Global News – Page 2395 – Infinite Unknown

Pakistan: Two More Bomb Blasts Kill at Least 43, 100 Dead in Five Days

December 9, 2009December 8, 2009 by Infinite

– Pakistan Militants Bomb Multan, 100 Dead in Five Days (Bloomberg)

Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) — Militants bombed a fifth Pakistani city in as many days, the latest attack in a nationwide surge in violence that has killed about 100 people, half of them in the country’s economic powerhouse region of Punjab.

A bomb near the spy agency’s office in the Punjab city of Multan killed 12 people. Earlier, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said 40 people died and 100 were injured last night in bombings at a market in Lahore, the provincial capital. Pakistan’s key stock index fell 1.7 percent to its lowest in almost a month.

“The militants are going for civilian and security targets in a no-holds-barred manner and in a barbaric manner,” Mahmood Shah, a security analyst, said in a telephone interview from the northwestern city of Peshawar, where 10 people were killed in a bombing yesterday.

About 450 civilians and security officials have died in retaliatory bomb and gunfire attacks since Pakistan’s army began an offensive Oct. 17 against Taliban guerrillas in the tribal region of South Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan. President Barack Obama has called Afghanistan and Pakistan the “epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al-Qaeda.”

—

Remember that there are only 100 Al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan according to the US government:

– UPDATE: $300 MILLION FOR EVERY AL QAEDA MEMBER IN AFGHANISTAN

President Barack Obama made the decision to send some 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan despite being informed that the country is now host to only 100 Al Qaeda fighters, ABC News reports.

A senior U.S. intelligence official told ABCNews.com the approximate estimate of 100 al Qaeda members left in Afghanistan reflects the conclusion of American intelligence agencies and the Defense Department. The relatively small number was part of the intelligence passed on to the White House as President Obama conducted his deliberations.

ABC News estimates that, with the surge included, there will be a ratio of 1,000 US troops for every Al Qaeda member in the country. The cost of the war will work out to $300 million for every Al Qaeda fighter.

At least 43 killed in Pakistan bomb blasts

Attacks as night fell: The scene after the bomb blasts in the Lahore market (Reuters: Mohsin Raza)

Bomb blasts have torn through two of Pakistan’s main cities overnight, killing at least 43 people and wounding more than 100 as the nation struggles to quell a worsening Taliban insurgency.

Two blasts devastated a busy market and engulfed it in flames killing at least 33 people in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, while in the north-west provincial capital of Peshawar a suicide bomber killed 10 people.

Attacks blamed on Islamist militants have surged this year as Pakistan presses military offensives against the Taliban across the north-west, under fierce US pressure to do more to destroy the extremists’ strongholds.

EU gives CIA the power to search bank records of all member states

December 7, 2009December 7, 2009 by Infinite

Brussels gives CIA the power to search UK bank records

THE CIA is to be given broad access to the bank records of millions of Britons under a European Union plan to fight terrorism.

The Brussels agreement, which will come into force in two months’ time, requires the 27 EU member states to grant requests for banking information made by the United States under its terrorist finance tracking programme.

In a little noticed information note released last week, the EU said it had agreed that Europeans would be compelled to release the information to the CIA “as a matter of urgency”. The records will be kept in a US database for five years before being deleted.

Critics say the system is “lopsided” because there is no reciprocal arrangement under which the UK authorities can easily access the bank accounts of US citizens in America.

They also say the plan to sift through cross-border and domestic EU bank accounts gives US intelligence more scope to consult our bank accounts than is granted to law enforcement agencies in the UK or the rest of Europe.

In Britain and most of Europe a judge must authorise a specific search after receiving a sworn statement from a police officer.

This weekend civil liberties groups and privacy campaigners said the surveillance programme, introduced as an emergency measure in 2001, was being imposed on Britain without a proper debate.

Tens of thousands rally against PM Silvio Berlusconi in Rome

December 7, 2009 by Infinite

Organisers claim a turnout of least 350,000, but police say it was far less

Tens of thousands of people have rallied in Rome, demanding the resignation of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The No B (Berlusconi) Day march was organised by grassroots groups via the internet and social networking sites.

