian government was behind it and generate a completely phony
public consensus to support foreign intervention.

There are SEVERAL issues making the media's version of events
totally unbelievable to even the casual observer.

See for yourself...

Video:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/10763.html

UN: Most of 108 killed in Syria were executed

The U.N.'s human rights office said Tuesday that most of the 108 victims of a chilling massacre in Syria last week were shot at close range, some of them women and children who were gunned down in their homes.
The report offered grim new details of an event that could prove to be a turning point in Syria's 15 months of violence, but did not decisively say who carried out most of the killings.
Again, why would Assad, desperate to avoid being invaded, commit such an obvious overt act that hands the invaders a justification for the invasion?

Al Qaeda and the West team up to frame Syrian government for massacre
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/the-middle-east/al-qaeda-and-the-west-team-up-to-frame-syrian-government-for-massacre.html

Recommended article...

Houla, Syria Stunt Proves: Old Tricks are the Best Tricks

Tony Cartalucci
Prisonplanet.com

As information trickles out of Houla, Syria, near the city of Homs and the Lebanese-Syrian border, it is becoming clear that the Syrian government was not responsible for shelling to deaths some 32 children and their parents, as periodically claimed and denied by Western media and even the UN itself. It appears that instead, it was death squads at close quarters – accused by anti-government “activists” as being “pro-regime thugs” or “militias,” and by the Syrian government as the work of Al Qaeda terrorists linked to foreign meddlers.

As the killings were allegedly taking place, US, British, and French representatives were already preparing to accuse, condemn, and level punishment against the Syrian government, calling for an immediate UN Security Council session as well as the convening of the “Friends of Syria” cadre to seek expanded arms shipments and aid to militants. It was politically motivated haste, an opportunity engineered or otherwise, for the West to push forward with its long sought after regime change. NATO during the same period, had just slaughtered a family of 8, including 6 children in Afghanistan, so surely if humanitarian concerns and justice were driving these foreign interests, Afghanistan would have been brought up along with Houla.  It unfortunately was not.

 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that the U.S. created the Al Qaeda

 

Israel reportedly smuggling weapons to Syria through Iraqi Kurdistan: Syrian sources

Israeli airplanes are smuggling weapons into Syria through Iraq's Kurdistan region, Syrian sources told Iranian Press TV.
According to the sources, Israel sends weapons to autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north, which are then smuggled into Syria with financial assistance from Qatar.
Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani has facilitated the operations of illegal Israeli firms in the region.

 

Stepped Up Media War on Syria

When America goes to war or plans one, the corporate media march in lockstep. Journalism is the first casualty. Managed news misinformation substitutes for truth and full disclosure.
Cheerleading propaganda is relentless. Readers and viewers are betrayed. Imperial wars are called liberating ones. Separating fact from fiction is challenging.
Only replacing independent regimes with pro-Western puppet ones matters. The media support it. Blood on their hands doesn't deter them. Steady income eases conscience pangs. Soul selling pays well.
Syria's regime has to be changed in order to begin the attack against Iran, and that is the true prize here, from Israel's (which of course also means the US Government's) perspective.
I will be very surprised if Netanyahu waits until after the US election in November to start this.

 

Report: Obama speeds up limited air strike, no-fly zones preparations for Syria

US President Barack Obama has ordered the US Navy and Air Force to accelerate preparations for a limited air offensive against the Assad regime and the imposition of no-fly zones over Syria, debkafile reports. Their mission will be to knock out Assad’s central regime and military command centers so as to shake regime stability and restrict Syrian army and air force activity for subduing rebel action and wreaking violence on civilian populations.
debkafile’s sources disclose that the US President decided on this step after hearing Russian officials stating repeatedly that “Moscow would support the departure of President Bashar al-Assad if Syrians agreed to it.” This position was interpreted as opening up two paths of action:
IF this report is true, it most likely signals the beginning of the end for the Assad regime.
However, there is one question that the Obama Administration had better get well and truly sorted before this happens, and that is, what will Russia do, if the US does this?!?
There are already reports that the Russian military is ready to deploy in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime, so this would mean war with Russia, if those reports are true.
Russian Defense Ministry launched an intensive training units for operations abroad, including in Syria. Preparation for combat operations in this country, may lead Pskov 76th air assault division of Airborne, the 15th Brigade combined arms in Samara, as well as special units staffed by the Chechens, who had previously served in the GRU spetsbatalonah “West” and “East” writes, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”, citing anonymous sources in the military. Pskov Airborne Division – one of the most combat-ready connections in the Russian army, the newspaper notes. Its officers, NCOs and men participated in the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo in 1999-2001, in both Chechen wars in 1994-1996 and 1999-2007, and in the war with Georgia in August 2008.

Report: Obama orders U.S. intelligence to increase surveillance of Israel

Very,very,interesting!
WASHINGTON — The U.S. intelligence community has intensified surveillance of Israel’s military.
Western diplomatic sources said President Barack Obama has ordered intensified U.S. intelligence on Israel’s military and government.
They said Obama wanted to ensure that his administration could collect information that would indicate an Israeli plan to strike either Iran or Syria.

US post-Assad Syria plan: Intervention in the cards?

Hillary Clinton has put forward a new plan to remove Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from power. Echoing recent US threats to take action on Syria independently of the UN, the plan’s announcement coincides with yet another tragic massacre.
Clinton’s announcement comes amidst the news of more tragic violence in Syria. In what is being called a new massacre, reports on Thursday claimed that some 100 people, many of them women and children, were killed in the Hama region. The opposition says that Syrian security forces are responsible, while Damascus has accused rebels of perpetrating the heinous massacre themselves to try and garner support for foreign military intervention. Neither story can be independently confirmed.
Please remember: if Syria is attacked overtly by outside forces, Iran is treaty-bound to support Syria militarily.
And that will become the "justification" for an attack against Iran.

More Syrian Blood on Obama’s Hands

Morning headlines again falsely accused Assad of mass killings in Qubeir village in central Hama province.
Houla-style slaughter was repeated. Reports said as many as 78 civilians were killed. Half were women and children. Around 35 members of one family were murdered in cold blood.
Victims were shot at close range and/or stabbed. Some bodies were burned. Independent reports haven’t explained what eventually will come out. Pro-Assad loyalists were targeted for assassination. At issue also is creating pretexts for Libyan-style intervention.

UN Says Syria In Full-Scale Civil War As Rebels Launch Massive Offensive

The head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Syria says the nation is now in a full blown civil war as the US and Russia accuse each other fueling the violence.

UN Monitor Says UN Is Collecting Intel For Syrian Invasion

A Jordanian member of the UN observer team in Syria says some of his teammates are carrying out spy missions by collecting information about Syria’s military headquarters.

Lavrov Guarantees 'No External Intervention' in Syria

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that the UN Security Council would not allow a mandate on the intervention into Syria.
"There will be no external intervention by the [UN] Security Council, I guarantee you," Lavrov told journalists in Kazakhstan's capital of Astana.
Western countries have been attempting to make the UN Security Council take tough measures against the Syrian government, where according to UN statistics some 9,000 have been killed during clashes between government forces and the opposition since March of last year. So far the Security Council has not come to a unanimous decision since both Russia and China have vetoed intervention into Syria so as not to repeat the "Libyan scenario.
Without a UN mandate, the US and NATO may simply move on their own to affect regime change in Syria.
This could well mean war with Russia, if the Duma and Russian military (and of course, Vladimir Putin) decide that they need to draw a line in the sand here.

China, Russia United Against Intervention in Syria

BATUMI, Georigia – China and Russia say they are united in opposing foreign intervention in Syria. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to meet with allies Wednesday in Turkey to discuss how best to pursue a political transition to end President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
Secretary of State Clinton says it is “pretty clear” that the main focus of international diplomacy must be on intensifying efforts to speed a political transition in Syria.
“We believe there is a way forward and we are going to continue to pursue that and we invite the Russians and the Chinese to be part of the solution of what is happening in Syria,” she said.

China's top paper warns against armed intervention in Syria

China's top state newspaper warned on Monday that any Western-backed military intervention in Syria would unleash even bloodier chaos, and said abandoning envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan could push Syria into the "abyss" of full-scale war.

Clinton: Russia Must Embrace Regime Change in Syria

Or what? Gonna dump Russia in Fort Marcy Park?

UK Plot To Run Military Operations From Camps Inside Syria Revealed

The Daily Star has learned that the UK plans to use camps being set up under the pretense of Humanitarian Aid is Syria to direct military operations.

SAS and MI6 to set up camps inside Syria

According to a report published in Daily Star, British Special Forces would set up camps along Syria’s borders with Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon and that Special Air Service (SAS) troops and MI6 agents will help the rebels if civil war breaks out in the country.
They also have ­hi-tech satellite computers and radios that can instantly send back photos and details of events unfolding in Syria.
”There are guys in the communications unit who are signalers that can go right up front and get ­involved in close-quarter fighting,” Daily Star quoted a senior Whitehall source as saying.
The British troops would be part of an international force ­including French and Turkish soldiers and possibly Americans.

Syrian rebels kill 100 government soldiers as they repudiate UN ceasefire

The Free Syrian Army declared that it was no longer bound by a ceasefire plan brokered by Kofi Annan, the UN and Arab League special envoy to Syria, who was yesterday struggling to salvage international backing for his efforts .
Rebel leaders said they had authorised the resumption of full-scale military operations after the Syrian leader ignored their ultimatum to comply with the terms of Mr Annan's plan by last Friday.
"We have decided to end our commitment to this (plan)," Maj Sami al-Kurdi, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, said.

French Bishop: Syrian Soldiers Face Foreign Fighters, Mercenaries, and Militants

The US, NATO, Israeli, and Gulf State-backed "heroic" Free Syrian Army has been accused by Syria's Christian community and its foreign affiliates of waging a sectarian, not "pro-democratic" war on the Syrian people. French Bishop Philip Tournyol Clos stated, "the picture for us is utter desolation: the church of Mar Elian is half destroyed and that of Our Lady of Peace is still occupied by the rebels.

Syria bans US and European diplomats

Syria has barred a string of US and European diplomats, saying they are "no longer welcome" in the country, but has signed an agreement to admit humanitarian aid.

US & UN Openly Waging War on Syria

"It was not possible to independently confirm many details of the massacre Wednesday afternoon in Qubair, a small Sunni hamlet northwest of the city of Hama that is surrounded by villages populated by members of Assad’s Shiite-affiliated Alawite sect," reported the Washington Post. Even days after the alleged atrocity unfolded, no evidence has been produced to match the torrent of sensational headlines now being exploited by the West and the UN to justify another round of condemnation and threats against the Syrian government.

