Puppet MastersS


Arrow Down

Eurozone is running out of options and time to solve debt crisis

John W. Schoen
NBC News
Tue, 04 Sep 2012 11:30 UTC
Image
© Francois Lenoir/ReutersLet's hope he'll be this happy later this week. European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi, pictured above, is expected to unveil a new plan Thursday to tackle the eurozone's nagging debt crisis.
Two years after eurozone began its downward financial spiral, the European Central Bank is about to unveil a widely-anticipated plan to pump more money into the system to stem a wider collapse.

But the plan, similar to the massive bond-buying undertaken by U.S. central bankers four years ago, may be too little, too late.

"It's going to take a lot more than a few rate cuts here and there to give us a lift," said Peter Dixon, a senior economist at Commerzbank Securities. "Monetary policy is effectively running out of options."

Europe is also running out of time. Manufacturing across the continent contracted faster than previously thought last month, according to the latest data released Monday. The recession sparked by a crushing debt hangover in a few smaller members of the 17-nation bloc is now sweeping through Germany and France. The financial turmoil that sank Greece as investors and depositors fled now threatens the much larger economies of Spain and Italy.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi bought some time last month, calming markets somewhat with a pledge to do "whatever it takes" to save the euro. Now, he has to deliver. On Thursday, the ECB is set to unveil details of a new bond-buying plan that has re-opened long-standing fault lines in Europe's experiment with a common currency.
Read More...
Arrow Down

Three bad signs

Martin Walker
United Press International
Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:08 UTC
Image
© UPI/Kevin DietschFederal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies on the Board's Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on July 17, 2012 in Washington, D.C.
There have been three striking developments in different parts of the world in recent days, each of them with sobering implications for the global economy. Taken together, the prognosis is grim.The first was the speech of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke at the annual bankers' gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in which he acknowledged that U.S. unemployment as unacceptably high, which meant growth was well below par and that therefore more quantitative easing could be expected.

Since the previous rounds of QE didn't succeed in reviving the economy (although they may have staved off more decline) it isn't clear why a third round should do the trick.

Although stock markets predictably rallied at the prospect of more cheap money and continued low interest rates (which means investors might hope to do better in stocks than in bonds) Bernanke's real motive may have been as much political as economic.

He is buying time and keeping the show on the road until such time as the politicians get their act together and reach a rational compromise on spending cuts and tax rises.
Read More...
Handcuffs

Best of the Web: We're one crucial step closer to seeing Tony Blair at The Hague

George Monbiot
The Guardian
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 09:45 UTC
Image
© Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesTony Blair arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in London to give evidence on media ethics to the Leveson inquiry in May 2012.
Desmond Tutu has helped us see the true nature of what the former prime minister did to Iraq and increased pressure for a prosecution

For years it seems impregnable, then suddenly the citadel collapses. An ideology, a fact, a regime appears fixed, unshakeable, almost geological. Then an inch of mortar falls, and the stonework begins to slide. Something of this kind happened over the weekend.

When Desmond Tutu wrote that Tony Blair should be treading the path to The Hague, he de-normalised what Blair has done. Tutu broke the protocol of power - the implicit accord between those who flit from one grand meeting to another - and named his crime. I expect that Blair will never recover from it.

The offence is known by two names in international law: the crime of aggression and a crime against peace. It is defined by the Nuremberg principles as the "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression". This means a war fought for a purpose other than self-defence: in other words outwith articles 33 and 51 of the UN Charter.
Read More...
Wolf

War Crimes: Israel Pillaging Palestinian Resources

Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Inter Press Service
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:55 UTC
Israeli quarry West Bank
© Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPSAn Israeli-operated quarry in the industrial area of the Ma'ale Adumim settlement in the West Bank, just outside of Jerusalem.
By mining natural resources from the occupied Palestinian territories for its own economic purposes, Israel is committing the war crime of pillage in the Dead Sea area, according to a report released Monday by Palestinian human rights group Al Haq.

