Mexican soldiers
© NotimexSoldiers on the street and panic in the air. Are you familiar with it yet?
Batten down the hatches, grab your flimsy face mask!

Just as Sott.net editors were putting the finishing touches to the April's edition of 'Connecting the Dots' (a fairly standard month as months go here on the BBM), within the last five days the world has been brought to the brink (of what we are not quite sure) by something called "Swine Flu". At least, that's the impression you get when reading recent headlines. But as Sott.net readers know, there is always more to these episodes of mass hysteria than meets the eye!

Look further back into the month and you will see enough clues to figure out the nature of what we may safely call a World Government. Pay attention to details in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and you may distinguish manufactured social and political conflicts. Consider it all within the context of Mother Nature's mysteries. Indeed, there is much to comment about this month. But, in the spirit of traditional journalism, let's start with the major headlines...

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it! "Big mutant virus terrorizes small defenseless planet"

The story so far is that an out of season influenza epidemic allegedly made its debut in Mexico and then proceeded to sweep the globe.

Judging from its actions, the Mexican government seems particularly alarmed, ordering the suspension of school in Mexico City for all levels - from kindergarten to university - asking the population to avoid crowded places, canceling all public events until further notice, closing restaurants and suspending non-essential work altogether for a few days. Those are serious measures in a city of 20 million people with obvious economic repercussions.

There are several interesting details to consider for starters:

Why has this virus only killed Mexicans when people from other nations and ethnic backgrounds are infected? Is it a consequence of deficient health services, or are we looking at an ethnic specific weapon here?

While the Mexican government is claiming about 200 deaths (or less than 20, as it appears to change its mind regularly), this figure needs to be taken with a grain of salt given the confusion that surrounds it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that every year 36,000 people are killed by the normal "human flu" in the U.S. alone, which as it turns out, is an estimate with little scientific basis according to their own standards which require lab tests to count each death. The reason that the figure in Mexico jumps up and down every second day is the use of a double standard; suspected cases are ten times higher than proven cases.

This new virus - which is suspected of infecting dozens of people in California, Texas, New York and other countries in Europe and Asia already - includes strains from different types of flu:
"This is the first time that we've seen an avian strain, two swine strains and a human strain," said [Dave Daigle, spokesman from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], adding that the virus had influenza strains from European and Asian swine, but not from North American swine.
So it's a Frankenstein mutant virus from around the globe, then. If we were conspiratorially minded we would be tempted to suspect it has been created in a lab.
Colloidal Silver Secrets
© S Spencer JonesThis is how Frankenflu 'accidentally' appeared.
Interestingly, just last month Sanofi-aventis, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, announced the signing of an agreement with the Mexican authorities to build a 100 million euro facility to manufacture influenza vaccine in Mexico.

Coincidence? After all, relative to the entire human population, the demand for vaccines is very low. With a worldwide pandemic however, millions would likely be scared into accepting vaccination.

Also, this virus has turned out to be lethal mainly to the strongest among the population - 25 to 45 year olds. This is what happened in previous catastrophic scenarios such as the so called "Spanish flu" (more about that further down), which killed more than 20 million people worldwide at the end of World War I. No wonder the WHO chief warned of a "pandemic potential". But does he know something we don't? Undoubtedly!

In the U.S. the normal 'calm and rational' response is coming from politicians where a U.S. Congressman is calling for an immediate and complete closure of the Mexican border until the H1N1 Swine Virus is contained and controlled.

A few more interesting coincidences to consider:

- Scotland was preparing for a rehearsal of a flu pandemic scenario, but has decided to cancel it because of... the flu pandemic scenario.

- U.S. Army criminal investigators are looking into the possibility that disease samples are missing from biolabs at Fort Detrick. Apparently, the missing vials are of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, not flu. Or that is at least what we have been told. We do know from experience that there is such a thing as 'cover stories'. Consider that the previous swine flu outbreak originated at the U.S. Army base of Fort Dix, New Jersey; and that two years ago scientists had already created bird flu and swine flu strain hybrids.

- Felipe Solis, a distinguished archaeologist who showed Barack Obama around Mexico City's anthropology museum during his visit earlier this month, died the next day from "flu-like symptoms". He met Obama at a gala dinner which was held at the museum on 16 April, before the U.S. president traveled on to the Americas summit in Trinidad and Tobago. The nation's Health Minister confirmed that Mr Solis had died of pneumonia - but that it was not thought he had contracted swine flu. Apart from being a totally bizarre coincidence, can anybody explain how you can go to have dinner with the president and die of pneumonia on the very next day?

- Last but not least, as Mexico City is gripped by panic, it gets struck by the usual Mexican panic-bringer: an earthquake. Not strong enough to kill anyone, but still! Add to that that a month before the outbreak of the flu, somebody took a video of one of the strangest UFOs we have ever seen.

Now that we have dealt with the coincidences, let's look at the contradictions. There are lots to choose from! For example:

The Mexican ambassador to China has strongly denied this week that his country is "ground zero" for the virus:
The Mexican ambassador to Beijing, Jorge Guajardo, has been outspoken this week in suggesting that the disease did not originate in Mexico. He said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that the disease was brought to his country by an infected person from somewhere in "Eurasia," the land mass of Europe and Asia.

Ambassador Guajardo said in a telephone interview that his government had been told by American and Canadian experts that the genetic sequence of the virus pointed to Eurasian origin.

"This did not happen in Mexico," he said, adding, "It was a human who brought this to Mexico."
As mentioned above, contradictions concerning the number of people killed or infected by the alleged virus are also contributing to the overall hysteria and confusion. While most mainstream news outlets are quoting 200+ deaths and thousands of suspected cases in more than a dozen countries, the World Health Organisation has admitted to being somewhat bemused by such statistics:
Only 7 confirmed swine flu deaths: WHO

A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.

Reports have put the likely death toll from the virus at 152, with Mexican officials confirming 20 deaths.

The number of cases under observation in Mexico alone has reportedly reached 1,614.

But Vivienne Allan, from WHO's patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease.

"Unfortunately that (150-plus deaths) is incorrect information and it does happen, but that's not information that's come from the World Health Organisation," Ms Allan told ABC Radio on Wednesday morning.

"That figure is not a figure that's come from the World Health Organisation and, I repeat, the death toll is seven and they are all from Mexico."

Ms Allan said WHO had confirmed 40 cases of swine flu in the Americas, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada, two in Spain, two in the UK and three in New Zealand.
thermal imaging machine
© Romeo Ranoco /ReutersArriving tourists are monitored using a thermal imaging machine at the international airport in Manila April 27, 2009.
So we have to wonder just who is responsible for the vastly exaggerated claims that are appearing in the mainstream media. Could it be the mainstream media by any chance?

There is also the problem of the term "swine flu", that is enjoying mainstream media prime time. The problem is that this particular strain of flu, apparently a mixture of strains that appear normally in humans, birds and pigs, has not yet been isolated in pigs, either in Mexico or anywhere else!