War in August? US sends fourth aircraft carrier and dozens of underwater drones towards Iran

The US Navy has unexpectedly dispatched a fourth aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, along with a fleet of underwater drones in what is being considered just the latest move in a series of escalations leading towards a potential war with Iran.
The deployment of dozens of small, unmanned submarine-like watercraft was confirmed by the Los Angeles Times this week, which cites military officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israel 'super-ready' to attack Iran – Defense Chief

http://www.rt.com/news/israel-ready-attack-iran-military-chief-097/

Israel is fully prepared to attack Iran if needed, declared Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, saying the military threat is one convincing method of forcing Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions.
­According to the military chief, “the vectors of international diplomatic isolation, economic pressure and sanctions, disturbances to the [nuclear] project… and a credible military threat” make the list of factors that can influence the direction of Iran's nuclear program.
“In order to be a credible military threat, we must be super-ready, and as far as I’m concerned, we’re super-ready,” Gantz was cited by Israeli media as saying to the country’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Memo to Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gantz; sir, I would very strongly caution you to be very careful about what you wish for here.
First, according to many studies, Israel may be able to start this war by itself, but will most likely need US military intervention to assist you to succeed in it.
And I can assure you, sir, that the American people have no appetite whatsoever for this war. They understand fully that they were lied to about the war in Iraq (for which Israeli leadership was cheerleading, as Iraq was being characterized as its "existential threat du jour" at the time).
They fully understand that to date, because of IAEA inspections, no nuclear materials have been diverted from its energy program into any kind of nuclear weapons program. The 20% enrichment which is happening in Iran is for the creation of medical isotopes; not to make weapons with which to blow things up.
They also understand that, due to the provisions of the Symington Amendment, and because Israel refuses to become a member of the NNPT and allow its nuclear missile sites to be inspected (there is no more "ambiguity" over this program, sir), that every dime the American government gives to Israel in military or financial aid, is completely illegal.
To be sure, the Obama regime may institute some kind of martial law with which to gag protestors against American military participation in such an attack; this will not, however, change the way Americans will feel about it, which will be that they have been betrayed by their government.
But let's say this war is neither a clean "surgical strike", or short, but drags on for a couple of years?!? The Israeli casualties will be enormous, and Hezbullah will be attacking every Israeli asset in the region and beyond.
And one question, sir: in attacking Iran, how comfortable does the Israeli military and political leadership feel about knowing that an attack against Iran will also kill members of one of the oldest surviving Jewish communities in the world, your fellow and sister Jews who are living in Iran?!? Just checking.
And even if the US does assist you militarily, this does not insure a positive outcome, and for the following reasons: the US government doesn't have the troops, the money, or the manufacturing to insure a successful outcome.
And lastly, Chief of Staff Gantz, leaders of nuclear-armed countries such as Russia, China, and Pakistan have recently publicly stated that should Iran be attacked, they will go to its aid militarily.
So what we have here, sir, is the potential for a global thermonuclear war over an alleged Iranian nuclear program which cannot, to date, be proven to exist.
So please, be very careful about what you wish for as an outcome to a war with Iran; the unintended consequences from such an engagement could be both catastrophic and irreversible, not only for Israel and its future, but for the entire world as well.

'Iran giving Assad personnel to kill own people'

"I think what is happening in Syria is awful, it is wholesale murder," Netanyahu said. "And you have to understand who is supporting this brutality, this butchery – it is Iran and Hezbollah. I mean supporting them physically. Killers supporting killers, giving them weapons, personnel to actually do the killing. This is what we are facing: Iran, which brutally murdered its people on the streets, Syria which has perfected the technique of shelling its own civilian population with artillery." Netanyahu, who has weighed his words on Syria very carefully since the uprising began there last year, was careful, however, not to answer directly whether he thought the West should intervene in Syria militarily.
And what actual, tangible proof can Netanyahu offer here that his accusations are accurate?!?
The short answer is, absolutely nothing, nada, zip.
And of course, at this critical moment in history, he doesn't want to be seen as a not-so-covert "cheerleader" for a potential coming war against Iran, which is why he turned "shy" in this statement about saying anything about a potential US attack against Iran.
And why?!? Because it is not Iran and Hezbullah which are arming the Syrian rebels: it is elements of the West and NATO who are performing these atrocities, in their attempt attempt to topple Assad.
Rebel sources in Hatay told me that not only is Turkey supplying light arms to select battalion commanders, it is also training Syrians in Istanbul. Men from the unit I had been embedded with two weeks ago were vetted and called up by Turkish intelligence in the last few days and large consignments of AK-47s are being delivered by the Turkish military to the Syrian-Turkish border. Materiel is being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border. Opposition activists said this week that the flow of weapons has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding each month.
According to the Vatican, the Syrian government is not responsible for the atrocities committed against civilians. Quite the opposite. Vatican sources point to existence of armed gangs and terrorists. "According to the "Syrian National Council", which leads the opposition in Houla, in the province of Homs, 88 people, including civilians and children, were killed by the bombing of the regular army. Fides sources report a different version: the regular army hit Houla, where many Salafist militants and terrorists have found refuge, using civilians as human shields." "armed gangs out of control continue to rage and hit innocent civilians. Terrorists have blown up an Alawite’s house in the district of southern Rableh near Qusayr, always in the area of Homs. The explosion caused the death of Youssef Airouti, injuring his wife and his son, but also Hallaq Shibli and his wife Niamat Saadiyet, a Christian couple from Qusayr, who found refuge in Rableh. Meanwhile in Homs the Armenian Apostolic Church and adjoining school in the district of Hamidia were seized and occupied by the Syrian military's Liberation Army [Free Syrian Army], who use the buildings as housing and hospitals."
That this man is so pathologically capable of lying - when he, of course, knows better - rather makes me wonder if there has ever been anything coming out of his mouth which has ever, been ever true.
How his views and accusations can ever be treated as credible any more in any circumstances by other world leaders is a true mystery.
The only thing I can imagine to be the mechanism in place, causing government heads to appear to accept such absurd statements at face value, is that there is a great deal of information collected on world leaders, and developed by Israeli intelligence.
I wouldn't bet against such career-killing information being held over the head of almost any world leader who refuses to go along with Israel's geopolitical agenda.

Drone Pilots to Get Medals?

The Pentagon is considering awarding a Distinguished Warfare Medal to drone pilots who work on military bases often far removed from the battlefield.
"I got this medal for pushing the blue button, and I got this medal for pushing the red button, and I got the ribbon for pushing the yellow and red buttons together while leaving the blue button alone, and ..."

The Pentagon wants awards for bravery for drone pilots who kill people remotely far from the field of battle

The Pentagon is considering awarding a Distinguished Warfare Medal to drone pilots who work on military bases often far removed from the battlefield. . . .

New ground-based laser can extend drone flight time indefinitely

Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post
Lockheed Martin, one of America’s largest war profiteers, has demonstrated technology in partnership with LaserMotive which can extend the flight time of their “Stalker” drone by 2,400 percent using a ground-based laser and potentially allow the drone to stay in the air indefinitely.
With drones being used by the military in league with law enforcement and with the practice set to expand across United States, this could be a great way to keep surveillance on potential criminals around the clock, or just monitor traffic.
This technology, which admittedly sounds like pure science fiction, uses a proprietary method to wirelessly transfer energy via laser light over long distances, in this case from the ground to the Stalker as it flies...

18,000+ U.S. Police Departments to Get Sales Pitch From Drone Manufacturers

As the Federal Aviation Administration helps usher in an age of drones for U.S. law enforcement agencies, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) domestically by the U.S. military — and the sharing of collected data with police agencies — is raising its own concerns about possible violations of privacy and Constitutional law, according to drone critics.
A non-classified U.S. Air Force intelligence report obtained by KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO dated April 23, 2012, is helping fuel concern that video and other data inadvertently captured by Air Force drones already flying through some U.S. airspace, might end up in the hands of federal or local law enforcement, doing an end-run around normal procedures requiring police to obtain court issued warrants...

The U.S. military is operating drones domestically and sharing data with law enforcement

As many are now well aware, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is pushing for the integration of drones into the national airspace, especially for use by law enforcement and unsurprisingly a bill was passed and signed into law doing just that.

Global Hawk Drone Crashes in Maryland, USA

There were no injuries to civilians and no property damage, said the Navy, which said it is investigating the cause.
Attack of The Drones

US drones kill 15 in North Waziristan strike

The US carried out another drone strike in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan. The strike is the third in Pakistaniin three days, and the eighth in the two weeks since the US failed to get Pakistan to reopen the supply lines for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The remotely piloted Predators or Reapers launched a pair of missiles at a compound in the town of Mir Ali, a terrorist hub in North Waziristan, according to AFP. Fifteen "militants" were killed in the strike, Pakistani officials told the news agency.

Officials say US drone strike kills 10 suspected militants in Pakistan

Two Pakistani intelligence officials say four missiles were fired at targets in the village of Mana Raghzai in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan on Sunday morning.
At the time of the attack, suspected militants were gathered to offer condolences to the brother of a militant commander killed during another American unmanned drone attack on Saturday. The brother was one of those who died in the Sunday morning strike. The Pakistani officials said two of the dead were foreigners, and the rest were Pakistani.

Attack of the drones: 27 killed in just three days as U.S. increase strikes in Pakistan

Obama Drone Strikes Are Mass Murder - Jeremy Scahill

Israel to deploy missile interceptor on Egyptian border

Israel is to install a mobile air defense system at the Egyptian border, following cross-border attacks in the area, reports the Israeli media.

UN criticized for hiring companies engaged in rights abuses

The New York-based Global Policy Forum (GPF) said in a research report on Tuesday that Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) committed “serious human rights abuses, killed or injured innocent civilians, engaged in financial malfeasance and committed many other breaches of the law.”
The full report is entitled “Dangerous Partnership: Private Military & Security Companies and the UN.”

World Health Organization Fails In Its Effort To Defend Mercury In Vaccines Before United Nations

Bowing to pressure from the Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs (CoMeD, Inc.) and other organizations, the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed its 2004 guidelines on eliminating, reducing, and replacing Thimerosal in vaccines to public health officials worldwide.
WHO made its disclosure before the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) where it met unprecedented resistance to its defense of the use of neurotoxic mercury in vaccines. “This is a huge development,” says CoMeD’s Vice President, David Geier, while speaking at UNEP’s INC4 meeting.

