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Russian Economy hit by Eurozone contraction

March 6, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Politics, World News

(AFP Photo / Philippe Huguen)

rt.com

The Eurozone economy is edging towards recession as business activity slows. The February shadow came from Italy and Spain. The Russian economy performed better last month, but is expected to be pressed by the Eurozone doom and gloom in the future.

February PMI data – an indicator of business activity – pointed to a drop in the Eurozone economies, causing fears of a continued recession. “A drop in services activity offset a marginal rise in manufacturing production,” the Eurozone PMI report explained.

The PMI Composite output Index for the Eurozone entered negative territory crossing the dividing line between growth and decline. It stood at 49.3 in February, which is a fall from 50.4 in January.

“At this stage, our best estimate is that the region’s GDP will have contracted by 0.1% in the first three months of the year,” commented Chris Williamson, Chief Economist at Markit.

The Eurozone Composite output Index compiled by Markit tracks manufacturing and services at 4,500 companies in the area to provide for a general understanding of the economic environment.

A PMI reading above 50 points to growth, with below 50 pointing to economic contraction. Read the rest of this entry →

Anonymous – Fed Reserve Caught Red Handed

March 4, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Video Perspective

Uploaded by on Feb 25, 2012

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Pensions, free travel and medical cards on IMF hitlist

March 4, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Politics, World News

By Thomas Molloy and Charlie Weston  –  independent.ie

Finance Minister Michael Noonan must still save billions in the next three Budgets even if the economy grows as quickly as the Government hopes

Pensions, free travel and medical cards for the over-70s are being targeted for new cuts.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) now has pensioners in its sights as it believes they have largely escaped the effects of austerity.

The key provider of our bailout cash has told the Government to look at saving money by scrapping some free schemes for the elderly.

It warns that these benefits are wasteful because they benefit rich and poor alike.

Among the schemes are cheap electricity, gas and television licences, plus free travel passes and medical cards.The proposals carry all the more weight because they are in a report that accompanied the IMF’s latest €3.2bn tranche of bailout cash released to the Government this week.

But ministers will blanch at the prospect of sparking another ‘grey revolt’ by cutting any schemes for the country’s 480,000 pensioners. Read the rest of this entry →

A World Bank for a new world

March 4, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, World News

Jeffrey Sachs writes: The world is at a crossroads. Either the global community will join together to fight poverty, resource depletion and climate change, or it will face a generation of resource wars, political instability and environmental ruin.

The World Bank, if properly led, can play a key role in averting these threats and the risks that they imply. The global stakes are thus very high this spring as the Bank’s 187 member countries choose a new president to succeed Robert Zoellick, whose term ends in July.

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The Arrival of the Warrior Corporation – Drones

March 4, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Politics, World News

ElDave (CC-BY)

By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch

This piece originally appeared at TomDispatch.

In the American mind, if Apple made weapons, they would undoubtedly be drones, those remotely piloted planes getting such great press here.  They have generally been greeted as if they were the sleekest of iPhones armed with missiles.

When the first American drone assassins burst onto the global stage early in the last decade, they caught most of us by surprise, especially because they seemed to come out of nowhere or from some wild sci-fi novel.  Ever since, they’ve been touted in the media as the shiniest presents under the American Christmas tree of war, the perfect weapons to solve our problems when it comes to evildoers lurking in the global badlands. Read the rest of this entry →

13 Million Unemployed : Why Aren’t They a Political Force to be Reckoned With?

March 2, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics

By Jenny Brown  -  alternet.org

Unions are still grappling with how to organize the unemployed, including their own ex-members, into a political force.

Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Wrenching testimonies from laid-off workers are overflowing the internet, crying out from the pages of policy reports, and popping up in commercial media. But unions are still grappling with how to organize the unemployed, including their own ex-members, into a political force.

Department of Labor figures for December showed 13.1 million unemployed and actively looking for work, almost half of them for more than six months. Another 8.1 million were working part-time involuntarily, and 2.5 million were too discouraged to look for work.

Unfortunately, unions don’t do a good job of organizing this vast pool, said Tom Lewandowski, who spent nine years on layoff from GE starting in 1975.

