Syria, here we come!

"The decision to attack Syria was made at a meeting at Camp David on 15 September 2001"

Article by Chérif Abdedaïm

Featured below is the interview that Thierry Meyssan gave to our colleagues from the Algerian daily newspaper the La Nouvelle République. Worthy of mention is the fact that the interview was given front page billing. While Western journalists eagerly relay the war propaganda against Syria, another reading of the events is emerging in countries where the press is not required to adjust to the editorial line dictated by the Empire.

Soviet history revisited

Stirring up the pot in Russia

Why they fought and died? - They just like shootin', that's all

Load-down on engineered revolutions - the pros are at it.

December 24, 2011 - In January of 2011, we were told that "spontaneous," "indigenous" uprising had begun sweeping North Africa and the Middle East in what was hailed as the "Arab Spring." It would be almost four months before the corporate-media would admit that the US had been behind the uprisings and that they were anything but "spontaneous," or "indigenous." In an April 2011 article published by the New York Times titled, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," it was stated:

"A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington."

The article would also add, regarding the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED):

"The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department. "
Detailed article posted here

Christmas message - from John F. Kennedy

JFK speech to the American Newspaper Publishers Association, New York, NY, April 27, 1961.

Christmas Story

Upscale suburbanites lining up at food bank

Against AFRICOM – Cynthia McKinney on GRTV

“Free Syrian Army” commanded by Military Governor of Tripoli

Aldel Hakim Belhaj is the historic leader of Al Qaeda in Libya and Military Governor of Tripoli - now chief of the Free Syrian Army.

by Thierry Meyssan – Voltaire Network | 19 December 2011


In the wake of the “Arab Spring” and NATO interventions, both official and secret, Qatar seeks to impose Islamist leaders wherever possible. This strategy has led it not only to fund the Muslim Brotherhood and to hand Al-Jazeera over to them, but also to support Al Qaeda mercenaries, who will henceforth oversee the Free Syrian Army. However, this new scenario raises serious concerns in Israel and among the supporters of the “clash of civilizations.”
The UN Security Council members are at loggerheads over the interpretation of the events that are rocking Syria. On one hand, France, the United Kingdom and the United States claim that a revolution has swept the country, in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring”, and suffering a bloody crackdown. On the other hand, Russia’s and China’s take is that Syria is having to cope with armed gangs from abroad, which it is fighting awkwardly thereby causing collateral victims among the civilian population it seeks to protect.

The on-the-spot investigation undertaken by Voltaire Network validated the latter interpretation [1]. We have collected eyewitness testimonies from those who survived an armed attack by a foreign gangs. They describe them as being Iraqis, Jordanians or Libyans, recognizable by their accent, as well as Pashtun.
Continue reading article here

The 25 Most Vicious Iraq War Profiteers

The first name that comes to everyone’s mind here is Halliburton. According to MSN Money, Halliburton’s KBR, Inc. division bilked government agencies to the tune of $17.2 billion in Iraq war-related revenue from 2003-2006 alone. This is estimated to comprise a whopping one-fifth of KBR’s total revenue for the 2006 fiscal year. The massive payoff is said to have financed the construction and maintenance of military bases, oil field repairs, and various infrastructure rebuilding projects across the war-torn nation. This is just the latest in a long string of military/KBR wartime partnerships, thanks in no small part to Dick Cheney’s former role with the parent company.


The Iraq war is many things to different people. It is called a strategic blunder and a monstrous injustice and sometimes even a patriotic mission, much to the chagrin of rational human beings. For many big companies, however, the war is something far different: a lucrative cash-cow. The years-long, ongoing military effort has resurrected fears of the so-called “military-industrial complex.” Media pundits are outraged at private companies scooping up huge, no-questions-asked contracts to manufacture weapons, rebuild infrastructure, or anything else the government deems necessary to win (or plant its flag in Iraq). No matter what your stance on the war, it pays to know where your tax dollars are being spent.

Following is a detailed rundown of the 25 companies squeezing the most profit from this controversial conflict. Read article here

Money primer

Public Banking hits mainstream news - at last

"We have a specific mission ... that's not necessarily bottom-line driven" — Eric Hardmeyer, Bank of North Dakota CEO Jenn Ackerman for Bloomberg Businessweek

By Alison Vekshin

Eric Hardmeyer may be the most popular banker in America. Over the last two years officials and advocacy groups in more than 30 states have called the Bank of North Dakota, where he is chief executive officer, to ask: How does the country’s only state-owned bank work? “As the financial crisis deepened and there were liquidity issues around the country,” says Hardmeyer, “our model was looked at a little bit deeper than it ever had been before.”

The Bismarck-based bank was founded in 1919 to lend money to farmers, then the state’s biggest economic contributors, and retains its socially minded ethic by subsidizing loans for those it believes will stimulate growth: startup businesses and beginning farmers and ranchers. The borrowers apply for the loans through one of the state’s 100-plus local banks and credit unions. If they qualify, the community lender issues the loans at the market rate; the borrowers pay a fraction of the interest, with the Bank of North Dakota covering most of the difference. How can the state bank afford the subsidies? Profit isn’t its first priority. “We have a specific mission that we’re trying to achieve,” says Hardmeyer, “that’s not necessarily bottom-line driven.”
Continue reading article here

The biggest company you've never heard of...