Right in the middle of this hysterical free for all, a surpassingly strange event occurred in Switzerland:
Swine Flu Container Explodes on Train

Spiegel Online
04/28/2009

It has all the hallmarks of a disaster movie: A container filled with the swine flu virus explodes on a busy train. But that's exactly the scenario that briefly caused the Swiss authorities some alarm on Monday evening. In the midst of global fears of a swine flu pandemic, a container with swine flu exploded on a train carrying over 60 people.

Luckily, however, it was not the mutated swine flu virus that has killed around 150 people in Mexico. The police quickly reassured the public that there was no danger of any infection.

According to the police, a lab technician with the Swiss National Center for Influenza in Geneva had travelled to Zurich to collect eight ampoules, five of which were filled with the H1N1 swine flu virus. The samples were to be used to develop a test for swine flu infections.

The containers were hermetically sealed and cooled with dry ice. However, it seems the dry ice was not packed correctly and it melted during the journey. The gas coming from the containers then built up too much pressure and the ampoules exploded, as the train was pulling into a station.
From one point of view this event can be explained away as an accident. But from the point of view of reading the Signs, this explosion can be seen as a clue, a signal from the universe as it were, that points to the real origin of the "Mexican" outbreak.

Then, among the clamor and the noise, a dissenting voice rings out (although it was heard on precious few mainstream news outlets):
Indonesian minister says swine flu could be man-made

Agence France-Presse
04/28/2009

Jakarta - Indonesian Heath Minister Siti Fadilah Supari (a cardiologist) said Tuesday the deadly swine flu virus could have been man-made, as she urged calm over its spread around the world.

The controversial minister did not elaborate but in the past she has said Western governments could be making and spreading viruses in the developing world to boost pharmaceutical companies' profits.

"I'm not sure whether the virus was genetically engineered but it's a possibility," she told reporters at a press conference called to reassure the public over the government's response to the swine flu threat. [...]

The minister has refused since 2006 to share all but a handful of Indonesia's bird flu virus samples with WHO researchers, saying the system is being abused by rich countries to develop profitable vaccines which poor countries must buy.
The most important thing to remember here is that if some deadly strain of flu does sweep the human population, it is VERY unlikely to be an "act of god" (depending of course on who your god is!). Government scientists (most notably those affiliated with Western governments) have been tinkering with the flu virus for decades, reviving old deadly strains and mutating them into even deadlier forms. See the Sott Flu Threat Supplement for details. As regards "swine flu" however, in 2005 it was reported that samples taken from South Korean pigs contained genes from a human flu virus created by scientists in 1933, with one American flu researcher stating that the sequences could represent a dangerous situation for humans.
Sang Heui Seo of Chungnam National University in Daejon, South Korea, entered six genetic sequences from pigs into GenBank in late October. Niman came across the data in late November, and noticed they contained between three and seven genes from the WSN33 virus, which was created in 1933 by a London lab that was researching the 1918 flu pandemic. The London lab found that the virus could infect mice, indicating that it might successfully infect humans, Niman said. He reported the presence of the human WSN33 genes in Seo's samples to WHO officials in early December. [...]

Henry Niman, founder of Recombinomics and a researcher who has sleuthed the spread of bird flu and its changing genetic makeup for two years, says the investigation is moving too slowly. If pigs in Korea are carrying a man-made human flu, authorities should take action immediately to prevent it from spreading.

"If there really are WSN33 sequences in pigs -- and probably birds -- on farms in Korea," Niman said, "then there is a very major problem."

Niman says the evidence can likely be explained by one of two possibilities: Either the man-made virus escaped from a lab, or the virus' genes are recombining -- morphing in a way that most flu researchers believe is impossible.
So back in 2005 we had reports of North Korean pigs carrying a strain of flu that was resurrected by the US military back in 1918 (See the Sott Flu Threat Supplement for details.) Despite its name, the "Spanish flu" did not originate in Spain, just like the "Mexican flu" did not originate in Mexico. Both appear to have been born in the U.S. In the case of the "Spanish flu" in military camps throughout the U.S.

At the very least this is all very interesting, is it not? Certainly something to think about while the WHO sees how many times it can use the word 'imminent' to increase the panic: WHO: Highest Alert 'Phase 6' Probably Imminent:
The World Health Organization raised the alert level of the fast-spreading swine flu virus on Wednesday afternoon, indicating that a "pandemic is imminent." Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the organization, said that the "phase 5" alert out of a possible 6 levels signified that at least two countries have spread the virus by human to human contact, and that the highest phase 6 was probably imminent.
And since we are now well along the path to conspiracy central, there is one other event that occurred right in the middle of the "Swine Flu" flap that made us sit up and take notice. What WAS that 747 doing flying low over "ground Zero" in New York just a few days ago, causing New Yorkers to flee into the streets in terror? The official explanation for a photo op just doesn't cut it, and the fact that Obama knew nothing about it and was "furious" just adds to the mystery. The DOD was, allegedly, the culprit but readers will excuse us if we sneer a little at that claim also. The obvious psychological effect of the macabre flyover was to recall the events of 9/11. But for whose benefit? The people of New York for sure, but also perhaps the Obama administration. Coming right in mid virus flap, it seems plausible that it was a warning and a reminder for Obama to 'stay on message' and remember who holds the reins of power in the U.S. (not to mention who was responsible for 9/11). And the message going forward? Well, he'll just have to wait to read about it in the papers like the rest of the little people.

A Totalitarian Kleptocracy

"Allow me to issue and control a nation's currency, and I care not who makes its laws."
- Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild, 1791

The essence of the world of politics and economics becomes much easier to understand once we get rid of the traditional labels, catch-phrases, names and 'isms' that usually serve to confuse and create false debates that miss the point. As a starting point, we should try not to worry too much about 'capitalism' vs 'communism', 'states' vs 'corporations', 'national' vs 'international' or the 'public' vs the 'private'. Does it really matter if a certain system of government is called 'socialist' or 'democratic' if in practice, it all comes down to an elite selfishly wielding a disproportional amount of economic and political power over everyone else? Does it matter if Republicans or Democrats are in the White House if, in spite of their different rhetoric, the result of the majority of their actions is essentially the same? Ultimately, the principle element determining the amount of justice, liberty and equality the population enjoys is the human and moral quality of those who hold the real positions of authority. Only once this is understood, we can get on with the details of how it happens, and how relevant the 'isms' really are.

The human factor is also the reason we are justified in fearing a 'One World Government' or a 'New World Order'. The elite that has been historically concentrating global power in their hands is far from interested in becoming the servants of the people that they should be. On the contrary, evidence shows that they work first and mostly for their self-interest without regard for anyone else, which means that the rest of us pay the price one way or another. This is why looking out for signs of global power and understanding it is a matter of concern for us. (In a perfect world, we would probably welcome a global economic and political system if it had been created under the guidance of truly humane values and directed by genuinely decent human beings. But we digress into fantasy.)

While mainstream media and political commentators often ridicule the idea of a One World Government as paranoid conspiracy thinking, in fact, it has been many decades now - at least since the end of World War II, but arguably much further back in time - that there has been a trend to create supranational authorities. These authorities implement their logistical and technological tools for the overseeing and control of the population, particularly in the area of economy. (We may never hear openly about the creation of the Government of Planet Earth during our lifetimes, but again, does it really matter if the practical result is the same, i.e. a small elite exercising an overwhelming amount of power over the masses they hold in contempt?)

