Month: February 2011

Gerald Celente: ‘When the money stops flowing down to the man in the street, the blood starts flowing in the streets’

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If Nostradamus were alive today, he’d have a hard time keeping up with Gerald Celente.
– New York Post

When CNN wants to know about the Top Trends, we ask Gerald Celente.
– CNN Headline News

There’s not a better trend forecaster than Gerald Celente. The man knows what he’s talking about.
– CNBC

Those who take their predictions seriously … consider the Trends Research Institute.
– The Wall Street Journal

A network of 25 experts whose range of specialties would rival many university faculties.
– The Economist

See also:

– The No.1 Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente: Righteous Rage – Wikileaks BS – Class Warfare Has Begun – Bailout Bubble Bursting – The Great War – This Is Not America, It’s Fascism


Gerald Celente

Trend forecaster Gerald Celente, of the Trends Research Institute, says that the further expansion of government austerity measures and impoverishment of the majority of the world’s populace will lead to more violence, riots and revolutions.

In his latest Trend Alert® to subscribers, Celente discusses the revolutions breaking out in the middle east and provides a different reasoning than mainstream pundits and politicians for why it is happening and why it will spread to Europe and the US:

As we wrote before Tunisia and Egypt erupted, the outbreaks would go global and the reasons behind the unrest would be more about bread and butter issues than politics. As economies decline, unemployment rises, taxes are raised and services cut – while those at the top get richer and most everyone else gets poorer – revolutions will continue to spread.

But that’s not the way it’s being represented by the same people who didn’t see it coming. The media, pundits and politicians have misrepresented the historic geopolitical events that have occupied the news since the onset of the New Year. Virtually overnight, the revolutions have been glorified as courageous fights for freedom and liberty by democracy-hungry-masses.

But it is not hunger for democracy that drives them. Democracy, autocracy, theocracy, monarchy – right, center, left – it is mostly a gut issue…an empty gut issue. When the money stops flowing down to the man in the street, the blood starts flowing in the streets. It’s a simple equation. A few at the top have too much, and too many others have too little.

What’s Next

Read moreGerald Celente: ‘When the money stops flowing down to the man in the street, the blood starts flowing in the streets’

More Libyan Bloodshed Could Prompt US, NATO Intervention: Analysts

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Why is it that the US and NATO don’t give a damn about any humanitarian crisis unless it involves oil, gas, rare earth elements, drugs or all of them combined?

It’s all about ‘national security’.



After 10 days of protest, Moammar Gadhafi has lost control of the eastern portion of Libya.

(CNN) — If the U.S. military were to intervene in an increasingly chaotic Libya, it would most likely be part of a NATO action in which Libyan bloodshed has reached a humanitarian crisis, analysts said Thursday.

As reports emerged Thursday about deadly clashes between leader Moammar Gadhafi’s forces and anti-government protesters in the town of Zawiya near Tunisia, analysts highlighted how Gadhafi has already pledged to fight a rebellion to martyrdom.

Military intervention “is something which I hope doesn’t happen, but it looks as though at some point that it should happen,” said Simon Henderson, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Read moreMore Libyan Bloodshed Could Prompt US, NATO Intervention: Analysts

GMOs: No Seeds, No Independent Research!

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Companies that genetically engineer crops have a lock on what we know about their safety and benefits.


Trust us!!!

Soybeans, corn, cotton and canola — most of the acres planted in these crops in the United States are genetically altered. “Transgenic” seeds reduce the use of some insecticides. But herbicide use is higher, and respected experts argue that some genetically engineered crops may also pose serious health and environmental risks. The benefits of genetically engineered crops may be overstated.

For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, February 17, 2011 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 19 Editorial Desk 1 inches; 32 words Type of Material: Correction
Seeds: In a Feb. 13 Op-Ed about seed-company barriers to independent research on genetically modified crops, the owner of the seed company Pioneer was incorrectly identified as Dow Chemical. DuPont owns Pioneer.

We don’t have the complete picture. That’s no accident. Multibillion-dollar agricultural corporations, including Monsanto and Syngenta, have restricted independent research on their genetically engineered crops. They have often refused to provide independent scientists with seeds, or they’ve set restrictive conditions that severely limit research options.

