Archive for July 26, 2010
IDF destroys West Bank village after declaring it military zone
July 26, 2010 | 
Author Since 1967, Israel has prevented the growth of Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley by cutting off their water supply or declaring large areas as live fire zones.
By Amira Hass
The IDF’s Civil Administration destroyed a Palestinian village Monday morning that had earlier been cleared out when its water supply was cut off.
The IDF demolished about 55 structures in the West Bank village of Farasiya, including tents, tin shacks, plastic and straw huts, clay ovens, sheep pens and bathrooms. These structures served the 120 farmers, hired workers and their families who lived in the Jordan Valley village.
The Civil Administration said they had declared the area a live fire zone and posted eviction orders for 10 families in tents on June 27.
“Since no appeal was filed in the following three weeks, and given the danger posed by the location of the tents, they were removed,” they said in response.
The villagers made a living by sheep farming and working land owned by families in the town of Tubas. Some of them have been living in Farasiya for decades.
A packaging warehouse that was built together with Agrexco in the late 1970s was also torn down.
Atef Abu al-Rob, a photographer for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, who arrived at the village hours after the demolition, said mattresses, pipes and broken furniture were lying on the ground in the debris.
Since 1967, Israel has prevented Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley from growing, whether by cutting off their water supply, declaring large areas as live fire zones or banning all construction.
About a year ago the IDF set up hundreds of warning signs near Palestinian farming communities, marking them closed military areas. Such a sign was set up at the entrance to Farasiya.
The families had recently been forced to leave the village when the Israeli authorities cut it off from its water sources, said the popular committees’ coordinator in the valley, Fathi Hadirat. The villagers were forbidden to use the water wells the Mekorot Water Company had dug in the area.
Hadirat said a few years ago the Civil Administration destroyed the pipe the villages had laid from a nearby stream used for drinking water and irrigation.
Since then they have been watering the sheep and fields with water unfit for human consumption, pumped from a salt water source. They received drinking water in tanks.
About four months ago the IDF confiscated their pumps. On Sunday, 10 families from Bardala, a village north of Farasiya, were given demolition notices.
A farmer who owns 300 sheep was told to leave in 24 hours or his herd would be confiscated.
A Palestinian man inspecting the remains of his tent, destroyed by the IDF on July 19, 2010.
Photo by: AP
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Oliver Stone: Jewish control of the media is preventing free Holocaust debate
Outspoken Hollywood director says new film aims to put Adolf Hitler, who he has called an ‘easy scapegoat’ in the past, in his due historical context.
By Haaretz Service
Jewish control of the media is preventing an open discussion of the Holocaust, prominent Hollywood director Oliver Stone told the Sunday Times, adding that the U.S. Jewish lobby was controlling Washington’s foreign policy for years.
Oliver Stone. Photo by: AP
In the Sunday interview, Stone reportedly said U.S. public opinion was focused on the Holocaust as a result of the “Jewish domination of the media,” adding that an upcoming film of him aims to put Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin “in context.”
“There’s a major lobby in the United States,” Stone said, adding that “they are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington.”
The famed Hollywood director of such films as Platoon and JFK, also said that while “Hitler was a Frankenstein,” there was also a “Dr Frankenstein.”
“German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support,” Stone told the
Sunday Times, adding that “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million killed].”
Clif High – Heads up please…
[Halfpasthuman.com]
Heads up please. In working through the longer term data, i had to go through some of the last of the immediacy stuff due to cross links. Within the immediacy data sets there are clear indications of a major [damaging] earthquake on west coast of america (MOST likely
north america due to angular momentum issues of planetary alignment) and more probably than not, in the PNW perhaps down to mid CA. This quake shows as being completed with problems, *such as yet more [wedding interruptions] by August 3, however the data accretion patterns point to the last two days of July as the point of impact and largest number of after shocks. Damages are indicated to include [roadways] and [bridges] such that [transportation/movement] is [restricted (in some places)] for months afterward. Water flows are also to be affected and even altered for long time (months/years) which is how i found it. By noting the odd number of longer term indicators for [water pathways change] in the data accretion patterns for November and onward in 2010. A significant majority of these traced back to something in the immediacy data that turned out to be this pending earthquake in very late July.
