Virg Bernero, the mayor of Lansing, Michigan, just won the Democratic nomination for governor of his state, making a state-owned Bank of Michigan a real possibility. Bernero is one of at least a dozen candidates promoting that solution to the states’ economic woes. It is an innovative idea, with little precedent in the United...
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Financial services are reaching the world’s poorest by mobile phone. Thanks to a mobile banking system launched last month in Senegal, people with no previous access to bank accounts were able to watch the World Cup via satellite services that they paid for electronically with a few taps on a mobile phone. The service...
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I first knew Mozambique through close contact in Dar es Salaam with FRELIMO in the early and difficult years – the 1960s and the first-half of 1970s – of its armed liberation struggle. Then Mozambique was seeking both to unite itself and to find political and military purchase against an intransigent and arrogant Portuguese...
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What is political art? What makes art political? It is very difficult to define political art. Views on what makes art political can range from the idea that all art is political (i.e. it either implicitly supports or explicitly opposes the status quo) to pointing out, for example, the obviously political murals on walls...
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In war as in Politics and finance, the real “action” is now covert hidden from the public — deceptive and dishonest Defending America covertly has become an ongoing theme for one more TV series. Salute the flag and praise NBC (GE) for its latest effort to persuade the population to accept the kind of...
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Workers in Greece today stand in the forefront of the converging European class struggles against big capital’s attempt to make working people pay the costs of its crisis. Mobilizations against this austerity drive are spreading across Europe. In France, strikes and demonstrations were held on May 27 and a day of actions is planned...
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In the old days the U.S. government used different tactics to trick the population into accepting policies that only the elite wanted. For example, it took legions of hired speakers (propagandists) to travel the country and to explain to people the “necessity” of fighting WWI and WWII. Movie stars were put on the government payroll, too,...
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A stunning new report reveals that top scientists who convinced the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare H1N1 a global pandemic held close financial ties to the drug companies that profited from the sale of those vaccines. This report, published in the British Medical Journal, exposes the hidden ties that drove WHO to declare...
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Nearly a week after the event, Thailand is still stunned by the military assault on the Red Shirt encampment in the tourist center of the capital city of Bangkok on May 19. The Thai government is treating captured Red Shirt leaders and militants like they’re from an occupied country. No doubt about it: A...
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The financially stricken Greek government is beginning talks with the EU and the International Monetary Fund about a possible bailout. Greece has found borrowing from banks too costly recently and is struggling to refinance old debts. Let’s get some analysis with economist and author William Engdahl. Source.
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This article was first published in October 2009. Oil in Haiti and Oil Refinery – an old notion for Fort Liberte as a transshipment terminal for US supertankers – Another economic reason for the ouster of President Aristide and current UN occupation (Haiti’s Riches:Interview with Ezili Dantò on Mining in Haiti) There is evidence...
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The world has come to a line in the sand. Over one and a half billion people live in abject poverty today. Millions die each year of malnutrition or from treatable disease. This condition has existed for decades and yet help from the rich nations of the world has been inadequate, inefficient and achingly...
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Fresh on the heels of a Dutch investigation into the conflicts of interest of their chief influenza advisor and the bombshell announcement that the Council of Europe will be probing their role in creating and sustaining panic over the recent H1N1 outbreak in order to sell vaccines for Big Pharma, the World Health Organization...
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At the start of the last decade, in March 2000, the European Union heads of state announced the Lisbon Strategy. Its aim, by 2010, was to make Europe “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.” This would...
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“Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama, is Preparing for War in South America”; Interview with Eva Golinger Mike Whitney—-The US media is very critical of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He’s frequently denounced as “anti-American”, a “leftist strongman”, and a dictator. Can you briefly summarize some of the positive social, economic and judicial changes for...
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The default in Dubai is not the beginning of Financial Meltdown 2. Don’t look for dominoes here. Yes, it does raise serious questions about the vast debt-overhang in emerging economies–particularly East Europe. But, this is not a “sovereign default” in the strict sense, nor is there any great risk of contagion. Oil-rich Abu Dhabi...