This is legal. Under U.S. law, genetically engineered crops are patentable inventions. Companies have broad power over the use of any patented product, including who can study it and how.

Agricultural companies defend their stonewalling by saying that unrestricted research could make them vulnerable to lawsuits if an experiment somehow leads to harm, or that it could give competitors unfair insight into their products. But it’s likely that the companies fear something else as well: An experiment could reveal that a genetically engineered product is hazardous or doesn’t perform as promised.

Read moreGMOs: No Seeds, No Independent Research!

Will AIG Implosion 2.0 Lead To QE 3.0?

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I am sure helicopter Ben can’t wait to nuke the US dollar one last time

There was a time when everyone thought CDOs are perfectly safe. That ended up being a tad incorrect. It resulted in AIG blowing up, recording hundreds of billions in losses and almost taking the rest of the financial world with it, leading ultimately to the first iteration of quantitative easing. A few years thereafter, several blogs and fringe elements suggested that munis are the next major cataclysm and will likely require Fed bail outs (some time before Meredith Whitney came on the public scene with her apocalyptic call). It would be only fitting that the same AIG that blew up the world the first time around, end up being the same company that does so in 2011, and with an instrument that just like back then only an occasional voice warned is a weapon of mass destruction: municipal bonds. AIG dropped over 6% today following some very unpleasasnt disclosures about its muni outlook, and corporate liquidity implications arising therefrom: “American International Group Inc., the bailed-out insurer, said it faces increased risk of losses on its $46.6 billion municipal bond portfolio and that defaults could pressure the company’s liquidity.” So how long before we discover that Goldman has been lifting every AIG CDS for the past quarter? And how much longer after that until someone leaks a document that the company’s muni strategy was orchestrated by one Joe Cassano?

From the Risk Factors section in the company’s just issued 10-K:

Read moreWill AIG Implosion 2.0 Lead To QE 3.0?

Groundbreaking Study Finds Cellphone Radiation Changes Brain Activity

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See also:

– Study: Radiation From Wi-Fi Networks Makes Trees Sick

– Study: Regular Mobile Phone Use Linked To Tinnitus

– The International Interphone Study Confirms: The Use Of Mobile Phone Is Carcinogenic:

The official publication of the first intermediate results of the International Interphone Study from the International Research Centre on Cancer (CIRC) dependent on WHO confirms the increased tumors and cancer cases due to the use of mobile phone
The Use Of Mobile Phone Is Carcinogenic: Here (PDF)
INTERPHONE Results latest update Oct. 08, 2008: Interphone Results Update (PDF)

– Mobile Phone Radiation to Unleash Epidemic of Brain Tumors:

(Natural News) A new review of more than 100 studies on the safety of mobile phones has concluded that cellular devices are poised to cause an epidemic of brain tumors that will kill more people than smoking or asbestos.

The review was conducted by neurosurgeon Vini Khurana, who has received more than 14 awards in the past 16 years, who made headlines worldwide with his warnings. He called upon the industry to immediately work to reduce people’s exposure to the radiation from mobile phones.

– 2 Billion may suffer from Mobile Cancer by 2020: Study:

The studies and survey conducted by Australian Health Research Institute indicates that due to billions of times more in volume electromagnetic radiation emitted by billions of mobile phones, internet, intranet and wireless communication data transmission will make almost one-third of world population (about two billions) patient of ear, eye and brain cancer beside other major body disorders like heart ailments, impotency, migraine, epilepsy.

– Dangers of the wireless cell phone wi-fi and emf age – Dr. George Carlo:

Dr. George Carlo was the leading scientist of the biggest study ever ($28-million) conducted on Cell Phones.
Dr. Carlo was hired as an independent scientist by the industry to prove that cellphones are safe. Yet Dr. George Carlo hissed all red flags possible (incl. cancer)!

