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From the street level perspective in downtown Ramallah the economy seems to be thriving. Gleaming storefronts display an array of brand name products, American fast food restaurants are sprouting up, and the city is host to a bustling nightlife that could rival Tel Aviv. Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials point to World Bank reports indicating 9.6% growth in recent years as evidence of the success of their economic policies. But behind the veneer of prosperity is an uncomfortable reality. In September, the West Bank was rocked by anti-austerity protests, directed against Salam Fayyad the chief architect of the Ramallah project. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky joins independent journalist Max Blumenthal in a look at what is behind the policy the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu terms Peace Through Prosperity. They speak with a Ramallah Cafe owner, Jack Saadeh, economist Ibrahim Shikaki, and Nablus Cafe owner Ali Amer.

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Context: As yet there are no context links for this item.

Precis

From the street level perspective in downtown Ramallah the economy seems to be thriving. Gleaming storefronts display an array of brand name products, American fast food restaurants are sprouting up, and the city is host to a bustling nightlife that could rival Tel Aviv. Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials point to World Bank reports indicating 9.6% growth in recent years as evidence of the success of their economic policies. But behind the veneer of prosperity is an uncomfortable reality. In September, the West Bank was rocked by anti-austerity protests, directed against Salam Fayyad the chief architect of the Ramallah project. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky joins independent journalist Max Blumenthal in a look at what is behind the policy the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu terms Peace Through Prosperity. They speak with a Ramallah Cafe owner, Jack Saadeh, economist Ibrahim Shikaki, and Nablus Cafe owner Ali Amer.

Comments

Our automatic spam filter blocks comments with multiple links and multiple users using the same IP address. Please make thoughtful comments with minimal links using only one user name. If you think your comment has been mistakenly removed please email us at contact@therealnews.com

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

You gotta love it. These wingnuts can’t even wait to see what executive orders end up being issued on gun control before they start with the impeachment threats. I’m not quite sure what else remains on the list that Congressional Republicans can do to make themselves less popular than they are right now, but I’m pretty sure impeachment hearings would work out about as well for them as they did back in Clinton’s days, which is not well at all.

GOP Rep. Threatens Impeachment If Obama Uses Executive Order On Guns:

The conservative discord in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. massacre went up another octave on Monday when Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) threatened to file articles of impeachment if President Obama uses an executive order to try to reduce gun violence.

“The White House’s recent announcement they will use executive orders and executive actions to infringe on our constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms is an unconstitutional and unconscionable attack on the very founding principles of this republic,” Stockman said in a statement. “I will seek to thwart this action by any means necessary, including but not limited to eliminating funding for implementation, defunding the White House, and even filing articles of impeachment.”

Stockman showed up on Greta Van Susteren’s show on Fox Tuesday night and reiterated his statement about impeachment being an option on the table and he threw this stink-bomb out there: Republican freshman to Fox News host: Obama reminds me of Saddam Hussein:

Republican Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas unfavorably compared President Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln and Saddam Hussein on Tuesday night.

The Republican freshman appeared on Fox News’ On The Record with Greta Van Susteren to discuss how he would try impeach Obama if the President attempted to use an executive order to enact new gun control laws.

“He is saying he is going to issue 19 executive orders,” Stockman explained to Greta Van Susteren. “If it breaches his authority into legislation which impedes on the Constitution, we have the right to take different steps to counter that. A lot of people are frustrated with Republicans not fighting back, and I was too when I was on the sidelines. I got involved with Congress, I said enough is enough, and we need to stand up and fight. I said these kinds of tools are available to us, and we’re going to use every tool possible to fight an administration which wants to abrogate the Constitution.” […]

At the end of the interview, Stockman awkwardly interjected that Obama was “even using children.”

“Reminds me of Saddam Hussein, when he used kids,” he said with a laugh.

“Well, I think that is just a little bit of a stretch,” Van Susteren replied.

I think this turd just figured out how to make sure he gets himself lots of airtime on Fox. Every time we get rid of one of these flamethrowers, another one comes along and takes their place.

You gotta love it. These wingnuts can’t even wait to see what executive orders end up being issued on gun control before they start with the impeachment threats. I’m not quite sure what else remains on the list that Congressional Republicans can do to make themselves less popular than they are right now, but I’m pretty sure impeachment hearings would work out about as well for them as they did back in Clinton’s days, which is not well at all.

GOP Rep. Threatens Impeachment If Obama Uses Executive Order On Guns:

The conservative discord in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. massacre went up another octave on Monday when Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) threatened to file articles of impeachment if President Obama uses an executive order to try to reduce gun violence.

“The White House’s recent announcement they will use executive orders and executive actions to infringe on our constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms is an unconstitutional and unconscionable attack on the very founding principles of this republic,” Stockman said in a statement. “I will seek to thwart this action by any means necessary, including but not limited to eliminating funding for implementation, defunding the White House, and even filing articles of impeachment.”

Stockman showed up on Greta Van Susteren’s show on Fox Tuesday night and reiterated his statement about impeachment being an option on the table and he threw this stink-bomb out there: Republican freshman to Fox News host: Obama reminds me of Saddam Hussein:

Republican Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas unfavorably compared President Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln and Saddam Hussein on Tuesday night.

The Republican freshman appeared on Fox News’ On The Record with Greta Van Susteren to discuss how he would try impeach Obama if the President attempted to use an executive order to enact new gun control laws.

“He is saying he is going to issue 19 executive orders,” Stockman explained to Greta Van Susteren. “If it breaches his authority into legislation which impedes on the Constitution, we have the right to take different steps to counter that. A lot of people are frustrated with Republicans not fighting back, and I was too when I was on the sidelines. I got involved with Congress, I said enough is enough, and we need to stand up and fight. I said these kinds of tools are available to us, and we’re going to use every tool possible to fight an administration which wants to abrogate the Constitution.” […]

At the end of the interview, Stockman awkwardly interjected that Obama was “even using children.”

“Reminds me of Saddam Hussein, when he used kids,” he said with a laugh.

“Well, I think that is just a little bit of a stretch,” Van Susteren replied.

I think this turd just figured out how to make sure he gets himself lots of airtime on Fox. Every time we get rid of one of these flamethrowers, another one comes along and takes their place.

The situation in Malgeria^TM continues to remain uncertain but the following updates should provide some color as to where they stand currently (and a primer on the initial French intervention). Critically, Stratfor warns that the escalation in Algeria will possibly lead to further militants crossing the Mali border, further endangering Westerners and energy infrastructure (which is important as Algeria is one of the largest exports of light, sweet crude oil in the world and a significant natural gas exporter to Europe).

Stratfor 3-minute Primer:

Update:

1) In general there is chaos as FranceTV put it “it is very confusing, with no official confirmation of any of the actions being reported on”

2) Up to 35 (of the 44) Hostages have apparently been killed in the Algerian rescue (retake) operation, with hostages freed (one Irishman);
2a) All 8 of the hostage-takers have apparently been killed

Who is Mokhtar Belmokhtar?

3) A US Drone is now on site to take a look for the first time;

4) The UK’s Cameron was not informed before the Algerian operation (and wanted to be consulted);

5) Stratfor’s concern is that Algeria’s action will bring more militants across the border and threaten more Westerners and energy production

There are hundreds of smaller oil and gas fields in between, to the west of In Amenas and around the central desert region surrounding In Salah. Algeria lacks the capacity to provide a robust security presence for all of these sites, nor can it afford to suspend operations given the aggressive oil and gas production expansions planned for 2013. Algeria cannot maintain a permanent security presence at every production site across its territory, but as evidenced by the Jan.16 attack, they are capable of quickly organizing regional security forces at sites of unrest.

6) BP is pulling all non-essential staff out

C. J. Polychroniou: America’s fascination with guns is turning into an ever growing nightmare, with the latest carnage taking place last month at Sandy Hill Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut where 20 young children and six educators were killed. Yet, there is no evidence that the US is any closer to joining the rest of the civilized nations and imposing strict gun control laws in order to reduce violent crime.  Is the National Rifle Association largely to blame for this?

Henry A. Giroux: After every national tragedy involving guns, the American public is being inundated with figures about gun violence, ranging from the fact that more than 84 people are killed daily with guns, to the shocking statistic that there are more than 31,000 gun-related deaths annually. In 2010, for example, there were 8,775 murders by firearms in the U.S., while in Britain there were only 638. Moreover, there are 300 million firearms in a country of just over 311 million and just over 47 percent of Americans own guns. Most disturbingly, as pointed out by the Children’s Defense fund, is the fact that in 2010, “2694 children and teens were killed by gunfire [and] since 1979 …a shocking 119,079 children and teens have been killed by gun violence. That is more child and youth deaths in America than American battle deaths in World War I (53,402) or in Vietnam (47,434) or in the Korean War (33,739) or in the Iraq War (3,517).”[1] These are startling figures, but they do not tell us enough about the cult and spectacle of violence in American society. Nor do they make visible the myriad of forces that has produced a country drenched in bloodshed and violence.

There is little doubt that the role of the NRA is instrumental in the violence haunting American culture, or that gun control is important, but it is only one factor in the culture of symbolic and institutional violence that has such a powerful grip on the everyday cultural apparatuses and workings of American society. The issue of violence in America goes far beyond the issue of gun control. When gun control is the focus – instead of a broader consideration of violence – it can actually serve to deflect the most important questions that need to be raised. The grave reality is that violence saturates almost every aspect of North American culture. Domestically, violence weaves through the cultural and social landscape like a highly charged forest fire burning everything in its path. Popular culture, extending from Hollywood films and sports thuggery, to video games, embraces the spectacle of violence as the primary medium of entertainment. The real issue here is the existence of a pedagogy of violence that actually makes the power of deadly violence attractive.  Representations of violence dominate the media and often parade before viewers less as an object of critique than as a for-profit spectacle, just as the language of violence and punishment now shapes the U.S. culture  – with various registers of violence now informing school zero-tolerance policies, a bulging prison-industrial complex, and the growing militarization of everyday life. There is also the fact that as neoliberalism and its culture of cruelty weaves its way through the culture it makes the work place, schools, and other public spheres sites of rage, anger, humiliation, and misery, creating the foundation for blind rebellion against what might be termed intolerable conditions. Accepting the logic of radical individual responsibility, too many Americans blame themselves for being unemployed, homeless, and isolated and end up perceiving their misery as an individual failing and hence are vulnerable to forms of existential depression and collective rage.  We have seen such violence among students reacting to bullying and among postal workers responding to intolerable work conditions. There is no one cause of violence, but a series of a number of causes that range from the war on drugs and the militarization of police departments to mass incarcerations in prisons to the return from brutal wars of many trained killers suffering with PTSD.[2] All of these factors combine in an explosive mix to create an dangerous culture of violence and cruelty and as Jeff Sparrow points out a “willingness of ordinary people to commit unthinkable atrocities.”[3]

C. J. Polychroniou: Is this what you mean when you refer in your writings to a break down between the realm of war and civil life?

Henry A. Giroux: Exactly.  The metaphysics of war and associated violence creep into everyday life in the United States, a process which has intensified since 9/11. War and militarism not only eat up resources and revenue, it also determines the more general meanings that shape the values of social relations of everyday life and is constitutive of both social power and culture itself.  Under neoliberalism, markets are now fused with the warlike logic of militarization as ways of thinking, subject positions, and the ordering of social relations are fused, as the philosopher David Theo Goldberg points out, with “military truth, structure, and temporality.”[4]  

Of course, what I mean by this is that is the United States is not only obsessed with military values shaping foreign policy, but war and militarism have become a mediating force that now seep into almost every aspect of daily life.  War now makes men, and becomes the most important logic mediating not simply contemporary views of masculinity but social relations in general. We see war and its dynamics of cruelty and punishment seeping into a whole range of institutions. For instance, we see schools and social services modeled increasingly after prisons. We see police forces being paramilitarized. We see popular culture endlessly celebrating the spectacle of violence. What is startling is that the logic of war and violence have become addictive, a socially constructed need that we simply cannot get away from. Violence has become a defining organizing principle of society that has become one of the few shared mediating forces that now holds everyday life together. What is crucial to acknowledge here is that “the fields of politics and violence–a violence that seems to lack rational organization, not excepting self-destruction–are no longer separated. They have progressively permeated one another.”[5]  

State violence is now amplified in the rise of the punishing state which works to support corporate interests and suppress all forms of dissent aimed at making corporate power accountable. Violence as a mode of discipline is now enacted in spheres that have traditionally been created to counter the symbolic and institutional violence perpetuated by forms of state and corporate sovereignty. Airports, schools, public services, and a host of other public spheres are now defined through a militarized language of discipline, regulation, control, and order. Human behavior is now reduced to the instrumental logic of cost-benefit analyses, market shares, and profit ratings. Human relations and behaviors are not simply militarized, viewed as targets, but also reified and dehumanized making it easier to legitimate a culture of cruelty and politics of disposability that are central organizing principles of casino capitalism.

C. J. Polychroniou: Where does all this come from?

Henry A. Giroux: Part of it comes from the fact that all of a sudden we live in a society marked by what some have called “a failed sociality.” We have no language for democracy. We have no language for compassion. Neoliberalism collapses public issues into private troubles and in doing so not only destroys democratic values and forms of solidarity, but also extends a continuity of cruelty, misery, and exploitation into every sphere of everyday life—from schools and the work place to the workings of a state that now thrives on punishing rather than nourishing the welfare state. We view any form of dependency, any form of regard for the other as humiliating and worthy of scorn.  We live in a neoliberal market-driven culture that basically celebrates an unchecked notion of self-interest and narcissism. This is a culture that has gone over the top in its worship of celebrity culture and violence. It views the news as a video game, a source of entertainment where a story gains prominence by virtue of the notion that if it bleeds it leads. So it’s really not surprising in the lack of any substantive existence of a formative culture that would value a sense of compassion and regard for the other that we end up in a moral vacuum in which violence finds suitable legitimation. And of course, formal education has been turned into a quest for private satisfactions and is no longer viewed as a public good, thus cutting itself off from teaching students about public values, the public good and engaged notions of critical citizenship.

What has emerged in the United States is a civil and political order structured around the criminalization of social problems and everyday life. This governing-through-crime model produces a highly authoritarian and mechanistic approach to addressing social problems that often focuses on the poor and minorities, promotes highly repressive policies, and places undue emphasis on personal security, rather than considering the larger complex of social and structural forces that fuels violence in the first place.

C. J. Polychroniou: In your writings, you also talk of the “neoliberal terror” and the politics of disposability that has taken hold over American society, suggesting that there is a new form of class warfare directed against the poor and the working class. Would you elaborate a bit on this?

Henry A. Giroux: In the US there is an institutionalized regime of neoliberal violence directed against low income people, poor minorities, immigrants, the disabled, and others now considered disposable under a ruthless and savage fanatical capitalism that luxuriates in the poisonous dream worlds of commodification, deregulation, consumption, and privatization.  Within this regime of neoliberal violence, the politics of disposability is shored up by the assumption that some lives and social relationships are not worthy of a meaningful social existence, empathy and social protections. For instance, those considered “other” because of their lack of capital, consuming power, or alleged refusal to accept the unethical grammar of an Atlas Shrugged winner-take-all ethos are now relegated to zones of abandonment and terminal exclusion.  Lacking social protections, such populations increasingly are addressed within the growing reach of the punishing state, as a source of entertainment, or are relegated to what the French philosopher Etienne Balibar calls the “death zones of humanity.”[6] 

In a culture defined by excessive inequality, suffering, and cruelty, the protective covering of the state, along with the public values and the formative culture necessary for a democracy is corrupted, increasingly dismantled, and held in contempt. And the disposable are not merely those populations caught in extreme poverty. Increasingly, they are individuals and groups now ravaged by bad mortgages, poor credit and huge debt. They are the growing army of the unemployed forced to abandon their houses, credit cards and ability to consume — a liability that pushes them to the margins of a market society. These are the groups whose homes will not be covered by insurance, who have no place to live, no resources to fall back on, no way to imagine that the problems they will be facing are not just personal, but deeply structural, built into a system that views the social contract and the welfare state as a lethal disease.

In this economic Darwinist measure of value, those marginalized by race and class, who might detract from, rather than enlarge another’s wealth are not only demonized, but are also viewed as problematic in that they become burdens to be disposed of, rather than a valuable and treasured human resource in which to invest. The discourse of disposability is not limited to right-wing politicians, but it is also built into the vocabulary of neoliberal governmental policy. Market societies are ruled by a predatory form of economic Darwinism in which greed and avarice are legitimated through a war-against-all, survival-of-the-fittest mentality that embraces a near sociopathic lack of interest in others and provides few social protections against individual and collective misfortune while at the same time dismissing the value of social provisions.  As the sociologist Elliott Currie has pointed out, neoliberal societies have become criminogenic in that they destroy peoples’ livelihoods, withdraw public supports, create massive extremes of economic inequality, erode social bonds while creating debilitating forms of atomization,  promote materialistic values that produce a culture of callousness, corrupt the political process, and market a form of normalized brutality evident in the massive rise of corporate crime and a culture of corruption.[7]  

Neoliberalism represents a full-fledged assault on democratic values, relations, and public spheres and does so by universalizing its own ideology, policies, and modes of governance. Its logic of disposability reduces citizenship to the logic of consumerism, reinforces the dominance of public life by giant corporations, and produces what the anthropologist Joao Biel calls a “machinery of social death.” In fact, the “machinery of social death,” is fed by corporate investments in the organized production of violence for profit and I am not just talking about industries that make big profits as part of the military-industrial complex. As New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin states, what has been overlooked in the recent debate about gun worship in the United States is that some of the biggest gun makers are “owned by private equity funds run by Wall Street titan.” For instance, Cerberus Capital Management, Sciens Capital Management, and MidOcean Partners make big profits selling everything from Ak-47s to military-grade night-vision goggles.[8] The technology of death is a big profit maker for Wall Street and makes clear that neoliberalism is actively engaged in the production of a dystopian society in which people, resources, and goods are now considered throwaways, just as moral responsibility is detached from actions, and politics is removed from the promise of a substantive democracy.

NOTES:

[1] Marian Wright Edelman, “Dear God! When Will It Stop?”, Common Dreams, (December 15, 2012). Online: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/15-0

[2] Don Hazen, “We are a country drenched in Bloodshed: Some Hard thoughts About Violence in the Media,” Alternet (December 20, 2013). Online:http://www.alternet.org/media/we-are-country-drenched-bloodshed-some-hard-truths-about-violence-media

[3] Jeff Sparrow, “When the Burning Moment Breaks: Gun Control and Rage Massacres,” Overland, (August 6, 2012). Online: http://overland.org.au/blogs/new-words/2012/08/when-the-burning-moment-breaks-gun-control-and-rage-massacres/

[4] David Theo Goldberg, “Mission Accomplished: Militarizing Social Logic,” in Enrique Jezik: Obstruct, Destroy, Conceal, ed. Cuauhtemoc Medina (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 2011), p. 187.

[5] Etienne Balibar, “Outline of a Topography of Cruelty: Citizenship and Civility in the Era of Global Violence,” We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 125.

[6] Etienne Balibar, “Outline of a Topography of Cruelty: Citizenship and Civility in the Era of Global Violence,” We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 128.

[7] Elliott Currie, “Market, Crime and Community: Toward a Mid-Range Theory of Post-Industrial Violence,” Theoretical Criminology 1, no. 2 (1997): 147-172

[8] Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Wall Street, Invested in Firearms, Is Unlikely to Push for Reform,” The New York Times, (December 17, 2012).http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/wall-street-invested-in-firearms-is-unlikely-to-push-for-reform/

**A shorter version of this interview appeared in the Greek newspaper, Eleftherotypia.

January 17, 2013  |  

With poverty rates spinning perilously out of control in the U.S., it’s time to send an unmistakable message to Congress and the White House as they prepare to resume the ongoing obsession with the deficit: End the silence on poverty, don’t make poverty worse by make cuts to Social Security or Medicare, and address a principle cause of poverty with a permanent fix to our dysfunctional healthcare system..

In a week in which a shocking new report on U.S. life expectancy rates was published, which has a disproportionate impact on the poor, and a high profile pre-inauguration forum on poverty is behind held Thursday night in Washington, this is a good time to draw the links between income, healthcare, and Social Security and Medicare, perhaps the two most effective anti-poverty programs ever enacted in the U.S.

Census Bureau data puts the official poverty rate at 15 percent, 46 million people, and at 22 percent for children under 18.  Some have speculated the real number is two to three times that amount.

Not that you would notice listening to the debates inside the Beltway where too many politicians are focused on spending cuts, not addressing the daily shortages of food, shelter, healthcare, and jobs faced by a large swath of our nation.

It’s one reason why nationally syndicated broadcaster Tavis Smiley is hosting a major forum, “Vision for a New America. A Future Without Poverty,” being broadcast on CSPAN Thursday night in Washington.

Nurses see the correlation of low incomes and deteriorating health status every day in hospitals and clinics across the U.S.

Consequences that are evident in a report last week by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine which found the U.S. ranked last in life expectancies among 17 affluent countries. All the others have some form of a national healthcare system. No gold medals for us in this international competition, except in how much we spend and waste on health care as a result of our profit-focused private system.

Sadly, the Affordable Care Act has not eradicated the problem, especially when it comes to rising healthcare costs.

that alone contribute to two-thirds of personal bankruptcies and a myriad of the health woes nurses witness regularly.

Nurses see the effects in premature and low weight babies and other widespread nutrition problems from hunger and malnutrition that can lead to disease and even organ failure. They see children with high levels of stress and anxiety, heart attacks in younger and younger men, rampant unaddressed mental health problems and emotional disorders, and scores of patients who routinely skip needed medical care because of the cost until they end up in emergency rooms with major untreated diseases that may then be too late to heal.

Patients like the widowed woman in a Midwest state whose diabetes led to foot and leg wounds that became severe because she could not afford constant treatment. Finally admitted to a hospital, she faced the Sophie’s Choice of amputation or lengthy, more expensive long term care. She chose amputation because it was cheaper. No that’s not a story out of the Middle Ages or a Civil War battlefield, it’s modern day America.

Permanent disability would not have been needed had she been able to wait a few more years. The NRC/Institute of Medicine study found the U.S. catching up to other countries only when people are later in life. Because of Medicare.

Upon signing the Medicare law in 1965, President Johnson cited the long history in the U.S. of “bill after bill (being) introduced to help older citizens meet the often crushing and always rising cost of disease and crippling illness.”

The Algerian government kept David Cameron in the dark about plans to launch a military rescue mission for the hostages held captive by militants, it has emerged.

Downing Street confirmed on Thursday afternoon that the prime minister had asked his Algerian counterpart to consult Britain before any military moves were made, given the presence of “several” British hostages.

However despite the request to be kept informed, Cameron was only formally told of the military action after it had begun on Thursday morning.

The PM called Abdelmalek Sellal, the Algerian prime minister, at 11.30am today to find out the latest development.

During the 10-15 minute conversation Sellal told Cameron it had been his judgment that he had needed to act “immediately”.

According to the prime minister’s official spokesperson, Algeria was aware Britain would have “preferred to have been consulted in advance” but chose to ignore that request.

“The prime minister is extremely concerned. It is a very grave and serious situation,” the spokesman said.

However the spokesperson refused to be drawn on whether Cameron only became aware of the military action during the phone call, or had learned of it prior to placing the call.

“We are in constant contact with them [Algeria], it’s a fast moving, ongoing situation and we are doing as much as we can to establish what is going on,” he said.

The spokesperson would also not be drawn on reports that between six and 35 hostages and between eight and 15 of the rebels had been killed in the fighting.

The British government has offered to provide assistance if asked — but such as request has yet to be made by Algeria.

