Mexican Collapse and the Plan for a North American Union

Mike Sunnucks, writing for the Phoenix Business Journal, exposes details of a recent report released by the Pentagon. According to the report, globalization and urbanization will fuel “social unrest, as well as a potential collapse of the Mexican government as that country deals with violence and corruption induced by drug cartels and organized crime.”

The Pentagon warns of “social unrest, as well as a potential collapse of the Mexican government as that country deals with violence and corruption induced by drug cartels and organized crime.”

On the surface, the Joint Operating Environment 2008 report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command is a self-serving document. It predicts multiple crises “if there are major reductions in U.S. defense spending,” including “terrorist networks obtaining nuclear and biological weapons, as well as instability and aggressiveness involving China, India, Pakistan, India and the Middle East.” On the other hand, the report may be seen as a blueprint for the establishment of a North American Union.

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Depression Ahead, Prepare for Stock Rout: SocGen

Societe Generale said on Thursday that the United States’ economy looks likely to enter a depression and China’s could implode.

Edwards also raised the danger of a global trade war with China.

“While economic data in developed economies increasingly reflects depression rather than a deep recession, the real surprise in 2009 may lie elsewhere,” Edwards wrote.

“It is becoming clear that the Chinese economy is imploding and this raises the possibility of regime change. To prevent this, the authorities would likely devalue the yuan. A subsequent trade war could see a re-run of the Great Depression.”

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Demonstration in New york calls for the extermination of Palestinians

“If you are a bad person, a whining enemy or a strong-arm occupier, you are not my brother, even if you are circumcised, observe the Sabbath, and do mitzvahs. If your scarf covers every hair on your head for modest, you give alms and do charity, but what is under your scarf is dedicated to the sanctity of Jewish land, taking precedence over the sanctity of human life, whose ever life that is, then your are not my sister. You might be my enemy. A good Arab or a righteous gentile will be a brother or sister to me. A wicked man, even of Jewish descent, is my adversary, and I would stand on the other side of the barricade and fight him to the end.”Avraham Burg, former Israeli Knesset speaker and Jewish National Fund chairman.

Attendants of a rally joined by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gov. David Paterson in support of Israel’s attacks on Gaza went far beyond the pale.On January 11, an estimated 10,000 people rallied in front of the Israeli consulate in midtown New York in support of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip. The rally, which was organized by UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York in cooperation with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, featured speeches by New York’s most senior lawmakers. While the crowd was riled to righteous anger by speeches about Hamas evildoers, the event was a festive affair that began and ended with singing and joyous dancing.

Sen. Chuck Schumer highlighted Israel’s supposed humanitarian methods of warfare by pointing to its text messaging of certain Gaza Strip residents urging them to vacate their homes before Israeli forces bombed them. “What other country would do that?” Schumer shouted from the podium. Gov. David Paterson appeared on stage wearing one of the red hats distributed to demonstrators as symbols of the red alerts some residents of Israel endure when Palestinian groups fire rockets their way. Paterson cited the many Qasam rockets that have fallen on Israel as a justification for the country’s operations in Gaza, a military assault that has resulted in over 800 casualties and thousands of injuries.

Then Paterson highlighted the anti-Semitism that has followed in the wake of Israel’s attack on Gaza, highlighting the beating of a teen-age girl in France. “This kind of anger and hatred spreads like a disease,” Paterson said, “and one thing I’ve always pointed out is there’s no place for hate in the Empire State.”

But hatred was plentiful at the rally Paterson addressed. Right in front of the stage, a man held a banner reading, “Islam Is A Death Cult.” Rally attendees described the people of Gaza to me as a “cancer,” called for Israel to “wipe them all out,” insisting, “They are forcing us to kill their children in order to defend our own children.” A young woman told me, “Those who die are suffering God’s wrath.” “They are not distinguishing between civilians and military, so why should we?” said a member of the group of messianic Orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch group that flocked to the rally.

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Demands grow for Gaza war crimes investigation

The Israeli military are accused of:

• Using powerful shells in civilian areas which the army knew would cause large numbers of innocent casualties;

• Using banned weapons such as phosphorus bombs;

• Holding Palestinian families as human shields;

• Attacking medical facilities, including the killing of 12 ambulance men in marked vehicles;

Israel is facing growing demands from senior UN officials and human rights groups for an international war crimes investigation in Gaza over allegations such as the “reckless and indiscriminate” shelling of residential areas and use of Palestinian families as human shields by soldiers.