– Study: Nerve Cell Damage in Mammalian Brain after Exposure to Microwaves from GSM Mobile Phones (PDF)

German translation: Salford Studie (Vollversion) (PDF)
Leif G. Salford,1 Arne E. Brun,2 Jacob L. Eberhardt,3 Lars Malmgren,4 and Bertil R. R. Persson>3
1Department of Neurosurgery, 2Department of Neuropathology, 3Department of Medical Radiation Physics, and 4Department of Applied Electronics, Lund University, The Rausing Laboratory and Lund University Hospital, Lund, Sweden

– Warning: Using a mobile phone while pregnant can seriously damage your baby:

They found that mothers who did use the handsets were 54 per cent more likely to have children with behavioural problems and that the likelihood increased with the amount of potential exposure to the radiation. And when the children also later used the phones they were, overall, 80 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties with behaviour. They were 25 per cent more at risk from emotional problems, 34 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties relating to their peers, 35 per cent more likely to be hyperactive, and 49 per cent more prone to problems with conduct.

– Mobile phone radiation wrecks your sleep

– Men who use mobile phones face increased risk of infertility

– Cell Towers: Wireless Convenience? or Environmental Hazard?

– THE EFFECT OF MICROWAVE EMISSION FROM MOBILE PHONES ON NEURON SURVIVAL IN RAT CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

Books:

– Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age: An Insider’s Alarming Discoveries about Cancer and Genetic Damage by Dr. George Carlo

– Electromagnetic Fields: A Consumer’s Guide to the Issues and How to Protect Ourselves by B. Blake Levitt

– Cell Towers: Wireless Convenience? or Environmental Hazard? by B. Blake Levitt

B. Blake Levitt is an award-winning journalist who has specialized in medical and science writing for nearly two decades. She has researched the biological effects of non-ionizing radiation since the late 1970’s. A former New York Times writer, she has written widely on medical issues for both the lay and professional audience. Her work has appeared in numerous national publications.

Study Finds Cellphone Radiation Changes Brain Activity

NEW YORK – A groundbreaking study published today by one of the world’s leading neuroscientists challenges the longstanding conviction that radiation emitted from cellphones is too weak to have an effect on the brain.

You can think of cellphone saturation as one giant, uncontrolled human experiment. There are now 293 million wireless connections in use in the United States, according to the trade group CTIA-The Wireless Association. And Americans log a staggering 2.26 trillion minutes yakking on those mobile devices every year—all at a time when the biological effects of cellphones remain controversial and the research on those effects often of dubious quality.

A study published today by leading researchers in the premiere medical journal JAMA hasn’t found a smoking gun, but it does challenge the longstanding conviction that radiation emitted from cellphones is too weak to have an effect on the brain. It is notable not only for that finding and for appearing in a top journal—it is also turning heads because the lead researcher is Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and one of the world’s leading brain scientists.

She and colleagues from the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory took brain scans of 47 healthy participants after they held a cellphone to their ears for 50 minutes. Significantly, the phone was muted; that ruled out the possibility that any changes in brain activity reflected listening to or thinking about the incoming speech. Yet with the phone simply “on,” the scientists found a significant change in brain activity in the areas closest to its antenna. The research team “is on the brink of resolving a longstanding dispute with enormous implications for public health,” argues Louis Slesin, who as editor of Microwave News has followed the subject since 1981.

“What’s the impact of a cellphone on a child’s ability to learn? Does it impact cognitive ability?”

Read moreGroundbreaking Study Finds Cellphone Radiation Changes Brain Activity

US: Enlisting Prison Labor to Close Budget Gaps

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We need to throw all Americans into prison to close the budget gaps these days.

Oh, and even that might be not enough.


Inmates at the California Institute for Men at Chino in training to perform underwater welding work.

JAY, Fla. — Before he went to jail, Danny Ivey had barely seen a backyard garden.

But here he was, two years left on his sentence for grand theft, bent over in a field, snapping wide, green collard leaves from their stems. For the rest of the week, Mr. Ivey and his fellow inmates would be eating the greens he picked, and the State of Florida would be saving most of the $2.29 a day it allots for their meals.

Prison labor — making license plates, picking up litter — is nothing new, and nearly all states have such programs. But these days, officials are expanding the practice to combat cuts in federal financing and dwindling tax revenue, using prisoners to paint vehicles, clean courthouses, sweep campsites and perform many other services done before the recession by private contractors or government employees.