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A Paradigm Shift: APEC Offers No Clear Answers Like scores of journalists, I attentively listened as Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong delivering his closing remarks, and for the last time answering journalists’ questions. It was the conclusion of 17th Apec Economies Leaders’ Meeting in Singapore, on November 15, and Prime Minister Lee was...
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“We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic...
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What Is India and China Doing That Malaysia Has Neglected To Do? On 27th August 2009 I wrote an article, “An Appeal To Malaysia’s Prime Minister Cum Finance Minister – Re-Examine the Country’s Strategy For Foreign Reserves”, to urge our Prime Minister to examine the critical need to diversify our foreign reserves, specifically to...
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The support and positions of various foreign governments in regards to the diabolic fighting between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan military, which cost the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, says a great deal about the geo-strategic interests of these foreign governments. The position of the governments of India and a group...
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Since 1947, India has not fully pledged itself to any camp or global pole during the Cold War and as a result was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement (N.A.M.). Since the post-Cold War era that position has eroded. New Delhi has been gradually moving away from its traditional position, relationships, and policies...
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I was dismayed when I heard Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan), would be given a peace prize. But then I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger...
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Outgoing General Assembly prez says most powerful are to blame for UN failure to address war and poverty As he leaves the office of the President of the UN General Assembly, Father Miguel d’Escoto gave Real News Senior Editor Paul Jay a no holds barred interview on the issues plaguing the United Nations. D’Escoto...
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A special focus on the International Monetary Fund and whether it is suited for its purpose. There were violent protests on the streets of Istanbul as the IMF held its annual meeting. We look at whether recession-hit Turkey can actually live without the IMF. We also ask if the IMF has lived up to...
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In 2009, China opened up various exchanges for investment in both gold and silver to the Chinese public, which previously was not allowed to invest in gold and silver. The opening of silver exchanges to the Chinese public is the most recent development and was accompanied by a ban on silver exports. The Chinese government...
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In writing my new book Hoodwinked (Random House, Nov 2009 publication date), I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its...
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U.S. soldiers (L) and an Afghan policeman keep watch near a building which is held by the Taliban in Logar, south of Kabul August 10, 2009. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood KABUL — It is the open secret no one wants to talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide. In Afghanistan, one of the...
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The Bush administration has tried everything to drive a wedge between Iran and Russia – to no avail. The Obama administration now has to deal with some pretty established facts on the ground. In the first part of this report, Pepe Escobar analyzes the implications of the complex relationship between close allies Iran and...
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Stealing the Indigenous area of Northern Great Turtle Island More colonial subterfuge! Canada, US, Russia, Norway, Denmark and other imperialist entities are trying to steal the Indigenous area of northern Great Turtle Island. Climate change is causing the ice to recede. They all want to cart away our minerals, oil and gas. Ruskie and...
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Continuing the pattern by top Canadian federal officials over the past year of issuing blunt and bravado statements aimed at Russia over the Arctic, on August 1 Defence Minister Peter MacKay was paraphrased as “warn Russia that Canuck fighter jets will scramble to meet any unauthorized aircraft” as a mainstream Canadian news agency less...
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On its July 18, 2009, edition The Economist on article on Bolivia (“Bolivia’s divisive president. The Permanent Campaign”, July 18), asserted that “Venezuelan troops helped quell a rebellion centred on the airport at Santa Cruz in the east in 2007.” The article did not bother to substantiate such a serious charge against Venezuela and is...
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The global financial and economic crisis has hit the small Baltic country Latvia harder than any single country with the possible exception of Iceland. As part of its attempt to join the European Monetary Union the country has fixed its currency the Lats to the Euro. The result has been to make a bad...
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International media attention is focused this week on the visit of the US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, to seven countries in Africa. Judging by the behaviour of representatives of many African governments, there are great expectations that this visit – following so closely after President Obama’s two earlier visits to Egypt and Ghana...
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Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the kingdom’s former ambassador to the United States, is reportedly under house arrest over a conspiracy against the monarch. Saad al-Faqih, head of the opposition group Islamic Reform Movement, told Arab-language TV al-Alam that Prince Bandar has been disappeared and the media has published no word from the ex-diplomat’s...
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Scientific Tests Must Be Approved by Industry First One of the great mysteries surrounding the spread of GMO plants around the world since the first commercial crops were released in the early 1990’s in the USA and Argentina has been the absence of independent scientific studies of possible long-term effects of a diet of...
