The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. – Benjamin Franklin
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – More than 100 nonaligned nations backed Iran’s right to peaceful uses of nuclear power on Wednesday, an endorsement sought by Tehran in its standoff with the U.N. Security Council over its refusal to freeze uranium enrichment.
The decision came as supreme Iranian leader Ayatolla Ali Khamenei pledged to continue the country’s nuclear program.
Read moreMore than 100 countries back Iran’s nuclear program
The U.S. would see this as an act of war, if someone would do it to them.
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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union has agreed to go beyond United Nations sanctions on Iran, instructing its financial institutions to exercise “restraint” on export credits and allowing its navies to inspect all Iran-bound cargoes, a senior diplomat said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh – a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker – revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.
Read moreCheney considered a ‘False Flag Attack’ to start war with Iran
The Bush administration will be mailing out another batch of “stimulus” checks in the very near future. There’s no way around it. The Fed is in a pickle and can’t lower interest rates for fear that food and energy prices will shoot to stratosphere. At the same time, the economy is shrinking faster than anyone thought possible with no sign of a rebound. That leaves stimulus checks as the only way to “prime the pump” and keep consumer spending chugging along. Otherwise business activity will slow to a crawl and the economy will tank. There’s no other choice.
The daily barrage of bad news is really starting to get on people’s nerves. Most of the TV chatterboxes have already cut-out the cheery stock market predictions and no one is praising the “impressive powers of the free market” anymore. They know things are bad, real bad. A pervasive sense of gloom has crept into the television studios just like it has into the stock exchanges and the luxury penthouses on Manhattan’s West End. That same sense of foreboding is creeping like a noxious cloud to every town and city across the country. Everyone is cutting back on non-essentials and trimming the fat from the family budget. The days of extravagant impulse-spending at the mall are over. So are the “big ticket” purchases and the “go-for-broke” trips to Europe. Consumer confidence is at historic lows, disposal income is a thing of the past, and all the credit cards are at their limit. The country is drowning in red ink.
July 30 (Bloomberg) — With goodwill like Washington Mutual Inc.’s, it’s no wonder investors are getting such bad feelings about the company’s finances. Shares of the Seattle-based savings and loan have fallen 89 percent the past year to $4.43, leaving the company with a $7.6 billion stock-market value. The stock’s plunge must be a horrible mistake if we are to believe the values WaMu attributes to the assets on its balance sheet.
More than 14 million people in the east Africa region require urgent food aid due to drought and spiralling cereal and fuel prices, aid agencies say.
In an emergency appeal launched today, Oxfam warns that millions of people in Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Djibouti and Kenya are fast being pushed “towards severe hunger and destitution”. Earlier this week the UN said it needed £200m to avert a humanitarian disaster.
The hunger crisis is worse than the last regional emergency in 2006, when drought caused 11 million people to need assistance, because of the added impact of the global food price increases. Poor families are struggling to buy staples such as maize and wheat, which have more than doubled in price over the past 12 months.
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His black-and-gold supercar costs £3,552 to service at an approved dealer – on top of the £20,000 to freight from Qatar to Britain. Source: Sun
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“In previous droughts most people on the margins found ways to cope,” said Peter Smerdon, of the World Food Programme. “But the simultaneous increase in food prices this time around means they are cutting down on meals and taking their kids out of school in order to try to get by. More people are falling over the edge.”
July 30, 2008 WASHINGTON — Bush administration officials reassured Israel’s defense minister this week that the United States has not abandoned all possibility of a military attack on Iran, despite widespread Israeli concern that Washington has begun softening its position toward Tehran.
In meetings Monday and Tuesday, administration officials told Defense Minister Ehud Barak that the option of attacking Iran over its nuclear program remains on the table, though U.S. officials are primarily seeking a diplomatic solution.
Eight people were arrested in dawn raids yesterday by the City watchdog the Financial Services Authority.
Cazenove admitted that one of the arrested worked at its London offices as a sub-contractor.
A 40-strong team from the FSA swooped on addresses in London and the South East with back-up from City of London police.
Cazenove, the Queen’s stockbroker, has been at the centre of police raids into insider trading
They are believed to have seized computers and paperwork.