With the death toll from the 17-day Israeli assault on Gaza climbing above 900, pressure is increasing for an independent inquiry into specific incidents, such as the shelling of a UN school turned refugee centre where about 40 people died, as well as the question of whether the military tactics used by Israel systematically breached humanitarian law.
Link to this audio

The UN’s senior human rights body approved a resolution yesterday condemning the Israeli offensive for “massive violations of human rights”. A senior UN source said the body’s humanitarian agencies were compiling evidence of war crimes and passing it on to the “highest levels” to be used as seen fit.

Some human rights activists allege that the Israeli leadership gave an order to keep military casualties low no matter what cost to civilians. That strategy has directly contributed to one of the bloodiest Israeli assaults on the Palestinian territories, they say.

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Is Gaza a testing ground for experimental weapons?

Dime, or dense inert metal explosive, a weapon recently developed by the US army to create a powerful and lethal blast over a small area.

Wounds from the weapon (Dime, editor) are said to be distinctive. Those exposed to the blast have severed or melted limbs, or internal ruptures, especially to soft tissue such as the abdomen, that often lead to death.

There is said to be no shrapnel apart from a fine “dusting” of minute metal particles on damaged organs visible when autopsies are carried out. Survivors of a Dime blast are at increased risk of developing cancer, according to research carried out in the United States.

Concerns about Israel’s use of non-conventional and experimental weapons in the Gaza Strip are growing, with evasive comments from spokesmen and reluctance to allow independent journalists inside the tiny enclave only fuelling speculation.

The most prominent controversy is over the use of shells containing white phosphorus, which causes horrific burns when it comes into contact with skin. Under international law, phosphorus is allowed as a smokescreen to protect soldiers but treated as a chemical weapon when used against civilians.

The Israeli army maintains that it is using only weapons authorised in international law, though human rights groups have severely criticised Israel for firing phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza.

But there might be other unconventional weapons Israel is using out of sight of the watching world.

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Iranian aid ship nearing Gaza Strip

Sweet Jesus, last week the Israeli fleet rammed the Dignity, a boat destined to bring medical supplies and a message of solidarity to the Palestinians in Gaza with on board amongst others Cynthia McKinney, a former congress woman and the presidential candidate for the US Green party. What will happen to this ship and what will be the consequences?

Gaza – Ma’an/Agencies – A ship loaded with humanitarian aid en route to Gaza from the Islamic Republic of Iran is scheduled to make landfall within hours, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry.

“We are intent on helping (people in Gaza),” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said on Monday.

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Jews Against Zionism

In their own words

Hill of Shame where Gaza bombing is spectator sport

I would call these gouls Orthodox Zionist Jews in reverence to the Orthodox anti Zionist Jews of groups such as Narturai karta,  Jews against Zionism, Aotearoa Jews for Justice, and the many, many other Jewish groups who in their shared humanity with us stand appalled and tall against the Criminal Genocide commited by Israel.

Martin Fletcher and Yonit Farago in Sderot

In times of peace Parash Hill is a beauty spot where Israelis from the nearby town of Sderot come to picnic and enjoy the magnificent view across a nature reserve and bright green fields to distant Gaza City and, beyond, the deep blue Mediterranean.

There are benches for sightseers, a swing, a sculpture of a man on horseback and fences to stop children tumbling down the steep northern slope.

Today the hill attracts a very different sort of visitor — the ghoulish and vengeful, the curious and anguished, not to mention television crews. They come not to enjoy the flowers or birdsong, but for a spectacular panoramic view of Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip. It is, for those that like that sort of thing, the ultimate spectator sport.

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Asked about WMDs, Bush grins: ‘Things didn’t go according to plan’

Abu Ghraib a ‘disappointment’

A confident George W. Bush took the podium Monday for what is likely the last press conference of his presidency, fielding a panoply of questions on the economy, President-elect Barack Obama, and what he sees as the failings of his term.

Speaking about the Administration’s claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction — which served as the cornerstone of the president’s justification for war — Bush laughed.

“Things didn’t go according to plan, let’s put it that way,” Bush said with a smile, then a grimace. The WMDs touted by Bush and his advisers were never found. More than 4,000 American troops have died as a result of the invasion; the toll for Iraqi civilians is in the tens of thousands.

“Clearly putting a mission accomplished on an aircraft carrier was a mistake,” he replied when asked what he’d done wrong under his watch.

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White House: Increase in terror attacks since 9/11 a success

So are we saver since the US started it’s war on Terror after 911? Hmm.

One of the many sad ironies of the Bush era that is rapidly and mercifully drawing to a close is that after the president created a “central front in the war on terror” by invading Iraq, the amount of “terrorism” in the world skyrocketed. I call it the Bush Bubble:

At first, the administration seemed a little embarrassed by this result, and it engaged in various attempts, which I’ve documented over the years and summarized here, at disguising the increase. Interestingly, the public face for many of those shenanigans was John Brennan, formerly head of the National Counterterrorism Center and currently Obama’s transition intelligence adviser and pick for the newly created position of deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism.

