March 2009 – Page 3 – Infinite Unknown

Obama administration seeks powers to shut firms like AIG

March 24, 2009 by Infinite

This is how the Reuters homepage linked to this article:
Government seeks wider takeover powers
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers that the government needs authority to shut down troubled institutions like AIG to avoid future bailouts.

The Financial Times reports:
Fed chief seeks new powers:
The Obama administration joined forces with Ben Bernanke on Tuesday to press Congress for stronger powers to intervene in troubled financial institutions, as moves to strengthen the regulatory system gained pace on Capitol Hill.

So more powers for the government and the Fed is proposed as the solution, when in reality it was the Fed and the government that caused the entire crisis.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner take their seats to testify on Capitol Hill, March 24, 2009. REUTERS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Tuesday mounted a full-scale push for government authority to shut down troubled institutions like insurer AIG to avoid the need for future bailouts.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, testifying before lawmakers still fuming about big bonuses for executives at bailout recipient AIG, called on Congress for new powers to take over big non-bank financial firms that run amok.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke strongly backed Geithner in testimony before the same committee, and President Barack Obama took the case public in remarks to reporters.

“In the absence of that capacity you end up with the situation we’ve been in … an institution that poses systemic risks to the system but a lack of capacity to close it down in an orderly fashion, renegotiate contracts, sell off bad assets,” Obama said.

Global News (03/24/09)

March 24, 2009March 24, 2009 by Infinite

– Magna Cum Lousy — Where Today’s Bad CEOs Went To School (The Business Insider):
No big surprise: Most of the bankers, politicians and regulators who got us into this mess went to a handful of elite universities and business schools. (Watch the slideshow.)

– Scientists in possible cold fusion breakthrough (AFP):
The scientists on Monday described what they called the first clear visual evidence that low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), or cold fusion devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists say are indicative of nuclear reactions.

– Veterans face HIV risk from hospital pumps (MiamiHerald):
Thousands of veterans who underwent certain routine medical procedures at Miami’s VA Medical Center are at risk of being infected with hepatitis or HIV, the hospital announced Monday.

– ‘IDF troops used 11-year-old boy as human shield in Gaza’ (Ha’aretz):
Israel Defense Forces soldiers used an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield during the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a group of UN human rights experts said Monday. IDF troops ordered the boy to walk in front of soldiers being fired on in the Gaza neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa and enter buildings before them, said the UN secretary-general’s envoy for protecting children in armed conflict.

– IDF soldiers ordered to shoot at Gaza rescuers, note says (Ha’aretz)

– UN reports say Israel targeted civilians in Gaza (Reuters)

– Fighting for life: American peace activist shot by Israelis (Independent):
The parents of an American peace activist publicly appealed yesterday for a full investigation into how their son was shot in the head with a high velocity tear gas canister by Israeli security forces.

– Israel slams UN rights report on Gaza (AFP)

– Thirteen die after C. diff outbreak at hospital (Telegraph):
Three died as a direct result of clostridium difficile while the bug was linked to a further 10 deaths at the hospital. A further 17 patients are still being treated for the fatal infection.

– Sweden Says No to Saving Saab (New York Times)

– HR 1207 Update (Campaign For Liberty)

Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers: Stiglitz

March 24, 2009 by Infinite

HONG KONG (Reuters) – The U.S. government plan to rid banks of toxic assets will rob American taxpayers by exposing them to too much risk and is unlikely to work as long as the economy remains weak, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said on Tuesday.

“The Geithner plan is very badly flawed,” Stiglitz told Reuters in an interview during a Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference in Hong Kong.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s plan to wipe up to US$1 trillion in bad debt off banks’ balance sheets, unveiled on Monday, offered “perverse incentives”, Stiglitz said.

The U.S. government is basically using the taxpayer to guarantee against downside risk on the value of these assets, while giving the upside, or potential profits, to private investors, he said.

“Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people. I don’t think it’s going to work because I think there’ll be a lot of anger about putting the losses so much on the shoulder of the American taxpayer.”

Ron Paul on Glenn Beck Radio (03/23/2009): I think they are going to destroy the dollar

March 23, 2009 by Infinite

Source: YouTube

As credit markets froze, banks loaned millions to insiders

March 23, 2009 by Infinite

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Banks nationwide hold $41 billion in loans to directors, top executives and other insiders, a portfolio that experts say should be stripped of secrecy.

