Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
The German finance minister believes Germany should be allowed to emit more carbon dioxide (CO2) in compensation for phasing out its nuclear energy. Michael Glos (CSU) has written to his environment counterpart to say that Germany's planned nuclear phase-out must be taken into account when the EU is allocating CO2 permits to member states as part of its overall bid to lower greenhouse gas emissions from the bloc.
Russia's business elite are reaping huge profits from the high prices for natural resources and many are looking westwards to Germany for investment opportunities. However, the close ties between business and politics in Russia has prompted fears that Moscow could be intent on buying up the West one company at a time. "The Russian government and Russian entrepreneurs will buy up Western companies on a grand scale."
[Europress] [Russopress]
The lower house of the Polish parliament approved the European Union's new treaty on Tuesday. The ratification bill is now expected to be approved by the Polish Senate today. The process will then be finalised with a signature by the country's president.
The European Union's eastward expansion aimed to cement former Communist countries into a bloc committed to pluralism, democracy and good government. But the new members have a worrying tendency to backslide and succumb to "reform fatigue," according to a recent academic study.
In Brussels, officials acknowledge that often their hands are tied. "When they enter the EU we cannot differentiate between old and new member states. I would be interested to know how some of the older - even founder - member states would fare if they were to enter the EU now."
Russia will not allow Kosovo to become a member of the UN, its Foreign Minister said Wednesday. He told the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, that Moscow will use its power as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to block Kosovo from joining the world body.
Germany has confirmed its intention not to allow Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO's membership action plan - seen as a first step towards NATO membership - at a summit starting today. Berlin has insisted it is "not the right time" for the 2 ex-Soviet republics to be allowed a step closer to full membership of the organisation.
Berlin has also underlined that Russia's "legitimate security concerns" about the Alliance's enlargement to the east should not be ignored, confirming some observers' claims that Germany is particularly preoccupied with not annoying Moscow.
(And: NATO marches eastward)
In a provocative gesture on the eve of the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, President Bush flew to Kiev and appeared with Ukrainian President Yushchenko to press for the former Soviet republic's admittance into NATO.
The German government has made it clear it will oppose admission of both Ukraine and Georgia. As the NATO alliance functions on the basis of consensus, Berlin can effectively wield a veto over the further expansion of the alliance.
Germany is heavily dependent on Russian energy and is also Russia's biggest trading partner. Likewise, German capitalism is by far the largest source of foreign direct investment in Ukraine, having invested four times as much as US-based interests.
German officials have warned that Georgia's admission could result in NATO being drawn into a confrontation with Russia over the 2 territories if the Georgian government were to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty, committing the alliance to come to the aid of member states under attack or the threat of attack.
The German position appears to be widely shared in Western Europe. With the European Union, and Germany in particular, emerging as the preeminent economic power in the region, the US has sought to advance its own interests by asserting its military power and dominance over the NATO alliance.
Mr. Speaker: I rise in strong opposition to this ill-conceived resolution. The US House of Representatives has no business speculating on guilt or innocence in a crime that may have been committed thousands of miles outside US territory. It is arrogant, to say the least, that we presume to pass judgment on crimes committed overseas about which we have seen no evidence.
The resolution purports to express concern over the apparent murder in London of a shadowy former Russian intelligence agent, Alexander Litvinenko, but let us not kid ourselves. The real purpose is to attack the Russian government by suggesting that Russia is involved in the murder.
There is little evidence of this beyond the feverish accusations of interested parties. In fact, we may ultimately discover that Litvinenko's death by radiation poisoning was the result of his involvement in an international nuclear smuggling operation, as some investigative reporters have claimed.
At a time when we should be seeking good relations and expanded trade with Russia, what is the benefit in passing such provocative resolutions? There is none.
Shas and other government coalition members who permitted the transfer of armored cars and firearms to the Palestinian Authority are aiding and abetting terrorism and will lead to the shedding of Jewish blood, according to a Jewish legal decision issued by a group of hawkish rabbis this week. The rabbis also called on IDF officers and soldiers to resist military orders to facilitate the transferral.
The rabbinic decision which does not specifically mention Shas but indirectly targets the Sephardi haredi party as a government coalition member is another example of pressure from the Right on Shas to leave the government coalition.