In New Jersey, inmates on roadkill patrol clean deer carcasses from highways. Georgia inmates tend municipal graveyards. In Ohio, they paint their own cells. In California, prison officials hope to expand existing programs, including one in which wet-suit-clad inmates repair leaky public water tanks. There are no figures on how many prisoners have been enrolled in new or expanded programs nationwide, but experts in criminal justice have taken note of the increase.

Read moreUS: Enlisting Prison Labor to Close Budget Gaps

BREAKING: Wisconsin Police Have Joined Protest Inside State Capitol

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In case you want to know, who Mr. Walker really works for:

– Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Falls For Phone Prank

Before:

– Wisconsin Assembly Passes Bill Stripping Union Rights From Public Workers

From inside the Wisconsin State Capitol, RAN ally Ryan Harvey reports:

“Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside.”

Ryan reported on his Facebook page earlier today:

“Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’ Unreal.”

You can find more updates from Ryan Harvey on Twitter @ryanharveysongs and his blog Even If Your Voice Shakes.

UPDATE: This video says it all. It makes me proud of my neighbors. “Let me tell you Mr. Walker, this is not your house, this is all our house.”


Added: 25.02.2011

Written by Jenn Breckenridge
Posted on 25 February 2011

Source: The Understory

Man Gave $200,000 to Fake Online Girlfriend

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NAPERVILLE, Ill., Feb. 25 (UPI) — Police in Illinois said a man “was in disbelief” when officers told him the online girlfriend to whom he had given $200,000 was not a real person.

Naperville police said the 48-year-old man called investigators Wednesday to say he believed the woman, with whom he had been involved in a 2 1/2-year online relationship, had been kidnapped in London, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday.

The man told police he had wired $200,000 to the woman during the relationship to different bank accounts in Nigeria, Malaysia, England and the United States.

Investigators said the ID card the woman showed the man was a sample driver’s license from Florida.

Read moreMan Gave $200,000 to Fake Online Girlfriend

Dollar Ready to Collapse, Silver Squeeze to Continue

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With gold higher and silver up almost $1.30, King World News today interviewed James Turk out of Spain. Turk had this rather frightening warning about the dollar, “The dollar right now is hanging on the precipice. If we break below 77 on the dollar index, look out below. I don’t think people really appreciate how scary the dollar chart is here, or how ominous the implications really are. There’s no predicting how far the dollar could plunge if confidence breaks.”

Turk continues:

“You’ve got civil war breaking out in North Africa and you have rebellions happening in the Middle-East. In this kind of geopolitical situation, in the past the US dollar would always rally, but this time it can’t even bounce. You know Eric the other side of this coin is that if the dollar falls off the edge of a cliff, precious metals are going to skyrocket.”

When asked about silver Turk stated, “During the most illiquid time of the trading day, somebody decided to take out all of the stops in silver. If you were not following during business hours in the Pacific Ocean you missed it. I woke up this morning and looked at the chart and couldn’t believe what happened while I was sleeping.

The important point Eric is that no technical damage was done and in fact the situation has become even more bullish because that little smack down overnight took out all of the weak hands.

With this month’s important options expiry now behind us, I’m looking for higher prices next week. Even though the March/May spread has flattened a little, the backwardation continues to grow to 2015 and has ballooned further to $1.16. The short squeeze is continuing to develop. The shorts are trapped and whether the trap springs this week or in a month or two I don’t know, but we are getting very close.”

……

Full article here: KingWorldNews

Japan’s Demographic Time Bomb Officially Goes Off: World’s Largest Pension Fund Needs to Sell Japanese Bonds

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See also:

– IMF: Japan’s Debt And Deficit ‘Are Not Sustainable’

– Standard & Poor’s Downgrades Japan’s Credit Rating On Debt Concerns, Yen Tumbles, Yields Rise

– Japan’s Debt: $80.000 Per Person

– Japan Mulls Monetisation of Public Debt And Yen Devaluation By 30 Percent

– Analysts: Risk of Japan Going Bankrupt is Real

I’s now official. Japan’s demographic time bomb has gone off. However, don’t look for a big crater, at least just yet, because this has started off with a whimper and not a bang.

Inquiring minds note the World’s Biggest Pension Fund May Sell Japan Bonds.

Japan’s public pension fund, the world’s largest, said it may become a net seller of bonds to cover payments in the world’s most rapidly aging society.