Insider lending to directors is particularly troublesome because it could cloud the judgment of people charged with protecting shareholders and overseeing bank management, the experts say.

At Charlotte-based Bank of America, those loans more than doubled last year, to $624.2 million — the biggest dollar jump in the country. The largest of them likely went to three directors or their companies. The surge came during the third quarter as credit markets froze, the government prepared to infuse banks with billions in tax dollars and the board approved the purchase of troubled Merrill Lynch.

Bank of America ranked fourth on the list of biggest insider lenders. At the top was JPMorgan of New York, which held $1.48 billion in insider loans, mostly by directors or their companies.

Right to privacy broken by a quarter of UK’s public databases, says report

March 23, 2009 by Infinite

“Britain is now the most invasive surveillance state and the worst at protecting privacy of any western democracy.”

Rowntree Trust cites DNA database and ID register
Whitehall told 11 systems out of 46 must be scrapped

A man has his fingerprint scanned on a new biometric check at Heathrow. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A quarter of all the largest public-sector database projects, including the ID cards register, are fundamentally flawed and clearly breach European data protection and rights laws, according to a report published today.

Claiming to be the most comprehensive map so far of Britain’s “database state”, the report says that 11 of the 46 biggest schemes, including the national DNA database and the Contactpoint index of all children in England, should be given a “red light” and immediately scrapped or redesigned.

The report, Database State (PDF) by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, says that more than half of Whitehall’s 46 databases and systems have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness, and could fall foul of a legal challenge.

Alaska volcano Mount Redoubt erupts 3 times

March 23, 2009 by Infinite

Alaska’s Mount Redoubt volcano has begun erupting over night, sending smoke billowing some 50,000 feet above sea level.

Alaska’s Mount Redoubt volcano has begun erupting over night, sending smoke billowing some 50,000 feet above sea level. Photo: EPA

Geologists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory said the volcano, which is roughly 100 miles from southwest of Anchorage, erupted three times late on Sunday and early on Monday.

“This is a fairly large eruption, close to the larger cities in Alaska,” said John Power, a geophysicist.

More information: Q & A: Will Mount Redoubt erupt again? (MSNBC)

He said no cities have yet reported any ash fall from the volcano, but he added that it is still early.

Geologists said seismic activity around the volcano has been intense in recent days, and they expect that the volcano would blow soon.

Global News (03/23/09)

March 23, 2009March 23, 2009 by Infinite

– Parrot Honored For Saving Toddler’s Life (WJZ):
Megan went into the bathroom and moments later heard Willie screaming, “Mama, Baby” over and over.

– Twin’s ‘sixth sense’ saves drowning sister (Telegraph)

– Israel Military condemns soldiers’ shocking T-shirts (Independent):
The report quotes one soldier as explaining: “These are shirts for around the house, for jogging, in the army. Not for going out.”(!!!) (The most moral army in the world)

– Gaza war crime claims gather pace as more troops speak out (Guardian):
Fresh allegations have come to light that gung-ho leadership inculcated a culture of disregard for Palestinian casualties

– GOP predicts doomsday if Obama budget passed (AP):
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans on Sunday predicted a doomsday scenario of crushing debt and eventual federal bankruptcy if President Barack Obama’s massive spending blueprint wins passage.

– Geithner plan spurs rally on Wall Street (Financial Times):
(… because the taxpayer is bailing out Wall Street again.)

– Brown warns of enduring al-Qaida threat to UK (Guardian):
Gordon Brown today warned that al-Qaida remains the biggest security threat to the UK, as he revealed that tens of thousands of civilians have been trained to deal with terrorist attacks as part of a new strategy to combat extremists.

– Gun sales going ballistic (PostStar):
“Handguns, shotguns, rifles — it’s every type,” Nemec said. “People are worried the government is going to take their guns away, or they’re going to tax them (guns and ammunition) to death.” (And the people will be proven right in every aspect.)

– 737 U.S. Military Bases = Global Empire (Global Research):
With more than 2,500,000 U.S. personnel serving across the planet and military bases spread across each continent, it’s time to face up to the fact that our American democracy has spawned a global empire. The following is excerpted from Chalmers Johnson’s new book, “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic” (Metropolitan Books).