H1N1 vaccine linked to potentially fatal nervous system condition: study - The Telegraph

The swine flu vaccine used during the pandemic may increase the risk nervous system disorder that causes temporary paralysis almost three fold, a study has found.
Researchers in Canada have found that for every million doses of the H1N1 pandemic vaccine that were administered in 2009/10 there were two extra cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome which can be fatal in extreme cases.

Vaccines Combine to Produce Deadly Virus

Vaccines aren’t supposed to cause disease. But that appears to be what’s happening on Australian farms.
Scientists have found that two virus strains used to vaccinate chickens there may have recombined to form a virus that is sickening and killing the animals.
“This shows that recombination of such strains can happen and people need to think about it,” said Glenn Browning, a veterinary microbiologist at the University of Melbourne, Parkville, in Australia and one of the co-authors on the paper.
“The birds effectively choke to death on blood and mucus,” said Browning.

The 2011 oral polio vaccine paralyzed 47,500 Indian children

Abstract Source:

Indian J Med Ethics. 2012 Apr-Jun;9(2):114-7. PMID: 22591873

Abstract Author(s):

Neetu Vashisht, Jacob Puliyel

Article Affiliation:

Department of Paediatrics, St Stephens Hospital, Delhi 110054, India. puliyel@gmail.com
It was hoped that following polio eradication, immunisation could be stopped. However the synthesis of polio virus in 2002, made eradication impossible. It is argued that getting poor countries to expend their scarce resources on an impossible dream over the last 10 years was unethical. Furthermore, while India has been polio-free for a year, there has been a huge increase in non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP). In 2011, there were an extra 47,500 new cases of NPAFP. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received. Though this data was collected within the polio surveillance system, it was not investigated.

CT Scan Radiation Triples Brain Tumor Risk in Children

Anthony Gucciardi
Activist Post
CT scans, routinely performed on children and adults alike at the suggestion of their doctor, may actually triple the risk of developing leukemia or brain tumors in children.
Scientists are now warning over the link between CT scan radiation and elevated brain tumor risk after the information was brought to the surface, thanks to new research stemming from Newcastle University.

Alternative health experts have long warned against the large amount of unnecessary CT scans and other scanning techniques involving radiation.

Published Thursday in The Lancet medical journal, the scientists discovered that due to the fact that the CT scans can trigger cancer, it should only be used when “fully clinically justified.”

Currently, doctors frequently use CT scans to examine the severity of chest infections and other diseases. In addition, head trauma is also examined with CT scans to check for brain injury. This is particularly problematic when considering the fact that these scans involve rather large doses of radiation, even when compared to x-ray alternatives. CT scan radiation can be especially problematic with growing and developing brains.

In fact, CT scans emit 10 times more radiation than x-ray options. It is for this reason that the researchers of the study conclude that it should be a “priority” to limit radiation doses used in CT scans. The results were based on 180,000 children who received CT scans in Britain between 1985 and 2002.

Previously, dental x-rays have been linked in similar research to a two-fold increase in brain tumor risk. Coming out of Yale, the researchers found that the risk factor ratio could actually be even higher for children, which isn’t surprising. When exposed to bitewing x-rays (the kind that shows upper and lower back teeth) performed less than once per year, patients were 1.1 to 1.6 times more likely to experience a form of brain cancer known as meningioma. When the number of x-rays jumped to 1 or higher per year, or even more frequent panorex dental X-ray (an X-ray showing all teeth and surrounding bones), the risk factor increased by 2.7 to 3.0 What’s more, is that x-rays performed before age 10 gave the young children a 4.9 times more likely chance to develop the condition.

As further research comes out, it becomes more and more apparent that radiation is unsafe at any dose — especially for children. It is time to re-examine the current medical paradigm and opt for safer alternatives in order to fight the burdgeoning cancer rates currently surging throughout the globe.

Additional Sources:
Yahoo News
LA Times

Melinda Gates pledges $560 million for contraception

Melinda Gates: Family Planning Means Sterilizing Women in Developing Nations

By supporting this effort, Gates believes she can prevent 40% of people who would otherwise have been born, there by justifying family planning as a scheme to make women healthier who have “families are more successful and their communities are more prosperous.”
The future has no fathers, according to Gates. Only one child, only one woman.

Merck Teams With Gates Foundation to Further Worldwide Depopulation

Susanne Posel, Contributor
Activist Post
At the London Summit on Family Planning (LSFP), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) pledged $560 million to their campaign to depopulate underdeveloped nations. World leaders, private-sector corporations, UN representatives and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attended the LSFP.

Warren Buffet, friend and fellow Elitist, has agreed to hand over most of his wealth to charity; contributed stock valued at $1.52 billion in his annual gift to the BMGF.
Buffet asserted in a YouTube video in 2011:
"I urge people to unbutton their wallet, pull out a check, reach into their purse, whatever it takes. You will find that when you give a dollar and something of yourself, a lot more than a dollar comes out the other end."

Gates and WHO Partner to Create the Global Vaccine Action Plan

Susanne Posel, Contributor
Activist Post

The World Health Organization (WHO) has devised a scheme to vaccinate people living in over 194 countries. They joined forces with the Decade of Vaccine Collaboration (DVC) and published their plan last month.

The Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) is pushing governments worldwide with the power of the UN to back them to coerce the increase of global vaccinations through strategic programs.

The DVC is comprised of stakeholders from the global health community. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) have also partnered with the WHO and DVC to support GVAP.

The BMGF released a statement on the GVAP saying that they are excited to be part of this “incredible opportunity” to continue their efforts to eradicate polio in “Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan” and fund “vaccination campaigns with the support of international partners.

The details of GVAP include delivery of vaccines to DVC between 2011 – 2020 with aims to administer these immunizations to underdeveloped nations like Africa and India. The initiative will attempt to exceed the UN’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) that “immunization . . . should be recognized as a core component of the human right to health”, the plan says. The plan’s mission is to “extend, by 2020 and beyond, the full benefit of immunization to all people.”

Strategic objectives of the scheme are defined:

• Extending the polio vaccine program to global expectations
• Meeting regional elimination targets through immunizations
• Meeting vaccination targets in every region, community and country
• Collaborating with drug corporations to produce vaccines and technologies

WHO and DVC want to build relationships with pharmaceutical manufacturers to research and develop new vaccines for diseases that are not treatable through immunization.

By 2015, all underdeveloped nations will be admonished by the UN to introduce one or more underutilized vaccines, which will be licensed and disbursed by WHO and DVC to low- or middle-income countries by 2020.

They Want To Sterilize American Women: Sterilization Won’t Cost Women A Penny Under Obamacare

End of the American Dream  Did you know that sterilization will not cost women a penny under Obamacare?  A new regulation that goes into effect on August 1st requires that health plans cover sterilization for all women with “reproductive capacity”.
That includes teenage girls.  According to the new regulation, women must have access to sterilization “without having to pay a co-payment, co-insurance or a deductible.”  So women will not have to pay a single penny out of pocket if they want to get sterilized. Of course this sterilization mandate will make health insurance more expensive for all of us, but the social engineers in Washington D.C. feel that increasing access to sterilization is a very important public policy goal.

The Nightmare Gathers Force

If we broaden our perspective, and if we look beyond particular developments and attempt to grasp what is happening over a longer period of time, the nature of the horror that awaits us takes on a clearer shape: The West's ruling class is embarked on a program of killing and elimination. A general caution should be kept in mind. I'm not suggesting that this program is one that the ruling class has explicitly identified, even to itself, at least not necessarily. This, of course, is the goal which the ruling class announces, and which it desperately tries to convince both itself and us is true.
This is why the push is on for chemical or physical sterilization, coupled with a rush to war as dual means for depopulation.
You have not killed me yet. Time to short Monsanto? Who else does the Genetically Altered Seed?Oh thank you so much Gates and Buffett.Time to short BRK-A http://rachelhunt.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/gmo-corn-and-sterilization/ Taking antibodies from women with a rare condition known as “immune infertility” and isolating the genes that regulated the manufacture of those antibodies, they inserted them into the corn plants, creating, in essence, a biological weapon for population control. And who was helping to finance this endeavor? The Gates’ Foundation (which includes the Buffet Foundation) and the Rockefeller Foundation, through a project called The Alliance for a Green Revolution, headed by none other than former U.N. Chief, Kofi Annan. Major GMO agri-businesses are reported to be at the heart of AGRA, using it to spread their GMO technology throughout the Third World. According to Engdahl, “Gates and Buffet are major funders of global population reduction programs.” http://farmwars.info/?p=283 http://www.2012theawakening.com/?p=2481 http://oneworldscam.com/?p=12 If we can do a really good job through health care new vaccines and reproductive services we can lower it by 10 or 15% oh but plants need co2 to live. http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=A155D113455FAC882A3290536575C723 Then there is Meat Glue. http://www.dailyspark.com/blog.asp?post=have_you_heard_of_meat_glue Don't forget Aspartame. http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Aspartame-GM-Bacteria.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame Upon ingestion, aspartame breaks down into natural residual components, including aspartic acid, phenylalanine, methanol,[21] and further breakdown products including formaldehyde[22] and formic acid, accumulation of the latter being suspected as the major cause of injury in methanol poisoning. Human studies show that formic acid is excreted faster than it is formed after ingestion of aspartate. In some fruit juices, higher concentrations of methanol can be found than the amount produced from aspartame in beverages.[9] High levels of the naturally-occurring essential amino acid phenylalanine are a health hazard to those born with phenylketonuria (PKU), a rare inherited disease that prevents phenylalanine from being properly metabolized. Since individuals with PKU must consider aspartame as an additional source of phenylalanine, foods containing aspartame sold in the United States must state "Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine" on their product labels http://www.enotes.com/how-products-encyclopedia/aspartame I wonder why we have high health care cost. But no worries mate. The government is taking really good care of you. Now renumber children. No smoking outside anymore in some states and we have put a band on that nasty natural salt so you won't have high blood pressure. The government is taking really good care of you. Just close your eyes and go back to sleep.There you go
And of course, the rush to war (Syria, Iran, ANYWHERE, before the US economy tanks), is self-evident.