Probably i am wrong though. In any case thought to let y’all know. Will try to speak to George Noory about it tonight (7/26/2010) on Coast to Coast AM. Probably just because i do this, it wont happen. Here’s hoping pies bake without interruption.
clif (posted 7/26/2010)
[Source: Halfpasthuman.com]
Matthew Simmons: Lightning Rod for Gulf Oil Controversy
Matthew Simmons has made a lot of big claims about the oil spill (see videos below).
Because of his background, Simmons has been interviewed repeatedly in television, newspaper and radio media. Simmons was an energy adviser to President George W. Bush, is an adviser to the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, and is a member of the National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations, and is former chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, an investment bank catering to oil companies.
People have become polarized around Simmons as a lightning rod. For example, people who believe all of Simmons’ claims believe that anyone who questions any of Simmons’s claims is working for BP. On the other extreme, people who think Simmons has gone senile or is simply talking his book (he’s short BP) tar and feather anyone who questions BP’s version of the Gulf narrative as being a crazy Simmons follower.
So let’s assess Simmons’ claims one-by-one. And – more importantly – let’s refocus the discussion away from one person and towards the Gulf itself (Simmons himself will either be vindicated, proven off-base, or something in between. But that is his personal concern, not ours).
BP’s stock Will Go to Zero
Simmons predicts that BP’s stock will go to zero. he might be right. Fines under the Clean Water Act are $4,300 per barrel of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. And civil and criminal damages could be substantial.
But BP has been doing everything in its power to lowball the amount of oil spilled into the Gulf (and see this), even though it easily could have easily quantified how much oil is spilling. If the government allows BP to get away with lowballing the spill number, the fines won’t bankrupt BP.
Similarly, if the government let’s BP maintain its $75 million liability cap on economic damages, let’s BP hide the extent of the damage to the Gulf (see this and this), to perform only a superficial clean up of the Gulf and fails to press criminal charges (or let’s BP off with a slap on the wrist), then BP might survive by selling assets.
And remember, BP is still one of the largest suppliers of oil to the U.S. military. See this and this.
In addition, Gordon T. Long argues that the failure of BP would have a greater affect on the U.S. economy than the failure of Lehman.
So some say that – even if it’s wrong – BP will be considered “too big to fail” and will be bailed out.
There is a “Lake of Oil” in the Gulf
Simmons claims there is a “lake of oil” in the Gulf, 30 feet thick and miles long.
I don’t know about this claim, but scientists have found giant underwater plumes, and NOAA has just announced traces of oil 30 meters thick stretching for quite a ways. See this, this, this and this. Specifically, because millions of gallons of Corexit have been applied, many solid plumes have been broken up into giant bodies of solution … mixtures of water, oil, methane and dispersant.
But these solutions can contain levels of oil and other chemicals which are at or near the levels which are toxic to marine life (see below).
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange: more revelations to come
Whistleblowing site Wikileaks says it has a ‘backlog’ of further secret material after publication of Afghanistan war logs
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said he hoped for an ‘age of the whistleblower’. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian
The Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, said today that the organisation is working through a “backlog” of further secret material and was expecting a “substantial increase in submissions” from whistleblowers after one of the biggest leaks in US military history.
Speaking in London after his website published more than 92,000 classified military logs relating to the war in Afghanistan, Assange said that he hoped for an “age of the whistleblower” in which more people would come forward with information they believed should be published.
Assange said that the site, which currently operates with a small dedicated team but has a network of about 800 volunteers, had a “backlog” of more material which only “just scratched the surface”.
