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Latest Articles: International News
Spain faces 'total emergency' as fear grips markets
Post Date: 2012-05-30 19:00:28 by Capitalist Eric
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A screen displays the IBEX 35 at Madrid's stock exchange on Wednesday. “We’re in a situation of total emergency, the worst crisis we have ever lived through” said ex-premier Felipe Gonzalez, the country’s elder statesman. The warning came as the yields on Spanish 10-year bonds spiked to 6.7pc, pushing the “risk premium” over German Bunds to a post-euro high of 540 basis points. The IBEX index of stocks in Madrid fell 2.6pc, the lowest since the dotcom bust in 2003. Chaos over the €23.5bn rescue of crippled lender Bankia has led to the abrupt resignation of central bank governor Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez, who ...
As An Encore to Bailing Out the Big Banks, Government to Backstop Derivatives Clearinghouses … In the U.S. and Abroad
Post Date: 2012-05-29 19:35:41 by Capitalist Eric
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... Which Will Lead to Bailouts and Encourage Even More Fraud The government has been bailing out the giant, insolvent banks for years. (Many of the bailed out banks are foreign.) That is preventing the economy from recovering ... like countries that have grabbed the bull by the horns. The government has allowed the amount of derivatives to reach 1.2 quadrillion dollars. That is feeding the parasite of casino gambling ... which is preventing the real economy from recovering and is killing the host of actual productivity. What is the government doing for an encore? Bailing out the derivatives clearinghouses. As the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday: Little noticed is that on Tuesday ...
Report: Obama Personally Oversees Al-Qaeda ‘Kill List’
Post Date: 2012-05-29 11:26:18 by Brian S
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US President Barack Obama has personally overseen a top-secret process for determining which Al-Qaeda suspects should be placed on a “kill list,” the New York Times reported Tuesday. The Times, citing dozens of top officials and former advisers, said the administration had developed what it termed the “kill list” as part of a stepped-up drone war against Al-Qaeda and its affiliates inPakistan and Yemen. “He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,” it quoted National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon as saying. “His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the ...
Number 2 al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan killed in NATO airstrike
Post Date: 2012-05-29 11:24:26 by Brian S
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- The second highest al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan was killed in a weekend airstrike in the country's volatile east near the border with Pakistan, NATO-led forces said on Tuesday. Saudi Sakhr al-Taifi, also known as Musthaq and Nasim, was responsible for commanding foreign insurgents and directing attacks against coalition and Afghan forces, NATO said in a statement. He frequently traveled between Afghanistan and Pakistan, carrying out commands from senior al-Qaida leadership, supplying weapons and equipment to insurgents and transporting insurgent fighters into Afghanistan, the statement said. He was killed on Sunday in the Watahpur district of Kunar province ...
Spent Fuel Rods Drive Growing Fear Over Plant in Japan
Post Date: 2012-05-27 13:53:55 by Brian S
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TOKYO — What passes for normal at the Fukushima Daiichi plant today would have caused shudders among even the most sanguine of experts before an earthquake and tsunami set off the world’s second most serious nuclear crisis after Chernobyl. Fourteen months after the accident, a pool brimming with used fuel rods and filled with vast quantities of radioactive cesium still sits on the top floor of a heavily damaged reactor building, covered only with plastic. The public’s fears about the pool have grown in recent months as some scientists have warned that it has the most potential for setting off a new catastrophe, now that the three nuclear reactors that suffered meltdowns are ...
Utility Says It Underestimated Radiation Released in Japan
Post Date: 2012-05-25 13:12:59 by Brian S
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TOKYO (Reuters) — The amount of radioactive materials released in the first days of the Fukushima nuclear disaster was almost two and a half times the initial estimate by Japanese safety regulators, the operator of the crippled plant said in a report released on Thursday. The operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, said the meltdowns it believes took place at three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant released about 900,000 terabecquerels of radioactive substances into the air during March 2011. The accident, which followed an earthquake and a tsunami, occurred on March 11. The latest estimate was based on measurements suggesting the amount of iodine-131 released by the ...
