Puppet Masters
The European Commission called for direct euro-area aid for troubled banks, and touted a Europe- wide deposit-guarantee system and common bond issuance as antidotes to the debt crisis now threatening to overwhelm Spain.
The commission, the European Union's central regulator, sided with Spain in proposing that the euro's permanent bailout fund inject cash to banks instead of channeling the money via national governments. It also offered Spain extra time to squeeze the budget deficit.
The use of the rescue fund to recapitalize banks "might be envisaged" and would "sever the link between banks and the sovereigns," the commission said today in Brussels. Jose Barroso, the commission's president, said "it is important to use all possibilities offered in terms of flexibility."
Proposals for more liberal use of European bailout money are likely to face resistance in creditor countries such as Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, the scenes of growing taxpayer opposition to more aid.
© Anthony Freda
New research has exposed, shall we say, the root of the problem. Pathocracy is its flower.
Definition: pathocracy (n). A system of government created by a small pathological minority that takes control over a society of normal people (from Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, by Andrew Lobaczewski).
A small minority of people are born psychopaths; they inherit a genetic deviance linked to certain structural abnormalities of their social brain.
The physical dynamic that exposes psychopaths is a reduction of gray matter in the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and temporal poles. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is able to image this deviation fundamental to psychopathy. Potential benefits to humanity are immense; imagine something like a TSA screening (without the bureaucracy, groping and humiliation) to keep psychopaths from boarding the flight to power.
Comment: See also this. Also, a search of SOTT on 'psychopath' and 'psychopathy' will provide a wealth of material on this subject.
One overlooked reason why the psychopaths in power "are elusive about how billions of humans will be eliminated" is because they know Something Wicked This Way Comes, including the advent of an Ice Age... they intend to ride out the storm and leave humanity to the mercy of Nature.
© unknown
Dr. Shakil Afridi
Dr. Shakil Afridi
A copy of the verdict obtained by The Associated Press Wednesday adds to questions about Pakistan's treatment of Shakil Afridi.
Afridi was sentenced last week in a tribal court. Few details were released about the verdict, but officials did nothing to challenge the widely held assumption he was punished for his role in helping the CIA.
The five-page document, first reported by Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, says Afridi was guilty of conspiring with militant commander Mangal Bagh.
Afridi's family says he is innocent and will appeal.
Source: The Associated Press
© Agence France-Presse
French President Francois Hollande
French President Francois Hollande
"[An armed intervention] is not excluded on the condition that it is carried out with respect to international law, meaning after deliberation by the United Nations Security Council," Hollande said. In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the United States had not taken any options off the table, but believed armed action was not the right course at present.
"We do not believe that militarization -- further militarization -- of the situation in Syria at this point is the right course of action. We believe that it would lead to greater chaos, greater carnage," Carney said. Meanwhile, the United States, Canada, Australia, and a number of European countries, said they were expelling senior Syrian diplomats in response to the May 25 killings in Houla. The United Nations says most of the victims were executed. UN monitors said spent tank and artillery shells, as well as fresh tank tracks on the ground, were clear signs that Syrian government forces had shelled the town. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed concern that "certain countries" were beginning to use the Houla massacre as "a pretext for voicing demands relating to the need for military measures to be taken." Speaking to UN special envoy Kofi Annan by telephone, he urged an end to violence on all sides, and called for an "impartial" UN-led probe into the massacre. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland welcomed Lavrov's call.
Comment: For a better idea of what is really going on in Syria please read the Sott Focus: NATO's 'Civil War' Machine Rolls Into Syria by Joe Quinn and Niall Bradley and Syria's Bloody CIA Revolution - A Distraction? by Joe Quinn.
For additional information read:
Mossad, Blackwater, CIA Led Operations in Homs
Wikileaks: US-led NATO Troops Operate Inside Syria
© Reuters
Protesters shout during a demonstration against presidential candidates Mohamed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq at Tahrir Square in Cairo May 28, 2012.
Protesters shout during a demonstration against presidential candidates Mohamed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq at Tahrir Square in Cairo May 28, 2012.
"Disqualify Shafiq!" he chanted, raising his shoe in the air. El-Sayyed, who voted for Nasserist candidate Hamdeen Sabahi in the country's first post-Mubarak presidential elections, said that Egypt would not tolerate a return of the old regime. He was joined in Tahrir by hundreds of other Egyptians enraged by the realization of what many called the "nightmare scenario:" a contest for the country's top post being played out between an Islamist and a felul, or "remnant" of the old regime, thus sidelining more secular, independent forces.
Gustave Dore, Crusades - Richard and Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf
Although not mentioned, the "strategic prize" of the first stage of this war on Iran is Syria; the first campaign in a much wider sectarian power-bid. "Other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself," Saudi King Abdullah was reported to have said last summer, "nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria."1
By December, senior United States officials were explicit about their regime change agenda for Syria: Tom Donilon, the US National Security Adviser, explained that the "end of the [President Bashar al-] Assad regime would constitute Iran's greatest setback in the region yet - a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran."