While he would not be drawn into commenting on the nature of the material, he said that the organisation held “several million files” that “concern every country in the world with a population over 1 million”.
He said the site had undergone a “publishing haitus” since December during a period of re-engineering. Assange suggested a clear step-up of operations and said that there were difficulties in changing from a small to large organisation while ensuring it would still be able to work in a secure way.
“My greatest fear is that we will be too successful too fast and won’t be able to do justice to the material,” he said.
He said that from past experience the organisation was expecting more material to add to the backlog. He said that after the site leaked details of one incident that killed 51 people in Afghanistan, “we received substantial increase in submissions”.
“Courage is contagious,” he added. “Sources are encouraged by the opportunities they see in front of them.”
He said that a further 15,000 potentially sensitive reports had been excluded from today’s leak and were being were being reviewed further. He said some of this material would be released once it was deemed safe to do so. He added that the majority of this material was threat reports and that it included more than 50 embassy cables.
Assange’s plans will cause concern in government agencies, which argue that the site’s leaks are “irresponsible” and pose a threat to military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere. But Assange and said that the site applied “harm minimisation” procedures before publishing material.
“We don’t do things in an ad hoc way,” he said. We’ve tried hard to make sure that it puts no innocents at harm. This material is over seven months old so it’s of no operational significance, although it’s significant for journalistic investigation.”
The Regime’s War on Food
by William Norman Grigg
Screenshot of video taken during the armed raid on Rawsome Foods
Many thousands of years ago, two men came across a dairy cow, a beast neither had previously beheld.
One of them, seeking to impress the other, pointed to the creature’s udder and declared: “You see those things dangling from the underside of that animal? Well, I’m going to squeeze one of them and drink whatever comes out of it!”
According to the late and much-missed George Carlin, that nameless daredevil was the bravest man who ever lived. He was also exceptionally fortunate, since he was able to consume raw milk, and even extol its nutritional benefits, without running the risk of imprisonment.
“I drink raw milk, sold illegally on the underground black market,” admits organic farmer and polymath Joel F. Salatin in the foreword to David Gumpert’s book The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle over Food Rights. “I grew up on raw milk, from our own Guernsey cows that our family hand-milked twice a day. We made yogurt, ice cream, butter and cottage cheese. All through high school in the early 1970s, I sold our homemade yogurt, butter, buttermilk, and cottage cheese at the curb market on Saturday mornings.”
This was possible only because our rulers — who plunder our earnings to subsidize production of government-approved toxins such as high fructose corn syrup, and don’t hesitate to confer the “safe foods” label on Twinkies and other hydrogenated wads of incremental death — hadn’t yet decided to protect us from the scourge of unprocessed natural foods, such as raw milk.
That oversight has since been corrected. As a result, explains Salatin, home dairy producers like the family in which he grew up are forbidden to sell their products at a contemporary farmer’s market.
It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the Regime is conducting a low-grade war against producers and consumers of raw milk — a campaign that bears an undeniable family resemblance to the murderous, decades-long farce called the War on Drugs. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that a government presuming to dictate to us what mood-altering substances we can consume would likewise presume to tell us what foods we can eat and offer to others.
David Icke – The Experience
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European police to spy on Britons: Now ministers hand over Big Brother powers to foreign officers
New powers: Police officers from European countries could soon be able to spy on and arrest Britons in the UK
Ministers are ready to hand sweeping Big Brother powers to EU states so they can spy on British citizens.
Foreign police will be able to travel to the UK and take part in the arrest of Britons.
They will be able to place them under surveillance, bug telephone conversations, monitor bank accounts and demand fingerprints, DNA or blood samples.
Anyone who refuses to comply with a formal request for co-operation by a foreign-based force is likely to be arrested by UK officers.
The move will spark a damaging row with backbench Tory MPs opposed to giving such draconian powers to Brussels.
The Tories were opposed to the directive in opposition, saying it showed a ‘relish for surveillance and disdain for civil liberties’.