The Government Pension Investment Fund, which oversees 117.6 trillion yen ($1.4 trillion), in September forecast that it would sell 4 trillion yen in assets in the business year ending March 31 to fund payouts. Sales may be less than that in the year starting April as bonds reach maturity, said Takahiro Mitani, president of the fund, known as GPIF.

“We will likely be a net seller in the market,” Mitani, a former executive director at the Bank of Japan, said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday. “We certainly have to come up with an adequate amount” to pay pensions, he said, declining to elaborate on the amount.

Read moreJapan’s Demographic Time Bomb Officially Goes Off: World’s Largest Pension Fund Needs to Sell Japanese Bonds

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Falls For Phone Prank

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Republican is duped by a caller pretending to be one of the rightwing Koch brothers, some of his wealthiest backers


Scott Walker is currently embroiled in a dispute over public sector pay Photograph: Pool/REUTERS

The Republican governor at the centre of the union-busting protests in the US has been embarrassed by a prank call that he believed was from one of his billionaire backers.

On the recording of the call, which has been released online, the Republican governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker tells a caller impersonating one of the rightwing Koch brothers that he is looking forward to flying to California to celebrate with them once the battle with the unions was won, and jokes about taking a baseball bat to slug Democratic leaders.

Walker is under siege in his office in the state capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, in a backlash against his proposed legislation to remove unions’ right to collective bargaining and cut public sector workers’ pay.

Ian Murphy, who calls in pretending to be David Koch, suggests planting troublemakers among the protesters, who have been peaceful through 11 successive days of demonstrations. Walker says he has thought about doing that but decided against.

The prankster says: “I’ll tell you what Scott, once you crush these bastards, I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.”

Walker replies: “Alright, that would be outstanding. Thanks for all the support and helping us move the cause forward. We appreciate it and we’re doing the just and right thing for the right reasons and it’s all about getting our freedoms back.”

Read moreWisconsin Governor Scott Walker Falls For Phone Prank

Wisconsin Assembly Passes Bill Stripping Union Rights From Public Workers

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MADISON, WI – FEBRUARY 24: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker speaks to the press outside his office at the state capital Building on February 24, 2011 in Madison, Wisconsin. Protestors have occupied the state capital building for the past ten days while the governor has tried to push through a bill that would restrict collective bargaining for most government workers. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

MADISON, Wis. — (AP) The Wisconsin Assembly early Friday passed a bill that would strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights – the first significant action on the new Republican governor’s plan.

The vote put an end to three straight days of punishing debate, but the political standoff over the bill is far from over. The measure now goes to the Senate, where minority Democrats have been missing for a week, preventing a vote in that chamber.

Read moreWisconsin Assembly Passes Bill Stripping Union Rights From Public Workers

Wisconsin’s ‘War on Workers’ Spreads to Other US States

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Opponents of a proposed law to strip public-sector unions of collective-bargaining rights camp out overnight at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison while the state government debates the bill

The showdown over union rights that has paralysed politics in Wisconsin is spreading to other American states, threatening to trigger a national “workers war” of a kind not seen since Ronald Reagan fired air traffic controllers en masse 30 years ago.

The State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, was overflowing for the 10th day yesterday by protesters infuriated by legislation being pushed by the newly elected Governor Scott Walker which would strip most collective-bargaining rights from state workers, including teachers and librarians. Governor Walker is serving notice he will begin mass layoffs next week unless Democrats who have fled the state to avoid voting on the law return soon.

In signs that the Wisconsin fever might be contagious, similar legislation has surfaced in at least two other states – Indiana and Ohio – while strong support for Mr Walker has been expressed elsewhere, including by Chris Christie, the pugnacious and popular Governor of New Jersey.

Read moreWisconsin’s ‘War on Workers’ Spreads to Other US States

UN: Afghan Security Worst For 10 Years

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What now? Send more troops?

– Obama Sends 1,400 More Marines to Afghanistan (Pledged In Dec. to Start Bringing Troops Home Next Summer)


Which will lead to more unnecessary deaths

Security in the country is at its lowest level for a decade and two-fifths of the country is off-limits, a departing United Nations official claimed yesterday.