Smoking Ban Inspector Stripped Naked

In the Belgian village Sivry Rance an inspector of the Department of Health was attacked by the customers of the Café de la poste and stripped naked . The man was controling the ban on smoking in bars.
Ever wonder why the government says smoking is bad for you yet you always see politicians and bankers with huge cigars in their puss? It is true that the mineral fertilizer that tobacco for cheap cigarettes made for the serfs is grown in is radioactive, but tobacco in and of itself, grown organically, is not the source of cancer. Is the ban on smoking because tobacco stimulates the brain, makes it more alert, something politicians don't want the serfs to be?
In Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", lower-class citizens were force-fed alcohol during their gestation to damage their brains, to make them stupid, pliant, and more useful for society's lower functions. Is that one reason alcohol, which kills brains cells is legal in the US, while marijuana, which stimulates the growth of new brain cells, is not?

People Imprisoned in U.S. for Drug Offenses Skyrockets from 41,000 to 507,000 in 30 Years

No wonder states like California and others experienced a boom in prison construction beginning in the 1980s.
According to statistics compiled by The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit dedicated to prison reform, the total number of people in jails and prisons for violating drug laws soared from 41,000 in 1980 to 507,000 by 2010.
During this same 30-year period, the overall prison and jail population more than quadrupled, from 502,886 to 2,266,832 inmates. The United States leads the world in per capita incarceration at 743 per 100,000, ahead of Rwanda (c595) and Russia (568).

Économie:

 

Oil plunges to 8-month low below $82 in Europe as weak US jobs report rattles markets

The price of North America's benchmark crude oil plunged to fresh eight-month lows below US$82 a barrel on Monday as a weak U.S. jobs report last week continued to spark a global selloff in stocks and commodities.
By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for July delivery was down $1.08 to $82.15 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier in the session, the contract briefly traded at $81.21, the lowest since October.
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Wow, gasoline is not down at the pumps. It's still the equivalent of $5.20 per US gallon in the great white north!!!!

 

19 Warnings About A Coming Global Financial Catastrophe

Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post
Global leaders have tried just about everything that they can think of, but the coming global financial catastrophe continues to march steadily toward us. We have seen "stimulus packages", quantitative easing, bond buying, interest rate cuts, emergency economic summits, bailout packages for banks, bailout packages for entire nations, "Operation Twist", unprecedented government intervention in business and massive amounts of new government debt and yet nothing seems to revive the global economy.
In fact, it looks like we are rapidly heading into the second dip of a "double dip recession".

 

Baltic Dry Index Signals Renewed Market Collapse

Much has been said about the Baltic Dry Index over the course of the last four years, especially in light of the credit crisis and the effects it has had on the frequency of global shipping. Importing and exporting has never been quite the same since 2008, and this change is made most obvious through one of the few statistical measures left in the world that is not subject to direct manipulation by international corporate interests; the BDI. Today, the BDI is on the verge of making headlines once again, being that is plummeting like a wingless 747 into the swampy mire of what I believe will soon be historical lows.

Coincidence? Not a chance. From 2001 to 2002, a similar collapse in the BDI preceded a progressive drop in the Dow of around 4000 points, ending in a highly suspect (Fed engineered) illegitimate recovery. In 2008, the index fell to near record lows once again just before the derivatives and credit crisis hit stocks full force. To imply that the BDI is not a useful measure of future economic trends seems like an astonishingly ignorant proposition when one examines its very predictable behavior just before major financial downturns.

 

Wall Street CEO Pushing 80 Year Old Retirement Age

Robert Benmosche the CEO of AIG, is now saying Americans need to face the reality that the retirement age in the US needs to be pushed to 80 years of age.
Yes the CEO of that same AIG that held their hands out for $85 billion dollars of your money because they decided gamble the entire global economy is now complaining that the government can’t be expected to give out retirement benefits to senior citizens at age of 65.
Meanwhile AIG still hasn’t paid back taxpayers for the 2008 bailout and if you think this isn’t something that Congress isn’t going to try to push into legislation tell that to the Greeks who have been forced by the bankers to accept bailout terms that peg their retirement age to average life expectancy – (which is 78 years old for females and the 81 years old for males in Greece)

 

Top Dems push for probe of big banks over Libor rate scandal

According to The Financial Times, at least 900,000 home mortgages in the U.S. were pegged to the Libor, an interest rate index that governs how much banks charge to lend money to each other. The effect of manipulating that rate can hardly be overstated.
In other words, more than $275 billion in outstanding U.S. housing debt could be called in question if it is proven that major banks were actively manipulating the Libor rate to rip off customers. So far, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup have been roped into an ongoing global investigation of Libor rate manipulation, which recently saw British bank Barclays admit that it was part of the scheme.

Libor Rigging: The Tip of the Iceberg

Since 1994, the mythical Strong Dollar Policy had necessitated a two prong strategy: that of keeping rates low because weak currencies are typified by high interest rates; and the price of gold must be suppressed as it stands as an historical alternative settlement currency – and they don’t want the alternative to appear “strong."
Libor – or the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate – is one of the lynch pins in setting [rigging] global U.S. Dollar interest rates. This is why a larger discussion needs to be had about the Libor rigging – it is not a London or Barclay’s centric story. It has EVERYTHING to do with making the American Dollar look viable as the world’s reserve currency.
By Rob Kirby

GATA was born in the late 1990’s – primarily on the back of fundamental research by Frank Veneroso regarding Central Bank Gold Leasing.  Veneroso’s intellectual curiosity was aroused after being fed detailed data re: gold leasing by the Bank of England’s Terry Smeeton.
The fact that gold prices and interest rates were so highly “inter-related” was first publicized in the alternative media by Reg Howe in 2001.  Howe alerted the world to academic accounts of the special relationship between gold and interest rates.  He highlighted the body of economic law and observation associated with “Gibson’s Paradox” – something Lawrence Summers [later, U.S. Treasury Secretary and current senior economic advisor to Obama] wrote about with Robert Barsky while he was a professor at Harvard in the 1980’s.
The upshot of this Gibson’s Paradox economic theory goes something like this:  real interest rates and the gold price are causal and inter-related with each other.
This is why Professor Lawrence Summers was summoned to Washington as assistant Secretary of Treasury under Robert Rubin [Clinton Admin. / 1993].  It was to implement HIS THEORETICAL WORK under the auspices of Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin’s mythical “Strong Dollar Policy”.
Conclusion:  since 1994, the mythical Strong Dollar Policy had necessitated a two prong strategy: that of keeping rates low because weak currencies are typified by high interest rates; and the price of gold must be suppressed as it stands as an historical alternative settlement currency – and they don’t want the alternative to appear “strong”.
The interrelatedness of the gold price and interest rates helps to explain why – According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – of the 302 Trillion in aggregate derivatives held by American Bank Holding Cos – 81 % of this is composed of interest rate products.  This is due to the symbiosis that exists between gold and interest rates.
Libor – or the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate – is one of the lynch pins in setting [rigging] global U.S. Dollar interest rates.  This is why a larger discussion needs to be had about the Libor rigging – it is not a London or Barclay’s centric story.  It has EVERYTHING to do with making the American Dollar look viable as the world’s reserve currency.
When The Libor Story First Broke
It was Q3 2007 – post [Mar. 2007] Bear Stearns collapse – when credit markets “seized up” in response to the [Aug. 2007] sub-prime crisis, where triple-A-rated mortgaged bonded failed – stories first began circulating the mainstream financial press that “Libor” was “broken”.
The “tell-tale” that things were not right was A] the widening of the TED Spread [3 month Eurodollar future vs. 3 month U.S. T-Bill]  – expressed in basis points, and B] the growing spread between Libor and the Eurodollar future – again, expressed in basis points:

For more of this story: http://kirbyanalytics.com/

Read more: Libor Rigging: The Tip of the Iceberg « America First

 

Analysts Warn That HSBC’s Money-Laundering Fine In U.S. Could Amount To $1 BILLION

This is starting to get ugly for HSBC as the CEO warns that more trouble is ahead...

Eric Sprott Says Gold to Reach New Record by End of 2012 – 22%+ Rise From Today

“I just can’t imagine the demand for gold is going down,” he said in a July 9 interview at Bloomberg’s Toronto office. “I don’t personally see a solution to the problem that we’re in, the financial leveraging issue that we all have where everybody wants to shed debt and there’s no buyers.”
Sprott’s company manages funds investing mainly in gold, silver, and precious-metals equities. He expects bullion will rise as investors seek the safest assets while governments spend to stimulate their economies, increasing chances that inflation will accelerate.
Gold, which had advanced for 11 successive years, is little changed so far in 2012. It’s 19 percent lower than the record $1,923.70 an ounce traded on Sept. 6 in New York after investors favored buying the dollar amid Europe’s escalating debt crisis.

 

Spain Will Have To Cede Most Control Of Banks: WSJ

Spain will likely have to cede most control over its banks to Europe in exchange for assistance, according to a draft agreement of the bank bailout agreement, The Wall Street Journal reported. The requirements could mean holders of junior bonds and preferred shares issued by banks that are bailed out will face losses, said the newspaper in its online edition.

Spain unveils new raft of brutal austerity measures

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the right-wing Popular Party announced a new €65 billion ($79 billion) package of cuts Wednesday, the fourth since his election last November.
The latest measures come on top of previous cuts, amounting to €48 billion, agreed between the central government and 17 autonomous regions. Those cuts had themselves been described as the most severe since the fascist dictatorship of Generalisimo Francisco Franco.

Spain Deepens Austerity Under European Pressure

Rajoy, of the center-right People's Party, proposed a 3-point hike in the main rate of Value Added Tax on goods and services to 21 percent.
Spain loots its people in a vain search for the eleventh marble!

Compound Interest and the Debt Bubble

"Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it." Albert Einstein

Warfare State Sending U.S. Off Fiscal Cliff

The end is near!

The US budget deficit grew by nearly $60 billion in June, and is on track to exceed $1 trillion for the fourth straight year. By the end of this fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, the full budget deficit will total $1.17 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

San Bernardino Is The Third California City To Go Bankrupt In Two Weeks

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — As recently as last month, no city in California had opted for bankruptcy since 2008, and no U.S. city of more than 200,000 people had ever chosen bankruptcy.
The past two weeks have changed all that, in a big way, as the fiscal struggles faced by so many American cities became too much for some to bear.

 

The U.S. Economy By The Numbers: 70 Facts That Barack Obama Does Not Want You To See

Why does the title of the article single out Barack Obama? Well, it is because right now he is the biggest cheerleader for the economy. He is attempting to convince all of us that everything is just fine and that the economy is heading in a positive direction. Well, the truth is that everything is not fine and things are about to get a whole lot worse. Certainly others should share in the blame as well. Congress has been steering the economy in the wrong direction for decades, the “too big to fail” banks have turned Wall Street into a pyramid of risk, leverage and debt, and the Federal Reserve has more power over the financial system than anyone else does.