In a recent article, Joan Veon makes this point. She recalls that back in 1994 the United Nations Development Report included a Special Contribution entitled "Global Governance for the 21st Century" by the 1969 Nobel Prize for Economics, Jan Tinbergen, which called for a World Government by strengthening the United Nations system, but mostly by creating a World Treasury and a World Central Bank which would be responsible for creating a 'World Financial Policy'.
Stop IMF
© AP
Also in 1994, The Bretton Woods Commission confirmed the report and added that the International Monetary Fund "should be given a central role to play in coordinating macroeconomic policies and in developing and implementing monetary reforms." It was the IMF, then, that would take the role of, or be the organization that would pave the way for, the World Central Bank. This new central bank would also float a new issue of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and it would have "Global Macroeconomic Management" worldwide. The issue of SDRs was recommended by both the UN and the Bretton Woods reports.

In light of this last point, the events of April start to make sense!

As you know, the leaders of the Group of Twenty (G20) held a summit in London. The resulting communique has been correctly summarized and paraphrased as follows:
"We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, will use every cent we don't possess to rescue corporate capitalism from its contradictions and set the world economy back onto the path of unsustainable growth. We have already spent trillions of dollars of your money on bailing out the banks, so that they can be returned to their proper functions of fleecing the poor and wrecking the Earth's living systems. Now we're going to spend another $1.1 trillion.

As an exemplary punishment for their long record of promoting crises, we will give the IMF and the World Bank even more of your money. These actions constitute the greatest mobilisation of resources to support global financial flows in modern times.

Oh - and we nearly forgot. We must do something about the environment. We don't have any definite plans as yet, but we'll think of something in due course."
Apart from the painful fact that we are once again witnessing the theft from the many by the few, the G20 summit was interesting because it spelled out the next step in the effective creation of a World Government. In particular, take notice of how well the IMF has fared as a result of the economic crisis. There is a more significant role planned for the IMF in internal documents, interviews and think-tank reports, and the appropriate changes were broadly outlined at the G20 summit.
Bowing to a new economic world order, the IMF would grant fresh powers to the likes of China, India and Brazil. It would have vastly expanded authority to act as a global banker to governments rich and poor. And with more flexibility to effectively print its own money, it would have the ability to inject liquidity into global markets in a way once limited to major central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Andrew G. Marshall explains:
Following the 2009 G20 summit, plans were announced for implementing the creation of a new global currency to replace the US dollar's role as the world reserve currency. Point 19 of the communiqué released by the G20 at the end of the Summit stated, "We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity." SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are "a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund." As the Telegraph reported, "the G20 leaders have activated the IMF's power to create money and begin global "quantitative easing". In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it."
There you have it - the SDRs recommended in 1994 and issued by the IMF will function as a de facto world currency! But why is a world currency important, you ask? In short, it is another step and condition for a World Government, which greatly facilitates the management and control of the world economy, on which each and everyone of us depends. When a country borrows in its own currency it cannot technically become bankrupt because it can simply print more of its own money to pay its debts; a process known as 'debt deflation'. However, when a country borrows in a currency that it cannot print, it is unable to inflate it's way out of debt and therefore remains in perpetual debt bondage to its lenders.

The experience of Asia during the Asian Crisis in 1997, Eastern Europe from 2007 until now and Iceland today are all examples of the almost complete loss of sovereignty achieved through the external manipulation of foreign currency debts. When a nation's economy is crashed, the national currency becomes worth less (or even worthless) while foreign currency debt effectively balloons. In order to pay the interest on this debt national governments are forced to implement policies dictated by the lenders.
Bankers
© Unknown
Together with e-money technology, a global currency can easily be used as a tool to discipline the masses and eliminate dissent without the need for open force. Not that they may not decide to use violence on top of that, of course! But if you ever find yourself in conflict with the World Government or its institutions, you may get the feeling that you are playing a rigged game that cannot be possibly won against an all-powerful casino which is lending you chips only as long as you play by its unfair rules.

The opportunity to introduce some sort of global currency may take place soon, if the Global Anticipation Bulletin is correct in believing that China has been "constantly striving to find the means of disposing of, as early as possible, the mountain of toxic assets which US Treasuries and Dollars have become", resulting in the breakdown of the international monetary system that would then call for dramatic counter-measures.

As for the role of the World Central Bank, there is another possibility. Ellen Brown observes that when the world's central bankers met in Washington last September, they discussed what body might be in a position to serve as such, and a former governor of the Bank of England suggested the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). As Simon Davies & Donald Hunt said in October 2007:-
The first level at which the public sees power being exercised upon the world stage is through the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

While the above organisations have an official public face much of their activity remains shrouded in secrecy or obfuscated. Even the public face of one of these, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) gives a good idea of the extent of its reach and influence.

The BIS, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, is the world's oldest international financial organisation. It fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks. The 'Members' of the BIS are the central banks or monetary authorities of 55 nations (see list here) including the Fed, European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of France and Bank of Japan. The BIS holds regular (at least every two months) meetings of the heads and senior officials of all the members central banks. In their own words,
...these gatherings provide an opportunity for participants to discuss the world economy and financial markets, [...] The main result of these meetings is an improved understanding by participants of the developments, challenges and policies affecting various countries or markets. An atmosphere of openness, frankness and informality amongst participants is critical.

Other meetings of senior central bank officials focus on the conduct of monetary policy, the surveillance of international financial markets and central bank governance issues.
The BIS promotes monetary and financial stability as a key objective. To achieve that objective, the BIS has a series of committees including ones on Banking Supervision (i.e. regulation), Global Financial Systems, Financial Markets and Financial Stability.

Now is not the time to go into the details of how these various committees operate, the technical details of the global financial system that they have established and oversee and, how they relate to each other. Just the committee names give one a sufficient idea as to the scope and breadth of banking and financial market activity they cover.

What must be stressed is that these committees are not just talk shops; they produce the rules that govern the world's banking system, rules that carry the weight of law in may cases.

If you are in any doubt as to the power of the BIS, consider the fact that it is without doubt one of the single most powerful organisations on earth and yet, until now, you may well not have known of its existence. In all the excitement of this 'crisis' you'd have thought somebody might have mentioned it.
The BIS has been controversial since its inception as the bank to manage reparations payments by Germany following World War I. It is considered to be one of the prime movers in setting up the American and British financing of Hitler and the building of the German war machine that enabled the Second World War to be staged. Even during that war, the US representative was regularly meeting with his Nazi counterparts at BIS meetings, a practice that only stopped when it leaked to certain members of the US Congress. Dr. Carroll Quigley, Professor of History at Georgetown University and once Bill Clinton's mentor, was an insider of the network of international bankers - with which he agreed in its aims - wrote:
"[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations."
According to Quigley the key to their success was that the international bankers would control and manipulate the money system of a nation while letting it appear to be controlled by the government.