Read moreQueen’s stockbroker raided, biggest ever crackdown on insider trading
On July 18, 2008 The New York Times published an article by Israeli-Jewish historian, Professor Benny Morris, advocating an Israeli nuclear-genocidal attack on Iran with the likelihood of killing 70 million Iranians – 12 times the number of Jewish victims in the Nazi holocaust:
” Iran ‘s leaders would do well to rethink their gamble and suspend their nuclear program. Barring this, the best they could hope for is that Israel ‘s conventional air assault will destroy their nuclear facilities. To be sure, this would mean thousands of Iranian casualties and international humiliation. But the alternative is an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland.”
Morris is a frequent lecturer and consultant to the Israeli political and military establishment and has unique access to Israeli strategic military planners. Morris’ advocacy and public support of the massive, brutal expulsion of all Palestinians is on public record. Yet his genocidal views have not precluded his receiving numerous academic awards. His writings and views are published in Israel ‘s leading newspapers and journals. Morris’ views are not the idle ranting of a marginal psychopath, as witnessed by the recent publication of his latest op-ed article in the New York Times.
Read moreThe New York Times: Making Nuclear Extermination Respectable
Most new large U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships would be required to be nuclear powered under the National Defense Authorization Act for 2009 which the House of Representatives has passed by a vote of 384 to 23. It now goes to the Senate where many senators are uneasy about the scheme as is the Navy and the shipbuilding industry in the U.S.
As to safe-energy and environmental advocates, “This reckless plan gives ‘we’ll fight them on the beaches’ a whole new sinister meaning,” says Linda Gunter of Beyond Nuclear of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. “If one of these amphibious ships is hit, or has an accident, we would be fighting a tide of radioactivity on beaches that could leave them contaminated indefinitely.”
Ehud Olmert
Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) purportedly told House Democrats in a private meeting Tuesday that Israel may strike Iran if sanctions on the country fail to prevent development of nuclear technology.
According to an attendee who spoke to ABC News’ Jake Tapper, Obama quipped, “Nobody said this to me directly but I get the feeling from my talks that if the sanctions don’t work Israel is going to strike Iran.”
Read moreObama reportedly told Democrats Israel will hit Iran if sanctions fail
AP photo / Brennan Linsley
Members of the Iranian resistance group Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, guard a road leading to the group’s main training camp, watched over by a U.S. Army Abrams tank in background, near Baqubah in north-central Iraq.
By Scott Ritter
The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.
And because of this Wall Street is celebrating today, but not for long.
Before: Fed: No more bailouts, except Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
And now the Fed wants to bailout Wall Street?
The taxpayer will pay for it all.
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WASHINGTON (AP) – The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it is extending its emergency borrowing program to Wall Street firms and is taking other steps to ease a severe credit crunch that has hobbled the national economy.
(NaturalNews) The major cattle cloning companies in the United States have admitted that they have not bothered to try and keep meat from the offspring of clones out of the U.S. food supply, in spite of a request by the FDA several years ago.
“This is a fairy tale that this technology is not being used and is not already in the food chain,” said Donald Coover, who owns a specialty cattle semen business. “Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or they’re not being honest.”
Coover admitted that for several years, he has been openly selling semen from cloned bulls. He is sure, he added, that others are doing the same.
Read moreCloned Beef Has Already Entered U.S. Food Supply, Even Before FDA Nod
MOSCOW, July 28 (Reuters) – Russia has approximately halved to less than $50 billion its exposure to U.S. mortgage lenders Fannie Mae (FNM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Freddie Mac (FRE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), a senior central bank official told Reuters on Monday. “It’s now less than $50 billion,” central bank first deputy chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said, when asked about Russia’s investments in the agencies.
Russia held about $100 billion at the start of 2008. (Reporting by Yelena Fabrichnaya, writing by Robin Paxton)
Mon Jul 28, 2008
Source: Reuters
Matt Jackson of the Meals On Wheels program waits to deliver a meal to a home in Charleston, W.Va. The program is losing volunteer drivers nationwide because of rising gas prices.
Bob Emily put in an honest day’s labor every day of his life.
“I worked for the railroad, for the town marshal, security, bars, Sealy down here, UPS,” said Emily, 82, of Commerce City, Colo. “Worked hard all my life until I got sick.”
Then the bills started piling up.
“Hospital bills built up,” said Emily, who didn’t have health insurance. “I had to get loans to take care of my bills. Then I was getting behind on the loans.”
