Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
[WAR: Still in Kentucky...]
The notion that Chancellor Merkel should step up and take the lead within the EU to resolve tensions over Georgia and reshape the West's relations with Moscow appears to be emerging, with analysts claiming Germany is the only country that Russia might listen to.
"Germany is the one country that can warn Russia. Russia does listen to what Germany says. If Germany can make clear statements about the consequences facing Russia over Georgia and whatever else it might decide to do, it will have an impact on Russia."
Six years into its Afghanistan mission, the German army has killed a person there for the first time. Reports, though, are conflicting. While some speak of a firefight, others say it was an unarmed shepherd. The incident is part of a wider flare-up of violence in the country.
Watching the mess in Georgia, we should not get too smug about breakaway provinces on the fringe of central Asia. An ugly struggle for ethnic separation is brewing only an hour's train trip north from Paris.
Talk of shifting the frontier northward across half Belgium is pretty alarming when you think of the wars that have been fought over that patch of Europe.
A decision by the UN to hand over policing in Kosovo to a EU mission violates international law, Serbia's minister for the breakaway province said.
Serbia's foreign minister said the link is clear — US and Western support for Kosovo's secession from Serbia has helped fuel tensions in Georgia's separatist province of South Ossetia. He said the recognition of Kosovo's independence by the US and its NATO allies has "destabilized" other parts of the world.
"We have pointed out to the international community from the very start that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo could present a dangerous precedent. Unfortunately, this has proven to be true much sooner than anyone expected."
The agreement signed Wednesday by Condoleezza Rice and Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski to establish a missile defence shield on Polish soil marks a major turning point in international political relations.
The increasingly aggressive penetration of the US into central and eastern Europe is causing alarm in Paris, Berlin and Rome.
Between August 11 and 12, a sharp change occurred in the way the US media presented the war. The initial response to the war gave way to what can only be described as a tidal wave of anti-Russian propaganda. Now there was only one side to the story. What had happened?
The media presentation of the Georgia crisis is a textbook example of the way in which the "free press" in America functions as little more than a semi-official propaganda agency of the government.
War in the Caucasus is as much the product of an American imperial drive as local conflicts. It's likely to be a taste of things to come.
An elite group of Georgian special forces drove into the "Russian-occupied" Poti on 5 US military Hummers this week. The vehicles were carrying explosives, firearms and top-secret satellite technology — the pride of NATO generals.
According to Russian officials, they didn't expect that a key unit of Georgian intelligence trained by top NATO specialists would drive directly into their hands. The Georgian officers were overtaken without causalities.
It's likely NATO will have to re-encode their entire military and space system after the operation, which will be costly.
Russia must withdraw its military forces from Georgia "now," the White House demanded Thursday. Russia has shown no signs of a full-scale withdrawal of forces from Georgia and has reportedly informed NATO it wants to cease military ties.
In a move that will, undoubtedly, increase the anger of the US , President Medvedev is meeting with Syrian President al-Assad where he is reported to have offered the Syrians advanced Russian surface-to-air missiles in exchange for the expansion of Russian troops at Russia
These reports also state that President Medvedev has ordered an immediate increase of Russian troops and air defences at Iran 's Parchin military base, and which is Iran
Indian army troops came under mortar fire on Thursday from across a military control line that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, an army spokesman said.
The crisis between the US and Russia has led to the suspension of diplomatic efforts to draft a new resolution imposing harsher sanctions on Iran.
"In view of the escalation of the crisis between Russia and the United States and NATO members, the chances of Russia's supporting the new initiative for sanctions against Iran are almost non-existent," a senior diplomat who was involved in the group's discussions said.
With what moral authority do these mainstays of the neoconservative, corporate elitist, greedy, self-interested Washington regime speak?
The man who many are tipping to become Barack Obama's running mate is a pro-war, pro-patriot act, Bilderberg member who was an honorary co-chair of the neocon Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group that aggressively propagandized for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
He is also a keen supporter of the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, having previously described his "lifelong affection for the state of Israel" at an AIPAC luncheon.