But ministers have made a dramatic U-turn since joining the pro-EU Lib Dems in government, and the wide-ranging powers are due to be approved later this week.
According to the campaign group Fair Trials International, under the new rules it would be possible, for example, for Spanish police investigating a murder in a nightclub to demand the ID of every British citizen who flew to the country in the month the offence took place.
They could also force the UK to search its DNA database – which contains nearly one million innocent people – and send samples belonging to anybody who was in Spain at the time.
This could leave an entirely innocent person facing an agonising battle to establish his or her innocence.
Tory MP Dominic Raab, who has campaigned against the power grab, said: ‘This sweeping directive would put serious operational strains on hard-pressed UK police forces.
‘There are scant safeguards to protect the personal information of law-abiding British citizens. These serious issues should be properly debated in Parliament before the UK decides to opt in.’
Anger Rises Over U.S. Tax Dollars for Settlements
By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, Jul 24, 2010 (IPS) – Anger has arisen in Palestinian areas over reports that millions of tax-exempt dollars from the U.S. are being funneled towards Israel’s illegal settlement building in the Palestinian West Bank — in flagrant violation of international law.
This is happening under the nose of the U.S. administration despite its claims of support for a two-state solution and criticism of Israel’s continued settlement building.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in Ramallah has expressed outrage. “Adhering to international law is a big step towards holding Israel accountable for its actions,” PA spokesman Ghassan Khatib told IPS from the Muqata (government) headquarters in Ramallah.
“Settlements violate international law, and the United States is supposed to be sponsoring a two-state solution, yet it gives deductions for donation to the settlements,” said Saeb Erekat the PA’s chief negotiator.
According to a recent report in The New York Times 40 U.S. groups have raised more than 200 million dollars in tax-deductable donations for Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the last ten years. U.S. tax rules prohibit the use of charitable funds for political purposes at home or abroad.
But U.S. tax laws encourage citizens to support non-profit groups whose ideologies might diverge from official government policy as long as their missions are educational, religious or charitable. Religious groups have no obligation to divulge their finances, meaning settlements may be receiving sums that cannot be traced.
Direct donations to foreign charities are illegal but the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allows donations to U.S. non-profit organisations which support charitable projects abroad. This is how many “clearing house companies” based in the U.S. are able to send the money to help finance and support the settlements.
[more...]
Israel’s harassment of citizens could ignite uprising, warns Arab politician
• State playing with fire, says member of Knesset
• Zoabi cites anti-democracy bills as ‘undermining’
The Arabic Knesset politician Haneen Zoabi is heckled in parliament last month after participating in the flotilla that aimed to ship aid to Gaza. Photograph: AP
Israel could ignite a third intifada if it continues to push its 1.2 million Arab citizens into a corner, claims Haneen Zoabi, the Arab member of the Knesset vilified for joining the Gaza aid flotilla.
Zoabi, who was branded a traitor for her participation in the Gaza convoy, warned that Israel was playing with fire. “We accepted a democratic, liberal state, we voted for the Knesset. But we are not just an internal issue – we are the litmus test of the whole problem. If Israel does not recognise this, conditions will deteriorate towards a third intifada.”
But she rejected any suggestion that Israel’s Arab citizens supported violence.
Zoabi rounded on a Hamas leader for suggesting her community could be used during civil unrest as a fifth column, conducting sabotage against the Israeli state. Mohammed Arman, a senior Hamas commander, had said, in a book smuggled out of his Israeli jail, that the role of Palestinian citizens of Israel would be to “harass the occupiers, disrupt their daily routine and undermine their confidence”.
Zoabi said: “We don’t accept that. I don’t even like the word violent. Israel wants us to break the law and we won’t. I did not break any laws by being on the Mavi Marmara” – the Turkish ship which was seized by Israeli forces as it attempted to break the siege of Gaza.