We do recommend that you read Brown's article on the BIS, as it explains how the World Government may be just another name for the elite of international bankers. She argues that it was the Second Basel Accord, established by the BIS, which actually sent the U.S. economy tumbling down, and with it the rest of the world's. In this she is incorrect as US banks are not due to implement Basel II until 2010-2012. What Basel II created was in fact a regulatory arbitrage between European Banks that have implemented it in stages since 2005 and US banks which still operate under the previous Basel I regime. It is this 'gaming' of the difference in these regulatory regimes which provided so many of the loopholes that were filled by the likes of AIG and Goldman Sachs and the explosion in the global derivatives markets. Similarly, Brown is incorrect in attributing the "mark-to-market" accounting rule to the BIS and the Basel Accords when in fact it lies at the heart of US legislation since the early 1990's. While incorrect on these key points, she is close to the "real deal". There is the web of organisations that have at their core the same small elite. These organisations set up rules, regulations and policies that are presented to the public as having benign and often virtuous purposes while in fact when viewed as an interlocking whole their purpose is deeply nefarious. The collective actions of the IMF, BIS, Federal Reserve and the accounting and regulatory system provide yet another confirmation that the world financial crisis is a large scale application of the 'Shock Doctrine', designed to force the planet into accepting a new, more refined global system of control while fleecing us all in the process.

Olga Chetverikova has written that:
The events are following the same path as the Great Depression in 1929-1933: a financial crisis, an economic recession, social conflicts, establishing totalitarian dictatorships, inciting a war to concentrate power, and capital in the hands of a narrow circle. This time, however, the case in point is the final stage in the 'global control' strategy, where a decisive blow should be dealt to the national state sovereignty institution, followed by a transition to a system of private power of transnational elites.
The main mechanism for change and domination is the economy. But if the plan is indeed the control of everything and everyone, it needs to be complemented by changes in other areas, such as technology and communications. In that respect, it is alarming that the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 is making its way through the U.S. Congress.
Essentially, the Act would federalize critical infrastructure security. Since many of our critical infrastructure systems (banks, telecommunications, energy) are in the hands of the private sector, the bill would create a major shift of power away from users and companies to the federal government. This is a potentially dangerous approach that favors the dramatic over the sober response. [...] One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds goes too far. (sic) Certainly there are times when a network owner must block harmful traffic, but the bill gives no guidance on when or how the President could responsibly pull the kill switch on privately-owned and operated networks.
This is remarkable for both the extent of possible control, but also for the fact that modern telecommunications, such as the Internet, are global to a great extent.

Furthermore, it is interesting that while the global economic changes give more power to private bankers while making it appear that governments are in charge, this particular bill seems to be aiming at taking power off the private and into the 'public' (i.e. the government). This would be all so terribly confusing for us if we actually believed in 'isms' and labels and forgot the essential truth about politics and economics: the fact that regardless of the type of system or the name you give to it, it is the human quality of those in positions of authority that counts.

What we are really seeing, then, is not a contradictory struggle between the public vs the private, but rather the blurring of the line that apparently divides the two - and this is taking place on a global scale! In the end, it is again a matter of a global elite concentrating power while hiding behind a confusing conglomerate of political and economic organizations, both private and public. Because of this smoke-screen, it will be long until the people fully understand that we were led into the corral of a World Government - that is, assuming that we have not been there for long already.

Picking a fight
Summer of violence
© SOTT.net
The G20 summit was interesting for more than the reasons above. While our 'benevolent' leaders were deciding what was 'best' for the people behind closed doors, the people were actually demanding justice on the street, mostly through peaceful demonstrations. But the London Metropolitan Police would not allow a bunch of peaceniks to get in the way of a good confrontation. In fact, it had high expectations about it and was quite busy making preparations:
The Metropolitan Police have rolled out a security operation of "unprecedented" scale and complexity for the the G20 Summit this week. With the prospect of mass demonstrations around central London, they have told bankers to keep a low profile and warned that a hardcore of anarchists and anti-globalisation protesters are bent upon violence. [...]
How would they know that the protests would result in violence?
Smaller actions are also scheduled around the Square Mile, and police are monitoring social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to gather intelligence. On the day, officers will be watching the events on CCTV monitors at the police control centre in Lambeth, south London.
So Big Brother UK is spying on us, alright. Even through such trivial things as Facebook. What else is new? That still doesn't explain why they seemed to be looking forward to facing some street violence, which, as it turned out, for the most part they made happen themselves. (Heck, on the evening of 1 April, a London cop wrote on Facebook that he couldn't wait "to bash some long haired hippys up @ the G20." (sic) No wonder that his bosses spying on Facebook knew that violence was on its way!)

As a side observation, notice that while officers had access to CCTV - it is said that an average person is photographed 300 times in a day in London - the mobile road cameras of the council had to be switched off during the summit because they did not meet "the resolution standards required". It kind of sounds as if only a few privileged eyes were meant to watch everything that would happen.

Initially, a few demonstrators were involved in skirmishes with officers outside the Bank of England in central London. A branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland was stormed by protesters "wearing bandanas and hoodies". Not the average demonstrators, in our opinion. Senior officers vowed to arrest this particular group; which begs the question, why didn't they arrest them on the spot? They were easily identifiable as a group and everybody saw them vandalizing the RBS branch - including the media. It seems to us that this group is a prime suspect for agents provocateurs.

On this subject, we should all be grateful to a brave climate change activist who recorded her meetings with police officers in order to reveal that undercover police are running a network of hundreds of informants inside protest organizations who secretly feed them information about leaders, tactics and plans of future demonstrations in return for cash. Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that if people are paid to spy on dissenters others may well be paid to make their organizations easy targets by inciting violence and fomenting divisions?

We should also appreciate the fact that technology is at the disposal of many people - not only Big Brother. Which is why the police were caught on camera hitting protesters:


The confrontation on the street reached its climax on April 1st, as 32 people were arrested, a policeman and seven protesters were hurt, and one man died. The Guardian got a video taken by a passerby that shows a policeman attacking the man that eventually died.

It was no coincidence that the day after the release of this incriminatory piece of information - which was already becoming a scandal - the attention of the UK media switched to an improvised anti-terrorist raid in which a dozen Pakistanis were detained. The public was told that according to police intelligence, a very big attack was being prepared and it was imminent. Make no mistake: It is the old 'lets change the subject' trick in combination with the 'fear the bogyman' trick. One needs to keep the eye on that swift and sneaky hand!

Imagine our non-surprise when some days later all 12 men arrested over the suspected bomb plot were released without charge.

A couple of days after the death of the innocent man, a number of climate activists committed the 'offense' of camping outside the European Climate Exchange building. Their demonstration included live music, food, street theater and dozens of small camping tents - but no violence. Yet the Met Police decided to apply a tactic known as "Kettling", which consists in "penning-in" everyone in the area, followed by random surges forward by riot police, until the frustration of the trapped crowds would inevitably lead to an open confrontation.

That is of course a premeditated provocation. It is the sort of thing you can expect in a country in which Army personnel is being asked: 'Will you open fire on UK citizens?' There are also reports of the Ministry of Defence buying unusually large quantities of tear gas and other riot equipment.
It goes a long way to explain why our servicemen and women are not getting the equipment they need in the war zones, lack of transport, lack of helicopters, lack of personal protection equipment. We know for instance that there are several hundred Italian made soft personnel vehicles in storage in the UK for use here, bought by the MoD to replace the snatch Land Rovers, but never sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, and the fleet of 8 Chinooks that was due to be dispatched this month are now to be kept in the UK.