In July 2005, announcing a new web-accessible database of terrorism incidents compiled by the RAND corporation and available at tkb.org, Brennan said, “We’re trying to be as open and transparent to the public as possible.”

That lasted a little over two years. Funding was withdrawn from the project on March 31, 2008, probably because people like me were using the analytical tools on the site to produce embarrassing graphs like the one above. Note that the data used in that graph was accessed a couple of months before the site’s demise, and the decrease shown for 2007 may reflect incomplete data. The government’s own figures, put out by the National Counterterrorism Center but going back only to 2004, show an increase in 2007:

Those increases were largely driven, of course, by the carnage let loose in Iraq subsequent to our invasion. The last time Bush’s attention was called to the havoc he wreaked there, his response was a blithe, “So what?”

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Chinese State Media Admit Widespread Protests in China

On January 5, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Xinhua.net unexpectedly published an article entitled “2009 Will Be a Prime Year For Public Protests and They Shall Be Dealt With Properly.” In the article, the CCP made the statement that “Without doubt, we’re now in a peak period for public protests and CCP authorities expect to encounter many more in 2009.” It further pointed out that the protests are becoming massive and aggressive, and they are quickly escalating into riots leading to tremendous damages.

This article was quoted from the Outlook (Liaowang) Magazine, which included three interviews by Xinhua News Agency’s reporters in Chongqing, Jiangsu and Guangdong Province respectively. Besides referring to 2009 as a predicted peak year for public protests, the article also made analyses.

According to the article, most protests today are sympathized with and supported by the general public. As soon as one person in a neighborhood raises an issue against the government, the whole community then offers support eventually forming a protest. Quickly these protests escalate into riots leading to tremendous damages.
Minor incidents quickly escalate and turn into a riot.

At the end of the article, it inexplicitly mentioned that strict control of the judicial system and media censorship were the main cause of the public protests. However, it mainly attributed the rioting to people’s poor living standards resulting from the financial crisis and high unemployment rate.

Nevertheless, experts pointed out that it was the CCP’s corrupt system of government and its dictatorial rule that contributed to the riots.

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Cheney: It doesn’t matter that we haven’t captured bin Laden

After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush famously declared that he would capture Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.” However, less than a year later — in March 2002 — Bush said that he was “not that concerned” about the al Qaeda leader. Today on CNN’s Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer asked Vice President Cheney, “How frustrating is this to you personally, knowing he’s [bin Laden] still at large?” Cheney hesitated, then simply replied that he would “obviously…like to solve that problem.” He added that it’s more “important” to “keep…this country safe,” indicating that bin Laden is inconsequential.

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Chief Economist: It’s A Depression

Morici one of first senior analysts to admit U.S. faces 1930’s style collapse

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, January 12, 2009

Professor Peter Morici, a former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission, has become one of the first senior economists to admit that the U.S. is facing a 1930’s style depression.

Noting that 2.6 million payroll jobs have been lost since December 2007, Morici told financial publication Kiplinger that a 5 per cent contraction in the fourth quarter made the crisis “worse than a recession”.

“The economy will not recover without fundamental changes in banking and trade policy,” said Morici, an economics professor at Maryland University, “A large stimulus package, though necessary, will only give the economy a temporary lift,” he added. “The economy is in a depression, not a recession.”

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“9/11 and Nationalist Faith”

Dr. David Ray Griffin shows that the greatest obstacle to seeing the truth – that 9/11 was an inside job – is not the lack of evidence, but what can be called “nationalist faith” – the belief that America is the “exceptional nation”, whose leaders never deliberately do anything truly evil, at least to their own citizens.

Listen here

War pimp alert: Unusually Large U.S. Weapons Shipment to Israel: Are the US and Israel Planning a Broader Middle East War?

A very large delivery of  US weaponry to Israel consisting of 3,000 tons of “ammunition” is scheduled to sail to Israel. The size and nature of the shipments are described as “unusual”:

“Shipping 3,000-odd tons of ammunition in one go is a lot,” one broker said, on condition of anonymity.

“This (kind of request) is pretty rare and we haven’t seen much of it quoted in the market over the years,” he added.

“Shipping brokers in London who have specialized in moving arms for the British and U.S. military in the past said such ship charters to Israel were rare. (Reuters, Jan 10, 2009)

The Pentagon has entrusted a Greek merchant shipping company to deliver the weapons to Israel:

“The U.S. is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tons of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show.