The following are 70 facts that Barack Obama does not want you to see….

$3.59 – When Barack Obama entered the White House, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was $1.85.  Today, it is$3.59.

22 – It is hard to believe, but today the poverty rate for children living in the United States is a whopping 22 percent.

23 – According to U.S. Representative Betty Sutton, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities permanently shut down in the United States every single day during 2010.

30 – Back in 2007, about 10 percent of all unemployed Americans had been out of work for 52 weeks or longer.  Today, that number is above 30 percent.

32 – The amount of money that the federal government gives directly to Americans has increased by 32 percent since Barack Obama entered the White House.

35 – U.S. housing prices are now down a total of 35 percent from the peak of the housing bubble.

40 – The official U.S. unemployment rate has been above 8 percent for 40 months in a row.

42 – According to one survey, 42 percent of all American workers are currently living paycheck to paycheck.

48 – Shockingly, at this point 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.

49 – Today, an astounding 49.1 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives benefits from the government.

53 – Last year, an astounding 53 percent of all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.

60 – According to a recent Gallup poll, only 60 percent of all Americans say that they have enough money to live comfortably.

61 – At this point the Federal Reserve is essentially monetizing much of the U.S. national debt.  For example, the Federal Reserve bought up approximately 61 percent of all government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department during 2011.

63 – One recent survey found that 63 percent of all Americans believe that the U.S. economic model is broken.

71 – Today, 71 percent of all small business owners believe that the U.S. economy is still in a recession.

80 – Americans buy 80 percent of the pain pills sold on the entire globe each year.

81 – Credit card debt among Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket has risen by 81 percent since 1989.

85 – 85 percent of all artificial Christmas trees are made in China.

86 – According to one survey, 86 percent of Americans workers in their sixties say that they will continue working past their 65th birthday.

90 – In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

93 – The United States now ranks 93rd in the world in income inequality.

95 – The middle class continues to shrink - 95 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were middle class jobs.

107 – Each year, the average American must work 107 days just to make enough money to pay local, state and federal taxes.

350 – The average CEO now makes approximately 350 times as much as the average American worker makes.

400 – According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americanscombined.

$500 – In some areas of Detroit, Michigan you can buy a three bedroom home for just $500.

627 – In 2010, China produced 627 million metric tons of steel.  The United States only produced 80 million metric tons of steel.

877 – 20,000 workers recently applied for just 877 jobs at a Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama.

900 – Auto parts exports from China to the United States have increased by more than 900 percent since the year 2000.

$1580 – When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850.  Today an ounce of gold costsmore than $1580 an ounce.

1700 – Consumer debt in America has risen by a whopping 1700% since 1971.

2016 – It is being projected that the Chinese economy will be larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2016.

$4155 – The average American household spent a staggering $4,155 on gasoline during 2011.

$4300 – The amount by which real median household income has declined since Barack Obama entered the White House.

$6000 – If you can believe it, the median price of a home in Detroit is now just $6000.

$10,000 – According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.

49,000 – In 2011, our trade deficit with China was more than 49,000 times larger than it was back in 1985.

50,000 – The United States has lost an average of approximately 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

56,000 – The United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.

$85,000 – According to the New York Times, a Jeep Grand Cherokee that costs $27,490 in the United States costs about $85,000 in China thanks to all the tariffs.

$175,587 – The Obama administration spent $175,587 to find out if cocaine causes Japanese quail to engage in sexually risky behavior.

$328,404 – Over the next 75 years, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars.  That comes to$328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

$361,330 – This is what the average banker in New York City made in 2010.

440,00 – If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to totally pay it off.

500,000 – According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

2,000,000 - Family farms are being systematically wiped out of existence in the United States.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States has fallen from about 6.8 million in 1935 to only about 2 million today.

$2,000,000 – At this point, the U.S. national debt is rising by more than 2 million dollars every single minute.

2,600,000 – In 2010, 2.6 million more Americans fell into poverty.  That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.

5,400,000 – When Barack Obama first took office there were 2.7 million long-term unemployed Americans.  Today there are twice as many.

16,000,000 – It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

$20,000,000 – The amount of money the U.S. government was spending to create a version of Sesame Street for children in Pakistan.

25,000,000 – Today, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

40,000,000 – According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.

46,405,204 – The number of Americans currently on food stamps.  When Barack Obama first entered the White House there were only 32 million Americans on food stamps.

88,000,000 – Today there are more than 88 million working age Americans that are not employed and that are not looking for employment.  That is an all-time record high.

100,000,000 – Overall, there are more than 100 million working age Americans that do not currently have jobs.

$150,000,000 – This is approximately the amount of money that the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress are stealing from future generations of Americans every single hour.

$2,000,000,000 – The amount of money that JP Morgan has admitted that it will lose from derivatives trades gone bad.  Many analysts are convinced that the real number will actually end up being much higher.

$147,000,000,000 – In the U.S., medical costs related to obesity are estimated to be approximately 147 billion dollars a year.

295,500,000,000 – Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was $295.5 billion.  That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the planet.

$359,100,000,000 – During the first quarter of 2012, U.S. public debt rose by 359.1 billion dollars.  U.S. GDP only rose by 142.4 billion dollars.

$454,000,000,000 – During fiscal 2011, the U.S. government spent over 454 billion dollars just on interest on the national debt.

$1,000,000,000,000 – The total amount of student loan debt in the United States recently surpassed the one trillion dollar mark.

$1,170,000,000,000 – China now holds approximately 1.17 trillion dollars of U.S. government debt.  Yet the U.S. government continues to send them millions of dollars in foreign aid every year.

$1,600,000,000,000 – The amount that has been added to the U.S. national debt since the Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives.  This is more than the first 97 Congresses added to the national debt combined.

$5,000,000,000,000 – The U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars since the day that Barack Obama first took office.  In a little more than 3 years Obama has added more to the national debt than the first 41 presidents combined.

$5,000,000,000,000 – What the real U.S. budget deficit in 2011 would have been if the federal government had used generally accepted accounting principles.

$11,440,000,000,000 – The total amount of consumer debt in the United States.

$15,734,596,578,458.59 – The U.S. national debt as of June 7, 2012.

$200,000,000,000,000 – Today, the 9 largest banks in the United States have a total of more than 200 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives.  When the derivatives market completely collapses there won’t be enough money in the entire world to fix it.

 

28% of Federal Contract Funds Go to Just 10 Companies…All Make Weapons Systems

f this is the age of budget cutbacks and government austerity, someone ought to tell the Pentagon and its weapons contractors, because they haven’t gotten the memo about shared sacrifice. According to a summary of the top federal contractors produced by the Federal Procurement Data System, the Defense Department gave out $372.8 billion (70%) of the $532.6 billion in government contract spending in fiscal year 2011, with just 10 arms makers accounting for 28% of all contracting dollars, up from 25% a year before, and the top 5 accounting for 20.8%.
Can you imagine what 378 billion dollars could do toward fixing this country's crumbling infrastructure?!?

There Are 100 Million Working Age Americans That Do Not Have Jobs

Living the California debt based dream – adjustable rate mortgages and bankruptcies. Bankruptcies in California increased 557 percent from 2006 to 2011.

The California housing market sits in an odd stage of limbo. You can see that the public for the most part is fully aware of the situation like an Alamo standoff in real estate. People fully acknowledge now that banks are holding off a tremendous amount of inventory. There is little that is secretive about the shadow inventory at this point. Yet with all the distressed properties, people are looking at artificially low rates and are wondering if this is the time to buy (assuming they are not one of the 20+ percent that are underemployed).

Ted Butler "CFTC Has Lied and Complicit with the Silver Manipulation." Also, U.S. Govt. will directly prop metal manipulation - no middleman?

Obama, now has formed an agency to directly Bail out the Comex and London exchange for all the derivative bets of Wall Street. It is a back door bail out of the banks and makes sure the manipulation of metals continue, as I see it.
Ted Butler directly accuses the CFTC of lying and being complicit in the manipulation of silver. He says it is easy to prove. He is calling for the resignation of the whole CFTC board.

Bankia seeks US$24-billion bailout as debt worries mount

The Bankia group, a Spanish lender nationalized earlier this month, will seek 19-billion euros (US$23.8-billion) of government funds as it provisions against real estate and non-property loans.
The group will ask the state’s bank rescue fund to provide the money by buying shares in its parent company, Banco Financiero y de Ahorros, it said in a filing to regulators yesterday after a meeting of the board of Bankia SA, its listed arm. The group needs a further 4 billion euros to cover real estate on top of provisions already ordered by the government, and 5.5-billion euros for the rest of its loan book, it said.

Report: Japan & China to Drop Dollar, Begin Trading Directly in June

The dollar’s death by a thousand cuts just sustained a major blow courtesy the samurai as Kyodo News announced Saturday that Yen-Yuan direct trading will begin in June. Coincidence that Jim Sinclair predicted 6 months ago that the US dollar would suffer a major set-back in June 2012?

IF THIS DOES NOT TRIGGER A REVOLUTION, THEN YOU ARE ALL PUSSIES! As An Encore to Bailing Out the Big Banks, Government to Backstop Derivativees Clearinghouses … In the U.S. and Abroad

As the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday:
Little noticed is that on Tuesday Team Obama took its first formal steps toward putting taxpayers behind Wall Street derivatives trading — not behind banks that might make mistakes in derivatives markets, but behind the trading itself. Yes, the same crew that rails against the dangers of derivatives is quietly positioning these financial instruments directly above the taxpayer safety net.
What this basically means is that the US Government let Wall Street go wild with high-stakes gambling called Derivatives, and even after the disaster of AIG (which was dumped into the taxpayers) derivatives were still allowed to run rampant across the globe. In other words, since Wall Street and the government ducked the consequences of their earlier greed, they got greedier. Derivatives exposure in Europe alone is almost $100 trillion. So what Wall Street and Washington DC just did is drop the derivatives exposure onto the taxpayer. So when the system implodes, which is now inevitable, they will come knocking on the door for your money, your gold, your jewelry, the gold in your teeth, your silver, your copper, your car, and most importantly the lives of your children pledged as slaves to the resulting debt for the next 20 generations. As ancient Rome succumbed to the machinations of the money-junkies, wives, daughters, even sons were forced to work in state-owned houses of prostitution. Already in Europe women are being told they must work as whores if they cannot find other work with which to pay the money-junkies. Think it will not happen here? Still believe Saddam had nuclear weapons?
Now, consider that since 2008 the American people have told the US Government not to use taxpayer money to backstop Wall Street's recklessness. Had DC allowed Wall Street to take their lumps from the mortgage-backed securities fraud and fail, to be replaced by more responsible financial leaders, we would already be headed out of this mess the way Iceland is. But the US Government ignored the will of the people, went ahead with TARP and an endless stream of additional bailouts, Wall Street got greedier and now Europe hovers over the edge of a precipice, firmly tied to the Wall Street banks by derivatives, and now Washington DC wants to move those chains from their good buddies the bankers onto your ankles, and wave good bye as you sink our of sight into the abyss.
In other words, the government is going to force you to pay for the failure that resulted from their doing something you told them not to do in the first place.
And if you go along with this, then you deserve everything that is about to happen.
Now is the time to get angry, because you have nothing left to lose!
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” -― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Facebook's Fall: Slide Carves $21B Off Market Cap In 7 Trading Days