Why the End of America is Closer than You Think

March 23, 2009 by Infinite

(CounterThink) I recently moved to Ecuador. Not for a vacation. Not for a month or two. I moved to Ecuador for good, as a permanent resident. Upon hearing my plans for living in South America, many people who knew me in the States asked things like, “Well what about the stability of Ecuador as a nation?” To which I would respond, “Oh, you mean the stability of banks that don’t make loans and don’t invest in derivatives? You mean the stability of a nation where the population still has the courage to march in the streets and throw corrupt officials out of its capitol?”

These questions make Americans pause. Most tend to think of public demonstrations as signs of a political instability. But in fact, public demonstrations are a sign of a healthy Democratic process. And Democracy is alive and well in Ecuador (with the usual level of corruption you find in any democracy).

It is in America, where the sheeple have been terrorized into staying inside the boundaries of their little “protest zones,” that you find a fragile, unstable nation.

Through complacency and fear-mongering, most Americans have become cowards when it comes to political activism. They think emailing their Senator a few times a year is all that’s required to defend freedom and preserve a nation. Marching in the streets is seen as uncivilized… or even unpatriotic! The government agrees with this, too, now labeling anyone who protests in public a “potential terrorist” and targeting them for FBI investigations. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C29…)

The multi-trillion-dollar theft scheme

In the mean time, while the sheeple of America are caught up in their hypnotic dreams of world domination, white-collar hoodlums in Washington D.C. and Wall Street are stealing everything!

The oft-repeated creation of $1 trillion in new money out of thin air by the Federal Reserve has made the U.S. dollar the laughing stock of the world. The leaders of the G20 nations have already decided to ditch the dollar and shift to other world reserve currencies, and China is now blatantly and publicly asking the U.S. put up some kind of collateral to back up future debt purchases, to which the U.S. says “Don’t worry about the debt. We’re good for it!”

Death squad leader ‘was top CIA agent’

March 23, 2009 by Infinite

In an unusual move, the CIA has submitted classified documents to the court that confirm Stanisic’s “undercover operative role …

This has raised awkward questions for Washington. With Stanisic providing chapter and verse of the genocidal slaughter of Croats, Bosnians and Albanians from the early 1990s, should President Clinton have cut a deal with Milosevic at Dayton, Ohio, ending the Bosnian war on such equitable terms for the Serbs? Or, using Stanisic’s evidence, should the Americans not have unmasked Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, the then head of Republika Srpska, as genocidal war criminals and demanded their surrender?

THE LATE President Milosevic’s secret police chief and organiser of Serb death squads during the genocidal ethnic cleansing of disintegrating Yugoslavia was the United States’ top CIA agent in Belgrade, according to the independent Belgrade Radio B92.

The claim that from 1992 until the end of the decade, Jovica Stanisic, head of Serbia’s murderous DB Secret Police, was regularly informing his CIA handlers of the thinking in Milosevic’s inner circle has shocked the region.

Stanisic is said to have loyally served his two masters for eight years. He is facing war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

In the terrifying years of Yugoslavia’s internecine wars, he acted as the willing “muscle” behind Milosevic’s genocidal campaigns in Croatia, Kosovo and Bosnia, including Sebrenica.

China calls for new reserve currency to replace dollar

March 23, 2009 by Infinite

China’s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund.

The goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies,” Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said in an essay posted in Chinese and English on the central bank’s website.

Although Mr Zhou did not mention the US dollar, the essay gave a pointed critique of the current dollar-dominated monetary system.

“The outbreak of the [current] crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system,” Mr Zhou wrote.

Analysts said the proposal was a clear indication of Beijing’s fears that actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a negative impact on China.

“This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.

£46 award for innocent man’s 27 years in prison

March 23, 2009 by Infinite

Sean Hodgson, who spent 27 years in jail for a crime he did not commit, has been given just £46 by the government with which to restart his life.

The Prison Service has awarded the mentally ill former prisoner the equivalent of £1.70 for every year he was wrongly imprisoned.

The payout, a resettlement grant to help ease the victim of one of Britain’s gravest miscarriages of justice back into society, was condemned as “the final insult” last night.