The U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC) said the ship was to carry 325 standard 20-foot containers of what is listed as “ammunition” on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January.

A “hazardous material” designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given.(Ibid)

It is worth noting that a similar unusually large shipment of  US ordinance to Israel was scheduled in early December:

“Tender documents indicate that the German ship hired by the US in early December also carried a massive cargo of weapons that weighed over 2.6 million kg [2600 tons] and filled up to 989 standard 20-foot containers to Ashdod from North Carolina.” (Press TV, 10 Jan 2009)

Are These Large Shipments of Ordinance Connected to the Invasion of Gaza?

The request by the Pentagon to transport ordinance in a commercial vessel, according to Reuters, was made on December 31, 4 days after the commencement of the aerial bombings of Gaza by F16 Fighter jets.

Analysts have hastily concluded, without evidence, that the 2 shipments of “ammunition” were intended to supply Israel’s armed forces in support of its military invasion of Gaza.

“A senior military analyst in London who declined to be named said that, because of the timing, the shipments could be “irregular” and linked to the Gaza offensive.” (Reuters, January 10, 2009)

These reports are mistaken. Delivery of ordinance always precedes the onslaught of a military operation. The ordinance required under “Operation Cast Lead” was decided upon in June 2008. Further to Tel Aviv’s request under the US military aid program to Israel, the U.S. Congress approved in September 2008 the transfer of 1,000 bunker-buster high precision GPS-guided Small Diameter Guided Bomb Units 39 (GBU-39).

The GBU 39 smart bombs produced by Boeing were delivered to Israel in November. They were used in the initial air raids on Gaza:

“…The Israel Air Force has used the new lightweight GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb acquired from the USA, in the recent attacks in Gaza. The [Jerusalem] Post mentioned the new weapons ordered last September having arrived last month [November], and already put to action with the IAF fighters. These weapons could have been deployed by the Boeing/IAF F-15Is, since sofar SDB is cleared for use only with this type of aircraft.

It is highly unlikely that the bulk of the weaponry included in these two large shipments, scheduled to arrive in Israel in late January, is intended to be used in Israel’s military operation in Gaza. The GBU-39 is lightweight (130 kg). The entire shipment of GBU 39s (1000 units) would be of the order of a modest 130 tons. In other words, the specifications of the GBU 39 do not match the description of the “unusually large” and  “heavy” shipment of ordinance.

GBU-39

Escalation Scenario

The shipment ordered on December 31 is of the order of 3000 tons, an unusually large and heavy cargo of “ammunition” pointing to the transfer of heavy weaponry to Israel.

According to US military statements, the ordinance is for stockpiling, to be used “at short notice” in the eventuality of a conflict:

“This previously scheduled shipment is routine and not in support of the current situation in Gaza. …The U.S. military pre-positions stockpiles in some countries in case it needs supplies at short notice.” (Reuters, 10 Jan 2009, emphasis added)

Whatever the nature of these large weapons shipments, they are intended for use in a future military operation in the Middle East.

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The Target is Iran: Israel’s Latest Gamble May Backfire

The aerial war against Gaza launched by Israel just after Christmas, and the ground offensive, with which it rang in the New Year, were shocking in their brutality, but should constitute no surprise, if viewed from the standpoint of long-term Israeli strategic aims. The Israelis have argued that the offensive was launched in response to eight years’ of relentless attacks by Hamas rockets into Israel. But then, one asks: why now? Why should they wait eight years?

Perhaps the massive military onslaught, which has killed over 800 Palestinians and wounded thousands, has nothing to do with Kassam rockets. Perhaps it is not a tactical military operation by Israel, but a strategic decision on the part of Israel’s Anglo-American backers, whose ultimate aim is war against Iran. Perhaps the military calculations in Tel Aviv are that continued massive pounding of Gaza by air and in house-to-house fighting, will take such a ghastly toll on the Palestinian civilian population, that Iran, touted as the backer of Hamas, will be forced to move into the conflict. Perhaps that is precisely the reaction Israel desires, in order to justify launching its war against the Islamic Republic, a war which has been on the drawing boards of the Israelis and their neocon sponsors for many years.

If that is the name of the game, it may well be that it will backfire totally. Not only will Iran not be drawn into the trap, but the continued genocidal campaign against the Palestinians may utterly discredit Israel politically and morally, and contribute to a shift in attitudes even in Europe and, most importantly, in the U.S. That, in turn, may open the way to redefining the conflict and therefore opening the way for real solutions.