Shortly before, a key official in terms of operationalizing this policy, Under Secretary of State for the Near East Jeffrey Feltman, had stated at a congressional hearing that the US would "relentlessly pursue our two-track strategy of supporting the opposition and diplomatically and financially strangling the [Syrian] regime until that outcome is achieved".2
What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime "more compatible" with US interests in the region.
Sakhr al-Taifi led foreign insurgents and directed attacks against Nato and Afghan forces, according to alliance
Al-Qaida's second-in-command in Afghanistan has been killed, according to Nato.
Sakhr al-Taifi, also known as Mushtaq and Nasim, led foreign insurgents and directed attacks against Nato and Afghan forces, the alliance said.
The air strike that killed Taifi and another al-Qaida militant took place on Sunday in the Watahpur district of Kunar. A later assessment of the area determined that no civilians had been harmed, Nato said.
The coalition declined to reveal the name of al-Qaida's top leader in Afghanistan "due to ongoing operations and security concerns".
© The Associated Press/Musadeq Sadeq
Nato troops at the scene of a militant attack in Kabul earlier this month.
Nato troops at the scene of a militant attack in Kabul earlier this month.
Sakhr al-Taifi, also known as Mushtaq and Nasim, led foreign insurgents and directed attacks against Nato and Afghan forces, the alliance said.
The air strike that killed Taifi and another al-Qaida militant took place on Sunday in the Watahpur district of Kunar. A later assessment of the area determined that no civilians had been harmed, Nato said.
The coalition declined to reveal the name of al-Qaida's top leader in Afghanistan "due to ongoing operations and security concerns".
Victims of the Houla massacre included dozens of children
The United States, France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Switzerland all took action.
Most of the victims in Houla were summarily executed, the UN says.
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan said, after talks with President Bashar al-Assad, Syria was at a "tipping point".
He said he had asked Mr Assad to take "bold steps" to see that his peace plan was implemented.
President Assad blamed the violence on "terrorists". His remarks were quoted by state TV.
Earlier, UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said initial investigations had suggested that most of those killed in the village of Taldou, near Houla, were summarily executed.
Comment: If previous NATO 'regime changes' are a template, this move is indicative of an upcoming NATO strike on Syria and the Syrian population.
© truthquake.com
And Bono, of the rock group U2, is out shilling for Monsanto on this one.
It's phase 2 of the Green Revolution. Tanzania, Ghana, and Ethiopia are the first to fall for the deception, with Mozambique, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and other African nations lining up for the "Grow Africa Partnership," under Obama's "Global Agricultural Development" plan.
© Unknown
Hillary Clinton and Shimon Peres: US-Israel relations are growing even rosier despite Israel’s atrocious human rights record.
Hillary Clinton and Shimon Peres: US-Israel relations are growing even rosier despite Israel’s atrocious human rights record.
- "Arab citizens of the country faced institutional and societal discrimination."
- "Resources devoted to Arabic education were inferior to those devoted to Hebrew education in the public education system."
- "Human rights organizations reported that 'physical interrogation methods' permitted by Israeli law and used by Israeli security personnel could amount in practice to torture."
- "In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Israeli Civil Administration, part of Israel's Ministry of Defense, continued to demolish homes, cisterns, and other buildings and property constructed by Palestinians in areas under Israeli civil control on the basis that these buildings lacked Israeli planning licenses. Compensation was generally not offered in these cases."
- "In East Jerusalem, under Israeli authority, displays of Palestinian political symbols were punishable by fines or imprisonment."
- "The [Israeli military] IDF continued its use of a 1967 military order that effectively prohibited Palestinian demonstrations and limited freedom of speech in the West Bank. The order stipulates that a 'political' gathering of 10 or more persons requires a permit from the regional commander of military forces. The penalty for a breach of the order is 10 years' imprisonment or a heavy fine."
- "The Israeli government obstructed refugee access to [United Nations agency for Palestine refugees] UNRWA-provided humanitarian assistance in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."
- "Some Israeli settlers reportedly used violence against Palestinians as a means of harassment and to keep them away from land that settlers sought to expropriate ... Settlers also exploited religious tensions to harass Palestinian villages by vandalizing, breaking into, or burning 10 mosques.
Of course, you would be wrong.
Comment: Remember this from 2009?
U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion
TARP was nothing more than a heist of gargantuan proportions. Goldman Sachs et al pulled it off against docile Americans when they put a gun to their heads in 2008 and threatened to "pull the economy" if TARP legislation (essentially a TRAP-door through which trillions of dollars was stolen) wasn't passed, but if they think they will get away with a repeat performance against Europe, they've got another thing coming.