Politics

Video: Air Force’s Killer Bugbots Attack

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The U.S. military has been working for a while on tiny, buglike drones – to serve as miniature flying spies, Defense Department robot-makers say.

But this video, from the Air Force Research Laboratory, shows that the military is also interested in turning these “Micro Air Vehicles,” or MAVs, into biomorphic weapons that can lie in secret for weeks at a time – and then strike an adversary with lethal accuracy.

“Individual MAVs may perform direct-attack missions,” says the video’s gravelly voiced narrator. “They can be equipped with incapacitation chemicals, combustible payloads or even explosives for precision-targeting capability.”

“Individual MAVs may perform direct-attack missions,” says the video’s gravelly voiced narrator. “They can be equipped with incapacitation chemicals, combustible payloads or even explosives for precision-targeting capability.”

Read moreVideo: Air Force’s Killer Bugbots Attack

Japan unveils emergency measures on economy

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Japan unveiled a package of “emergency measures” for its recession-mired economy on Friday, pledging Y4,000bn ($43.8bn) in spending and tax cuts and Y3,000bn in promised credit for companies as well as raising its limit for public fund injections for financial institutions to Y12,000bn.

The move came as the yen went briefly through the much-watched level of Y90 to the dollar to hit a 13-year-high against the US currency, fuelling concern about the prospects for exporters, the traditional engine of Japanese growth.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 shares average ended the day down 5.6 per cent.

“The market was shocked, and I was shocked to see the dollar fall below Y90 today,” Shoichi Nakagawa, finance minister, told a press conference amid strong speculation that Tokyo would move to hold down the yen.

However, asked if Tokyo might intervene in the currency markets, Mr Nakagawa said: “[Intervention] isn’t in my mind at all.”

Read moreJapan unveils emergency measures on economy

Greece’s riots are a sign of the economic times

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“The government has tried hard not to connect what is happening with the problems of young people. The government says one boy died, his friends are angry, they over-reacted then anarchists came to join in the game. But this is not the reality.”

“Because of unemployment, a quarter of those under 25 are below the poverty line,” said Petros Linardos, an economist at the Labour Institute of the Greek trade unions. “That percentage has been increasing for the past 10 years. There is a diffused, widespread feeling that there are no prospects. This is a period when everyone is afraid of the future because of the economic crisis. There is a general feeling that things are going to get worse. And there is no real initiative from the government.”
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Greece’s riots are a sign of the economic times. Other countries should beware, says Peter Popham in Athens


Youths try to break into the Greek Interior Ministry on Thursday night

After firing 4,600 tear-gas canisters in the past week, the Greek police have nearly exhausted their stock. As they seek emergency supplies from Israel and Germany, still the petrol bombs and stones of the protesters rain down, with clashes again outside parliament yesterday.

Bringing together youths in their early twenties struggling to survive amid mass youth unemployment and schoolchildren swotting for highly competitive university exams that may not ultimately help them in a treacherous jobs market, the events of the past week could be called the first credit-crunch riots. There have been smaller-scale sympathy attacks from Moscow to Copenhagen, and economists say countries with similarly high youth unemployment problems such as Spain and Italy should prepare for unrest.

Read moreGreece’s riots are a sign of the economic times

US calls on Europe to take Guantánamo inmates

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Are the US afraid that they treated those people so bad that they might have created some ‘real terrorists’?
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More than a fifth of the 250 remaining inmates face persecution or death if they are sent back home

America is putting increasing pressure on Britain and other European countries to take in dozens of Guantánamo detainees so that Barack Obama can close down the infamous prison camp.

The issue threatens to be an early test of relations with the President-elect, who has stated that shutting Guantánamo will be one of the top priorities for his incoming administration.

John Bellinger, the chief legal adviser to Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, told The Times that the US had been seeking help from European allies in resettling detainees who were regarded as posing no threat to the West but could not be sent back to their own countries.

A senior State Department official confirmed that the response from Britain and most European Union members had been to refuse. Mr Bellinger said: “It is not helpful for countries to keep calling for the closure of Guantánamo while doing nothing to enable us to do it.”

More than a fifth of the 250 remaining Guantánamo inmates are Chinese, Libyan, Russian, Tunisian or Uzbek nationals who might face persecution or death if they are sent back home. Albania has taken in a handful of Uighurs, who are part of an Islamic separatist movement in a remote western region of China, and Portugal said this week that it was ready to provide a home for others. Luis Amado, the Foreign Minister, said: “The time has come for the European Union to step forward.”

Read moreUS calls on Europe to take Guantánamo inmates

Obama team blocked from documents on torture, wiretapping

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The Justice Department has evaded a request from President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team for documents about the secret programs of U.S. intelligence agencies.

The team asked to “review classified legal opinions related to secret CIA and National Security Agency programs,” but the inquiry has been denied.

Among the information requested are official documents about the “legal rationale” for the secret wiretapping and torture programs conducted by the two agencies.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey addressed the issue with reporters, saying that his department was reluctant to give up the documents without permission from the two gencies involved.

Read moreObama team blocked from documents on torture, wiretapping

Barack Obama’s administration to stay deeply involved in the Middle East, says Gates

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Gates warns enemies not to test Obama

MANAMA (Reuters) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned the United States’ enemies on Saturday against trying to take advantage of the early months of the new Washington administration to test U.S. resolve.

Gates also said the United States would stay deeply involved in the Middle East and the Gulf under Barack Obama’s administration.

“I can assure you that a change in administration does not alter our fundamental interests, especially in the Middle East,” he told a regional security conference in Bahrain.

Read moreBarack Obama’s administration to stay deeply involved in the Middle East, says Gates

Ecuadorean President Correa: The country is in default

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Correa Defaults on Ecuador Bonds, Seeks Restructuring

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) — Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa halted payment on foreign bonds he calls “illegal” and “illegitimate,” putting the South American country in default for a second time in a decade.

The government won’t make a $30.6 million interest payment by Dec. 15, when a monthlong grace period expires, Correa told reporters in his office in Guayaquil. The $510 million bonds due in 2012 plunged to 23 cents on the dollar from 31 yesterday and 97.5 cents three months ago.

“I have given the order that interest payments not be made,” Correa said. “The country is in default.”

By defaulting, Correa, a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, fulfills a threat he has made since a 2006 presidential campaign that ended in a landslide victory. His decision comes as a deepening global economic slump throttles demand for oil, the country’s biggest export. Ecuador, which defaulted in 1999, owes about $10 billion to bondholders, multilateral lenders and other countries.

“I couldn’t allow the continued payment of a debt that by all measures is immoral and illegitimate,” Correa said. “It is now time to bring in justice and dignity.”

Read moreEcuadorean President Correa: The country is in default

Hyperinflation and then The Second Great Depression

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A future out of control, bankrupt financial institutions trying to hold on, limitation on credit severely limits ability of the economy to start up again, debt totally embraces our lives, handouts a state secret, soon cash infusions wont work for banks anymore, banks hold too much toxic garbage to even know if they are solvent. We are now 17 months into a credit crisis that continues to expose the corruption and incompetence of government, banking, Wall Street and transnational corporations. The situation has not stabilized and it won’t anytime soon. All we see are sweetheart deals for elitist corporations for which American taxpayers will pay for years to come. The future of our nation is totally out of control. For the last eight years our economy has been running on something for nothing, lies and deceit. The result will be hyperinflation and then the Second Great Depression.

Read moreHyperinflation and then The Second Great Depression

Federal Reserve Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion

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“We do not tell you what we are doing, but you have to pay for it.”

What would you do to someone that breaks into your house and is stealing your money?(I know, it isn’t really ‘your’ money anyway, but that is another story.)

That is exactly what the Fed is doing. The Fed is also stealing the value of your money. Inflation is a ‘hidden tax’.

You don’t have to study economics to understand what these banksters are doing, although it was helpful for me.

Hyperinflation is coming. The government and the Fed are bankrupting the US.

Remember just a few months ago when they told you that ‘the economy is sound’?

Listen to Ron Paul, Peter Schiff and Jim Rogers and prepare yourself for the worst.

This article is a must read.
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Vehicles are parked outside the U.S. Federal Reserve building in Washington, Dec. 4, 2008. Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/Bloomberg News

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests.

“If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know,” said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets.

Read moreFederal Reserve Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion

Obama to Offer Israel Nuclear Umbrella Against Iran

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Change is great and evolutionary, but not in the mouth of a politician.
When does a politician lie? Every time he opens his mouth.
(There are exceptions like Ron Paul.)


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U.S. president-elect will offer Israel a strategic pact designed to fend off any nuclear attack on the Jewish state by Iran, an Israeli newspaper reports.

President-elect Barack Obama will offer Israel a strategic pact designed to fend off any nuclear attack on the Jewish state by Iran, an Israeli newspaper reported on Thursday.

Haaretz, quoting an unnamed source, said the Obama administration would pledge under the proposed “nuclear umbrella” to respond to any Iranian strike on Israel with a “devastating U.S. nuclear response.”

Read moreObama to Offer Israel Nuclear Umbrella Against Iran

Germany attacks ‘depressing’ UK economic rescue

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Germany has lambasted Gordon Brown’s response to the economic crisis as “crass” and “depressing” in an astonishing attack as EU leaders prepare to debate how to recover from the recession in Brussels today.

Peer Steinbruck, the social democrat German finance minister, warned that it would take Britain a generation to pay for the huge financial stimulus introduced by the government in its attempt to kick-start the economy.

Mr Steinbruck’s comments emerged as Mr Brown prepared to join European Union leaders at two-day summit where they are to debate a €200 billion EU-wide stimulus package aimed at fighting an economic downturn.

Mr Steinbruck, who has resisted pressure from Brussels, London and Paris to commit Europe’s biggest economy to a similarly large increase in borrowing, ridiculed Mr Brown’s gamble of cutting VAT to stimulate spending.

Read moreGermany attacks ‘depressing’ UK economic rescue

Panel blames White House, not soldiers, for abuse

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The physical and mental abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was the direct result of Bush administration detention policies and should not be dismissed as the work of bad guards or interrogators, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Thursday.

The Senate Armed Services Committee report concludes that harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA and the U.S. military were directly adapted from the training techniques used to prepare special forces personnel to resist interrogation by enemies that torture and abuse prisoners. The techniques included forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, and until 2003, waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.

The report is the result of a nearly two-year investigation that directly links President Bush’s policies after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, legal memos on torture, and interrogation rule changes with the abuse photographed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq four years ago. Much of the report remains classified. Unclassified portions of the report were released by the committee Thursday.

Read morePanel blames White House, not soldiers, for abuse

Schwarzenegger: California faces financial Armageddon unless lawmakers take decisive action

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California’s budget deficit this year has ballooned to nearly $15 billion, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday, warning that the state faces “financial Armageddon” unless lawmakers take decisive action.

The projection of a $14.8 billion gap at the end of the fiscal year in June surfaced just a month after the governor announced an $11.2 billion shortfall, and the deteriorating economy is likely to make the problem even worse next year, Schwarzenegger said.

Without action this year, the state could be staring at a deficit as great as $40 billion by June 2010, an administration official said. Schwarzenegger is expected to share the bad news with legislative leaders in a budget negotiating meeting today.

“If we don’t put aside our ideological differences and negotiate to solve this problem, we’ll be heading toward our financial Armageddon,” Schwarzenegger said at a hastily called news conference at the state Capitol.

Read moreSchwarzenegger: California faces financial Armageddon unless lawmakers take decisive action

Iran to send relief ship to Gaza

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A Palestinian woman carries branches to be used as cooking fuel

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran’s Red Crescent announced on Wednesday that it is sending a relief ship to the Gaza Strip, in the face of an Israeli blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory.

“We are sending a consignment of a 1,000 tonnes on a ship to Gaza the beginning of next week,” Red Crescent secretary general Ahmad Moussavi was quoted as saying on the organisation’s website.

“There is the possibility of our ship being blocked just as the Libyan ship was blocked,” he added referring to a vessel intercepted by Israel a month ago.

Libya protested to the UN Security Council over Israel’s interception of the cargo ship, which had sought to take 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Israel said that because Libya does not recognise it, the interception was justified on grounds of national security.

Read moreIran to send relief ship to Gaza

World Bank’s Wrong Advice Left Silos Empty in Poor Countries

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Pedestrians walk past the abandoned San Martin grain silos in San Salvador, on July 22, 2008. Photographer: Alejandra Parra/Bloomberg News

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — Inside and out, the rusted towers of El Salvador’s biggest grain silo show how the World Bank helped push developing countries into the global food crisis.

Inside, the silo, which once held thousands of tons of beans and cereals, is now empty. It was abandoned in 1991, after the bank told Salvadoran leaders to privatize grain storage, import staples such as corn and rice, and export crops including cocoa, coffee and palm oil.

Outside, where Rosa Maria Chavez’s food stand is propped against a tower wall, price increases for basic grains this year whittled business down to 16 customers a day from 80.

“It’s a monument to the mess we are in now,” says Chavez, 63.

About 40 million people joined the ranks of the undernourished this year, bringing the estimate of the world’s hungry to 963 million of its 6.8 billion people, the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said yesterday. The growth didn’t come just from natural causes.

Read moreWorld Bank’s Wrong Advice Left Silos Empty in Poor Countries

Federal Reserve Banksters Have New Ideas

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Source: Wall Street Journal

Source of emphases and illustration: Jesse’s Café Américain

Fed Weighs Debt Sales of Its Own


The Federal Reserve drained $25 billion in temporary reserves from the banking system when it arranged overnight reverse repurchase agreements.