The Clean Break Doctrine

What we have witnessed in Gaza since December 27 is the implementation of one crucial part of an Anglo-American strategic doctrine for redrawing the map of the Middle East (within a broader context), known as the “Clean Break.” This doctrine had been cooked up by Dick Cheney’s neocon task force in 1996 and served to then-aspiring PM Benjamin Netanyahu, on a silver platter. The policy had been fashioned by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and his wife Meyrav, among others, under the auspices of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in Jerusalem. The paper, which was one in a series of strategic policy papers from 1992 on, outlining how the Anglo-Americans could establish world hegemony in the post-Cold War world, derived its name from the idea that Israel must make a “clean break” with the historic 1993 Oslo Accords between it and the Palestinian Authority, and revert to “a peace process and strategy based on an entirely {new intellectual foundation} one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism, the starting point of which must be economic reform”.

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The Afghan Scam

While all eyes are on Gaza let’s not forget the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Untold Story of Why the U.S. Is Bound to Fail in Afghanistan
By Ann Jones

The first of 20,000 to 30,000 additional U.S. troops are scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan next month to re-win the war George W. Bush neglected to finish in his eagerness to start another one. However, “winning” the military campaign against the Taliban is the lesser half of the story.

Going into Afghanistan, the Bush administration called for a political campaign to reconstruct the country and thereby establish the authority of a stable, democratic Afghan central government. It was understood that the two campaigns — military and political/economic — had to go forward together; the success of each depended on the other. But the vision of a reconstructed, peaceful, stable, democratically governed Afghanistan faded fast. Most Afghans now believe that it was nothing but a cover story for the Bush administration’s real goal — to set up permanent bases in Afghanistan and occupy the country forever.

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Canada’s government and opposition trumpet Israel’s “right” to wage endless war in Gaza

Canada’s political establishment has given its full support to the Israeli state’s bloody onslaught against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip.

Canada’s minority Conservative government has been amongst the most strident state supporters of the assault on Gaza. Since Israel launched its attack on Gaza two weeks ago, ministers in Stephen Harper’s government have repeatedly echoed the cynical pronouncements emanating from Washington and Tel Aviv. This has included arguing against an “immediate ceasefire,” laying all blame for the conflict and for the large number of civilians killed by Israeli air strikes and artillery barrages on Hamas, and otherwise apologizing for Israeli war crimes.

The new leader of Canada’s official opposition Liberals, Michael Ignatieff, has followed suit, denouncing Hamas, which won Palestinian Authority elections in 2006, as a “terrorist organization” and asserting Israel’s right to kill scores of Palestinians daily until Hamas cedes to its demands.

A day after the aerial bombardment of the densely populated Palestinian enclave began on December 26, Lawrence Cannon, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, gave full support to the attack. “Israel has a clear right to defend itself against the continued rocket attacks by Palestinian militant groups which have deliberately targeted civilians,” said Cannon. “First and foremost those rocket attacks must stop.”

As the carnage visited upon the Palestinians in Gaza escalated with the advent of the Israeli ground invasion, statements emanating from the Canadian Foreign Office were among the most supportive of all Israel’s allies.

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Canada’s Bailouts: A Whole New Round of Attacks on the Working-Class

It’s in the time of economic crisis that it becomes most apparent whom capitalism (and the governments that manage it) really works for.

For the last four months politicians and mainstream economists have incessantly uttered two lies to the people regarding the current economic crisis: (1) that it was completely unpredictable; and (2) that we should not worry because economic recovery is on the near horizon, perhaps in a quarter or two. Nothing could be further from the truth, and most of these “experts know it.

The truth is that this crisis was completely expected, and that our society will not emerge from this crisis looking like what it did going into it. Anyone familiar with the economic forecasts of popular and independent economic institutes like MonthlyReview.org or GlobalResearch.ca, would have seen the current economic crisis coming years, if not decades, ago.

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China’s mounting pink slips

Set aside Yao Ming and the furry mascots. The buoyant spirit of the 2008 Beijing Olympics already seems like a lifetime ago. A new icon has recently emerged for today’s China: the disgruntled, laid-off factory worker, standing dejected outside a shuttered factory, another victim of the global economic downtown.

As startling as these factory closures have been, the fate of another less-heralded figure may be more significant: the laid-off office worker.

After 30 years of nearly continuous, even momentous, economic growth – which has lifted millions out of poverty and bolstered the ruling Chinese Communist Party – the economy’s manufacturing base is slipping. Last month, exports dipped for the first time in seven years.

Mounting factory layoffs this year – around 2 million have been sent packing near the factory city of Dongguan alone – have prompted a string of noisy but isolated protests across the country’s southern industrial region. The anxious Chinese government has rushed in with bailout money for companies and some compensation for workers. So far, a thousand sparks haven’t become a wildfire. Fretful Chinese workers have yet to channel discontent into unified campaigns, or demands for representation in the political sphere. But whether Beijing can so easily mollify the growing apprehension among the country’s middle class could be another story entirely.

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Arms exports to Israel from EU worth €200m

As I said before, the neighbours of the Gansta neighbourhood get their share of the loot so they don’t complain to much and in exchange the gansta’s leave tehir neighbourhoods alone.

CET EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – European Union member states authorised the export of €200 million in arms exports to Israel in 2007, the latest figures from Brussels disclose, with France far and away the Jewish state’s biggest European weapons supplier. According to the EU’s 2008 report on arms export licences, published in December for the 2007 calendar year and consolidating the accounts that member states must annually submit, 18 member states authorised a total of 1,018 such licences to Israel worth €199,409,348.

France, Germany and Romania were the top three exporters. France issued export licences worth €126 million, Germany authorised €28 million and Romania €17 million, the EUobserver can reveal. In response to calls from opposition politicians that the UK government halt its arms exports to Israel and push all other EU member states to do the same, a British foreign office spokesperson said: “We do not approve any defence related exports if we judge that there is a risk that they will be used for external aggression or internal repression. “We routinely refuse export licences where we believe that there is a risk of this. Any application relating to Israel is considered on this basis,” the spokesperson continued. EU arms code of conduct The EU has maintained an arms export code of conduct since 1998, but it is overseen at the member state level, not in Brussels, so if Mr Brown were to push for such a move, he would have to convince the 26 other member states.

In 2007, €12 million in small arms and ammunition were exported to Israel by Bulgaria, Germany, Poland, Romania and the UK. Another €23.5 million in “light weapons,” meaning those that require two to three people to operate them, such as bombs, torpedoes and explosive devices, were supplied by the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania and Slovenia. Belgium, France and Romania also sent Israel €18.5 million worth of aircraft and related material. Paris is responsible for €10 million of this sum.

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Dead Gaza fighters “bulldozed into piles”

they were first held as “human shields” inside military positions established by the army (IAF, my addition), then moved to a prison in Israel. Eyad, a Palestinian civilian. GAZA, Jan 9 (Reuters) –

A Palestinian man captured by Israeli troops in Gaza said after his release on Friday that he had seen the corpses of many Islamist fighters bulldozed into piles covered with sand.

“They used a bulldozer to pile up the bodies of the dead. There were bodies of many fighters,” said the man, who was released by the Israelis after five days of detention and allowed to return to Gaza.

An Israeli army spokesman said he had no knowledge of such an incident.

The Palestinian gave his name as Eyad and said he saw the bodies in Beit Lahiya, a town in north Gaza that was an early objective in the ground offensive launched by Israel last Saturday after its aircraft had bombed Gaza targets for a week.

Hamas has not revealed how many Gaza fighters have been killed or wounded. The Israeli army said three days ago it had killed more than 130 since ground combat started.

Israeli forces arrested hundreds of Palestinians as they advanced into the Gaza Strip on an operation the government said was intended to crush Hamas and stop the firing of rockets into Israel.

Of about 200 held in Beit Lahiya, 75 were set free on Friday. They looked pale and exhausted and were barefoot. They crossed back into the Gaza Strip via Israel’s fortified Erez crossing in the north.

War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields

Just in case you still thought that Israel just wanted to punish 1.3 million human beings for the actions of a few which for all intends and purposes is a war crime in and of itself, think again.

The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.

The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21,  2007).

The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).

The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.

The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine’s gas reserves could be much larger.

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Israel Ignores UN Security Council Resolution

Imagine this; a smallish neighbourhood bully it told by the Association for Peaceful Neighbourhoods (in which all neighbourhoods have proper representation I might add) tells the neighbourhood bully to stop terrorising it’s neighbouring poor neighbourhood.This Ghetto is the result of previous bullying because you see, the people living in that crammed starving neighbourhood used to live in the spacious neighbourhood now inhabited by said bully and the bully is naturally afraid that all those millions of people one day will rise up to reclaim the land of their ancestors and will want to go back to their ancestral homes.

Our bully, not stupid by a long shot, has over the years cultivated an extraordinary relationship with someone more powerful than the AFPN and far more dangerous. You see among all of the neighbourhoods in organised in the AFPN their is one neighbourhood which has some amazing caracteristics. For one, they believe that theirs is the right to bully every other neighbourhood and they believe that their economic system is the best in the world and that everybody should adopt this system. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood are also amazingly uninformed and  their community leaders like to keep it that way. These leaders have unparralleled control over that neighbours resources and act actually very much like the gangsters running empoverished neighbourhoods.