Mr Berlusconi faces separate tax fraud and bribery trials after he lost his immunity from prosecution in October.

He denies the charges against him, insisting he is the victim of magistrates with a political agenda.

One message

Protesters chanted “I have a dream – Berlusconi in jail” during the march in the Italian capital.

Mr Berlusconi denies all the charges against him

“This is a day of democracy, a day that shows that the country can come together to build an alternative and most of all to tell Berlusconi to go,” Antonio di Pietro, former anti-corruption judge and now an opposition leader, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

“There are people from all over the country here, and even from abroad with one message: Berusconi has to go!” he added.

Greece: Riots break out on anniversary of teenager’s death

December 6, 2009 by Infinite

Clashes have broken out in the Greek capital Athens during a march to commemorate the first anniversary of the police shooting of a teenager, whose death sparked massive riots.

A policeman on fire in Athens during rioting Photo: getty

Rioting in Athens Photo: getty

Police fired tear gas at youths throwing rocks and firecrackers in central Athens, as several thousand demonstrators gathered to mark the death of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

About 3,000 mostly students, anarchists and leftists marched to parliament on Sunday and more protests were expected on Monday. An evening memorial service was planned in the Exarchia district, where the teenager was shot dead.

Athens University rector Christos Kittas was rushed to hospital with an irregular heartbeat and head injuries after protesters broke into the university’s central Athens offices to occupy them, police and media said.

A 55-year-old woman was also injured on central Syntagma Square after being struck by police. Four police officers were also hurt as hand-to-hand combat erupted with small groups of protesters around the square, a police source said.

Concern was heightened by reports that far-left groups and anarchists from other European countries have traveled to Greece to join the protests.

Violence also broke out in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, where youths threw petrol bombs at police and smashed the storefront of a Starbucks cafe.

Over 6,000 police were on duty in Athens alone. Another 3,000 were mobilised in Thessaloniki, local police said.

Philippines: Military arrests dozens under martial law

December 6, 2009December 6, 2009 by Infinite

– Arroyo’s spokesman defends martial law declaration (Xinhua)

– ‘Overkill, overreaction’—opposition solons (Inquirer):

MANILA, Philippines –(UPDATE)“Unconstitutional,” “overreaction,” and “overkill” were just some of the reactions by lawmakers at the House of Representatives over President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s declaration of martial law in Maguindanao Saturday.

Opposition lawmakers said they would question before the plenary the basis of Proclamation 1959, which placed Maguindanao, except in areas occupied by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, under martial law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus.

“Under the Constitution, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may only declare martial law or suspend the writ of habeas corpus in case of invasion or rebellion. These conditions do not exist, ergo Proclamation 1959 is unconstitutional,” Bayan Muna partylist Representative Satur Ocampo said in a text message.

Soldiers take a break as they stand in front of their armored personnel carrier at the gate of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009 in Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao province in southern Philippines. Government soldiers took the patriarch of a powerful clan, a former governor, and three other members of his family into custody after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo put the entire province under martial law to hunt down suspects in the country’s worst political violence. (AP Photo/Pat Roque)

SHARIFF AGUAK, Philippines — Philippine troops arrested 62 people and discovered another major weapons cache Sunday after martial law was imposed in a southern province following the country’s worst political massacre.

Thousands of troops, backed by tanks and warplanes, have taken control of Maguindanao province in a government crackdown on the powerful Ampatuan clan, accused in the Nov. 23 killing of 57 people traveling in a convoy of a political rival. The clan has denied involvement.

Late Friday, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo imposed martial law in Maguindanao — the first use of martial law in the Philippines since late dictator Ferdinand Marcos imposed it nationwide more than 30 years ago. The move was announced on national television Saturday morning.

The government says it feared the Ampatuans, who have ruled unopposed with an iron fist over predominantly Muslim Maguindanao for years, were fomenting rebellion in response to the crackdown on them since the massacre.

Those arrested so far include the clan’s patriarch, at least six other family members, and clan followers, national police Chief Jesus Verzosa said.