Move Presents Challenges: ‘Very Close Cousins to Existing Treasury Bills’

The Federal Reserve is considering issuing its own debt for the first time, a move that would give the central bank additional flexibility as it tries to stabilize rocky financial markets.

Government debt issuance is largely the province of the Treasury Department, and the Fed already can print as much money as it wants. But as the credit crisis drags on and the economy suffers from recession, Fed officials are looking broadly for new financial tools.

The Federal Reserve drained $25 billion in temporary reserves from the banking system when it arranged overnight reverse repurchase agreements.

Fed officials have approached Congress about the concept, which could include issuing bills or some other form of debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

It isn’t known whether these preliminary discussions will result in a formal proposal or Fed action. One hurdle: The Federal Reserve Act doesn’t explicitly permit the Fed to issue notes beyond currency.

Read moreFederal Reserve Banksters Have New Ideas

U.K. May Expand Toolkit to Halt Recession Slide

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The government and the Bank(sters) of England are intentionally ruining what is left of the economy and what is left of trust in the currency. Britain has become a worse credit risk than McDonald’s. The U.S. will fail and the U.K. is doing everything to follow suit. Who will pay for those billions of pounds? The government has to raise taxes or has to issue more bonds, which are nothing more than a promise to raise taxes in the future, because that money has to be paid back plus interest. Creating billions of pounds out of ‘thin air’ will further weaken the pound and will create massive inflation, which is nothing more than a ‘hidden tax’. The taxpayers will have to pay for all of it until the taxpayers will finally fail.
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The Bank of England

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — The U.K. government and central bank are considering plans to pump billions of pounds into the economy as the bank rescue package and the lowest interest rates since 1951 fail to halt a slide into recession.

The Bank of England and the Treasury are weighing a strategy known as “quantitative easing” where authorities increase money supply to boost bank reserves. The initiative was last used by Japan at the start of the decade.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government is frustrated that banks are rationing credit after tapping the Treasury for cash and guarantees to prop up their own balance sheets. Policy makers both in the U.K. and the U.S. Federal Reserve are looking beyond traditional interest-rate tools to revive the economy.

Read moreU.K. May Expand Toolkit to Halt Recession Slide

Britain worse credit risk than McDonald’s

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Britain has become a worse credit risk than McDonald’s and a host of other large companies, figures produced for The Independent reveal.

The collapse in Britain’s credit rating has taken place over the past two and a half months, since the Government underwrote the banking system and decided to spend its way out of recession. Investing in UK government debt is now almost twice as risky as buying McDonald’s corporate bonds, according to the market in credit default swaps (CDS), which provides insurance for the buyers of such debt.

The government debt of large economies such as the UK would normally be considered far more secure than corporate bonds. However, on 29 September, the cost of buying insurance against default on UK five-year government debt became more expensive than the equivalent cover for the US burger chain and has since overtaken Kellogg’s and Coca-Cola, according to data from Bloomberg.

The cost of insuring British debt soared on that day, as the Government nationalised Bradford & Bingley, increasing fears that the state would have to bail out the banking system.

The cost of insuring for a year against default on £10m of five-year UK debt has jumped from less than £30,000 to £120,000, compared with the current price of £77,000 to protect against a similar McDonald’s default.

Read moreBritain worse credit risk than McDonald’s

Six Afghan police killed in US mistake

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US Special Forces killed six Afghan police and wounded at least 11 today in a case of mistaken identity after the police fired on the Americans during an operation against an insurgent commander, officials said.

A US military statement said police fired on the American forces after the troops battled and killed an armed militant in the city of Qalat, the capital of the southern province of Zabul. The Americans returned fire on the police but only later learned their identities.

“Coalition forces deeply regret the incident of mistaken fire,” said Col. Jerry O’Hara, a US military spokesman. “Initial reports indicate this was a tragic case of mistaken identity on both parts.”

Gulab Shah Alikhail, the province’s deputy governor, said US Special Forces carried out an operation in a small village near a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Qalat. The police, thinking it was a Taliban attack, opened fire, he said. Then a helicopter fired on the security post and destroyed it, he said.

The attack collapsed the police station’s roof and damaged a civilian home nearby, said Gilani Khan, the deputy provincial police chief.

“Unfortunately, the Special Forces didn’t inform the police that they were going to the village,” Alikhail said.