In terms of market capitalization, Facebook has been the biggest loser since its debut among the companies in the Russell 1000 index, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

Is The End Nigh: Rockefellers And Rothschilds Merge

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/end-nigh-rockefellers-and-rothschilds-merge

You know its bad when... two of the largest and best-known 'familia' in Europe and the US come together. As the FT reports, The Rockefellers and The Rothschilds are uniting under a common group as Rothschild Investment Trust and Rockefeller Financial Services become one. The patriarchs (David Rockefeller 96, and Lord Rothschild 76) have been 'connected' for five decades. Between the Rothschild's 'sprawling' multi-century banking empire across Europe and the Rockefeller's roots in 1882 Oil-money, we can only imagine the Illuminati, Freemasons, Templars, and Central Bankers of the world are quaking in their boots at this new global force for change - The Rothsellers or is it The Rockchilds. What next? It seems only Soros is left to complete the holy trinity...

 

And The Hits Just Keep On Coming: Spain Sees €31 Billion Deposit Outflow In April

Just when talks of Accelerated Kinetic Action In Close Proximity To Cash Dispensing MachinesTM in Spain were quieting down, here comes Goldman to reminds us that nothing is fixed. "The ECB released April deposit data today. Italian deposits in April were stable, with a moderate increase in retail (+€7 bn) more than offsetting a small reduction in corporate deposits. In Spain, April saw €31 bn (or 1.9%) deposit outflow from banks. Within this only half is attributable to corporate (down €7 bn or -3.4%) and retail balances (down €8 bn, or -1.1%). The residual outflow is attributable to deposit reductions by others (financial institutions / pension funds / etc)."
Yep, it's a bank run!

The Third World Is Giving Up On Europe

First it was Nigeria cutting back its European exposure, now it is South Africa's turn:

Biggest Greek bank warns of dire euro exit fallout

If Greece left the euro, living standards would plummet, incomes would be slashed by more than half, and inflation and unemployment would skyrocket, the National Bank of Greece warned on Tuesday.
"If Greece left the euro, living standards would plummet, incomes would be slashed by more than half, and inflation and unemployment would skyrocket, the National Bank of Greece warned on Tuesday."
Exactly the same thing that has happened by staying WITH the Euro!

 

Greece's NBG posts Q1 loss as recession bites

Greece's largest lender National Bank on Wednesday reported a 537 million euro ($666 million) loss in the first quarter, as the country's deep recession led to weaker income and more non-performing loans.

 

US 10-Year Treasury Yield Hits Record Low of 1.62%

The benchmark U.S. Treasury yield fell to its lowest level in at least 60 years on Wednesday as worries of contagion from Spain's ailing banks raised bids for low-risk investments.

Telegraph: Oil prices to double by 2022, IMF paper warns

As oil prices remain at historically high levels of around $110 (£68) a barrel, the working paper warned a combination of rising demand and constrained supply could have major consequences.
"Our prediction of small further increases in world oil production comes at the expense of a near doubling, permanently, of real oil prices over the coming decade," the report's authors concluded.
"This is uncharted territory for the world economy, which has never experienced such prices for more than a few months."
They said that research suggested energy accounted for up to 50pc of overall gross domestic product, meaning "the implications of lower oil output growth for GDP could be very large."
Persistently high oil prices are already threatening the global economic recovery according to a director of the International Energy Agency.

Amid mass unemployment, corporate profits surge

Amid deepening poverty and unemployment for masses of American working people, the largest US corporations once again posted record profits last year.
Fortune magazine released its ranking of the 500 biggest US corporations Monday, which showed that they received a record-breaking $824 billion in combined profits in 2011, up 16 percent from 2010.
But despite having more money than ever, companies are refusing to invest and hire. Instead, they are paying out record bonuses to executives and hoarding what remains in cash.

Lawsuit in India to get their Gold back from The Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements

It seems there was a law from 1934 saying India had to hole 85% of it's gold in the country, but it has 46% of it outside the country now being held in England and Switzerland. Now, we all know that The Bank of England is a driving force behind the manipulation of Gold and the BIS is a Rothschild's banks and they had sold all kinds of gold a couple of years ago on paper to various countries including India.
What is funny is the Reserve Bank of India did not show up for the hearing for this lawsuit and they have not responded to it. Remember, people in Germany and Switzerland have requested their gold back from the U.S. a couple of months ago. Now we have the country of India who by law is suppose to hold 85% of it's gold in the country but has not.

 

Bilderberg 2012: Secret Conclave Site Found

MEMPHIS—Hundreds of patriots were on hand for two consecutive rallies held in Memphis on April 27, one at noon and one in the evening. Many pledged to bring busloads of other like-minded advocates for American sovereignty to Chantilly, Va. on the weekend of May 31 – June 3 to protest the annual meeting of the secretive Bilderberg group being held there.
Bilderberg will meet in Chantilly at the Westfields Marriott, a short distance from Dulles International Airport, some 30 miles outside Washington, D.C. Bilderberg previously met there in 2002 and then again in 2008.
A gathering of high-level figures from the elite ranks of global finance and industry in the self-interested sphere of influence of the plutocratic Rothschild and Rockefeller families, Bilderberg works to direct the course of world affairs, unimpeded by popular concerns, rightly raising the hackles of the kind of good patriots who gathered in Memphis.

Obama: 'Sometimes I Forget' Magnitude of the Recession

Mitt Romney's press secretary, Andrea Saul, responds: "It’s not surprising that a president who forgot to create jobs, forgot to cut the debt, and forgot to change Washington has now admitted that he’s forgotten about the recession.

Americans consume EIGHTY percent of the world's pain pills as prescription drug abuse epidemic explodes

Americans consume 80 percent of the world's supply of painkillers -- more than 110 tons of pure, addictive opiates every year -- as the country's prescription drug abuse epidemic explodes.
That's enough drugs to give every single American 64 Percocets or Vicodin. And pain pill prescriptions continue to surge, up 600 percent in ten year, thanks to doctors who are more and more willing to hand out drugs to patients who are suffering.
As more people get their hands on these potentially-dangerous drugs, more are taking them to get high. Their drug abuse leads to 14,800 deaths a year -- more than from heroin and cocaine combined.
We saw similar drug (and alcohol) abuse patterns in the USSR just before it collapsed.

 

Jobless Americans to lose unemployment benefits

More than 200,000 long-term jobless Americans will lose their unemployment checks this week, when eight states roll off the federal extended benefits program.
Nearly half of them live in California, and the rest reside in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Texas.
The federal extended benefits program has provided the jobless with up to 20 weeks of unemployment checks after they've run through their state and their federal emergency benefits, which together last up to 79 weeks.
But the extended benefits program is expiring throughout the country as the economy improves. To be eligible for these benefits, a state must show that its unemployment rate is at least 10% higher than it was in at least one of the past three years.

Boomers wave bye-bye to retirement savings

Low Interest Rates Are Great For Bankers' Recovery From Criminal Gambling, But Retirement Plans Of Millions Wiped Out!

JP Morgan Derivative/Props Desk 3+ Billion Losses. WHY did they release this info on a Thursday after market not Friday after market, as normal bad financial news is? Worse news to come?

All the financial news sites are covering the information about JP Morgan losing 3+ Billion from their gambling on derivatives. That information was released yesterday (5/10/12) Thursday after the markets closed in the U.S.
Something just is not right about the news of the 3+ Billion losses coming out on a Thursday. That just does not happen. All bad financial news comes out after the markets close on Fridays, so the markets do not instantly react but have time to settle down over the weekend.
WHY was this news not held 24 more hours until today (Friday 5/11/12), after the markets closed? This news began affecting the markets immediately. The DOW futures were down 77 after the news came out.
I just have a problem and feel something is just not right about the releasing of this information on a Thursday and not a Friday. They could have held on to it until Friday.

The 86 million invisible unemployed

There are far more jobless people in the United States than you might think.
While it's true that the unemployment rate is falling, that doesn't include the millions of nonworking adults who aren't even looking for a job anymore. And hiring isn't strong enough to keep up with population growth.
UPDATE: I am bumping this back to the top because I posted the 40% jobless figure in a comment posted at CNN Money and as you can see Wall Street's minions are already trying to ridicule the claim. If you have a moment, feel free to add your own wisdom.
Now, pay attention class; the US has admitted there are 86 million "invisible" unemployed in the US (only they did not stay invisible as the government hoped because the alternative media kept pointing them out). The US government admits to there being 12.5 million "visible" unemployed, which together with the invisible means 94.5 million Americans are available to work but do not have a job. Total US population is 330 million. But 24% of those are young people not eligible to work. And 13 percent are retired. So the total population of available workers in the United States is 100% - (24% + 13%) = 63% of 330 million people, or 207 million workers. And with 94.5 million workers not working, the true jobless rate in the US right now is 45%, not the 8% the media keeps propagandizing you about.

America For Sale: Chinese Group Plans To Construct A 200-Acre 'China City' In Michigan

Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post
A Chinese group known as "Sino-Michigan Properties LLC" has bought up 200 acres of land near the town of Milan, Michigan. Their plan is to construct a "China City" with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens. Essentially, it would be a little slice of communist China dropped right into the heartland of America.
This "China City" would be located about 40 minutes from both Detroit and Toledo, and it would be marketed to Chinese business people that want to start businesses in the United States. Unfortunately, this is not just an isolated purchase...

In fact, Chinese companies have been buying up land and businesses all over the country in recent years. There has even been talk of establishing "special economic zones" inside the United States modeled after the Chinese city of Shenzhen. It was inevitable that the Chinese were going to do something with the trillions of dollars that they have made flooding our shores with cheap products. Now they are rapidly buying up pieces of America, and many of our politicians are welcoming them with open arms.

