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US: Fed chairman says 'Recovery is close to faltering'

Roland Jones
Bottom Line / MSNBC
Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:46 UTC
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Tuesday that the economic recovery is close to faltering and recent economic indicators point to "the likelihood of more sluggish job growth" ahead.

Appearing before the Joint Economic Committee in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to deliver his outlook for the U.S. economy, Bernanke said recent data on jobless claims and surveys of hiring plans suggest job growth will continue to be weak.


The Fed chief also said the economy is growing more slowly than the Fed had expected and that the most significant factor depressing consumer confidence is poor job growth.

"The recovery is close to faltering," Bernanke told lawmakers, adding that the Fed is prepared to take further steps to prop up the recovery. "We need to make sure that the recovery continues and doesn't drop back and that the unemployment rate continues to fall downward."
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Dollar

Best of the Web: Is Hang a Banker Day coming to a Theater near You?

Les Visible
Smoking Mirrors
Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:31 UTC
pig bankers
© unknown
Dog Poet Transmitting.......

May your noses always be cold and wet.

Watch it happen in front of your eyes. The Occupy Wall Street phenom is going viral, diversifying like a stock portfolio and popping up all over the US and in other countries as well. Look at the media not covering it. Look at the media giving out false information concerning the motivation, even to the extent of saying the protestors are protesting against people making 40 to 50 thousand dollars a year, as well as global warming. Understand that the media is owned and operated by the same people who operate at and influence Wall Street. Look at the important names that are appearing in the mix and the American Marines showing up on behalf of the protest as well. In its genesis and presentations, it is about as authentic and threatening to go nova as it can get. This is the real deal.

The traders and bankers are celebrating their imagined invulnerability. In the delusion of their fevered hubris, they are drinking champagne and talking about pouring it on the protestors, in emulation of the bankers and traders at The City of London, who waved banknotes out of their windows as they jeered the protestors. Does this look like they may and should have their heads chopped off and put on display? Does this give you the impression that Hang a Banker Day might be coming to a neighborhood near you soon? This is not an argument in favor or against this. This is an observation of the anger of the vast majority coming up against the defiance, indifference and ridicule of the minority of those causing the conditions for the anger in the first place.
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Handcuffs

Billionaire Koch brothers in the dock over trades with Iran

Guy Adams
The Independent
Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:13 UTC
Koch
© unknown
Tea Party backers made multimillion-dollar deals with Tehran, report claims

The leading financiers of the Tea Party movement were last night attempting to rebut claims that a portion of their wealth comes from secretly doing business with the most un-American trading partner imaginable: the hard-line government of Iran.

Charles and David Koch, the prominent billionaires who fund a string of influential conservative think-tanks, stand accused of selling tens of millions of dollars worth of petrochemicals to Tehran, despite a longstanding US trade embargo against the nation that the former President, George W Bush, dubbed a pillar of his "Axis of Evil".

It has been reported that Koch Industries used foreign subsidiaries to supply the products, in an apparent effort to stay within the letter - if not the spirit - of the law. It has been suggested that the company used dozens of lawyers to help find a way around the embargo, and was trading with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime as recently as 2007.
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Dollar

UK oil explorer moves into Libya

Jamie Grierson
The Independent
Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:08 UTC
no oil war
© unknown
A British oil explorer today revealed a push into Libya despite ongoing uncertainty over the battle-weary country's future.

Jersey-based Heritage Oil said it had paid 19.5 million US dollars (£12.6 million) for a 51% controlling stake in Benghazi-based Sahara Oil Services, which runs onshore and offshore fields.

The announcement comes as ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi remains missing and bloodshed continues to rock the North African state.

Tony Buckingham, chief executive of London-listed Heritage, said his firm was "well placed to play a significant role in the future oil and gas industry in Libya".

Heritage, which operates in Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Mali, Tanzania, Malta, Pakistan and Russia, said the stake was bought through wholly-owned subsidiary Heritage Energy International.
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Dollar

No Surprise Here: Rare Earth Elements Discovered In Afghanistan

Paul Vaughan
Irish Weather Online
Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:27 UTC
Image
© GolbezHelmand Province, Afghanistan.
Extensive research by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Afghan Geological Survey, and the Department of Defense has yielded volumes of information about areas of high mineral potential in Afghanistan, including rare earth elements, gold, iron, and copper. The USGS says the research will be used by the Afghan Government as they consider developing these minerals resources.

Many of these Afghan mineral priority areas, including the rare-earth rich Khanneshin, are world-class resources that could lead to significant commercial development. This research comes from a 2009-2011 USGS study funded by the DOD Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO).