“Nobody Likes A Liar” – by Mike Rivero
The corporate media would still be in business, and the blog-o-sphere not even exist, if the media had remembered that their self-appointed task was to be a watchdog on the abuses of government.
The corporate media wants to blame the blogs, but in truth the reason thy have lost their audience is that the corporate media lied to the world about Saddam’s nukes.
The corporate media lied to the world about TWA 800.
The corporate media lied to the world about John F. Kennedy
The corporate media lied to the world about global warming
The corporate media lied to the world about 9-11
The corporate media lied to the world about theOklahoma City Bombing
The corporate media lied to the world about Waco
The corporate media lied to the world about Robert Kennedy
The corporate media lied to the world about Vincent Foster
The corporate media lied to the world about Pearl Harbor
The corporate media lied to the world about Martin Luther King
The corporate media lied to the world about John F. Kennedy Jr.
As I said above, nobody likes a liar, and if the purveyors of propaganda truly wish to know the authors of their downfall they need only look in a mirror. The transition from mono-broadcast media to interactive media was sparked the moment the commercial media decided that their job was not to inform the public, but to herd them alonmg in the desired direction.
The blogs would not be here were it not for the corporate media’s untrustworthiness. I have no sympathy for them.
Alarm on BP oil rig disabled prior to explosion
The chief electronics technician for the Deepwater Horizon oil rig told a federal investigative panel on Friday that the alarm system on the rig was intentionally partially disabled in the lead-up to the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and subsequently led to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
These revelations were made during the joint US Coast Guard & Bureau of Ocean Energy Management investigatory hearings into the causes of the explosion and subsequent oil spill.
Michael Williams’s testimony documents only one of a series of decisions by BP and the oil rig owner Transocean sacrificing safety that led to the disaster.
Williams told investigators that all levels of management—from the chief mate, to the captain and ultimately the offshore installation manager (OIM)—had authorized and were aware that the general alarm system had been “inhibited,” that the actual alarm had been disabled.
A year prior, when Williams first learned of the alarm being inhibited, he was told that management had requested the alarm system to be inhibited because “they did not want people to be woken up at 3 o’clock in the morning due to false alarms.”
The general alarm system, Williams explained, should notify all of the workers aboard the rig when one of three conditions are present: fire, combustible gas, or toxic gas. When the alarm is inhibited, he continued, “the sensor is active, it is sensing, and it will alarm, and it will give the information to the computer, but will not trigger an alarm for it. It will give you an indication, but it won’t trigger the actual alarm.”
China Dam – Stressed to the Limit!
It seems that when humankind takes on nature, nature has a way of notching up her game… as if to say, “When will you ever learn.”
We seem to relish defying the odds, building or altering things to suite our whim… projects ever bigger, deeper, higher and of course potentially lethal should they fail.
Failure seems inevitable if one cares to browse through the litany of mega or super projects spawned of the desire to tame nature… but which seem ultimately doomed by the forces of nature. We never seem to comprehend the possibility of occasional anomaly which represents a destructive effect far beyond the capacity of engineered specifications.
I am not sure if “anomaly” is correct since these extraordinary forces of nature occur regularly.
The crushing failures of ill-conceived mega projects seem to proliferate as fast as new foolhardy projects proliferate. We seem trapped in an endless cycle of insane engineering, as though one day we hope to prove a point and somehow defy natural forces. Mountains cannot resist natural erosion and leveling, yet we think we can overcome the natural order of progression and regression with our feeble workings.
Is the incidence of failure because destructive natural forces are becoming more prevalent?, Or is it because there are more target mega projects rife for destruction? Is it possible the effect is a combination of both? It does not really matter at the end of the day since conclusion and end result remains the same – abject and horrendous failure.
Gazans Denied Medical Care under Siege
by Stephen Lendman
Two recent reports discuss it, a July Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR-IL) one titled, “A Situation Report on Obstacles Facing Gaza Residents in Need of Medical Treatment,” and a June one titled, “Who Gets to Go,” jointly prepared by PHR-IL, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. All cite Israeli medical ethics and international law violations by discriminating on the basis of need, denying adequate treatment to seriously ill Gazans by:
– preventing the restoration and development of the Strip’s healthcare system; and
– restricting travel to the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Israel, or neighboring countries for treatment.
In its July report, PHR-IL said Gaza’s healthcare system is getting progressively worse “due to a lack of medical expertise, medicine(s) and medical equipment,” the ICRC recently saying it’s “at an all time low.”
In June, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that Israel blocked delivery of essential equipment, including a CT scanner, defibrillators and monitors. In addition, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Israel confiscated seven oxygen machines, donated by a Norwegian development agency, and blocked x-ray machine deliveries, claiming they were dual-use, meaning possibly for military purposes.
As a result, critical shortages of most everything exist, including vital medicines, essential equipment, and other supplies expected to run out this summer, harming chronic disease sufferers the most, hampered by draconian impediments for permission to leave Gaza for treatment – what PHR-IL calls “an inexcusable breach of medical ethics” based on political, not medical considerations, most non-life threatening cases denied, including ones PHR-IL calls urgent, such as for:
“Paraplegia; retinal detachement; SLE (Lupus); foreign body in vitreous; subluxated lens; chronic severe febrile anemia; fever(s) of unknown origin (FUO); traumatic macular hole; psychomotor retardation; anemia; suspected abdominal abnormal vascular pressure; suspected chronic intestinal disease; psedoarthrosis (non-union of fractured bones) – arms, hand; infected plate – hip; deformation of cornea; recurrent dislocation of shoulder; lumbar discopathy; opacity of vitreous; (and) malformation of urinary tract.”
Numerous other non-urgent/non-life-threatening ones are also denied, some chronic, severe, painful and/or disabling, badly in need of treatment, including a 24 year old Gaza resident shot in the arm in October 2007, unable to use his hand because of atrophied muscle tissue around the wound area.
As a result, he suffers severe pain, orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Yosef Leitner, saying a tendon transfer is the only hope to restore proper hand functioning, Gaza’s Al Shifaa Hospital (the Strip’s largest and most advanced) with neither the means or staff to perform it.
[more...]
U.S. withdraws ‘pain ray’ from Afghan war zone
Pulled out: The Active Denial System, or ‘Pain Ray’ has been withdrawn from Afghanistan by the US military
A ‘pain ray’ that blasts the enemy with unbearable heat waves hasbeen pulled out of Afghanistan by the US military.
The Active Denial System (ADS), which cost about £42 million to develop, was on the brink of being deployed to disperse members of the Taliban as they attacked US forces.
The weapon, which causes immense pain to subjects but no lasting physical damage, was pulled from the war zone last week but US army chiefs in Afghanistan have stayed silent about the reason for the U-turn.
The ADS, which has been in development for almost 20 years, works by firing a beam of high-frequency waves at the speed of light.
The beam can cover a person’s entire body, causing agonising pain as it heats water and fat molecules beneath the skin’s surface.
The beam can hit someone up to a third of a mile away, and they are only relieved of the pain when they move out of the way.
A spokesperson from the American Department of Defence said: ‘The decision to recall the weapons back to the US was made by commanders on the ground in Afghanistan.’
On Wall Street, crime pays very well
In a report issued Friday, a federal “special master” found that 17 big financial firms awarded nearly $2 billion in bonuses and retention payments to top executives during the period when they were receiving bailout funds from the US Treasury under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
Kenneth Feinberg, the special master for TARP executive compensation, declared in a perfunctory four-page statement that he “did not determine that payments were contrary to the ‘public interest’ requiring monetary reimbursement.” He also claimed that he had no legal authority to rescind the bonuses or penalize the banks that awarded them.