"Israel is openly in violation of its obligations as an Occupying Power in the (occupied Palestinian territories), because it is encouraging and facilitating the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources and actively assisting their pillaging by private actors," said the Al Haq report, titled 'Pillage of the Dead Sea: Israel's Unlawful Exploitation of Natural Resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory'.

Criminal responsibility for the crime of pillage does not only extend to the state of Israel, but can also be applied to individuals, namely Israeli settlers who benefit from the extraction of resources from the Dead Sea, Al Haq said.
Read More...
Bad Guys

Delhi Car Bombing: Evidence Suggests Journalist Was Framed, Evidence Fabricated to Implicate Iran in Attack on Israeli Embassy Car

Gareth Porter
Inter Press Service
Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:22 UTC
Delhi car bomb
© AP
In "The Delhi Car Bombing: How the Police Built a False Case", a three-part series beginning today, award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter dissects the Delhi police accusation against an Indian journalist and four Iranians of involvement in the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy car.

New Delhi police officials have released hundreds of pages of documents from their investigation into the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli Embassy car. The documents aimed to show that a well-known Indian Muslim journalist aided an Iranian conspiracy to plan and carry out the bombing.

But a review by IPS of the evidence filed in the case suggests that the Indian journalist accused in the case has been framed by the police, at least in part to implicate the Iranians in the terror plot.
Read More...
Attention

1812 Napolean's Defeat in Russia. A History Warning to the American Empire

The Watchdog
The Lone Star Watchdog
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:06 UTC
napolian retreat
© unknownNapolian retreat from Moscow
It does not matter, any Empire is no exception. Today's' empires does not consist of Generals or emperors. They are the bankers who do have armies and puppet leaders who commands them to be used as a battering ram to invade nations that do not play ball with the bankers. The Bankers funded Napoleon's march to conquer Europe until he marched on Russia.

The over reach of Napoleon invading Russia. When his Army marched on Moscow was the beginning of his decline. His Army suffered a major defeat because when an empire sets out to conquer other nations. They assume they are unstoppable and cannot be beat. They show no respect to their opponent. Napoleon invading Russia was his biggest mistake being far away from having logistics to feed and supplying his army. The Russian troops took advantage of that weakness to defeat Napoleon with the scorched earth strategy depriving his army of agriculture or anything that would aid his army. That is what caused Napoleon's Army to go into retreat withdrawing from Russia. Russia just had a ceremony at the Kremlin celebrating the defeat of Napoleon.

Looking at the United State in its present day. They are in more wars and looking start more. We are in Iraq, Afghanistan , we are in Libya, Yemen. We have 900 military bases in 130 countries. We are looking to go into Africa. We are looking to go into Iran. We are building bases encircling Russia and China. Our troops spread thin all around the world. Can the US Government afford anymore?
Read More...
Attention

Government Threatens with Jail Time for Growing Produce in Front-Yard Garden

Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 13:30 UTC
Carrots
© Natural Society
You own your home and the lot that it sits on. So, if you want to plant tomatoes instead of bushes, you should be entitled to that, right? While this may seem like a common sense line of reasoning, many cities and towns across our nation think otherwise. They don't want their citizens using a front-yard garden to grow food - they want perfectly green and manicured lawns.

Using a Front-Yard Garden to Grow Veges? You May Not be Allowed

It seems like every month a few more stories hit the social media grapevines, where home owners are being punished for growing food. Some of these front-yard gardeners have created landscapes that rival those created by high-paid landscaping companies. The difference - all of this greenery is edible.

Whether it's the HOA rules or a city ordinance, some front-yard gardeners are being forced to pull up their plants and scrap their edible landscape. Why? If for nothing more than to have a seamless line of green yards stretching through the neighborhood.

When we can't trust what we find at the grocery store, and farmer's markets are limited and not always within driving distance, growing our own food doesn't just make sense, it makes perfect sense.

And once you've begun growing your own, you will likely begin to wonder why Americans ever moved away from self-sustaining gardens.

