Michele Bachmann just weighed in "Debategate," telling Whispers that the media is trying to pick the Republican presidential winner, cutting voters out of the process.

"There's always a suspicion of maybe a bias and I guess this just confirmed it," she said of a CBS memo before Saturday's debate, which suggested that the Minnesota Republican congresswoman would be ignored during the foreign policy chatfest.

The memo, she said, "demonstrates that the media wants to choose who our nominee will be and who the next president of the United States will be."

Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel described the ongoing euro zone crisis as the continent's "toughest hour" since World War II on Monday as new leaders in Italy and Greece hustled to form governments amid growing fears over their debt-hit economies.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that Europe could be living through its toughest hour since World War Two as new leaders in Italy and Greece rushed to form governments and limit the damage from the euro zone debt crisis.

A rally on financial markets sparked by the appointment of respected European technocrats in Rome and Athens soon stalled. Analysts warned that daunting obstacles could hinder the decisive action needed to revive their ailing economies.

Italy had to pay a euro-lifetime record yield of 6.3 percent to sell five-year bonds with investors wary of buying its debt until prime minister-designate Mario Monti can undertake profound economic reforms.

In a first sign of trouble for new Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the leader of the main conservative party rejected any toughening of austerity and refused to sign a letter sought by European authorities pledging support for a new 130 billion euro bailout.

Tony Blair's decision to advise the president of Kazakhstan sits oddly with his oath to the Queen.

It could become a pub quiz question: who was the first British prime minister to sell himself to a foreign power?

It would be too easy to guess the answer - Tony Blair, who recently signed a multimillion pound contract to advise President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. He has reportedly opened an office in the capital, Astana. Other than the president, no-one knows what advice Mr Blair is giving. His client does not need any advice on winning elections: grateful Kazakhs gave him over 95 per cent of their votes in their last presidential elections in April this year. His party already holds all the seats in parliament. Some media reports suggest that he is advising on financial institutions. According to other reports, he is helping the president prepare a bid for next year's Nobel Peace Prize. Again, Tony Blair seems a strange source of advice, until one remembers that the prize was once given to Henry Kissenger.


As with other British ex-politicians, Tony Blair's paid activities in Kazakhstan are virtually beyond any public scrutiny or control. They are not mentioned on the website of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), the fangless watchdog over ex-ministers who sell their services in the marketplace. Since Tony Blair is not a peer, he did not have to supply the minimal and haphazard information required for the Register of Lords Interests. He did not have to notify the Foreign Office of his Kazakh appointment and it is not mentioned on the website of our local embassy.

Has anyone noticed the virtual silence on Libya among western news agencies? If Libya was today quiet, and without any conflict, we could believe the Lies on Sky and friends incorporated that a dictator had been toppled and his enraptured people freed, living now in peace, preparing for democracy. But this is not the case...

What I am about to say comes as no surprise at all for those of us who know Libya, know Colonel Gaddafi and who warned NATO about the monumental mistake being made before the invasion began, as indeed was the case before Iraq in this column back in 2003. NATO, however, in its greed, just does not learn.

As the IAEA invents lies about Iran, and includes in its team elements who are wholly unqualified for the task to monitor the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme,* we see the same old story being repeated. It begins with the lies about a bloodthirsty dictator or a dangerous regime posing a threat to the USA or its allies, the UNO is bullied into naming NATO as the world policeman, skulduggery and blackmail then replace diplomacy, after which NATO bombs the crap out of a country, murdering men, women and children alike, using DU, using cluster munitions, and breaching every rule in the book. Then in swing the kangaroo courts to clear up the mess and lo and behold, a country's sovereign funds have been literally stolen, its infra-structures destroyed with NATO military hardware, rebuilding contracts are handed out to bolster the economies of the invading forces and a nice puppet regime is installed.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called for closer cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran in regional and international issues.

Putin called for enhanced Russo-Iranian partnership at the 10th meeting of the prime ministers of the intergovernmental Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Russian daily Izvestia reported.

He also endorsed remarks made by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi earlier at the November 6-8 meeting. Salehi had censured the double-standard policy adopted by the global arrogance vis-à-vis the international issues.

"Indeed, as you said those arrogant world powers supported the old regimes in North Africa but... they also supported the North African revolutions as well, the ones that overthrew the old regimes," said the Russian premier.

President Barack Obama said he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev discussed Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, among other topics, in their meeting on Saturday.