My way or the highway. They deal drugs in every neighbourhoods, they support gansta leaders in a lot of these neigbourhoods they have no regards for human life, in fact these leaders like the leaders in our bully neighbourhood like to prove how tough they are by bombing other neighbourhoods. Most neighbourhoods don’t like the gansta neigbourhood but a lot of them make money of the this neighbourhood and sometimes even get a share of the gangsta loot so they pley along and hope the Gansta neighbourhood doesn’t turn it’s greedy eye on them.

It is a classical combo. A small but very smart bullyboy makes friends with the biggest meanest but less intellectually endowed thug who can always be trusted to follow the smarty pants psychopath little runt blindly.

You and I have met them in the school grounds. It wasn’t the big boy as such who was always on your case, it was the little runt protected by the dumbass mastiff who was the one to stay clear from. If he had you in his sights you knew the mastiff would follow suit and you knew you were up shit creek without  peddle in a leaking boat.

Our smallish but well armed bully now want’s to get rid of the people in the ghetto next door so they can never reclaim their lands and it does what small bullies have always done he starts the fight and sicks the gansta’s onto these poor and defenceless (Let’s face it those homemade clueless rockets are no match for the fire power of Israel armed by the US) masses, starved and victimised for years by our bully boy.

And now we expect them to obey a “resolution” from the AFPN ooh oops in reality it is called the UN. Why? they got away with ignoring all the others with the help of the Gangsta neighbourhood who for fucks sake has a veto in the same AFPN. The impotence of it all. The gall of the gansta neighbourhood and above all from the runt who has gained control over the gangsta’s running their neighbourhood to even pretend that what their are doing is anything other that brute control and mass murder.

—————————————by Haider Rizvi

International aid organizations, including the UN humanitarian agency in Palestine, are calling for the immediate implementation of the Security Council resolution passed late Thursday demanding a cease-fire in Gaza.

“The Council must ensure that the words in the resolution must quickly translate into meaningful change,” said Nicole Widdersheim of Oxfam International, the London-based charity that runs humanitarian operations in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Thursday night, the Security Council passed a resolution calling for unimpeded provision throughout Gaza of food, fuel, and medical treatment, as well as intensified international arrangements to prevent arms and ammunition smuggling.

Fourteen of the Council’s 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, with only the United States, a staunch ally of Israel, abstaining.

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Top holiday house prices in freefall

I don’t particularly care about stupid and ignorant yuppies who believe that it is OK to buy over the top prices for snobby houses in snobby places based on expectations built on the misconception that growth can go on forever. I’ve always thought that beautiful places like Waiheke Island and the Coromanel should stay exactly that; beautiful places to be enjoyed by all not just some rich pricks or rich prick hopefuls.

But the fact that not even the rich can insulate themselves from the oncomming financial tsunami tells a very important story. It tells us to batten down the hatches and and rethink our future. My advise? Break away from consumption, get yourself some seeds and start growing your own food. It’s going to be that bad. And no, house prices don’t keep going up forever. That one was a scam. That one was a bankers trick to part you with your hard earned savings and get you in over your head with credit cards and cheap credit.

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Exclusive holiday homes are being dumped on the real estate market at bargain prices as the property slump and economic recession start to hit the rich.

Estate agents in the millionaire playgrounds of the Coromandel Peninsula and Auckland’s Waiheke Island say there is “blood on the floor” as buyers come in “low and hard” to a falling market.

A raft of new properties in those regions have been listed on online listings site TradeMe since Christmas, as overstretched professionals start tightening belts in the face of diminished bonuses and fears over job security.

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Israel Soldier _Palestine Girl

Thank you truthmama for this video.

Jewish women protest in Toronto’s Israeli Consulate

This is the news “Kiwi friends of Israel” the brand spanking new AIPAC like PR group and Zionist apologists who according to their tag line are a Secular and non bipartisan “Lobby” (lobbying per definition is not bi-partisan. They always and with out exception lobby for a narrowly defined interest. In this case the Zionist state of Israel) group who tells u they “promote” debate and discussion about the state of Israel, does not want you to know.

Again, lobby groups never promote debate and discussion. The whole purpose of lobbying is to advance the interest of one particular group regardless of the the realities which should be discussed and debated in order to come to balanced and reality based decisions with regards to important issues such as the attacks on Gaza.

Read this rabid and manipulative little article. Clearly KFOI is linked to an international pro Zionist lobby movement. It equates condemning Israel for it’s Genocidal and racist policies with the rejection of all their “good” inventions and contributions to humanity and the total rejection of all Jews. In other words if you state that Israel committing Genocide is not OK you are an anti Semite. These groups also call Jews protesting the Criminal regime in Israel as “self hating Jews and traitors.