It' about our money - Let's get full value for our oil sands

We, The People

We're all in it together

More information available here

China's epic hangover begins

Chinese stocks are flashing warning signs. The Shanghai index has fallen 30pc since May. It is off 60pc from its peak in 2008, as much in real terms as Wall Street from 1929 to 1933. Photo: Reuters


China's credit bubble has finally popped. The property market is swinging wildly from boom to bust, the cautionary exhibit of a BRIC's dream that is at last coming down to earth with a thud.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

It is hard to obtain good data in China, but something is wrong when the country's Homelink property website can report that new home prices in Beijing fell 35pc in November from the month before. If this is remotely true, the calibrated soft-landing intended by Chinese authorities has gone badly wrong and risks spinning out of control.

The growth of the M2 money supply slumped to 12.7pc in November, the lowest in 10 years. New lending fell 5pc on a month-to-month basis. The central bank has begun to reverse its tightening policy as inflation subsides, cutting the reserve requirement for lenders for the first time since 2008 to ease liquidity strains.

The question is whether the People's Bank can do any better than the US Federal Reserve or Bank of Japan at deflating a credit bubble.

Chinese stocks are flashing warning signs. The Shanghai index has fallen 30pc since May. It is off 60pc from its peak in 2008, almost as much in real terms as Wall Street from 1929 to 1933.

"Investors are massively underestimating the risk of a hard-landing in China, and indeed other BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China)... a 'Bloody Ridiculous Investment Concept' in my view," said Albert Edwards at Societe Generale.
Read full article here

What's next, pussycat?

Winter Sermon

1984 - here I am!

Section 1031 of the NDAA as currently worded authorizes the President to use Military Force to detain indefinitely based on suspicion alone and without trial American citizens on American soil, effectively making the United States a Police State similar to Nazi Germany in the 1930’s and 40’s.
Check out the details here

Keep an eye on silver

Lies and truths about Syria

Created in Paris under French sponsorship, the Syrian National Council aims to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. It is chaired by Burhan Ghalioun, professor of sociology at Sorbonne University (he is seen here with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé, 23 November 2011).



by Thierry Meyssan

For eight months, Western leaders and some public media have been agitating for a war in Syria. The extremely serious accusations leveled against Assad intimidate those who question the justification for a new military intervention. But not everyone, because - on the initiative of Voltaire Network - some came to Syria to investigate for themselves and were able to measure the extent of NATO’s propaganda. Thierry Meyssan reports on the state of the media war.
Informative article posted here

Democrat and Republican Leaders in Secret Caucus

FOX News caught using fake video of riots in Russia

Earlier this year FOX News was caught faking news footage.

First it was showing footage of riots/rallies in India and claiming
that it was Libya.

Well, this time they were caught showing footage of angry Greek
riots and claiming that it was in Moscow.

BOMBSHELL: US Caught Meddling in Russian Elections!

Khodorkovsky, safely behind bars. In Russia, Wall Street and London's mafia banksters go to prison.

by Tony Cartalucci

December 4, 2011 - What would Americans say if they found their polling stations and certain political parties entirely infiltrated by Chinese money, Chinese observers, and Chinese-backed candidates promoting China's interests in an AMERICAN election? The answer ranges from incarceration, to trials featuring charges ranging from fraud, to sedition and even treason with sentences ranging from decades to life in prison, perhaps even death, as well as possible military action for what could easily be considered an act of war.
Article published here

Pressure from above, pressure from below - Using the opposition to get your way

Plan To Collapse Iran's Central Bank

Crash Course on Hyman Minsky, L. Randall Wray

Bank of China to step in as Saab part owner

Victor Muller, Spyker Chief Executive and Chairman of Saab Automobile, arrives for a news conference in Trollhattan September 7, 2011. Credit: Reuters/Bjorn Larsson Rosvall/Scanpix

(Reuters) - Saab's Dutch owner and China's Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile have agreed that the Bank of China, the nation's fourth-largest bank by market value, will come in as part owner of the ailing carmaker, according to a source familiar with the deal. Article posted here

Editor: Not mentioned in the article, SAAB is an exporter of missile systems

Ads rejected by mainstream media

Two television spots developed by a national investment firm specializing in U.S. gold and silver coins have been rejected by major television networks, including the Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network, for apparently political reasons.
Article posted here

Support the debtors rather than the creditors - Steve Keen on HARDtalk

Protecting civilians in Sirte, Libya

Sirte following NATO's bombardment.

The other side of the coin explained here

Economists support occupy movement

Occupy Economics from Softbox on Vimeo.

They done me wrong song

Wow! We were meant to fly!

Banksters have moved in

According to the Economic Policy Journal, here’s what you need to know about the current crisis in the Eurozone. The big time banksters are getting direct hands-on control:

Mario Draghi (photo) has become president of the European Central Bank as of November 1. He was vice chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of the firm-wide management committee. He was the Italian Executive Director at the World Bank. He has been a Fellow of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Lucas Papademos has taken over as Prime Minister of Greece. He was an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He was a visiting professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. And, he was previously a vice president of the European Central Bank. He has been a member of the Trilateral Commission since 1998.