The town of Milan, Michigan is a small farming community of only about 6,000 people, but big changes are coming their way. The following is from a recent Dayton Daily News article about this new project....

A group of mainland Chinese known as Sino-Michigan Properties LLC paid $1.9 million for 200 acres of farmland on Milan city limits in purchases this year and in 2011, according to local officials and property records.

Unfortunately, the goal does not appear to be to integrate this new "city" into the existing community in and around Milan.

Rather, it appears that all of the new housing will be sold to people coming over from China. According to the Milan News Leader newspaper, the new housing units "would be marketed to Chinese business people who want to start companies in the United States".

In essence, we would be looking at a new Chinese city right in the middle of Michigan.
This new project would be a Chinese community built by Chinese and specifically designed for Chinese.

But isn't this supposed to be America?

Fortunately, the project does not have final approval yet. It still must be approved by the two townships outside of Milan where the land is located.

For some reason, the Chinese seem to be particularly interested in this area of the country.

For example, a different Chinese investment group has been busy buying up chunks of real estate over in nearby Toledo, Ohio. The following is from an article in the Toledo Blade on May 26th, 2011.
But it is another thing altogether to start dropping slices of communist China inside of U.S. territory.

In a previous article entitled "China Wants To Construct A 50 Square Mile Self-Sustaining City South Of Boise, Idaho", I discussed a potential deal that Sinomach (a company controlled by the Chinese government) was exploring with the government of Idaho. The following is a description of that potential project from an article in the Idaho Statesman.

Federal Reserve Clears Communist China For First Takover Of US Bank

The federal reserves has approved the first take over of a US bank by China while approving 3 communist state-owned Chinese banks to enter the US market.

S&P report: A $46 trillion perfect credit storm may be brewing

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services estimates the funding needs of nonfinancial corporations in the eurozone, U.K., U.S., China, and Japan at $43 trillion to $46 trillion over the next five years. This includes $30 trillion of debt that will require refinancing and $13 trillion to $16 trillion of new money needed to spur growth, according to a report that the credit rating agency published earlier today.

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase & The Fed: Billions & Trillions for Insiders

• Dimon served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the same time that his bank received over $390 billion in total emergency loans from the Fed.
• JPMorgan Chase was used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for the Fed’s emergency lending programs.
• Dimon was successful in getting the Fed to provide JPMorgan Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements.
• Dimon convinced the Fed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JPMorgan Chase acquired this troubled investment bank.
$390 billion isn’t small change, even considering our current stratospheric government spendathons that are now measured in Trillions. And since we’re mentioning trillions, it is apropos to bring up another figure that came out of the GAO audit of the Fed: $16 Trillion.
$16 Trillion in Bailout and Loans — Mainstream Media Barely Notice
“As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,” said Sen. Sanders in a press release on July 21, 2011. “This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”
JPMorgan Chase was not even the biggest recipient of the Fed’s largesse. That honor fell to Citigroup, which received more than $2.5 trillion! Second was Morgan Stanley, which sucked down more than $2.04 trillion. Third was Merrill Lynch, which took in more than $1.9 trillion. Then Bank of America at $1.3+ trillion, Barclays at $868 billion, Bear Stearns, with $853 billion, Goldman Sachs at $814 … and on and on.
The details of the huge sums involved and the banks they went to are tucked away in Table 8 on page 131 of the GAO audit.
Some of the other cozy relationships between the Fed and Wall Street insiders exposed by the audit and highlighted by Sanders include:
Unflipping believable; and on the backs of every US taxpayer at that.

Postal Service loses $3.2B in 2nd quarter

WASHINGTON (AP) - The ailing U.S. Postal Service is reporting quarterly losses of $3.2 billion, brought on by declining mail volume and mounting costs for future retiree health benefits.
From January to March, losses were $1 billion more than during the same period in 2010.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe says the mail agency is incurring significant losses because Congress has failed to pass legislation allowing it to eliminate Saturday mail delivery and reduce health and other labor costs.

Will the FHA require a bailout? – 12,000,000 underwater mortgages 3,000,000 are FHA insured loans. 1 million underwater mortgages originated in last two years.

FHA insured loans have been a big booster for the current market. Historically FHA insured loans made up roughly 8 to 12 percent of all mortgage originations but in 2009 they hit 30 percent. For first time home buyers it was a stunning 50 percent showing that most people can only purchase a home today with a very small down payment. Yet small down payments create instant negative equity positions if the market moves sideways or pops lower (aka our current market). For example, the 3.5 percent standard FHA down payment is wiped away by the 5 to 6 percent selling costs. What is interesting with this is that the FHA insured loan market is fully backed by the government (i.e., you) so any losses will be completely shouldered by the public. The move to increase premiums recently was no fluke. One piece of data that stood out to me was of the number of homes in negative equity, how large the FHA numbers grew.

18 Signs That The Banking Crisis In Europe Has Just Gone From Bad To Worse

#1 Moody’s has announced that it has downgraded the credit ratings of 16 Spanish banks.  Included was Banco Santander, the largest bank in the eurozone.
#2 Shares of the fourth largest bank in Spain, Bankia, dropped 14 percent on Thursday.
#3 Overall, shares of Bankia have declined by 61 percent since last July.
#4 Shares of the largest bank in Italy, Unicredit, dropped by about 6 percent on Thursday.
#7 In recent days, about eight times more money than usual has been pulled out of Greek banks.
#8 Fitch has slashed the long-term credit rating for Greece from B- to CCC.
#9 The European Central Bank has cut off direct lending to at least 4 Greek banks.
#10 According to a recent German documentary, financial records at the Ministry of Finance in Athens are being stored in garbage bags and shopping carts.
#14 Civil unrest is rising to dangerous levels in Italy.  The Italian government has assigned bodyguards to 550 individuals and has increased security at about 14,000 locations in response to recent violence related to the economic crisis.
#17 Moody’s downgraded the credit ratings of 26 Italian banks on Monday.
#18 Moody’s has announced that it is reviewing the credit ratings of 114 more European financial institutions.
Newspapers all over the globe are speaking breathlessly of a potential Greek exit from the euro, but it is very unlikely to happen before the next Greek election on June 17th.
The rest of Europe is going to continue to financially support Greece until a new government takes power.
If the new government is willing to accept the previous bailout agreements, then financial support for Greece will continue.
If the new government is not willing to accept the previous bailout agreements, then financial support for Greece will stop.
If that happens, the bank runs in Europe will likely become a lot worse.
But for now, Greece almost certainly has at least one more month in the euro.
Beyond that, there is no telling what is going to happen.
Greece is the first domino.  If Greece falls, you can count on others to eventually start tumbling as well.
The second half of 2012 is going to be fascinating to watch.
Hopefully things will not be as bad as many of us now fear they may be.

Hundreds of protesters clash with police in Naples

Two policemen have been injured as hundreds of protesters hurled red paint and eggs at officers guarding Equitalia, Italy's tax collection office, in Naples following the suicide of yet another debt-ridden Italian citizen.
Demonstrators lobbed rocks and bottles at policemen clad in riot gear as the building was quickly closed to the public.
The protesters claimed to have attacked the tax office after its director refused to close it to mourn the latest suicide in Naples, allegedly sparked by the delivery of a bill from the tax recovery office, ANSA news agency reports.

The Bank Runs In Greece Will Soon Be Followed By Bank Runs In Other European Nations

http://www.cnbc.com/id/47434632

Greek depositors withdrew 700 million euros ($900 million) from the nation's local banks recently, said President Karolos Papoulias, though the exact timing of the transfer was unclear.

Citing a conversation he had with Greek Central Bank Governor George Provopoulos, Papoulias said "that the strength of banks is very weak right now."

Since May 6th, nearly one billion dollars has been withdrawn from Greek banks.  For a small nation like Greece, that is an absolutely catastrophic number.  At this point, the entire Greek banking system is in danger of collapsing.  If you had money in a Greek bank, why wouldn't you pull it out?  If Greece leaves the euro, all euros in Greek banks will likely be converted to drachmas, and the value of those drachmas will almost certainly decline dramatically.  In fact, it has been estimated that Greek citizens could see the value of their bank accounts decline by up to 50 percent if Greece leaves the euro.  So if you had money in a Greek bank, it would only make sense to withdraw it and move it to another country as quickly as possible.  And as the eurozone begins to unravel, this is a scenario that we are going to see play out in country after country.  As member nations leave the eurozone, you would be a fool to have your euros in Italian banks or Spanish banks when you could have them in German banks instead.  So the bank runs that are happening in Greece right now are only a preview of things to come.  Before this crisis is over we are going to see bank runs happening all over Europe.
If Greece leaves the euro, the consequences are likely to be quite messy.  Those that are promoting the idea that a "Grexit" can be done in an orderly fashion are not being particularly honest.  The following is from a recent article in the Independent....

"Whoever tells you a Greek exit would be no big deal is an idiot, lying or disingenuous," said Sony Kapoor of the European think-tank Re-Define. Economists fear that a disorderly exit would prompt a huge run by investors on Spanish and Italian debt, forcing those countries to seek support from an EU bailout fund, which, with a capacity of just €500bn, is widely regarded as too small to cope with those pressures.

A Greek exit from the euro would not only result in a run on Spanish and Italian bonds, but it would also likely result in a run on Spanish and Italian banks.
If Greece is allowed to leave the euro, that will be a signal that other countries will eventually be allowed to leave as well.  Nobody in their right mind would want their euros stuck in Spanish or Italian banks if those countries end up converting back to national currencies.
Fear is a powerful motivator.  If Greece converts their euros back to drachmas, that will be a clear signal that all euros are not created equally.  The race to move money into German banks will accelerate dramatically.
And a Greek exit from the euro is looking more likely with each passing day.  Even the IMF is now admitting that it is a very real possibility....

Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, warned she was “technically prepared for anything” and said the utmost effort must be made to ensure any Greek exit was orderly. The effect was likely to be “quite messy” with risks to growth, trade and financial markets. “It is something that would be extremely expensive and would pose great risks but it is part of options that we must technically consider,” she said.

Meanwhile, banks in other troubled European nations are already on shaky ground.  The Spanish banking system is an absolute disaster zone at this point and on Monday night Moody's downgraded the credit ratings of 26 Italian banks.
The situation in Italy is especially worth keeping a close eye on.  As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard recently noted, things are not looking good for Italy at all....