Iran Navy Helps U.S. Ship (Maersk Texas) Attacked by Pirates in Middle East
Post Date: 2012-05-25 13:05:12 by Hondo68
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An Iranian stands guard Iran’s navy helped a U.S.-flagged cargo ship that was attacked by pirates off the United Arab Emirates, according to the vessel’s owner, Maersk Line Ltd. The Iranian navy was the first to respond to the initial distress call from the Maersk Texas, Kevin Speers, senior director of marketing at Maersk Line, said by phone today. The vessel was attacked by several skiffs and armed guards on board returned fire, the company said in an earlier statement. The incident happened at about noon northeast of Fujairah, the biggest port in the Middle East for refueling oil tankers, Maersk said. Iran’s navy provided guidance to the crew of the Maersk Texas by ...
Why we should be thrilled by NATO's lack of action
Post Date: 2012-05-24 08:29:46 by We The People
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An international summit in Chicago produces few results. But that's better than NATO endorsing a boneheaded intervention in Syria The weekend's Chicago North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit produced very few results. Thank goodness. A lack of action was actually one of the best possible outcomes. Yes, the summit did endorse the first stage of European missile defense, and it confirmed the alliance's withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, for the most part, the summit was remarkable for all the things NATO members chose not to do. One significant omission was any progress for aspiring members in the Balkans and Caucasus. Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Georgia ...
Only North American Middle Class To Grow In Last 30 Years Was Mexico’s
Post Date: 2012-05-23 16:19:11 by Brian S
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Only Mexico’s middle class has grown over the past 30 years in North America, while income disparity has increased in Canada and the United States, according to a study here out Tuesday. “Mexico’s middle class has benefited from urbanization, greater female employment, improved education and better social programs,” said economist Lars Osberg, the author of the report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). In the study Osberg, a professor at Dalhousie University, tracks the rise and fall of income inequality in the three North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) partners. Similar trends in Canada and the United States helped maintain middle-class ...
‘Barcode everyone at birth’
Post Date: 2012-05-23 11:21:40 by A K A Stone
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Each week a global thinker from the worlds of philosophy, science, psychology or the arts is given a minute to put forward a radical, inspiring or controversial idea – no matter how improbable – that they believe would change the world. This week science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon argues that everyone should be given a barcode at birth. “If I were empress of the Universe I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached - a barcode if you will; an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals. It would be imprinted on everyone at birth. Point the scanner at someone and there it is. Having such a unique barcode ...
Bush And Blair’s Pre-Iraq Conversation Must Be Disclosed, U.K. Tribunal Rules
Post Date: 2012-05-22 11:23:36 by Brian S
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Extracts of a phone conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush a few days before the invasion of Iraq must be disclosed, a tribunal has ruled. The Foreign Office lost an appeal against an order by the information commissioner, Christopher Graham, to disclose records of the conversation between the two leaders on 12 March 2003. Graham’s order was made in response to a freedom of information request by Stephen Plowden, a private individual who demanded disclosure of the entire record of the conversation. “Accountability for the decision to take military action against another country is paramount,” Graham had said in his original order. Upholding that ruling on Monday, ...
Chinese company buys U.S. movie theater chain AMC for $2.6bn in largest ever takeover deal
Post Date: 2012-05-21 18:54:46 by sneakypete
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The second-largest U.S. movie theater chain has been bought by a Chinese company today in a historic takeover. AMC Entertainment Holdings was sold for $2.6 billion to Dalian Wanda Group Company in a setback to President Obama's attempts to prevent American businesses being eclipsed by their Chinese rivals. Wanda said the deal would create the world's biggest movie theater operator and the Beijing-based company revealed it would invest an additional $500 million in AMC's development. AMC operates 346 cinemas, mostly in the United States and Canada, and has 23 of the 50 highest-grossing U.S. outlets. The multi-billion dollar deal undermines President Obama's promises to ...
France's Hollande Steals Show In World Stage Debut
Post Date: 2012-05-21 14:47:27 by Brian S
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By JAMEY KEATEN The Associated Press CHICAGO — In his debut in international summitry, Francois Hollande has made a splash — and held his ground on some sharply defined positions. France's new leader grabbed attention at both the weekend's Group of Eight summit in Camp David and at the NATO summit in Chicago ending Monday, parlaying his mandate from voters in a May 6 election and showing he has his finger on the pulse of the public back home. An informal European Union summit on Wednesday will cap his whirlwind first week as French president. Hollande first sped to Berlin to meet Germany's chancellor, he then painstakingly formed a Socialist-led French Cabinet. He ...