A total of 419 banks participated in the TARP program between October 2008, when it was established in the midst of the Wall Street crash, and February 19, 2009, when new rules went into effect to regulate executive pay. But the bulk of the payments were made by 17 firms. The 600 executives at these banks received payouts, combining salary and bonuses, totaling $2.03 billion. This represents an average of $3.38 million per executive.
In press interviews after he delivered the report to the Treasury Department, Feinberg said that many of the payments came to more than $10 million per individual, amounts that he said “were in our view ill-advised.” He also called them undeserved, noting that in many cases bonuses were awarded because the bank “guaranteed it regardless of performance.”
Stress test whitewash of European banks
By Stefan Steinberg
The keenly awaited report on the stress tests of European banks, made public Friday by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS), amounted to a whitewash of the major financial institutions. The CEBS delayed the release of its report on the balance sheets of 91 European banks until after the close of European markets.
The report declared that just seven European banks had failed the stress tests, a figure much lower than the 10-15 banks predicted by many analysts. Just one German bank, Hypo Real Estate (HRE), failed the test, plus five Spanish savings banks and one Greek bank.
The European bank stress tests followed the example of those carried out last year in the US. The Federal Reserve Board conducted similarly rigged tests of major American banks to reassure the markets and give the banks a clean bill of health.
Prior to Friday’s publication of the European test results, one senior market analysts declared, “If HRE is the only [German] bank that fails, that completely discredits the tests—not just for Germany, but for all of Europe.” Following the threat of bankruptcy in 2008, HRE was nationalised by the German government and received an injection of funds amounting to over 100 billion euros.
A week ago, analysts were estimating that between 50 billion and 100 billion euros would be required for the recapitalisation of banks that failed the stress tests. According to the CEBS, however, a mere €3.5 billion in additional capital was needed to stabilise the seven failing banks.
Stress tests had been planned a year ago for just 25 European banks, with the results to remain confidential. Then the Greek debt crisis exploded earlier this year, spreading rapidly to other European countries such as Spain and Portugal. With the very existence of the euro at stake, European leaders and the International Monetary Fund agreed on a 750 billion euro fund to guarantee the sovereign debt of Eurozone countries and stabilise the common currency.
Following considerable pressure from American and Asian financial and political circles, which demanded assurances for their investments in the Eurozone, European authorities reluctantly agreed to undertake stress tests for a total of 91 European banks.
It is now clear that the banks themselves largely determined the parameters of the stress tests. According to a report last week in Der Spiegel, the 14 German banks being tested were told they had “little to fear because the criteria for the tests were watered down in hectic negotiations between the European Central Bank, the European Commission and European banking watchdogs.”
Catholic sex scandal as undercover reporter ‘films priests at gay clubs and having casual flings’
A gay priest sex scandal has rocked the Catholic Church in Italy today after a weekly news magazine released details of a shock investigation it had carried out.
Using hidden cameras, a journalist from Panorama magazine – owned by Italian Prime Minister and media baron Silvio Berlusconi – filmed three priests as they attended gay nightspots and had casual sex.
Today there was no immediate comment from the Italian Bishops Conference and the Vatican – which has been rocked by a series of sex scandals involving paedophile priests since the start of the year.
Caught in the act: A priest – still wearing his dog collar – approaches a gay ‘accomplice’ of the undercover reporter as their casual affair is caught on camera in the Italian magazine Panorama’s footage
The same priest later prepares to read Mass
A preview of the Panorama article sent out by email last night added that video footage from the investigation would be made available.
The article describes how the reporter was assisted by a gay ‘accomplice’ as they ‘gate-crashed the wild nights of a number of priests in Rome who live a surprising double-life.’
In it’s preview, Panorama added: ‘By day they are regular priests, complete with dog collar, but, at night it’s off with the cassock as they take their place as perfectly integrated members of the Italian capital’s gay scene.’
Panorama described its investigation as ‘deeply disturbing’ as it detailed how three priests – two Italians and a Frenchman – happily took part in gay events and had casual sex.