The Euro Becomes Favorite Currency of Drug Cartels

December 6, 2009 by Infinite

Smugglers and launderers use €500 notes instead of $100 bills to save space

International drug cartels have abandoned the US dollar for high denomination euros to launder millions in illegal profits, Europol has revealed. The gangs no longer use $100 bills because €500 notes – the largest denomination of euro – take up less room when transporting large amounts of cash across the world.

In a single consignment on a British Airways plane bound for London from the United States, US police found £11m worth of drug profits in €500 bills. The Colombian and Mexican cartels’ conversion to the European currency is even acknowledged in popular culture: American rapper Jay-Z’s video for his single, Blue Magic, features a suitcase full of €500 notes as he sings about “the kilo business”.

Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, said last week police forces across continental Europe were tracking the movements of smuggled and laundered euros and had traced much of it back to large drug gangs.

“We have seen examples of high denomination notes hidden in cereal packets, tyres, concealed compartments in lorries, and so on,” he said.

White House ‘Party Crashers’ Knew President Obama For Years, Here Pictured With Obama in 2005

December 5, 2009 by Infinite

Polo Contacts Worldwide could make it easy for the investigating Secret Service by brown-enveloping them this picture.
(Click on image to enlarge.)

While the big gun media and American Secret Service are out there investigating “party crashers” Tareq and Michaele Salahi, no one’s telling the truth: Obama knew the Salahis when he was still an Illinois senator.

Hey Secret Agent Man, here’s Obama, the senator flashing his pearly whites with Randy Jackson, better known as a judge on American Idol. “Others pictured are Black Eyed Peas Rock Band; Tareq Salahi the President of the America’s Polo Cup; President Elect Obama, Fergie from Black eyed Peas and Michaele Salahi, posing this time as a former Miss USA and SuperModel.”

Interesting little detail for White House gumshoes: As the above photo was published in June 2005, Barack Obama was still Senator Obama and not the President Elect.

And with Michaele Salahi yesterday having been caught out—Facebook pompoms notwithstanding—as a bogus cheerleader for the Washington Red Skins and not a model for Victoria’s Secret as claimed, Canada Free Press (CFP) leaves it to FoxNews.com to find out if she ever was a “former Miss USA”.

Senior Chinese Official Slams US Investment Banks Over Derivatives

December 7, 2009December 5, 2009 by Infinite

A senior Chinese official who oversees the country’s largest state-owned enterprises has publicly slammed western investment banks for “maliciously” peddling complicated derivative products that caused huge losses for Chinese companies over the last year.

In Beijing’s strongest criticism on the matter to date, Li Wei, vice director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, singled out Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup in a long and highly critical article in the latest issue of an official Communist party newspaper.

The large losses suffered by Chinese state companies were “closely associated with the intentionally complex and highly leveraged products that were fraudulently peddled by international investment banks with evil intentions,” Mr Li asserted. “To a certain extent some international investment banks were the chief criminals and the root of ruin for the Chinese enterprises who encountered this financial derivatives Waterloo.”

In his article, Mr Li said 68 of the 130-odd state companies controlled directly by Sasac had been buying derivatives to speculate or hedge against rising commodity prices and fluctuating currencies and interest rates, even though some of them were not authorised to do so.

These 68 companies had booked total combined net losses of Rmb11.4bn on the Rmb125bn worth of financial derivatives products they had bought by the end of October 2008, Mr Li said.

The government has not previously revealed the full extent of losses suffered by Chinese companies that made ill-fated bets on over-the-counter, mostly offshore, derivatives.

In September, Sasac warned that some of the contracts were illegal and might be invalidated, a move that prompted some western banks to agree quietly to renegotiate contracts behind closed doors.

Climategate and the Tiger Woods Index; Al Gore cancels Copenhagen speaking event

December 4, 2009 by Infinite

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Al Gore has had to cancel a Copenhagen speaking event at which he had hoped to charge starry-eyed believers in his ManBearPig religion $1200 a piece for the privilege of shaking his hand, breathing in his CO2 and having his latest book inflicted on them.

Could those unforeseen circumstances have anything to do with Climategate?

I think so. Climategate is now huge. Way, way bigger than the Mainstream Media (MSM) is admitting it is – as Richard North demonstrates in this fascinating analysis. Using what he calls a Tiger Woods Index (TWI), he compares the amount of interest being shown by internet users (as shown by the number of general web pages on Google) and compares it with the number of news reports recorded. The ratio indicates what people are really interested in, as opposed to what the MSM thinks they ought to be interested in.