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For over 30 years, F. William Engdahl has been a leading researcher, economist, and analyst of the New World Order with extensive writing to his credit on energy, politics, and economics. His newest book is titled “Full Strectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order.” Part I was reviewed earlier. Part II continues...
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Full Spectrum Dominance Pt.1 William Engdahl on his book Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order
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The US Department of State had prior knowledge of the coup. The Department of State and the US Congress funded and advised the actors and organisations in Honduras that participated in the coup. The Pentagon trained, schooled, commanded, funded and armed the Honduran armed forces that perpetrated the coup and that continue to repress...
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It is fitting that today’s deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq’s cities coincides with a meeting in Baghdad to auction off some of the country’s largest oil fields to companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and British Petroleum. It is a reminder of the real motives for the 2003 invasion and in...
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President Zelaya of Honduras has just been kidnapped [Note: As of 11:15am, Caracas time, President Zelaya is speaking live on Telesur from San Jose, Costa Rica. He has verified the soldiers entered his residence in the early morning hours, firing guns and threatening to kill him and his family if he resisted the coup....
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Increasingly a deep divide within the world of globalization is emerging which will have the most profound significance for the future of G7 nations’ economic and political stability. The divide is between those nations which are still embedded within the dollar system, including countries in the Eurozone, versus those emerging economies—especially the BRIC—Brazil, Russia,...
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Bill for supplemental war and IMF funding could be defeated All 178 House Republicans plan to vote against the $100 billion Iraq/AfPak War Supplemental to protest $5 billion for the International Monetary Fund. That means 39 Democratic opponents could defeat the bill. Thirty-six Democrats on the right promised to vote no, so we only...
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Calculus has two main variants—derivative and integral. The Eurasian energy pipeline geopolitics between Turkey Washington and Moscow today has elements of both. It is highly derivative in that the major actors across Central Asia from China, Russia to Turkey are very much engaged in a derived power game which has less to do with...
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At a hearing in Washington today, the federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan is releasing a 111-page report that represents its “initial investigations of the nation’s heavy reliance on contractors.” According to a release on the hearing: More than 240,000 contractor employees, about 80 percent of them foreign nationals, are working...
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Welcoming Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov to Foggy Bottom in early May of this year, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could think of nothing more original to say than “Azerbaijan has a very strategic location that is one important not only to their country, but really, regionally and globally….” But what Clinton’s...
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The reality for the average Indian remains the same: agricultural cultivation and the ability to farm is the bedrock of rural living. With its historical practices, values, and communal sentiments of respect, cultivation and the practice of farming has embedded roots. Farming for Indians is not only a source of income – it is...
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Danger of Military Conflict over Arctic? Battle For Resources May Intensify Russia says the point here is not militarization, but the possibility of a military conflict over this region, which could be high in the next ten years. Meanwhile, Canada also started increasing its military presence in the region. A new study by the...
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Confessions of an ‘ex’ Peak Oil believer The good news is that panic scenarios about the world running out of oil anytime soon are wrong. The bad news is that the price of oil is going to continue to rise. Peak Oil is not our problem. Politics is. Big Oil wants to sustain high...
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North Korea has conducted its second underground nuclear test, and also tested short-range missiles. Predictably, the UN Security Council is still debating how to react. China, North Korea’s window to the world, basically wants to maintain the current status quo. Pepe Escobar argues going nuclear is the only way North Korea’s Leader Kim Jong-Il,...
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In the 2008 election, lower-income Americans voted at significantly lower rates than higher-income Americans. This was not, in itself, news. Just as in 2004, more than 60 percent of voters came from families above the median household income of $50,000. That family income is a significant predictor of individual voting is a long-standing and...
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The world economy is not only showing few signs of recovery, but we are also looking at the end of the American century, according to German author and economist William Engdahl. In an exclusive interview with RT, he highlights the different ways in which the crisis has affected America and Europe and their subsequent...
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Should terrorists be treated with open arms and an open heart? Robert Lacey, best-selling author and journalist investigates the surprising success of Saudi Arabia’s approach to dealing with terrorists and extremists – without torture or water-boarding. Given extraordinary access to the Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry and its practices, Lacey visits terrorist rehabilitation camps that...