We believe that this Government is looking for that confrontation with the people in order to invoke the Civil Contingencies Act and make use of the plethora of authoritarian laws it has prepared over the 12 years in control.
In the global economic climate, there have been demonstrations around the world. At least 200,000 people (but perhaps as many as 2.7 million!) took part in a massive protest in Rome over the financial crisis. That is probably the largest we have seen so far. Funny that Italy was hit with a powerful 6.3 earthquake two days later. Is there some sort of the connection apart from the symbolic?

In Thailand, soldiers and tanks appeared in Bangkok after Thai authorities declared a state of emergency - a day after protests stopped a major Asia summit. Are we to see more and more of these events in the months to come?

Leak soup and tea parties

In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security has been busy issuing reports on "rightwing extremist activity". The DHS suffers from information incontinence as it has been leaking them here and there. Indeed, there seems to be a pattern here:
DHS
© Unknown
This is at least the fourth time in three months that government domestic intelligence reports have been leaked to the public. Earlier this month, a report entitled "The 2009 Terrorism Threat Assessment" leaked from the Virginia Fusion Center to the Internet. The Virginia Fusion Center's report lists a wide variety of groups (of which many are clearly associated with terrorism, but many others have terrorism connections that are speculative or nonexistent) and uniformly recommends that law enforcement investigate the groups and their affiliates. The Virginia report comes on the heels of a report leaked from the North Central Texas Fusion Center in February, and yet another from the Missouri Information Analysis Center in March. The Missouri and Texas reports have already been roundly criticized and retracted. None of these reports indicate a specific threat, just a never-ending array of potential hazards that are "likely to grow in strength."
Last month we learned of the MIAC report; now we learn that the DHS argues that the economic recession, the election of America's first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias. A footnote of the latest leaked report (pdf here) defines "rightwing extremism" in the U.S. as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority. "It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration," the warning says.

Lets be clear about a couple of things. Obama's government is only business as usual in the American Empire - with its predatory capitalist system, its wars overseas and the 'war on terror' mentality - even if it has been given a new name, face and some charisma. But a 'socialist' dictatorship it is not (those 'isms' again! By the way, the American people could in fact benefit from a few socialistic policies as practiced in other countries). On the other hand, we have yet to see any evidence that the 'right-wing extremists' and their 'militias' are large and significant enough to make any difference at all as a threat. Therefore, both sides of the equation are pretty much fictitious in the terms that they are being promulgated by the DHS, some right-wing paranoids (Glenn Beck from Fox News) and some 'alternative' broadcasters (Alex Jones).

Which is why it seems to us that the DHS is working hard to have a prophecy self-fulfilled by promoting confusion, fear and hate in American society. (There does seem to be a lot of fear and confusion mongering around the globe these days, doesn't there?) The goal seems to be to create a confrontation of the so-called 'socialist dictatorship' of Obama and the 'right-wing radical militias'. The annoying thing is that this is a conflict that is being entirely fabricated - and those alternative voices which are so concerned about their right to bear guns and reacting hysterically are simply contributing to the materialization of this scenario. Unfortunately, even if this was not something that would have naturally taken place without some sort of manipulation, it may occur in the end. It is a crazy scenario, but in his times, Hitler's gang was also considered crazy and never taken seriously in Germany until it was too late.

Sadly, those who think they are 'defending freedom' by arousing the masses' emotions around the issue of gun control are achieving some degree of effect, judging by America's massive gun-and-ammunition buying spree that has led to shortages of assault-style weapons and rising prices.
"The logic is simple," says Tom Lee, a member of the Virginia Citizen Militia, which traces its roots to the Revolutionary War. "People are seeing a looming economic collapse that will lead to a prolonged and possibly worsening breakdown of law and order and, eventually, a We-the-People vs. armed-government-enforcers scenario. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees through the Keynesian scam and sees the wisdom in preparing for the worst."
But there is more. Just when you thought the hysterical confusion surrounding the issue of 'socialists vs militias' could not go any further, the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, attends an anti-tax tea party rally in Austin, declaring to the press that because Texans are fed up with federal tax policies, they might soon decide they want to secede from the union. Guess who jumped onto the bandwagon of arguing for secession? Glenn Beck, of course!

The rally itself was interesting, as chants of "Secede" could be heard during speeches. A participant expressed her feelings:
"The whole move toward socialism and the language that indicates we're headed in that direction," Matthews said. "For the first time of my life, I am afraid of where this country is headed."
That was one tea party where strict Wonderland logic prevailed.

We do not know where all of this will lead, if anywhere at all. But, if people with guns eventually find themselves in open confrontation with the authorities - or their armed mercenaries - you can expect the obvious outcome of a clash between small guns and a professional army with virtually unlimited resources.

Obamaland: Abandon hope all ye who enter here
Image
© Maksim-ThePeoplesCube.com
Shame on the president of the United States. If he ever had a chance to make any significant difference in history for the sake of justice or a better world, he has lost it. Consider the following:

Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos
Obama seeks $83bn more for US wars
The US Military Budget Expands
Liberals Line Up With Militarism
Obama Administration expands Bush's legal defense of wiretapping
The Two Faces of Barack Obama: One for the power elite, one for the masses

Obama has a way of killing us softly, as we've seen so far. He did give us a sigh of hope when he released the torture memos mid April, but he soon took it back when he reassured the CIA personnel, complicit in torturing the illegally held Guantanamo prisoners in the most gruesome ways, that they would never be prosecuted. He promised to defend them of any future investigation (foreign or local) or even cover up for them if need arises. This comes from the man who vowed for change of the old ways, and whose expertise lies in knowing the law. Parroting Bush & Co.'s line of needing to be "tough on terror" and in the name of national security, Obama also defended John Yoo's suit, issued by Jose Padilla, sweeping thus away in one move all the lessons learned during the Nuremberg trials:
At Nuremberg, the defense that one was just following orders was rejected as a war crimes defense or a shield to prosecution, and was relevant, if at all, only to sentencing. Nuremberg Principle IV states:
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Historians and legal scholars have attributed great significance to the fact that the Nazis created a full-fledged legal regime - replete with laws, legal opinions, lawyers and judges - so as to keep the general public on board with the terrorization and persecution of Jews, and to give officials at the highest and lowest levels the comfort and assurance needed to justify the most brutal acts against humanity. To astute observers, what was most troubling about the crimes of the Nazi regime was the absence of lawlessness. For this reason, the judges and prosecutors who presided at Nuremberg understood the importance of trying and convicting the legal architects of the criminal regime (including judges), as well as those who defended their acts by reference the laws and policies of the Nazi regime and the orders of their superiors based on such laws and policies.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a top Democrat on the intelligence committee, is quick to make the association where she heard this argument before:
This notion that 'I was just obeying orders' -- I don't want to compare this to Nazi Germany, but we've come to almost ridicule the notion that when horrific acts have been committed that people can use the excuse that, 'Well, I was just following orders'
Schakowsky also notes that the administration's emphasis on looking to the future rather than the past defies logic. If criminal prosecutions only looked to the future, there could be no criminal prosecutions.
In fact, Jan Schakowsky's arguments are so logical, as are those of Richard Kim, of The Nation, who debunked point by point, the three issues that Obama brought up to con the populace as to why he absolved the previous administration of any criminal activity, and called it
a nearly carte blanche absolution of torture [which is] was morally wrong, and his justification of it, from a professor of constitutional law, is intellectually dishonest
One wonders why Obama did not apply the same common sense when handling the issue. He appears to be capable of logic. But when he is following his handlers' dictates...

