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Japan economy shrinks as China dispute takes toll

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© macrobusiness.com.auA snapshot of Japans recent economic activity up to mid 2012.
Japan's economy contracted in the latest quarter, signaling that like Europe it may already be in recession, further weighing down world growth.

On an annualized basis, the world's No. 3 economy shrank 3.5 percent in the July-September quarter, in line with gloomy forecasts after Japan's territorial dispute with China hammered exports that were already weakened by feeble global demand.

The bad news will temper optimism over recoveries in China and the U.S., where some economists are predicting growth will top 3 percent in the third quarter. China's painful slowdown likely bottomed out in the third quarter, with recent indicators such as factory production and auto and retail sales showing improvement.

Japan's outlook remains bleak, with most economists forecasting a further decline in economic activity for the October-December quarter, which would officially put it in a recession according to the common definition of two consecutive quarters of contraction.

Consumer spending fell 0.5 percent in the third quarter, as subsidies for auto purchases expired, and corporate capital spending fell 3.2 percent. Spending on reconstruction from the country's March 2011 disasters has also weakened.

Vader

Grand bargain betrayal coming

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Obama's economic record includes nearly 25 million unemployed, around 23% of working age Americans without jobs, poverty, homelessness, and hunger at record levels or close to it, and the greatest wealth disparity in US history.

Privileged elites benefitted enormously on his watch. They'll get plenty more ahead. Others are enduring protracted hard times. Bipartisan complicity calls for making things worse, not better. Huge budget cuts loom. Social programs will be hit hardest. More on that below.

America's compromised progressive left hailed Obama's victory. Condemnation should have been headlined instead. Nation magazine lost its soul long ago.

Throughout its history, it pretended to have one. It scorns truth. It turns reality on its head. It ducks responsible reporting on issues mattering most.

Vader

Here we go again: Israel 'may launch ground invasion into Gaza'

Israel may launch a ground invasion into Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated, after a weekend of escalating cross border violence.

Gaza air strike
© AFT/GETTYA Palestinian woman collects items from her home following an Israeli military air strike in Rafah town in the southern Gaza Strip.
By lunchtime on Sunday, more than 70 rockets and mortars had landed in Israel from Gaza within 24 hours, leaving six Palestinians killed and eight Israelis injured.

At a cabinet meeting on Sunday morning, Mr Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said: "The world needs to understand that Israel will not sit idly by in the face of attempts to attack us. We are prepared to intensify the response."

One unnamed senior Israeli government official, said: "A ground incursion is certainly not out of the question although we hope it won't come to that."

Comment: History repeats itself. At the end of 2008 Barack Obama was elected as president of the United States. Shortly afterwards Israel launched a brutal attack on Gaza under the name Operation Cast Lead. Now that the US elections are over, Netanyahu feels he has 'permission' to make as much mess as he pleases, and he pleases to make war to appear as a strong leader before the elections in January. Back in 2008-2009 Obama did not have what it takes to stand up to Israel, even while most of the rest of the world protested vigorously. Do not expect that he will behave differently this time.

To put things in perspective, please take the time to watch the documentary Tears of Gaza. See for yourself what an invasion looks like and what the price to pay is in human lives and suffering.




Pistol

Terrorists attack bus in central Syria, kill all civilian passengers

Terrorists in Syria exploded a bomb and killed all the civilian passengers, including women and children, of a bus in the Central province of Hama on Sunday.

The terrorist operation was carried out by the Al-Motasem group, affiliated to the al-Qaeda, in Cairo village in Hama province.

The terrorists have carried out similar attacks on defenseless Syrian civilians in numerous cases in the last two years since armed clashes started in Syria.

In a similar terrorist operation last week, the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) terrorists killed all the civilian passengers of a bus in a mortar attack in Southern Damascus.

The terrorists targeted the bus packed with civilians, including women and children, in al-Salasin street of al-Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Southern Damascus, killing all passengers onboard.
...

Vader

Israeli PM warns of harder strike on Gaza

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© UnknownBenjamin Netanyahu
Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel plans to strike harder on the Gaza Strip.

Hostilities along the Gaza-Israel border escalated sharply over the weekend after Israeli strikes killing six Palestinians in Gaza and the Quds Brigades of the Islamic Jihad Movement responded with rocket salvos.

Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that "the world must understand that Israel will not sit idly by while attempts are made to attack us. We are prepared to escalate our response".

The Quds Brigades of the Islamic Jihad Movement in a statement announced on Sunday that it has fired over 70 rockets and missiles at Zionist targets in response to Israel's numerous air raids and ground assaults on defenseless Palestinians.

Comment: One can easily imagine Netanyahu salivating at a new plan to re-increase any conflict, against a neighbor who essentially has bottle rockets to defend itself.


