Puppet MastersS


Wall Street

Banksters excited as Fed chairman signals possibility of more free money

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Helicopter Ben rides to the rescue of the Fed's banking clients once again
US central bank chief Ben Bernanke sparked a surge in share values on Friday after he signalled his willingness to embark on a third phase of money creation to boost the US economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed the day with a gain of 90 points after the chairman of the Federal Reserve gave a robust defence of past central bank interventions, which, traders said, prepared the ground for a third round of quantitative easing should the economic picture worsen. France's CAC and the German DAX closed up 1%.

In his much anticipated a speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Bernanke described the current economic situation as "far from satisfactory". He said that high rates of unemployment were a "grave concern, not only because of the enormous suffering and waste of human talent it entails, but also because persistently high levels of unemployment will wreak structural damage on our economy that could last for years".

Bomb

NATO proxy army blows up car bomb at funeral in Syria, killing 12 and wounding 48

Most of the victims were children. The car bomb explosion targeted civilians of Jaramana in Rif Dimashq (near Damascus).


Comment: What we are seeing today in Syria - that is, ALL of the massacres and car bombs etc. - is the work of the 'Free Syrian Army' and it is precisely the same kind of tactic that has been playing out in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past 10 years. This is a NATO 'proxy Army', trained and funded by the intelligence agencies of NATO countries to sow chaos in the targeted nation as an alternative to a 'boots-on-the-ground' invasion by NATO country armies. Even in the case where an invasion takes place, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, this proxy army war takes over fairly quickly because such proxies can kill and maim with impunity whereas regular Western soldiers cannot do so to the same extent. There are two main benefits of such proxy army tactics:

1) In the case of Syria, they can be used to try and create such chaos that NATO countries can ultimately invade or start a bombing campaign for "humanitarian reasons".

2) In the case of Iraq, for example, they can be used to justify the continued occupation by NATO in order to fight these same proxy armies that NATO created.

See also: 'Free Syrian Army' aka 'al-Qaeda' aka US, Israeli and British Mercenaries, Use Syrian Man as 'Suicide Bomber'


USA

Mitt Romney: The First Mormon President of the United States?

Romney
Mitt Romney has now been officially nominated as the Republican candidate for president of the United States.

His victory marks the first time that the Republicans have failed to nominate a Protestant Christian, and the first time that a major US party has nominated a person who is not a Christian at all.

Romney is a member of the Mormon or Latter Day Saints Church, a strange religious sect which was founded in upstate New York in 1830 by Joseph Smith, a convicted swindler and con man who played on the gullibility of ignorant farmers by getting them to hire him to find buried treasure on their land. The Mormons have their center in Salt Lake City, and they control Utah and much of Nevada - including part of Las Vegas gambling. They are influential in Idaho and Arizona. The Mormon presence in these states goes back to the late 1840s, when the Mormons tried to carve an independent, inland empire called Deseret out of the intermountain west, taking territory of Mexico and the United States.

The Southern Baptists, one of the most important Republican constituencies, have officially condemned Mormonism as a cult.

Political insiders see Mormonism as Scientology 150 years early - which Romney has denied. Romney calls himself a devout Mormon, and his family stresses that Mormonism is central to his identity. A key feature of Mormonism has historically been anti-black racism, which was allegedly ended in 1978.

Heart - Black

Best of the Web: 'We'll make a killing out of food crisis', psychopathic Glencore trading boss Chris Mahoney boasts

malnourished infant in Maradi
© The IndependentA malnourished infant in Maradi, Niger, which is suffering high food prices and low harvests
Drought is good for business, says world's largest commodities trading company

The United Nations, aid agencies and the British Government have lined up to attack the world's largest commodities trading company, Glencore, after it described the current global food crisis and soaring world prices as a "good" business opportunity.

With the US experiencing a rerun of the drought "Dust Bowl" days of the 1930s and Russia suffering a similar food crisis that could see Vladimir Putin's government banning grain exports, the senior economist of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, Concepcion Calpe, told The Independent: "Private companies like Glencore are playing a game that will make them enormous profits."

Ms Calpe said leading international politicians and banks expecting Glencore to back away from trading in potential starvation and hunger in developing nations for "ethical reasons" would be disappointed.

"This won't happen," she said. "So now is the time to change the rules and regulations about how Glencore and other multinationals such as ADM and Monsanto operate. They know this and have been lobbying heavily around the world to water down and halt any reform."

Document

Merkel wants new treaty on EU political union agreed by end of year

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EU HQ in Brussels. Can we trust a regime run by institutions, some of whose most senior members were named by dozens of children rescued from pedophile sex rings?
Germany's chancellor to call for convention to draw up rules on tighter political union.

Angela Merkel wants leaders of European Union member states to set up a convention for a new EU treaty by the end of the year to formalise steps towards tighter political union, according to German press reports.

Merkel, Germany's chancellor, wants leaders to agree at their summit in Brussels on 13-14 December to hold a first meeting of a convention on a new treaty, reports the Germany weekly magazine Der Spiegel.

A treaty convention, made up of representatives of the European Parliament and European Commission, as well as of member state governments, is needed to draft a new treaty.