Mario Monti has succeeded Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister of Italy. Monti completed graduate studies at Yale University, where he studied under James Tobin (see the Tobin Tax). He is a member of the European Commission. He is European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission and and member of the Bilderberg Group.

If you get the sense that the elitist banksters are going to take this financial crisis and push it in whatever direction they want, you are probably correct.

European debt crisis explained

Men were not meant to fly - or were they?

Big bankers' paradise

Goldman Sachs Has Taken Over

By Paul Craig Roberts


On November 25, two days after a failed German government bond auction in which Germany was unable to sell 35% of its offerings of 10-year bonds, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble said that Germany might retreat from its demands that the private banks that hold the troubled sovereign debt from Greece, Italy, and Spain must accept part of the cost of their bailout by writing off some of the debt. The private banks want to avoid any losses either by forcing the Greek, Italian, and Spanish governments to make good on the bonds by imposing extreme austerity on their citizens, or by having the European Central Bank print euros with which to buy the sovereign debt from the private banks. Printing money to make good on debt is contrary to the ECB's charter and especially frightens Germans, because of the Weimar experience with hyperinflation.

Obviously, the German government got the message from the orchestrated failed bond auction. As I wrote at the time, there is no reason for Germany, with its relatively low debt to GDP ratio compared to the troubled countries, not to be able to sell its bonds. If Germany's creditworthiness is in doubt, how can Germany be expected to bail out other countries? Evidence that Germany's failed bond auction was orchestrated is provided by troubled Italy's successful bond auction two days later.
Full article posted here

The pattern continues

On November 9th TransAlta Corp. admitted it manipulated electricity prices in Alberta forcing consumers to pay an extra $5.5 million for electricity. TransAlta negotiated its own penalty [settlement] for its transgressions and paid a fine of $370,000. Additionally, TransAlta gets to keep the details of its illegal actions confidential and out of the public eye.

On November 12th TransAlta’s CEO, Steve Snyder, wrote in the Calgary Herald, “We did not intentionally breach any rules or regulations. We misinterpreted rules around the competitive business of electricity trading”.

How does a company commit a $5.5 million dollar offense against the rate paying public and then negotiate a $370,000 penalty? What’s to prevent TransAlta from committing the same offense again and again if the penalty amounts to no more than a 7% fee, otherwise known as a cost of doing business?

The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) and the Market Surveillance Administrator (MSA) are the two government created corporations responsible for overseeing Alberta’s electricity market. Both claim to be independent, and yet both have consistently sided with industry to the detriment of the rate paying public. The AESO is currently seeking a court judgment to limit the public’s right to attend rate increase hearings. AESO and the MSA are the very same organizations that couldn’t find any wrong doing when electricity prices spiked from $14.50 to $223.80 per megawatt in 2000. The comedic investigation was made all the more ridiculous after irrefutable evidence surfaced in 2005 [tape-recorded conversations] between TransAlta and Enron Employees. The tape recordings recorded employees engaged in the manipulation of market prices.

TransAlta’s market manipulation behavior has not been limited to Alberta. On June 25, 2003 the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a "Show Cause" order to TransAlta alleging that TransAlta manipulated electricity prices, along with Enron, leading to wide spread power outages in California. In a subsequent lawsuit, California’s Attorney General claimed that TransAlta charged rates in the California electricity markets that were unjust, unreasonable, and therefore illegal, and did so on thousands of occasions.

The FERC chose not to prosecute TransAlta because TransAlta claimed it profited less than $10,000. What has never been reconciled or explained to the public is how TransAlta, a multi-billion dollar company, was able to report nefarious profits of 89% in one quarter and 133% in one six-month time frame while it was manipulating market prices, and yet only make less than $10,000 in illegal profits.

Can Albertans trust what TransAlta or AESO executives tell us? These are the very same people that still claim the Bill-50 transmission lines are not being built to subsidize export. They tell Albertans this even after TransAlta received approval, on July 12, 2010, to export on average 48,000 megawatt hours each day ~ for the next ten years. [Alberta’s daily demand averages between 6,000 to 8000 megawatts hours.]

Alberta’s deregulated electricity system has been a disaster from the beginning. From one scandal to another including offenses of spying on citizens and market price manipulation, the system has fallen into disrepute. The organizations responsible for overseeing the system are ineffective and at times incompetent.

Albertans need an independent public inquiry into the abuses that plague Alberta’s electricity system. The public should be refunded for what they have been overcharged!

Joe Anglin
Rimbey, AB
(403) 963-0521

Message from one cop to his colleagues

Why you should become a politician

Kosovo - a Serbian perspective

NATO's intervention in the ethnic conflict in Kosovo fits a well established pattern. Article published here

Fictitious Economy with Vandana Shiva

9/11 - Phantom plane hits the Pentagon

"Obama, you are the nightmare of Dr. Martin Luther King"

Comet Storm in a Nearby Star System

An artist's concept of a comet storm around Eta Corvi. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Oct. 19, 2011: NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected signs of icy bodies raining down in an alien solar system. The downpour resembles our own solar system several billion years ago during a period known as the "Late Heavy Bombardment," which may have brought water and other life-forming ingredients to Earth.