Julian Young, Hodgson’s solicitor, said: “I am absolutely astounded. I find it quite unbelievable, it is scandalous that, in these exceptional circumstances, additional funds could not be found. He has served 27 years for something he didn’t do and this is just insulting.”

CDC Takes Closer Look at Gardasil and Paralysis

March 23, 2009March 22, 2009 by Infinite

I know that those foreign proteins in the vaccine are also very, very destructive to the brain, the immune system and the entire body. In the wireless age you can forget about the protection of the brain through the blood-brain barrier, because just using a mobile phone or maybe even a cordless phone (DECT) opens the blood-brain barrier and all those toxins will destroy the brain. (The numbers of brain tumors will go through the roof in the next few years.)

The first moment your child shows signs of illness after a vaccination, besides from visiting a doctor, go immediately to an excellent classical homeopath. Homeopathy can literally save your child from autism, ALS, MS and any mental/physical development problems.

For vaccination damage in general:

Learn how to detoxify the body from aluminum, mercury and other toxins.

To detoxify the body of aluminum you may use Vitamin C (Acerola!) and Zinc (Zincorotat!).

Do not use homeopathy to detoxify the body from mercury, which is common in other vaccines. Use organic(!) Chlorella, AFA-algae, Spirulina, coriander, bear’s garlic (Allium ursinum), onions, garlic etc. instead.

Also use herbs to detoxify the body and to strengthen, especially the kidneys and the liver. A tea mixture should be prepared individually. Her is an example for a tea mixture: Herba Artemisiae cc., Herba Solidaginis cc., Herba Hederae terr. cc., Radix Bardanae cc., Radix Taraxaci cc., Radix Cichorii cc. in equal parts.

Go to a acupuncturist learn the important points for your child and massage (acupressure) them every day. If your child is old enough to understand that acupuncture treatments are meant to help, then you can do acupuncture as long as your child allows it. In young children just inserting the acupuncture needle and immediately withdrawing it is equal to 20-30 minutes of retaining the needle in adults. (A great master does not need needles anymore.)

Learn to focus on health for your child and do it the moment you wake up and before you go to bed for several minutes every day.

Watch the video with Dr. Bruce Lipton to improve your acceptance:
– Bruce Lipton – The New Biology – Where Mind and Matter Meet (!)
– Dr. Bruce Lipton Ph.D. – Changing Our Cells by Thought
This will change your life.

Dr. Bruce Lipton is a former medical school professor and research scientist.

(((Find and consult an excellent therapist that is worth its salt. Do not treat your child by yourself, if you are not a doctor or an alternative medicine practitioner, that knows what he/she is doing.)))

Phil Tetlock and Barbara Mellers were in a race against time to save their 15-year-old daughter, Jenny. As I reported last summer, Jenny developed a degenerative muscle disease nearly two years ago, soon after being vaccinated against the cervical-cancer-causing HPV. She became nearly completely paralyzed, though her mind was perfectly intact and she could still enjoy her pet parakeet, Hannah Montana, and Twilight.

I’ve been E-mailing Phil regularly over the past year, and up until our last E-mail, one week ago, he had been holding out hope that they would be able to find a cure for his daughter—or to at least determine if the human papillomavirus vaccine called Gardasil had caused his daughter’s illness, most likely a juvenile form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (aka Lou Gehrig’s disease). Sadly, the clock ran out last Sunday, and Jenny passed away.

Through their efforts to publicize Jenny’s case on their blog, Jenny’s parents have connected with two other sets of parents whose daughters developed what appears to be ALS after being injected with Gardasil. One was 22-year-old Whitney Baird, who died last August, just 13 months after receiving Gardasil. Another is Alicia Olund, a 12-year-old who began having trouble walking after getting her third shot last September. She now uses leg braces and a walker at home as her muscles continue to deteriorate. After ruling out other conditions, her specialists at the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center—who also treated Jenny—suspect that Alicia may have the same condition. “They don’t know what she has,” her mother, Barbara, tells me through tears, “but it’s destroying her nerves and muscles, and none of the treatments they’ve given her are working. Before the vaccine, she was a perfectly healthy child, going for her brown belt in karate.” (They’re awaiting the results of the ALS test.)