Israeli war minister Ehud Barak claims the regime has learnt many lessons from the Lebanon war to stand against Hezbollah's great power. He also claimed that "Hezbollah is getting stronger, but so is Israel", adding that "I would suggest that no one of the other side of the border mess with Israel, for their own good."
The US has urged the UN to get 3,600 new peacekeepers on the ground in conflict-wracked Darfur by June.
China said Tuesday it opposed foreign nations providing support to what it said was the Dalai Lama's attempts to split Tibet from China, reacting to reports that he may go to Japan and Europe. "We oppose his splittist activities. We oppose any officials of foreign countries providing support for the splittist activities by the Dalai Lama."
China has accused Muslim extremists in the nation's northwest of trying to start a rebellion, an incident that an exile group said Wednesday was mainly a women's protest against Chinese rule.
As parliamentary elections in Iran confirm a vast majority for the hard-liners in Iran, jostling seems to have already gained pace for Iran's presidential elections in 2009. However, pressure on President Ahmadinejad has grown more forceful from within his own camp rather than the so-called reformists.
The divide between the hard-liners is now evident. Many from that camp are unhappy with much of the tactics used by Ahmadinejad and decided to run on a separate slate to that of the president.
Any chance of success in those elections lies solely with Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. In fact, it is Khamenei whose control of Iran's political sphere has been considerably strengthened by this clear divide among Iran's hard-liners. The man who has spearheaded Iran's revolution since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 now finds himself in a position of undoubted control.
Israel has reportedly unveiled plans to prepare for missile strikes it believes will be launched by states like Iran and Syria, PressTV reported. During the 5-day preparation operation, Israel will reportedly simulate conventional and non-conventional missile strikes to test emergency response against Iran and Syria as well as the evacuation of cities.
The operation is slated to begin on April 6, according to the WorldTribune.com. Analysts claim this news echoes the latest developments and points to a war on Iran as it follows a recent report that a US nuclear submarine had been deployed to the Persian Gulf.
Russian Foreign Ministry Officials are reported to be 'alarmed' today over a 'presentation' made by the US War Leaders to President Putin at this weeks NATO summit in Romania and which details the Americans plan to begin a nuclear attack against Iran's atomic facilities in the next 2 weeks.
Russian Military Analysts, in these reports, further state that with a US nuclear strike against Iran, Israel will, also, launch a simultaneous war against Syria.
One cannot but shudder to think of the grave consequences should their grab for total World domination fails.
The US military offensive against Iran may have begun with a swiftly escalating series of operations directed against the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which had been observing a 6 month old cease-fire.
Overall, US and Iraqi government forces are expected to continue a general offensive against the Mahdi Army, while claiming Iran is responsible for attacks on US forces.
A senior [Jewish] Treasury Department official called Iran "the central banker of terrorism" in testimony Tuesday before the Senate Finance Committee.
Who will be blamed if Bush and Cheney suddenly strike Iran, as the Russian Intelligence Services and other sources are are implying? The knee-jerk reaction will be to blame Bush and Cheney, who are to blame, however we must remember that it takes more than two men to start a war!
Who is it that is enabling these warmongers to endanger every citizen in the US? The elements of corporate America and the military that support another war have to be considered, but ultimately, they can only pull-off another attack if the public is largely unaware of their plans. It's time to be realistic and place the blame squarely where it belongs, on America's Mainstream News Media!
(And: Angry journalists)
A quarter of Americans believe that Iran now poses the biggest threat to the US, confirming that a sustained neocon propaganda campaign to demonize Iran and its leaders for their own strategic benefit is having a significant impact.
It was September last year when the New Yorker magazine reported that Dick Cheney ordered top Neo-Con media outlets, including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, to unleash a PR blitz to sell conflict with Iran. The fruits of that propaganda campaign are now clear to see.
While Bundesbank chairman Axel Weber, over Easter, was calling his colleague at the American Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, and other central bank heads, hectically, but without result, in a desperate search for measures by which the meltdown of the financial system could somehow be brought under control, the financial oligarchy escalated its efforts to destabilize many regions of the world, and to strengthen its global control under a new version of the British Empire.