Italy's former premier Romano Prodi said the EU risks instant contagion to Spain, Italy, and France if Greece leaves. "The whole house of cards will come down", he said

Angelo Drusiani from Banca Albertini said the only way to avert catstrophe is to convert the European Central Bank into a lender of last resort. Otherwise Italy faces "massive devaluation, three to five years of hyperinflation, and unbearable unemployment."

So what can be done about any of this?
Well, there is actually a lot that could be done if politicians in Europe were willing to think outside of the established global financial paradigm.
The truth is that Greece could solve their current financial problems in four easy steps.  They would have to be willing to stick it to the rest of Europe and to risk being blackballed by the international community, but it could be done.
The following is my prescription for Greece....
1) Default on all debts.
2) Leave the euro.
3) Issue drachmas that are debt-free and that do not come from a central bank.  Instead, have the Greek government create them and spend them directly into circulation.
4) Enjoy a return to prosperity.

Greece in final bid to avoid fresh elections

Greece's president will meet the leaders of the country's three biggest parties on Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to cobble together a coalition and avoid a repeat election in a few weeks.
Evangelos Venizelos, the head of the socialist PASOK party, officially gave up the mandate to form a coalition government on Saturday, the third party leader to fail following negotiations with other parties.
The problem is that the minority block of politicians who are working for the IMF are simply refusing to go along with any coalition that refuses to sell the Greek people back into slavery to the bankers. In the US, this would be a filibuster approach. But if this pro-bailout/austerity faction succeeds in reversing the Greek peoples' mandate, they will probably trigger a revolution. The end result will be the same; Greece will drop out of the EU, the Euro will crash and $95 trillion on credit default swaps sold by Wall Street will come due.

Greek leaders fail to form coalition as poll shows radical leftist would win new election

The latest round of talks failed after the left wing leader who wants to renegotiate the country’s critical EU bailout refused to join forces with parties that support the austerity measures.
Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Radical Left Coalition or Syriza, said his presence in the proposed coalition was merely being sought by more established, pro-bailout parties as a “Leftwing accomplice”.
Evangelos Venizelos, the leader of the socialist Pasok party, admitted the talks had failed and said he would return his mandate to form a government to the president today.

European Banks Face Huge Losses From Greek Bonds

Europe’s biggest banks may finally be forced to own up to their losses.
While bank executives and government leaders have been reluctant to acknowledge that the hundreds of billions of euros of Greek debt held by financial institutions is worth far less than its face value, they are slowly accepting the grim reality, as investors, clients and lenders grow increasingly wary.
On Tuesday, Deutsche Bank said it would not meet its profit goals for the year, citing investor uncertainty and losses on Greek bond holdings. Government officials are debating dismantling Dexia, the large French-Belgian bank, and warehousing its troubled assets in a bad bank.
The latest woes prompted a broad market sell-off in Europe, hitting banks in France and Germany particularly hard. Wall Street, dragged down early by the problems on the Continent, lifted at the close, after reports that European financial officials were considering ways to shore up the industry.
It is not just Europe. Wall Street sold trillions in Credit Default Swaps on Europe's debt, including Greece's. Greece missed a major payment today, which means the purchasers of those credit default swaps will start knocking on the doors of the Wall Street firms who sold those swaps, and like AIG, they do not have the cash reserves needed to pay the claims! Stalling tactics cannot last forever. The manure is about to hit the air conditioning!

Greece on Fire - Global Financial Disaster Looms, Euro Or Not

As the global financial markets continue on their downward spiral mass anti-austerity protests sweep across Europe as a financial disaster looms.

Banks prepare for the return of the drachma

Taking It to the Streets in Spain

The citizens of Spain have taken to the streets and squares in great numbers to demand their rights. Estimates vary enormously. Spain’s right-wing government claims that 22,000 people came out in Barcelona in the demonstrations on 12th May while the organisers estimate between 200,000 and 250,000. What matters, however, is not the battle of numbers but the prevalent idea that “They don’t represent us”. A quick look at the present situation explains why growing numbers of indignant citizens have taken up this slogan and why they are calling for a Republic of the 99% in which the right of existence is deemed to be fundamental. With an economy at “huge crisis point” after two consecutive quarters of negative growth, an overall unemployment rate of 24.44% and 52.01% for the under-25s, and veering close to a “junk rating” by S&P, the Spanish government has responded with harsh and absurd measures that would make any decent economist shudder.

WORLD BRACES FOR EURO SPLIT

Raising the spectre of a Greek exit, the German chancellor said “solidarity for the euro” was threatened by the ongoing political crisis in Athens.
Stock markets around the world fell sharply with fears mounting that a euro break-up could lead to renewed financial turmoil. The FTSE-100 index of Britain’s major companies fell by two per cent to 5465, with bank shares hit particularly hard.
The cost of Spanish government borrowing also hit a record high since the single currency was introduced because of concerns that the crisis will spread.
Today, François Hollande, the new French president, will be sworn in and, in an indication of the concern gripping Europe, will almost immediately travel to Berlin to hold talks with Mrs Merkel that will be dominated by Greece’s plight.

JPMorgan Hit by 'Egregious' Trading Loss of $2 Billion

JPMorgan Hit by 'Egregious' Trading Loss of $2 Billion
The Associated Press | May 10, 2012 | 07:04 PM EDT
JPMorgan announced Thursday that it lost $2 billion in a trading portfolio designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money. As a result, that segment of its business is expected to record a second-quarter loss of at least $800 million.

 

JP Morgan Reveals Large Trading Loss; Shares Hammered

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) fell 6.5% after-hours after saying it incurred “significant mark-to-market losses in its synthetic credit portfolio.”
CEO Jamie Dimon apologized on a conference call at 5 p.m. for “egregious mistakes” and an “unbelievably ineffective” trading strategy meant to hedge trading positions.
“This is not how we want to run a business.”
These idiots were trading in Credit Default Swaps and using Mark-to-Market accounting, the same accounting system that led to the Enron implosion!

JP Morgan A Diversion? Moody's Downgrades 26 Italian Banks, Sends Euro Sliding

Moody's announced, after the bell, they downgraded 26 Italian banks which has sent the Euro sliding following its fall below the $1.30 psychological barrier.
The media had been hyping up the ramifications of Spain failing to find investor's to buy its sovereign bonds over the last several weeks.
Following Europe's Bear Stearn's moment, Spain fell far short of raising funds they needed in their bond offering this morning, sending Spanish sovereign debt rates soaring while the story was barely a hiccup on the media radar, who instead diverts the attention of the masses to the JP Morgan debacle.

Moody’s to downgrade 21 Spanish banks

Moody’s is set to ‘significantly’ downgrade 21 Spanish banks within a week, following a cut of credit ratings on Italian banks, the Spanish economic daily Expansion said on Wednesday.
“Sources in the Spanish financial sector are convinced that the agency will lower in a significant manner the ratings of numerous institutions,” said the daily.
“The announcement can come within a week according to market sources,” it said, adding that 21 banks would be affected.
The downgrade would deal a further blow to battered Spanish banks, which find it hard to borrow money from other banks because many in Spain are heavily exposed to a real-estate sector that has been in a slump since 2008.
China has refused to buy any more European debt.
US banks are very heavily leveraged in European debt.
When this all comes apart (and it is only a question of when, rather than if), we will see a massive, and messy, unraveling of the world financial system as we know it.

HFT Manipulation? EURO Soars As Bank Run Spreads From Spain To The UK

As the run on the banks spread in Europe, with 30% of customers pulling cash out of UK branches of Spain's Santander bank, the Euro spikes on absolutely no news.

Bank Runs spread to Spain ... Black Swan ... and time to Bug out ?

Nationalized Spanish Bank Plummets On News Of Bank Run.
The government of Spain, which just nationalized Bankia to save it from collapse, is denying there was a run on the bank. But let us face it, considering that all governments lie to their people (remember that whopper about Saddam's nuclear weapons), would you bet your life savings the Spanish government is telling the truth this one time?
Me neither.
Only keep in the bank what you need to pay bills and keep the rest at home.

Asian markets plunge as Greeks head for polls

Investors dumped riskier assets for ultra-safe US government bonds...
A spectacular mistake when the American people decide (like the Greeks) that they do not want to be slaves to paying those binds for the rest of their lives.

Greece will run out of money soon, warns deputy prime minister

Greece's deputy prime minister has said the country will run out of money in six weeks unless it honours its bitterly-disputed EU bailout deal.
It isn't a bailout, it is just another loan at interest, plunging the Greek people further into debt to a banking system which by design produces more debt than money with which to pay debt. Roughly half the current Greek debt was the result of an under-the-counter deal between Papandreou and Goldman Sachs to conceal the scale of the debt problem with currency swaps. So why should the people of Greece be forced to repay debts from fraud?

How the Greek election wiped out five months of market gains in Toronto, France, Spain and Britain

Five months of slow, steady gains on the stock market – wiped out.
Canada’s premier stock market index is now in the red for the year so far – an indirect casualty of the latest worries over Greece’s sovereign debt crisis and the future of the euro.
Markets in Europe also sit in negative territory for the year, down about one per cent in Britain and France and more than 20 per cent in Spain.
The Euro crisis and its global effects (not to mention the global effects from Wall Street's Mortgage-Backed Securities Fraud) should put an end to this idea of globalism as a path to prosperity.

Moody’s downgrades 26 Italian banks; ratings now among the lowest in Western Europe

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the debt ratings of 26 Italian banks Monday as they struggled with the effect of the weak economy and government austerity measures.
The move means Moody’s now ranks Italy’s banks lower than most of their Western European peers.

Sarkozy to get lavish ex-presidential perks

Like all former French presidents, 57-year-old Sarkozy, whose fondness for the symbols of wealth led to him being nicknamed President Bling Bling, is to receive Euros 6,000 every month as "pension".

 

World Bank agrees $2b loan for Indonesia

THE World Bank has announced it's ready to provide Indonesia with a $2 billion loan, a backstop against a potential debt crisis in one of Asia's fastest growing economies.

Germany's Gold - A Conflict between the Central Bank and members of the Parliament for Repatriating it's reserves from NY Fed/London and France.

It seems there is a conflict/disagreement happening between the Central Bank of Germany (Bundesbank) and members of the Parliament and members of Germany's Federal Audit office (the Bundesrechnungshof) about Germany's gold.
It seems Germany's gold has not been fully accounted for in at least five years.
Now, members of the Parliament are standing up saying "They want the people's gold, back in the country." They also are out right saying "They don't think it is there any more either." It seems they think the Federal Reserve and London may have sold their gold.
The Central Bank of Germany is saying "We are not to question another Central Bank of the World. If the Federal Reserve says the gold is there, then it is"