UN's rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak,told the Austrian paper Der Standard Obama's refusal to prosecute is a breach of international law.

In the U.S. there are moves to impeach Jay Bybee, the lawyer who must have been Yoo's coach on writing the torture memos,. Bybee now enjoys the position of a federal judge. In Spain, the Attorney general opposed prosecution of 6 Bush officials for allowing torture, while a judge is trying to keep the case alive.

Well, it almost sounds as if someone in the U.S. government is protecting the previous administration, and is powerful enough to intimidate the Spanish judicial system. Did we mention already that Obama is not really in charge?

The hand that rocks the cradle

Bad news. Dick Cheney is still here. According to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, Cheney 'left a stay behind' in Obama's government, and can 'still control policy up to a point'. Likewise, Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to ex-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, revealed to Russia Today that Cheney "still has people in the Obama administration, in the bowels of the bureaucracy and he is still impacting the American policy... This is a supreme operator".

We would have been too naive not to expect a move like this. We are talking about a man who has proved to be both very smart and incapable of empathy. More like a Mafia Don than a vice president. He even had his own 'executive assassination wing' which carried out assassinations in 'a lot of' countries, Including Latin America. He is a prime example of a successful psychopath - successful in the sense that he has got away with it, and still does.

torture works
© Unknown
Psychopaths have no shame. In the context of the current revelations about torture during the Bush administration, Cheney has asked for secret U.S. documents to be released showing that "harsh CIA interrogation techniques" (i.e. torture) such as waterboarding produced valuable intelligence! He sure sounds like a man quite confident that he has done nothing wrong nor will he be prosecuted, doesn't he?

Could it be that he knows that the Obama administration is in his pocket? And is that why even if Obama released the Bush administration's OLC's torture memos, he made assurances that the CIA agents who applied the torture meticulously detailed within would not be subject to criminal prosecution?

It remains a matter of debate if a charismatic and articulate president is better than Bush, if both work for the same boss. The Obama administration is more focused on the image it presents on the outside and the words used to paint it than any essential change in its policies, as evidenced by the actions and not the words so far:
Unlike the word count limit of this column, Obama's perfidy knows no limits. He's already become more dangerous to democracy and basic human rights than George W. Bush. Unlike Bush, he has no political opposition. Cheney may nitpick, but most Republicans are happy to see Bush's policies remain in place. Meanwhile, liberals remain loyal, silent and tacitly pro-torture.
New Theater, Same Bad Script

Cheney's toxic legacy goes further. Here we are a hundred days into the Presidency and the same policies not only continue but increase in scale and scope. It looks like the 'change' Team Obama had in mind was merely to redefine Bush's Axis of Evil. April opened with Secretary of State Clinton formally announcing the change of name in a PR stunt at The Hague:
"The [Obama] administration has stopped using the phrase [Global War on Terror] and I think that speaks for itself. Obviously."
Obviously what? Obviously we're supposed to applaud this ingenious sleight of hand? The name change from the GWOT to "Overseas Contingency Operations" has brought the U.S. military into open warfare with Pakistan, a country Clinton now sees as being an "existential threat." Fatal words in a world where pathocrats mark "existential threats" for nuclear obliteration.

We should not be surprised after all: Obama did say he would aim America's guns on Pakistan during his ascent to power.

Pakistan's turmoil spins faster and faster as its imminent collapse into warring 'Bantustans' approaches fast. The hounds of hell are loose on Pakistan as the Taliban advance to within 60 miles of Islamabad, their path before them laid waste by the U.S. sky vultures circling overhead.

Suicide bombings, riots, drones vapourising people from above, the Taliban advancing on the capital... Karachi-based journalist Abdul Khalique Ali understandably sees a conspiracy afoot:
"It seems to me a calculated conspiracy to trigger sectarian violence in the country in line with Iraq. This all is happening at a time when (US Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan) Richard Holbrooke and the US military leadership are in Pakistan and have made it clear that there would be no respite in drone attacks despite a growing criticism among Pakistanis. Bombings of mosques and religious congregations of rival sects are aimed at diverting the public attention from increasing drone attacks in line with new Afghan-Pakistan policy of the US. We have been informed by security officials in different briefings about the involvement of MI-6, RAW, Mossad, CIA and other intelligence agencies in the tribal belt. There is a general realization that there is a common enemy behind these attacks; local extremists are serving America's agenda of creating chaos and uncertainty in Pakistan.
The U.S. State Department expressed its "disappointment" with Pakistan for not embracing Obama's surge in the newly designated country of "Af-Pak", a less than subtle hint that the Empire is most displeased with Zardari's government for his failure to tacitly accept that 'Pakistan' as such, is no more. In American eyes, Zardari is now an administrator overseeing the liquidation of southern Afpak along tribal lines. In either defiance, despair, or a combination of both, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Rabbani reaffirmed that U.S. drone attacks were a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. Facing onslaught from within and without, the Pakistani government recognizes that it simply has to play ball: Zardari issued a bargain plea to at least, "give us the drones and we will take out the militants ourselves."

It was left to a junior minister to state the obvious:
"American policies are not of a friend but of a foe and Richard Holbrooke and Mike Mullen are in Pakistan to put a price on our loyalty to our religion and the Islamic State of Pakistan but we are not a saleable commodity."

"To achieve its objectives, Americans are spreading hatred in the mind and heart of the people of world by portraying Islamists as cruel, inhuman and threat to humanity, and are trying to divide Pakistani nation on religious basis," the Minister said.
Shunning U.S. shotgun diplomacy, Zardari has instead reached out to the Pakistani Taliban, agreeing to effectively devolve control of the Swat valley in the north of the country to the very extremists that U.S. drones empower with each airstrike. The U.S. naturally condemned this move, but you can't help but wonder if this is precisely the justification it requires to escalate its bombing campaign.