All they want to promote is the fallacy that every single Jew supports Israel and that for you as a “goy” to criticise Israel is tantamount to anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

Well folks, that simply is not true.

Take these courageous Jewish women for example.

They are not self hating nor traitors. They are simply compassionate human beings sick of the murder and mayhem perpetrated in their name. Let’s celebrate these courageous individuals and give them the stage were ever we can.

Just to give some perspective. The AIPAC does not wish attention on people like these eight beautiful Jewish women so the charges were dropped. What do you think would have happened if it had been eight Palestinian women? Terrorism charges come to mind.

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TORONTO (JTA) — Eight Jewish women were arrested after they entered the Israeli consulate in Toronto and began protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The women entered the heavily secured consulate in pairs Wednesday. Once all eight were inside, they staged a sit-in.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were called and led the women out in handcuffs. The protesters were turned over to Metro Toronto Police and each was charged with one count of breach of the peace. The charges were later dropped and the women were released.

Israeli peace activists, artists, the president of Science for Peace and several students were in the group.

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Gaza, Gas and Genocide

While the “Kiwi friends of Israel” our born and bread home grown AIPAC smear and tear Fr. Gerard Burns to bits in true AIPAC/Zionist fashion over throwing water soluble red paint and a drop of his blood at the memorial of murdered Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin who contrary to the much touted Peace activist image was very much a hawk throughout his life and a true Zionist, the true reasons for decimating the Gazan population and later I predict the deportation of the remaining Palestinians ot the West bank are emerging.

It pays to use Google while you still can and the combination Gaza Gas and Real Estate is a doozy.
It turns out that the Oil company BP discovered a huge Gas field in the territorial waters of Gaza and that since 1995 Real estate moguls have been secretly trading in the land adjacent to the Gaza strip and in fact they traded in ladn inside the strip sending real estate prices through the roof.

I hate to bring it to you guys but once again the Gazan Genocide is just another greedy grab for someone else’s resources and land. The only good news is that those who think that they will profit from the Palestinian misery and end up building their victory beach side apartments on top of the soil will die and their off spring will mutate and die as a result of the use of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten in the bombardments.

CIA Preparing To Install Military Government In Greece?

The Greek army is a conscription army. With hundreds of soldiers protesting against their assignment to quell civilian unrest you bet something stinks to high heaven.

I lived in Europe when the first military regime took a hold of Greece. It wasn’t pretty.

Perhaps you can get a feel for the sadness of that time by listing of this song written by Mikis Theodorakis, one of the most important composers of Greece who wrote this when he lived in exile during that time.

 

It breaks my heart to think that this might be visited on the people of Greece once again.

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Real agenda behind riots could be related to Russian oil pipeline

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, January 6, 2008

The increasingly violent riots in Greece could be the curtain raiser for a military coup d’etat and the installation of a new government more friendly to U.S. hegemony as a countermeasure to increasing Russian influence over the Balkan state.

It wouldn’t be the first time the CIA has assisted in such a venture – they aided the 1967 installation of a U.S. friendly military junta known as the Regime of the Colonels ostensibly to prevent Greece from falling under Soviet control, a fascist cabal which was later overthrown in 1973.

The coup was achieved with the active support of such groups as the LOK Special Forces, which was part of Operation Gladio, NATO-controlled black-ops forces that carried out false flag attacks across Europe to eliminate left-wing political organizations.

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Gaza: The death and life of my father

I bet you that Fares Akram would love to see Chaney et all before an International war crimes court.

The phone call came at around 4.20pm on Saturday. A bomb had been dropped on the house at our small farm in northern Gaza. My father was walking from the gate to the farmhouse at the time. It was our beloved place, that farm and its two-storey white house with a red roof. Nestled in a flat fertile agricultural plain north-west of Beit Lahiya, it had lemon groves, orange and apricot trees and we had recently acquired 60 dairy cows.

It was the closest farm to the northern border with Israel. Ironically, we always thought the biggest danger there was not from Israeli troops, who usually went straight past if they were mounting an incursion, but from stray Hamas rockets aimed at the Israeli towns north of us.

But shortly before sunset on Saturday, as Israeli ground troops and tanks invaded Gaza in the name of shutting down Hamas rocket sites, the peace of that place was shattered and my father’s life extinguished at the age of 48. Warplanes and helicopters had swept in, bombing and firing to open up the space for the tanks and ground forces that would follow in the darkness. It was one of those F16 airstrikes that killed my father.

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