Many apparently separate developing daily events don't make the slightest sense, if you don't look at them in their strategic context. In the face of Orwellian control of the media, it is even more necessary, to judge contemporary developments with the eye of an historian, who has not forgotten the lessons of, for example, the 20th Century.
Week after week, the outcry about the financial collapse becomes shriller, and threatens the existence of more banks, and thus, will exceed the capacity of the Federal Reserve for rescue actions.
The only option the Fed and the other central banks have left is printing money through hyperinflation, in the face of outstanding obligations of hundreds of trillions or more; this would mean hyperinflation à la Weimar 1923, whose current phase is already affecting the poor of this world in the most brutal ways.
When Prime Minister Brown, of all people, and President Sarkozy spoke, at their British-French summit on March 26-27, of the establishment of a new "Entente Formidable," for more transparency of the financial markets, and better ways to assign value to complex financial instruments, the German government should really learn the lesson that it doesn't pay to submit to the British Empire, by being more British than the empire itself.
Because it was first and foremost the US and Great Britain, which blocked Germany's demand for greater transparency at all the past G-8 summits.
And what has German Chancellor Angela Merkel gotten out of so misusing the German presidency of the EU, by subscribing repeatedly to the basic strategic interests of London ... and the transformation of Europe into an oligarchical dictatorship by means of the Treaty of Lisbon?
The new "Entente Cordiale" between Great Britain and France, which Sarkozy wants to turn into a "fraternity," is aimed against Germany, no less than was the Entente Cordiale of 1904 itself, which was organized by King Edward VII against the alleged domination of the continent by Germany.
The new edition of that Entente was between Margaret Thatcher, with her "Fourth Reich" campaign against German reunification, and François Mitterrand, was no less anti-German; it led ultimately to the destructive Maastricht Treaty.
That Merkel has now made herself the most ardent champion of the still-more-fearsome Lisbon Treaty, fits in the tradition of the containment of Germany through self-containment, as the involvement of Germany in the EU corset was commonly called.
All these strategic manuevers naturally also concern raw materials and energy. And Germany? Germany, in this respect, in spite of all its service to the empire, is totally isolated on the question of nuclear energy, and has just given up the Transrapid maglev project for Munich.
We find ourselves not only in the worst crisis since 1945, or 1931, as it now is almost commonplace to say. If we continue on this course, then an asymmetrical global war threatens to emerge out of the systemic crisis, a war by which the British Empire would draw the US, with its special relationship, as well as a militarized EU, into further wars against Eurasia. Such a 3rd world war would throw mankind into a Dark Age.
Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at home, the position of the globe's "sole superpower" is visibly fraying. The country that was once proclaimed an "empire lite" has proven increasingly lightheaded.
The country once hailed as a power greater than that of imperial Rome or imperial Britain, a dominating force beyond anything ever seen on the planet, now can't seem to make a move in its own interest that isn't a disaster.
Come next November, Diebold and the Supreme Court notwithstanding, we will get to choose between Tyranny and Despotism with Lies, and Liberty with Truth. The 2 coordinate branches of the War Party can only thrive based on fightings and fears within and without. Unlawful Government is the Transcendent Threat of our time.
(And: Hillary's sociopathic lies)
(And: McCain courts Catholic vote)
(Cartoon: Obama's softballs)
Don't blame us, oil industry chiefs told a skeptical Congress. Top executives of the country's 5 biggest oil companies said Tuesday they know record fuel prices are hurting people, but they argued it's not their fault and their huge profits are in line with other industries.
Appearing before a House committee, the executives were pressed to explain why they should continue to get billions of dollars in tax breaks when they made $123 billion last year and motorists are paying record gasoline prices at the pump.
Automakers reported double-digit US auto sales declines in March as demand for trucks and sport utility vehicles plummeted and consumers held back because of concerns about gas prices, the housing slump and tightening credit. Some automakers warned things could keep getting worse in the near term.
From the beginning of its administration, the Bush-Cheney team ignored the Constitution, the Congress, and even the Supreme Court, dismantling democratic foundations first established since the New Deal in the 1930s.
The Bush-Cheney Administration eliminated government supervision of financial and other markets, and privatized the government's traditional responsibilities from mine safety inspection even to waging Iraq war and occupation.