North explains:

Tiger Woods delivered 22,500,000 web and 46,025 news pages, giving ratio of 489. That is the “Tiger Woods Index” (TWI) against which I chose to measure a raft of other issues.

Here are the rankings:

1. Climategate: 28,400,000 – 2,930 = 9693
2. Afghanistan: 143,000,000 – 154,145 = 928
3. Obama: 202,000,000 – 252,583 = 800
4. Tiger Woods: 22,500,000 – 46,025 = 489
5. Gordon Brown: 12,300,000 – 37,021 = 332
6. Climate change: 22,200,000 – 68,419 = 324
7. Sally Bercow: 25,000 – 86 = 290
8. David Cameron: 545,000 – 4837 = 113
9. Meredith Kercher: 261,000 – 3,471 = 75
10. Chilcot Inquiry: 125,000 – 4,350 = 29

CBC’s Rex Murphy on Climategate

December 4, 2009 by Infinite

Added: 03. December 2009

MSNBC Rachel Maddow: War President Obama

December 4, 2009 by Infinite

Added: 03. Deczember 2009

Afghanistan Surge to Cost At Least $40 Billion, That Is $1.333.333 For One US Soldier Per Year

December 4, 2009December 3, 2009 by Infinite

Before it was $775.000 for one soldier in Iraq per year:

– Cost for a single soldier to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan is about $775,000 per year

Then it was $1.000.000 for one soldier in Afghanistan per year.

– US spends $1 million per soldier in Afghanistan, government report (15 Oct 2009)

Now it is $1.333.333 for one soldier in Afghanistan per year.

Shall we call that inflation or what?

Chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with authority over the
Pentagon’s budget: The buildup will probably cost at least $40 billion

A US soldier inspects the site of a bomb attack in Afghanistan. Photograph: Dima Gavrysh/AP

Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) — Congress will probably have to approve a war-funding bill next year worth at least $40 billion to pay for President Barack Obama’s troop buildup in Afghanistan, a House Democrat said.

Representative John Murtha, chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with authority over the Pentagon’s budget, said today the buildup will probably cost at least $10 billion more than the administration’s $30 billion estimate.

Any funding measure probably won’t come up for a vote before February because lawmakers want time to “dissect” the administration’s plans, said Murtha, of Pennsylvania. Murtha said that while he’s skeptical of the success of the administration’s plan, lawmakers will likely approve the additional funding.

Lisbon Treaty: Now EU Takes Charge Of Britain

December 3, 2009 by Infinite

Ireland could have stopped the ‘New World Order’:

– What part of Ireland’s ‘no’ does the EU not understand? (Guardian) (!!!)

But:

– Ireland Votes 67% In Favor Of Lisbon Treaty -Final Count (Wall Street Journal)

(I am of course not blaming the Irish people for how they voted. After their first vote on the Lisbon Treason Treaty they were real heroes in my eyes. The only ones with brains in the EU. This madness should have been stopped a long time ago.)

Now we have an unelected Bilderberg puppet EU President:

– EU President Herman Van Rompuy Announces 2009 as ‘First Year of Global Governance’ (BBC)

It is not that the people are powerless, but that they are not thinking for themselves, acting like a dumb, fear driven herd of sheep in total survival mode. Such behavior assures only one outcome: The people will get slaughtered by the elite.

“What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.” – Adolf Hitler

Unelected EU President Herman van Rompuy

(Daily Express) FAT cat Eurocrats celebrated a “shameful” new era of Brussels domination last night with a lavish ceremony and fireworks – all at the hard-pressed taxpayers’ expense.

New EU President Herman van Rompuy and Brussels chiefs toasted victory as the Lisbon Treaty, which moves vast swathes of power from Westminster, became law across the EU at midnight on Monday.

Mr van Rompuy and EU foreign affairs chief Baroness Cathy Ashton were among the EU bureaucrats who cheered the landmark occasion at a glittering ceremony and banquet in the Portuguese capital.

But in Britain, angry anti-EU critics declared that it signalled the end of our independence after the latest massive surrender of sovereignty to Brussels.

Campaigners have pledged to fight on against the emergence of a Brussels superstate.

UK Independence Party Euro MP Nigel Farage said: “This day should go down in history as National Loss of Independence Day. We now live in a new legal order. We are just a province of a new legal entity called Europe.”

UKIP yesterday launched a national campaign for a referendum on whether Britain should quit the EU. Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: “Britain has ceased to be a sovereign country. Shamefully, the freedoms our forefathers fought for have been given away by the politicians at Westminster. We need a referendum now.”

Tory Euro MP Daniel Hannan said: “It is appalling, demeaning, disgraceful that such a thing should have been done without popular consent and in the absence of the referendum that all three parties had promised.”

Yahoo: Our email spying policy would ’shock’ customers and would be used to ‘shame’ us

December 3, 2009 by Infinite

A little-noticed letter from Yahoo! to the US Marshals Service offers troubling insight into the surveillance policies of one of the Internet’s largest email providers.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking details of Yahoo’s! policies allowing the Justice Department to request wiretaps of its users and the amount they charge US taxpayers per wiretap — the search engine leviathan declared in a 12-page letter that they couldn’t provide information on their approach because their pricing scheme would “shock” customers. The news was first reported by Kim Zetter at Wired.

“It is reasonable to assume from these comments that the [pricing] information, if disclosed, would be used to “shame” Yahoo! and other companies — and to “shock” their customers,” a lawyer for the company writes. “Therefore, release of Yahoo!’s information is reasonably likely to lead to impairment of its reputation for protection of user privacy and security, which is a competitive disadvantage for technology companies.”

Yahoo! also argues that because their price sheet for wiretaps was “voluntarily submitted” to the US Marshals Service, it is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act law.

Verizon, meanwhile, says (letter PDF) they can’t provide details on how much they charge for wiretaps because it would be “confusing.”

“Customers may see a listing of records, information or assistance that is available only to law enforcement,” Verizon writes, “but call in to Verizon and seek those same services. Such calls would stretch limited resources, especially those that are reserved only for law enforcement emergencies.”

Consumers might “become unnecessarily afraid that their lines have been tapped or call Verizon to ask if their lines are tapped (a question we cannot answer),” the telecom giant adds.

Verizon also revealed it “receives tens of thousands of requests for customer records, or other customer information from law enforcement.”

Lord Christopher Monckton – Climategate: Caught Greenhanded! Cold Facts About The Hot Topic of Global Temperature Change After The Climategate Scandal

December 3, 2009 by Infinite

Monckton-Caught Green-Handed Climate Gate Scandal

Lord Christopher Monckton – Climategate: Caught Greenhanded! Cold Facts About The Hot Topic of Global Temperature Change After The Climategate Scandal (PDF)

North Korea: All shops and markets closed, all cash transactions frozen after devaluation announcement

December 3, 2009 by Infinite

North Koreans in misery as cash is culled

Street stalls usually offer one of the few glimpses of fiscal activity in Pyongyang ? but even they were closed for business by yesterday’s currency revaluation (Paul Rogers/The Times)

Shops and markets in North Korea have been closed and all cash transactions frozen after the Government’s shock announcement of a devaluation of its currency in an effort to crack down on the country’s burgeoning free-market economy.

In the capital, Pyongyang, yesterday only the few shops and restaurants permitted to trade in foreign currencies – patronised by the privileged elite and the city’s small foreign population – were open for business. All other enterprises and services based on cash, including markets, long-distance bus services, barbers’ shops, saunas and bath houses, were suspended until the revaluation of the won is completed next week.

There were reports of public outrage and confusion after the announcement of the measure, which requires North Koreans to swap existing won notes for new ones at an exchange rate of one to 100 – effectively knocking two zeroes off their value. Because of a cap of 100,000 won per family (£475 at the official exchange rate), anyone with significant holdings of cash will have their savings wiped out.

“Loud sounds of weeping in every house have not ceased since the news was released,” a South Korean website quoted an inhabitant of Sinuiju, a city on the border with China, as saying. “Weeping and fighting between couples has not stopped anywhere. The atmosphere of the city is terrible now.”