Radha Surya sums up Pakistan's dire situation:
"The United States is now seriously considering destabilizing Pakistan..." cried an outraged Tariq Ali, historian, revolutionary activist, novelist and Pakistani expatriate, in a Democracy Now interview that aired on March 19, 2009. "...Pakistan, a nation of 175 million, struggles for its very survival," writes Pervez Hoodbhoy (Frontline, March 27, 2009), Islamabad-based physicist and political activist. An anguished Pervez Hoodbhoy has written in the same article of being among the small number of Pakistanis who have been for 20 years or more desperately sending out SOS messages warning of terrible times to come. As the War on Terror, freshly baptized under the name of Overseas Contingency Operations, works itself into frenzy in the Pakistan-Afghanistan theatre, as the inexorable Predator drone attacks by the US military in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) continue to claim civilian casualties, as further drone attacks are promised in the face of remonstrances made by Pakistan's Government, as never-ending waves of fiyadeen bombings strike Pakistan's cities, and as the Pakistani Taliban prevail over the military, expand the territory under their control and threaten Islamabad itself, the horrified world finds itself bearing witness to the intensifying breakdown of the Pakistani state from internal and externally generated stresses and contradictions. Of the external sources of instability none has been more destructive than the so-called US-led War on Terror which upon shifting its focal point to the Afpak region seems to have addressed itself to wiping out any remaining cohesion that the beleaguered Pakistani state, putative US partner and most valued non-NATO partner, can be said to retain.
Bush Obama cartoon
© Leon Kuhn
Afpak - the newsspeak term for Barack's heroic little war - neatly coins in one stroke of a pen the theatre upon which The Great American Horror Show has been projected anew. Every movie needs its anti-hero. The Islamofascist groomed for the starring role in Afpak is Mehsud Baitullah. Don't expect the CIA to make the same mistakes with video footage revealing multiple Osamas this time around: Baitullah doesn't like to be photographed. Just like his predecessor he suffers from acute diabetes, leaves voice messages for the local press to air his meandering rants and taunts the Great Satan with threats grand enough to match his ego. And all that from the grave too; there's no imagining what damage the man could inflict if he were actually alive!

Remembering to close the circuit and thereby "make real" the new Islamic Goldstein's phantom threats, Obama chimed in from one of his array of teleprompters that an attack on America was "very likely." Extending credibility just a tad stage-left, the new Bin Laden returned the compliment by claiming to be the inspiration for a Vietnamese immigrant in New York to gun down 13 former colleagues. Somebody obviously realized that this stretched credulity too thin and the story soon disappeared down the memory hole.

Like Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld may no longer be in public view, but his destructive influence on counter-insurgency tactics in imperial warfare continues unimpeded. As Chris Floyd reminds us:
Whether or not the rag-tag TTP [Pakistani Taliban] could actually carry out such a threat is another matter, as Juan Cole notes. But that is not really the point. The point is that once again, a violent group has been knowingly prodded into murderous action. Even better, it has now set itself up as a "deadly terrorist threat" to the sacred Homeland itself: yet another made-to-order supervillain from central casting.

And remarkably, this new, open threat to bring terror to the American heartland comes just days after Barack Obama announced his vaunted surge in the Af-Pak War, citing - what else? - the need to protect the United States from terrorists based in Afghanistan and Pakistan as his chief reason for escalating and expanding the conflict. Yet another astonishing coincidence to justify the militarist agenda, which needs a constant supply of PR-plausible villains and hyped-up, nation-rattling threats like a junkie needs smack. And once again, we are left to puzzle out the varying proportion of connivance, acquiescence, exploitation, luck, etc., involved in this serendipitous pairing of declarations from Obama and Mehsud.
The Pentagon strategy of "tickling terrorists" into the desired reaction was laid out by Rumsfeld in the P2OG 'Defense' Strategy paper soon after perching himself in the Pentagon:
P2OG is not designed solely to flush out terrorists and bring them to justice - a laudable goal in itself, although the Rumsfeld way of combating terrorism by causing it is pure moral lunacy... No, it seems the Pee-Twos have bigger fish to fry. Once they have sparked terrorists into action - by killing their family members? luring them with loot? fueling them with drugs? plying them with jihad propaganda? messing with their mamas? or with agents provocateurs, perhaps, who infiltrate groups then plan and direct the attacks themselves? - they can then take measures against the "states/sub-state actors accountable" for "harboring" the Rumsfeld-roused gangs. What kind of measures exactly? Well, the classified Pentagon program puts it this way: "Their sovereignty will be at risk."

When the Obama Administration speaks of "continuity" in American foreign policy, this is an integral part of what they are talking about. So look to see much more on TTP and the demon de jour, Baitullah Mehsud, as the bipartisan Long War grinds on and on, with its ever-present need for "catalyzing" - and terrorizing - the American people into support for the militarist project.
Just as Hamid Karzai north of the border begun cooperating with the Taliban militias, Zardari weighed his paltry options, openly condemned the U.S. airstrikes for destabilizing Pakistan, then moved to placate the immediate internal threat posed by the advancing Taliban by accepting Sharia law in return for some semblance of security in the North West of the country. The U.S. responded with an ultimatum: "Stop the Taliban now - or we will."

Zardari must sense that the writing is on the wall. His wife earlier defied the script by protesting loudly that bin Laden was a phantom menace. This may have cost her her life. This time around, with bin Laden's reanimation in the form of the faceless Baithullah Mehsud heralding chaos across Pakistan, Zardari looks hopelessly cornered as the walls cave in on him.

Mad men with guns

On his first day on the job, right-wing Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, declared that Israel is not bound by the terms of the Annapolis Agreement, which called for a cessation of settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and aimed at building a separate state for Palestinians alongside Israel. Not surprisingly, sources close to the government point out that Netanyahu is in agreement with Lieberman. He added that "those who want peace should prepare for war".

In the unlikely case you have forgotten, Lieberman is the same man who openly calls for an Israel free of Arabs. In a reference to nuclear bombs, he has suggested that Israel should fight Hamas the way the United States fought the Japanese in World War II. He has openly fantasized about executing the handful of Palestinian Knesset members. He has suggested bombing Egypt's Aswan Dam. As Ariel Sharon's minister of transportation he offered to bus several hundred Palestinian prisoners to the sea and drown them. He lives, in defiance of international law, in the Jewish settlement of Nokdim on occupied Palestinian land. But racism is not his only peculiarity. He was found guilty in 2001 of beating a 12-year-old boy and fined by an Israeli court; he is currently being investigated for a multimillion-dollar fraud and money laundering.

If Obama fails to take care of Iran, Israel will, says Netanyahu. Likewise, President Shimon Peres said that he hoped Obama's call for dialogue with Ahmadinejad would be heeded, but warned that if such talks don't soften the Iranian president's approach "we'll strike him."

This is consistent with the fact that the Israeli army is training for an impending war. Seeing the writing on the wall, Gulf Cooperation Council members -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman -- are getting ready for what many now assume will be retaliation from Iran following Israeli bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities later this year. Patriot missile batteries have been quietly deployed around key oil installations. There is also a steady traffic in and out of Washington of high-ranking GCC military and defense officials.

Obama did his assigned job in this area too and resumed the Iran threat rhetoric. Amnesty International has pointed out that U.S. arms delivery to Israel threatens "Mideast Peace" (if there ever was any); and the U.S. Senate is moving to fully fund Israel aid.

On top of this, we had to stand a pathetic pro-Zionist stunt when Iran's president Ahmadjinedad got up to speak at the UN racism conference and spoke the truth about Israel.