It is understood that Algeria did not inform other foreign governments about its decision to launch an operation.

Cameron has also had phone conversations with French president Francois Hollande and US president Obama to discuss the situation in Algeria.

The prime minister was due to chair another meeting of the emergency Cobra cabinet committee later on Thursday to assess the situation.

The prime minister has now cancelled his trip to the Netherlands, where he was due to deliver a speech on the European Union, in light of the escalating crisis.

Related on HuffPost:

Technically the addition of 572 tons, or a massive 18,378,092 ounces of physical silver, to the SLV ETF, in one day is not a record, as it excludes one amount which however was a year end rebalance at the end of 2007 offset promptly on the next day, but it certainly is the biggest one day addition of physical silver to SLV in ordinary course operations. It is also more silver added to the ETF in all of 2012, when just 544 tons were added in the entire year. This was driven by the creation of some 19,000,000 shares of SLV overnight which brought the total to 356.8 million shares. And since there has been no move in the price of silver, which certainly would have soared had this amount been purchased in the open market we can only assume this has to do with in kind basket creation taking place. Whether this was due to arbitrage, or simply the need to create inventory we don’t know: we are confident however, that SLV custodian, money laundering expert extraordinaire HSBC, will have no comment. Just as there is no comment why in the days following the epic May 1, 2011 take down of silver, a nearly just as large 522 tons of silver poured out the ETF on May 4, 2011. What is certain is that a move of this size is certainly notable.

It would be funny if it weren’t so enormously dangerous or so shockingly reckless, but Exxon Mobile is defending plans for its massive offshore drilling operation in the North Atlantic–in an area not far from where the Titanic met its fateful demise–by claiming it has “learned to keep icebergs away” by lassoing them, pushing them off “with propeller wash,” or other techniques related to the term “iceberg cowboy.”

Hebron’s giant concrete base will look similar to the one supporting nearby Hibernia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) As a CNNMoney report describes Thursday, ExxonMobil is currently building a massive offshore drilling rig for deployment off the coast off Newfoundland in some of the world’s coldest and stormiest ocean waters.

The ‘Hebron’ drilling rig currently being built in a dammed-off inlet in New Brunswick would be taller than the Eiffel Tower, according to the report, and weigh more than the Empire State building.

And while Canada has permitted the $14 billion project to move forward and offshore drilling advocates say the US should follow suit by opening its North Atlantic waters to oil drilling as well, critics and environmentalists say that oil companies have proven over and over again that they are simply not equipped to deal with the dangerous conditions.

Moreover, say opponents, developing potential oil fields that lay under the sea bed in some of the region’s most pristine and important fisheries is insane given that climate scientists have said that such deposits must be left where they are–untouched–if climate stabilization is to be achieved.

“The benefits go to the companies, but the risks go to the people,” Mike Lavine, a lawyer for Oceana, told CNN. “We shouldn’t be asked to bear those risks for the sake of corporate profit.”

As CNNMoney reports:

Seeing Exxon develop oil fields for Canada is reviving calls for the United States to do the same off its Atlantic Coast — which has been closed for oil and gas exploration for decades.

But as Shell’s (RDSA) drill ships continue to run aground in the Arctic, critics say letting Exxon drill off the coast of Newfoundland or the heavily populated U.S. Eastern Seaboard is a mistake.

The risks: In 1982, the Ocean Ranger — then the largest drill rig of its type in the world — capsized and sank in nearby waters during a winter storm, killing all 84 crew members aboard.

Safety standards have improved since then, but drilling in icy, remote conditions remains one of the most dangerous jobs in the businesses — as Royal Dutch Shell’s ill-fated Arctic foray showed last summer.

_______________________________

British civil and public servants are to stage a protest against the Tor-led government’s policies on pay and pensions, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has revealed.

The PCS said it will ballot 250,000 of its members to take a fresh strike action against cuts to pay and pensions and poor working conditions across England, Wales, and Scotland.

The union announced that the voting will start on February 8 and close on March 4, adding that it would seek support from other unions in Britain.

PCS has demanded a minimum pay rise of 5 percent, or £1,200 for all public servants this year, insisting that a four-year freeze and cap on pay, together with increased pension contributions, would cut income by 16 percent by 2014.

The union has already staged three days of strikes over pay and reforms to public sector pensions imposed by the British government.

BGH/MOS/SSM/HE

WASHINGTON – January 17 – It took just 32 billionaires and corporations giving Super PACs an average of $9.9 million apiece to match every single dollar given by small donors to Romney and Obama in the 2012 election cycle, according to “Billion-Dollar Democracy,” a new report by U.S. PIRG and Demos. Those small donations amounted to over $313 million from more than 3.7 million individuals.

“Americans who are wondering why it seems tougher to get ahead or even get a fair shake in today’s economy should look to big money politics for answers,” said Adam Lioz, report co-author and Counsel for Demos. “When a tiny group of wealthy donors fuels political campaigns, they get to set the agenda in Washington, and the rest of us are left to argue over that agenda.”

The report provides a full and detailed analysis of all 2012 federal election spending and fundraising by campaigns and Super PACs. The data shows the undue influence of large donors, business interests and secret spenders in 2012:

• Nearly 60% of Super PAC funding came from just 159 donors contributing at least $1 million.
• Candidates for both House and Senate raised the majority of their funds from gifts of $1,000 or more; and 40 percent of all contributions to Senate candidates came from donors gave at least $2,500. (Those donors are just 0.02 percent of the American population.)
• Corporate donations accounted for a large portion of the funds of two of top ten most active Super PACs, including 18 percent of Restore Our Future’s total contributions and 52.6 percent of those of FreedomWorks for America.

“The first post-Citizens United presidential election confirmed our fears that the new unlimited-money regime allows well-heeled special interests and secret spenders to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens,” said Blair Bowie, U.S. PIRG Democracy Advocate and report co-author.

“Billion-Dollar Democracy” also found that groups that do not disclose the source of their funds paid for well more than half of television advertising in the 2012 presidential race not sponsored by candidates or parties.

”These dark money groups hide key information about where they get their money from voters,” added Bowie. “Furthermore, because there’s no one to hold responsible for the content of their advertising, studies show they are far more likely to be misleading or just downright lying.”

Data in “Billion Dollar Democracy” also demonstrates to extent to which our big money system determines winners and losers, distorting our democratic process. Incumbents, for example, are big winners–outraising major challengers by 443% in the House and 316% in the Senate.

The report documents how vastly disproportionate influence by the “donor class” skews public policy, and concludes with specific solutions for every level of government to ensure that ordinary Americans can make their voices heard in financing electoral campaigns. These recommendations including amending the constitution, matching small political contributions with public funds, and requiring corporations to disclose political giving, among others.

READ “BILLION-DOLLAR DEMOCRACY” HERE: http://bit.ly/Wah17c

U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), stands up to powerful special interests on behalf of the American public, working to win concrete results for our health and our well-being. With a strong network of researchers, advocates, organizers and students in state capitols across the country, we take on the special interests on issues, such as product safety,political corruption, prescription drugs and voting rights,where these interests stand in the way of reform and progress.

WASHINGTON – January 17 – Scientists and advocates today unveiled new research showing that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would damage the climate much more than previously thought, by dramatically expanding tar sands production and because it will lead to increased combustion of a particularly dirty form of oil.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, experts and advocates said the new information gives the Obama Administration further evidence to reject the controversial pipeline, especially since the president has in recent months put addressing climate change on the nation’s agenda.

“With climate change chaos sweeping the nation, this new research shows why the Obama Administration should stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in its tracks,” said Danielle Droitsch, Canada Project Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Approving Keystone would open the gateway to dramatic new development of tar sands oil and far more harm to our climate.”

Oil Change International’s new report “Petroleum Coke: The Coal Hiding in the Tar Sands” reveals that current analyses of the impacts of tar sands fail to account for a high-carbon byproduct of the refining process that is a major source of climate change causing carbon emissions: petroleum coke–known as petcoke. Because it is considered a refinery byproduct, petcoke emissions are not included in most assessments of the climate impact of tar sands. Thus, the climate impact of oil production is being consistently undercounted.

Petcoke is commonly used as a cheaper, more carbon-intensive substitute to coal–and the petcoke in tar sands is turning American refineries into coal factories. The petcoke produced from the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would fuel 5 coal plants and produce 16.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, thus emitting 13% more carbon dioxide than the U.S. State Department has previously considered.

“What we’ve uncovered is something industry doesn’t want you to hear: exploiting the tar sands and building the Keystone XL pipeline is even more damaging to the climate than has been previously reported,” said Lorne Stockman, Research Director at Oil Change International and author of the report. “Factored into the equation, petcoke puts another strong nail in the coffin of any rational argument for the further exploitation of the tar sands.”

While the new report makes clear that petcoke emissions should be included, EPA’s existing figures, which do not include petcoke-related emissions, already paint a troubling picture. They suggest that simply replacing 830,000 bpd of conventional crude with the tar sands in the Keystone XL pipeline would increase US carbon dioxide emissions by 27.6 million metric tons per year, or the equivalent of adding nearly 6 million cars on the road.

Nathan Lemphers from the Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental think tank, explained that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would accelerate expansion of the tar sands and significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions. Keystone XL is an integral part of the industry’s plan to nearly triple tar sands production by 2030. In order to meet its expansion goals, the tar sands industry needs all proposed transportation options to move forward. As the largest of these projects, Keystone XL has the greatest independent impact on the rate of tar sands expansion. 

“Filling the Keystone XL pipeline with oilsands crude will create significant greenhouse gases regardless of whether other transport options move forward,” said Lemphers. “Because Canada does not have a credible plan for responsibly developing the oilsands, including reducing emissions so Canada can meet its climate commitments, the pipeline should not go ahead.”

The Pembina Institute’s backgrounder, “The climate implications of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline”, shows that pipelines are a key determinant of tar sands expansion, and argues that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions associated with supplying the Keystone XL pipeline with tar sands bitumen represents a significant barrier to Canada meeting its domestic and international climate commitments.  A corresponding blog titled “Climate concerns are key in Keystone XL pipeline debate” can be accessed at http://www.pembina.org/blog/682.

The decision to reject or approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will be one of the most important climate issues facing the Obama administration. The environmental review for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, anticipated any day from the State Department, will be one of the first major decisions on climate from the Obama Administration since the election.  

Keystone XL would expand dirty tar sands practices and lock the U.S. into a long-term commitment to an energy infrastructure that relies on extra-dirty oil. For example, building Keystone XL would wipe out the benefits of new standards that would have cut greenhouse gas emissions from medium to heavy duty trucks announced by the Obama administration.

Given the global market for oil and the surplus of oil in the United States, it is conventional wisdom among industry experts that the tar sand contents of the Keystone XL pipeline will be exported to China, Venezuela, and other countries. Members of Congress requested that TransCanada give assurance that the oil would remain in the country, but that request was rebuffed.

With carbon emissions worse than previously estimated and the national security arguments nullified, the Obama administration has every reason to deny the pipeline application.

The Associated Press has a breaking investigative story out today revealing that the Obama Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) censored a smoking gun scientific report in March 2012 that it had contracted out to a scientist who conducted field data on 32 water samples in Weatherford, TX.

That report, according to the AP, would have explicitly linked methane migration to hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in Weatherford, a city with 25,000+ citizens located in the heart of the Barnett Shale geologic formation 30 minutes from Dallas.

It was authored by Geoffrey Thyne, a geologist formerly on the faculty of the Colorado School of Mines and University of Wyoming before departing from the latter for a job in the private sector working forInterralogic Inc. in Ft Collins, CO. 

This isn’t the first time Thyne’s scientific research has been shoved aside, either. Thyne wrote two landmark studies on groundwater contamination in Garfield County, CO, the first showing that it existed, the second confirming that the contamination was directly linked to fracking in the area.

It’s the second study that got him in trouble.

“Thyne says he was told to cease his research by higher-ups. He didn’t,” The Checks and Balances Project explained. “And when it came to renew his contract, Thyne was cut loose.”

From Smoking Gun to Censorship: Range Resources Link

The Obama EPA’s Weatherford, TX study was long-in-the-making, with its orgins actually dating back to a case of water contamination in 2010. The victim: Steve Lipsky. 

“At first, the Environmental Protection Agency believed the situation was so serious that it issued a rare emergency order in late 2010 that said at least two homeowners were in immediate danger from a well saturated with flammable methane,” the AP wrote. 

AP proceeded to explain that Lipsky had “reported his family’s drinking water had begun ‘bubbling’ like champagne” and that his “well…contains so much methane that the…water [is] pouring out of a garden hose [that] can be ignited.”

The driller in this case was a corporation notorious for intimidating local communities and governmental officials at all levels of governance: Range Resources. Range, in this case, set up shop for shale gas production in a “wooded area about a mile from Lipsky’s home,” according to the AP. 

As DeSmogBlog revealed in November 2011, Range Resources utilizes psychological warfare techniques as part of its overarching public relations strategy.

Due to the grave health concerns associated with the presence of methane and benzene in drinking water, the Obama EPA “ordered Range…to take steps to clean their water wells and provide affected homeowners with safe water,” wrote the AP. 

Range’s response? It “threatened not to cooperate” with the Obama EPA’s study on fracking’s link to water contamination. The non-cooperation lead to the Obama EPA suing Range Resources. 

It was during this phase of the struggle where things got interesting. As the AP explained,

Believing the case was headed for a lengthy legal battle, the Obama EPA asked an independent scientist named Geoffrey Thyne to analyze water samples taken from 32 water wells. In the report obtained by the AP, Thyne concluded from chemical testing that the gas in the drinking water could have originated from Range Resources’ nearby drilling operation.

Despite this smoking gun, everything was soon shut down, with the Obama EPA reversing its emergency order, terminating the court battle and censoring Thyne’s report. The AP explained that the Obama EPA has “refused to answer questions about the decision.”

“I just can’t believe that an agency that knows the truth about something like that, or has evidence like this, wouldn’t use it,” Lipsky, who now pays $1,000 a month to have water hauled to his family’s house, told the AP.

“Duke Study” Co-Author Confirms Veracity of Thyne’s Study 

Robert Jackson, a Professor of Global Environmental Change at Duke University and co-author of the “Duke Study” linking fracking to groundwater contamination did an independent peer review of Thyne’s censored findings. He found that it is probable that the methane in Lipsky’s well water likely ended up there thanks to the fracking process. 

Range predictably dismissed Thyne and Jackson as “anti-industry.”

Americans Against Fracking: An “Unconscionable” Decision

Americans Against Fracking summed up the situation best in a scathing press release:

It is unconscionable that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is tasked with safeguarding our nation’s vital natural resources, would fold under pressure to the oil and gas industry…It is again abundantly clear that the deep pocketed oil and gas industry will stop at nothing to protect its own interests, even when mounting scientific evidence shows that drilling and fracking pose a direct threat to vital drinking water supplies.

There’s also a tragic human side to this tale. 

“This has been total hell,” Lipsky told the AP. “It’s been taking a huge toll on my family and on our life.”

Maya is the name of the determined protagonist of Zero Dark Thirty who pursues Osama bin Laden to his death.Controversies generated by the film include whether torture was essential to the success of the original mission, whether the producers were given special access to the CIA, and whether the film amounts to propaganda that excuses illegal methods of countering terrorism.

Director Kathryn Bigelow has been accused of wanting the film to be seen as both documentary and fiction, not unlike the way Rush Limbaugh wants to be seen as both a factual cultural power broker and mere entertainer.

Zero Dark Thirty, along with actor-director Ben Affleck’s film Argo, a thriller based on the joint CIA-Canadian rescue of rescue of six American diplomats during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, can generate some useful reflection upon American methods for achieving security in a dangerous world.

Both films pander to crude stereotypes of malevolent, swarthy-skinned, bearded jihadis. They intensify the “us and them” paradigm that suffuses our thinking about a region of the world going through paroxysmal changes.

Argo begins with a brief montage that acknowledges the U.S. role in the creation of modern Iran. The film mentions that the C.I.A. overturned Iranian elections in the 1950s, deposed the popular democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, and installed the Shah, causing severe blowback. We experienced more blowback when bin Laden was with us against the Soviets (during their Afghan War) before he was against us (leading to our Afghan War).

Ironically, Argo’s reduction of Iranians to brutal thugs is countered by the supremely subtle and human Iranian 2011 film of director and writer Asghar Farhadi, A Separation, in which an Iranian couple must decide whether to move to another country to provide opportunities for their child, or stay in Iran to care for a family member with Alzheimer’s; a work vastly higher in quality than either Argo or Zero Dark Thirty.

The two American films celebrate our ingenuity, courage and perseverance against adversaries, but our own integrity requires that we look more deeply into the dominant narrative that produced them.

While these are “only” films, Zero Dark Thirty points us back to the painfulness of the events out of which it came, illuminating the questions: How and when can the “war on terror” come to an end, and how will we know when it does? In the same way, Argo questions how to prevent a war between us – or Israel – and Iran, a war that would resolve nothing.

Bin Laden was apparently motivated to attack the West out of revenge–the ancient paradigm of an “eye for an eye.” In an extensive 2002 letter to the American people, printed in the British publication The Observer, bin Laden laid out his specific justifications for horrific violence against innocents.

He began by citing passages from the Koran that give permission to Islamists to fight “disbelievers.” Immediately this sets up a pathological context, because it contains what philosophers call a performative contradiction:

He proclaimed Islam as a universal religion, but his vision was radically exclusivist. He believed that a universal God is on the side of pure Islam against impure or non-Islamists. Religionists of many faiths, including Christianity, have occasionally fallen into this moral trap.

Bin Laden went on to say that he and his colleagues are fighting the U.S. because the U.S. supports Israel against Palestine. He was explicitly anti-Semitic; to him the creation of Israel was a crime, implying no willingness to accept a more inclusive, multi-ethnic vision of the region’s future.

Not all of bin Laden’s justifications for violence were based in irrational fantasies of revenge. He raised issues, like the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq as the result of U.S. sanctions, or our double standards about whom we allow to have nuclear weapons and whom we do not, that have also been raised by patriotic and loyal Americans.

When I spoke at a Rotary club a few years ago, I said that however horrific bin Laden’s crimes were, it was important to hear his rationalizations and understand his frame of reference. It was important to consider what effect actions of our own, like stationing troops on bases in Saudi Arabia, had upon extremists – or those who could be recruited to their ranks from amongst offended citizens – and it was important to bring murderers to trial as ordinary criminals rather than exterminate them. A number of listeners to my talk stood up and walked out.

Our decision to assassinate bin Laden was not an act of restorative justice. Killing him would not have brought back to life those who perished on 9/11. It was an act of retributive, consciously decided, cold-minded payback.

In the intent eyes of our heads of government as they followed the actions of the Navy Seals, eyes that included a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, it was possible to see how an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

In the nuclear age, this lack of moral imagination becomes a great deal more important than the issue of how entertaining or truthful are the products of Hollywood. Our planetary misery and fear will never decrease by an endless cycle of revenge and counter-revenge.

A pathological level of revenge is built into the very deterrence that rationalizes the possession of massive nuclear arsenals – the mother of all performative contradictions: a revenge-cycle that could kill us all, as it very nearly did in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Shouldn’t any sane narrative of our response to terrorism include fewer drones that create more terrorists than they kill, and a few more initiatives of reconciliation between the West and Muslim regions? It is past time to set aside, from the trillions we spend on weapons and war, a few millions for a Department of Peace.

Otherwise we are fooling ourselves – moving deck chairs around on the Titanic. “Maya” is the Sanskrit word for illusion.

Thomas Fingar, former Director of the National Intelligence Council, will receive the annual award from Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence in recognition of Fingar’s work from 2005 to 2008 restoring respect for the battered discipline of U.S. intelligence analysis after the fraudulent assessments on Iraq’s non-existent WMD.

In 2007, as chief of intelligence analysis, Fingar managed a thoroughly professional — and unsparingly honest — National Intelligence Estimate on the live-wire issue of Iran’s nuclear program. That NIE was instrumental in thwarting plans by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to attack Iran before they left office.

At the time, it was widely believed in the Official Washington that Tehran was developing a nuclear weapon but, as a seasoned intelligence professional, Fingar was allergic to “group think.” He recruited the best experts and ordered an empirical, bottom-up approach to the evidence. And, as luck would have it, some critical new intelligence became available in 2007 during the drafting.

Thus, in the Iran NIE of early November 2007, all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies judged “with high confidence” that Iran had halted its nuclear weapon design and weaponization work in 2003. That key judgment has been revalidated in testimony to Congress every year since.

Fingar, now a professor at Stanford, is teaching in its overseas program at Oxford in the United Kingdom. The award — named for the late CIA analyst Sam Adams who challenged the U.S. military’s overly optimistic claims about Vietcong and North Vietnamese troop strength during the Vietnam War — will be presented to Fingar at the historic Oxford Union.

Discussing his upcoming award with Sam Adams Associates, Fingar showed little patience with the nonsensical charges that he and his analysts had to endure after the NIE on Iran hit the streets. He reminded us:

“The whole purpose was to provide as accurate and objective a picture of what we knew at the time. To have done otherwise would have been unprofessional and inconsistent with the reason we have an intelligence establishment.

“Every other characterization of security-related affairs provided to decision makers has, or is assumed to have, a policy agenda. The Intelligence Community exists not just to provide analyses based on ‘all’ the information available to others — plus, when it can get it, information not available to others — but also, and more importantly, to assemble and assess the information as objectively as possible.

“The job of the Intelligence Community is to help decision makers to make better-informed decisions. It most emphatically is not to lead or pressure them to decide issues in a particular way. … It is also the reason we spend billions of dollars on intelligence analysis. … In a fundamental way, we were simply ‘doing our jobs’ when we produced the Iran NIE.

“Those who did not like the conclusions knew or soon realized that they could not challenge our findings by disputing the existence or meaning of our evidence, so they pursued a different course. The ploy was completely transparent: allege that those who wrote the NIE were intelligence amateurs who had a political agenda, and claim that the alleged principal authors had been career-long opponents of President Bush.

“There are many ‘problems’ with this line of attack — problems that were overlooked by a remarkable number of journalists. … I didn’t write the NIE but, at the time, I had 37 years of intelligence experience — probably no longer an amateur.

“Neocon critics never explained why, if I had been a career-long opponent of George W. Bush, he had nominated me to be an assistant secretary of state, endorsed my selection as the first Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis, and approved my selection to supervise preparation of materials for his daily briefing.”

Blocking a Dash to War

Without doubt, the NIE on Iran’s nuclear program made another rash decision to go to war in the Middle East untenable.

I myself have been involved in intelligence analysis for 50 years — 27 at the CIA; two as an Army infantry/intelligence officer, and the rest as a close observer. Yet, the November 2007 NIE is the only one I know of that deserves unambiguous credit for stopping an unnecessary war, one that could have been even more disastrous than the Bush administration’s excellent adventure in Iraq.

Don’t take my word for it. In his memoir Decision Points, President George W. Bush acknowledged that the “eye-popping” findings of the 2007 NIE “tied my hands on the military side. … After the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?

“I don’t know why the NIE was written the way it was … I certainly hoped intelligence analysts weren’t trying to influence policy. Whatever the explanation, the NIE had a big impact — and not a good one.”

As Bush’s comment made clear, intelligence analysts do not operate in a political vacuum. The real professionals, however, construct a protective shield against political influence, bias and an understandable-but-anathema eagerness to please superiors in the White House.

When I tell Washington cognoscenti that this shielding can actually work, and that the debacle with “intelligence” on Iraq was the “Cheney/Bush exemption to the rule,” their eyes roll in disbelief. Everyone in Washington is perceived to have a political agenda. It takes guts for senior intelligence officials to avoid playing into that perception.