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Almost completely lost in the drama over the war supplemental for Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan is a sneaky play by the US Treasury Department to get $108 billion in tax dollars for the International Monetary Fund through the supplemental. Of course, if Treasury can get the money through the supplemental, it can avoid any...
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2010 reveals that America’s political police intend to greatly expand their high-tech surveillance capabilities. According to ABC News, the FBI is seeking additional funds for the development of “a new ‘Advanced Electronic Surveillance’ program which is being funded at $233.9 million for 2010. The...
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The US dollar is not Russia’s basic reserve currency anymore. The euro-based share of reserve assets of Russia’s Central Bank increased to the level of 47.5 percent as of January 1, 2009 and exceeded the investments in dollar assets, which made up 41.5 percent, The Vedomosti newspaper wrote. The dollar has thus lost the...
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Zhou did not mention the dollar by name but said the financial crisis had shown the need for reform. The head of the Chinese central bank has called for a new global currency controlled by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), saying such a move would give governments particularly in the developing world the ability...
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But, you may ask, won’t the powers that be step into the breach again and abort the crisis before it gets a chance to run its course? Yes, certainly. That, by now, is standard operating procedure, and it cannot be excluded that it will succeed in the same ambiguous sense that it did after...
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Introduction Following the 2009 G20 summit, plans were announced for implementing the creation of a new global currency to replace the US dollar’s role as the world reserve currency. Point 19 of the communiqué released by the G20 at the end of the Summit stated, “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation...
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It is payback time for Rothschild in Dubai. The 200-year-old banking house, perhaps the bluest of the blue bloods of the world’s financial dynasties, has always prided itself on the strength of its relationships, especially with governments and global power brokers. Now, after years of cultivating Dubai corporations with advice and assistance, it has...
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Interview with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin In an interview with the Japanese media, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin commented on NATO’s war games in Georgia, situation in troubled Afghanistan, North Korean nuclear ambitions and other international thorny issues. Interview of Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia, with the Japanese information agency Kiodo Cusin, TV...
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For more than a year, the U.S. Federal Reserve System has been increasingly acting as the world’s central bank, injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign government treasuries in an effort to increase liquidity in those countries. The foreign central banks have used the U.S. currency to bail out financial institutions within their...
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Taming the Speculators: What Should Countries Do With Their Central Bank Reserves? Last week Izvestiya published an interview with former Premier Yevgeny Primakov, now president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. (Johnson’s Russia List published a translation on May 8). The discussion centered on a universal problem – what China and other Asian...
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The Federal Reserve Act was legislated in 1913 to end recessions, panics and depression. Over that almost 100-year period they have been eminently no more successful then their predecessors. The Fed is a private corporation, which guides US monetary policy. Its staff is from Wall Street, banking, and transnational conglomerates and occasionally from academia....
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THE LEVEL OF PUBLIC IGNORANCE on the topic of the U.S. and world monetary system is astonishing. This is part of the plan, of course, because the monetary elite control not only the financial system but also the news media, the publishing industry, and the educational system. The blueprint for control was put together...
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Newspapers across the country are ceasing publication or being downsized under pressure to keep profits and circulation up. Jobs, local news coverage, and investigative journalism hang in the balance. David Simon, Creator of Acclaimed HBO Series “The Wire”: As Profit Motive Guts Newspapers, Communities Lose Out Testifying before a Senate hearing on the “Future...
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On May 5, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) grilled Federal Reserve inspector general Elizabeth Coleman. What knowledge did she have of Bloomberg’s report that the Fed had made trillions of dollars in off-balance sheet transactions? Did she know who received the trillion dollars that was added to the Fed’s balance sheets since last September? Was...
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By far the most secret and least accountable operation of the federal government is not, as one might expect, the CIA, DIA, or some other super-secret intelligence agency. The CIA and other intelligence operations are under control of the Congress. They are accountable: a Congressional committee supervises these operations, controls their budgets, and is...
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Ronald Paul is an American physician and Republican Congressman for the State of Texas, who gained widespread attention during his unsuccessful bid for the 2008 Republican Party presidential nomination. He supports low taxes, free markets, and the restoration of the gold standard. He is strongly opposed to the American involvement in the War in...