Every day, more calls and letters would come in from creditors and collectors. “I just got tired of it,” Emily said, so three months ago, he filed for bankruptcy.
In Cité Soleil, one of Port-au-Prince’s worst slums, making the clay-based food is a major income earner. Mud cakes are the only inflation-proof food available to Haiti’s poor. Photograph: David Levene
At first sight the business resembles a thriving pottery. In a dusty courtyard women mould clay and water into hundreds of little platters and lay them out to harden under the Caribbean sun.
The craftsmanship is rough and the finished products are uneven. But customers do not object. This is Cité Soleil, Haiti’s most notorious slum, and these platters are not to hold food. They are food.
Read moreHaiti: Mud cakes become staple diet as cost of food soars beyond a family’s reach
Its name somewhat anachronistically means “assembly of old men.” George Washington famously – and, it must now be admitted, with excessive optimism – characterized it as an institutional saucer intended to cool legislation passed in the intemperate heat of the moment. Its members demand, with entirely unwarranted self-approval, to be called, collectively, the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.
Read moreThe Big Bailout: America as a Full-Spectrum Kleptocracy
PAKISTAN’S Prime Minister lashed out at George W. Bush during talks in Washington yesterday, “reproaching” the US President over a US Hellfire drone missile strike inside Pakistani territory only hours before the leaders met.
The International Monetary Fund says there’s no end in sight to the credit crisis gripping world financial markets.
As Australia’s NAB and ANZ have already discovered, the IMF believes banks are in for more pain as mortgage defaults soar and economies slow. The IMF has a particularly gloomy assessment of the US economy, and it came on the same day as the Bush administration revealed America’s budget deficit will climb to a record high of more than half-a-TRILLION dollars.
Speaker: Michael Rowland
Speakers: Jaime Caruana, head of the IMF’s capital markets division; Doug Peta, a market strategist with J and W Seligman; Jim Nussle, White House budget director
Vladimir Putin (left), then the president of Russia, met with Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, in April to discuss arms, energy and debt. AFP
Employing strategies redolent of a new Great Game, Russia has stepped up its diplomatic and trade activities in the Middle East and North Africa in a bid to enhance its geopolitical clout and gain access to, and at least partial control over, the region’s oil and gas reserves.
Among the former global superpower’s tactics: linking arms deals and debt-forgiveness to energy deals.
The strategy has been most apparent in former client states of the Soviet Union including Libya, Iraq and Syria, although by no means limited to such countries. Moreover, Moscow has not shied away from courting the authoritarian regimes of countries such as Iran, Syria and Libya that are or have been shunned by the US and other western governments.
Government officials have been quietly stepping up counterterror efforts out of a growing concern that al Qaeda or similar organizations might try to capitalize on the spate of extremely high-profile events in the coming months, sources tell ABC News.
“…the VA estimates that 18 veterans a day — or 6,500 a year — take their own lives, but that number includes vets from all wars.” Source: Military suicide rate increased again
“Nearly 40% of Army suicide victims in 2006 and 2007 took psychotropic drugs — overwhelmingly, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft.”
Source: America’s Medicated Army
Pfc. Joseph Dwyer, 26, from Mt. Sinai, N.Y., carries a young Iraqi boy who was injured during a heavy battle between the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry Regiment and Iraqi forces in this March 25, 2003 file photo near Al Faysaliyah, Iraq. Dwyer died of an accidental overdose after struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder for almost five years.
According to a recent RAND Corp. study, roughly one in five soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan displays symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, putting them at a higher risk for suicide. Researchers at Portland State University found that male veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide than men who are not veterans.
This month, a former Army medic, Joseph Dwyer, who was shown in a Military Times photograph running through a battle zone carrying an Iraqi boy, died of an accidental overdose after struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder for almost five years.
Drew Greenblatt of Marlin Steel Wire Products is having trouble getting a $300,000 loan to buy a robot for his Baltimore factory. “This is what a bank is supposed to do,” he said.
India says that the Pakistani troops have now retreated
An Indian soldier has been killed by Pakistani troops who crossed the Line of Control dividing the disputed territory of Kashmir, India says.
A spokesman for the Indian army, Anil Kumar Mathur, told the BBC that 10 to 12 Pakistani soldiers had entered Indian territory.
He said that shots were exchanged after an argument, and that firing had continued until Monday evening.
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir.