Global News – Page 3697 – Infinite Unknown

Brazil: Police Chief Shot Dead While Giving Radio Interview on Drug Violence

May 27, 2010May 27, 2010 by Infinite

Commander of Camacari force was discussing fight against traffickers when he was assassinated on way to work

Brazil has a burgeoning drug problem, as police fight gangs who control supply to the addicts in the slums. (Reuters)

For police chief Clayton Leão Chaves it was supposed to be another day at the office. At around 9.40am this morning, he was making his daily journey to the police HQ in Camacari, a small city in Bahia state, and giving an interview to local radio on his mobile phone about the police’s struggle against local drug traffickers.

Then something went badly wrong.

“I heard some bangs,” one of the shows two presenters announced, perplexed, as the police chief’s voice disappeared.

“Something serious has happened to our chief. It can’t be anything else,” said his co-presenter, adding: “The chief was just talking to us. We don’t know what has happened. There is a lady weeping.”

According to local media reports, Chaves had been killed as he spoke to journalists from Bahia’s Lider FM radio station and to thousands of local listeners about attempts to improve security.

Greek Bailout: Two Secret Exit Clauses – Why Europe Is Now Cheering For Its Own Demise

May 26, 2010 by Infinite

– Greek Central Bank Accused of Encouraging Naked Short Selling of Greek Bonds

– ECB Resorts to ‘Nuclear Option,’ Intervenes in Bond Market to Fight Euro Crisis

When all of Europe rushed into its rescue package two weeks ago (first half a trillion, market red, then a full trillion, market green), the one thing that struck us as odd was the conflicting data on the conditionality of the package, with various sources both confirming and denying that the “package” was revocable. It did seem somewhat shortsighted of the Germans, whose political leadership would soon be on the verge of a series of electoral routs, to tie its fate without even one exit hatch, to a country that is a financial toxic spiral. Sure enough, the Telegraph’s Evans-Pritchard has uncovered what may be the two loopholes in the European bailout agreement. While the first one is not surprising, the second one explains why the biggest sellers of European government debt (and/or buyers of Euro sovereign CDS), are likely the governments of the distressed, and core, countries themselves.

Markets have been rattled by reports in the German media that the Greek rescue deal contains two secret clauses. The package will be “immediately and irrevocably cancelled” if it is found to breach the EU Treaty’s “no bail-out” clause, either in a ruling by the European court or the constitutional courts of any eurozone state. While such an event is unlikely, it is not impossible. There are two cases already pending at Germany’s top court in Karlsruhe, perhaps Europe’s most “eurosceptic” tribunal.

The second clause said that if any country finds it cannot raise funding for the rescue at interest rates below the 5pc charge agreed for Greece, it may opt out of the bail-out. BNP Paribas said this would escalate quickly into a systemic crisis if Spain were in such a position, because the other countries cannot carry an ever-rising burden. The bank warned the euro project itself may start to disintegrate rapidly if these rescue provisions are ever seriously put to the test.

Nuclear War Between Koreas: Brought To You By The US Government

May 26, 2010May 26, 2010 by Infinite

Kim Jong-Il has put North Korean troops on combat alert and threatened military action if the South trespasses in its waters as global stock markets freak out at the prospect of a war which, if it occurs, can be blamed on the U.S. government’s history of arming the Stalinist dictator with nuclear weapons.

Korean markets plunged 3.3 per cent overnight as investors were spooked at escalating tensions between the two countries following South Korea’s allegation that the North was responsible for the March 26 torpedoing of one of its warships

Kim Jong-il responded to the charge by putting his military on combat alert, telling them to “prepare for war,” and threatening action if South Korea trespasses in its waters off the peninsula’s west coast.

On Monday, President Obama also told the U.S. military to prepare for conflict as it plans to carry out anti-submarine and other naval exercises with South Korea.

As we have documented, North Korea’s nuclear belligerency was almost exclusively a creation of the U.S. government in that they armed the Stalinist state both directly and indirectly through global arms dealers under their control, namely Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. While labeling North Korea as part of the “axis of evil,” the U.S. government was enthusiastically funding its nuclear weapons program at every stage.

Both the Clinton and Bush administrations played a key role in helping Kim Jong-Il develop North Korea’s nuclear prowess from the mid 1990’s onwards.

Just as with Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons program, it was Donald Rumsfeld who played a key role in arming Kim-Jong-Il.

Rumsfeld was man who presided over a $200 million dollar contract to deliver equipment and services to build two light water reactor stations in North Korea in January 2000 when he was an executive director of ABB (Asea Brown Boveri). Wolfram Eberhardt, a spokesman for ABB confirmed that Rumsfeld was at nearly all the board meetings during his involvement with the company.

Taliban get £1,600 bounty for each Nato soldier killed

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010 by Infinite

See also: Taliban attack biggest NATO base in Afghanistan (Telegraph)

TALIBAN rebels are earning a bounty of up to 200,000 Pakistani rupees (£1,660) for each Nato soldier they kill, according to insurgent commanders.

The money is said to come from protection rackets, taxes imposed on opium farmers, donors in the Gulf states who channel money through Dubai and from the senior Taliban leadership in Pakistan.

So far this year 213 Nato soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, including 41 British troops, bringing the potential rewards for the Taliban to £350,000.

Taliban commanders said the bounty had more than doubled since the beginning of last year.

The insurgents, who employ “hit and run” tactics against foot patrols and convoys, use paid informants, media reports and the local population to confirm the deaths of Nato soldiers.

“We can’t lie to our commanders: they can check to see if there was a fight in that area. We get money if we capture equipment too. A gun can fetch $1,000 [£690],” said a commander from Khost province who controls about 60 fighters.

Taliban attack biggest NATO base in Afghanistan

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010 by Infinite

Taliban fighters launched an audacious assault on the biggest Nato base in Afghanistan in the third attack on coalition forces in under a week.

The frontal attack on Kandahar airfield forced William Hague, the new Foreign Secretary, and Liam Fox, the new Defence Secretary to cancel a scheduled trip to meet British troops on the base during their first tour of Afghanistan since taking office.

Rebels rained rockets onto the airfield and then attempted to storm the perimeter fences before being forced back by fire from watchtowers.

Fighting in southern Afghanistan is again expected to escalate this summer as American troops continue to pour into the country for Barack Obama’s surge strategy.

The Taliban movement earlier this month launched its own Al-Faath, or victory, spring offensive aimed at Nato-led forces, the Afghan government and their allies.

The Kandahar attack followed a similar attempt to storm Bagram air base north of Kabul and a deadly suicide car bombing in the capital.

Five rockets hit the sprawling base 300 miles southwest of the capital at around 8pm (4.30pm BST) on Saturday evening.

Several members of the Nato-led force and civilian contractors were wounded, but none killed. A spokesman would not say how many insurgents took part or how many died. Soldiers on the base were kept in bunkers for several hours following the attack.

Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

May 24, 2010 by Infinite

– Israel ‘offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons‘ (Telegraph):

Shimon Peres, the Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, was facing deep embarrassment yesterday after it emerged that he allegedly offered to sell Apartheid South Africa nuclear weapons.

Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons

The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and P W Botha of South Africa. Photograph: Guardian

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state’s possession of nuclear weapons.

The “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa’s defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them “in three sizes”. The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of “ambiguity” in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa’s post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky’s request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week’s nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.

President Obama’s New World Order: ‘We have to shape an international order that can meet the challenges of our generation’

May 23, 2010 by Infinite

BARACK Obama wants to shape a new “international order” in which the US co-operates with other nations and seeks long-term support by promoting its democratic values.

The US President’s weekend speech to cadets at the West Point military academy was practically a trial run for the national security policy he will announce this week.

Addressing graduates at the same venue he announced a 30,000 US troop increase for the Afghan war six months ago, Mr Obama said: “Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system.

“But America has not succeeded by stepping out of the currents of co-operation — we have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice, so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities and face consequences when they don’t.”

His comments indicate he has not been dissuaded from his theme of engagement with other nations, including the Muslim world, despite threats to national security from two attempted terror attacks on US territory.

Mr Obama’s doctrine on national security is a marked contrast to the 2002 policy announced by George W. Bush, who endorsed the idea of “pre-emptive war” and a “distinctively American internationalism”. Consistent with his speeches last year to the UN in New York and to Islamic countries in Cairo, the US President is set to officially dump all hint of unilateralism in favour of building partnerships.

” We have to shape an international order that can meet the challenges of our generation,” Mr Obama said. “We will be steadfast in strengthening those old alliances that have served us so well, including those who will serve by our side in Afghanistan and around the globe.”

European Cities on the Edge of a Debt Crisis

May 23, 2010 by Infinite

As European capitals look to fund ballooning deficits, local and regional borrowing is set to reach record levels

Venice: Rialto Bridge and Grand Canal
In a bid to shore up the city’s finances, Venice has put three historic sties, including the Grand Canal, up for sale. Photograph: Sergio Pitamitz/Corbis

While relaxing on the back of a gondola, the millions of tourists who drift by the Palazzo Diedo, Gradenigo or San Casciano in Venice don’t generally know that what they’re looking at are the roots of another European debt crisis. For in a desperate move by the Italian city to shore up its books, these three historic Venetian sites have been put up for sale.

A quarter of Venice’s income comes from the City-owned casino near the famous Rialto bridge, where thousands of tourists gamble, unaware that they’re funding the city’s battle against rising lagoon levels, or paying for its world-renowned carnival. But a credit crunch-led drop in tourism has starved the municipal coffers, and forced the city into new fundraising ventures. Venice recently created an 18-property fund, valued at €82m (£71.3m), expected to be sold within three to five years.

“The lower income from the casino has decreased our expense capacity, so the fund structure gave us half of the value, €40m in cash, ahead of the sales,” said Paolo Di Prima, director of financial investment at Comune di Venezia – the city hall. Downgraded by Moody’s earlier this month but still within investment grade status, Venice is “not desperate, as before we had an excellent position, and now we’re in a good one”, Di Prima says.

The crisis in the eurozone is making headlines at the moment, but at a lower level another debt storm is slowly brewing. European cities and regions are expected to flood the market this year, all anxious to fund ballooning deficits. Local and regional government borrowing is expected to reach a historical peak of nearly €1.3 trillion, according to credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P). The bulk will come from the highly decentralised German Länder (states) and from the deficit-ridden Spanish regions, which face severe central government transfer cuts. Regions also face higher borrowing costs and, most likely, further credit downgrades.

President Obama Wins The Right to Detain People With No Habeas Review

May 23, 2010 by Infinite

More change we can believe in!

(updated below – Update II)

Few issues highlight Barack Obama’s extreme hypocrisy the way that Bagram does. As everyone knows, one of George Bush’s most extreme policies was abducting people from all over the world — far away from any battlefield — and then detaining them at Guantanamo with no legal rights of any kind, not even the most minimal right to a habeas review in a federal court. Back in the day, this was called “Bush’s legal black hole.” In 2006, Congress codified that policy by enacting the Military Commissions Act, but in 2008, the Supreme Court, in Boumediene v. Bush, ruled that provision unconstitutional, holding that the Constitution grants habeas corpus rights even to foreign nationals held at Guantanamo. Since then, detainees have won 35 out of 48 habeas hearings brought pursuant to Boumediene, on the ground that there was insufficient evidence to justify their detention.

Immediately following Boumediene, the Bush administration argued that the decision was inapplicable to detainees at Bagram — including even those detained outside of Afghanistan but then flown to Afghanistan to be imprisoned. Amazingly, the Bush DOJ — in a lawsuit brought by Bagram detainees seeking habeas review of their detention — contended that if they abduct someone and ship them to Guantanamo, then that person (under Boumediene) has the right to a habeas hearing, but if they instead ship them to Bagram, then the detainee has no rights of any kind. In other words, the detainee’s Constitutional rights depends on where the Government decides to drop them off to be encaged. One of the first acts undertaken by the Obama DOJ that actually shocked civil libertarians was when, last February, as The New York Times put it, Obama lawyers “told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team.”

But last April, John Bates, the Bush-43-appointed, right-wing judge overseeing the case, rejected the Bush/Obama position and held that Boumediene applies to detainees picked up outside of Afghanistan and then shipped to Bagram. I reviewed that ruling here, in which Judge Bates explained that the Bagram detainees are “virtually identical to the detainees in Boumediene,” and that the Constitutional issue was exactly the same: namely, “the concern that the President could move detainees physically beyond the reach of the Constitution and detain them indefinitely.”

But the Obama administration was undeterred by this loss. They quickly appealed Judge Bates’ ruling. As the NYT put it about that appeal: “The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight.” Today, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the Bush/Obama position, holding that even detainees abducted outside of Afghanistan and then shipped to Bagram have no right to contest the legitimacy of their detention in a U.S. federal court, because Boumediene does not apply to prisons located within war zones (such as Afghanistan).

So congratulations to the United States and Barack Obama for winning the power to abduct people anywhere in the world and then imprison them for as long as they want with no judicial review of any kind. When the Boumediene decision was issued in the middle of the 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” But Obama hailed it as “a rejection of the Bush Administration’s attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo,” and he praised the Court for “rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus.” Even worse, when Obama went to the Senate floor in September, 2006, to speak against the habeas-denying provisions of the Military Commissions Act, this is what he melodramatically intoned:

Germany: Parliament Votes to Give 66 % of Annual Income Tax Revenue to The Banksters

May 22, 2010 by Infinite

Here is what Wolfgang Schäuble had to say:

– German Lawmakers Approve Share of $1 Trillion Bailout (Bloomberg):

“Every other alternative is much worse and much more dangerous, so we have to do this,” Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the lower house, or Bundestag, in Berlin before the vote. “We’re not doing this for others, we’re doing it for ourselves and for future generations.”

These elite puppets have just bankrupted Germany:

“Never in recent European history have governments so blatantly looted taxpayers.

If nothing is done to reverse these bills, the economic and social collapse of Germany, Greece and EU nations is inevitable.”

What this really is, is an unprecedented looting of the people by the elitists that control the governments, the central banks, the IMF and the media.

When the elite will have totally bankrupted the people and everything will go into total collapse mode they will present the New World Order (world government and a new world currency) as the only solution to all the problems that they have created in the first place. (See related information at the end of the article.)

Reichstag, Berlin

Germany’s parliament today passed a bill that will mean that about 66 per cent of the country’s income tax revenue each year will go to banks in the form of interest payments on souvereign dent bonds held by Greece, Portugal and other eurozone nations.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition government voted to give 123 billion as Germany’s portion of a 750-billion euro loan guarantee package prepared by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to enable governments to keep up interest payments to banks on souvereign debt.

The bill was passed by the Bundestag with with 319 “yes” votes, 73 “no” votes and 195 abstentions.

The abstentions came from the center-left opposition Greens and Social Democrats (SPD) and a handful of CDU/CSU and FDP backbenchers. The 123 billion euro bank package comes on top of the 22.4 billon that Germany’s parliament voted to give Greece two weeks ago.

German taxpayers will, therefore, have to give 145 billion euros or 77% of the country’s annual income tax revenue to the banks in the highly likely event of Greece, Portugal and other countries not being able to meet their souvereign debt interest payments.

House Committee on Homeland Security Seeks Cooperation from Max Keiser on Financial Terrorism

May 22, 2010 by Infinite

Can’t make this up!

Here is an email from a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security to Max Keiser regarding Financial Terrorism. Both the email and Max Keiser’s response had me laughing my head off.

Hi Mr. Keiser,

My name is Chris Beck and I work on the staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security in Washington, DC. I have been reading and listening to you regarding the May 6 stock market plunge and the likelihood that this was an act of financial terrorism. I think this is a huge issue that has not been given enough attention, and may warrant oversight by our committee. I would greatly appreciate the chance to talk to you to make sure I understand the nuts and bolts, and to figure out what avenues may be available to correct what appears to be a massive fraud that could undermine U.S. National Security. Can you please contact me and let me know if you are available to talk?
Thank you,
Chris

Chris Beck, Ph.D.
Senior Advisor for Science and Technology
House Committee on Homeland Security

I asked Max Keiser how he responded.

Max Replied “I told him to investigate this financial terrorist crime happening right now! in real time!”

Max went on to say …

I think it’s really incredible how clueless these people are.

Given the recent track record of corrupt regulators in D.C. it’s not hard to imagine that Chris Beck is wittingly or unwittingly just bird dogging intelligence that will be fed to Goldman and used to package ever more exotic Financial Terrorist weapons.

My position is the government IS Goldman and any info gleaned by this type of thing will end up helping no one BUT Goldman.

Here is the video that Chris Beck was responding to. Play the first few minutes of it. It will have you rolling on the floor.

I am also told that homeland security was interested in talking with David DeGraw about his post on Market Oracle Financial Terrorism Operations: 9/29/08 & 5/6/10.

This reads like a spoof straight out of The Onion, but I have phone numbers and email address and a chain of emails to verify.

California: More Than 6 Million Tons of Food Products are Dumped Annually; Food is The Largest Source of Waste

May 22, 2010 by Infinite

WTF!

Sherri Martinez packs food given to the Alameda County Community Food Bank to be distributed in Hayward.

Farmers, restaurants and supermarkets throw away millions of tons of edible food each year at a time when a growing number of Californians struggle to put food on the table.

More than 6 million tons of food products are dumped annually, enough to fill the Staples Center in Los Angeles 35 times over, state studies have found. Food is the largest single source of waste in California, making up 15.5 percent of the state’s waste stream, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board.

An examination by California Watch and the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California found shortcomings along California’s food distribution chain that allow vast amounts of food to go to waste in landfills, despite incentives that encourage food donations.

Among the findings:

— Millions of tons of fruit and vegetables rot in fields and orchards or are plowed over each year. Some of these edible crops are left behind because they are misshapen or discolored. Gleaning programs rescue only a small portion of the field waste.

— Major retail grocery chains are more likely to throw away fruits, vegetables and even entire hams and roasts than donate to distribution centers. While federal and state laws protect grocers from liability, many stores were concerned that donated food could sicken recipients even if it had not reached its expiration date. While some major chains donate food, others do not.

— Restaurants dump tens of thousands of tons of edible food every year. The vast majority of the state’s 90,000 restaurants do not participate in food-donation programs.

‘Ridiculous’ amount of waste

German Lawmakers Approve Share of $1 Trillion Bailout

May 21, 2010 by Infinite

‘For future generations!’ Sure! Future generations have just been looted and raped!

– Now That Is One SERIOUSLY Hyperbolic Alert On CNBC Business Insider (CNBC):

“FATE OF FREE WORLD HANGS ON VOTE IN GERMAN PARLIAMENT.”

Reminds me of:

– How the crooked bailout was passed by Congress:

– Rep. Michael Burgess: “We Are Under Martial Law”:

German Lawmakers Approve Share of $1 Trillion Bailout

Schaeuble waits on German lawmakers’ decision. (Bloomberg)

May 21 (Bloomberg) — German lawmakers approved their country’s share of a $1 trillion euro-region bailout in a vote today, allaying market concern that they would balk at approving a second emergency aid package in as many weeks.

The lower house of parliament voted 319 to 73 in favor of contributing as much as 148 billion euros ($186 billion) to indebted European states to backstop the euro; 195 lawmakers abstained. The upper house, or Bundesrat, also passed the measure, sending it on to President Horst Koehler for signature.

“Every other alternative is much worse and much more dangerous, so we have to do this,” Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the lower house, or Bundestag, in Berlin before the vote. “We’re not doing this for others, we’re doing it for ourselves and for future generations.”

Rotavirus Vaccines Contaminated With Pig Virus, But FDA Says No Problem

May 21, 2010 by Infinite

– FDA: Glaxo, Merck vaccines OK despite pig virus (Reuters):

(Reuters) – Rotavirus vaccines made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Merck & Co Inc are safe to use despite being contaminated with a pig virus, U.S. health regulators ruled on Friday.

What could possibly go wrong?

(NaturalNews) Rotavirus vaccines are commonly given to children, and this year’s batch of vaccines made by GlaxoSmithKline and Merck are contaminated with a pig virus, the FDA recently discovered. So the FDA called a meeting to determine whether injecting a pig virus into the bodies of young children might be some sort of problem requiring a recall of the vaccines.

Can you guess what conclusion the agency reached? As reported by Reuters, the FDA concluded “…it was safe for doctors to resume giving patients Glaxo’s Rotarix and continue using Merck’s Rotateq. The agency said there was no evidence the contamination caused any harm…”

In other words, as long as they can bury the evidence and deny any link between vaccines and health problems — which has been the standard excuse of the FDA for decades — they can continue to claim the vaccines are safe enough to inject into little children.

Never mind the fact that the pig virus found in the vaccines actually causes a wasting disease in baby pigs, giving them intense diarrhea and causing them to rapidly lose weight. DNA from these viruses was detected in the “master cells” used to make the vaccines.

Asian Stock Markets Drop Sharply After Big Fall in US; Ameritrade clients locked out for 80 minutes

May 21, 2010 by Infinite

The Dow Jones slumped 3.6 per cent, as every stock on the blue chip index fell (AFP)

– Asian Stocks Drop Sharply After Big Fall in US (New York Times):

Stock markets in Asia fell sharply in early trading on Friday after continuing declines on Wall Street and in Europe.

Fears that the fragile economic recovery in the United States might be threatened by the financial and political crisis in Europe gripped Wall Street on Thursday, sending the stock market into a sharp decline and leaving anxious traders wondering where the pain might stop, The New York Times’s Mark MacDonald reported.

– TD Ameritrade clients locked out for 80 minutes (Reuters):

* Online clients unable to log in 11:40 a.m.-1 p.m.s

* Call wait times ‘elevated’ – spokeswoman

* U.S. markets dropped heavily on Thursday (Recasts with resolution, lockout details)

NEW YORK, May 20 (Reuters) – TD Ameritrade Holding Corp (AMTD.O) clients were unable to log into their online trading accounts for about 80 minutes as markets fell sharply on Thursday, the big U.S. online brokerage said.

The company was still investigating what went wrong between about 11:40 a.m. ET and 1 p.m., when individual clients were forced to contact company brokers by telephone to place orders, a spokeswoman said. Call wait times were “elevated,” she added.

Related information:

– Insights From An Ex-Wall Street CEO On Market Manipulation:

“I cannot come up with any explanation for market activity for last 15 months other than treasury intervention. Probability of other explanation is nonexistent.”

And I totally agree because the only thing most insiders have done is sell.

There are no markets anymore:

– All You Need To Know About High Frequency Trading: ‘Sell Everything, And Shutdown’; 4 Years Without A Loss

There is no recovery:

– Why The Elite Hates Gold: There Has Been No Recovery In The S&P 500 When It Is Deflated By Gold

And the stock market plunge was no ‘fat finger,’ but a promise of what is to come:

– ‘Banging’ the US Stock Market

The next leg down in the markets, the crash is coming (everywhere):

– Hedge Funds Bet Europe’s $1 Trillion Bailout Won’t Solve Crisis, Forecast Jump in Inflation, Buy Gold

– Meltup (Documentary): The Beginning Of A US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation.

– The No.1 Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente: Greece Only The Beginning; Wall Street Plunge; Bailout Bubble Bursting; 2010 Global Crash; Gold

– Marc Faber: China May ‘Crash’ in Next 9 to 12 Months

– Mike Krieger: This Is The Last Dance

– Jim Rogers: The Next Recession Will Be Much Worse

– James G. Rickards: Possible Run on the Gold Bank, Fed Insolvent, Currency Endgames in US Debt Crisis

– Latest Gold Fraud Bombshell: Canada’s Only Bullion Bank Gold Vault Is Practically Empty

– The US Government Is Preparing For Collapse: Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account Has Been Denied

– America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship!

NASA Images Show Oil Entering Loop Current

June 6, 2010May 20, 2010 by Infinite

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Spread: The top NASA image shows the powerful ‘loop current’ of faster moving water the oil is hitting which circulates around the Gulf before bending around Florida and up the Atlantic coast. The bottom image shows the extent of the spill

Oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill has for the first time reached a powerful current that could take it to Florida and beyond, say scientists.

A small portion of the slick has entered the so-called ‘loop current’, a stream of faster moving water that circulates around the Gulf before bending around Florida and up the Atlantic coast, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

New NASA Image of Gulf Oil Moving Towards Atlantic Ocean

June 6, 2010May 20, 2010 by Infinite

A striking new image released by NASA today shows a massive column of oil extending out Southeast towards the open ocean.

This column has not been visible in any satellite photos taken so far and will change the estimated extent of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Source: The Daily Galaxy

More:

– Worry That Gulf Oil Spreading Into Major Ocean Current

– AP IMPACT: Fed’l Inspections on Rig Not as Claimed:

The federal agency responsible for ensuring that an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was operating safely before it exploded last month fell well short of its own policy that inspections be done at least once per month, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Since January 2005, the federal Minerals Management Service conducted at least 16 fewer inspections aboard the Deepwater Horizon than it should have under the policy, a dramatic fall from the frequency of prior years, according to the agency’s records.

– Gulf of Mexico: Scientists Find Giant Plumes of Oil as Large as 10 Miles Long, 3 Miles Wide And 300 Feet Thick in Deep Waters:

Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day.

– Beyond Stupid: BP CEO Tony Hayward:

“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

– US Oil Spill: Scientists and Fishermen Alarmed Over Chemical Dispersants:

Approximately 325,000 gallons of dispersant have been deployed so far in BP’s effort to break up the spreading oil slick before it hits the fragile Gulf coast, and over 500,000 gallons more are available.

– Rig firm makes $270m profit from Gulf of Mexico oil spill

– US not accepting foreign help on oil spill

– Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: New NOAA Projection Map; BP’s High-Stakes Mission; And More News

– Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: The Halliburton Connection:

The company acknowledged Friday that it had completed the final cementing of the oil well and pipe just 20 hours before the blowout last week.

– US Oil Spill Disaster Is Now ‘Out Of Control’

North Korea Threatens ‘All-Out War’ Over Warship Sinking Report

May 20, 2010 by Infinite

North Korea defied condemnation from the rest of the world over the unprovoked sinking of a South Korean warship, and pledged “all-out war” if any retaliation was taken.

The salvaged South Korean 1,200-tonne corvette Cheonan (REUTERS)

In the most serious attack for over 20 years, a North Korean torpedo was found to be responsible for the sinking of the Cheonan, a 300-ft South Korean warship, which sank on March 26 with the loss of 46 lives.

An official report, carried out by South Korean investigators together with teams from the United States, Britain, Australia and Sweden, said the evidence pointed “overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a North Korean submarine.” It added: “There is no other plausible explanation.”

South Korea vowed “resolute countermeasures” against the North and is likely to appeal to the United Nations for further sanctions on the rogue state.

US Coast Guard Under ‘BP’s Rules,’ CBS News Team Threatened With Arrest

May 20, 2010May 20, 2010 by Infinite

Kelly Cobiella reports that a CBS News team was threatened with arrest by Coast Guard officials in the Gulf of Mexico who said they were acting under the authority of British Petroleum.