Read moreSix Afghan police killed in US mistake

Change you can believe in – from a city long steeped in corruption

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Barack Obama won a convincing victory in the US presidential election as the man who could deliver “change you can believe in”.

The President-elect emerged, however, from a city where political corruption has been rife since before the time of the gangster Al Capone. As Robert Grant, the FBI agent who arrested Mr Blagojevich, said yesterday: “If [Illinois] is not the most corrupt state in the United States, it is certainly one hell of a competitor.”

Mr Blagojevich is the fifth Illinois governor to be indicted for white-collar crime since 1960. Three of his predecessors were convicted.

What makes the prosecution of Mr Blagojevich potentially nettlesome to Mr Obama is the President-elect’s lengthy relationship with the Syrian-born fixer Tony Rezko. During the election campaign, the US press largely turned a blind eye to Mr Obama’s ties to Rezko, who was convicted in June of running a scheme where companies seeking state business had to pay kickbacks to him or Illinois politicians. The “pay-to-play” schemes form the basis of some of the allegations against Mr Blagojevich.

Mr Obama has admitted that Rezko was a friend – but was also one of his earliest campaign contributors when he began his political career in state politics in the mid-1990s.

An associate of Rezko told The Times that Mr Obama telephoned Rezko frequently during this period to discuss state politics. Mr Obama had already graduated to national politics, by winning a US Senate seat, when he enlisted Rezko’s help in buying his current house in 2005 at a $300,000 (£200,000) discount.

Read moreChange you can believe in – from a city long steeped in corruption

Zimbabwe: Dead people are better off

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Johannesburg – “Dead people are better off. They don’t need water or sadza (maize porridge). They’re just lying there nicely in their graves.”

Sitting on the stone floor of her bare home in Harare, a Zimbabwean woman poignantly expresses the desperation of millions of Zimbabweans stalked by starvation and disease.

Dinner for this woman, whose name is not given in the 15-minute film on Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis screened by Solidarity Peace Trust non-governmental organisation in Johannesburg on Tuesday, is a sachet of juice.

In another scene, a mother holds aloft a wailing baby, its eyes swollen shut, the skin peeling off its stubby legs. The baby is severely malnourished.

The images in the film entitled Death of a Nation, which record the slow strangulation of a population by a government hell-bent on retaining power, were taken between September and November this year.

They show a failed state where women in rural areas pick through withered trees for berries to keep their families alive because they can no longer afford a bag of maize meal.

And families telling of how they spent the day holding up a drip in an overcrowded clinic for a relative infected with cholera only to watch them die for lack of medication.

Over half Zimbabwe’s population of 12 million cannot adequately feed itself, stratospheric inflation means a tub of margarine costs US$9.65 and hundreds are dying of cholera, an easily preventable disease.

Read moreZimbabwe: Dead people are better off

Greece hit by 5th day of violence, general strike; Clashes outside parliament

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Protesters throw stones at policemen guarding Greece’s parliament in Athens December 10, 2008. REUTERS/Yiorgos Karahalis

ATHENS (Reuters) – Protesters threw fire bombs at police outside parliament on Wednesday during a general strike which paralyzed Greece and piled pressure on a conservative government reeling from the worst riots in decades.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis announced financial support for businesses damaged in five days of rioting. He also pledged to safeguard people from violence, but did not say how.

Government sources have denied rumors emergency measures were being considered.

“Government murderers!” demonstrators shouted, furious at the shooting of a teenager by police on Saturday which sparked riots fueled by simmering public anger at political scandals, rising unemployment and poverty.

Read moreGreece hit by 5th day of violence, general strike; Clashes outside parliament

Pakistan: We’re ready for war with India

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Pakistan warned it is ready for war with India if it is attacked following the strike by the Mumbai terrorists.


A peace vigil in honour of those who died in the Mumbai attacks is held in the Indian city of Bhopal Photo: Reuters

The remarks by Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who also insisted he would not hand over any suspects in the Mumbai attacks, come amid mounting tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

India has said it is keeping all options open following last month’s carnage by the Mumbai terrorists, who killed more than 170 people.

“We do not want to impose war, but we are fully prepared in case war is imposed on us,” said Mr Qureshi.

“We are not oblivious to our responsibilities to defend our homeland. But it is our desire that there should be no war.”

Indian officials say the hardline Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, which is based in Pakistan despite being banned by the government, is behind the bloodshed, and Indian media have suggested there could be Indian strikes on militant camps.

Mr Qureshi said he was sending “a very clear message” that his country did not want conflict with India.

“We want friendship, we want peace and we want stability – but our desire for peace should not be considered Pakistan’s weakness.”

Read morePakistan: We’re ready for war with India