Perhaps President Bush and Vice President Cheney can be forgiven for assuming that all senior intelligence officials are as eager to politicize their work as were former CIA Director George Tenet, his deputy John McLaughlin, and the senior managers who had bubbled to the top — with disastrous consequences for Iraq.

More than two decades had gone by since Director William Casey and his protégé, Robert Gates, began politicizing intelligence big-time. That is usually enough time to corrupt thoroughly any institution — and that proved to be true for the CIA. However, after the Iraq WMD catastrophe, professionals like Fingar stepped in to begin righting the intelligence ship.

The November 2007 NIE landed like a dead fish on the White House doorstep, causing the neocons and other war hawks to challenge the unanimous judgment of all 16 intelligence agencies as naïve. The drafters were pilloried with charges that they were soft on Iran and just trying to stop a war! But the deed was done; and we were spared another unnecessary bloodletting.

Oxford Site for Award

The Oxford Union will be hosting the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award ceremony on Jan. 23. The ceremony will feature several individuals well known in the field of intelligence and related topics, including an exclusive address via videolink from Julian Assange, who won the award in 2010.

The award is one of the few accolades for high-level whistleblowers who have taken risks to honor the public’s need to know. Also at the Oxford ceremony will be several previous Sam Adams awardees, including Coleen Rowley, Katharine Gun, Craig Murray, and Thomas Drake. The acceptance speech by Dr. Fingar will be followed by briefer remarks from a few previous Sam Adams awardees.

Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence was established in 2002 by colleagues and admirers of the late CIA intelligence analyst Sam Adams to recognize those who uphold his example as a model for those in intelligence who would aspire to the courage to speak truth to power. In honoring Adams’s memory, SAAII confers an award each year to someone in intelligence or related work who exemplifies Sam Adam’s courage, persistence, and devotion to truth – no matter the consequences.

It was Adams who discovered in 1967 that there were more than a half-million Vietnamese Communists under arms. This was roughly twice the number that the U.S. command in Saigon would admit to, lest Americans learn that claims of “progress” were bogus. As proven later in court, Gen. William Westmoreland had simply limited the number Army intelligence was allowed to carry on its books. His deputy, Gen. Creighton Abrams revealed the deception in a cable from Saigon:

A SECRET/EYES ONLY cable from Abrams on Aug. 20, 1967 stated: “We have been projecting an image of success over recent months,” and cautioned that if the higher figures became public, “all available caveats and explanations will not prevent the press from drawing an erroneous and gloomy conclusion.”

The Communist countrywide offensive during Tet (January/February 1968) made it clear that the generals had been lying and that Sam Adams’ higher figures were correct. Senior officials of the Washington Establishment were aware of the deception, but lacked the courage to stand up to Westmoreland. Sam Adams himself was too much a creature of the system to go “outside channels.”

A few weeks after Tet, however, Daniel Ellsberg rose to the occasion. Ellsberg learned that Westmoreland was asking for 206,000 more troops to widen the war into Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam – right up to the border with China, and perhaps beyond. Someone (we still don’t know who) promptly leaked to the New York TimesWestmoreland’s troop request, emboldening Ellsberg to do likewise with Sam Adams’ figures.

It was Ellsberg’s first unauthorized disclosure. He had come to the view that leaking truth about a deceitful war would be “a patriotic and constructive act.” On March 19, 1968, the Times published a stinging story based on Adams’s figures.

On March 25, President Johnson complained to a small group, “The leaks to the New York Times hurt us. … We have no support for the war. This is caused by the 206,000 troop request and the leaks. … I would have given Westy the 206,000 men.” On March 31, 1968, Johnson ordered a bombing pause, opted for negotiations, and announced that he would not run for another term in November.

Sam Adams continued to press for honesty but stayed “inside channels” – and failed. He died at 55 of a heart attack in 1988, nagged by the thought that, had he gone to the media, thousands of lives might have been saved. His story is told in War of Numbers, published posthumously.

The annual Sam Adams Award has been given in previous years to truth tellers Coleen Rowley of the FBI;Katharine Gun of British Intelligence; Sibel Edmonds of the FBI; Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan; Sam Provance; former US Army Sgt at Abu Ghraib; Maj. Frank Grevil of Danish Army Intelligence;Larry Wilkerson, Col., U.S. Army (ret.), former chief of staff to Colin Powell at State; Julian Assange of WikiLeaks; and (ex aequo) to Thomas Drake, former senior official of NSA and Jesselyn Radack, Director of National Security and Human Rights, Government Accountability Project.

Soldiers stationed at frontline military bases in Lower Shabelle, Somalia (AFP Photo / AU-UN IST Photo / Tobin Jones)

Five children and two adults were killed when African Union (AU) troops mistakenly shot into a religious school while pursuing militants, according to media reports.

­All five of the children killed were under five years of age, Somali legislator Dahir Amin Jesow told the AP.

The attack took place in a village about 120 kilometers west of Somali capital Mogadishu early morning Tuesday, when many students of Islamic schools in Somalia attend class.

Jesow said that soldiers from the African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISOM) were attacked by militants earlier.

But other residents of Leggo claimed there were no gunbattles between the troops and the rebels at the time.

“The AU forces opened fire indiscriminately on our homes,” one of them told Reuters.

AMISOM’s acting force commander, Major General Salvatore Harushimana, declared that AU troops always try to minimize civilian casualties. 

“AMISOM is mindful of its responsibility to minimize civilian casualties during its operations and we have clear rules of engagement to that effect. We are therefore currently establishing the facts and the circumstances around this tragic incident so as to ascertain whether, and to what extent, these rules may have been breached,” General Harushimana said. 

There are 17,600 AU troops in Somalia supporting the country’s weak central government, which is facing an insurgency from al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked group of Islamist militants.

By order of their various ‘independent’ masters, the world’s central banks have “got to work” over the past few years. Running the printing presses under the guise of various multi-syllabic programs designed to optically lower interest rates and feed fungible resources to its banking systems – that will inevitably (surely) flow to the real economy and make everything right with the world. Well, perhaps the following chart will explain just how good a “job” they are doing with that real-world, real-economy recovery…

(h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer)

Reuters / Mohamed Abd El Ghany

The mayor of Israel’s Upper Nazareth has refused to allow an Arab school to be built, defying an Israeli rights group that said the nearly 2,000 Arab children have a “basic right” to education, and that he is denying Arabs a “legitimate existence.”

­Upper Nazareth, a Jewish settlement in Galilee near the town of Nazareth, has rejected an appeal to set up an Arab school in the city, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Thursday.

“Upper Nazareth was founded to make the Galilee Jewish and must preserve this role,” Mayor Shimon Gapso said in a response to the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which submitted the request for the school earlier this month.

Gapso said the building of an Arab school in the city would be akin to building a mosque or a Muslim cemetery. He claimed the request concealed “a provocative nationalist statement intended to disrupt the status quo,” and vowed that it would never happen as long as he was mayor.

Although one-fifth of the 52,000 residents of Upper Nazareth are Arabs, there is no Arab school in the town, and the 1,900 Arab schoolchildren must travel to schools outside the city, most of them in neighboring Nazareth.

But the schools in Nazareth can only accept a small number of pupils from out of town, forcing many Arab children to attend much more expensive private schools.

Gapso defended his decision when questioned by Haaretz, calling the ACRI’s and the Arab’s claims unjustified. He argued that Upper Nazareth and Nazareth are in the same school registration area, and that the town provides transport to schools in Nazareth in accordance with the Education Ministry’s criteria.

Arab parents have in recent years repeatedly appealed to the local council to open an Arab school in Upper Nazareth, but this is the first time they have received a concrete answer.

“The lack of adequate schools infringes on the Arab residents’ right to accessible, available education and on the equality of allocating public and municipal resources,” the parents said in their request, which was submitted by ACRI attorney Ashraf Elias.

Elias then wrote to Mayor Gapso, urging him to rectify the situation: “The Arab children in Upper Nazareth are deprived of free, available formal education in their own town and neighborhoods. This means the local authority and education ministry are hardly allocating any resources to the Arab children’s education, compared to the Jewish children’s education.”

ACRI’s request was submitted on January 7; Gapso responded the next day. When contacted by Haaretz, he said that Upper Nazareth must stick to its “mission” of making the Galilee Jewish, and that he stood by “every word” he said.

Auni Banna, another ACRI attorney, warned that Gapso’s angry response was adopting a dangerous approach, “which not only objects to the existence of Arab schools in Upper Nazareth but also denies the legitimate existence of Arab’s in the city. The parents demand to enable their children to go to school in the city they live in is a basic right, and no city or mayor may deny it.”

Gapso is no stranger to conflict or furious outbursts. About six weeks ago, following a protest rally in Nazareth over the Israeli occupation of Gaza, Gapso accused the Nazareth municipality of being a “fifth column” that was a “hostile city to Israel,” and accused the entire city of becoming “a nest of terrorism in the heart of Galilee… waiting for an opportunity to stab Israel in the back.”

Israel’s anti-racism coalition has demanded that Gaspo be investigated and tried for incitement.

Nazareth is known as the ‘Arab capital of Israel’ because its population is predominately Arab. It is also the historic birthplace of Jesus, making it a center for Christian pilgrimage.

Al-Qaeda plans to use North Africa as a stepping stone to Europe and France may witness an Afghanistan-like backlash with the US entering another war, former Pentagon official Michael Maloof told RT.

A lot of the terrorists the French are battling in Mali were well-trained by the US and know how US special forces operate, and can use that knowledge against American troops, Maloof said.

The US will likely assist with troops transportation to the region, which could eventually lead to a coup in the country. The situation may soon become a potential Afghanistan for France, Maloof warned.

RT: Militants have killed two foreigners and are holding foreign hostages at a gas field in Algeria. This is an apparent retaliation for the French offensive in Mali. Is this what Paris has been warned against?

Michael Maloof: Paris was fully aware, and I think the US is aware too. This demonstrates how Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb basically is coordinating their activities. This is a part of the overall Al-Qaeda plan to basically take that northern part of Africa as a stepping stone into Europe itself — and there have been threats in Paris already by Malians.

What is really tragic is the fact that the US trained a lot of these now-terrorists, who basically defected from the government and know many of our activities, and know how we operate from a special forces standpoint and can use them against us.

RT: Why did that training initiative go so badly wrong there?

MM: The training went great at the time when it happened. What happened is that they defected. The man who led the coup, [Capt. Amadou Sanogo], was a military man who was actually trained by the US forces. He has insight, and I think General [Carter F.] Ham, one of our top commanders [in Africa], basically declared that this is a disaster that we’re confronting this problem right now.

These troops are very well-trained. They were involved not only in Libya, but also in Mali. They basically turned: They were Tuaregs [nomadic tribes], now they’ve joined forces with AQIM, which is Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

RT: Before asking more about the rebels and their makeup, because it is so easy to call them Al-Qaeda, what about the fact that the US, should it not be obliged now to help France more, as people say it is the US fault? Or is Washington distancing itself from what is going on in Mali?

MM: Not at all. They are involved and providing intelligence and probably will be committing transport to bring in African Union’s troops from African countries. But this could be a double-edged sword, given the uncertainty and volatility within in Mali itself. Many of the foreign troops coming could actually stage their own coups and take over the country. So this is a very dicey situation. It also represents a potential long-term Afghanistan-like effect for France itself, and inadvertently it could suck the United States back yet into another war.

RT: So these groups are actually homegrown in Mali? Or has there has been an element of importation of Islamism coming from other countries?

MM: Both internal and external. They have foreign fighters who have been part of AQIM for some time and as I said earlier this is a part of the grand Al-Qaeda central strategy out of Pakistan these days. I think it’s laying a foundation to lay more attacks into Europe, ultimately. The EU is very concerned about it, I may add.

RT: What’s happening in Mali is provoking possible attacks from elsewhere. The French seem to want to stamp out Islamism and stop Islamists from taking not just the north of Mali, but also the rest of the country. Just bombing them and using a military exercise against them — does that really get rid of the ideology and the actual threat?

MM: No I don’t think so, because after doing something similar for 10 years in Afghanistan we’re ready to pull out and Taliban is ready to move back in. There’s just a question of how effective this approach is going to be. I think that is something the French have to weigh for themselves. This could bring other countries back into a long-drawn conflict. Already Germany is beginning to show some resistance to this and is concerned about the amount of help that they give simply because they see protracted effort such as the experience in Afghanistan.

RT: That is exactly what the rebels are saying. That France is falling into a trap and could be experiencing another Iraq, Afghanistan or another Libya. So you think they may be right here: France is taking on a challenge that it may not be able to cope with along with other countries?

MM: It is almost like a strategy on the part of the rebels to draw them in. I have to add that Russia has a lot to be concerned because it has investments in this region to protect. They of course agreed to the UN Security council resolution to provide assistance to the French. It’s a dicey situation and larger than Mali, per se. It could affect the entire North Africa and enter Europe. I think it is a concern from geostrategic and political standpoint.

RT: So this conflict is going a lot longer, France is ambitious and positive this is going to be over very quickly. What about François Hollande? We start seeing troops with their first combat battles on the ground, 2,500 troops could be engaged on the ground there. If casualties start coming back and retaliate on French soil, what does that do for Hollande in the political situation there?

MM: I think it puts him ill-at-ease politically. Even though he put a strong stand that he’s going to fight them, to resist them, he has been just a recently elected president so he has ways to go. So, he will quickly see if Malian rebels would be able to do something in France, that could make citizens very concerned or they may just say ‘get out’ altogetherto avoid the conflict. He is in a very precarious situation now.

Heavy snowfall and icy storms are set to leave much of the country shivering during the next few days.

Snow has already started to fall in parts of Wales.

But forecasters are predicting the heaviest snowfall of the winter will hit large swathes of the UK on Friday.

Up to 10 inches of snow is expected to fall on higher ground, and between three and five inches on lower ground.

Train services are expected to be cancelled, and airports and schools to close.

The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings for the East Midlands, North West and South West England, Wales, the West Midlands and Yorkshire & Humber.

It comes after a bitterly cold night for much of the UK, with temperatures over East Anglia dropping to -11C.

Further snow showers are expected on Saturday, particularly along eastern coastal areas, with lighter snow showers on Sunday in the Midlands and northwards.

Strong winds at times across the country will make it feel bitterly cold.

Sky News weather presenter, Jo Wheeler, said: “As evening approaches, temperatures will drop, fog thickening in the east and there’ll be a widespread frost.

“As the rain spreads across Wales and the South West, it will give significant snowfall, potentially up to 25cm over exposed uplands.

“There’ll also be strong winds, with gusts of between 50mph and 60mph which will give blizzard conditions for a while.

“All in all, the travel situation will be quite atrocious for tomorrow’s commute or school run.

“The snow will push eastwards during the day, and is expected to reach London around the middle of the day, and eastern coasts by evening.

“Behind the snow however, it will become milder, with rain showers following onto western coasts.”

The Highways Agency has warned motorists to check forecasts, allow extra time for their journeys and avoid any unnecessary travel.

Steve Crosthwaite, head of the agency’s national traffic operations centre, said: “During periods of severe weather we also suggest people consider whether their journey is essential. They may want to delay their travel until conditions improve.”

The freezing weather has already caused havoc on the roads, with the AA reporting about 1,000 breakdowns an hour.

In Norfolk, 93 schools remain closed due to the weather.

Saudi Arabia has pledged USD 100 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to help alleviate its financial crisis caused by Israel’s seizure of Palestinian assets.

Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf announced the decision in a telephone conversation with acting PA chief Mahmoud Abbas, the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, reported late Wednesday.

The Palestinian Authority is grappling with a severe budget deficit caused by Israel seizing Palestinian assets after the United Nations agreed late last year to upgrade the Palestinians’ status to a nonmember observer state.

Infuriated by the successful Palestinian bid at the UN General Assembly, Israel decided to withhold the tax and tariff revenues it collects on behalf of the PA.

In December, Arab states agreed to provide the Palestinian Authority with a USD100 million monthly “financial safety net” to help Ramallah cope with the shortfall.

However, funds have yet to materialize despite pledges to deliver the money, which has left the PA unable to pay thousands of government employees waiting half their salaries from November and all their salaries from December.

Thousands of government workers across the West Bank embarked on a strike in December over unpaid wages, saying they could not even afford to travel to work.

MRS/HGH

Rio Tinto (Reuters / Yuriko Nakao)

The boss of mining giant Rio Tinto Tom Albanese has resigned over a $14bn write-down, after admitting ‘accountability’ for the loss of assets following bad deals.

­Rio Tinto revealed the losses in connection with its two most significant acquisitions in recent years. Immediately the company`s chief executive Tom Albanese left after more than 30 years working for the company.

Rio Tinto bought Canadian aluminum company Alcon in 2007, right before the start of the global economic recession. Some have called the $38 billion deal “disastrous”. In 2011 the company reported a 59% drop in profits followed by a $8.9 billion write-down on the value of the aluminum assets. As the results went public chief executive Albanese said he would not take his annual bonus.

2012 was not a lucky year for the company either. Another significant acquisition — Mozambique coal assets — has not brought any long-awaited results. On the contrary Rio Tinto announced plans to continue the write-downs, with a further 3 billion dollars relating to its Mozambique coal assets, basically wiping out most of the value placed on the coal mines it bought for 4 billion.

Jan du Plessis, Rio Tinto Group chairman said “a write-down of this scale in relation to a relatively recent Mozambique acquisition is unacceptable.”

Another Rio Tinto veteran the head of strategy Doug Ritchie, who led the Mozambique acquisition, stepped down by mutual agreement.

News of the massive write-downs at the company, which used to be one of the world`s biggest miners, knocked Rio`s shares by almost 3 per cent in early trade on the LSE.

Tom Albanese will be replaced by Sam Walsh, who spent 20 years in the auto industry before turning to Rio Tinto in 1991. Reuters reported on Thursday that Walsh was welcomed by investors as a helpful pair of hands, but noted that there are concerns the 63-year-old veteran will not be a long-term solution.

Both Albanese and Ritchie will work at the company till mid-July, though their resignation has already been accepted; they have also refused from any bonuses on departure. 

Meanwhile, Albanese`s departure makes him the latest in line of chief executives leaving major mining companies. Both BHP Billiton and Anglo American have seats open.

The squeeze on tax credits and benefits will push a further 200,000 children into poverty, the government has admitted for the first time. It suggests a total of a million extra children will be in poverty as a result of government welfare measures.

Read the whole story at Guardian

Some 34 Westerners and 15 kidnappers have been reportedly killed after the Algerian Army conducted air raids on the African country’s In-Amenas gas facilities.

Mauritania’s news agency (ANI) said the attack came as kidnappers were trying to move their hostages in vehicles to a new location.

Algerian militants had earlier claimed to be holding 41 foreign employees of the desert gas complex hostage at the site, but had suggested that they were ready to negotiate if the army withdrew from the area.

ANI cited the spokesman for the hostage-takers as saying that their leader Abu al Baraa had also been killed in the attack. The kidnapper, talking by telephone from inside the facility, warned that the rest of the hostages would also be killed, if the Algerian Army approached the site.

This is while local officials announced earlier on Thursday that 30 Algerians and 15 foreign nationals had managed to escape their kidnappers.

Kidnappers said their hostage taking is a reprisal for France’s intervention in Mali’s internal affairs and demanded an immediate end to the military offensive.

On January 11, France launched a military intervention in Mali under the pretext of halting the advance of the militants in the African country.

Four days later, France announced that it would more than triple the number of its soldiers in Mali from 800 to 2,500. French troops launched their first ground attack against rebel forces on January 16.

On Wednesday, two people, including a British national, reportedly died in an attack conducted by gunmen in three vehicles on a bus carrying foreign gas workers near the In-Amenas gas field, west of the Libyan border.

The rebel forces fighting in Mali say they carried out the attack to avenge Algeria’s support for the French-led military operation in Mali.

TE/HMV

The Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on economic cooperation and transfer of technology for electricity generation and transmission.

Under the agreement inked between energy officials of the two countries in the presence of Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi and Syrian Prime Minister Wael Nader al-Halqi in Tehran on Wednesday, Iran will provide engineering services as well as necessary equipment for transmission of electrical power through the Syrian national power grid.

The contract is worth about 50 million euros (over USD66 million), and is projected to be implemented in 20 months.

Meanwhile, Tehran and Damascus signed an agreement to open a USD1-billion line of credit that will allow Syrian importers to purchase Iranian supplies without the need for direct cash transfer.

The deal was cut between the Export Development Bank of Iran and Commerce Bank of Syria.

Halqi arrived in Tehran on Tuesday for a two-day visit. During his stay, he discussed matters of mutual interest as well as regional and international developments with senior Iranian officials.

MP/SS/IS

David Cameron has said Nick Clegg needs increase the number of female Lib Dem MPs, as he promised to appoint more women to his cabinet.

In an interview with the parliamentary House magazine published today, the prime minister said he was committed to honouring a pledge to make at least one third of Conservative ministers women.

But he noted that he could not speak on behalf of his Lib Dem colleagues in government. “Obviously I can’t apply my pledge to the Lib Dems and obviously they need to improve their diversity and I’ll be having a word with the deputy prime minister about that,” he said.

“I remain committed to what I said. I want to deliver a more diverse party and I want to encourage more women and more ethnic minorities, more people from different parts of the country, from different backgrounds, into the party at all levels,” he said.

The Lib Dems currently have five cabinet ministers in the government – all of them are men. Of the junior Lib Dem ministers, six are women, including Lynne Featherstone at international development and Jo Swinson at the business department.

Cameron has frequently been criticised for not appointing enough women to top government jobs. Of only four full cabinet members are women, Justine Greening (transport), Maria Miller (culture), Theresa Villers (Northern Ireland) and Theresa May (Home Office).

The prime minister said the reason many junior ministers lost their jobs in September’s reshuffle was so he could bring in new MPs, especially female and ethnic minority Tories, with a view to promoting them in the future.

“You can’t just catapult people into the Cabinet. You need to give people the chance to shine in junior ministerial jobs so that’s what I’ve done, ” he said.

“These reshuffles are important because you can’t just fix it in one go. You need to get the talent moving through the ranks.”

Cameron also said there was a “never ending drive” to see more MPs from ethnic minorities elected to parliament.

He told House magazine: “The Conservative Party needed to reach out as I’ve put it in the past people were opening a door hand seeing all white faces and didn’t find that very welcoming, we need to go out and attract very talented people from ethnic minority communities to join the Conservatives, stands as a Conservatives, stand for local government, stand for Parliament, so there’s no let up in that, we’ll go on encouraging that.”

Via Mark J. Grant, author of Out of the Box,

It is neither pessimism nor optimism but a squaring up with the facts and, when done, it is the inescapable conclusion that we have backed ourselves into a corner of our own making and that to escape this dark and dangerous place will be a painful experience. The scheme rests upon various feet; Central Banks acting in collusion to lower yields and provide capital as an off-set to the government in America and the governments on the Continent who cannot bear, for political reasons, to do what should be done and that is to cut expenditures.

The United States and the European Union are spending far too much money on anything/everything which cannot be afforded by their economies and so the Central Banks print more and more and more money to accommodate their Masters. Inflation, the conclusion that would be expected in normal times, is not present because all of these Central Banks are operating in unison and so, with nowhere to invest money off-world, we are restrained by the boundaries of the planet and what is available to absorb the slosh of capital that has been created. With the Central Banks buying up around eighty percent of any new supply; what is left for the poor beggars defined as private investors and so the money is put to use, equities head higher, absolute yields fall, compression continues unabated in Fixed Income, Real Estate increases in price and it soon become obvious that it is not this sector or that sector but the entire planet that has been filled with a gigantic amount of hot air and newly minted little pieces of paper and that a bubble has been created which is not only world-wide and systemic but it is the likes of one we have never seen which is why it has gone rather unnoticed. It is rather like lying in the poppy fields of Oz on some warm afternoon in May and forgetting that the wicked witch still lurks in her castle and watch out for Toto because she means to get you both!
 
The worry then is how does it all end, what do you do in the meantime and how and what do you do when the bubble is pricked. The Central Banks will try to manage it but they will fail as the demon is now far larger than either spun rhetoric or their ability to contain the monster that they have created. The politicians, on both Continents, have fed the incubus by offering sustenance to the people that elect them far past what their pocketbooks can afford and so Uncle Ben and Super Mario turn on their magic machines which mystically morphs paper into a special affair that can be used to buy goods and services with all of it backed by nothing more than promises to pay and “full faith and credit” and other lofty sounding words that mask the fact that no government could afford to pay except in this “pay in kind” fashion and so the presses print, old debt is paid off with new debt, the size of the debt is hidden in musty drawers, most isn’t counted and six and twenty blackbirds have baked a meringue pie.
 
A meringue is really nothing but foam. And what is foam after all, but a big collection of bubbles? And what’s a bubble? It’s basically a very flimsy little latticework of proteins draped with water. We add sugar to this structure, which strengthens it; but things can, and will, go wrong. Perhaps very wrong.
 
So there is the definition of the problem. There is the crystallization of the dilemma. The entire world’s financial system encased in a bubble and nowhere to go, nowhere to hide and nowhere to be safe. Many argue for the value of gold when the prick comes but gold is just a currency replacement and while it will rally in response or perhaps rally with inflation if it comes it begs the question of valuation as it has no absolute value as defined by me before and so relative value without the payment of income is a major cause of concern.

Consequently unless the world’s financial system implodes, a thought expressed by some, gold may be a choice but not the best of choices.
 
Since off-world investments are not possible then we are bound by the choices that are available. This brings us around to TIPS or corporate bonds tied to inflation, staying very short in maturities, floating rate notes that rise with interest rates or any other types of investments that float off of CMT (Constant Maturity Treasuries) or any other asset class that will rise in yield and price as valuation decreases and as the effects of the slosh of money wears thin. Bonds such as step-ups may have additional worth now as a partial hedge and fortunes, once again, will be made and lost making the right bet. The big Kahuna will be the question of timing because we play the Great Game to win and not to be right. Preparation is the key now because history teaches us that small bubbles, much less our humongous one, will not last as political and economic forces unite to prick that which is so over-valued in one manner or another.
 
When the economies of Spain, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and France are in decline and yet their sovereign yields fall as supported by a conditional promise from the ECB then trouble is in the making. When America spends money like it is without end because the Fed hands out the byproducts of the forest as if it was an unlimited supply then the valuation of paper overtakes the use to which it is put. We are sitting with our little round plastic toys and blowing bubbles into the sky and when the turn comes, when the bubble is pricked, scant few will be able to run fast enough or get through the door quickly enough when the madding crowd is rushing in a collective push to get out of the burning theatre. It may not be today and it may not be tomorrow but soon enough and hence my caution before the storm.

Until now the course of the crisis has been accurately described according to the five phases identified by our team from May 2006 (GEAB n°5) and completed in February 2009 (GEAB n°32): release, acceleration, impact, decanting and global geopolitical dislocation, the last two stages developing simultaneously. In the last issues and in particular the GEAB n°70 (December 2012), we commented extensively on the ongoing processes of the two last phases, a decantation from which the world-after painfully emerges on the rubble of world geopolitical dislocation.

But we had underestimated the decanting period’s duration which we have gone through for more than four years, a period during which all the crisis’ players have worked to a common goal, to gain time: the United States, whilst making every effort to prevent the appearance of alternative solutions to the dollar, in spite of the catastrophic situation of all its systemic fundamentals, to prevent its creditors from abandoning it (discrediting other currencies including the Yen from now on, tenacity against the attempts to disconnect oil from the dollar, etc…); the rest of the world, in setting up skilful strategies consisting of maintaining its assistance towards the United States to avoid a sudden collapse from which it would be the first to suffer, and at the same time constructing alternative and of decoupling solutions.At the end of this long period of the system’s apparent “anaesthesia”, we consider it necessary to add a sixth phase to our description of the crisis: the last impact phase which will occur in 2013.

The United States certainly believed that the rest of the world would have an interest in keeping its economy on artificial respiratory assistance ad infinitum but it is likely that they don’t believe it any more today. As regards the rest of the world, the final chapters of the US crisis (major political crisis, decisional paralysis, near miss of the fiscal cliff, perspective of a payment default in March, and always the incapacity to implement the least structural solution) convinced it of the imminence of a collapse, and all the players are on the look-out for the least sign of a swing to extricate themselves, conscious that by doing so they will precipitate the final collapse.

Our team considers that in the context of the extreme tensions — both domestic political and world financial tensions — induced by the next raising of the US debt ceiling in March 2013, the signs will not be lacking to cause the disappearance of US treasury bonds’ last purchasers, a disappearance which the Fed will no longer be able to compensate for, resulting in an increase in interest rates which will propel American indebtedness to astronomical levels, leaving no hope of ever being repaid to creditors who will prefer to throw in the towel and let the dollar collapse… a collapse of the dollar which will de facto correspond to the first genuine solution, painful certainly but real, for US indebtedness.

It’s for this reason also that our team anticipates that 2013, the first year of the World-Afterwards, will see a setting up of this “purifying” of US and world accounts. All the players are tending towards this step whose consequences are very difficult to predict but which is also an unavoidable solution to the crisis taking into account the United States structural incapacity to set up genuine debt-reduction strategies.But in order to take the measure of the causes and consequences of this last impact phase, let’s reconsider the reasons for which the system lasted for so long. Our team will then analyze the reasons for which the shock will take place in 2013 afterwards.

Saving time: When the world rejoices at the US status-quo

Since 2009 and the temporary measures to save the global economy, the world has been waiting for the famous “double dip”, the relapse, as the situation continues to worsen day by day for the United States: breathtakingly high national debt, mass unemployment and poverty, political paralysis, loss of influence, etc. However, this relapse still hasn’t arrived. Admittedly, the “exceptional measures” of assistance to the economy (lowest interest rates, public expenditure, debt repurchase, etc.) are still in force. But against all expectations and contrary to any objective and rational judgment, the markets still seem to have confidence in the United States.

Actually, the system isn’t based on confidence any more but on calculating the best moment to extricate themselves and the means of hanging on until then.The time has passed when China challenged the United States to implement a second round of quantitative easing (1): the world seems to have adapted itself to the fact that this country is still growing its debt and is inescapably turning towards a payment default, provided that it’s still standing and doesn’t make too many waves again. Why don’t the other countries press the United States to reduce its deficit, but on the contrary are delighted (2) when agreement on the fiscal cliff keeps the status-quo? However nobody is fooled, the situation cannot last indefinitely, and the world economy’s main problem is really the United States and its dollar (3).

Countries’ public debt by the number of months tax receipts (4) — Source: LEAP / European Commission, ONS, FRB

According to the LEAP/E2020 team, the various players are seeking to gain time. For the markets, it is a question of gaining maximum benefit from the Fed and the US government’s largesse in order to make easy money; for the foreign countries, it’s a question of extracting their economies to the maximum from that of the United States in order to be able to shelter themselves at the time of the coming shock. Thus, for example, it’s how Euroland makes the most of it in order to strengthen itself and China takes advantage of it to sink its dollars in foreign infrastructures (5) which will always be better value than dollars when that currency is on the floor.

Acceleration of the tempo and a build-up of challenges

But this period of complicit leniency is coming to an end because of intense pressures. It is interesting to note that the pressures don’t really come from abroad, confirming our analysis above; those are rather of two sorts, internal and financial-economic.On the one hand, it’s the internal political battle which threatens the house of cards. If Obama appears to be traversing a period of political grace facing a seemingly subjugated republican camp, the battle will begin again even more violently than ever starting from March. Indeed, if the republican representatives will be undoubtedly obliged to vote the increase in the debt ceiling, they will make Obama pay dearly for this “capitulation”, pushed here by their electoral base half of which in fact wants a US default considered by them as the only solution to free them from the country’s pathological debt (6). The republicans thus hope to do battle on the many issues and challenges which are shaping up: on the social side, firearms regulation (7), taking a new look at immigration and the legalization of 11 million illegal immigrants (8), health care reform, and more generally questioning the Federal state’s role; on the economic side, lowering expenditure, debt settlement (9), fiscal cliff « redux » (10), etc… All these issues are on the next few months’ agenda and the least hitch can prove to be fatal. Given the republicans’ pugnacity and their supporters’ even more so, it’s rather the hope that there is no hitch which is utopian.On the other hand, it’s the international markets, Wall Street at the forefront, which threaten not to extend their confidence in the US economy. Since Hurricane Sandy and especially since the episode of the fiscal cliff which hasn’t fixed any problems, the pessimistic analyses and doubts are becoming increasingly strong (11). It’s necessary to keep in mind that the stock markets are stateless and, even domiciled in New York, have only one goal, profits. In 2013, the world is sufficiently extensive so that investors and their capital, just like a flight of sparrows, slip away to other skies on the slightest warning (12).Whereas agreement on the debt ceiling in 2011 settled the question for 18 months (13), that on the fiscal cliff defers the problem for only two months. Whilst one felt the effects of QE1 for a year, QE3 had an effect for only a few weeks (14). Besides, with a diary loaded with negotiations to come, one sees the tempo accelerate significantly, a sign that the abyss is approaching and players’ nervousness along with it.

S&P performance during each quantitative easing action — Source: ZeroHedge/SocGen

March-June 2013, extreme tension: the least spark lights the blue touch-paper

In addition to these US challenges, the whole world also has many tests to pass, here again its economic challenges above all. In particular it’s Japan and the United Kingdom, key elements in the US sphere of influence, which are fighting for their survival, both in recession, with insupportable debts, household savings on the deck and with no prospect of a short-term solution. We will examine these two countries in detail later in this issue. But it’s also a Brazilian economy which is just ticking over (15); difficulty to manage inflation rates in the emerging powers; the deflation of the Canadian, Chinese and European real estate bubbles (16), etc…

The challenges are also of a geopolitical nature: to quote only three examples, African conflicts among which of course France’s intervention in Mali, conflicts and indirect confrontation of the Middle Eastern powers around Syria, Israel and Iran, as well as the territorial tensions around China which we will examine during our following analysis on Japan.All these factors, economic, geopolitical, American, global, are coming together at the same moment in time: the second quarter of 2013.

Our team has identified the period running from March to June 2013 as being explosive, in particular at the conclusion of the negotiations in the United States on the debt ceiling and the fiscal cliff. The least spark will light the blue touch-paper, unleashing the second impact phase of the global systemic crisis. \

And there are many opportunities to create sparks, as we have seen.So what are the consequences of and the calendar for this second impact phase? On the markets initially, a significant fall will spread out until the end of 2013. All economies being inter-connected, the impact will spread throughout the whole planet and will drag the global economy into recession. Nevertheless, thanks to other countries’ decoupling which we mentioned previously, all countries won’t be affected in the same way. Because, more so than in 2008, opportunities exist for capital in Asia, Europe and Latin America, in particular.

In addition to the United States, the countries the most affected will be those in the US sphere, namely the United Kingdom and Japan primarily. And, while these countries will still struggle in 2014 with the social and political consequences of the impact, the other regions, BRICS and Euroland at the forefront, will finally see the end of the tunnel at that time.In order to understand the formation of this second impact phase, we next review the “suicidal tendencies” of four powers of the world before: the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Israel.

Then we will present the traditional January “Ups & Downs”, rising and falling trends for 2013, also serving as recommendations for this New Year. Finally, as in each month, our readers will also find the GlobalEurometre.

Notes:

(1) One can refresh one’s memory here (Wall Street Journal, 18/10/2010) or here (US News, 29/10/2010).

(2) « Relief after the happy epilogue of the fiscal cliff » headline ForexPros.fr (02/01/2013); « Relief at fiscal cliff crisis deal » headline BBC (03/01/2013)…

(3) As identified by LEAP/E2020 since 2006 from the GEAB n°2.

(4) The banks’ public reflation is included in the United Kingdom’s debt.

(5) The Chinese being very active in this arena; one has numerous examples such as the port of Piraeus in Greece, Heathrow airport in the UK, in Africa, but also the takeover of industrial jewels (Volvo for example) etc. See, for example Emerging Money (China to invest in Western infrastructure, 28/11/2011).

(6) Read, for example, ZeroHedge, 14/01/2013.

(7) Source: Fox News, 30/12/2012.

(8) Source: New York Times, 12/01/2013.

(9) Source: New York Times, 15/01/2013.

(10) The budgetary cuts debate has simply been pushed back two months. Source: New Statesman, 02/01/2013.

(11) Like here (CNBC, 11/01/2013), here (MarketWatch, 14/01/2013) or here (CNBC, 08/01/2013).

(12) The United States will in their turn taste the irony of history: the financial market deregulation and globalisation which they promoted so much is going to turn round dramatically against them.

(13) It’s as at this point in time that the automatic cuts of 01/01/2013 were enacted to force a bipartisan agreement. Source: CNN Money (02/08/2011) or Wikipedia.

(14) For a reminder on these quantitative easing operations, one can refer to BankRate.com, Financial crisis timeline.

(15) Source: Les Échos, 05/12/2012.(16) See previous GEAB issues.

A month ago we mocked the Philly Fed number which printed at an outlier level of 8.1, slamming expectations of a negative print, and sending algos into overbuydrive. A week ago we were validated when the annual revision brought that number down from 8.1 to 4.6. Today we get confirmation that the December print was a total farce, with a January Philly Fed print which is once again solidly in negative territory, or -5.8, which just happens to be the biggest miss to expectations of 5.6 in seven months. Yet while a month ago the huge beat was a reason for the robots to ramp stocks, today’s miss is a reason to… ramp stocks even more. Why? Because moments before the disappointing announcement the Fed decided to inject even more liquidity in addition to the now daily unsterilized POMO, following the resumption of repos, which injected some $210 million in reserves into dealers. This is in addition to the $3 or so billion that today’s POMO will add as stock purchasing dry powder for banks.

This is how today’s Philly Fed looked: note the collapse in number of employees, which apparently nobody cares about anymore:

From the report:

The survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of current activity, decreased from a revised reading of 4.6 in December to -5.8 this month (see Chart).* The demand for manufactured goods showed slight declines this month: The new orders index declined from a revised reading of 4.9 in December to -4.3 in January. The shipments index remained slightly positive but suggests no overall growth – the percentage of firms reporting increased shipments was mostly offset by the percentage reporting decreased shipments (26 percent). The indexes for both delivery times and unfilled orders recorded slightly negative readings this month.

Labor market conditions at reporting firms deteriorated this month. The employment index, at -5.2, fell from -0.2 in December. The percentage of firms reporting decreases in employment (16 percent) exceeded the percentage reporting increases (11 percent). Firms also indicated a decrease in the average workweek compared with last month.

And why was this huge miss completely ignored by algos and bank prop desks? Here’s why, courtesy of the first Fed repo operation of 2013:

To summarize: two big misses to unadjusted data massaged by seasonal adjustments, and a major miss to a diffusion index, all ignored and offset by even more Fed liquidity.

A US senator has announced plans to nullify the president’s gun control proposal, saying that Barack Obama’s actions resemble that of a king.

Republican Senator Rand Paul said on Wednesday that the proposal, which was presented earlier in the day, violates the constitutional separation of powers between the president and Congress and argued that Obama may be developing a “king-like complex.”

In reaction to the unrelenting gun massacres in the US, Obama presented a USD500-million proposal that calls for a ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines as well as wider background checks on gun buyers.

The proposal has angered gun advocates, who say it violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which gives the Americans the right to carry firearms.

Paul presented a bill, which aims to invalidate Obama’s executive actions, deny any federal funding for their implementation and allow Congress members and state officials to challenge the actions in court.

“Our founding fathers were very concerned about us having separation of powers. They didn’t want to let the president become a king.” Paul said. “In this bill, we will nullify anything the president does that smacks of legislation.”

Obama’s proposals were met with widespread objections from Republicans and gun rights groups including the National Rifle Association (NRA).

“Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation,” said NRA regarding the gun proposal, and added, “Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy.”

In the next couple of weeks, NRA is planning to put its lobbying pressure on lawmakers at Capitol Hill aimed at stopping the proposal from being approved.

The Senate hearing on the gun control proposal is set to start in two weeks.

CAH/HMV

.

When the Demon had finished his crime
And the assets could no longer climb
His power decayed
He stated to fade
Like dust in the space-winds of time

The Limerick King

.

Ponzi can surely attest

The gold in the vault is the best

But then he checked leases

For 10 times the pieces

And said: “Now I’m really impressed!!!”

The Limerick King

.

When the Demon had finished his crime

And the assets could no longer climb

His power decayed

He stated to fade

Like dust in the space-winds of time

The Limerick King

The French military assault on Islamist extremists in Mali escalated into a potentially much broader North African conflict on Wednesday when, in retribution, armed attackers in unmarked trucks seized an internationally managed natural gas field in neighboring Algeria and took at least 20 foreign hostages, including Americans.

Algerian officials said at least two people, including a Briton, were killed in the assault, which began with a predawn ambush on a bus trying to ferry gas-field workers to an airport. Hundreds of Algerian security forces were sent to surround the gas-field compound, creating a tense standoff, and the country’s interior minister said there would be no negotiations.

Algeria’s official news agency said at least 20 fighters had carried out the attack and mass abduction. There were unconfirmed reports late on Wednesday that the security forces had tried to storm the compound and had retreated under gunfire from the hostage takers.

Many details of the assault on the gas field in a barren desert site near Libya’s border remained murky, including the precise number of hostages, which could be as high as 41, according to claims by the attackers quoted by regional news agencies. American, French, British, Japanese and Norwegian citizens who worked at the field were known to be among them, officials said.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called the gas-field attack a terrorist act and said the United States was weighing a response. His statement suggested that the Obama administration could be drawn into a military entanglement in North Africa that it had been seeking to keep at arm’s length – even as it has conceded that the region has become a new haven for extremists who threaten Western security and vital interests.

“I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation,” Mr. Panetta said during a visit to Italy.

The gas-field attack, which seemed to take foreign governments and the British and Norwegian companies that help run the facility completely by surprise, appeared to make good on a pledge by the Islamist militants who seized northern Mali last year to sharply expand their struggle against the West in response to France’s military intervention that began last week.

The hostage taking potentially broadened the conflict beyond Mali’s borders and raised the possibility of drawing an increasing number of foreign countries into direct involvement, particularly if expatriates working in the vast energy extraction industries of North Africa become targets. It also doubled, at least, the number of non-African hostages that Islamist militants in northern and western Africa have been using as bargaining chips to finance themselves in recent years through ransoms that have totaled millions of dollars.

But there was no indication that the gas-field attackers wanted money, and no other demands or ultimatums were issued. In a statement sent to ANI, a Mauritanian news agency, they demanded the “immediate halt of the aggression against our own in Mali.”

The statement, made by a group called Al Mulathameen, which has links to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African affiliate of Al Qaeda, claimed it was holding more than 40 “crusaders” – apparently a reference to non-Muslims – “including seven Americans, two French, two British as well as other citizens of various European nationalities.”

Algeria’s interior minister, Daho Ould Kablia, said, according to Reuters, that the raid was led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and recently set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local Qaeda leaders.

Mr. Belmokhtar is known to French intelligence officials as “the Uncatchable” and to some locals as “Mister Marlboro” for his illicit cigarette-running business, the news agency said. His ties to Islamist extremists who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.

The gas-field attack coincided with an escalation of the fight inside Mali, according to Western and Malian officials, as French ground troops, joined by soldiers of the Malian Army, engaged in combat with Islamist fighters. The officials said the French-Malian units had begun to beat back the Islamist militant advance southward from northern Mali, a move that had provoked the intervention ordered by President François Hollande of France.

The attackers seemed particularly incensed that Algeria’s government had permitted the French to use Algerian airspace to fly warplanes and military equipment into Mali, according to their statement, which may explain why they chose Algeria for retaliation. Some Algerian military experts said the Algerian public also was unhappy about the government’s decision.

“The setting in motion of a military machine in north Mali was going to have definite repercussions in Algeria,” said Mohamed Chafik Mesbah, a former Algerian Army officer and political scientist, adding, . “There are going to be much worse consequences. There will be more attacks.”

A senior Algerian official said the militants, who claimed to have come from Mali, had used three unmarked trucks to breach the gas-field compound, outside the town of In Amenas. An oil company official who had knowledge of the attack said the militants had shut down production at the site, an indication of carefully planning. But how and why they chose In Amenas, which is more than 700 miles from the Malian border and is much closer to Libya, were among the unknowns.

The facility is the fourth-largest gas development in Algeria, a major oil producer and OPEC member. The In Amenas gas compression plant is operated by BP of Britain, the Norwegian company Statoil and the Algerian national oil company Sonatrach.

Bard Glad Pedersen, a Statoil spokesman, said that of 17 Statoil employees who had been working in the field, four escaped to a nearby Algerian military camp, but he would not say how. The Sahara Media Agency of Mauritania, quoting what it described as a spokesman for the militants, said that they were holding five hostages in a production facility on the site and 36 others in a housing area, and that there were as many as 400 Algerian soldiers surrounding the operation. But that information could not be confirmed.

Islamist groups and bandits have long operated in the deserts of western and northern Africa, and a collection of Islamists have occupied the vast expanse of northern Mali since a government crisis in that country last March. Those groups, including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had pledged to strike against France’s interests on the continent and abroad, as well as those of nations backing the French operations. In France, security has been reinforced at airports, train stations and other public spaces.

The militant groups are financed in large part through ransoms paid for the freeing of Western hostages, and regular kidnappings have occurred in the West African desert in recent years. At least seven French citizens are presently being held there, officials say.

Oil and gas are central to the Algerian economy, accounting for more than a third of the country’s gross domestic product, over 95 percent of its export earnings and 60 percent of government financial receipts. Algeria is an important gas supplier to France, Spain, Turkey, Italy and Britain.

Algeria has also historically been known as a relatively secure place for foreign companies to work and invest. Sonatrach and the security forces had put tight security around oil and gas facilities during the struggle with Islamic militants in the 1990s, when energy infrastructure was never a major insurgent target.

Energy experts expressed concern that the Algerian raid could signal a new strategy by Islamic militants to attack the West by focusing on Western-operated oil and gas facilities in the region.

Helima Croft, a Barclays Capital senior geopolitical strategist,said if groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb “decide as a change in tactic they go after Western energy interests, then you have to look at a threat in all these countries, including Libya, Nigeria and Morocco.”

She added: “This type of attack had to have advanced planning. It’s not an easy target of opportunity.”

Adam Nossiter reported from Bamako, and Scott Sayare from Paris. Reporting was contributed by Clifford Krauss from Houston, Rick Gladstone from New York, Elisabeth Bumiller from Rome, and Alan Cowell and Steven Erlanger from Paris.

© 2013 The New York Times Company Truthout has licensed this content. It may not be reproduced by any other source and is not covered by our Creative Commons license.

I’m not sure why MSNBC thinks that anyone from an organization that makes the NRA look like moderates deserves to get some air time or to be treated as someone the public should take seriously, but they brought Gun Owners of America’s Erich Pratt (son of Larry Pratt) on to bash President Obama after his press conference today calling for sweeping new gun laws.