Watch CBS News Videos Online
May 18, 2010 4:04 PM

Australia: Travellers laptops and mobile phones to be searched for porn

May 20, 2010May 20, 2010 by Infinite

Australian customs officers have been given new powers to search incoming travellers’ laptops and mobile phones for pornography, a spokeswoman for the Australian sex industry says.

Fiona Patten, president of the Australian Sex Party, is demanding an inquiry into why a new question appears on Incoming Passenger Cards asking people if they are carrying “pornography”.

Patten said officials now had an unfettered right to examine travellers’ electronic devices, marking the beginning of a new era of official investigation into people’s private lives. She questioned whether it was appropriate to search people for legal R18+ and X18+ material.

“Is it fair that customs officers rummage through someone’s luggage and pull out a legal men’s magazine or a lesbian journal in front of their children or their mother-in-law?” she said.

Greek Central Bank Accused of Encouraging Naked Short Selling of Greek Bonds

May 19, 2010 by Infinite

And remember that the biggest Greek CDS speculator has been the state-controlled Hellenic Post Bank with help from (Yes, you are right!) Goldman Sachs:

– State-controlled Hellenic Post Bank (TT) bet against Greece (Kathimerini)

– Fragwürdige Finanzgeschäfte Griechen wetten auf eigene Pleite (Sueddeutsche Zeitung)

The state-controlled Hellenic Post Bank was betting on Greece going bankrupt!

And now…

The Greek central bank in Athens

– Greek central bank hit by short claims (Financial Times):

A former European commissioner has accused Greece’s central bank of encouraging naked short selling of Greek bonds by altering the regulations on its electronic bond trading platform last year.

Vasso Papandreou, a senior deputy in the governing Socialist party, made the charges on Wednesday in a written question to parliament.

She said an extension of the settlement period and the abolition of penalties for failed bond trades had made it easier for speculators to short Greek bonds.

“The Bank of Greece knew the country’s negative fiscal situation. Why did it facilitate the speculation?” asked Ms Papandreou, who is not related to George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister.

Her question, supported by another 10 deputies, reflects growing concern in the Socialist party over an apparent policy contradiction in the handling of Greece’s debt crisis.

“The prime minister launched a truly titanic effort, on a global scale, aimed at unmasking speculators,” she said.

Mr Papandreou claimed the surge in spreads that resulted in Greece seeking a €110bn ($135.4bn, £94.4bn) bail-out last month from its eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund was the result of sustained shorting of Greek bonds by unnamed speculators and hedge funds.

During a visit to the US earlier this year, he called for international sanctions against naked short selling.

The confusion in policy continued for months, although the prime minister regularly met George Provopoulos, governor of the Bank of Greece, and George Papaconstantinou, the finance minister, to discuss the handling of the country’s debt crisis.

The six-page question addressed to Mr Papaconstantinou set out details of measures taken by the central bank last year. The bank first extended the settlement period for transactions on HDAT, the bond trading platform, from Tplus3 (trading plus three days) to Tplus10.

The change was reportedly made in response to a request from the Association of Greek Banks, which represents market-makers in Greek bonds. But it gave short sellers a longer window of opportunity to push down the price of a Greek bond before delivering it on the settlement date, Ms Papandreou said. The central bank also abolished penalties for investors which did not deliver a bond on the settlement date.

The German Government Has Had Enough, Bans Naked Short-Selling (Incl. Gold!)

May 19, 2010 by Infinite

– Market chaos warning after German ban on shorting (Telegraph):

Traders are predicting chaos on the world’s second-largest government bond market after the German authorities on Tuesday announced a ban on all naked short-selling in European public debt, as well as shares in the country’s 10 largest financial institutions.

– Bear Raid In Gold Results in an Historic One Day Liquidation: Höllenmädchen Merkel und die Straßenschreier(Jesse’s Café Américain)

– Swaps Soar on Germany’s ‘Act of Desperation’: Credit Markets (Bloomberg)

Reichstag, Berlin, Germany

If you thought the German government was going to be a lapdog for Sarcozy, or worse, was going to fellate Brussels and the ECB, you got a rude shock today.

It appears that the German Government has just plain had enough of the crap that the banksters have tried to pull, and has decided to do what Barack Obama should have done in early 2009.

That is:

No more naked credit crap, especially against sovereigns but not only against sovereigns. No insurable interest, no CDS – period.
Naked shorting will now be actually stopped in 10 leading financial institutions.
Germany has had it with naked shorting of Gold, and specifically noted bank manipulation of gold prices via naked shorts beyond intent or ability to deliver.
Germany has also said that they’re not going to permit Euro derivatives that are not a “bonafide” FX hedge. That is, no more naked bets on Euro movements either.
Hedge funds are going to be regulated, position size limits mandated and enforced, reporting enhanced and a transaction tax is coming.