It gave hefty tax cuts to big business and the wealthy at the expense of the working and middle income classes, and abetted Wall Street's financial games. It also ignored the lessons of the bank failures of the 1930s: that unregulated, unsupervised financial markets inevitably produce financial frauds and catastrophic market failure and depress the economy.
The irony is that it was almost exactly 100 years ago — 1907, to be exact — that the original J.P. Morgan arranged a bailout of a troubled financial institution for the same purpose of preventing a panic that could end up with the whole economy declining. The difference is that J.P. Morgan and his fellow bankers used their own money, while the Federal Reserve System used their power to create money.
Today, the Fed chief is to begin 2 days of testimony, his first opportunity to answer some of these questions. They are certain to focus not only on Bear Stearns but also on why the Fed and others let things deteriorate to the point of crisis and whether their actions should serve as a precedent or guideline for future regulation of the financial sector.
(As a result: Stocks lower)
Henry Paulson, the US Treasury secretary, said Wednesday that he told Chinese leaders that Washington is making progress in resolving the US credit crisis but cautioned that there will be "more bumps" ahead. He said that the US was going through a "period of turmoil" but that the economy remains fundamentally strong.
Investors on drugs...
The mortgage crisis set off fresh shock waves Tuesday, with the biggest banks in Switzerland and Germany announcing huge write-downs totaling $23 billion, adding to the hundreds of billions in losses that financial firms already face from the subprime mortgage fallout.
Despite the continuing global tide of red ink, investors seized on hopes that the crisis may have hit bottom. Even so, some analysts say that the optimism may be premature, reflecting wishful thinking more than economic realities.
"The market has been consistently wrong each time they tried to find a bottom. There's no end in sight in terms of bad news," said an analyst at Oppenheimer & Company.
"There have been several false dawns during this crisis. One can't be at all confident the worst of this is behind us," said Lawrence Summers, Treasury Secretary under President Clinton.
Official EU data released Monday, showed inflation in the 15 euro zone countries surged in March to the highest level since the single currency bloc was formed in 1999. The European Central Bank's task of keeping a lid on soaring inflation while also helping to keep the euro-zone economy from falling into a rut became more complicated when the EU's Eurostat data agency said in an initial estimate that 12-month inflation in the euro zone jumped to 3.5% in March.
Every newspaper reports that it has the leak paper by the Financial Stability Forum, which purports to offer radical solutions to the crisis. Germany is already rejecting the proposals, even before Mario Draghi, governor of the Bank of Italy, and chairman of the FSF, decided whether or not to take them up in his own report to the G7, according to Frankfurter Allgemeine.
The paper said the proprosal were only those of the FSF-secretariat. Thomas Mirow, the German deputy finance minister, said they went too far, and were only appropriate if the crisis took an extreme turn. Germany opposes any notion that the public sector should provide capital to private sector banks, or that public institutions buy up mortgage junk paper.
The International Monetary Fund will forecast a recession in the US and a lower growth forecast for Germany and Europe, according to a German newspaper reports.
The Bank of Spain said Tuesday it expects economic growth to slow sharply this year and next due to international financial turmoil, and the country's once buoyant housing market to suffer a sharp correction.
The public does have the right to tell corporations what to do with their money. Why? Because corporations couldn't exist without government and, in the case of democracies at least, the authority of our government comes from the people, the majority. Therefore, the public has a right to demand something from corporations in exchange for giving corporations the right to exist.
From India to Africa to North Korea to Pakistan and even in New York City, higher grain prices, fertilizer shortages and rising energy costs are combining to spell hunger for millions in what is being characterized as a global "silent famine."
Global food prices, based on UN records, rose 35% in the last year, escalating a trend that began in 2002. Since then, prices have risen 65%.
On the brink of a food crisis, India on Monday night banned the export of non-Basmati rice and reduced import duties on edible oils. India faces a daunting task in battling inflation, with much of it being propelled by soaring international commodity prices for food, energy and industrial metals, economists said.
"This is a worldwide problem. Almost every country has a food inflation problem, especially poor countries in Asia and Latin America."
Seven years after an economic collapse brought misery to millions and toppled the Government, Argentina is facing renewed social unrest and empty shops as a farmers' strike nears the end of its 3rd week.
The strikes have cut Argentina's enormous exports of soya beans, as well as meat, and are likely to have a big impact on international prices.
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