As Think Progress noted, he decided to dish out a bit of revisionist history on just when St. Ronnie was in support of gun control and as I noted this week, it was before he was president and well before he started exhibiting symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: Reagan Only Supported Gun Control Because He Was Senile, Prominent Gun Advocate Suggests:

As he unveiled his comprehensive package of gun safety regulations on Wednesday afternoon, President Obama urged Americans to stand up to irrational opponents of restrictions on military-style weapons, noting that even President Ronald Reagan supported sensible restrictions on assault weapons. “And by the way, so did Ronald Reagan, one of the staunchest defenders of the Second Amendment, who wrote to Congress in 1994 urging them – this is Ronald Reagan speaking – urging them to listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of military-style assault weapons,” Obama said.

Asked about Reagan’s position during an appearance on MSNBC shortly after Obama’s remarks, Erich Pratt of Gun Owners of America, suggested that Reagan only supported greater restrictions because he was senile:

ANDREA MITCHELL (HOST): What’s the problem with registering a gun? If you have a bushmaster, first of all, why would you have one?

PRATT: President Reagan owned an AR-15.

MITCHELL: And he supported gun control. He advocated…

PRATT: In his later years. We have to keep that in account.

MITCHELL: In his later years he was almost killed by John Hinckley.

PRATT: But all through his presidency he opposed gun control, that’s my point.

Read on…

Pratt was also defending the NRA’s new ad that they decided to double down on today, even though, as Andrea Mitchell noted, it’s generally considered off limits to be going after the children of presidents. These groups don’t care how low they have to go if it gets their base whipped into a frenzy and protects the gun manufacturers who are funding them.

Europe’s second largest paper production firm intends to cut 860 jobs worldwide after the eurozone crisis reduced the demand for paper.

The struggling European economy has affected the use and need for paper, the Finland-based UPM (United Paper Mills)-Kymmene said on Thursday. The supply of graphic papers has significantly outweighed the demand in Europe.

“The continuing challenges in the European economy have significantly impacted the consumption of paper, exacerbating the effect of structural changes in paper end-uses and resulting in further decline in the demand of graphic papers in Europe,” UPM said in a statement.

“UPM is planning to permanently reduce paper capacity in Europe by a further 580,000 tons,” the company added.

The Finnish paper maker now seeks major cost cutting schemes through the closure of paper machines and mills that are “at the end of their technical age” or have “poor profitability,” UPM Paper Business Group President Jurki Ovaska said.

The decrease of paper demand in Europe started in 2005 as the debt crisis, unemployment and austerity measures forced people to look for cheaper alternatives to newspapers and magazine subscriptions.

Consumers in the information media market have tended to lean toward free information sources available on websites.

Europe plunged into financial crisis in early 2008. The worsening debt crisis has forced the EU governments to adopt harsh austerity measures and tough economic reforms, which have triggered incidents of social unrest and massive protests in many European countries.

GVN/HMV

Submitted by GoldCore

Germany’s Gold Repatriation Unlikely To Assuage Public Concerns

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,683.25, EUR 1,260.11, and GBP 1,050.85 per ounce. 
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,679.75, EUR 1,262.78 and GBP 1,047.55 per ounce.

Silver is trading at $31.53/oz, €23.68/oz and £19.75/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,687.50/oz, palladium at $725.00/oz and rhodium at $1,125/oz.

Cross Currency Table — (Bloomberg)

Gold inched up $1.00 or 0.06% in New York yesterday and closed at $1,679.90/oz. Silver rose to $31.46 in Asia before it dropped off to $31.07 in London, but it then climbed to as high as $31.551 in New York and finished with a gain of 0.25%.

Gold held firm on Thursday, as investors weighed concern about slowing global economic growth and expectations for more stimulus measures. 

Platinum supply shortages in South Africa limited its 7 day rally.

Thomson Reuters GEMS reported that gold investment favoured by negative real interest rates and debt concerns, is expected to drive prices to a record average high in 2013.

Although the U.S. Fed minutes earlier in the month stirred concerns about tightening monetary policy, the U.S. debt ceiling issue still looms and without an agreement the U.S. government will run out of money by mid February.

The Bundesbank announced yesterday that they will repatriate 674 metric tons of their total 3,391 metric ton gold reserves from vaults in Paris and New York to restore public confidence in the safety of Germany’s gold reserves.

IMF Germany Total Reserves Minus Gold in Millions of USD 

Whether the repatriation of only some 20% of Germany’s gold reserves from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Banque of Paris back to Frankfurt manages to allay German concerns remains in question. 

Especially given that the transfer from the Federal Reserve is set to take place slowly over a seven year period and will only be completed in 2020.

The German Precious Metals Association and Germany’s ‘Repatriate Our Gold’ campaign said that the move by the Bundesbank did not negate the need for a full audit of Germany’s gold. 

They want this to take place in order to protect against impairment of the gold reserves through leases and swaps. Indeed, they have called for independent, full, neutral and physical audits of the gold reserves of the world’s central banks and the repatriation of all central bank gold – the physical transport of gold reserves back into the respective sovereign ownership countries.

It seems likely that we may only have seen another important milestone in the debate about German and global gold reserves.

Mohamed El_Erian of PIMCO in an op-ed piece in the Financial Times said that the German gold move should have “minimum systemic impact”. 

But he acknowledged the risk that this could be wrong and the decision could “fuel greater suspicion” which could result in a “hit to what remains in multilateral policy cooperation would be problematic for virtually everybody.”

He warned that “growing mutual mistrusts” could  “translate into larger multilateral tensions, then the world would find itself facing even greater difficulties resolving payments imbalances and resisting beggar-thy-neighbor national policies.”

For breaking news and commentary on financial markets and gold, follow us on Twitter.

NEWS

Germany creates pile of golden opportunities — The Financial Times

Germany’s Bundesbank brings gold reserves home – Reuters

Bundesbank to Repatriate 674 Tons of Gold to Germany by 2020 – Bloomberg

Germany Repatriates Gold Reserves — The Wall Street Journal

Platinum up for 7th day as South Africa crisis stirs supply fears – Reuters

Concern in Dublin: Six tonnes of Irish gold in Bank of England — The Australian

COMMENTARY

Bundesbank Weighs Bullion Against Public Pressure — The Financial Times

The Meaning of Germany’s Gold Decision – The Financial Times

Gold Price On Rise: How To Invest In Bullion — The Telegraph

A front line, where rebels have made slow gains against the entrenched Syrian Army, in Aleppo, Syria, December 12, 2012. (Photo: Tyler Hicks / The New York Times) Employees of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch expressed skepticism Wednesday over a report that a State Department cable had concluded that the Syrian government used chemical weapons last month against rebel-held neighborhoods in the city of Homs.

The group, which has been at the forefront of documenting human rights violations perpetrated during Syria’s civil war, said it had received reports of suspected chemical-weapons use in Homs but had been unable to confirm that the incident had taken place.

“I shared these with our arms experts at HRW at the time, but based on the information available to us we have not been able to confirm that the government did in fact use chemical weapons,” Lama Fakih, a researcher for Human Rights Watch based in Lebanon, said in an email.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland also rejected the report, saying U.S. authorities had investigated a tip that arrived in late December about a possible chemical-weapons attack in Homs but found “no credible evidence to corroborate or confirm chemical weapons.”

The issue of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war is a sensitive one. President Barack Obama has said that the use of such weapons by the government of President Bashar Assad would trigger a so-far undefined American military response, and U.S. officials have used diplomatic and other channels repeatedly to warn the Syrian government not to use its chemical weapons.

The issue was raised again Tuesday, however, when a blog on the website of the journal Foreign Policy reported that a classified diplomatic cable from the U.S. consulate in Istanbul had concluded that chemical weapons had been used.

The report didn’t quote the cable itself. But it said an Obama administration official who’d read the cable said an investigation by a company hired by the United States had determined that Syrian doctors in Homs had made a “strong case” that the Syrian military had deployed a chemical agent. But the story also quoted the unnamed administration official as saying that U.S. officials weren’t “100 percent certain” that chemical weapons had been deployed.

Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that tracks the fighting and casualties on both sides of Syria’s war, said he was familiar with the incident the cable referred to and that he too didn’t believe that chemical weapons had been involved. He noted that rebels frequently report the use of chemical weapons but that to date no such report has been confirmed.

“It’s not chemical weapons, but they used some kind of gas,” Abdurrahman said, noting that some of the people who’d been exposed to the gas had made full recoveries.

“If you have evidence I will report it, but I will not participate in propaganda,” Abdurrahman said.

Outside groups have documented the Syrian government’s use of other kinds of weapons that have been confused with chemical weapons, including incendiary cluster bombs, which cause fires that are difficult to extinguish and can cause severe burns, as well as skin and lung damage and death from inhaling the smoke they produce.

© 2013 McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Truthout has licensed this content. It may not be reproduced by any other source and is not covered by our Creative Commons license.

Iran’s consignment of humanitarian aid for ethnic Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar has been delivered to the refugees in the country.

The shipment includes foodstuff, tents, blankets and other basic commodities, and was distributed among the Rohingya Muslims following the arrival of Iran’s parliamentary delegation in the city of Sittwe in the Western state of Rakhine.

The Iranian parliamentary delegation, led by deputy head of Iran Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Mansour Haqiqatpour, arrived in Myanmar on Tuesday.

During meetings with local officials, Haqiqatpour extended messages of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iranian government, Majlis and nation to Myanmarese Muslim refugees.

The representatives of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Imam Khomeini Relief Committee and the Iranian Red Crescent Society also accompanied the Iranian parliamentary delegation in this visit.

Some 800,000 Rohingyas are deprived of citizenship rights and suffer from a policy of discrimination that has denied them the right of naturalization and made them vulnerable to acts of violence and persecution, expulsion and displacement.

On December 25, the United Nations General Assembly issued a resolution expressing concern over the persecution of Muslims in Myanmar. The resolution called on Myanmar’s government to “protect all their (the Muslims) human rights, including their right to a nationality.”

Hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and thousands displaced in attacks by Buddhist extremists. The assaults have been mainly carried out in the state of Rakhine.

Myanmar’s army forces have reportedly provided the extremists with containers of petrol for torching the houses of Muslim villagers.

TNP/SS

A growing number of organic consumers, natural health advocates and climate hawks are taking a more comprehensive look at the fundamental causes of global warming. And it’s led them to this sobering conclusion: Our modern energy-, chemical- and GMO-intensive industrial food and farming systems are the major cause of man-made global warming.

How did they reach this conclusion? First, by taking a more inclusive look at the scientific data on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – not just carbon dioxide (CO2), but also methane and nitrous oxide. Next, by doing a full accounting of the fossil fuel consumption and emissions of the entire industrial food and farming cycle, including inputs, equipment, production, processing, distribution, heating, cooling and waste. And finally, by factoring in the indirect impacts of contemporary agriculture, which include deforestation and wetlands destruction.

When you add it all up, the picture is clear: Contemporary agriculture is burning up our planet. And factory farms or, in industry lingo, Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), play a key role in this impending disaster. 

The science behind global warming is complex. Without question, coal plants, tar sands and natural gas fracking have contributed heavily to greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, the major cause of global warming. We must unite to shut down these industries. Similarly, consumer overconsumption of fossil fuels represents another big piece of the climate-crisis equation. We absolutely must rethink, retrofit and/or redesign our gas-guzzling cars and our energy-inefficient buildings, if we want to reduce fossil fuel use by 90 percent over the next few decades.

But we also must address the environmental impact of factory farming.

When you add it all up, the picture is clear: Contemporary agriculture is burning up our planet.

Today, nearly 65 billion animals worldwide, including cows, chickens and pigs, are crammed into CAFOs. These animals are literally imprisoned and tortured in unhealthy, unsanitary and unconscionably cruel conditions. Sickness is the norm for animals who are confined rather than pastured, and who eat GMO corn and soybeans, rather than grass and forage as nature intended. To prevent the inevitable spread of disease from stress, overcrowding and lack of vitamin D, animals are fed a steady diet of antibiotics. Those antibiotics pose a direct threat to the environment when they run off into our lakes, rivers, aquifers and drinking water.

CAFOs contribute directly to global warming by releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – more than the entire global transportation industry. The air at some factory farm test sites in the US is dirtier than in America’s most polluted cities, according to the Environmental Integrity Project. According to a 2006 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, including 37 percent of methane emissions and 65 percent of nitrous oxide emissions. The methane releases from billions of imprisoned animals on factory farms are 70 times more damaging per ton to the earth’s atmosphere than CO2.

Contrary to popular arguments, factory farming is not a cheap, efficient solution to world hunger.

Indirectly, factory farms contribute to climate disruption by their impact on deforestation and draining of wetlands, and because of the nitrous oxide emissions from huge amounts of pesticides used to grow the genetically engineered corn and soy fed to animals raised in CAFOs. Nitrous oxide pollution is even worse than methane — 200 times more damaging per ton than CO2. And just as animal waste leaches antibiotics and hormones into ground and water, pesticides and fertilizers also eventually find their way into our waterways, further damaging the environment.

Factory farms aren’t just a disaster for the environment. They’re also ruining our health. A growing chorus of scientists and public health advocates warn that the intensive and reckless use of antibiotics and growth hormones leads to factory-farmed food that contains antibiotic-resistant pathogens, drug residues such as hormones and growth promoters, and “bad fats.” Yet despite these health and environmental hazards, the vast majority of consumers don’t realize that nearly 95% of the meat, dairy and eggs sold in the U.S. come from CAFOs. Nor do most people realize that CAFOs represent a corporate-controlled system characterized by large-scale, centralized, low profit-margin production, processing and distribution systems.

There’s an alternative: A socially responsible, small-scale system created by independent producers and processors focused on local and regional markets. This alternative produces high-quality food, and supports farmers who produce healthy, meat, eggs and dairy products using humane methods.

And it’s far easier on the environment.

Consumers can boycott food products from factory farms and choose the more environmentally-friendly alternatives. But first, we have to regain the right to know what’s in our food. And that means mandatory labeling, not only of genetically engineered foods, but of the 95 percent of non-organic, non-grass-fed meat, dairy and eggs that are produced on the hellish factory farms that today dominate U.S. food production.

In 2013, a new alliance of organic and natural health consumers, animal welfare advocates, anti-GMO and climate-change activists will tackle the next big food labeling battle: meat, eggs and dairy products from animals raised on factory farms, or CAFOs. This campaign will start with a massive program to educate consumers about the negative impacts of factory farming on the environment, on human health and on animal welfare, and then move forward to organize and mobilize millions of consumers to demand labels on beef, pork, poultry and dairy products derived from these unhealthy and unsustainable so-called “farming” practices.

Opponents and skeptics will ask, “What about feeding the world?” Contrary to popular arguments, factory farming is not a cheap, efficient solution to world hunger. Feeding huge numbers of confined animals actually uses more food, in the form of grains that could feed humans, than it produces. For every 100 food calories of edible crops fed to livestock, we get back just 30 calories in the form of meat and dairy. That’s a 70-percent loss.

With the earth’s population predicted to reach nine billion by mid-century, the planet can no longer afford this reckless, unhealthy and environmentally disastrous farming system. We believe that once people know the whole truth about CAFOs they will want to make healthier, more sustainable food choices. And to do that, we’ll have to fight for the consumer’s right to know not only what is in our food, but where our food comes from.

Ronnie Cummins is a veteran activist, author, and organizer. He is the International Director of the Organic Consumers Association and its Mexico affiliate, Via Organica. http://www.organicconsumers.org; http://www.viaorganica.org

The last few months have seen US equity markets swinging from confidence to grave concerns (briefly) and back to exuberance even as the looming ‘debt ceiling’ and sequester remains dead ahead. The pattern is eerily similar in price (and volatility) terms to the movements ahead of the Summer 2011 ‘debt ceiling’ debacle. What is just as concerning is, as Bloomberg’s Chart of the Day shows, is the mass psychology aspect, as mentions of the words ‘debt ceiling’ are once again gathering pace, just as they did in 2011. Markets may not repeat, but they do echo; and as UBS’ Art Cashin noted, this month marks the 40-year anniversary of a significant top in the market as stocks broke to all-time highs and “all appeared right with the world.” Perhaps, it is our inexorably optimistic belief that the politicians will fix it all (or kick the can) at the last minute – so there is nothing to fear but fear itself; or perhaps this time, there is a line in the sand that both sides need to defend.

The S&P 500 has followed a very similar trajectory heading into this uncertainty – but moreover, the mentions of ‘debt ceiling’; are picking up dramatically and will increasingly weigh on mass psychology…

and perhaps that is why the VIX term structure is also showing a very similar path of over-confidence (and longer-dated hedging)… an initial flare of risk (with spot VIX inverting to the curve) followed by a push out almng the curve (where we are now) which is followed by the front-end catching back up as the risk deadline becomes much more imminent

Charts: Bloomberg

According to figures released Monday by the European Union statistics agency, Eurostat, industrial output across the 17 countries of the euro zone fell in November for the third successive month.

The 0.3 percent decline for November was worse than forecast by financial analysts, who had anticipated a slight recovery. Compared to the same month in 2011, industrial production in the euro zone was down by 3.7 percent.

Separate figures released Monday revealed that Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, suffered a sharp contraction in the final quarter of 2012. The German economy, which accounts for 28 percent of all gross domestic product (GDP) in the euro zone, contracted by 0.5 percent. This slashed Germany’s growth rate for all of 2012 to just 0.7 percent, down sharply from the country’s growth rate of 3.0 percent in 2011.

The most significant expression of the economic downturn in Germany is the slump in investment by German companies in plant and machinery. Despite benchmark interest rates close to zero as set by the European Central Bank, investment in plant and machinery fell by 4.1 per cent during 2012. This compares to a 7.3 percent growth in such investment one year earlier.

In line with the latest figures, the German government has cut its forecast for economic growth in 2013 from an already meager 1.0 percent to just 0.4 percent.

The decline in investment in plant and machinery is the clearest indication that German executives expect the contraction in the country’s key economic markets in Europe to continue and deepen. German exports to Europe declined by 2.0 percent in 2012. A full-scale disaster was prevented only by increased German exports to North America, Mexico and the Far East.

Germany’s export industry is also threatened by the rise in the value of the euro, which has gained 8 percent against the US dollar in the past six months. At a meeting of business leaders in Luxembourg at the start of this week, the outgoing head of euro-area finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, expressed concern over the rise in the value of the euro for European exports.

Germany is currently the only major European country to be experiencing even a minimal level of growth. According to figures from the French Central Bank, the continent’s second largest economy, France, barely avoided sinking officially into recession by posting 0.1 growth in the third quarter of 2012. In both the second and fourth quarters the national economy contracted.

Inside the euro zone itself, seven countries are officially in recession, with Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy mired in deep slumps. Outside the euro zone, Great Britain is expected to slide into a “triple dip” recession in 2013.

The increasingly precarious nature of the European economy is underscored by the situation of one of its key industries–auto. Although some German companies, in particular Volkswagen, were able to expand their sales in some parts of the world, auto markets in Europe are shrinking dramatically. VW sales dropped by 6.5 percent in Western Europe, excluding Germany.

According to the region’s biggest car makers, new car registrations in the European Union fell by 8.2 percent in 2012 to a little more than 12 million units, the lowest level since 1995. In Germany, the drop in car sales was relatively modest–2.9 percent in 2012 compared with the previous year, but in other European countries the slump was far more pronounced.

Auto sales in Spain fell by 13.4 percent, in France by 13.9 percent and in Italy by 19.9 percent. Auto registrations in Greece slumped by over 40 percent compared to 2011.

The recession in the auto industry is worsening. December was the worst month for new car registrations in 2012, declining by 16.3 percent across the EU. Auto sales have now been falling for the past 15 months.

Auto makers have responded to the downturn in sales with a new wave of job cuts. A month ago, GM-Opel announced it was winding down its operations at its German plant in Bochum.

Just last week France’s Peugeot-Citroen reported a 16.5 percent fall in sales worldwide, blaming “the crisis affecting the European automobile market,” and on Tuesday, Renault announced plans to cut 7,500 jobs in France by 2016.

Across the channel, the Japanese carmaker Honda issued a statement Friday announcing 800 job cuts at its UK plant near Swindon, citing the fall in demand across Europe.

The economic and social catastrophe enveloping Europe is being intensified and exploited by the European ruling class to slash the wages and social conditions of the continent’s workers to a level approaching those in the special economic zones of China and the Far East.

Fully aware of the dire social implications, European leaders are determined to intensify austerity measures. In his discussions Monday with Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Greek SYRIZA movement, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble declared once again that there is no alternative to austerity in Europe.

The lack of profitable returns in European industry combined with the readiness of the world’s leading central banks to make virtually interest-free credit available to the banks is fueling a new junk bond bubble. The Financial Times on Monday noted that the year 2012 was characterized by a “dash for trash in global markets,” and, in a reference to the financial crash of 2008, evoked a “sense of déjà vu.”

We documented yesterday that American movies, television and news are dominated by the CIA and other government agencies.

The government also spreads propaganda through video games.

By way of example, former CIA director William Colby went to work for a video game company after he retired, and a former United States marine allegedly confessed to working at a video game company which was really a CIA front to create a game to drum up support for war against Iran.

The Guardian reports:

“For decades the military has been using video-game technology,” says Nina Huntemann, associate professor of communication and journalism at Suffolk University in Boston and a computer games specialist. “Every branch of the US armed forces and many, many police departments are using retooled video games to train their personnel.”

Like much of early computing, nascent digital gaming benefited from military spending. The prototype for the first home video games console, the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey, was developed by Sanders Associates, a US defence contractor. Meanwhile, pre-digital electronic flight simulators, for use in both military and civilian training, date back to at least the second world war.

Later, the games industry began to repay its debts. Many insiders note how instruments in British Challenger 2 tanks, introduced in 1994, look uncannily like the PlayStation’s controllers, one of the most popular consoles of that year. Indeed, warfare’s use of digital war games soared towards the end of the 20th century.

“By the late 1990s,” says Nick Turse, an American journalist, historian and author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, “the [US] army was pouring tens of millions of dollars into a centre at the University of Southern California — the Institute of Creative Technologies — specifically to build partnerships with the gaming industry and Hollywood.” [The Washington Times reports on the link as well.]

It’s a toxic relationship in Turse’s opinion, since gaming leads to a reliance on remote-controlled warfare, and this in turn makes combat more palatable.

“Last year,” says Turse, “the US conducted combat missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. There are a great many factors that led to this astonishing number of simultaneous wars, but the increasing use of drones, and thus a lower number of US military casualties that result, no doubt contributed to it.”

The Christian Science Monitor noted in 2009:

In 1999, the military had its worst recruiting year in 30, and Congress called for “aggressive, innovative” new approaches. Private-sector specialists were brought in, including the top advertising agency Leo Burnett, and the Army Marketing Brand Group was formed. A key aim of the new recruitment strategy was to ensure long-term success by cultivating the allegiance of teenage Americans.

Part of the new campaign, helping the post-9/11 recruiting bump, was the free video game America’s Army. Since its release, different versions of the war game have been downloaded more than 40 million times, enough to put it in the Guinness book of world records. According to a 2008 study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “the game had more impact on recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined.”

***

That these efforts are unfaithful to war’s reality has not gone unnoticed. Protesting the Army Experience Center in Philadelphia, Sgt. Jesse Hamilton, who served two tours inIraq and nine total in the military, expressed disgust that the Army has “resorted to such a deceiving recruitment strategy.”

It’s an approach that could have detrimental long-term effects. “The video game generation is worse at distorting the reality” of war, according to one Air Force colonel. Although they may be more talented at operating predator drones, the colonel told theBrookings Institution, “They don’t have that sense of what [is] really going on.”

NBC News reported in 2003:

Video games are increasingly viewed by top brass as a way to get teenagers interested in enlisting.

Games such as “America’s Army,” developed and published by the Army, and “Guard Force,” which the Army National Guard developed with Alexandria, Va.-based Rival Interactive, can be downloaded or picked up at recruitment offices.