Now, as president of the Northeast Indiana Central Labor Council in Fort Wayne, he’s leading an effort to survey unemployed workers, watchdog the county’s economic development, and demand accountability from the unemployment office for laid-off workers struggling to navigate the system. Read the rest of this entry →

Honduras – Resistance Front Forms Political Party

March 1, 2012 in Headline, Politics, World News

Honduras’s National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP) gathered in Tegucigalpa February 11-12 to launch a political party. The name, “Liberation and Re-foundation Party (Libre),” is timely: Honduras is mired in catastrophe.

Its murder rate is the world’s highest. Political violence, crime, militarization, poverty, malnutrition, drug trafficking, and police corruption are overflowing. Landowner thugs kill family farmers; the two-year toll of murdered journalists is 13. The economy shrunk 2.1% in 2009. On February 14 a prison fire killed 350 mostly uncharged and untried inmates. Most died behind doors the police didn’t unlock. Read the rest of this entry →

Britain leads dash to explore for oil in war-torn Somalia

March 1, 2012 in Headline, Politics, World News

and Tariq Abdinasir –  guardian.co.uk

Engineers and visitors tour an exploratory well in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region. Photograph: Reuters

Government offers humanitarian aid and security assistance in the hope of a stake in country’s future energy industry

Britain is involved in a secret high-stakes dash for oil in Somalia, with the government offering humanitarian aid and security assistance in the hope of a stake in the beleaguered country’s future energy industry.

Riven by two decades of conflict that have seen the emergence of a dangerous Islamic insurgency, Somalia is routinely described as the world’s most comprehensively “failed” state, as well as one of its poorest. Its coastline has become a haven for pirates preying on international shipping in the Indian Ocean. Read the rest of this entry →

A small but important SF Rally: Why Greece matters to the Occupy movement.

February 27, 2012 in Editorial, Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, World News

Are the people of Greece being set up “economic hitman” style and could the US be one of the next victims?  About seventy-five of us gathered Friday February 17 at 101 Market Street in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, our home-base.  Green signs dotted the sidewalk with messages such as “IMF out of Greece” and “The people of Greece are sovereign.”  Cars, buses and trolleys passed by, some honking in support.  But today was different than a typical Friday evening at OccupySF, because a speaker from Greece, Maria, stood with a megaphone describing the economic tragedy that Is unfolding for the Greek people, “Children are fainting in schools due to lack of food…this austerity package sets up the country for privatization where the people will have to sell off their water, their sewage, their telecommunications and their natural resources which includes coal and oil.  It will lead to the country’s resources being pillaged.”

As we munched on delicious Greek dolmas donated by a local Café, an Occupy speak-out began on the plight of Greece, and some of our homeless occupiers exhibited knowledge of economics far surpassing the average US citizen.   Mike spoke about the involvement of Goldman Sachs in the derivative swaps that set the country up for failure, and how the signing terms of the austerity measures “literally sell off Greek democracy to private banks and corporations.”  Rob spoke about the parallels with Iceland, a great example of what should happen, and how Wiki-leaks releases showed the corruption and fraud of the bankers, prompting the Icelandic people to denounce the debt.  “We need to prosecute these bankers and get our sovereignty back,” he said.  Derek spoke about how we need alternative structures such as a time-bank/skill-share system to challenge the currency-based system so people can take direct responsibility for what their actions produce, and Nick, a Veteran for peace compared the oppression of the Occupy movement which led to the breaking of his ear-drum by police, to the oppression of the people in Greece. Read the rest of this entry →

March and Rally! Funeral for the Gulf of Mexico! Demands of Government and BP

February 27, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Editorial, Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update, World News

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Mikal NOLA

 

http://www.facebook.com/events/271951906207368/

List of Demands of the Government and BP as a result of the BP oil Disaster:

  1. Revoke the arbitrary cut off dates to file claims: No limit on the filing of claims.
  2. Free public health clinics should be set up in every community impacted by the disaster to facilitate the treatment of those impacted by the chemical poisoning.
  3. The people demand a full and public trial of BP. No settlement! All evidence associated with this trial, documents, tests of marine and human life, and reports should be accessible to the public. We demand full transparency of the government and BP.
  4. The people demand a fair and just outcome of the BP trial, nothing less than 100% compensation for human and marine losses suffered as a result of BP and the government’s criminal negligence and full and ongoing rehab of gulf waters and wetlands.
  5. Ban the use of dispersants, including Corexit. Facilitate the use of green technology to rehab the gulf and wetlands. Facilitate the use of green technology to rehab the gulf and wetlands.
  6. Full disclosure by the U.S. government, BP and NALCO, the company that manufactures Corexit, as to how much Corexit has actually been in the Gulf of Mexico.
  7. NALCO should be held accountable for damages to marine and human life for the use of Corexit.
  8. Seize assets of BP and put them under public control. Those assets will be used toward compensation, health care for all poisoned by the chemicals, green rehabilitation of the Gulf waters and beaches, retraining of oil field workers offer green jobs and fair and just compensation for loss of jobs, and development and production of green energy and technology.
  9. Manage and regulate the oil industry under a democratically elected council of workers, community members and environmental planners.
  10. Massive investment into a public works program to develop and move toward clean, renewable energy and public transpiration to create millions of union jobs and move towards green energy, and end our dependence on fossil fuels.

On the News With Thom Hartmann: Dropping BRICs on the International Monetary Fund, and More

February 26, 2012 in Editorial, Finance, Headline, Update, World News

by: Thom Hartmann, The Thom Hartmann Program

In today’s On the News segment: postal workers are getting shafted, Rahm Emanuel’s public school shock doctrine, Virginia’s “personhood” bill defeated, and more.

Thom Hartmann here – on the news…

You need to know this.  A global power shift is occurring underneath all of us.  With the United States economy still struggling through the muck – and the European economy in complete free fall Read the rest of this entry →

Calls to break US monopoly on World Bank start as Zoellick steps down

February 17, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Politics, World News

by 

The president of the World Bank has traditionally been an American under an informal agreement dating to the founding of the bank 68 years ago – campaigners want this changed

The old alliance of Europe and America faces a huge row with the rest of the world over the identity of the next head of the World Bank, after president Robert Zoellick said on Wednesday he is to leave his post in June.

While his departure had been widely expected, the news kicks off the process of finding a new leader, who has traditionally been an American under an informal agreement dating to the founding of the bank 68 years ago. Speculation has focused on either US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – who is also rumoured to have an eye on a run for the White House – or former Treasury secretary Larry Summers as Zoellick’s likely successor. When Dominique Strauss-Kahn was succeeded by his countrywoman Christine Lagarde at the International Monetary Fund last year, it was widely rumoured that America had agreed to let Europe keep its traditional grip on the IMF – in the face of calls for a candidate from an emerging country – as long as France and other European governments backed Clinton as the new boss of the World Bank when the job came up.

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Noam Chomsky: The Imperial Way

February 16, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Politics, World News

by: Noam Chomsky, TomDispatch

In the years of conscious, self-inflicted decline at home, “losses” continued to mount elsewhere.  In the past decade, for the first time in 500 years, South America has taken successful steps to free itself from western domination, another serious loss. The region has moved towards integration, and has begun to address some of the terrible internal problems of societies ruled by mostly Europeanized elites, tiny islands of extreme wealth in a sea of misery.  They have also rid themselves of all U.S. military bases and of IMF controls.

A newly formed organization, CELAC, includes all countries of the hemisphere apart from the U.S. and Canada.  If it actually functions, that would be another step in American decline, in this case in what has always been regarded as “the backyard.”

Even more serious would be the loss of the MENA countries — Middle East/North Africa — which have been regarded by planners since the 1940s as “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.” Control of MENA energy reserves would yield “substantial control of the world,” in the words of the influential Roosevelt advisor A.A. Berle.

To be sure, if the projections of a century of U.S. energy independence based on North American energy resources turn out to be realistic, the significance of controlling MENA would decline somewhat, though probably not by much: the main concern has always been control more than access.  However, the likely consequences to the planet’s equilibrium are so ominous that discussion may be largely an academic exercise.

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Iran Being Targeted For It’s Banks

February 13, 2012 in Editorial, Finance, Headline, Politics, Update, World News

By Pete Papaherakles

The world's richest family runs the world's banks

Could gaining control of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CBI) be one of the main reasons that Iran is being targeted by Western and Israeli powers? As tensions are building up for an unthinkable war with Iran, it is worth exploring Iran’s banking system compared to its U.S., British and Israeli counterparts.