War Whore

Israel joins Syria conflict, fires missile across border

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© Baz Ratner/ReutersThis file photo shows fire and smoke rising after shells exploded in the Syrian village of Bariqa, close to the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria, near Alonei Habashan on the Israeli occupied Golan Heights, Nov. 7, 2012.
The Israeli military has fired a missile into Syria, the first time Israel has been drawn into the fighting in the neighboring country.

The military said it fired the missile as a warning shot on Sunday after a stray mortar from Syria hit a military post in the Golan Heights. Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and subsequently annexed it.

The military says no damage or injuries were reported inside Israel.

A string of mortar shells have struck the Golan during the Syrian civil war. Israel views the fire as accidental, but nonetheless has warned that it holds Syria responsible.

It came as Syrian opposition groups, meeting in the Qatari capital Doha, signed an initial agreement to form a new coalition of forces fighting to end the rule of President Bashar Assad.

Comment: The news would lead us to believe Assad is responsible for all the ills within Syria ... but what if ...?
CIA, MI6 agents direct massacres in Syria: American analyst
CIA spies 'smuggle 14 Stinger missiles into Syria so rebels can take out regime warplanes'
Mossad, CIA and Blackwater Operate in Syria

It would also be nice to know from where, within Syria, the mortars were fired, what their range is and if they could have reached Golan, as Israel always plays the roll of victim.


Camcorder

New anti-crime cameras being installed downtown Los Angeles


California - Officials said 38 anti-crime cameras will soon be installed in downtown Los Angeles.

In the coming weeks, this new equipment will replace cameras which have been broken or failing for years.

Andrea Fujii, reporting for CBS2 and KCAL9, says the cameras should make streets safer.

She spoke with Jennifer Otto, co-owner of Wax Candy, a downtown business. With dozens of female clients, her store put a premium on safety for staffers and patrons coming in and out of her Fashion District business.

Skid Row is a few blocks away. Otto says sometimes vagrants have come inside her establishment. With Wax Candy closing at 8 o'clock every night - and it being darker - the women who work here say they look forward to a little extra security.

She believes her customers and workers will feel safer with the cameras. "They know there's someone watching out for them."

Captain Horace Frank of the Los Angeles Police Department said, "The camera initiative is to help us in the ability to prevent crime, reduce crime in central, and if we don't get there then we can better identify and apprehend the suspects."

Vader

Best of the Web: Petraeus scandal is reported with compelled veneration of all things military

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That's the story, but what's really going on?
The reverence for the former CIA Director is part of a wider religious-like worship of the national security state.

A prime rule of US political culture is that nothing rivets, animates or delights the political media like a sex scandal. From Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, and Eliot Spitzer to John Edwards, Larry Craig and David Vitter, their titillation and joy is palpable as they revel in every last arousing detail. This giddy package is delivered draped in a sanctimonious wrapping: their excitement at reporting on these scandals is matched only by their self-righteous condemnations of the moral failings of the responsible person.

All of these behaviors have long been constant, inevitable features of every political sex scandal - until yesterday. Now, none of these sentiments is permitted because the newest salacious scandal features at its center Gen. David Petraeus, who resigned yesterday as CIA Director, citing an extramarital affair.

Roses

Almost every single family in Gaza has lost somebody to Israeli attacks throughout the years; 13-year-old the latest victim


A political analyst tells Press TV that almost every single family in Gaza has lost somebody throughout the years of Israeli attacks, oppression and occupation and yet nothing is done and there is no justice.

The comments come after a 13-year-old boy was killed by Israeli gunfire in the southern Gaza Strip.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Adie Mormech, human rights activist, to further discuss the issue. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Comment: To understand the reality that the people of Gaza have had to face under Israeli aggression and oppression, we urge you to watch and share the powerful and devastating documentary Tears of Gaza.


Black Magic

Giuliani: Petraeus resignation 'convenient' for Obama administration

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani joined a chorus of Republicans questioning the timing of Thursday's sudden resignation of CIA chief David Petraeus.

The former GOP presidential contender, in an appearance Friday night on Fox News, said the Petraeus resignation is the latest example of the Obama administration's "suppression" of information.

"Now we're going to have a hearing next week, and the man who knows the facts, David Petraeus - he's the only man who can really tell us what the CIA knew, what they did, why they did it, how they did it - he's not going to testify. This is a very convenient way to get the administration out of a very very difficult situation," Mr. Giuliani said on Greta van Susteren's show.

"But this is inevitable. This is like Watergate. This is all going to come out. It may take a month, it may take five months. But this is all going to come out. And every single new coverup they do just makes it much much worse."