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President Obama has made an impressive commitment to run an open administration, posting contracts and spending on the Internet wherever possible. For some reason, there has been no effort to extend this openness to the Fed. This creates a bizarre disjuncture in public policy. When the Treasury loans money to a troubled bank or...
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In recognition of “the emerging strategic importance of Africa,” in February 2007 President Bush ordered the creation of AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command. AFRICOM, like CENTCOM (Central Command) and EUCOM (European Command), centralizes all authority for the U.S. military operating in the African region under one command structure. AFRICOM also transfers many duties that...
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A true addict does not know that it is addicted. It does not know when to seek help. It cannot tell when its actions move from the sublime to the ridiculous. It cannot tell it is time to wean itself off a lethal product before it self-destructs. Russia threatening war in the Arctic over...
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China Pulling Southeast Asia into Its Orbit The global financial crisis is proving a boon for a resurgent China, which is poised to exert ever greater influence in Southeast Asia. While drawing neighbouring countries back into China’s economic orbit has been part of Beijing’s strategy for restoring what it sees as the country’s rightful...
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Earlier in the decade, biofuels were hailed as the energy panacea, the silver bullet to solve oil shortages and abide by environmental concerns. The European Union recently took the lead in imposing the use of these liquid or gaseous fuels made from plants. But the green credentials of biofuels have since been disputed. The...
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Last week President Obama unveiled his record-spending 2010 budget proposal, which included a slight increase in funding for the Pentagon when compared with George Bush’s budget of 2009. Though the specific details of the budget won’t be released until April, the president has promised to increase troop recruitment while cutting “cold-war” weapons programs that...
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Following training by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a hundred farmers in central Kenya, armed with an improved understanding of their local markets are commanding higher prices for their bananas. “These farmers used to sell bananas by just looking at the bunch. A trader would come and dictate the price. Before,...
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New Bolivian Constitution marks first recognition of indigenous autonomy in 500 years Sinclair Thomson discusses the passing of a historic referendum in Bolivia that saw an over 60% support from the population. The referendum is precedent setting as, he says, “this is the first time Bolivia ever had a popular democratic vote on a...
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NATO exercises in Georgia are a provocative move against Russia by the Pentagon The Real News Network spoke to William F. Engdahl, economist and author of Full Spectrum Dominance. Engdahl says that the NATO exercises in Georgia are provocative to Russia because of the uncovered fact that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was behind the...
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Almost everyone wants to help the poor. In a world where many demand profits of 10%, 20%, 30% or more on their money, people donate to the poor despite a return of “negative 100%,” said Alex Counts, president and chief executive of the Grameen Foundation, which is dedicated to lifting people out of poverty...
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The price of oil has dropped by over 70% in just six months, causing panic in many countries who had become dependent on high oil revenues over recent years. Miguel Tinker Salas explains to The Real News that Venezuela had planned ahead for the price drop, by stocking up on US dollars. Furthermore, most...
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Aijaz Ahmad: US policy will lead to thousands of new recruits for al- Qaeda Based in New Delhi, Aijaz Ahmad is Senior Editorial Consultant, and political commentator for the Indian newsmagazine, Frontline. He has taught Political Science, and has written widely on South Asia and the Middle East.
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With good reason, progressive economists reflect positively on Roosevelt’s New Deal even though: – it failed to end the Great Depression; – had many flaws; – did too little for blacks, women, immigrants, small farmers, agricultural workers, and the poor; – let blacks be persecuted, discriminated against, and in the South denied their voting...
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Noam Chomsky speaks to Paul Jay on the Obama – Geithner plan. Chomsky says that “they’re simply recycling, the Bush-Paulson measures and changing them a little, but essentially the same idea: keep the institutional structure the same, try to kind of pass things up, bribe the banks and investors to help out, but avoid...
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Speaking about President Obama’s stimulus package and newly announced budget, William Engdahl says the fundamental causes of the economic crisis were missed. Until Obama reinstates Glass-Steigel restraints on banking which were repealed by the Clinton administration in 1999 and begins to re-regulate the financial system, there will not be a flow of healthy...