Zimbabwe ditches the U.S. dollar, chooses rand as reference currency

March 22, 2009 by Infinite

HARARE, March 20 (Xinhua) — The Zimbabwean government has chosen the rand as the country’s reference currency but will not randify the economy, local media said.

Speaking at the launch of the Short-Term Economic Recovery Program (STERP) on Thursday, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said the government had chosen the rand because South Africa was Zimbabwe’s biggest trading partner and the most competitive country for assessing prices and wages.

“Given the United States dollar price structure we are starting with, and the impossibility of restoring competitiveness through currency devaluation when we are using foreign currencies, it is important that we link ourselves to a currency that is more proximate to us,” said the minister.

Google’s spy in the streets triggers a wave of protests

March 21, 2009 by Infinite

Internet giant’s busiest day as traffic jumps 41%
Invasive pictures are removed from site

Google street views, Birmingham. Photograph: Google

For 24 hours, Google’s new Street View brought a vision of British cities to the web that included such memorable sights as a man throwing up between his knees outside a London bar and youths with traffic cones on their heads in Edinburgh.

But while the chance to take a 360-degree tour of every street in 25 UK cities continued to bring most offices to a standstill yesterday, some of the more invasive moments caught on camera saw Google hit with a wave of privacy complaints.

The company said yesterday that it had removed scores of photographs from the site, including an image in London of someone coming out of a sex shop in Soho, the forlorn man being sick on a pavement, and another man being arrested by police.

IVF babies in health alert: Test-tube children 30 per cent more likely to have defects, warns watchdog

March 21, 2009 by Infinite

Couples are being warned an IVF pregnancy increases the risk of birth defects by up to 30 per cent

Couples having IVF treatment are to be warned for the first time that their children have a higher risk of genetic flaws and health problems.

Official guidance will make clear that test-tube babies could be up to 30 per cent more likely to suffer from certain birth defects.

The alert has been ordered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Government’s watchdog on fertility issues.

It means that the one in six British couples estimated to be infertile will have to balance their desire for a child against concerns that IVF methods could lead to life-threatening defects or long-term disabilities.

Peter Schiff: The Mother of All Bells

March 21, 2009March 21, 2009 by Infinite

There is an old adage on Wall Street that no one rings a bell at major market tops or bottoms. That may be true in normal times, but as many have noticed, we are now completely through the looking glass. In this parallel reality, Ben Bernanke has just rung the loudest bell ever heard in the foreign exchange and government debt markets. Investors who ignore the clanging do so at their own peril.

The bell’s reverberations will be felt by everyday Americans, whose lives are about to change in ways few can imagine. While nearly every facet of America’s economy has been devastated over the past six months, our national currency has thus far skipped through the carnage with nary a scratch. Ironically, the U.S. dollar has been the beneficiary of the global economic crises which the United States set in motion. As a result, our economy has thus far been spared the full force of the storm.

Related article: Terence Corcoran: Is this the end of America? (Financial Post)

This week the Federal Reserve finally made clear what should have been obvious for some time – the only weapon that the Fed is willing to use to fight the economic downturn is a continuing torrent of pure, undiluted, inflation. The announcement should be seen as a game changer that redirects the fury of the financial storm directly onto our shores.

In Israel, recession pressures boil over into looting

March 21, 2009 by Infinite

Isolated outbreaks have erupted after beleaguered business owners or managers defaulted on debts, stopped paying workers and went into hiding.

An Israeli man takes items from the shelves of a God’s Blessing supermarket in northern Israel after the company declared bankruptcy.

Reporting from Hatzor Haglilit, Israel — First came the employees, shortchanged two months’ pay and laid off by the supermarket called God’s Blessing. They rifled through their shuttered workplace, helping themselves to crates full of groceries.

As word spread through the small town, the store’s jilted creditors joined in. They dismantled the light fixtures, ripped out wiring and absconded with the cash registers, even as television cameras rolled.

Within hours the parking lot was jammed with ordinary shoppers. They left car engines running and brought their children to help pick the shelves clean. Finally even the shelves were hauled away, leaving latecomers to scrounge the floor for leftover fruit.

The two-day spree shocked and puzzled Israelis, who assume that the rule of law prevails in their society. Yet this and other recent cases of looting have coincided with news that the economy, flattened late last year after half a decade of enviable growth, had slid into recession.

