Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
The manufacturing sector in Germany is growing as a proportion of the country's total economic output, and Germany looks set to outpace far larger economies like China and the US as the world's largest merchandise exporter for the 4th year running.
In addition, making all manner of valves, motors, machine tools and robots is providing Germans with something rare in the global economy: shelter from the storm.
Britain failed to impose its vision of radical reform of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy yesterday when Brussels announced a watered-down review of the €40 billion scheme that will keep handouts flowing to farms for years to come.
Ministers now face a bruising battle over the next 6 months to preserve what they regard as the advances of yesterday's proposals in the face of determined opposition from France and Germany.
The European Commission on Tuesday unveiled plans for a Mediterranean Union, taking care to emphasise its low-key vision for the new political set-up. Rather than a radical shake-up of relations between the bloc and it southern neighbours, the external relations commissioner said the proposals represented an "upgrade" in current relations and stressed that the EU's 13-year-old relationship with Mediterranean countries - known as the Barcelona process - remained "valid."
(And: EU plans smaller MU)
After 18 months of opposition, the 27 European Union member states finally agreed to launch strategic partnership talks with Russia, a move that green lights negotiations for a new cooperation accord between the nations.
On May 14 Russian Prime Minister Putin ordered the construction of the 2nd stage of the Baltic Pipeline System, an offshoot of the Druzhba pipeline built in Soviet times to pump oil to Europe through Belarus and terminals in the Baltic countries.
The energy with which Putin has addressed the task of diversifying Russia's hydrocarbons export routes and increasing production shows that the fuel and energy sector will remain the key priority of the new Russian government.
After the recent meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Russia, India, and China, and their follow-up meeting with the Foreign Minister of Brazil, Lyndon LaRouche declared that the agreements announced there reflect the emergence of what he had long anticipated: a Eurasian alliance determined to defeat the attacks on their nations by the British Empire, and its Bush Administration appendages.
This strategic alliance is based on the clear understanding by Russia, India, and China, in particular, that they must hang together to defeat the British imperial assault on the very survival of nation-states, or go down to defeat separately.
The political arena was shaken today, following an announcement by the Prime Minister's Office that Israel and Syria were holding direct peace talks mediated by Turkey.
(Analysis: Israel-Syria talks)
The Hezbollah-led Shiite opposition and the Lebanese government, which is backed by the West and Saudi Arabia, reached an agreement Wednesday to resolve an 18-month political crisis that has crippled the country and recently triggered the worst fighting since the 1975-90 civil war.
(Q&A: Political crisis in Lebanon)
Afghan authorities arrested 2 suspected suicide bombers outside the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif last week, adding to fears for the safety of German troops in the country.
In what Iranian state media dub "package diplomacy", the Islamic Republic and 6 world powers propose rival plans to end a stalemate over Iran's atomic ambitions. Both, like those that went before, seem destined for the shredder of history if Iran continues uranium enrichment and the West demands its cessation.
Iran's Defense Minister has called on the nations of the World to counter the Bush administration's mendacity. "Eight years of Neoconservative lies, deception, massacre, unilateralism, defiance of international regulations has led to global instability, insecurity and terrorism which has taken a heavy toll on the Middle East. The nations of the world have realized the truth about US warmongers and will never again believe their lies."
Prime Minister Olmert has proposed in discussions with the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, that a naval blockade be imposed on Iran as one of several ways to pressure Iran into stopping its uranium enrichment program.
"The present economic sanctions on Iran have exhausted themselves," Olmert told Pelosi, adding that the international community needed to take much more drastic steps to stop Iran's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. He also said there was a great deal of space between the present sanctions and military action. Aggressive action could be taken that was not violent.
The top uniformed US military officer told Congress Tuesday that Iran is directly jeopardizing any potential for peace in Iraq, prompting fresh calls from senators that the US pursue diplomatic talks with Tehran.
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that "irresponsible actions" by Iran's Revolutionary Guard "directly jeopardize" peace in Iraq.
Yes!...
The reports from Israel and the military buildup in the region raise an obvious question: With the approach of the 2008 elections, are elements within the Bush administration preparing an "October Surprise" in the form of an unprovoked attack on Iran?
(Cartoon: WMDs in Ira...n)
The archival evidence is now clear that Prescott Bush, the president's grandfather, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from and collaborated with key financial backers of Nazi Germany.
That business relationship continued after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 and even after Germany declared war on the United States following Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. It stopped only when the US government seized assets of Bush-connected companies in late 1942 under the "Trading with the Enemy Act."
The evidence from dusty archives suggests that the Bush family went way beyond appeasement of Adolf Hitler to aiding and abetting the Nazis.
President Bush, traveling abroad more this year than at any time of his presidency, plans to head to Europe in June to confer with allies on matters of war, terrorism and trade.
The White House on Tuesday confirmed the outline of Bush's trip, which uses the US-EU summit in Slovenia as a launching point. The president will then travel to Germany, Italy, France, England and Northern Ireland. While in Italy, the president will visit the Vatican. The trip is scheduled to run from June 9-16.
Veteran Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker has confirmed via 3 separate sources that the Bilderberg Group will meet this year in Chantilly Virginia at the Westfields Marriott hotel from June 5-8.
The "Main Core"
Is the US government compiling a secret list of citizens to detain under martial law?