Netanyahu: African Migrants Could Overrun Israel
Post Date: 2012-05-21 13:12:36 by Brian S
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JERUSALEM (AP) -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that Israel could be swamped by illegal migrants from Africa. The mounting number of migrants is high on the national agenda following a series of crimes, including rapes, that have been blamed on the newcomers. Netanyahu says the influx is "threatening the fabric of Israeli society, its national security and its national identity." He says if Israel doesn't stop it, then "60,000 infiltrators are liable to become 600,000, and lead to the eradication of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state." More than 50,000 Africans have poured into Israel since 2005, seeking to escape persecution and poverty. ...
Factories Begin To Shift Back To US
Post Date: 2012-05-21 12:39:57 by Brian S
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By Hal Weitzman in Chicago Two-thirds of big US manufacturers have moved factories in the past two years, with the most popular destination being the US, according to a survey being released on Monday by Accenture, the consultants. The report provides some of the first industry-wide empirical evidence of “reshoring,” the trend of jobs once outsourced to low-cost emerging economies being brought back to the US. Although the subject has received much attention, with General Electric the most high-profile example, most of the evidence so far has been isolated and anecdotal. President Barack Obama has proposed tax incentives for companies that move their overseas operations back ...
Bayer CropScience and Bee Deaths
Post Date: 2012-05-21 06:52:55 by A K A Stone
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The Big Picture For several years now there has been a dramatic loss of bees in Europe and North America. As many as 50% to 90% of the bee populations have simply vanished. This is a big deal. Bees are a keystone species – they are vital to the food chain on our planet. An international study of 115 food crops grown in over 200 countries showed that 75% of crops are pollinated by animals, especially by bees. At first it was believed that only honeybees were affected, but then bumblebee populations began to decline. The crisis was eventually given a name: Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD. CCD is Not a Disease There were initially several theories about the cause of CCDE, including ...
Mitt Romney: The Foreign Policy of Know-Nothingism
Post Date: 2012-05-20 15:48:00 by We The People
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photo: Dave Lawrence (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has become the inevitable Republican Party presidential nominee. Despite the weak economy, he faces an uphill race. It’s never easy to defeat an incumbent president. Moreover, Romney can’t rely on the GOP’s traditional foreign-policy advantage. Throughout the Cold War Republicans posed as the party of national defense. That stance served the GOP well until the wreck of George W. Bush’s presidency. The public rallied around President Bush when he ordered the invasion of Iraq but soured when it became clear that the war was an unnecessary disaster begun on a lie. Republican ...
How The U.S. Dollar Will Be Replaced
Post Date: 2012-05-20 13:25:28 by We The People
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After being immersed in the world of alternative economic analysis for several years, it sometimes becomes easy to forget that most people do not track forex markets, or debt to GDP ratio, or true unemployment, or hunch over IMF white-papers highlighting subsections which expose the trappings of the globalist ideology. Sometimes, you just assume the average person knows what the heck you are talking about. This is, of course, a mistake. However, it is a mistake that is borne from the inadequacy of our age and our culture, and is not necessarily a product of weak character, either of the analyst, or the casual reader. The great frustration of being actively involved in the Liberty Movement ...
Tsipras on CNN: 'We are going directly to hell"
Post Date: 2012-05-20 11:37:51 by We The People
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Tsipras on CNN: 'We are going directly to hell" Alexis Tsipras, head of SYRIZA, said on Wednesday that the radical left coalition wanted to put an end to austerity, keep Greece in the eurozone and strike new alliances to overcome the crisis.“We will do whatever we could do in this direction, to keep Greece inside the eurozone and inside Europe,” said Tsipras, speaking to CNN’s chief international correspondent Christian Amanpour.Tsipras stated that the left coalition wished to “cancel the memorandum, then renegotiate on a European level,” in search of a common solution to exit the crisis which he said was not solely a Greek problem, but a European issue.To ...