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Part5: Understanding Money Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul Bernie Madoff showed us how it was done: you induce many investors to invest their money, promising steady above-market returns; and you deliver – at least on paper. When your clients check their accounts, they see that their investments have indeed increased by the promised...
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Patrick Carmack, Producer of The Money Masters DVD open letter to American citizens on the $700 bailout Dear Fellow American Citizen: The ongoing, severe economic turmoil in our nation – destined to get worse if the right remedy is not enacted – was predicted in our video The Money Masters as the inevitable result...
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Since 2007, India and European Union (EU) are negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA). The negotiations not only cover trade in goods but also services, rules pertaining to intellectual property rights, cross-border investments, competition policy, government procurement and regulatory issues. EU as a bloc is India’s largest trading partner. EU accounts for around one-fifth...
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Eugene Jarecki is an award-winning dramatic and documentary filmmaker whose previous film WHY WE FIGHT won the 2005 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER, won the 2002 Amnesty International Award. In addition to his work in film, Jarecki is also the Founder and Executive Director of The...
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Congo has fallen prey to a lot of people that want to loot its natural resources The crisis in Congo shows no signs of slowing down, as government forces continue to battle rebel groups loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda. Investigative journalist and author Wayne Madsen, of “The Wayne Madsen Report,” believes that Congo...
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Just weeks after President George W. Bush signed the Order creating a new US military command dedicated to Africa, AFRICOM, events on the mineral-rich continent have erupted which suggest a major agenda of the incoming Obama Presidency will be for the son of a black Kenyan to focus US resources, military and other, on...
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Just how did we get into this economic mess? The answers are both complex and troubling. Blame greed, irresponsibility, lax government oversight, conflicts of interest and especially blind faith in a housing boom that seemingly had no end. But end it did, setting off a chain reaction that has left the economy in tatters...
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Despite Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda’s promise to support a UN backed cease-fire, fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo continues. Government forces battled Laurent Nkunda’s rebel army north of the provincial capital of Goma on the weekend, in a battle that has so far displaced at least 250,000 people since August. The current...
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The South American country’s refusal to make ‘immoral and illegitimate’ payments exposes an international financial architecture glitch. When the government of Ecuador failed to make a scheduled interest payment on private bonds today, it was hardly the first time a country had defaulted in the middle of a financial crisis. In fact, it wasn’t...
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On Friday November 21 the world came within a hair’s breadth of the most colossal financial collapse in world history according to bankers on the inside of events with whom we have contact. The trigger was the bank which only two years ago was America’s largest, Citigroup. The size of the US Government de...
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Finally US authorities have gotten ‘tough’ with the predator financial institutions. The world has been waiting for such decisive intervention since an unending series of Government bailouts of financial institutions began early in 2008 amounting to now trillions of taxpayer dollars. Now, with the world’s largest insurance giant, AIG, the White House Economic Council...
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The Federal Reserve has bluntly refused a request by a major US financial news service to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from US taxpayers and to reveal the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Their lawyers resorted to the bizarre argument that they did so to...
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Emmy-winning journalist Danny Schechter investigates America’s mounting debt crisis in this latest hard-hitting expose. The film reveals the unknown cabal of credit card companies, lobbyists, media conglomerates and the Bush administration itself who have colluded to deregulate the lending industry ensuring that a culture of credit dependency can flourish.
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Fuelling a new world money supply A paper written ahead of the recent G20 summit by Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the Chinese central bank, caused quite a stir. Zhou called for the establishment of a global reserve currency, a step which would firmly tip the balance of economic power in the direction of emerging...
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Attention around the world in recent weeks has been focused on microfinance and its untapped potential in developing countries like India, triggered by the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize that went last month to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, the microfinance organization he founded in Bangladesh three decades ago. The prize helped reemphasize the appeal...
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Peter Millar: Seven-fold increase in gold needed to avert debt depression While it is almost three year old, a study of the enduring importance of gold in the world economic system by R. Peter W. Millar, founder of Valu-Trac Investment Research Ltd. in Scotland (www.valu-trac.com), seems ever more compelling to share with you. Millar...