The website, dailynk.com, said that one elderly couple had killed themselves in North Hamgyong, a province adjacent to the Chinese border across which much illegal trading is carried out. It also reported anxiety among local officials that the currency revaluation would provoke civil unrest.

Texas Government taking newborn DNA samples, saving the leftover specimens, unbeknownst to parents and without their consent

December 3, 2009 by Infinite

Many parents ask why they are saving the samples

AUSTIN (KXAN) – When Andrea Beleno was expecting her first child, she never dreamed his blood would become the focus of a federal lawsuit.

Neither did the other families who are suing the State of Texas to protect the medical privacy of their children.

Each year, more than 400,000 babies are born in Texas. State law mandates that before newborns leave the hospital, his or her heel will be pricked and five drops of blood are collected.

Two weeks later, their pediatrician collects another five drops of blood. The blood cards are submitted to the Texas Department of State Health Services as part of the Newborn Screening program. One or two drops are used to screen for a list of serious medical conditions.

The parents are not objecting to the screening. They object to what the state is doing with the leftover blood samples.

Beginning in 2002, the State began saving the leftover specimens, unbeknownst to parents and without their consent.

“It made me really mad that nobody asked me if they could keep my sons DNA,” said Andrea Beleno.

Her son’s DNA was among millions of banked samples stored at Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health.

“It makes me suspicious and I think there’s really no reason for the state to have a database of the blood of and the DNA of every single person who has been born here,” said Beleno. “There’s no legitimate reason for that.”

Climategate: It’s all unravelling now!

December 16, 2009December 2, 2009 by Infinite

So many new developments: which story do we pick? Maybe best to summarise, instead. After all, it’s not like you’re going to find much of this reported in the MSM.

1. Australia’s Senate rejects Emissions Trading Scheme for a second time. Or: so turkeys don’t vote Christmas. Expect to see a lot more of this: politicians starting to become aware their party’s position on AGW is completely out of kilter with the public mood and economic reality. Kevin Rudd’s Emissions Trading Scheme – what Andrew Bolt calls “a $114 billion green tax on everything” – would have wreaked havoc on the coal-dependent Australian economy. That’s why several opposition Liberal frontbenchers resigned rather than vote with the Government on ETS; why Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull lost his job; and why the Senate voted down the ETS.

2. Danes caught fiddling their carbon credits. (Hat tip: Philip Stott) Carbon trading is the Emperor’s New Clothes of international finance. It was invented by none other than Ken Lay, whose Enron would currently be one of the prime beneficiaries in the global alternative energy market, if it hadn’t been shown to be (nearly) as fraudulent as the current AGW scam. It is a licence to fleece, cheat and rob. Still, jolly embarrassing for the Danes to get caught red handed, what with their hosting a conference shortly in which the world’s leaders will try, straight-faced, to persuade us that carbon emissions trading is the only viable way of defeating ManBearPig. ‘People don’t trade carbon because they are good people,’ exclaims Patrick Birley, the chief executive of the ICE European Climate Exchange

3. Hats off to The Daily Express – the first British newspaper to make the AGW scam its front page story.

The piece was inspired by another bravura performance by Professor Ian Plimer, the Aussie geologist who argues that climate change has been going on quite naturally, oblivious of human activity, for the last 4,567 million years.

Climategate scandal claims its first big political scalp

December 2, 2009 by Infinite

Australian conservatives have shown the way by dumping the party leader who was in favour of massive carbon taxes and replacing him with one who stated last month that AGW is “crap.”

This makes Malcolm Turnbull, the suddenly-ex-leader of Australia’s Liberal party, the first major political victim of the Climategate furore. And his replacement Tony Abbott, the first politician to reap the benefits of the world’s growing scepticism towards ManBearPig. Of the three candidates, he was the only one committed to delaying the Australian government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

The trouble began last week when Australia’s opposition Liberal party began haemorrhaging frontbenchers, all of them preferring to lose their jobs than be railroaded by their leader into voting with the Government on Kevin Rudd’s new carbon tax.