Barack Obama's top foreign policy advisors are working hand-in-glove with leading neocons—and McCain advisors—on a campaign to turn world power over to the British Empire under the name of a "Concert of Democracies," or a "League of Democracies." The policy they advocate calls for multiple new UK/US-led invasions of countries in Africa and Asia.
Growing US-UK brawl
On Monday, May 12, Mike Turner [;-)], the CEO of BAE Systems, the British aerospace giant implicated in the "Al Yamamah" bribery and covert funding scandal, was detained by U.S. authorities as he arrived at Houston's George Bush International Airport. Turner and a second top BAE executive had their laptop computers, cell phones, and papers confiscated and copied by US officials, before being released.
As Executive Intelligence Review exclusively reported last year, the "Al Yamamah" deal, an off-budget barter arrangement, created a $100 billion British MI6/Saudi intelligence offshore slush fund for covert operations, in addition to billions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks to Saudi officials and others involved in brokering the deal.
Those slush funds have been used to finance wars in Africa and Asia for the past 23 years. US intelligence sources report to EIR that there is evidence that those Anglo-Saudi BAE covert funds are being used, today, to finance the ongoing destabilization in the Horn of Africa—particularly targeting Sudan, the growing Wahabi insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and last week's failed civil war provocation in Lebanon.
The US intelligence sources report that these covert destabilization actions have caused a growing Washington-London rift, despite the Bush-Cheney White House's continuing slavish collusion with the Anglo-Dutch oligarchy's global chaos operations. They report that patriotic American intelligence and military circles are furious at the British destabilization schemes, and are moving against BAE as a direct counter to London's war drive.
The chief of Britain's MI5 intelligence agency has admitted that one of his top counter-intelligence officers responsible for tracking al-Qaida officers has been ordered to resign because his wife is a prostitute. Her clients have included wealthy Arabs and a number of Saudi princes who are known to support Osama bin Laden.
The revelation emerged this past weekend after the officer confessed that his wife had taken part in a notorious "Nazi-style orgy" with Max Mosley, the Formula One racing chief and the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, the wartime British Fascist leader.
Few pieces of legislation generate the level of public scorn consistently heaped upon the farm bill. Presidents and agriculture secretaries denounce it. Editorial boards rail against it. Good-government groups mock it. Global trading partners formally protest it. Even farmers gripe about it.
But as Congress proved again last week, few pieces of major legislation also get such overwhelming bipartisan support. The sweeping 673-page bill touches on so many other issues of enormous importance to lawmakers and their constituents, rural and urban alike, that many say it is no longer accurate to call it the "farm bill."
German and US producers prices indices have shot up. These data yesterday clearly spooked the financial market, where there is a slow recognition that inflation may be a problem after all. The question among experts is to which extent is this price a result of speculation or structural supply shortages.
Stock market bears think: "Why does this market fail to fall? What's holding it up?" Stock market bulls think: "Why does this market fail to rise? What's holding it down?"
"Numbers racket" exposes potential disaster for economy, markets
Be forewarned: No matter who's elected president, America will soon see a massive statistical curtain pulled back, exposing a con game of historic proportions. And when that happens, you and I will suffer another ear-splitting global meltdown, bigger than today's housing-credit crisis, dragging us deep into a recession and bear market for years.
Fannie Mae's CEO told shareholders Tuesday that the housing market is "about halfway through" its crisis and home prices could fall as much as 25% before the worst is over.
At a May 14 press conference, the Bank of England governor stated that: "the nice decade is behind us." And indeed it is. Since last July, when Lyndon LaRouche publicly warned that the global financial system was dead, the bodies have been piling up faster than at a Hollywood orgy.
"The world monetary financial system is actually now currently in the process of disintegrating. Most of the financial claims and the financial assets and obligations in the world today, are worthless,... the fakery is enormous."
The sup-prime fallout and global credit crunch is hitting hard in Iceland. Hedge funds are wielding what Warren Buffet calls 'Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction' (a.k.a. derivatives), who have targeted the country with short-selling 'bear raids' to try and drive the 300,000 people living in Iceland and their economy into bankruptcy for a quick buck.
In the global daisy chain that is the world financial markets we should be mindful that an attack on Iceland means an attack on Britain, who is already suffering a real estate crash and economic contraction similar to the one in 1990.
Oil prices bolted to a new record above $132 a barrel today after the government reported that supplies of crude oil and gasoline fell unexpectedly last week.
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure. But the measure passed in a 324-84 vote -- a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.
The bill would subject OPEC oil producers to the same antitrust laws that US companies must follow.
[CFR Opinion Roundup][Newseum][Global Incident Map][Earthweek][Day-Night Map][Tonight's Sky][Moon phase]
The shift can be seen from Washington to Berlin: Across the Western world, the political middle is shifting back toward the left. Surprisingly, it may be the conservatives who are best equipped to capitalize on the shift.
Today in Scripture
* "The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the 15th day of the 2nd month after they had come out of Egypt." (Exo 16:1-13)
[WAR: This particular day was on the Sabbath day. And the next day started the count, with the manna each morning, toward the Sabbath day. Last year this was in sync with the week, but not this year.]
* "A very large crowd of people assembled in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the 2nd month." (2Chr 30:13)
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