Why can't many of us grow food in the front-yard garden? Many townships say that the 'issue' revolves around yard space, where a vegetable garden may only be allowed to take up to 20-30% of a yard area. It may sound crazy that a city government would spend (waste) resources to target gardeners, but it actually happens more often than you would think.
Read More...
USA

Best of the Web: Facade of a Beloved and Legendary "America"

William Blum
Information Clearinghouse
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 11:49 UTC
Image
© salon.com
"We pledge allegiance to the republic for which America stands and not to its empire for which it is now suffering." Sam Smith, editor of the Progressive Review

September 02, 2012 "Information Clearing House" - Louis XVI needed a revolution, Napoleon needed two historic military defeats, the Spanish Empire in the New World needed multiple revolutions, the Russian Czar needed a communist revolution, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires needed World War I, the Third Reich needed World War II, the Land of the Rising Sun needed two atomic bombs, the Portuguese Empire in Africa needed a military coup at home. What will the American Empire need?

Perhaps losing the long-held admiration and support of one group of people after another, one country after another, as the empire's wars, bombings, occupations, torture, and lies eat away at the facade of a beloved and legendary "America"; an empire unlike any other in history, that has intervened seriously and grievously, in war and in peace, in most countries on the planet, as it preached to the world that the American Way of Life was a shining example for all humanity and that America above all was needed to lead the world.

The Wikileaks documents and videos have provided one humiliation after another ... lies exposed, political manipulations revealed, gross hypocrisies, murders in cold blood, ... followed by the torture of Bradley Manning and the persecution of Julian Assange. Washington calls the revelations "threats to national security", but the world can well see it's simply plain old embarrassment. Manning's defense attorneys have asked the military court on several occasions to specify the exact harm done to national security. The court has never given an answer. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, consider an empire embarrassed.
Read More...
War Whore

Best of the Web: Bush's CIA Torturers Granted Final Immunity by Obama's "Justice" Department

Glenn Greenwald
The Guardian
Fri, 31 Aug 2012 11:00 UTC
Image
© Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty ImagesAnti-torture activists, wearing Guantánamo-style orange jumpsuits, demonstrate outside the White House in June 2011.
By closing two cases of detainees tortured to death, Obama has put the US beyond any accountability under the rule of law

The Obama administration's aggressive, full-scale whitewashing of the "war on terror" crimes committed by Bush officials is now complete. Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the closing without charges of the only two cases under investigation relating to the US torture program: one that resulted in the 2002 death of an Afghan detainee at a secret CIA prison near Kabul, and the other the 2003 death of an Iraqi citizen while in CIA custody at Abu Ghraib. This decision, says the New York Times Friday, "eliminat[es] the last possibility that any criminal charges will be brought as a result of the brutal interrogations carried out by the CIA".

To see what a farce this is, it is worthwhile briefly to review the timeline of how Obama officials acted to shield Bush torturers from all accountability. During his 2008 campaign for president, Obama repeatedly vowed that, while he opposed "partisan witch-hunts", he would instruct his attorney general to "immediately review" the evidence of criminality in these torture programs because "nobody is above the law." Yet, almost immediately after winning the 2008 election, Obama, before he was even inaugurated, made clear that he was opposed to any such investigations, citing what he called "a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards".
Read More...
Evil Rays

Iran's International Profile Raised through Hosting NAM Summit


Fars News Agency
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 06:24 UTC
Image
© Fars News Agency
American writer and radio host Stephen Lendman believes that the successful arrangement and hosting of the 16th heads-of-state Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran was diplomatically a triumph for the Islamic Republic, which disappointed Israel and the United States and helped Iran improve its political profile on the international scene.

Lendman believes that despite the US and Israeli propaganda, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran which wrapped up on Friday was a great diplomatic victory for Iran and meant a great defeat and failure for the US and the Zionist regime of Israel.

What follows is the full text of Fars News Agency's interview with Stephen Lendman in which a number of issues pertaining to the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, the frustration of Western powers at the successful summit in Tehran, the attendance of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi at the summit, the prospects of the movement under Iran's presidency and the role it can play in fostering global peace and stability were discussed.
Read More...