Official: AIG bonus estimates grow $53 million

March 21, 2009 by Infinite

Yes, these bonuses for total failure deserve outrage, but all that really is, is sacrificing a pawn or two in a chess game.

These bonuses for the banksters are little pawns compared to the hundreds of billions of taxpayer money for bailing out Wall Street and the Fed printing money like there is no tomorrow. The elite, who controls Wall Street and the corporate media, has worked out a brilliant strategy.

Just a few moves later everyone will realize that the real plan was to loot the taxpayer, destroy the middle class, the dollar and the economy, bankrupt the U.S. and create the greatest financial /economic collapse in history.

And all the people are excited about are a few pawns, when the elite is after the king – total power and control.

Company paid $218 million, not $165 million, Conn. attorney general says

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut – The attorney general of Connecticut said Saturday that he is asking American International Group Inc. why documents appear to show the company paid $53 million more in bonuses to its financial products division than previously reported.

Documents turned over late Friday show AIG paid $218 million in bonuses last weekend, higher than the $165 million that was previously disclosed, said the office of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who had issued a subpoena.

Bonuses were “showered like confetti” on AIG employees, Blumenthal said.

Global News (03/21/09)

March 21, 2009March 21, 2009 by Infinite

– AIG warns staff to travel in pairs after death threats over bonuses (Guardian):
The embattled US insurance company AIG has warned its staff to travel in pairs after dark, not to wear company logos and to avoid discussing their work outside the office, as public outrage boils over at multimillion-dollar executive bonuses.

– British bankers on Merrill bonus list (Telegraph):
A clutch of senior London bankers are expected to be on a list of 200 of Merrill Lynch’s biggest bonus recipients demanded by the New York Attorney General.

– Banks Lost $32.1 Billion in Fourth Quarter (AOL Money):
WASHINGTON (March 20) – Federal regulators now say the nation’s banks lost $32.1 billion in the final quarter of last year, even worse than the $26.2 billion originally reported last month.

– Geithner’s Crappy Bank Plan Coming Monday (The Business Insider):
So what’s wrong with the plan? The same thing that has been wrong with every plan the Geithner-Paulson-Bernanke regime has rolled out since last September: The price the government is going to pay for the bad assets.

– Argentine farmers step up fight with government (Financial Times):
In an escalating conflict with the government over export tariffs, Argentine farmers on Friday announced a new week-long halt to sales of cereals, soya and beef, a move likely to spark fresh supply fears among importers.

New video of torture exposes Chinese brutality in Tibet (03/20/09)

March 21, 2009March 21, 2009 by Infinite

The Tibetan government-in-exile, led by the Dalai Lama, has released a video that appears to show Tibetan monks being tortured by Chinese security forces.

Be warned that is the original video and not the Telegraph’s version:

Added: March 21, 2009
Source: YouTube

Video footage from Tibet is extremely rare. The film, which shows violent scenes from the March 2008 riots, is the clearest evidence yet that Tibetans were subject to police brutality as China struggled for control in Lhasa.

In the seven-minute film, exerpts of which are shown above, Chinese police kick and beat apparently defenceless Tibetan protesters and monks after they have been handcuffed and are lying on the ground.

The Tibetan government-in-exile, which is based in Dharamsala in India, said the treatment of the captives violated international norms and amounted to torture.

Until now, the only video evidence of the riots in March was shot from long-distance and showed clashes in the streets of Lhasa but not evidence of torture.

“This is the first footage which visibly proves the use of brutal and excessive force against Tibetan protesters. It clearly challenges official Chinese statements that disproportionate force was not used on unarmed protesters,” said Stephanie Brigden, the director of the international campaign group Free Tibet.

The second half of the video, which is too graphic to show here, documents a serious set of injuries allegedly sustained by a Tibetan worker after he intervened in the beating of a monk.

According to the Tibetan government-in-exile, Chinese police shot at the man, who was named as Tendar, and then stubbed cigarettes out on his body, forced a nail through his right foot and beat him with an electric baton.

He was initially taken to a military hospital but, according to the video, his wounds were merely wrapped in cling film, which allowed them to rot. He subsequently died of his injuries in June 2008.