Robert Watkins, a Canadian diplomat and the UN’s deputy special representative in Afghanistan, alleged that security was “at its lowest point since the departure of the Taliban” following the 2001 invasion.

He said the UN could rarely enter 40 per cent of the country, including Kandahar, and that access to areas it wanted to develop had progressively deteriorated over the past 10 years.

Thursday, 24 February 2011

Source: The Independent

RBS Banksters Get £950 Million In Bonuses Despite £1.1 Billion Loss

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• Loss an improvement on £3.6bn last year and £24bn in 2008
• Bailed-out bank increases part of revenue paid to bankers
• Unite ‘baffled’ by handsome rewards


RBS chief executive Stephen Hester’s £2.04m bonus was announced earlier this month as part of the Project Merlin deal. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

More than 100 bankers at Royal Bank of Scotland were paid more than £1m last year and total bonus payouts reached nearly £1bn – even though the bailed-out bank reported losses of £1.1bn for 2010.

The chairman, Sir Philip Hampton, said the number of millionaires was lower than a year ago and said a quarter of the group’s 18,700 investment bankers would not receive a bonus from the £950m payout pool agreed with UK Financial Investments, which controls the taxpayer’s 83% stake in the bank. Unions were baffled that any bankers were getting bonuses.

The 2010 figure is an improvement on the loss of £3.6bn a year ago and the record-breaking £24bn loss in 2008. Even so, the shares were down 3.6% to 45.7p as the losses were bigger than expected and profits in the investment bank fell to £3.4bn from £5.7bn a year ago.

Read moreRBS Banksters Get £950 Million In Bonuses Despite £1.1 Billion Loss

Bank of India Becomes First to Offer Trade Settlement in Yuan

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BEIJING: Bank of India has become the first Indian bank to offer trade settlement facility between the rupee and the Chinese RMB from Hong Kong. This follows intense persuasion by the China Banking Regulatory Commission, which is trying to gain acceptance of the RMB as an international currency.

“We are the first Indian bank to offer real-time settlement facility in RMB to Indian exporters and importers. It will be save a lot of time because settlement in US dollars usually takes three working days,” Arun Kumar Arora, BoI’s chief executive in Hong Kong, said during a recent visit to meeting regulators in Beijing.

Indian buyers are at present making payments in US dollars, and they often have to convert rupee into the US currency for the purpose. The US dollars will no more be the intermediary currency as the BOI is offering direct settlement between the rupee and the Chinese money.

Chinese exporters want their money in the local currency, which is regarded as more stable compared to the US dollar. They are also in a position to have their way because Indian buyers do not have an alternative source of low-cost goods, sources said.

Read moreBank of India Becomes First to Offer Trade Settlement in Yuan

Libya: Mercenaries Gather in Tripoli For The Final Battle

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Petrol bombs and gunshots in Benghazi

Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi were yesterday said to be launching fierce counter-attacks as the Libyan uprising edged closer to the capital and the dictator chose to blame Osama bin Laden and teenagers on hallucinogenic drugs for the rebellion.

Amid ominous descriptions of groups of pro-Gaddafi militiamen gathering on the roads around Tripoli, there were reports that the minaret of a mosque in Zawiya – 30 miles west of Tripoli, where protesters had claimed victory – was being pounded by heavy weapons. Troops were said to be filling the streets of Sabratha, 50 miles to the west of the capital. A Libyan newspaper reported that in Zawiya 10 people had been killed, and a witness told the BBC that pro-Gaddafi forces had used machine-guns on unarmed residents in a main square of the city.

A doctor in Sabratha told The New York Times by telephone that after several days of a government crackdown, gunshots had sounded as troops occupied the town. Sabratha was locked down, with no shops open and the local headquarters of the police and the regime’s revolutionary committees in ruins. “We are not afraid,” the doctor said. “We are watching.”

The forces loyal to the 42-year-old regime also attacked anti-government militias now controlling Misurata, 125 miles east of Tripoli and the last major gateway to the capital on the coastal road from that direction, according to the Associated Press, which said several people were killed in fighting near the city’s airport. The town of Zuwarah, about 75 miles west of Tripoli, was also said to be in the hands of opposition militias.