It’s about damn time.

Oh, and it appears that instead of telling all the banksters what they were going to do and “getting permission” first, or even discussing it with other governments, the German Government did what all governments should do – make up your mind and then do it without giving a good damn whether the banksters or other governments like it – and without giving them input into the decision or notice that it’s coming.

The bid rigging, the game-playing and the rest are all a bunch of crap. I’ve been hollering about this now for more than three years and yet our government spends it’s time fellating the bankers and their dogs instead of enforcing the law.

Hedge Funds Bet Europe’s $1 Trillion Bailout Won’t Solve Crisis, Forecast Jump in Inflation, Buy Gold

May 19, 2010May 19, 2010 by Infinite

John Paulson, who made $15 billion betting on the subprime trade, is one manager who may not be replicating the CDS trade he used three years ago. Earlier this month, in a conference call with investors, he called Europe’s debt problems “manageable.”

A weaker euro will benefit French and German exporters, he told clients. Like Bass, he’s been forecasting a jump in inflation, which is why he’s been a buyer of gold and gold producers since at least last year.

J. Kyle Bass smiles in the office of his company, Hayman Capital Partners, in Dallas. (Bloomberg)

May 19 (Bloomberg) — Kyle Bass, who made $500 million in 2007 on the U.S. subprime collapse, is betting Europe’s debt crisis won’t be solved by the $1 trillion loan package the International Monetary Fund and European Union agreed on last week.

“The EU and the IMF effectively went all-in with a bad hand in the highest stakes game of financial poker ever played with the world,” wrote Bass, head of Dallas-based Hayman Advisors LP, in a letter to clients sent after the bailout was announced.

Bass bought gold last week and took other steps to position the fund for hyperinflation and a “competitive devaluation” by Europe, Japan and the U.S. that he is forecasting, according to the letter. Christopher Kirkpatrick, general counsel for Hayman, declined to elaborate on the comments.

Thailand: Stock Exchange on Fire; Power Blackouts; Red-Shirt Leaders Surrender; Bangkok Under Curfew

June 24, 2010May 19, 2010 by Infinite

– Thai stock exchange on fire, blackouts hit Bangkok (Reuters):

BANGKOK, May 19 (Reuters) – The Thai stock exchange was on fire and parts of Bangkok were hit by power blackouts on Wednesday as violence continued, even though anti-government protest leaders surrendered and troops said they were in control.

The stock exchange building was on fire, the exchange’s president told Reuters, while witnesses said major tourist hotels had lost power as black smoke billowed around buildings in the Thai capital.

The stock market had closed early due to the violence.

Thai Defence Minister General Pravit Wongsuwan said a curfew may be imposed on Bangkok to deal with continued unrest after troops dispersed anti-government protesters in a major offensive that killed at least four people and wounded 50 others.

– Bangkok burns as Thai Red Shirts run amok after leaders’ surrender (Times):

Bangkok was burning today after Thai protest leaders called a halt to months of anti-government demonstrations leaving their followers to wreak havoc in retreat.

The stock exchange and two shopping centres were set alight after a bloody army assault on the barricaded encampment forced the Red Shirts to surrender. Protesters have also set the offices of TV station Channel 3 on fire, trapping 100 staff in the building.

The dawn offensive left five dead, including an Italian journalist, and dozens more were wounded.

– Thai Government Declares Curfew in Bangkok (Voice of America)

Curfew comes into force in Bangkok

Smoke rises from burning fires in downtown Bangkok, Thailand, following the surrender of anti-government leaders to the police Wednesday, May 19, 2010. The Thai government is attempting to end the two month long standoff with Red Shirt protestors with a massive military crackdown. (AP)

BANGKOK — A night curfew has come into force in Bangkok, the first declared in the Thai capital since 1992.

The 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew was enforced Wednesday following an army assault on the anti-government protesters.

At least six people have been killed and nearly 60 injured in clashes.

The last such curfew was declared in 1992, when the army killed dozens of pro-democracy demonstrators seeking the ouster of a military-backed government.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BANGKOK (AP) — Downtown Bangkok became a flaming battleground Wednesday as an army assault forced anti-government protest leaders to surrender, enraging followers who shot grenades and set fire to landmark buildings, cloaking the skyline in black smoke.

Using live ammunition, troops dispersed thousands of Red Shirt protesters who had been camped in the capital’s premier shopping and residential district for weeks. Five protesters and an Italian news photographer were killed in the ensuing gunbattles and about 60 wounded.

Meltup (Documentary): The Beginning Of A US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation.

May 19, 2010 by Infinite

Added: 13. Mai 2010