I have come to the conclusion that the Mont Pelerin Society is no longer an effective force for freedom, becoming instead another tool in behalf of US hegemony, ringing Russia with US military bases and puppet governments in the name of "supporting democracy."
As every great libertarian and the founding members of the MPS acknowledged, war is the greatest enemy of liberty. I do not want to be associated with an organization that is a front for American hegemony and wars based on propaganda, lies, and deceit.
Electricity grids down, uncontrolled fires from exploding gas transport systems, no communication to call for help, no water to battle fires: It's all part of a catastrophic scenario some scientists predict could happen under an electromagnetic pulse attack – and the Department of Homeland Security's 83-page emergency plan includes no mention of EMP or how it might respond to such an attack.
The plan for an economic takedown, the results of rampant market speculations, insiders picking up assets for pennies on the dollar, the coming hyperinflation, the credit crunch, collapse of the dollar carry trade, suppression of metals prices...
"It is easy to ignore the storm if you look at the opposite horizon. When the storm reaches your location there can be no more ignorance."
I hate to tell you, but the storm has reached your location and it is a Category 5 hurricane. The levees are leaking. Ignore it at your own peril. It will be long, painful and destructive.
With inflation now running at close to 10%, we have entered a period of stagflation potentially worse than the 1970s. And stagflation is nothing less than a weapon of mass destruction aimed at the livelihoods not only of the elderly and those on fixed incomes, but also on students, the unemployed, families, and almost everyone who has a job in the producing economy.
A top caste of Nobel Prize economists has warned that the world's financial system may not start to recover for at least another year, leaving banks at mounting risk of an insolvency crisis.
"There is a tremendous amount of de-leveraging still necessary in the United States and Europe," said Myron Scholes, the father of complex derivatives
Three of Wall Street's top investment banks agreed to pay millions of dollars in fines and buy back billions of dollars in frozen, illiquid securities. New York's attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, said Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs have agreed to the settlement.
Cramer calls out what he regarded to be fraudulent destruction of Freddy and Fannie, shameful actions of the FED, SEC, Treasury, and Whitehouse; the damage being done to market capitalism; and directly implies that our economy is being illegally manipulated by insiders.
The European Central Bank has issued the clearest warning to date that it cannot serve as a perpetual crutch for lenders caught off-guard by the severity of the credit crunch.
One ECB source told The Daily Telegraph that over-reliance on the ECB funds has become an increasingly bitter issue at the bank because the policy amounts to a covert bail-out of lenders in southern Europe.
This "soft bail-out" is largely underwritten by German and North European taxpayers, though it is occurring in a surreptitious way. It has become a neuralgic issue for the increasingly tense politics of EMU. The practice is also skirts legality and risks setting off a political storm.
Commodities headed for their biggest weekly gain in 33 years as oil traded near its highest for more than two weeks and a weakening dollar revived demand for raw materials as alternative assets.
Commodities are gaining on speculation demand will increase from China as the country resumes work at factories and infrastructure projects that were shut or slowed during the Olympics.
Crude oil prices have climbed sharply this morning, after soaring overnight in their biggest rally for three months, as tensions between the West and Russia escalated. Brent crude futures rose by $6 dollar to $120.36, while New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, was up 46 cents at $121.64 per barrel.
Regulators had long classified a private Swiss energy conglomerate called Vitol as a trader that primarily helped industrial firms that needed oil to run their businesses.
But when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission examined Vitol's books last month, it found that the firm was in fact more of a speculator, holding oil contracts as a profit-making investment rather than a means of lining up the actual delivery of fuel.
The discovery revealed how an individual financial player had gained enormous sway over the oil market without the knowledge of regulators. Other CFTC data showed that a significant amount of trading activity was concentrated in the hands of just a few speculators.
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