Obama said he and Medvedev "reaffirmed our intention to work and shape a common response so we can move Iran to follow its international obligations when it comes to its nuclear program."

Russia's government has been cool to any new U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran. On Tuesday, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a report Tehran had worked on developing a nuclear bomb design and may still be conducting such research.

Obama gave no details about the discussion on Syria. On Afghanistan, he said they discussed the importance of regional powers supporting the government in Kabul.

The real reasons behind the overthrow of Moammar Gadaffi's government are exposed in this episode of 'The Truth Is Viral'. Under orders from a cabal of international bankers, the CIA trained and equipped al-Qaeda terrorists and set them on a path of revolution that ended with a new Libyan Central Bank and the black flag of al-Qaeda flying over the Benghazi courthouse. Assisted by NATO forces and Qatari Army Soldiers and supplied with weapons by the Qataris, these al-Qaeda terrorists succeeded in removing the Libyan leader from power before brutally murdering him. Now, as the "legitimate" government of Libya, the NTC is waging a genocide against black Libyans, African guest workers, members of Gadaffi's tribe and his supporters. You'll never see this in the mainstream media.

Lawmakers possess many perks. However, legal insider trading may be the biggest fringe benefit of all.

A study by Professor Alan Ziobrowski at Georgia State University concluded legislators in Congress make "significant abnormal returns." Moreover, active traders outperform corporate executives. "We have every reason to believe they are trading on information that the rest of us don't have," reports Ziobrowski.

Here's an interesting 60 Minutes investigation which aired last night:

[Editor's note: Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has had many of his articles published by in the mainstream press over the past 15 years. Over the past few weeks however, all mainstream press outlets (including the supposedly 'liberal' ones) that were contacted with a view to publishing this particular piece refused to do so, for unspecified reasons.]

The picture on the left shows Matthew Gould, second from right, British Ambassador to Israel, at a meeting of the Leeds Zionist Federation that was also the opening of the Leeds Hasbarah Centre. The Leeds Zionist Federation is part of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, motto "Speaking Up for Israel." A collection was made at the meeting to send packages to members of the Israeli Defence Force.

On 29 May 2011 The Jerusalem Post reported: "British Ambassador Matthew Gould declared his commitment to Israel and the principles of Zionism on Thursday".

Remember this background, it is unusual behaviour for a diplomat, and it is important.

The six meetings between British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould and Minister of Defence Liam Fox and Adam Werritty together - only two of which were revealed by Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell in his "investigation" into Werritty's unauthorised role in the Ministry of Defence - raise vital concerns about a secret agenda for war at the core of government, comparable to Blair's determination to drive through a war on Iraq..

This is a detective story. It begins a few weeks ago, when the Fox-Werritty scandal was first breaking in the media. I had a contact from an old friend from my Foreign Office days. This friend had access to the Gus O'Donnell investigation. He had given a message for me to a trusted third party.

Whistleblowing in the surveillance state is a difficult activity. I left through a neighbour's garden, not carrying a mobile phone, puffed and panted by bicycle to an unmonitored but busy stretch of road, hitched a lift much of the way, then ordered a minicab on a payphone from a country pub to my final destination, a farm far from CCTV. There the intermediary gave me the message: what really was worrying senior civil servants in the Cabinet Office was that the Fox-Werritty link related to plans involving Mossad and the British Ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould.

Controversial bills that would slash foreign funding for dovish Israeli groups have been put on hold after objections by some Cabinet ministers, the state's attorney general and foreign governments, an Israeli official said Monday,

The bills, approved Sunday by a ministerial committee, would limit donations by foreign governments or international bodies to a single group to 20,000 shekels, or about $5,200, a year. They would also slap a 45 per cent tax rate on the contributions.

Opponents see the measure as an attempt to muzzle dovish groups critical of the government - and as such, as a dangerous infringement on Israeli democracy. Since their initial approval, the measures have figured prominently in newspaper columns and on radio talk shows.

"The government fears for the security of its regime, not the security of the state," wrote Boaz Okon in Monday's edition of Yediot Ahronot newspaper. "It therefore exploits its power of legislation to shut people's mouths."

Taking the opposing stance, the paper's leading commentator, Nahum Barnea, wrote that "not only right-wingers, but almost every Israeli feels discomfort when a state such as Norway, Britain or the European Union funds left-wing political activity within Israel's borders."