Kremlin refuses to bail out Russian oligarchs

March 21, 2009 by Infinite

The Kremlin will not bail out Russia’s oligarchs or their foreign creditors, said Igor Shuvalov, the first deputy prime minister, on Friday, putting pressure on both sides to renegotiate the $130bn (€96bn, £90bn) in foreign debt owed by the largest companies.

Mr Shuvalov said Russia was open to foreign creditors converting their loans to indebted Russian industrial groups into equity.

But he acknowledged that the creditors would not necessarily be keen to take on the shares and called on them to agree to deals that would extend payments and allow companies to pay off debts even at times of low commodity prices.

“Creditors most of all want to get their money,” he said. “No one needs assets at the moment because they are worth nothing.”

His words are a warning to oligarchs not to look to the state for more funds, in a further hardening of the government’s position since last autumn when the state bailed out tycoons such as Oleg Deripaska and Roman Abramovich to prevent their stakes in strategic metals companies from falling into foreign banks’ hands.

“Some Russian entrepreneurs have taken on such high debt levels that they have suffered injuries not compatible with life,” he said.

The most moral army in the world

March 21, 2009March 21, 2009 by Infinite

Israel’s war crimes in Gaza:
Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defence Minister, said: “I say to you that from the chief of staff down to the last soldier, the most moral army in the world stands ready to take orders from the government of Israel.”

Picture Gallery

Source: Israeli Army T-Shirts Mock Gaza Killings (Sky News)

Chuck Baldwin: States, Not Washington, D.C., Need Our Attention

March 20, 2009 by Infinite

It seems that most everyone focuses his or her attention on what is happening in Washington, D.C. People don’t seem to get excited about politics until a national election rolls around or unless the President makes some startling announcement. Even well-meaning Christian leaders seem to spend the vast majority of their time dealing with policies that emanate from Washington, D.C. Already, I’m hearing leaders of the so-called Religious Right talk gushingly about who the next Presidential nominee of the Republican Party will be. Who cares? Do you mean to tell me that with all we have to deal with right now, we can’t find anything else to talk about? How shallow–and utterly ineffective–can we be?

In the first place, Washington, D.C., is a lost cause. It really is. We have about as much chance of flying to the moon in a glider as we do of seeing any significant change in Washington, D.C. Neither the Republican nor Democrat parties at the national level offer any hope. The federal government is hell-bent on turning the United States into a socialistic global village, and the two major parties are in it up to their necks.

If the principles of freedom and independence have any chance of surviving the next few years, it will be because individual States have the courage to pick up the banner and fight. Therefore, freedom lovers need to focus their energy and attention more on State government and less on national politics.

For example, the State of Missouri is right now profiling supporters of independent Presidential candidates such as Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and myself as being potential “domestic terrorists.” In addition, Missouri law enforcement personnel are being told that people who oppose things such as abortion, illegal immigration, gun control, the Federal Reserve, the North American Union, etc., are potential “terrorists.”

See my original exposé on this story here:

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2009/cbarchive_20090317.html

Israel’s war crimes in Gaza

March 20, 2009March 20, 2009 by Infinite

Army veterans reveal how they gunned down innocent Palestinian families and destroyed homes and farms

Palestinians’ lives were seen as ‘very, very less important than our soldiers’

Israel was last night confronting a major challenge over the conduct of its 22-day military offensive in Gaza after testimonies by its own soldiers revealed that troops were allowed and, in some cases, even ordered to shoot unarmed Palestinian civilians.

The testimonies – the first of their kind to emerge from inside the military – are at marked variance with official claims that the military made strenuous efforts to avoid civilian casualties and tend to corroborate Palestinian accusations that troops used indiscriminate and disproportionate firepower in civilian areas during the operation. In one of the testimonies shedding harsh new light on what the soldiers say were the permissive rules of engagement for Operation Cast Lead, one soldier describes how an officer ordered the shooting of an elderly woman 100 metres from a house commandeered by troops.

Another soldier, describing how a mother and her children were shot dead by a sniper after they turned the wrong way out of a house, says the “atmosphere” among troops was that the lives of Palestinians were “very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers”.

A squad leader said: “At the beginning the directive was to enter a house with an armoured vehicle, to break the door down, to start shooting inside and – I call it murder – to shoot at everyone we identify. In the beginning I asked myself how could this make sense? Higher-ups said it is permissible because everyone left in the city [Gaza City] is culpable because they didn’t run away.”