"We believe we have direct evidence for an ongoing Late Heavy Bombardment in the nearby star system Eta Corvi, occurring about the same time as in our solar system," said Carey Lisse, senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., and lead author of a paper detailing the findings to appear in the Astrophysical Journal.
Interesting article posted here

Testimony by Lizzy Phelan: "The war on Libya is a war on Africa"

Back in the UK, after several months spent in Libya covering NATO war crimes and uncovering mainstream media lies, freelance journalist Lizzie Phelan continues to fight for truth and justice on behalf of the Libyan people. Her testimony below is a gripping example of her commitment.

Lizzie Phelan spent her last days in Libya - where she was reporting for PressTV - trapped in the Rixos Hotel, together with Thierry Meyssan, Mahdi Nazemroaya and two other members of the Voltaire Network team.

She said a Western-backed genocide is taking place in Libya and there are no independent journalists left on the ground to cover the story.
Watch video testimony here

New York State flood relief needed

While protesters fill the streets of New York City,
the rural part of the New York State, which was
devastated by floods, faces Third World shortages
of food, warm clothing, shelter, tools and building
materials.

Winter's coming soon...and, true to form, the
corporate news media can't be bothered to
tell the story.

The Governor of the State, best buddy of the
Wall Street scam machine (he played his role
as head of HUD), did a few helicopter fly bys
and has been missing in action ever since.

How bad is it? Pretty bad.

The Christians of the Orient stand up against the new Western colonialism

Invited at the Elysee the 5th of September 2011, S.B. Bechara Boutros Rai, Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and the entire Middle-East (the head of the most important Church in the Middle-East that is attached to Rome) heard that France and its allies will soon intervene militarily in Syria to establish the Muslim Brothers as the leaders of the country. The Christians of the Orient, who would lose their place in society, would then have to prepare themselves for the exodus and could find refuge in Europe.
© Présidence de la République - P. Segrette




by Thierry Meyssan

The war against Syria, planned by the United States, France and the United Kingdom for mid-November 2011, has been blocked in extremis by the Russian and Chinese vetoes at the Security Council. According to Nicolas Sarkozy, who informed the Maronite Patriarch of the matter during a stormy meeting at the Elysée Palace on 5 September 2011, the plan contemplates the expulsion of Middle East Christians by the Western powers. In this context a press campaign is underway in Europe to accuse the Christians of the Orient of collusion with the dictatorships. Mother Agnès-Mariam of the Cross, mother superior of the monastery of James the Mutilated in Qara (Syria) responds to this war propaganda.

Insightful article posted here

2,000 OWS protesters nabbed in US

Demonstrators affiliated with the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement protest in Times Square in New York City on October 15, 2011.


The US police have arrested nearly two thousand Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters since the outbreak of the anti-corporatism and -corruption movement in New York in mid-September, Press TV reports.



Fresh arrests come as the movement is spreading across the globe.

The police have come up with various charges against the demonstrators in order to clear the streets filled with protest tents.

Chicago police say they have made 175 arrests on Saturday after protesters refused to obey orders to leave public areas and as more than 2,000 people marched from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to Grant Park.

Also on Saturday, nearly 90 demonstrators were detained in New York, while police forces apprehended over 70 people in Phoenix and Colorado.

Protesters have, however, pledged to remain on the streets, despite the heavy-handed clampdown.

The OWS movement was initiated on September 17, when a group of people began rallying in New York's financial district to protest 'corporate greed' and top-level among other instances of social inequality in the United States.

The campaign has now spread to tens of major cities, including Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Boston, as well as hundreds of communities across the nation.

More and more Americans are, meanwhile, joining the demonstrations each day.

According to a Press TV survey published on Saturday, many believe that the American Awakening -- represented by the OWS movement -- stems from misguided financial policies of the US establishment, thought to be behind the country's current economic crisis.

Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal were also some of the countries that saw huge OWS-inspired protest rallies on Saturday.
Article source here

Publicly-owned Banks as an Instrument of Economic Development: The German Model

by Ellen Brown


Publicly-owned banks were instrumental in funding Germany’s “economic miracle” after the devastation of World War II. Although the German public banks have been targeted in the last decade for takedown by their private competitors, the model remains a viable alternative to the private profiteering being protested on Wall Street today.



One of the demands voiced by protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement is for a “public option” in banking. What that means was explained by Dr. Michael Hudson, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, in an interview by Paul Jay of the Real News Network on October 6:

[T]he demand isn’t simply to make a public bank but is to treat the banks generally as a public utility, just as you treat electric companies as a public utility. . . . Just as there was pressure for a public option in health care, there should be a public option in banking. There should be a government bank that offers credit card rates without punitive 30% interest rates, without penalties, without raising the rate if you don’t pay your electric bill. This is how America got strong in the 19th and early 20th century, by essentially having public infrastructure, just like you’d have roads and bridges. . . . The idea of public infrastructure was to lower the cost of living and to lower the cost of doing business.

We don’t hear much about a public banking option in the United States, but a number of countries already have a resilient public banking sector. A May 2010 article in The Economist noted that the strong and stable publicly-owned banks of India, China and Brazil helped those countries weather the banking crisis afflicting most of the world in the last few years.

In the U.S., North Dakota is the only state to own its own bank. It is also the only state that has sported a budget surplus every year since the 2008 credit crisis. It has the lowest unemployment rate in the country and the lowest default rate on loans. It also has oil, but so do other states that are not doing so well. Still, the media tend to attribute North Dakota’s success to its oil fields.

However, there are other Western public banking models that are successful without oil booms. Europe has a strong public banking sector; and leading it is Germany, with eleven regional public banks and thousands of municipally-owned savings banks. Germany emerged from World War II with a collapsed economy that had degenerated into barter. Today it is the largest and most robust economy in the Eurozone. Manufacturing in Germany contributes 25% of GDP, more than twice that in the UK. Despite the recession, Germany’s unemployment rate, at 6.8%, is the lowest in 20 years. Underlying the economy’s strength is its Mittelstand—small to medium sized enterprises—supported by a strong regional banking system that is willing to lend to fund research and development.
Continue reading article here

Hypocracy definition: What Democracy turns into when all of the politicians in your country are liars.

Things are heating up in New York

More photos and story here

Black Libyans make their stand in Sirte and Bani Wali

The Black defenders of Sirte and Bani Walid fight like lions because they have no choice.

By Glen Ford

← Stop NATO: Day 209 of War Against Libya, Crown of Africa
Black Libyans make their stand in Sirte and Bani Walid
Posted on 2011/10/13 by Quoriana

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/black-libyans-make-their-stand-sirte-and-bani-walid


The Black defenders of Sirte and Bani Walid fight like lions because they have no choice.

By Glen Ford

Both NATO and their Libyan rebel surrogates express wonder at the fact that loyalist forces continue to fight so fiercely in the contested cities of Sirte and Bani Walid, despite being vastly outnumbered on the ground and unceasingly pummeled from above by the world’s largest air armada. But one look at a picture of Gaddafi loyalist prisoners, captured at a hospital in Sirte, tells the story: they are all Black. The assault on Libya has largely devolved into a race war, and the Black soldiers are fighting for survival against the world’s biggest lynch mob, armed to the teeth by the United States and Europe.
Article continues here

Black American perspective on events in Libya

'US claim insults global intelligence'

Iran's Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Khazaei

Iran's envoy to the UN says US allegations about Tehran's involvement in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington are an “insult to the intelligence” of the people of the world.


“We are used to the baseless allegations made by some US officials over the past three decades, but the big lie they have told today is so unfounded that it sounds like the work of Hollywood's scenario writers,” Mohammad Khazaei said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday.

“It is a major insult to the intelligence of ordinary people in the US and the world,” he added.

He said the accusation that Iran attempted to assassinate the envoy of a neighboring Muslim country in Washington is a fabrication created by “warmongers” who seek to poison the atmosphere and create fear in the people's minds.

They fabricate false security threats to advance their political objectives, Khazaei said, adding that the move was a testimony to the West's unquenchable thirst to create imaginary enemies.

Khazaei said Iran categorically rejects the allegations and cautions the Americans not to fall for such malicious propaganda campaigns aimed at mounting political pressure on Iran.

Khazaei's remarks came in response to the recent claims made by the US Justice Department that Iran was involved in a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Washington Adel Al-Jubeir with help from a suspected member of a Mexican drug cartel.

Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast rejected the accusation, saying such 'ludicrous' claims hinged on the hostile joint stances adopted by the US and Israel against the country.

"These threadbare attitudes, which are based on the age-old and hostile American-Zionist policies, are a ridiculous show in line with certain [instances of] scenario fabrication of divisive ends on the part of the enemies of Islam and the region," he said.

Iran has also sent a letter of complaint to the UN over Washington's allegations.

Article source here

Chalk it up to experience

NATO Secretary General attends Special Forces exercise in Denmark

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is attending joint Special Forces exercise, NIGHT HAWK, in Denmark on 12-14 October 2011.

The exercise brings together representatives of Special Forces from 8 NATO Allies and Partner nations in a scenario involving simultaneous hostage rescues in multiple locations. It is hosted and organised by Denmark.

The Secretary General is accompanying a Special Forces group from the Netherlands on the initial stages of the mission, and observing the final stage of the operation from close to the site.

Land and air units from NATO Allies Denmark, Germany, Slovakia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and partners Finland and Sweden, are also taking part in the exercise.

There are no media opportunities.

Editor: Hostage rescues or planned assassinations?

Old divisions surface in Egypt

Cairo remains tense after clashes left at least 24 people dead and over 270 injured in the worst violence in the Egyptian capital since the country’s revolution in February.
Article posted here

Ancient farming damaged landscape in Peru

Relict canal course, Lower Ica Valley, Peru


A study of food remains from ancient settlement sites along the lower Ica valley in Peru confirms earlier suggestions that farming undermined the natural vegetation so badly that eventually much of the area had to be abandoned.

A research team led by the University of Cambridge looked for evidence of wild and domesticated foods from settlement sites spanning roughly 750 BC to 1000 AD. They found that, in less than two thousand years, the valley inhabitants had gone from subsisting on gathered foods, through a period of intense agriculture, and back again to a largely subsistence diet.
Read the whole article here

Harvest moon over Turin, 2011

Iceland update

From crisis to constitution

Thorvaldur Gylfason
11 October 2011



As economic protests continue throughout Europe, many wonder whether such efforts will be in vain. This column explores what happened in Iceland, where a “pots-and-pans” revolution in response to the devastating financial crisis gave rise to a new constitution.

Political upheaval is the most common precursor of constitutional change. The collapse of communism in 1989 produced a large number of new constitutions in East and Central Europe and Asia (Elster 1995). Economic crises are less common triggers of constitutional change. The Great Depression did not prompt the Americans to change their constitution – changes of the law, such as the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, were thought sufficient.
Check out Iceland's proposed new constitution here

Adding insult to injury

"It used to be routine practice to try to sterilize Indian women..."

Documents acquired by the American Indian movement demonstrated a
vast and secret plan was being carried out by the government to
sterilize women and reduce the Native American population.

Columbus Day is the best day of all to be mindful of how the
natives have been treated by the government, AFTER having had their
lands stolen from them...

An angry man speaks

A haunting past...

Syria Claims Armed Bands Have Killed 1,100 People

Syria will pass to the United Nations the names of 1,100 people that it said were killed by terrorists who received arms from neighboring countries, reports the Lebanese television Al Manar.

The reports quotes Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Al-Moqdad (photo above) in Geneva as saying that his country has been facing terrorist threats, and indicated that "in the coming few days we will hand in a list of 1,100 martyrs who were employees and police officers, who were killed by terrorists."

Al-Moqdad further clarified that members of the Syrian security forces have been martyred by armed bands who received weapons from Syria’s neighboring countries.

The Foreign Minister attended the session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The official went on explaining that "throughout the last seven months my country has confronted various wars, including a media war as well as media deception and lies, and all sorts of threats."

He recalled the package of reforms that President Bashar Al-Assad had announced, and said that Syria needed more time for implementing it as "reforms cannot be done while Syrians are being killed on daily basis by extremist terrorist groups."

"We have received humanitarian activists and the international committee of the Red Cross, and this indicates that we have nothing to hide," he added.

On the other hand, Iran, Russia, Cuba, and China praised the reforms that President Al-Assad had pledged to implement including lifting the state of emergency and carrying out local elections, while Britain, France, the United States called Syria to end its "criminal acts against civilians".
Article source here

Global geo-political overview with William Engdahl

Libya's NATO sponsored Civil War - no end in sight

Meltdown Within 2-3 Weeks? (7 Oct)

Washington targeting China's Achilles heel

Between February and March 2011, China had evacuated some 36,000 of its nationals employed in the oil, construction, railways and telecoms industries.


by F. William Engdahl


While nervously watching China edging closer to becoming the predominant world power in the 21st century, Washington has also been keeping a keen eye on China’s heavy reliance on foreign oil to meet its growing energy needs. Engdahl analyses the oil trap that Washington has laid for China in Libya and through AFRICOM’s deployment in Africa.

The Washington-led decision by NATO to bomb Gaddafi’s Libya into submission over recent months, at an estimated cost to US taxpayers of at least $1 billion, has little if anything to do with what the Obama Administration claims was a mission to “protect innocent civilians.” In reality it is part of a larger strategic assault by NATO and by the Pentagon in particular to entirely control China’s economic Achilles heel, namely China’s strategic dependence on large volumes of imported crude oil and gas. Today China is the world’s second largest imported of oil after the United States and the gap is rapidly closing.
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Who needs Middle East oil - or oilsands for that matter?

3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate—
Released: 4/10/2008 2:25:36 PM

Contact Information:
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Office of Communication
119 National Center

Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.
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Target Killing Americans

Conversation Required

By Joe Anglin

For nearly a decade the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) and AltaLink LLP have gone to great lengths to keep the public out of the conversation about the need for new transmission lines in Alberta. AltaLink went so far as to register as a lobbyist for the passage of Bill-50. Bill-50 subsequently passed as the Electric Statues Amendment Act eliminated the public’s right to question the need for new transmission lines. Now Alison Redford has been elected as our new Premier and the conversation about transmission lines is back. Will Premier Redford restore the public’s right to be part of the conversation?

This is a question that has far reaching implications for all Albertans. Since deregulation of the electricity system Albertans have been gouged by ever increasing [extra charges] on their electricity bills. The extra charges have prompted jokes claiming that it would be cheaper to drive a truck to a local generator, and recharge a series of battery to bring back to the farm, rather than suffer the administrative and transmission charges tacked onto our bills by companies like AltaLink.

All joking aside, the question remains! What do Albertans really need? If we need to upgrade our transmission system, how do we do it for the maximum benefit of Albertans? If we need more electricity in one particular geographic area of the province, what is the best solution? Transmission lines are not always the best solution. Why? Transmission lines only transfer electricity from one location to another. Electricity transmitted from Edmonton to Calgary means that the electricity transmitted is not available for consumption in Edmonton.

The Heartland transmission line project illustrates the problem created by Bill-50. AESO and AltaLink claim a $580 million dollar transmission line is required to increase the amount of electricity in the Heartland. However, for less than half the cost of a transmission line, ($263 million dollars to be exact), Capital Power has proven that it can build a new generator in the Heartland that would actually increase the amount of electricity in the Heartland by 43%.

From the public’s perspective, it is far more prudent to build a generator in the Heartland. For the Premier’s benefit this is a $317 million dollar savings she could use to refund education. However, if it is our primary intention to provide AltaLink with an income, then a transmission line at twice the cost would be more appropriate.

Premier Redford, what say you? Will you restore the public’s right to question the need for new transmission lines? Will you restore the law that requires that we build what is in the best interest for all Albertans? Will you invite the public back into the conversation? After all, the public is paying for these projects. Let us know by your actions: Repeal Bill-50 and void the Heartland hearings. Cancel the scheduled HVDC hearings. Let’s have an informed conversation based on facts and evidence to determine what is best for Albertans.

Joe Anglin
(403) 843-3279
(403) 963-0521 (cell)

Occupy Wall Street Live Feed

globalrevolution on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

'Sarkozy involved in graft scandal'

French millionaire arms broker Ziad Takieddine (L) and President Nicholas Sarkozy




A French businessman says President Nicholas Sarkozy and Interior Minister Claude Gueant must acknowledge their roles in the kickbacks on the arms deal and illegal funding.


In an interview with French financial newspaper La Tribune published on Saturday, French millionaire arms broker Ziad Takieddine said that he was commissioned by Gueant, Sarkozy's former presidential election campaign head, to conclude arms contracts with former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"I remember telling Gueant: You know me more than anyone else. Each of my acts amount to an official mission,” Takieddine stated.

“I went to see Gaddafi in Libya, and Assad in Syria only on the request and authorization from the president,” the Franco-Lebanese businessman added.

The remarks come as Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam had said in March that Libya would publicize all the bank details relating to Sarkozy's campaign funding in 2007.

In a half-dozen interviews this weekend, Takieddine has called on Sarkozy to lift the lid on French arms sales to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that were illegally kicked back to fund the 1994-5 presidential campaign of Edouard Balladur.

Sarkozy, Balladur's budget minister and presidential campaign spokesman at the time, has validated the commission system.

Takieddine also told La Liberation that he has met twice with Sarkozy when he was the French interior minister.

The Franco-Lebanese millionaire, however, denies having served as a middleman for the diversion of commissions from French arms deals.

Takieddine is said to have received payment from a sale of frigates to Saudi Arabia, a contract authorized in 1994 by Sarkozy.

Documents obtained by examining magistrates suggest that he has received €91 million (USD 120 million) between 1997 and 1998.

France also signed a deal that year to sell three submarines to Pakistan. Several witnesses have told the magistrates that Takieddine was imposed by the Balladur camp as an intermediary.

French judge Renaud van Ruymbeke believes that through offshore accounts in Luxembourg Takieddine has returned a portion of the money earned via arms contracts to France. He, however, has withdrawn the money from his accounts once he was in Switzerland.

The judge has found that at least €3 million (USD 4 million) as parts of the “commissions” were siphoned off to help fund the 1994 presidential campaign of Edouard Balladur, then prime minister.

Takieddine was charged in September with fraud over arms contracts with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in which he was allegedly the middleman.

Nicolas Bazire, 54, the manager of Balladur's presidential campaign and now a director of luxury goods giant LVMH, and Gaubert, 60, an advisor to Sarkozy when he was budget minister, have also been charged with the misuse of public funds.

Article published here

Can Canada's federal system be a role model for Europe?

Thursday, September 22, 2011
Marshall Auerback: The ECB v. Germany

By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager

I’ve been in Amsterdam and met some people very well connected with the ECB. The topic de jour is the apparent split between the Germans and the ECB, especially in light of the resignation of Jürgen Stark last week from the ECB executive board. This has been a move hailed as a German protest of the errant ways of the ECB, andStark is now touting his conservative ideas around Europe in a hope to undermine the central bank’s current interventions. That’s the public line.

But the people to whom I’ve spoken here contend that Stark’s resignation does reflect the reality that the Germans are losing out as far as the ECB goes. The profound objections to what the ECB is becoming on the part of Germany is also accompanied by a realisation that it is the only supranational game in town and has little choice but to take on this quasi-fiscal function that it is now undertaking.

Stark (and Weber before him) had no desire to associate themselves with this but the resignation reflects the view that they were powerless to stop it.Most of the ‘blame the Mediterranean profligates rhetoric we’ve been hearing has been diversionary, to draw local attention away from the fact that Germany’s hardcore Bundesbankers are losing this battle. .

The pan-Europeanists are the ones who will support a coordinated response to financial issues, not coincidentally because this will be the only way to retain existing benefit levels once some sovereigns and the banks exposed to them go soft.