“America’s Army” has been a hit online since its July 2002 release, attaining 1.5 million registered users who endure a basic training regiment complete with barbed-wire obstacle courses and target practice.

“Guard Force” has been less successful. Released last year, it features bland synth-rock music that blares in the background. Between video commercials touting the thrills of enlisting in the Army National Guard, gamers pluck flood victims from rooftops or defend a snowy base. In the training mission, gamers deploy helicopters, even tanks, to rescue skiers trapped in an avalanche.

Foreign Policy argued last year:

Video games would seem to be ideal propaganda tools. Where comic books and newsreels once enthralled the Greatest Generation, today’s millennials are in love with video games. American consumers, for example, spent $25 billion on games in 2010, while gamers worldwide play 3 billion hours a week. Games also offer advantages over traditional propaganda mediums like television or newspapers: They are interactive and immersive, they and deliver challenge, competition, and the hands-on triumph of personally gunning down enemies.

***

Who could blame a CIA spymaster for pondering whether games could be used to demonize Iran or vilify Venezuela?

Michael Bauch writes:

Governments are increasingly trying to twist the business into a brainwashing machine to promote their agendas, just as has been done with the movie industry.

Why are video games such a perfect tool for governments and why are governments stepping up their usage of them? Because the Internet generation now have easy access to all information and points of view. Governments don’t want kids using the Internet to learn about these things. So governments need to keep kids distracted and under constant brainwashing. A typical American kid might go to school all morning learning about how great America is and how dangerous the rest of the world is, then come home and play some video games like Strategy 2012.

This game was free during the Presidential campaign and tells you who you should vote for and how political campaigns are run (or at least how the government would like you to think it’s done). This is the official game description: “Help Mitt Romney win the Nomination by beating his conservative rivals. Then choose Romney or Obama and fight for the presidency in Ohio.”

***

Not only are government-developed games spreading propaganda. Game developers are now accepting the norms set by the government like in Scribblenaughts where the game set’s a puzzle for you to solve by conjuring items. In one puzzle you get a mission called “Peacefully break up the Rioters!” What would a sane person try first? Well, I tried “Diplomat” and “Peacekeeper”. Neither had any effect. So I tried “Tear Gas” and had the crowd crying and disbursing in seconds, immediately earning a gold star just as you would in school when you have done something right! You can watch the video … of me playing the mission.

***

Now that the gaming industry have been infected by government propaganda they are now constantly sending the information they want to your kids.

You might assume that only foreigners are depicted as enemy targets in the propaganda video games. But remember that peaceful protest and any criticism of the government is now considered potential terrorism.

As such, it should not be entirely surprising that the enemy target in the most popular video game series,Call of Duty — which is more popular than virtually any movie or musical album — is a Julian Assange like character who is the “leader of the 99%”.

And see this and this.  

Boris Johnson announced that £1bn will be pumped into Croydon on Thursday, in a redevelopment plan that will see a new Westfield set up in the South London borough.

The Mayor’s rhetoric of confident investment and future prosperity might have been fine oratory but during a photo walkabout he was confronted with evidence of the poverty on Britain’s streets.

Someone living rough with his dog looks up to see Boris walking on

Homeless person in South London looks on as Boris walks past

In December, charity Crisis warned homelessness in England has risen by nearly a quarter, and is even higher in London.

The Mayor’s office later tweeted:

The Mayor’s office told the Huffington Post UK that Boris Johnson did not speak with any rough sleepers whilst in Croydon.

When riot police side with the xenophobic Golden Dawn, who will fight for Greece’s migrant workers? (Photo: Steve Jurvetson / Flickr)Across Europe, the economic crisis is driving communities to deep desperation, and the people who were always at the margins are getting pushed straight off the edge.

Under misguided austerity policies, unemployment has reached devastating levels in the euro zone–reaching 12 percent across the region and topping 50 percent for youth in Spain and Greece. But some communities are sinking faster than others. Struggling migrant communities–both economic immigrants and refugees–are more neglected by the state’s social infrastructure than ever, while their native-born neighbors turn against them in a rash of xenophobic scapegoating.

Greece, which has long been a hub of immigration from Asia, Middle East and Africa, has become a cesspool of bigotry. According to a December report by Amnesty International, “Asylum-seekers, migrants, community centers, shops and mosques have been the target of such attacks which have been reported on an almost daily basis since the summer.”

Last September, an attack on a Pakistani-run barber shop showed how racism intersects with inhumane immigration policies:

The two men verbally attacked the Greek customer who was present for having a haircut in a shop owned by Pakistanis and stabbed him when he reacted. Then they started destroying the shop and throwing Molotov cocktails. The police came to investigate the incident and arrested two Pakistani nationals because they had no documents. In October, they were both in detention, pending deportation.

Meanwhile, dysfunctional European Union border policies leave Greece, due to its geography, bearing the brunt of the responsibility to absorb immigrants. Amnesty researchers found that many asylum seekers from countries such as Afghanistan and Syria flee to the Greek border, but instead of finding refuge they languish in detention under poor overcrowded conditions, while their claims wend through a broken, under-resourced bureaucracy.

The mistreatment of Greece’s migrant workers and asylum seekers reflects the economic injustices facing all working people in a state that has mortgaged its democracy for a neoliberal austerity program. With Greece’s economy expected to contract another 4 percent in the coming year, the misery continues to deepen.

Much of Greece’s most brutal xenophobic violence is affiliated with Golden Dawn, the neo-fascist-associated movement known for mob harassment and beatings of migrants. Yet Greek police appear sympathetic to the Golden Dawn. The Guardian reported in October that police responded to clashes at an anti-fascist protest in Athens by detaining, abusing and torturing a group of protesters. Earlier reports suggested that police may be aiding Golden Dawn by intimidating people into “donating” to the group’s local charity programs. Whether or not the police are directly partnering with fascists, there’s no doubt that the state and the extreme Right are aligned in their vicious attacks on immigrants.

During Greece’s economic collapse, Golden Dawn has gained broader popularity with the public and even won some parliamentary seats in recent elections. The group deftly exploits the public’s despair by “advocating the ousting of foreigners as “the only way to solve unemployment, poverty and criminality,” writes Amalia Loizidou in Socialism Today:

Golden Dawn’s electoral success in 2010 was the result of consistent local campaigns it had launched in the deprived neighborhoods. Whose fault is it, they endlessly asked, that these areas are deprived? Whose fault is it that there is such extreme poverty, unemployment, criminality, and no hope for the future? Its answer, of course, is to blame immigrants and foreigners, not the big-business bosses or capitalists. On the basis of this propaganda, Golden Dawn intervened in schools. It went petitioning. It went door to door and organised demonstrations. This was the way it built its electoral profile and recruited supporters.

The idea that immigration poses an economic threat is a political fiction (research shows that immigration is vital to Europe’s economic functioning, even in times of job scarcity). However, failed immigration policies do have harmful human-rights consequences.

According to John Dalhuisen, Amnesty’s Europe and Central Asia program director, efforts to tighten immigration restrictions and militarize Europe’s borders have, as in the United States, deepened the humanitarian crisis. “Rather than halting irregular migration, such policies reconfigure mobility flows and make migration routes more dangerous and difficult,” he explains. “They also contribute to making smuggling a more lucrative business.” Across the EU, Dalhuisen adds, “There is an urgent need to reverse policies which criminalize migrants and address the wide-spread anti-immigration political rhetoric which contributes to making migrants unwelcome, if not the outright target of xenophobic attack.”

Once migrants make it into Europe, their systematic disenfranchisement enables severe labor exploitation that hurts all workers. Alexandre Afonso, a lecturer in politics at King’s College London, tells ITT via email that however political attitudes toward migrants may fluctuate, migration flows are essentially linked to demand for cheap labor. At the same time, improving labor conditions can help alleviate the erosion of jobs and wages and by extension help rebalance a global labor market rife with exploitation:

Since the politics of control is bound to be ineffective because migration flows de facto cannot be totally stopped, it seems that the only effective way is to ensure fair working and salary conditions for all, including migrants, through work standards compliance, enforced minimum wages, in order to prevent exploitation practices.

Though such reforms are more vital than ever, the gutted social infrastructure has left compassion in short supply. The epidemic abuse of migrants is a symptom of social degradation precipitated by austerity. One group of dispossessed falls into a spiral of racial invective and xenophobia aimed at another, instead of forming a collective uprising against the real threat: an elite that has bled civil society dry and left the poor to cannibalize themselves.

© 2013 In These Times

Michelle Chen is a contributing editor at In These Times. She is a regular contributor to the labor rights blog Working In These Times, Colorlines.com, and Pacifica’s WBAI. Her work has also appeared in Common Dreams, Alternet, Ms. Magazine, Newsday, and her old zine, cain.

Parks stand as the foremost symbol of the commons because they are literally common ground–a place where everyone can come and rub shoulders, interact, share an experience, get to know one another better. They are the foundation of community and democracy.Milwaukee’s Lake Park, one of many national treasures designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. (Photo by Julia Taylor under a Creative Commons license from flickr.com)

Parks are also one of America’s great gifts to the world. Not only did we introduce the idea of national parks with Yellowstone in 1872, Frederick Law Olmsted earlier showed the immense promise of public parks with the creation of Central Park. Until then most of the major work by landscape architects such as Capability Brown was done on private estates. Olmsted showcased the idea that the public sphere could also inspire us with beauty and grandeur, an idea he developed based on the work of British designer Joseph Paxton.

Olmsted’s parks around North America–New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle Louisville, Milwaukee, Buffalo and Montreal–are treasures ranking with the Parthenon an Grand Canyon. Yet sadly, some of the these parks have not been treated with the care worthy of masterpieces. Buffalo’s Delaware Park now is bisected by an expressway and Detroit’s Belle Isle is in disrepair. Indeed, even Central and Prospect Parks in New York City were deteriorating in the 1980s until citizens’ groups came forward to help the financially-strapped park board maintain them.

Do We Still Need Parks?

Too often, there is a sense from leaders that parks are not as necessary as they used to be. It’s not Olmsted’s era anymore when most people lived in tenements with no access to nature. Now the great majority of people, especially in suburban areas, live in houses or apartments with yards. Parks aren’t a top priority–especially in these times of tight fiscal budgets.

But actually, we need great parks as much as ever:

• In a time when bitter divisions and increasing alienation characterize American life, parks are one of the few spots where people still connect in a congenial setting. They are the literal common ground of our democracy, where people of all backgrounds can realize how much we share in common.

• As economic inequality deepens, which is now spreading to suburban areas, it is important to emphasize the fact that for most people, the park system is their equivalent of a lake cabin, a performing arts center, a country club, a health club, grandpa’s farm, and a classroom for continuing education. As the gap in personal opportunities and quality-of-life between people of different income levels is increasing, the park is one place where everyone counts. That experience is critically important for lower- and middle-income people to feel a continuing sense of possibility for the future of their families.

• In post-World War II suburban communities, where typically fewer people walk and enjoy less opportunities for spontaneous encounters on the street, parks play an even more important role than in older cities. Whether at sports facilities, beaches, trails or public events, the park is central to people’s sense of community and belonging.

• More than just pleasant places to play, parks are places to learn. Even beyond environmental education, parks are an ideal setting for classes, workshops, and experiential learning of all kinds. Many people might be more drawn to programming in a park than in a library or local school, and the opportunity for hands-on experience are more plentiful.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

Jay Walljasper, editor of OnTheCommons.org and author of All That We Share and The Great Neighborhood Book, writes widely about cities, community, sustainability and travel. On The Commons is a commons movement strategy center.

Just after the President released his gun safety proposals this morning, the NRA doubled down on yesterday’s propaganda piece exploiting the Obama daughters. In this 4 1/2 minute video, Wayne LaPierre shakes his fist at the mysterious “elites” that the media represents. Via Media Matters:

The ad opens with a montage of criticisms in media of the NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre’s December speech calling for armed guards in schools in a response to the massacre at a Newtown, CT, school earlier that month. A narrator then states, “The media speaks for elites. America speaks for itself.”

The ad also highlights the number of armed guards at the school attended by President Obama’s daughters to make the claim that the President is a hypocrite for stating that he is “skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools.” This attack follows up on a similar one made by the NRA in a recently released ad. The release of the White House’s gun violence prevention plan today calls for federal funds to be used on school safety programs, including hiring more school resource officers, in addition to a number of proposals for stronger gun laws.

LaPierre may be leading the charge, but there are some generals backing him up. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips let his Birch Society roots show today with a post entitled “Waiting for Adolf” which I won’t link to but I will quote:

We are waiting on Adolf.

America has shed the trappings and protections of a Constitutional Republic and is now a democracy.

Democracies eventually have the same end. The people discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. The greed of the people is like the greed of the politician. It has no limits and is unsustainable.

These wingnuts are about to find out they’re spitting into the wind. Indeed, there is a majority of people who want tighter gun laws, and we’re about to discover whether they’ll fight for them. OFA members are idling on the sidelines, waiting for the call to action. I believe they will activate that behemoth, organize, and get this done. It will take that kind of engagement to keep this issue from being hijacked by the likes of the NRA.

Bonus stories:

TruthOut: The Second amendment was added to allow landowners to put down slave rebellions.

Washington Post: How NRA’s true believers converted a marksmanship group into a mighty gun lobby

French Embassy in Tunisian capital, Tunis, has been reportedly cordoned off amid escalating anger over the European country’s attacks on Mali.

TE/SS

Democrats and Republicans in Congress are having a hard time agreeing on anything these days. But there are some things that should never fall victim to partisan bickering. One of these is protecting women against domestic violence and sexual assault.

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)But for Republicans in Congress, apparently, it isn’t that simple. Thanks to the extremism of House Republicans, the Violence Against Women Act expired this month after 18 years of saving women’s lives.

Here’s how it happened. Back in April, the Senate passed a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which since 1994 has provided funding and training for state and local law enforcement to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault. The law has worked incredibly well: between 1993 and 2010, the rate of intimate partner violence fell by 64 percent and the reporting of domestic violence has increased dramatically. Because of this, it has been reauthorized twice with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans.

But at the start of this year, the act expired because House Republicans refused to reauthorize it. They refused even to hold a vote on it, instead proposing a watered-down bill that the president promised to veto. What they objected to were the new bill’s increased protections for immigrants, LGBT people, and Native American women.

Yes, they objected to greater protections for at-risk communities. Immigrant women are especially vulnerable to domestic violence because many rely on a spouse for their ability to live and work in this country. The new law would expand the number of victims of spousal abuse who could apply for their own visas and start their own lives.

Similarly, LGBT people too often fall through the cracks of our safety net for domestic violence victims: they are turned away from shelters or denied support, simply because of the gender of the abuser and the abused. This law would fix that. Finally, many Native American victims of domestic violence and sexual assault are left without recourse against non-Native abusers when their cases get lost in the gap between federal and tribal courts.

This is no minor problem: an astounding one in three Native women will survive a rape in her lifetime, and the vast majority of crimes against Native Americans are perpetrated by non-Natives. The Violence Against Women Act would bridge that legal gap and allow all Native American survivors of abuse to seek justice in court.

Republican efforts to prevent expanded protections for these at-risk groups made all women lose important protections. This issue is especially important to me as a survivor, an advocate, and a member of the ministerial staff at an African-American congregation.

Violence against women is an issue that affects everyone in America, but it disproportionately impacts women of color. The 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that more than a third of Hispanic women and nearly 44 percent of black women have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetimes.

As a faith leader – and as someone who worked with others to help enact this legislation in the first place – I feel that it is important to speak out in support of those who are most vulnerable to violence and abuse. The lawmakers who blocked VAWA aren’t just insulting victims of domestic abuse, they’re actively putting women’s lives in danger. Congress should act quickly in this new year to reauthorize this life-saving program.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

British Foreign Secretary William Hague has denounced the “cold-blooded murder” of a British national at a gas field in Algeria.

Hague considered the Algeria siege as a “dangerous and rapidly developing situation”, and said what happened was a “tragedy”.

“The Government’s Cobra emergency system is in full operation. I have spoken to our ambassador in Algeria and dispatched a rapid deployment team to Algeria to strengthen our embassy there and help them in their work,” Hague said.

Citing local officials, Algeria’s official APS news agency said on Wednesday morning that “a British national, died in the terrorist attack carried out early in Tigantourine”.

The British national was reported to be caught up with as many as 40 BP workers in Algeria, in a revenge attack by al-Qaeda-linked insurgents.

Qaeda insurgents have claimed the attack is in revenge for Algeria’s support of France’s military intervention in Mali, media reports said.

France initiated military action in Mali on January 12, allegedly to halt the advance of the rebels who control northern part of the West African nation.

According to the recent reports, a number of hostages could escape the militants who took them captive in eastern Algeria.

MOS/SSM/HE

Nearly 50 hostages, kidnappers killed in Algeria strikes

The European Union foreign ministers have agreed to back up France in its Mali operations by launching a military mission to train and restructure the West African country’s embattled army.

Foreign ministers of the 27-nation bloc appointed French Brigadier General Francois Lecointre as commander of the mission, which is slated to last for 15 months.

The USD 16.33-million operation will reportedly not have a combat role and has only been launched to train Malian forces for fighting against the rebels controlling the northern parts of the African country.

The operation headquarters will be in the capital city of Bamako and training sessions will be held northeast of the city.

Some sources say the mission will consist of almost two hundred trainers as well as an unknown number of security forces.

On January 11, France intervened in Mali by launching an air offensive under the pretext of halting the advance of the militants.

Four days later, France announced that it would more than triple the number of its soldiers in Mali from 800 to 2,500. French troops launched their first ground attack against rebel forces on January 16.

EU members are also set to hold an emergency meeting over the crisis in Mali.

Chaos broke out in the African country after Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure was toppled in a military coup on March 22, 2012. The coup leaders said they had mounted the coup in response to the government’s inability to contain the Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country.

TE/HMV

N-Dubz frontman Dappy has been found guilty of affray in connection with a brawl at a petrol station.

The 25-year-old was also convicted by a jury at Guildford Crown Court of a charge of assault by beating, which involved him spitting at a man.

The singer was cleared of two charges of common assault in which he was accused of spitting at – but missing – two 19-year-old women.

The week-long trial heard how Dappy had been out on February 27 last year celebrating the release of his single Rockstar featuring Queen guitarist Brian May.

After spending the night in the VIP area of the Casino nightclub in Guildford, Dappy and his friends were travelling back in three cars to a recording studio in Godalming.

They stopped at a Shell garage in Woodbridge Road at about 3.30am, where Dappy approached Grace Cochran and Serena Burton.

Prosecutor Brian Stork said the women had been sitting on the kerb outside the station shop where Dappy tried to persuade them to get into the car with him.

The court was told that when they refused these advances and began to ridicule him, Dappy allegedly became angry and insulted them.

He was then accused of spitting at them but missing – the two counts of common assault faced by the singer.

Mr Stork said a man called David Jenkins who had been talking to the two women then stepped in to protect them, but was spat at by Dappy.

This spitting, which hit Mr Jenkins, makes up the charge of assault by beating. The trial was told that saliva was found on Mr Jenkins’ T-shirt which had a DNA link to Dappy.

The court heard that Mr Jenkins put the rapper in a headlock, leading to several other people joining in the fight.

This included two other defendants, Kieran Vassell, 25, of west London, and Kalonji Stewart, 32, of Birmingham, who were both charged with affray.

A fourth man, Alfred Miller, 28, of west London, pleaded guilty to affray and his case was adjourned for sentence at the end of the trial.

The trial heard that Mr Jenkins suffered several broken teeth in the fight while another man, Oliver Billson, suffered a swollen eye and Christopher Gibson suffered a broken nose.

Dappy had denied attempting to pick up the two women and told the court that he only spoke to them to promote his single.

Reports from Algeria Thursday morning paint a picture of a bloodbath after the military there attempted a raid on a group of militants who had taken hostages, including many westerners, at a remote gas plant.

Troops surround gas facility where dozens of workers are held by fighters demanding an end to French operations in Mali. (Reuters) Al-Jazeera reports:

At least 35 hostages and 15 captors have been killed in a siege at a southern Algerian gas field.

The group was being transported from one part of the complex to another, when they came under attack from the Algerian army. The lead hostage-taker is also among the dead.

Reuters adds:

A Mauritanian news agency that has been in constant contact with kidnappers holding dozens of Western hostages in Algeria reported on Thursday that 34 of the captives had been killed in air strikes.

It was not immediately possible to confirm the report by the ANI news agency, which said 14 kidnappers had also been killed in air strikes by the Algerian armed forces, which had surrounded the remote desert gas pumping station where the kidnappers were holed up.

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Tory MP Christopher Chope has sparked a minor class war by referring to catering staff in the House of Commons as “servants” and suggesting MPs should get cheaper meals.

Speaking in the Commons on Thursday morning, the Christchurch MP said he had eaten in Commons restaurants for three nights last week but “almost nobody else was present”.

“The service was absolutely fantastic because there was three-to-one service – three servants for each person sitting down,” he said.

Incredulous Labour MPs picked up on his description of waiters and waitresses by shouting “servants?” across the chamber.

Shadow leader of the Commons Angela Eagle said Chope had let the “cat out of the bag” with his comment.

Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth added on Twitter: “Good grief – a Tory MP in the Commons has just described the catering staff who work in the Commons dining rooms as ‘servants’.”

And Chope’s suggestion that MPs should get discount prices in parliament’s restaurants is unlikely to go down well with a public still smarting from the expenses scandal in 2009.

“One way of engaging the members of the House today who don’t use the dining rooms would be to offer them much cheaper rates,” he said.

Lib Dem John Thurso, speaking for the Commons authorities, poured cold water on the idea. “There is clearly a balance to be struck between attracting people in at the right price and prices being so low that they do not recover the appropriate cost,” he said.

The incident is no pleb-gate, but the prime minister must despair at his MPs, who can not seem to stop making it easy for Labour to paint the Tories as out of touch rich folk.

HuffPost UK invites Chope, and any other cash strapped MPs, for lunch in the press gallery bar where egg & cress sandwiches are on sale for a very reasonable £1.45.

Military cadet forces should be set up in state schools and former servicemen recruited as mentors to help instil self-discipline and rigour, Stephen Twigg has suggested.

The shadow education secretary followed in the footsteps of Michael Gove by calling for an army presences in schools.

Twigg called for state schools to follow the lead of the private sector and offer pupils more after-school activities, such as sport and debating clubs.

Youngsters need to be taught to be team players, and build up their confidence, he said.

Twigg was expected to make the call publicly in a speech to the North of England Education Conference (NEEC) in Sheffield but was unable to attend at the last minute.

In a speech prepared for the conference, Twigg was due to say: “I believe we need to encourage state schools to offer more after-school activities.

“I have talked about the importance of our armed services becoming more involved in schools, with more cadet forces in state schools and a role for ex-service personnel to act as mentors for young people.”

Twigg said that on a recent visit to a school, one 14-year-old girl told him that an armed services mentor had “changed her life – giving her a sense of self-discipline and rigour, helping get her back on the right track”.

There are around 257 Combined Cadet Forces (CCF) in UK state and private schools, according to official figures.
It is thought the vast majority are in independent schools.

CCFs can be made up of a number of different services, including the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Army. Some also include the Royal Marines.

Competitive sport is also “critical”, Twigg’s speech said, so that pupils “can learn to be team players, to build confidence – learning to be able to win and lose”.

“However, we are seeing a decline in the number of pupils doing two hours of sport and PE per week, and we have seen a reduction in the regulations and standards which protect playing fields.”

Twigg accused the Government of “undermining the Olympic legacy” and insisted that Labour would give Ofsted powers to inspect sport in schools.

He suggested that schools needed to make sure their pupils were “life-ready” by the time they finished their studies.