Dollar

Big Agriculture reaps record profits from crop failures

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Whether markets go up or down, Wall Street wins. It appears that the powerbrokers are betting on crop failures and food shortages as a way to increase profits, so the spike in food prices on your supermarket shelves will be largely their fault
US farmers are heading for their most profitable year on record despite the worst drought in half a century as high grain prices and payouts from a federal crop insurance programme compensate for a smaller harvest.

Net farm income will reach $122.2bn in 2012, the highest-ever nominal profit and the second highest in inflation-adjusted terms after 1973, the US Department of Agriculture said in its first forecast since drought spread across the corn belt.

The expected 4 per cent increase in average farm profit from 2011 comes as agricultural states, including Iowa and Ohio, have emerged as battlegrounds in the November presidential election and lawmakers have failed to renew legislation outlining agricultural subsidies ahead of its expiry on September 30.

Intense summer heat and dry soils dramatically worsened the outlook for this year's US corn and soyabean harvest, propelling prices to all-time highs. Farms in northern plains states that escaped the worst conditions, such as North Dakota, will earn 39 per cent more this year, the department said.

Comment: We'll make a killing out of food crisis, Glencore trading boss Chris Mahoney boasts


Bad Guys

Mexico's Enrique Peña Nieto Officially Declared Election Winner

Mexico leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejects the ruling that Enrique Peña Nieto won the election and calls for protests, saying the PRI cheated.
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© Eduardo Verdugo, Associated Press Police officers stand guard Friday during a demonstration outside the Federal Electoral Tribunal in Mexico City.
Mexico City - Dismissing arguments that recent elections were rife with fraud, Mexico's electoral tribunal on Friday officially declared Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Enrique Peña Nieto the president-elect, a ruling that was defiantly rejected by leftist leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the second-place finisher who, for the second presidential contest in a row, called his followers into the streets of the capital to protest.

The unanimous ruling by the seven-judge panel clears the way for the return of Peña Nieto's party, known as the PRI, to power. It had lost the quasi-authoritarian grip on the country that it had enjoyed for more than seven decades in 2000, after numerous democratic reforms.

Though there were scattered protests throughout Mexico City, they have not yet risen to the levels of 2006 when, after an even closer election, Lopez Obrador's followers choked the city center for weeks, bringing the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis. Lopez Obrador - who has declared the latest elections neither "clean, free or authentic" - has called for a protest Sept. 9 in the Zocalo, the capital's historic square.

The president-elect arrived at the tribunal chambers late Friday to receive the judges' blessing. In a short speech, he urged Mexicans to unify despite their differences, and had words that, while not mentioning him by name, were obviously meant for his vanquished opponent:

"Legality is fundamental to our democratic system," Peña Nieto said.

"There are rules, deadlines and procedures," he said. "All of the competitors accept them, and we have an obligation to respect them."

The judges' decision was widely anticipated by observers here who had assumed that the tribunal would not deem the PRI's electoral sins sufficiently grave to warrant overturning an election that Peña Nieto won by nearly 3.2 million votes.

Bomb

Twin Afghan "Suicide Attacks" Kill 12

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© Omar Sobhani/ReutersAfghans protest in Kabul earlier this week over recent shelling from Pakistan into Afghan territory.
A twin suicide bomb attack targeted a Nato base in eastern Afghanistan today, killing eight civilians and four Afghan policemen, local officials said.

A spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said no one from the alliance was killed in the attack, which happened in Wardak province's Sayed Abad district.

"The truck bomb was huge, killing 12 and wounding 50 more," said provincial governor spokesman Sahidullah Shahid.

The Taliban, which took responsibility for the early morning attack, said it had sent the two bombers, one on foot and one in an explosives-laden truck.

The Nato base was targeted last year on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks when a suicide bomber drove into it, killing four civilians and wounding 77 US troops.

Comment: To learn about the origins of "suicide bombings", read this:

The British Empire - A Lesson In State Terrorism


Beaker

Ecuador to Sue US Laboratory for Biopiracy, Correa Says

Rafael Correa
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa
President Rafael Correa says Ecuador will sue a US laboratory for holding and selling blood samples deceitfully taken from members of an Amazon tribe.

Correa said in remarks broadcast on Friday that the samples were taken from members of the Waorani community in the early 1990s by two US nationals on the premise that the community is particularly resistant to disease and this merited medical research, AFP reported.

In July 2012, the 3,000-member group filed a complaint with the Ecuadorian ombudsman's office, and in response the government decided to take action after some 20 years, Correa stated.

According to the 2008 Constitution of Ecuador, biopiracy is forbidden.

War Whore

Israeli Airstrikes Injure 2 in Northern Gaza Strip

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An Israeli F-16 fighter jet
At least two Palestinians have been injured in Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip, local medical sources say.


Israeli F-16 warplanes carried out the attacks on northern Gaza late on Friday night, Xinhua reported.

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says Israel launched over 58 air and ground assaults on the Gaza Strip in June, which killed over a dozen Palestinians and injured many others.

The Israeli military frequently bombs the Gaza Strip, saying the actions are being conducted for defensive purposes. However, disproportionate force is always used, in violation of international law, and civilians are often killed or injured.

Gaza has been blockaded since 2007, which is a situation that has caused a decline in the standard of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.