Stark’s replacement, Asmussen, is an SPD guy and even though he makes all of the same hawkish noises, he’s not as hard-line as Stark. It was also indicated to me that if Germany were to go for the Hans Olaf Henkel proposal of a DM bloc (to which I alluded in an earlier post), it would screw the French totally and they won’t stand for it.

Keep reading this interesting article here

Brooklyn Bridge video: Police arrest Occupy Wall Street protesters

Things are heating up, finally, in the US. Check out this post

Murder From the Skies on a Budget UAV's... A Cost Effective Way to Kill Civilians

Turkish warships harass Israeli freighters. Israeli missile boats off Cyprus

Israel F-15 warplanes react to Turkish harassment


DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 2, 2011, 11:10 AM (GMT+02:00)



Increasingly assertive Turkey is setting the scene for clashes in the eastern Mediterranean. Since Thursday, Sept. 29, Turkish warships have been harassing Israeli merchant vessels in waters off Cyprus, debkafile's military sources report. They come close enough to establish wireless communication and caution the Israeli vessels they are in contravention of international law and ordering them to change course. The Israeli crews mostly ignore these "orders", treating them as Ankara's latest bid to assert Turkish naval mastery of the Eastern Mediterranean. But the situation is getting explosive enough to spark a major incident.
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Anwar al-Awlaki Another Burned Asset? (Flashback) Look Who Came to Dinner...

Is The War On Terror A Hoax?

By paul craig roberts




In the past decade, Washington has killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims in six countries, all in the name of the "war on terror." Washington's attacks on the countries constitute naked aggression and impact primarily civilian populations and infrastructure and, thereby, constitute war crimes under law. Nazis were executed precisely for what Washington is doing today.

Paul Craig Roberts blows off steam here

Gilad Atzmon talks about his latest book “The Wandering Who?”

"The Wandering Who?", by Gilad Atzom

Interview with Gilad Atzmon, Israeli-born musician, author and philosopher


by Silvia Cattori

In his book, "The Wandering Who?", Gilad Atzmon goes where no one else dares to tread. He challenges the myths and the tribal mindset underpinning the founding of the Zionist state and its racially-driven policies. Repudiating the concept of ’chosen-ness’ that separates the Jews from the others, he abandoned his to ’become an ordinary human being.’ Acclaimed by eminent Jewish intellectuals, his ideas don’t sit quite so well with the Jewish left and Jewish anti-Zionist circles. He responds to Silvia Cattori’s questions.

Revealing interview posted here

Bypass Wall Street - It's a dead end

Wealth vs. Money: Why Main Street is Better Off without Wall Street
______________

By Ann Tulintseff
Public Banking Institute Board Member

“The real measure of your wealth is what’s left after you’ve lost all your money.”

As we look at the devastation being wreaked across the United States as a result of the selfish recklessness of the titans of the financial services industry, it’s clear that Main Street doesn't need Wall Street. In fact, Main Street is better off without Wall Street.

It’s time to see the seduction of Wall Street’s promises for what they are—an illusion that confuses money with wealth. Money should not be confused with wealth, and the fundamental definitions of each will help understand this difference.

Wealth is a combination labor and/or natural resources.

Money, on the other hand, is simply a medium of exchange for goods and services—a means to facilitate transactions. Money has taken many forms, including shells, beaver pelts, coins, paper notes, and now accounting entries on a computer. In other words, money is an abstract social invention that can be viewed as a contract—a financial obligation. [1]

A community combines its labor and natural resources in order to meet the needs of its members. Money is simply the oil that helps the machine of society function.

Thus the fundamental difference between wealth and money is that money is itself only a claim to wealth, and not that wealth itself. [2]

What are the implications of this? Main Street produces wealth, Wall Street does not. In fact, Wall Street cons us into holding our money, and then siphons it off with interest, fees and market manipulations, resulting in an unnecessary transfer of wealth from people on Main Street to those on Wall Street.

As Glen Edens, a former Sun Microsystems executive, summarizes, "… How can we break the cycle of Wall Street, a strong financial services industry is simply not good for society.Wall Street does not improve productivity, the model is parasitic, transferring huge resources out of the system." [3]

Finally, as a means of facilitating transactions, money should be seen as a public, or community, creation and/or utility. A "free market" becomes a manipulated market when the ability to create money is held by private interests. It’s time that we, the public, reclaimed our sovereign right to issue money “and regulate the value thereof,” as our Constitution declares, by establishing publicly owned banks.

References:
[1] Jere Hough at wealthmoney.wordpress.com.
[2] "Fixing the System: A history of populism, ancient and modern," by Adrian Kuzminski.
[3] http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Impact-of-the-Internet-on-Institutions-in-the-Future.aspx?r=1

The Latest Orchestrated Threat and The End of History

By paul craig roberts


Have you ever before heard of the Haqqanis? I didn't think so. Like Al Qaeda, about which no one had ever heard prior to 9/11, the "Haqqani Network" has popped up in time of need to justify America's next war -- Pakistan.

President Obama's claim that he had Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden exterminated deflated the threat from that long-serving bogyman. A terror organization that left its leader, unarmed and undefended, a sitting duck for assassination no longer seemed formidable. Time for a new, more threatening, bogyman, the pursuit of which will keep the "war on terror" going.
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