“Developing character and resilience must be one of the aims of a modern curriculum,” his speech stated.

“It means having an exam system that assesses the skills necessary to thrive in the modern economy.”

Twigg’s comments come weeks after ministers announced plans to send former soldiers into classrooms to instil discipline and raise results among troubled youngsters.

Under the plans, ex-servicemen and women would be recruited to teach teamwork, discipline and leadership skills through mentoring, outdoor activities and other group exercises such as military-style obstacle courses.

Four projects will be established to pass on military values to youngsters who have been excluded from school, the Government said.

While Citi’s stock is getting hammered in the pre-market for missing both top- and bottom-lines, three things stand out to us at first glance. First, legal costs were well above expectations; second, they reduced their exposure to GIIPS during Q4 – just when the rip-roaring rally in Europe really took off; and third, and more importantly, Citi did not take a huge loan loss reserve drawdown like every other bank.

• *CITIGROUP 4Q REV. $18.66B, EST. $18.92B                 :C US
• *CITIGROUP 4Q ADJ. EPS 69C WITH/WITHOUT ITEMS MISSES EST. 96C
• *CITI 4Q GIIPS NET CURRENT FUNDED EXPOSURE $8.9B VS 3Q $9.5B
• *CITIGROUP 4Q LOAN LOSS RESERVE RELEASE $86M VS $1.5B PRIOR YR

The question is, why would Citi not take advantage of the investing public’s ignorance like every other bank and release more from loan-loss-reserves – have they maxed out their previous releases? or are they less exuberant at the housing un-recovery? (we note that 90-179-Day Delinquencies rose)

Citi Q4 by xxyyxxyy123123

President Obama has refused to tell Congress or the American people why he believes the Constitution gives, or fails to deny, him the authority to secretly target and kill American citizens who he suspects are involved in terrorist activities overseas. So far he has killed three that we know of.

Presidents had never before, to our knowledge, targeted specific Americans for military strikes. There are no court decisions that tell us if he is acting lawfully. Mr. Obama tells us not to worry, though, because his lawyers say it is fine, because experts guide the decisions and because his advisers have set up a careful process to help him decide whom he should kill.

He must think we should be relieved.

The three Americans known to have been killed, in two drone strikes in Yemen in the fall of 2011, are Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was born in New Mexico; Samir Khan, a naturalized American citizen who had lived in New York and North Carolina, and was killed alongside Mr. Awlaki; and, in a strike two weeks later, Mr. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was born in Colorado.

Most of us think these people were probably terrorists anyway. So the president’s reassurances have been enough to keep criticism at an acceptable level for the White House. Democrats in Congress and in the press have only gingerly questioned the claims by a Democratic president that he is right about the law and careful when he orders drone attacks on our citizens. And Republicans, who favor aggressive national security powers for the executive branch, look forward to the day when one of their own can wield them again.

But a few of our representatives have spoken up – sort of. Several months ago, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, began limply requesting the Department of Justice memorandums that justify the targeted killing program. At a committee hearing, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., reminded of the request, demurred and shared a rueful chuckle with the senator. Mr. Leahy did not want to be rude, it seems – though some of us remember him being harder on former President George W. Bush’s attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, in 2005.

So, even though Congress has the absolute power under the Constitution to receive these documents, the Democratic-controlled Senate has not fought this president to get them. If the senators did, and the president held fast to his refusal, they could go to court and demand them, and I believe they would win. Perhaps even better, they could skip getting the legal memos and go right to the meat of the matter – using oversight and perhaps legislating to control the president’s killing powers. That isn’t happening either.

Thank goodness we have another branch of government to step into the fray. It is the job of the federal courts to interpret the Constitution and laws, and thus to define the boundaries of the powers of the branches of government, including their own.

In reining in the branches, the courts have been toughest on themselves, however. A long line of Supreme Court cases require that judges wait for cases to come to them. They can take cases only from plaintiffs who have a personal stake in the outcome; they cannot decide political questions; they cannot rule on an issue not squarely before them.

Because of these and other limitations, no case has made it far enough in federal court for a judge to rule on the merits of the basic constitutional questions at stake here. A pending case filed in July by the families of the three dead Americans does raise Fourth and Fifth Amendment challenges to the president’s killings of their relatives. We will see if the judge agrees to consider the constitutional questions or dismisses the case, citing limitations on his own power.

In another case, decided two weeks ago, a federal judge in Manhattan, Colleen McMahon, ruled, grudgingly, that the American Civil Liberties Union and two New York Times reporters could not get access, under the Freedom of Information Act, to classified legal memorandums that were relied on to justify the targeted killing program. In her opinion, she expressed serious reservations about the president’s interpretation of the constitutional questions. But the merits of the program were not before her, just access to the Justice Department memos, so her opinion was, in effect, nothing but an interesting read.

So at the moment, the legislature and the courts are flummoxed by, or don’t care about, how or whether to take on this aggressive program. But Mr. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, should know, of all people, what needs to be done. He was highly critical when Mr. Bush applied new constitutional theories to justify warrantless wiretapping and “enhanced interrogation.” In his 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama demanded transparency, and after taking office, he released legal memos that the Bush administration had kept secret. Once the self-serving constitutional analysis that the Bush team had used was revealed, legal scholars from across the spectrum studied and denounced it.

While Mr. Obama has criticized his predecessor, he has also worried about his successors. Last fall, when the election’s outcome was still in doubt, Mr. Obama talked about drone strikes in general and said Congress and the courts should in some manner “rein in” presidents by putting a “legal architecture in place.” His comments seemed to reflect concern that future presidents should perhaps not wield alone such awesome and unchecked power over life and death – of anyone, not just Americans. Oddly, under current law, Congress and the courts are involved when presidents eavesdrop on Americans, detain them or harshly interrogate them – but not when they kill them.

It is not just the most recent president, this one and the next whom we need to worry about when it comes to improper exercise of power. It is every president. Mr. Obama should declassify and release, to Congress, the press and the public, documents that set forth the detailed constitutional and statutory analysis he relies on for targeting and killing American citizens.

Perhaps Mr. Obama still believes that, in a democracy, the people have a right to know the legal theories upon which the president executes his great powers. Certainly, we can hope so. After all, his interpretation might be wrong.

© 2012 The New York Times

In response to the end of the credit cycle, policy makers and central bankers in the high income countries have exponentially increased their presence in the capital markets.  Debt issued by governments has soared and central banks are pursuing unorthodox policies–the purpose of which varies from country to country.  

The purpose of quantitative easing in the US, especially the latest reiteration, is to accelerate employment growth. The ECB’s Outright Market Transactions is to ensure a proper transmission of its monetary policy to countries that agree to EU/IMF conditionality and have access to the capital markets. Japan’s asset purchase program, through which it buys not only government bonds, but also ETFs, REITS and corporate bonds, is to fight deflation. 

Initially, the Swiss National Bank bought foreign bonds as a way to arrest the franc’s appreciation that was fueling deflationary forces in Switzerland. When this failed, it moved to formally cap the franc. The SNB now buys sufficient foreign currencies to defend it. The Bank of England’s gilt purchase program seemed aimed at strengthening the economy, though it is much less concerned about the labor market than is the Federal Reserve.

Some economists call this “financial repression.” It occurs, they say, whenever a sovereign interferes with free market activity and the pricing of debt or currency. Of course, such a broad definition means that financial repression has been around forever. For example, it is akin to shaving some precious metal from coins in ancient Rome. 

By artificially lowering the cost of debt below what would prevail in a free market, quantitative easing has been called a “stealthy default” by PIMCO, one of the largest bond investors in the world. It also suggests that it is a sneaky form of taxation: “a gentlemanly way for modern countries with fiat currencies to stiff creditors while still ostensibly paying interest and principal in full.” 

II

There are two problems with this narrative despite its widespread acceptance. First, the financial repression thesis (FRT) imagines a state of nature in which the market exists, but the state does not. This view implies that the market is natural and the state artificial. But if this is the case, any action by the state in the financial markets falls under the expansive definition of financial repression.

The factors of production–land, labor and capital–were not always regarded as commodities that can be traded and bought in the market place.  Karl Polanyi traces this development in his classic “The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time”. The point is that modernity was co-created by the rise of the modern state and the market economy. The two were inseparable.

A strong state was needed to overturn the reciprocal rights and responsibilities that limited the scope of the markets in traditional societies (think feudalism, for example).  Each of the factors of production sought to escape the omnipresent market by organizing. Individual capitalists organized through various forms, like pools, trusts, cartels, and corporations. Labor organized in industrial and trade unions. Farmers organized in cooperatives, collectives, and political parties. 

The kind of capitalism that Charles Dickens chronicled, and Fredrich Engels documented, required the visible hand of the state to ameliorate some of the harsher consequences of the market. None less than Bismark, Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt (heading up the Republican wing of the family, a generation before FDR) recognized this. 

III

The second problem with the FRT grows out of the first, but is considerably less abstract. FRT misconstrues the conflict that is at the center of its narrative. The state, it is claimed, seeks to siphon off some of the funds that in a free-market would go to investors and savers.  These funds go to the sovereign, but ultimately, FRT sees the objective of financial repression as re-distribution.

FRT emphasizes only one aspect of unconventional monetary policies: interest rates. Yet, the conflict between savers and debtors is multifaceted.  To truly assess the state of financial repression, a broader inquiry is required. 

Let’s concede, for the sake of the argument, that the Federal Reserve’s long-term asset purchases did drive down US yields, depriving savers of interest income. 

There are two income streams that flow to capital and accrue to savers, interest rates and profits. FRT holds that savers are being “repressed” by the Federal Reserve pushing interest rates lower than they would otherwise be. But savers are not only coupon clippers. They are investors too. They were rewarded by holding bonds that increased in price.  

Moreover, riskier assets like stocks have done better under these policies, hence rewarding savers who invest in these asset classes as well.  Indeed, since the Fed’s long term asset purchases began shortly after the demise of Lehman, the S&P 500 has risen by almost 75%.  

In addition, the US reduced the tax on capital gains and dividend income. This clearly favors the owners of capital, which, of course, are savers by definition. Many savers are also home owners. The government and Federal Reserve’s “encroachment” into the markets have directly and indirectly supported the real estate market and home prices. This tends not to be part of discussions of financial repression, but it ought to be.

IV

FRT accuses the government of “repressing” the owners of capital. Yet, wealth and income have become increasingly more concentrated in the US since the late 1960s or early 1970s. It has trended through Republican and Democrat Administrations and has continued unabated through the booms and busts of business and credit cycles.    

In recent decades, the productivity gains generated by both labor and capital have gone disproportionately to the owners of capital. Wages in the US have not kept pace with gains in productivity. The share of national income accounted for by profits has continued to grow, even during the post-Lehman period, when FRT gained greater currency.  

Actions by the government and the Federal Reserve may moderate the pace of accumulation in one area or another from time to time, but also accelerate it in other areas.

In fact, the very success of the owners of capital in securing the elephant’s share productivity gains and ensuring low effective taxes, lies at the very heart of the credit crisis.  

Briefly, even if crudely, the decoupling of men’s wages from productivity made both possible and necessary wider participation of women in the work force. This too proved insufficient to procure the American Dream (i.e., auto, home and education). 

Transfer payments also proved insufficient.  Credit filled the gap and bought social peace, which meant no fighting over distribution of the social pie. The end of the credit cycle threatened this arrangement.  The extraordinary government action in response to the crisis was largely intended to restart this circuit of capital. The large and persistent gap between deposits and loans at large financial institutions indicates that the transmission mechanism is still broken.   

V

At those rare times when the system that favors the owners of capital is at risk, officials can moderate the pace at which capital is accumulated.  This is why it is important to recognize that the growth of the state is, historically speaking, as much, if not more, a conservative project as it is a progressive one.

FRT has a close relative: the Central Bank Independence Thesis (CBIT).  It focuses on the action of central banks rather than governments. The main argument is that the unconventional policies of central banks carry significant political repercussions, so it should not be a job for independent technocrats.  Because there are “winners” and “losers” from the unconventional monetary policies, governments will increasingly have little choice but to encroach upon the independence of central banks to shape the outcomes.

Central bank independence was never what it was cracked up to be.  During “normal” times, central banks protected the interests of the owners of capital. Paul Volcker is often cited as the epitome of the independent central banker, but surely his tight monetary policy, justified in terms of some technocratic money supply target created winners and losers. The owners of capital were among the winners, while those who did not own capital were losers (through such things as higher unemployment and downward pressure on real wages).

Moreover, most central banks have only one goal: price stability. Some central banks are given an inflation target, like the Bank of England, which incidentally only recently was granted what many would call independence. Other central banks are given a goal of price stability, but chose how precisely to define it. 

The definition of price stability is itself not a value-free technocratic decision. Some central banks focus on core inflation and others on headline inflation. If, for example, the ECB focused on core inflation rather than headline inflation, it arguably would not have hiked rates in July 2008 as the euro area economy was already contracting.

In addition, many central banks have defined price stability as around 2% annual inflation. Yet there is no material difference between 2% inflation and 2.5% inflation or even 3% inflation.

This argument can be pushed further. The fact that most central banks have price stability as their sole mandate is a reflection of a certain set of values and, dare one say, an ideological bias. Only the US Federal Reserve (and perhaps soon the Bank of Japan), has a full employment goal. While inflation hurts the owners of capital, it eases the burden on those who don’t own capital.  From a purely technocratic and neutral point of view, it is not clear why monetary policy should not target nominal GDP or asset prices.

The setting of monetary policy was never simply a technocratic exercise as the CBIT pretends. There were always those interests that benefited and those who did less well. Few cried of a loss of central bank independence, for example, when the Bundesbank would threaten tighter monetary policy in reaction to unions seeking a sharp increase in wages.

It is apparently acceptable for the Federal Reserve to use monetary policy to aid the government’s war efforts against foreign enemies, but not against the scourge of high unemployment or other domestic policy goals. 

The US Treasury Secretary was a member of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) from FDR’s re-organization of the Fed until the early-1950s. Even before the new Abe government in Japan, it was not unusual for an official from the Finance Ministry to sit in on Bank of Japan meetings.

CBIT makes a fetish out of independence. In modern parliamentary democracies, there is no room for such a concentration of power that is not part of a system of checks and balances. From whom should the central banks be independent? Usually the answer is from short-sighted politicians who may be tempted to pump the economy for some electoral gain. Yet these are the same politicians we trust with national security and the power of the purse (i.e., tax and spend) and the very politicians that appoint the central bank boards anyway. 

It is not simply in the inflation target where the ideological and political bias of the central bank is laid bare. The mere act of treating the central bank like no other institution in a representative democracy is itself laden with political values that favor some over others.

VI

The Financial Repression Thesis and the related Central Bank Independence Thesis recognize the conflictual nature of society. The interests of the owners of capital differ from the interests of those who do not own capital. An important role of the government and the central banks is to preserve and sustain that conflict.

The purported neutrality of governments and central banks is in fact a self-serving myth.  They both seek to preserve a privileged place for the owners of capital (i.e., as a group and this may mean sacrificing the interests of any single owner of capital). The lower rate of interest that may be accruing to the owners of capital is not repressive. The loss of interest income is offset by the rise of corporate profits, equity (and other financial asset prices), and real estate prices.

The financial crisis grew out of the very success of the owners of capital in securing productivity gains and extracting profits at levels well beyond which can be used for future profitable investment. This not only created the conditions for unstable and unsustainable debt-financed-consumption, but also required an elaborate and expensive financial super-structure and complex products to absorb the surpluses.

Governments and central banks have overseen an incredible concentration of wealth and income over the last few decades. Cries of financial repression are heard only when they seek to moderate part of the pace of capital accumulation.  There was no outcry from Wall Street when governments broke labor unions (Thatcher and the miners and Reagan and the air traffic controllers).

The concentration of wealth and income has become so great that it threatens social stability. A more balanced distribution of productivity gains can serve to minimize the chance of financial crises.  This is the proper aim of a democratic and representative government. A stable society requires that the levers of policy–security, fiscal and monetary–be accountable to the people. It is the absence of that accountability, not low interest rates, that is the true repression.  

In response to the end of the credit cycle, policy makers and central bankers in the high income countries have exponentially increased their presence in the capital markets.  Debt issued by governments has soared and central banks are pursuing unorthodox policies–the purpose of which varies from country to country.  

The purpose of quantitative easing in the US, especially the latest reiteration, is to accelerate employment growth. The ECB’s Outright Market Transactions is to ensure a proper transmission of its monetary policy to countries that agree to EU/IMF conditionality and have access to the capital markets. Japan’s asset purchase program, through which it buys not only government bonds, but also ETFs, REITS and corporate bonds, is to fight deflation. 

Initially, the Swiss National Bank bought foreign bonds as a way to arrest the franc’s appreciation that was fueling deflationary forces in Switzerland. When this failed, it moved to formally cap the franc. The SNB now buys sufficient foreign currencies to defend it. The Bank of England’s gilt purchase program seemed aimed at strengthening the economy, though it is much less concerned about the labor market than is the Federal Reserve.

Some economists call this “financial repression.” It occurs, they say, whenever a sovereign interferes with free market activity and the pricing of debt or currency. Of course, such a broad definition means that financial repression has been around forever. For example, it is akin to shaving some precious metal from coins in ancient Rome. 

By artificially lowering the cost of debt below what would prevail in a free market, quantitative easing has been called a “stealthy default” by PIMCO, one of the largest bond investors in the world. It also suggests that it is a sneaky form of taxation: “a gentlemanly way for modern countries with fiat currencies to stiff creditors while still ostensibly paying interest and principal in full.” 

II

There are two problems with this narrative despite its widespread acceptance. First, the financial repression thesis (FRT) imagines a state of nature in which the market exists, but the state does not. This view implies that the market is natural and the state artificial. But if this is the case, any action by the state in the financial markets falls under the expansive definition of financial repression.

The factors of production–land, labor and capital–were not always regarded as commodities that can be traded and bought in the market place.  Karl Polanyi traces this development in his classic “The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time”. The point is that modernity was co-created by the rise of the modern state and the market economy. The two were inseparable.

A strong state was needed to overturn the reciprocal rights and responsibilities that limited the scope of the markets in traditional societies (think feudalism, for example).  Each of the factors of production sought to escape the omnipresent market by organizing. Individual capitalists organized through various forms, like pools, trusts, cartels, and corporations. Labor organized in industrial and trade unions. Farmers organized in cooperatives, collectives, and political parties. 

The kind of capitalism that Charles Dickens chronicled, and Fredrich Engels documented, required the visible hand of the state to ameliorate some of the harsher consequences of the market. None less than Bismark, Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt (heading up the Republican wing of the family, a generation before FDR) recognized this. 

III

The second problem with the FRT grows out of the first, but is considerably less abstract. FRT misconstrues the conflict that is at the center of its narrative. The state, it is claimed, seeks to siphon off some of the funds that in a free-market would go to investors and savers.  These funds go to the sovereign, but ultimately, FRT sees the objective of financial repression as re-distribution.

FRT emphasizes only one aspect of unconventional monetary policies: interest rates. Yet, the conflict between savers and debtors is multifaceted.  To truly assess the state of financial repression, a broader inquiry is required. 

Let’s concede, for the sake of the argument, that the Federal Reserve’s long-term asset purchases did drive down US yields, depriving savers of interest income. 

There are two income streams that flow to capital and accrue to savers, interest rates and profits. FRT holds that savers are being “repressed” by the Federal Reserve pushing interest rates lower than they would otherwise be. But savers are not only coupon clippers. They are investors too. They were rewarded by holding bonds that increased in price.  

Moreover, riskier assets like stocks have done better under these policies, hence rewarding savers who invest in these asset classes as well.  Indeed, since the Fed’s long term asset purchases began shortly after the demise of Lehman, the S&P 500 has risen by almost 75%.  

In addition, the US reduced the tax on capital gains and dividend income. This clearly favors the owners of capital, which, of course, are savers by definition. Many savers are also home owners. The government and Federal Reserve’s “encroachment” into the markets have directly and indirectly supported the real estate market and home prices. This tends not to be part of discussions of financial repression, but it ought to be.

IV

FRT accuses the government of “repressing” the owners of capital. Yet, wealth and income have become increasingly more concentrated in the US since the late 1960s or early 1970s. It has trended through Republican and Democrat Administrations and has continued unabated through the booms and busts of business and credit cycles.    

In recent decades, the productivity gains generated by both labor and capital have gone disproportionately to the owners of capital. Wages in the US have not kept pace with gains in productivity. The share of national income accounted for by profits has continued to grow, even during the post-Lehman period, when FRT gained greater currency.  

Actions by the government and the Federal Reserve may moderate the pace of accumulation in one area or another from time to time, but also accelerate it in other areas.

In fact, the very success of the owners of capital in securing the elephant’s share productivity gains and ensuring low effective taxes, lies at the very heart of the credit crisis.  

Briefly, even if crudely, the decoupling of men’s wages from productivity made both possible and necessary wider participation of women in the work force. This too proved insufficient to procure the American Dream (i.e., auto, home and education). 

Transfer payments also proved insufficient.  Credit filled the gap and bought social peace, which meant no fighting over distribution of the social pie. The end of the credit cycle threatened this arrangement.  The extraordinary government action in response to the crisis was largely intended to restart this circuit of capital. The large and persistent gap between deposits and loans at large financial institutions indicates that the transmission mechanism is still broken.   

V

At those rare times when the system that favors the owners of capital is at risk, officials can moderate the pace at which capital is accumulated.  This is why it is important to recognize that the growth of the state is, historically speaking, as much, if not more, a conservative project as it is a progressive one.

FRT has a close relative: the Central Bank Independence Thesis (CBIT).  It focuses on the action of central banks rather than governments. The main argument is that the unconventional policies of central banks carry significant political repercussions, so it should not be a job for independent technocrats.  Because there are “winners” and “losers” from the unconventional monetary policies, governments will increasingly have little choice but to encroach upon the independence of central banks to shape the outcomes.

Central bank independence was never what it was cracked up to be.  During “normal” times, central banks protected the interests of the owners of capital. Paul Volcker is often cited as the epitome of the independent central banker, but surely his tight monetary policy, justified in terms of some technocratic money supply target created winners and losers. The owners of capital were among the winners, while those who did not own capital were losers (through such things as higher unemployment and downward pressure on real wages).

Moreover, most central banks have only one goal: price stability. Some central banks are given an inflation target, like the Bank of England, which incidentally only recently was granted what many would call independence. Other central banks are given a goal of price stability, but chose how precisely to define it. 

The definition of price stability is itself not a value-free technocratic decision. Some central banks focus on core inflation and others on headline inflation. If, for example, the ECB focused on core inflation rather than headline inflation, it arguably would not have hiked rates in July 2008 as the euro area economy was already contracting.

In addition, many central banks have defined price stability as around 2% annual inflation. Yet there is no material difference between 2% inflation and 2.5% inflation or even 3% inflation.

This argument can be pushed further. The fact that most central banks have price stability as their sole mandate is a reflection of a certain set of values and, dare one say, an ideological bias. Only the US Federal Reserve (and perhaps soon the Bank of Japan), has a full employment goal. While inflation hurts the owners of capital, it eases the burden on those who don’t own capital.  From a purely technocratic and neutral point of view, it is not clear why monetary policy should not target nominal GDP or asset prices.

The setting of monetary policy was never simply a technocratic exercise as the CBIT pretends. There were always those interests that benefited and those who did less well. Few cried of a loss of central bank independence, for example, when the Bundesbank would threaten tighter monetary policy in reaction to unions seeking a sharp increase in wages.

It is apparently acceptable for the Federal Reserve to use monetary policy to aid the government’s war efforts against foreign enemies, but not against the scourge of high unemployment or other domestic policy goals. 