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The Capitalist Conspiracy: An Inside view of International Banking Written and narrated by G. Edward Griffin (1960′s) An old film, made sometime in the 60′s. This is an adaptation of a documentary filmstrip tracing the history of a small group of people who control the money systems of the world. It shows how this...
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The Money Masters is a documentary, produced by Patrick S. J. Carmack and directed and narrated by William T. Still. It discusses the concepts of money, debt, and taxes, and describes their development from biblical times onward. It covers the history of fractional-reserve banking, central banking, monetary policy, the bond system, and the Federal...
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US media covers Chavez victory and calls it a defeat Allies of President Hugo Chavez’s won a strong majority in Venezuela’s local elections on Sunday, winning 17 of 22 state governorships and 265 of 327 mayoral races. The opposition made important gains, capturing the Caracas mayor’s office and two of the most populous states....
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The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (a.k.a. Chavez: Inside the Coup) is a 2002 documentary about the April 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. A television crew from Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTÉ happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002. Shifting focus,...
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Debt, poverty, and the resource curse In the mid 1990’s economists Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner noticed a funny thing. One would think that countries that were well endowed with oil, gas and mineral wealth would be correspondingly economically well off – but in fact just the reverse seemed to be true. Sachs and...
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What is a fiat currency? A currency that’s created and controlled by a government. In other words, it exists by government “fiat.” Using the dollar as an example, the U.S. Federal Reserve creates new dollars simply by printing them or injecting electronic “reserves” into the banking system. The supply of dollars thus depends on...
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William Engdahl: The geo-politics of provocations between Russia and Ukraine Russia cut off the natural gas it sends to Europe through Ukraine on Wednesday when a payment dispute escalated. Russia claims Ukraine siphoned off gas for its own use. Ukraine denies this. Russia stopped all natural gas supplies to Ukraine on 1 January, but...
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These last few days, the Persian Gulf became a sideshow. Exit evil Iran and a phantom al-Qaeda; enter the remixed Evil Empire—Russia, a real-life superpower complete with nuclear weapons. The US establishment for years gloated about the end of the Cold War and treated Russia like Wiemar Germany. In February 1990, Bush Sr. and...
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US attempts to get Georgia into NATO, coupled with its desire to erect an anti-missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech republic would give it first strike capability towards Russia. Moscow sees this as a national security threat against the sovereignty of Russia. Political economist F William Engdahl believes this is the geopolitical...
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NATO ministers in Brussels have decided to ignore US wishes and to delay the admission of Ukraine and of Georgia in effect indefinitely in what the Washington Administration is sheepishly trying to claim is a positive ‘compromise.’ The decision, following EU member state alarm last August over the prospect of European states having to...
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Bill Moyers on Big Oil and Iraq “Oh no, they told us, Iraq isn’t a war about oil. That’s cynical and simplistic, they said. It’s about terror and al Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from WMD. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire,...
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(One of our objectives is to help non-specialist readers understand what they are reading in the news. Read Financial Crisis for Beginners.) I’ve had two posts so far on the terms under which Treasury sold back to Old National the warrants on Old National stock that Treasury got in exchange for its TARP investment,...
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(One of our objectives is to help non-specialist readers understand what they are reading in the news. Read Financial Crisis for Beginners.) Kevin Drum pointed me to Ryan Avent’s insightful review of Ben Bernanke’s recent speech on financial innovation. (How’s that for the Internets in action?) Bernanke’s brief was simple: to defend financial innovation...
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(One of our objectives is to help non-specialist readers understand what they are reading in the news. Read Financial Crisis for Beginners.) What is a bad bank? . . . No, I don’t mean that kind of bad bank, with which we are all much too familiar. I mean the kind of “bad bank”...
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(One of our objectives is to help non-specialist readers understand what they are reading in the news. Read Financial Crisis for Beginners.) The most common point of comparison for our current economic crisis is, far and away, the Great Depression. The Depression is most often bracketed with some version of the phrase, “but we’re...
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(One of our objectives is to help non-specialist readers understand what they are reading in the news. Read Financial Crisis for Beginners.) We had a comment last week asking for an explanation of, roughly, what it is that the Federal Reserve does, so I thought that would be a good topic for a Beginners...
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The Fed now owns the world’s largest insurance company-but who owns the fed? “Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers;...
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