Read moreLibya: Mercenaries Gather in Tripoli For The Final Battle

Liquidations Coming: Hedge Fund Margin Debt Surges – Total Free Cash Lowest Since July 2007, Just Prior To Quant Wipe Out

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The NYSE has released its January margin debt data. Not surprisingly, total margin debt hit a peak of $290 billion, the highest since September 2008, but the one category that shows just how much purchasing is occurring on margin is total Free Credit less Total Margin Debt drops to the lowest since the all time credit bubble peak in July of 2007!

At ($45.9 billion) this number is just below the ($52.8) billion last seen just before the August 2007 quant wipe out which blew up Goldman’s quant desk, and arguably was the catalyst for the beginning of the end. In other words, as we have shown, everyone is now purchasing on margin and the level of investor net worth is the lowest in over 3 years.

Which means that should the market decline from this week persist and the Fed be unable to stop it, the margin calls will start coming in fast and furious, and unwinds in otherwise stable products like gold and silver are increasingly possible as hedge funds proceed to outright liquidations.

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/24/2011 11:54 -0500

Source: ZeroHedge

US: Troubled Banks Rise to Highest Level in 18 Years

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(AP) –The number of banks at risk of failing made up nearly 12 percent of all federally insured banks in the final three months of 2010, the highest level in 18 years.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said Wednesday that the number of banks on its confidential “problem” list rose to 884 in the October-December quarter, up from 860 in the previous quarter. Those are banks rated by examiners as having very low capital cushions against risk.

Twenty-two banks have failed so far this year. And more banks are at risk, even as reported the industry’s highest earnings as a group since the financial crisis hit three years ago.

Read moreUS: Troubled Banks Rise to Highest Level in 18 Years

GM (Garbage Motors), Held By 112 Hedge Funds, Slides Below IPO Price

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Congratulations Centrally Planned Garbage Motors: GM slides to below its IPO price, hitting $32.75. And now we get to see if GETCO has been swimming with no bathing suit on the entire time.

(Click on iimages to enlarge.)

As a reminder, 112 hedge funds hold GM stock. Oops.

And time to remind the retarded market making robots of what we posted a week ago:

And some bad news for the world’s worst car maker (recently bankrupt), which has bet its entire “growth” platform as per the recent IPO on the one market that is so far unfamiliar with said carmaker’s “quality” reputation. In January, the Shanghai-based China Passenger Car Association reported that sales of passenger cars fell 10.3 percent in January from the month before to 965,238. Per Manufacturing.net: “Chinese bought 13.7 million passenger vehicles last year, up by a third from 2009. But that robust growth is forecast to cool this year due to the expiration of tax incentives for some vehicle purchases and a renewed effort by cities to bring traffic under control.”Is the recent collectivist action to cool off purchasing actually going to have an adverse impact not only on GM’s margins but its sales as well? Why yes. But the market will be stunned when this is publicly announced shortly.

Furthermore, the deterioration in car sales is accelerating:

Read moreGM (Garbage Motors), Held By 112 Hedge Funds, Slides Below IPO Price

Germany Sends Three Warships To Libya

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As we pointed out yesterday, while the US navy is seriously starting to amass in the Persian Gulf region, it has left the Mediterranean and more importantly, the Libyan coastline unguarded.

With concerns that Gaddafi will follow through with what we speculated on Monday was a Saddam-like “after me the flood” act and burn his oil facilities, this may not be the most prudent thing.

Luckily, here comes Germany. According to Spiegel, Germany has sent three warships to Libya which may possibly get involved in a “military engagement.”

From MSN.de:

The German Navy has sent three ships of the operations and training association in 2011 in the maritime area between Malta and the Libyan coast.

This reports Spiegel Online aktuell. The three ships are the supplier “Berlin” and the frigate ‘Brandenburg and Rheinland-Pfalz. “Overall, the ships will have about 600 soldiers on board.

As Spiegel Online report on the EU takes in an emergency, a military engagement in Libya considered. The news magazine refers back to an unnamed diplomats.

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/24/2011 09:09 -0500

Source: ZeroHedge

New Air Force Stealth Bomber Could Control Drones, Fire Lasers, Bust Bunkers

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How many people are on food stamps in the US and can’t feed themselves anymore?

What could be more important than a new stealth bomber???