Congress opens door for US war with Iran
Post Date: 2012-05-18 16:02:03 by We The People
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The US House of Representatives has passed a resolution on Iran that moves the United States much closer to a war footing against Iran as many experts and diplomats warn America is ready for attack. The vote undermines the 5+1 Iranian nuclear talks scheduled for next week, in which the US will participate and which many in the pro-war camp want to sabotage. Ahead of the vote Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), a tough critic of the resolution and one of the few who voted against it, warned that the US is “getting ready for war against Iran” with Thursday’s vote. The non-binding resolution H.Res.568 that overwhelmingly passed 401-11, effectively calls for a military attack ...
Obama requesting help to pay for Afghan army
Post Date: 2012-05-17 22:16:49 by We The People
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May 17, 2012 2:31 PM PrintText Obama requesting help to pay for Afghan armyAn Afghan National Army soldier carries his rockets while on patrol in Logar province, east Afghanistan, Thursday, May 17, 2012. NATO sits down May 20, 2012 in Chicago to prepare for the eventual withdrawal of international forces and the hand over of Afghanistan's security to the Afghan National Army. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus) (Anja Niedringhaus) WASHINGTON — Mapping the way out of an unpopular war, the United States and NATO are trying to build an Afghan army that can defend the country after 130,000 international troops pull out. The alliance's plans for arm's-length support for ...
Spain Into Recession Amid Fears Of Eurozone Bank Run
Post Date: 2012-05-17 12:06:11 by Brian S
2 Comments
Spain tumbled into recession and European stock markets and the euro fell Thursday as Greece installed a crisis government to tackle its crippling debt, EU leaders prepared for talks and analysts raised the spectre of a run on eurozone banks. "Markets are worried about eurozone bank deposit runs and an escalating banking crisis," London-based VTB Capital economist Neil MacKinnon told AFP. Heavy withdrawals of deposits have been reported in Greece and Spain, and top European Union leaders were to hold a videoconference later in the day. They were initially to discuss an upcoming G8 meeting of industrialised countries but were now faced with a serious deterioration of the ...
Debt crisis: Greek euro exit looms closer as banks crumble
Post Date: 2012-05-16 20:06:15 by Capitalist Eric
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A tsunami of capital flight from Greece threatens to overwhelm the authorities, forcing the country out of the euro before fresh elections in June. A pedestrian passes a kiosk selling newspapers. The growing alarm comes as judge Panagiotis Pikrammenos was picked as Greece’s caretaker leader until the next vote on June 17. Polls show the Left-wing Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras emerging as clear victor. Photo: Bloomberg Economists warned that the Greek financial system could crumble within weeks or days unless the European Central Bank steps up support. President Karolos Papoulias told party leaders that banks had lost €700m in withdrawals on Monday alone as citizens rush to ...
Get Ready: We’re About To Have Another 2008-Style Crisis
Post Date: 2012-05-16 19:49:12 by Capitalist Eric
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Well, my hat is off to the global central planners for averting the next stage of the unfolding financial crisis for as long as they have. I guess there’s some solace in having had a nice break between the events of 2008/09 and today, which afforded us all the opportunity to attend to our various preparations and enjoy our lives. Alas, all good things come to an end, and a crisis rooted in ‘too much debt’ with a nice undercurrent of ‘persistently high and rising energy costs’ was never going to be solved by providing cheap liquidity to the largest and most reckless financial institutions. And it has not. Forestalled is Not Foregone The same sorts of signals that we ...
New Socialist Cabinet Takes Power In France
Post Date: 2012-05-16 19:13:30 by Brian S
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By FRANCE 24 (text) France unveiled President Francois Hollande's new government on Wednesday, with exactly half of the posts going to women – a promise the new head of state had made during his campaign. Not counting the prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, who was appointed on Tuesday, the cabinet consists of 34 members, two more than the outgoing cabinet that served under conservative Nicolas Sarkozy. There was some concern over the news that Martine Aubry, Hollande’s former party rival and one of the Socialist Party’s most experienced women, would not join the cabinet after she was declined the prime ministerial position. There was also some criticism over the ...
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