Aussie blog hero Andrew Bolt has the blow-by-blow details. Particularly stirring is his description of how the Liberals’ newly elected leader Abbott – the Mad Monk as the libtard MSM is already calling him – takes the floor and tells like it is about the ETS (Australia’s equivalent to Cap And Trade).

Already the lines are potent – real fighting words from the Liberals at last: Rudd’s great green tax “is really an energy taxation scheme.” In fact, it is “a $120 billion tax on the Australian public, and that is just for starters.” Power prices will go up, for instance. “We just can’t wave that through the Parliament.”

To the public, Rudd’s scheme is “a great big tax to create a great big slush fund… run by a giant bureaucracy”. Already Rudd has overseen “a waste of money … worse than Whitlam”.

Too bloody right mate! (As they say in Australia where “bloody” isn’t a swear word s0 I’m allowed to use it as much as I like.)

The ruler of Dubai blasts global investors over debt crisis

December 2, 2009 by Infinite

“We are strong and persistent.”

No, Dubai is weak and dependent. Dubai is broke and has already been bailed out twice by Abu Dhabi and this would be the third time, but … Abu Dhabi will not race to bailout Dubai

“They do not understand anything.”

That was before, now even the most stupid investors do understand!

Dubai has been built ‘on sand’. The dream behind Dubai is artificial and meaningless.

Dubai’s dream is backed by nothing. Dubai is an illusion. I told you in 2008 about the plans of the elite to “drive the Arabs back into the desert” and that Dubai will go bust.

This is the same elite that governs the Fed and controls the entire US government. They will also destroy the US dollar and turn the US into a Third World country if they are not stopped now.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, today criticised international investors’ reaction to the Emirate’s debt crisis, claiming: “They do not understand anything.”

The defiant ruler, whose Government yesterday washed its hands of Dubai World, the state-owned conglomerate that owes $59 billion (£35.8 billion), also said: “We are strong and persistent.”

North Korea sharply revalues its currency by a factor of 100, causing chaos on the streets of Pyongyang

December 2, 2009 by Infinite

The exchange rate between old and new currencies is 100 to 1

Korea has revalued its currency with 100 to 1 exchange rate between the old and new currencies.

In an alleged bid to curb inflation and suppress its growing black market, North Korea implemented a currency revaluation on Monday, according to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency.

The exchange rate between old and new currencies is 100 to 1, with the old denomination of 1,000 won notes being replaced by 10 won notes.

It is the first time in 17 years that the hermit kingdom has revalued its currency and the effect in the capital was instant. “Many people were taken aback and confused,” said one source to Yonhap. “Those were were worried about their hidden assets rushed to the black market to swap them for dollars or Chinese yuan. The yuan and the dollar jumped,” he added.

“When the news spread in the jangmadang (markets), people panicked,” reported the Daily NK newspaper, quoting a source in the North Eastern province of North Hamkyung. Another source, in the Western city of Sinuiju, on the border with China, told the paper: “Traders gathered around currency dealers. Chaos ensued when currency dealers tried to avoid them.”

A spokesman at the British embassy in Seoul said that North Korea had given verbal notice to foreign missions in Pyongyang on Tuesday and that it was already hard to use the old notes. “We have heard from the British embassy in Pyongyang that it has become difficult to exchange North Korean currency in shops in Pyongyang since yesterday,” he said.

Officially the North Korean won trades at 135 to the US dollar.

Israel police ‘arrest Mossad spy on training exercise’, planting a fake bomb under a vehicle in Tel Aviv

December 2, 2009December 2, 2009 by Infinite

‘Just a drill’

Sure!

Mossad does not give uniformed police advance notice of training sessions

A trainee spy for Israel’s secret service agency Mossad was arrested by Tel Aviv police while taking part in a training operation, media reports say.

The young trainee was spotted by a female passer-by as he planted a fake bomb under a vehicle in the city.

He was only able to persuade police he was a spy after being taken in by an officer for questioning on Monday.

The authorities have refused to comment on the story although Israeli media outlets have expressed their surprise.

‘Just a drill’

Mossad does not tell local uniformed police about its training exercises.

The country’s commercial Channel 10 said it hoped the agency’s operatives were “more effective abroad”, AFP news agency reported.