Some researchers are pointing out that Iran is one of only three countries left in the world whose central bank is not under Rothschild control. Before 9-11 there were reportedly seven: Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. By 2003, however, Afghanistan and Iraq were swallowed up by the Rothschild octopus, and by 2011 Sudan and Libya were also gone. In Libya, a Rothschild bank was established in Benghazi while the country was still at war.

Islam forbids the charging of usury, the practice of charging excessive, unreasonably high, and often illegal interestrates on loans,and that is a major problem for the Rothschild banking system. Until a few hundred years ago usury was also forbidden in the Christian world and was even punishable by death. It was considered exploitation and enslavement.

Since the Rothschilds took over the Bank of England around 1815, they have been expanding their banking control over all the countries of the world. Their method has been to get a country’s corrupt politicians to accept massive loans, which they can never repay, and thus go into debt to the Rothschild banking powers. If a leader refuses to accept the loan, he is oftentimes either ousted or assassinated. And if that fails, invasions can follow, and a Rothschild usury-based bank is established.

The Rothschilds exert powerful influence over the world’s major news agencies. By repetition, the masses are duped into believing horror stories about evil villains. The Rothschilds control the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank of International Settlements. Also they own most of the gold in the world as well as the London Gold Exchange, which sets the price of gold every day. It is said the family owns over half the wealth of the planet—estimated by Credit Suisse to be $231 trillion—and is controlled by Evelyn Rothschild, the current head of the family.

Objective researchers contend that Iran is not being demonized because they are a nuclear threat, just as the Taliban, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Qadaffi were not a threat.

What then is the real reason? Is it the trillions to be made in oil profits, or the trillions in war profits? Is it to bankrupt the U.S. economy, or is it to start World War III? Is it to destroy Israel’s enemies, or to destroy the Iranian central bank so that no one is left to defy Rothschild’s money racket?

It might be any one of those reasons or, worse—it might be all of them.
——
Pete Papaherakles, a U.S. citizen since 1986, was born in Greece. He is AFP’s outreach director.

from  –  americanfreepress.net

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called to account before parliament in Iran

February 8, 2012 in Finance, Headline, Politics, World News

by    –  from guardian.co.uk

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opens a medical production line, in front of a picture of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Photograph: Ay-Collection/Sipa/Rex Features

The Iranian parliament has summoned the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to answer a series of questions over the government’s handling of the economy and his personal judgments.

The move is unprecedented in the history of the Islamic republic.

After a year of internal debate and unsuccessful attempts to question or impeach the president, MPs secured enough signatures for an attempt to summon Ahmadinejad. They succeeded in persuading the parliament’s presiding board to read the motion during Tuesday’s open session.

The move comes at a time of discontent at home owing to western economic sanctions and growing international isolation over Iran‘s nuclear programme. In recent weeks, fears of a major confrontation between Iran and the west have grown.

Within a month of receiving the summons, Ahmadinejad is required by law to appear in the parliament. Otherwise, MPs may impeach him. However, such a decision does not follow automatically either from his failing to attend the session or from his failing to give answers that satisfy parliament.

Local news agencies quoted the deputy head of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, as saying: “Ahmadinejad will be immediately informed about the decision … He has to appear in parliament a month after being officially informed.” Earlier this month, representatives of Ahmadinejad had met with MPs in an attempt to address their concerns about the president. But Mostafa Reza Hosseini, a spokesman for the MPs, told the semi-official Mehr news agency that they “had not been convinced by the answers”, resulting in their summoning the president, in a motion signed by 79 of Iran’s 290 MPs.

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Petrodollar pumping US policy on Iran, backfire looms

February 2, 2012 in Editorial, Finance, Headline, Politics, World News

by Michael T. Winter  -  taken from rt.com

As tensions between the US and Iran heat up, author Michael T. Winter believes the main reason behind America’s harsh stance is Tehran’s move to seek an alternative to the dollar as an oil currency.

An oil field near Pol-e-Dokhtar, Iran

­Economic sanctions, spearheaded by the US and, less willingly, the EU could have a disastrous effect on both of their respective economies.  If Iran cannot sell their oil to Europe, there are plenty of customers waiting in the wings, and if they come bearing not petrodollars, but gold and sovereign currencies, then all the better for Iran.  These sanctions, if enforced, will in effect place a serious dent in the power of the petrodollar.

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