The Air Force’s new stealth bomber might do more than just drop bombs, top generals said in recent days. The so-called “Long-Range Strike” plane — likely to be designated B-3 — could also carry bunker-busting, rocket-boosted munitions, high-powered lasers for self-defense and datalinks, and consoles for controlling radar-evading drones.

These add-ons, described by Air Force generals Philip Breedlove, William Fraser and David Scott, are meant to make the new bomber more lethal and harder to shoot down, even in the face of rapidly-modernizing air defenses such as China’s. “The purpose of this aircraft is to survive in an Anti-Access Area Denial environment,”Scott said, using the latest Pentagon term for defended airspace.

To that end, the bomber’s lasers might zap incoming missiles and fighters; the drones could fly ahead to scout and disable air-defense radars; the bunker-busters should ensure the bomber can actually destroy the enemy’s facilities once it breaks through the defenses.

With just $3.7 billion budgeted over the next five years to develop the bomber, lasers, bunker-busters, and drone-controls might seem unaffordable. And risky, considering the Air Force has said it must stick with “proven” technologies to keep the new bomber on-budget.

Read moreNew Air Force Stealth Bomber Could Control Drones, Fire Lasers, Bust Bunkers

A SILVER INVESTOR’S CALL TO ARMS: IF we get enough people to DEMAND a limit of no more than 1,500 contracts in silver we may be able to END THE MANIPULATION!

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It is TIME!

Ted Butler just sent out a message to post a comment on the CFTC website for the new position limits ruling. IF we get enough people to DEMAND a limit of no more than 1,500 contracts in silver we may be able to END THE MANIPULATION!

Here is my letter:

http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/532.cfm

If my analysis is correct, by the time the comment period ends on March 28th the banking cabal will be on their knees and silver will be skyrocketing…

IT’S THE PERFECT TIME TO GET STRONG POSITION LIMIT RULES ENACTED!

Now is YOUR time to make history!

Copy and post this (or your own letter) to the CFTC Position Limits Rule Comment page…

Fair and appropriate position limits in silver should be NO MORE than 1,500 contracts or 7.5M ounces. The current proposed limit of over 5,000 contracts WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF MANIPULATION IN SILVER! The 1,500 contract limit is the correct amount and is STILL greater than any other current concentration in physical commodities traded on the COMEX.

Read moreA SILVER INVESTOR’S CALL TO ARMS: IF we get enough people to DEMAND a limit of no more than 1,500 contracts in silver we may be able to END THE MANIPULATION!

How to Hide Nuke Weapon Use – Why You Should Not Live Close To A Nuclear Reactor

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Or, the Military’s “Usable” Nukes


B-29 Enola Gay Crew Dropped 1st A Bomb.

(San Francisco) – The US shocked the world in August, 1945 by detonating B-29 Superfortress bomber delivered Atomic Bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, killing more than 200,000 people.

It was not the number of people killed that shocked the world; the fire bombing of Dresden, Germany killed more 600,000 civilians. Not that, it was the fact the US wiped out or vaporized much of each city with only one bomb each. Then, never looking back, the US embarked on building even bigger and more lethal nukes.

A few years later, the idea was that there were no limits to the size of a thermonuclear weapon. That is true from a certain isolated, very focused point of view. The US detonated an H-Bomb three stories tall in the nuke operation named Castle Bravo at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands in the South Pacific on March 4th, 1954.

Ed Teller, the Director of the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, claimed the actual 15 megatons was the result of a “mistake” in a calculation. It was supposed to be 4 to 5 Megatons, so he said.  Yea, sure, just a colossal Oooops. Tell the irradiated Marshall Islanders that. A member of Bill Conant’s overseeing Radiological Warfare (RW) Committee probably let the cat out of the bag when he said of the Marshall Islanders “they’re better [subjects] than lab rats.”

It was up to one of the employees of the DOD Empire, Carl Sagan, who worked (for them) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff back to war fighting and out of the unknowing planet destruction business. He was a star power celebrity and famously coined the memorable phrase “billions and billions of stars” to describe our Milky Way Solar System and the Universe.

Read moreHow to Hide Nuke Weapon Use – Why You Should Not Live Close To A Nuclear Reactor