Erasing fingerprints

You know, weapons of mass destruction have a life of their own. They went for a walk when Dubya was so sure they were hidden in Iraq, never to be found again. And they have been going for a ride in the U.S. too. This is from a year ago:
Nuclear Parts Sent To Taiwan In Error
March 26, 2008

The Defense Department mistakenly shipped secret nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan more than 18 months ago and did not learn that the items were missing until late last week, Pentagon officials acknowledged yesterday, deepening concerns about the security of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Officials with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) sent four nose-cone fuse assemblies to Taiwan in August 2006 instead of four replacement battery packs for use in Taiwan's fleet of UH-1 Huey helicopters. The fuses help trigger nuclear warheads on Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles as they near their point of impact. It was unclear yesterday how the two very different items were mixed up at a warehouse at Hill Air Force Base in Utah and how they were shipped out of the country without notice. [...]
It turns out that this month the Hill Air Force Base commander was killed in car accident in Georgia. Coincidence?

What about the strange and mysteriously under-reported murder of ex-CIA agent and U.S. Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel, William Bennett, and the almost murder of his wife Cynthia, also an ex-army officer? Rumors of being a Russian S-300 missile specialist, and allegedly the man who is responsible of the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO in May of 1999 - a mistake we are told, for which only one man was held responsible.

A couple of mysteries to keep in mind.

A pirate story

Just to dispel the notion that evil Somali pirates hate us because of our freedoms, we would like to include here a fragment of an article by Johann Hari:
In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its 9 million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. [...]

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300 million worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. [...]

This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates" have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coast Guard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why.

In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters ... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." [...]
Fireballs et al

Here is our quick glance at what is going on above our heads.

The U.S. military is to expand a program to monitor satellites for risk of collision with debris. So suddenly there is a need for an expansion of this program? Meanwhile, the European Space Agency hosted the Fifth European Conference on Space Debris (30th March - 2nd April). We are aware of the reports of previous months of the International Space Station close encounters with 'space junk'. But can we believe that a) this was common space junk and b) the amount of space junk in the vastness of our space merits a more detailed surveillance? Or is there something else flying around? On April 2nd, the ISS and a meteor crossed paths, but this little item passed by almost unnoticed.

Here are a few examples of the month's fireball sightings:

- USAF: East coast 'Bright light' not man-made object (published April 1st).

- Residents in Alberta and Saskatchewan spot brilliant fireball in morning sky (published March 31st)

- Fireball leaves 'great glow' in Alberta

- Northern Ireland: Security cameras clue to fireball

- U.S.: meteor strikes Flagstaff area?

Turn off the Sun

The awareness among the scientific community and the public in general that the world is not actually warming, and that this may be related to the rather abnormal inactivity of the sun, is increasing.

Image
© National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado
NASA pointed out that in 2008 there were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%), but sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).

The solar activity has been the lowest in almost 100 years; the implications for the climate are potentially significant. Indeed, the sunspot activity correlates to global climate change. Last year, it was expected that the sun would be hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity. According to Piers Corbyn astrophysicist and long-range weather and climate forecaster;
The latest advances in Sun-Earth relations show not only the primacy of magnetic-particle links between the sun and the earth but that these are modulated by lunar effects to give the observed 60 year cycle in both world and USA temperatures. This means that the world will continue general cooling at least to 2030. Neither the 60 year cycle, nor the 22 year cycle nor any fluctuations in world tempertaures over the last 100 years, thousand years or million years can be explained by changes in CO2.
Notably, a U.S. Navy Physicist warned of possibly 'several decades of crushing cold temperatures and global famine'

The Antarctic sea ice is up over 43% since 1980. Apparently, while ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica, east Antarctica, which is four times as large, has been growing in ice. Overall, the South Pole has shown "significant cooling in recent decades", according to a report by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

Two of the Arctic ice sites show April 16 ice at recent record levels. The Japanese site IJIS has a seven year April record going back to 2003, and reports 2009 levels at the highest extent on record for the date: 13,649,219 km2; while the Danish Meteorological Institute, which has a five year database, also shows April 16 ice extent as the highest in their short record.

Furthermore, satellite observations from the Arctic indicate that spring ice melting is beginning at a lower rate than normal this year; the area of ice-covered ocean has decreased only about 750,000 km2 when it should have declined by 1.1 million km2 by now. There is also a recent dramatic trend towards cooler sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, to the point that the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be less active than recent years. It was in the second half of last year that the Atlantic abruptly cooled.

Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies 2005 2009
© StormX
Back home, things are still poppin' and shakin'

The usual hotspots of earthquake and volcanoes are active, but other usually calm areas appear to be coming to life. The most devastating to date has been the earthquake centered in Italy, with large losses of life and property. Less obvious areas are also becoming active. Note the number of articles labeled "odd" or "unusual". Mother Nature is showing her discontent about many parts of the planet.

April 5:
Alaska's Mount Redoubt has another large eruption
US: 3 earthquakes shake East Tennessee in 8 days
Evacuation ordered as Chile volcano erupts again
Earthquake Jolts Central Japan
US: Odd "Earthquakes" Near Milledgeville, Georgia
Guatemala: Earthquake Magnitude 4.6
Virgin Islands Region: Earthquake Magnitude 4.5

April 6:
6.3 magnitude earthquake hits central Italy northeast of Rome. Interestingly, an Italian astrophysicist had warned the populace about the coming disaster, but was threatened with arrest for 'scaremongering'.

Venezuela - Earthquake Magnitude 4.5

April 12: Galapagos volcano erupts, could threaten wildlife
April 13: Seismologist deems California quakes 'curious'
April 14: Hawaii's Big Island rattled by strong earthquake
April 17: Earthquakes reported in Israel, Lebanon, West Bank
April 18: Twin Afghan earthquakeskill 22 .
April 22: US: Earthquake Magnitude 4.2 Island of Hawaii, Hawaii
April 25: US: 7 Earthquakes hit Yorba Linda, California
April 25: Colombia: Galeras volcano erupts again
April 27: Russia: Kamchatka volcano Shiveluch emissed a 7-km column of ash
April 28: Mexico: Earthquake, Magnitude 5.6

Here Be Dragons

A curious worm-like object dropped a sphere over Mexico City (a couple of weeks before the influenza outbreak, by the way):


Competing with the above for the top bizarre UFO video of the month, here is a 'mushroom' UFO transforming into an 'octopus' over Brazil:


Further north, a close relative of the Mothman is haunting more Mexicans (many things are happening in that country!):

'Man bat' reported in Chihuahua, Mexico.
Mexico: State of Chihuahua Terrorized by "Man-Bat"
Mexico: Panic Over "Humanoid" in Chihuahua

More reports of 'monsters' around the world:

US: Mysterious creature bites, claws family's SUV in Lincoln County
England: More sightings of the roving black beast

And ghosts!:
Scotland Ghost
© Chris AitchisonThe mysterious image captured by Chris Aitchison at Tantallon Castle in eastern Scotland.
Ghost captured in CCTV in England.
Ghost captured in camera in Scottish castle

There Can Be Only One

In many of the sections above we have discussed the idea of the New World Order, a World Government of sorts, and some of the possible plans of this elite as they are being implemented on the population, whether through the economy, politics or social disturbances or the mass hysteria produced by an apparent pandemic.

With that in mind, we thought we would close this month's installment with a video from March 2003 which shows Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Australian Prime Minister John Howard delivering largely identical speeches in which they urge their nations to join George W. Bush's Coalition of the Willing to go to war with Iraq. If this is not evidence that there is a single 'world government' already in place with a unified plan, while everything else is show, then we do not know what is!