"The USGS is exceptionally pleased by the contribution we have been able to make to future development of Afghanistan's world-class mineral resources, made possible through the application of modern remote-sensing tools," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. "There is always increased risk for commercial ventures investing in new mining facilities in frontier areas such as Afghanistan, but by making information on the locations and estimated quantities and grades of ores publicly available, we lower that risk, spurring progress."
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Dollar

China: US currency bill would have repercussions

Scott McDonald
Associated Press
Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:02 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Beijing - China stepped up its criticism Tuesday of a proposed U.S. law to punish countries with artificially low currencies, saying there would be serious repercussions for the world's two biggest economies if it is passed.

The criticism comes after U.S. senators voted Monday to open a week of debate on the bill that would allow the government to impose additional duties on products from countries that subsidize exports by undervaluing their currencies.

How worried China is about the proposed law can be seen by the fact that the Foreign Ministry, the Commerce Ministry and central bank all issued statements denouncing it.

But the legislation faces considerable hurdles before it becomes law. The Obama White House, while agreeing that China's currency, the yuan, is undervalued, has been wary of unilateral sanctions against the Beijing government.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said the Senate move "seriously violated WTO rules and seriously disturbed China-U.S. trade and economic relations."
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Eagle

Petty disputes led to Nazi denunciation in WWII France

Henry Samuel
The Telegraph
Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:26 UTC
Up to a million French people denounced their neighbors to the Nazis during the Second World War, historians have revealed.
Image
© Getty ImagesPower of the community: A French woman who collaborated with German troops is scorned by neighbours in Chartres, 1944

But more betrayals were over petty family and neighbour disputes than accusations of being French Jews.

The findings were aired at the world's first international conference on French denunciation in the Second World War, in Caen.

They challenge some of the popular misconceptions about denunciation in wartime France.

Historians now say only a very small percentage related to Jews and a large proportion - around a quarter - of the letters were about French family dramas often involving husbands, wives, lovers and village rivals.

"Denunciation was a very easy way of getting rid of someone," said Laurent Joly, the historian who organised the conference.
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Chess

How COINTELPRO really works and destroys social movements: Open letter from former Tea Partier to Occupy Wall Street protesters

vaslittlecrow
Reddit
Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:26 UTC
Fawkes in Wall Street
© Robert Johnson
I don't expect you to believe me. I want you to read this, take it with a grain of salt, and do the research yourself. You may not believe me, but I want your movement to succeed. From a former tea partier to you, young new rebels, there's some advice to prevent what happened to our now broken movement from happening to you. I don't agree with everything your movement does, but I sympathize with your cause and agree on our common enemy. You guys are very intelligent and I trust that you will take this in the spirit it is intended.

I wish I could believe this Occupy Wall Street was still about (r)Evolution, but so far, all I am seeing is a painful rehash of how the government turned the pre-Presidential election tea party movement into the joke it is now. We were anarchists and ultra-libertarians, but above all we were peaceful. So, the media tried painting us as racists. But when that didn't work they tried to goad us into violence. When that failed, they killed our movement with money and false kindness from the theocratic arm of the Republican party. That killed our popular support.

I am sharing these observations, so you guys know what's going on and can prevent the media from succeeding in painting you as violent slacker hippies rebelling without a cause, or from having the movement be hijacked by a bunch of corporatists seeking to twist the movement's original intentions. If you think this can't happen, it happened to the Independence Party and the tea party movement. Don't let it happen to your movement as well.

Comment: What the author details comes right out of the Ponerization/Cointelpro playbook described in Andrew Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology.

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Wolf

Italy: Setback for Berlusconi in teen sex case


News.com.au
Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:52 UTC
Berlusconi Ruby
© AFPPM's predicament: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (left) is fighting charges that he paid model and nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, known as Ruby, for sex when she was 17.
An Italian court says it won't delay a ruling on charges that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi paid a teen for sex.

The same court, in a separate case, indicted three of Mr Berlusconi allies accused of having paid young girls to attend sex parties at the premier's villa in Arcore, near Milan.

They will stand trial from November 21.

Italy's head of state, who celebrated his 75th birthday last week amid a string of legal cases, was not present when his team asked for judgment to be postponed to February, pending a Constitutional Court ruling on the Milan court's competence in the case.

Mr Berlusconi is accused of having bought sex from Moroccan nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, nicknamed "Ruby the Heart Stealer", when she was 17 - a crime punishable by three years in jail.
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Stormtrooper

The Secret Memo That Explains Why Obama Can Kill Americans


The Atlantic
Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:03 UTC
Obama
© Reuters
The Department of Justice produced it prior to the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki. But they won't release it.

Outside the U.S. government, President Obama's order to kill American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki without due process has proved controversial, with experts in law and war reaching different conclusions. Inside the Obama Administration, however, disagreement was apparently absent, or so say anonymous sources quoted by the Washington Post. "The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike Friday, according to administration officials," the newspaper reported. "The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. There was no dissent about the legality of killing Aulaqi, the officials said."
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