President Obama ‘to deploy 30,000 troops to Afghanistan’

December 1, 2009 by Infinite

– Obama: ‘I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am President, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.’

Change you can believe in!

There are 68,000 US soldiers based in Afghanistan

President Barack Obama is to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and deploy them within six months, US officials have said.

Mr Obama will make the much-anticipated announcement as part of a speech to the nation at West Point military academy.

He is also expected to lay out a rough timeframe for how long the main US military mission will last.

The US currently has 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, with foreign forces overall totalling more than 100,000.

The new troops are expected to focus on tackling the Taliban in the volatile southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan.

German government is rushing through a fresh package of measures to shore up ailing banks and prevent a second wave of the debt crisis suffocating large parts of manufacturing industry

December 1, 2009 by Infinite

Looting the taxpayer again!

There is no recovery.

– The Federal Reserve Doesn’t Want Banks to Increase Lending, Because of Inflation

This is the Greatest Depression.

Angela Merkel alarmed by worsening credit crisis

German Chancellor Angela Merkel: fears of new crisis Photo: EPA

“We are in a very critical situation,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel in her weekly radio address. “We are going to discuss with leaders of the financial institutions what can be done to head off a credit crunch.”

The move comes days after the Bundesbank revealed that German banks face a further €90bn (£82bn) of likely write-downs over the next year.

Leaders of the new coalition are to meet industrialists and bankers tomorrow to thrash out an emergency plan. The proposals include a €10bn scheme to purchase toxic securities from banks. The idea is anathema in Germany and faces stiff opposition from Mrs Merkel’s Bavarian and liberal partners.

The renewed sense urgency follows a flurry of warnings from economists and business groups over the risks of a credit contraction.

Morgan Stanley: Britain risks sovereign debt crisis in 2010

December 1, 2009 by Infinite

See also: OECD warning: Britain risks ‘debt spiral’ (Telegraph)

Britain risks becoming the first country in the G10 bloc of major economies to risk capital flight and a full-blown debt crisis over coming months, according to a client note by Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley says if Westminster can’t restore fiscal credibility it could trigger debt problems.

The US investment bank said there is a danger Britain’s toxic mix of problems will come to a head as soon as next year, triggered by fears that Westminster may prove unable to restore fiscal credibility.

“Growing fears over a hung parliament would likely weigh on both the currency and gilt yields as it would represent something of a leap into the unknown, and would increase the probability that some of the rating agencies remove the UK’s AAA status,” said the report, written by the bank’s European investment team of Ronan Carr, Teun Draaisma, and Graham Secker.

“In an extreme situation a fiscal crisis could lead to some domestic capital flight, severe pound weakness and a sell-off in UK government bonds. The Bank of England may feel forced to hike rates to shore up confidence in monetary policy and stabilize the currency, threatening the fragile economic recovery,” they said.

Morgan Stanley said that such a chain of events could drive up yields on 10-year UK gilts by 150 basis points. This would raise borrowing costs to well over 5pc – the sort of level now confronting Greece, and far higher than costs for Italy, Mexico, or Brazil.

High-grade debt from companies such as BP, GSK, or Tesco might command a lower risk premium than UK sovereign debt, once an unthinkable state of affairs.

A spike in bond yields would greatly complicate the task of funding Britain’s budget deficit, expected to be the worst of the OECD group next year at 13.3pc of GDP.

At least 43 killed in Pakistan bomb blasts

Brussels gives CIA the power to search UK bank records

Clashes have broken out in the Greek capital Athens during a march to commemorate the first anniversary of the police shooting of a teenager, whose death sparked massive riots.

Smugglers and launderers use €500 notes instead of $100 bills to save space

Chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with authority over the Pentagon’s budget: The buildup will probably cost at least $40 billion

North Koreans in misery as cash is culled

Many parents ask why they are saving the samples

The exchange rate between old and new currencies is 100 to 1

Angela Merkel alarmed by worsening credit crisis

Britain risks becoming the first country in the G10 bloc of major economies to risk capital flight and a full-blown debt crisis over coming months, according to a client note by Morgan Stanley.

Chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with authority over the
Pentagon’s budget: The buildup will probably cost at least $40 billion