America’s new debtor prison: Jail time being given to those who owe
Debtors prisons were federally abolished in the United States in the 1800′s, yet in certain states, they seem to be making a comeback. Out of Minnesota come disturbing reports of Americans being thrown in jail due to outstanding bills — sometimes for as little as $85. The Star-Tribune of Minneapolis profiles a number of people who say their debts got them jailed, including Joy Uhlmeyer a 57-year-old patient care advocate who was pulled over on her way home from visiting her elderly mother and put in jail for a night for missing a court hearing about unpaid debt.
The Star-Tribune reviewed the state’s court documents and found that arrests like Uhlmeyer’s are up 60% in Minnesota over the past four years. And Minnesota isn’t the only state where this is happening. It’s a turn of events Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at advocacy group U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (or PIRG), calls a “very bad situation for consumers.” Mierzwinski attributes the practice to “bottom-feeder debt collectors [who] are very aggressive.”
People who are imprisoned for their debts are technically locked up for contempt of court after failing to appear for a hearing pertaining to their debt. It’s a legal loophole that debt-collection companies are increasingly using. Here’s how it works: First, the collections company files a lawsuit against the debtor, which requires them to appear in court. If the debtor doesn’t show up, the creditor wins a default judgment against them. This allows them to ask the court to schedule another hearing at which the judge can go through the debtor’s assets and determine if actions such as wage garnishments or bank account seizures can take place.
Afghanistan War Logs: WikiLeaks Releasing Over 75,000 Documents In ‘Afghan War Diary’
Source: The Huffington Post
WikiLeaks has obtained a massive set of records about the Afghanistan war, dubbed “The War Logs,” that paints a grim picture of the nation’s longest military engagement.
The Guardian, one of three news organizations with an advanced look at the documents, summarizes:
A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.
The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers’ website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and over 1,000 US troops.
National Security Advisor James Jones issued a statement indicating that the release may have caught the administration off guard because WikiLeaks did not contact the government in advance. “The United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted,” Jones said while condemning the “irresponsible leaks.” His statement paid special attention to the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan, which has allegedly been allowing its spy agency to aid the insurgency.
The Defense Department declined a CNN request for comment and did not immediately verify the authenticity of the documents because they had not reviewed them yet, another indication that the Pentagon was unprepared for the release.
The Guardian‘s complete version of The War Logs is available here.
Source: The Huffington Post
http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/
Israeli planes pound southern Gaza
Israel war planes have launched an airstrike on the southern Gaza Strip, targeting Palestinian tunnels across the border between the blockaded enclave and Egypt.
Missiles from Israeli aircraft destructed two tunnels early on Monday, but left no casualties, AFP quoted Palestinian security officials as saying.
Israel frequently strikes the tunnels in the Hamas-run coastal enclave while an Israeli blockade has pushed the populated territory on the verge of a humanitarian crisis with almost half of its 1.5 million residents depending on food aid handouts.
Tel Aviv’s crippling siege has left Gazans with no other option but to set up a network of tunnels on the border with Egypt, which in collaboration with Israel keeps the Rafah border crossing — the only terminal not in Israel control — sealed off.
Israel accuses the Palestinians of using the burrows to smuggle weapons for the resistance movements in the region.
But the Palestinians dismiss the claim, saying the tunnels are used to push in Gazans’ very basic needs, including food and fuel.
Israel eased its land blockade of the Gaza Strip to soothe the international outrage sparked by its deadly attack on an aid convoy on May 31, while its naval blockade remain fast in place. It has vowed to stop any other aid ship trying to break the siege on Gaza.
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla was stormed in international waters by Israeli navy commandos who killed nine Turkish activists onboard the civilian convoy.
Egypt also made an effort to brush away a picture where Cairo is viewed as Israel’s main accomplice in its siege of Gaza and indefinitely opened its Rafah crossing.