The US Treasury Secretary was a member of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) from FDR’s re-organization of the Fed until the early-1950s. Even before the new Abe government in Japan, it was not unusual for an official from the Finance Ministry to sit in on Bank of Japan meetings.

CBIT makes a fetish out of independence. In modern parliamentary democracies, there is no room for such a concentration of power that is not part of a system of checks and balances. From whom should the central banks be independent? Usually the answer is from short-sighted politicians who may be tempted to pump the economy for some electoral gain. Yet these are the same politicians we trust with national security and the power of the purse (i.e., tax and spend) and the very politicians that appoint the central bank boards anyway. 

It is not simply in the inflation target where the ideological and political bias of the central bank is laid bare. The mere act of treating the central bank like no other institution in a representative democracy is itself laden with political values that favor some over others.

VI

The Financial Repression Thesis and the related Central Bank Independence Thesis recognize the conflictual nature of society. The interests of the owners of capital differ from the interests of those who do not own capital. An important role of the government and the central banks is to preserve and sustain that conflict.

The purported neutrality of governments and central banks is in fact a self-serving myth.  They both seek to preserve a privileged place for the owners of capital (i.e., as a group and this may mean sacrificing the interests of any single owner of capital). The lower rate of interest that may be accruing to the owners of capital is not repressive. The loss of interest income is offset by the rise of corporate profits, equity (and other financial asset prices), and real estate prices.

The financial crisis grew out of the very success of the owners of capital in securing productivity gains and extracting profits at levels well beyond which can be used for future profitable investment. This not only created the conditions for unstable and unsustainable debt-financed-consumption, but also required an elaborate and expensive financial super-structure and complex products to absorb the surpluses.

Governments and central banks have overseen an incredible concentration of wealth and income over the last few decades. Cries of financial repression are heard only when they seek to moderate part of the pace of capital accumulation.  There was no outcry from Wall Street when governments broke labor unions (Thatcher and the miners and Reagan and the air traffic controllers).

The concentration of wealth and income has become so great that it threatens social stability. A more balanced distribution of productivity gains can serve to minimize the chance of financial crises.  This is the proper aim of a democratic and representative government. A stable society requires that the levers of policy–security, fiscal and monetary–be accountable to the people. It is the absence of that accountability, not low interest rates, that is the true repression.  

Sergey Lavrov holds a news conference at the end of a NATO-Russia meeting during a NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels (Reuters / Sebastien Pirlet)

Colonel-General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said closer interaction between NATO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) could produce ‘positive results’ in Afghanistan and the region.

Given that any security lapses due to the coalition forces’ pullout from Afghanistan “will be happening in proximity to the Russian border and the borders of our CSTO allies,” Russia cannot afford to remain indifferent to the situation, Gerasimov told reporters following a session of the Chiefs of the General Staff of the NATO-Russian Council in Brussels.

“Obviously, all forces that are interested in preventing the region from sliding back into chaos should coordinate their efforts,” the Russian military officer emphasized. “That is why we invited NATO to discuss (a joint security proposal) with CSTO in order to devise…a security concept for the region.”

The CSTO is an intergovernmental military organization comprised of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.

NATO attempted to reassure its Russian colleagues that the transfer of power to the Afghan government does not mean a full withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan. 

On January 1, 2015, NATO officials will still be in Afghanistan, NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia James Appathurai said. 

The western military alliance will play “an auxiliary role” by providing support to the Afghan authorities, he said.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan established by the United Nations Security Council on December 20, 2001. The ISAF has been fighting for over a decade in Afghanistan against the Taliban, and other militant groups, including al-Qaeda.

It is the existence of these radical forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Central Asia, which continues to create security headaches for ISAF today, that are of great concern for Russia and its allies. 

“The upcoming significant reduction of the military contingents of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is capable of provoking greater activeness of radical forces in that country,” Gerasimov warned.

Despite their divergence of opinion concerning the future of Afghanistan, Russia and NATO continue to cooperate and are scheduled to hold joint military exercises this year.

“Joint exercises will train for the practical interaction in counterterrorism and maritime rescue operations,” Gerasimov revealed.

Russia and NATO forces will continue to cooperate in areas such as “counterterrorism, anti-piracy activities, maritime search and rescue operations, logistics and military academic exchanges,” he added.

Robert Bridge, RT

A woman holds a copy of Italy’s Vanity Fair magazine showing Archbishop Georg Ganswein on the cover in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican January 16, 2013 (Reuters / Tony Gentile)

The cover of a glossy magazine may not be the most appropriate place for a top cleric. However the Pope’s private secretary Archbishop Georg Ganswein dubbed by Italian media as “Gorgeous George” has appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine.

Pope Benedict’s private secretary landed on the front page of the Italian edition of the magazine. The cover features a smiling photograph of the 56-year-old cleric under the headline reading “Father Georg — It’s not a sin to be beautiful,” Reuters reports.

The archbishop did not pose for the cover intentionally. The magazine reportedly used a close-up of an existing picture. According to Reuters, the magazine also did not specifically interview the cleric.

The material in the Vanity Fair issue refers to Ganswein as “the George Clooney of St. Peter’s” while the story is highlighting the growing power of the recently promoted archbishop within the Roman Catholic Church. As the Pope becomes older, his personal assistant becomes a more and more powerful and important figure. Ganswein was also promoted for the job of Prefect of the Pontifical Household.

This position will bring him even more power and authority. Ganswein will be in charge of arranging the daily schedule and the private and public audiences of the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Like the Pope Ganswein is German and was promoted to archbishop in January. He has been performing Pope Benedict’s personal secretary’s duties since 2005, when the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Roman Catholic leader.

The magazine with Georg Ganswein on the cover hit the news stands on Wednesday.

Pres. Obama came out with some sensible proposals on gun violence Wednesday.

By advocating reinstituting a ban on semi-automatic weapons and establishing a ban on high-capacity magazines, he would at least make it more difficult for mass killers such as we saw in Aurora or at Sandy Hook.

Some of his other ideas are welcome, as well, like getting armored-piercing bullets off the street, and increasing mental health services.

But not only do we need to increase mental health services; we also need a national public awareness campaign on suicide warning signs.

Let’s be real here: Of the 31,000 people killed by guns in the United States in 2010, 19,000 of them were suicides. So let’s work seriously on suicide prevention.

I also doubt this assertion by the White House: “The single most important thing we can do to prevent gun violence and mass shootings, like the one in Newtown, is to make sure those who would commit acts of violence cannot get access to guns.”

First of all, it’s unclear whether the shooters in Newtown and Aurora wouldn’t have been able to get access to some kind of guns even under Obama’s new regulations.

And secondly, is that “the single most important thing”?

I’d hazard a guess that, other than bolstering suicide prevention efforts, the single most important thing we can do is to end the war on drugs.

By legalizing or decriminalizing drugs, the rampant gun violence that is plaguing places like Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Milwaukee, New Orleans, and Oakland would go way down. (And those involved in the violent gun trade will manage to get a hold of firearms somehow, even with bans and increased registration efforts in place.)

While we’re at it, we also might try solving the problem of poverty, which is closely associated with the problem of gun violence.

“Poverty is a substantial factor in gun deaths” in metro areas, according to a recent report by the Atlantic Cities.

Yes, it’s easier to place more cops in schools, which Obama now advocates, than it is to end the war on drugs or tackle poverty. (And Obama’s willingness to place more cops in school puts the lie to the hideous NRA ad about Obama carrying more about his kids, who have armed guards at their school, then everyone else’s kids.)

But we’re kidding ourselves if we think Obama’s efforts are going to make a big dent in gun violence.

© 2012 The Progressive

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine.

• Obama’s Gun Curbs Face a Slog in Congress (BBG)
• Euro Area Seen Stalling as Draghi’s Pessimism Shared (BBG)
• China Begins to Lose Edge as World’s Factory Floor (WSJ)
• EU Car Sales Slump (WSJ)
• Fed Concerned About Overheated Markets Amid Record Bond-Buying (BBG)
• Australia Posts Worst Back-to-Back Job Growth Since ’97 (BBG)
• Abe Currency Policy Stokes Gaffe Risk as Amari Roils Yen (BBG)
• Japan Opposition Party Won’t Back BOJ Officials for Governor (BBG)
• Fed Reports Point to Subdued Economic Growth (WSJ)
• China Set to Exit Slowdown by Boosting Infrastructure (BBG)
• Greece not out of woods, must stick to reforms: finance minister (Reuters)
• Russian Rate Debate Flares Up as Cabinet Seeks Growth (BBG)

Overnight Media Digest

WSJ

* The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday ordered a halt to flights of Boeing Co’s 787 Dreamliner, an unprecedented rebuke to the plane maker after two major battery malfunctions on its flagship jets.

* JPMorgan Chase & Co’s directors cut Chief Executive James Dimon’s pay by 50 percent for 2012, as the board took management to task for a trading debacle that cost the nation’s largest bank more than $6 billion.

* Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a combined $560 million to settle allegations of foreclosure abuses, the latest setback in the banks’ costly foray into subprime mortgages.

* Citigroup Inc has asked regulators for permission to repurchase just enough stock to counter dilution from routine share issuance, according to people familiar with the company’s plans.

* Two bidders have emerged as leading contenders for ThyssenKrupp AG’s steel operations in the Americas. ArcelorMittal SA submitted a $1.5 billion bid for a plant in Alabama, while Brazil’s Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional submitted a $3.8 billion bid for that plant and a majority stake in a Brazilian mill, people familiar with the matter said.

* Hewlett-Packard Co has received expressions of interest from potential suitors for its Autonomy Corp business, the division that the technology giant has alleged engaged in accounting improprieties before HP acquired it in 2011, according to people familiar with the discussions.

* EBay Inc’s revenue rose 18 percent in the latest quarter as business in the company’s online marketplace and PayPal units continued to improve.

* Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc expects higher food costs to dampen fourth-quarter earnings, despite continued strength in its underlying sales trends.

* European retailer Metro AG said it is pulling out of the Chinese consumer-electronics business after two years of testing.

* China is losing its competitive edge as a low-cost manufacturing base, new data suggest, with makers of everything from handbags to shirts to basic electronic components relocating to cheaper locales like Southeast Asia.

FT

Dozens of expatriate workers have been kidnapped from an Algerian natural gas facility operated by BP and Statoil .

Business Secretary Vince Cable will say in a speech that the debate over Britain’s EU membership and a possible referendum is terrible timing, creating uncertainty for investors.

Opposition leader Ed Miliband said in an interview that Cameron’s inability to guarantee that Britain will be in the EU in five years’ time would be destabilising for investment.

Goldman Sachs cut its bonuses in the fourth quarter, boosting it to its highest profit level in three years.

Germany’s Bundesbank is planning to repatriate 54,000 gold bars worth 27 billion euros from Paris and New York between now and 2020.

New rules that force British banks to hold more capital against loans secured on commercial property are resulting in higher costs and scrapped projects for developers.

NYT

* Long seen as one of the most careful banks on Wall Street, JPMorgan Chase & Co on Wednesday drew back a curtain on a rare breakdown, showing traders acting on their own and concealing losses while managers seemingly turned a blind eye. In a 129-page internal report dissecting a bad bet on credit derivatives that cost the bank more than $6 billion, the bank confessed, in painstaking detail, to widespread “failures.”

* The Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday it was grounding all Boeing Co 787s operated by United States carriers until it can determine what caused a new type of battery to catch fire on two planes in nine days.

* Hewlett-Packard Co has received a number of inquiries from would-be buyers for its Autonomy and Electronic Data Systems units in recent weeks, though the technology company isn’t interested in selling at the moment, a person briefed on the matter said.

* Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Wednesday released financial results that demonstrated it was not only benefiting from cost-cutting, but it also finally had a significant rebound in its core businesses. It reported a fourth-quarter profit of $2.89 billion, or $5.60 a share.

* To combat a rise in cybercrime, the European Commission is considering a plan to require companies that store data on the Internet – like Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc, Google Inc and International Business Machines Corp – to report the loss or theft of personal information in the 27-nation bloc or risk sanctions and fines.

* A new type of flu vaccine won regulatory approval on Wednesday, and its manufacturer said that limited supplies are expected to be available this winter.

* After an estimated 500,000 patients in the United States have received a type of artificial hip that is failing early in many cases, the Food and Drug Administration is proposing rules that could stop manufacturers from selling such implants.

* Robert Wolf, a top Wall Street rainmaker who left UBS AG last summer, has hired Austan Goolsbee as a “strategic partner” for his new firm, 32 Advisors, the two men have told friends in recent weeks, according to people briefed on the matter.

* Nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are held in a vault at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – billions of dollars worth of postwar geopolitical history squirreled away for safe keeping below the streets of Lower Manhattan. Now the German central bank wants to make a big withdrawal – 300 tons in all.

Canada

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

* Canada’s energy and mining companies are facing new challenges from First Nations that are demanding the right to approve all resource projects on traditional territories and to participate in the revenues.

* French President François Hollande has personally asked Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to extend Canada’s contribution of a heavy-lift cargo plane for Mali, and to offer more transport help, testing Harper’s efforts to set strict limits on Canada’s military assistance.

Reports in the business section:

* Air Transat will cut $20 million in annual operating cost as part of its parent company’s efforts to restore profitability in the face of toughening competition.

Executives told employees on Wednesday that the airline needs to realize the savings in order to operate a fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft and replace those flown under subcontract by Nova Scotia-based Canjet since 2009.

* H&R Real Estate Investment Trust on Wednesday offered to buy Primaris Retail Real Estate Investment Trust for nearly C$3 billion ($3.04 billion), or C$28 a share, just above a hostile C$26 per share bid put forward in December by a consortium led by KingSett Capital.

NATIONAL POST

* An Ontario bodyguard who worked for Saadi Gaddafi — the son of slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi — provided “invaluable assistance” to the Libyan dictatorship as it attempted to brutally crush an anti-regime uprising in 2011, the Canada Border Services Agency said.

* A new study has indicated that overdose deaths have risen in close parallel with Canada’s soaring consumption of prescription narcotics and the painkillers have become the country’s most dangerous drugs after tobacco and alcohol, a leading addiction researcher of Simon Fraser University said.

FINANCIAL POST

* Calgary-based Sunshine Oil Sands Ltd has agreed to share oil sands exploration technology with a division of China’s CNOOC Ltd.

The one-year “cooperation” agreement comes roughly one month after the federal government approved the sale of oil sands producer Nexen Inc to CNOOC for $15.1 billion.

* Lululemon Athletica Inc has its sights on growing its share in menswear, CEO Christine Day said at the ICR XChange investor conference in Miami on Wednesday, a rare bright spot in last year’s apparel market.

A little over a year and a half ago, menswear represented 8 percent of sales at the Vancouver-based retailer. while on a year to date basis the category has hit 12 percent with the holiday season peaking at 15 percent, Day said.

China

CHINA SECURITIES JOURNAL

–The yuan’s real effective exchange rate (REER), which measures the currency’s value against a trade-weighted basket after adjustments based on inflation, hit a record high of 110.16 in December, Bank for International Settlements (BIS) data showed.

SHANGHAI SECURITIES NEWS

–In the first two weeks of January, new loans from China’s “big four” banks hit 270 billion yuan ($43.43 billion), with industry insiders expecting that the total new loans are likely to hit one trillion yuan in January.

PEOPLE’S DAILY

–China’s tax revenue rose 11.2 percent to 11.7 trillion yuan in 2012, data from the state administration of taxation showed.

Fly on the Wall 7:00 AM Market Snapshot

ANALYST RESEARCH

Upgrades

Adtran (ADTN) upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup
Bio-Rad (BIO) upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at CLSA
GT Advanced (GTAT) upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies
Infinera (INFN) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan
Juniper (JNPR) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan
Medtronic (MDT) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse
Mercury General (MCY) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie
Mohawk (MHK) upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Macquarie
PerkinElmer (PKI) upgraded to Buy from Outperform at CLSA
Rio Tinto (RIO) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup

Downgrades

Adtran (ADTN) downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS
Agilent (A) downgraded to Outperform from Buy at CLSA
BNY Mellon (BK) downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital
Boeing (BA) downgraded to Underweight from Hold at BB&T
Celsion (CLSN) downgraded to Sell from Hold at Brean Capital
Cisco (CSCO) downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JPMorgan
Columbia Sportswear (COLM) downgraded to Underperform from Buy at BofA/Merrill
Corning (GLW) downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital
Cree (CREE) downgraded to Underperform from Buy at Jefferies
Itron (ITRI) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies
Leap Wireless (LEAP) downgraded to Underperform from Hold at Jefferies
RBC Bearings (ROLL) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at William Blair
Regal-Beloit (RBC) downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer
Regeneron (REGN) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Brean Capital
SAP (SAP) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup
VIVUS (VVUS) downgraded to Sell from Hold at Brean Capital
Waters (WAT) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo
Williams-Sonoma (WSM) downgraded to Market Perform from Strong Buy at Raymond James
Williams-Sonoma (WSM) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman

Initiations

Alkermes (ALKS) initiated with a Neutral at Credit Suisse
Approach Resources (AREX) initiated with an In-Line at Imperial Capital
Asset Acceptance (AACC) initiated with a Neutral at Janney Capital
Concho Resources (CXO) initiated with an Outperform at Imperial Capital
Eli Lilly (LLY) initiated with a Sell at CLSA
Encore Capital (ECPG) initiated with a Buy at Janney Capital
Portfolio Recovery (PRAA) initiated with a Neutral at Janney Capital
Stillwater Mining (SWC) initiated with an Outperform at Wells Fargo
U.S. Silica (SLCA) initiated with a Sector Perform at RBC Capital
Vanda Pharmaceuticals (VNDA) initiated with an Outperform at JMP Securities

HOT STOCKS

FAA ordered Boeing (BA) to temporary cease operations of all U.S. 787 Dreamliners jets, Bloomberg reports
Rio Tinto (RIO) said CEO Albanese stepped down after charges
Expects non-cash impairment charge of $14B
Stryker (SYK) acquired Trauson Holdings for $764M in cash
Sun Life Financial (SLF), Khazanah Nasional Berhad to purchase CIMB Aviva for C$586M
Treasury Department hired Citigroup (C), JPMorgan (JPM) to sell General Motors (GM) shares, Bloomberg reports
Nokia (NOK) to cut 300 jobs, transfer 820 others amid changes in IT
AT&T (T) to enable FaceTime over Cellular (AAPL) for all iOS devices at no extra charge
CBS (CBS) began converting its Outdoor Americas division into a REIT, and will pursue a divestiture of its Outdoor operations in Europe and Asia
A. M. Castle (CAS) announced restructuring plan, will reduce workforce by 10%
eBay (EBAY) said Europe still “sluggish,” said Latin America an “important growth opportunity”
Said PayPal-Discover partnership to go live at end of Q2
K-Swiss (KSWS) to be acquired by E.Land World for $4.75 per share in cash

EARNINGS

Companies that beat consensus earnings expectations last night and today include: Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), Insteel (IIIN), BlackRock (BLK), Huntington Bancshares (HBAN), Virginia Commerce (VCBI), BB&T (BBT), H.B. Fuller (FUL), Bank of the Ozarks (OZRK), Clarcor (CLC), SLM Corp. (SLM), eBay (EBAY), Nautilus (NLS)

Companies that missed consensus earnings expectations include:
CVB Financial (CVBF), Plexus (PLXS), Kinder Morgan Energy (KMP), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Boston Private Financial (BPFH)

Companies that matched consensus earnings expectations include:
UnitedHealth (UNH), Pacific Continental (PCBK)

NEWSPAPERS/WEBSITES
Investors are grappling with what could be a watershed moment for Apple (AAPL). In many fund managers’ eyes, the recent decline could mark Apple’s transformation from a growth stock–one that is seen as risky but whose growth prospects could lead to big gains–to a more plodding value stock–one that trades at a low price relative to earnings and offers regular payments such as dividends, the Wall Street Journal reports
The power that U.S. baby boomers have exercised for some 50 years over the auto industry is starting to wane. Auto industry executives at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week made it clear with their designs for coming models that they are pivoting their attention–and their product strategies–toward the 20, 30 and 40-something consumers collectively known as Generations X and Y, the Wall Street Journal reports
PC makers, trying to beat back a tablet mania that’s hurting their sales, are making what may be a last attempt to sway customers by mimicking the competition, Reuters reports
Airbus (EADSY) reported a 43% drop in orders and lost its title as the world’s largest plane maker to Boeing (BA) in 2012, as it predicted improvements in orders and deliveries for 2013 as airlines look to reduce fuel costs. Adjusted for cancellations, Airbus had 833 net orders, while Boeing led on net orders with 921 aircraft, Reuters reports
Fed officials are increasingly concerned that record-low interest rates are overheating markets for assets from farmland to junk bonds, which could heighten risks when they reverse their bond purchases, Bloomberg reports
Treasuries fell, as 10-year notes halted a four-day advance, before Commerce Department data forecast to show U.S. housing starts rose last month, adding to signs the U.S. economy is improving, Bloomberg reports

SYNDICATE
Aveo Pharmaceuticals (AVEO) commences offering of common stock
CVR Refining (CVRR) 24M share IPO priced at $25.00
Imation (IMN) files to sell 3.32M shares of common stock for holders
Northern Tier (NTI) commences offering of 9M common units by holders

• Obama’s Gun Curbs Face a Slog in Congress (BBG)
• Euro Area Seen Stalling as Draghi’s Pessimism Shared (BBG)
• China Begins to Lose Edge as World’s Factory Floor (WSJ)
• EU Car Sales Slump (WSJ)
• Fed Concerned About Overheated Markets Amid Record Bond-Buying (BBG)
• Australia Posts Worst Back-to-Back Job Growth Since ’97 (BBG)
• Abe Currency Policy Stokes Gaffe Risk as Amari Roils Yen (BBG)
• Japan Opposition Party Won’t Back BOJ Officials for Governor (BBG)
• Fed Reports Point to Subdued Economic Growth (WSJ)
• China Set to Exit Slowdown by Boosting Infrastructure (BBG)
• Greece not out of woods, must stick to reforms: finance minister (Reuters)
• Russian Rate Debate Flares Up as Cabinet Seeks Growth (BBG)

Overnight Media Digest

WSJ

* The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday ordered a halt to flights of Boeing Co’s 787 Dreamliner, an unprecedented rebuke to the plane maker after two major battery malfunctions on its flagship jets.

* JPMorgan Chase & Co’s directors cut Chief Executive James Dimon’s pay by 50 percent for 2012, as the board took management to task for a trading debacle that cost the nation’s largest bank more than $6 billion.

* Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a combined $560 million to settle allegations of foreclosure abuses, the latest setback in the banks’ costly foray into subprime mortgages.

* Citigroup Inc has asked regulators for permission to repurchase just enough stock to counter dilution from routine share issuance, according to people familiar with the company’s plans.

* Two bidders have emerged as leading contenders for ThyssenKrupp AG’s steel operations in the Americas. ArcelorMittal SA submitted a $1.5 billion bid for a plant in Alabama, while Brazil’s Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional submitted a $3.8 billion bid for that plant and a majority stake in a Brazilian mill, people familiar with the matter said.

* Hewlett-Packard Co has received expressions of interest from potential suitors for its Autonomy Corp business, the division that the technology giant has alleged engaged in accounting improprieties before HP acquired it in 2011, according to people familiar with the discussions.

* EBay Inc’s revenue rose 18 percent in the latest quarter as business in the company’s online marketplace and PayPal units continued to improve.

* Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc expects higher food costs to dampen fourth-quarter earnings, despite continued strength in its underlying sales trends.

* European retailer Metro AG said it is pulling out of the Chinese consumer-electronics business after two years of testing.

* China is losing its competitive edge as a low-cost manufacturing base, new data suggest, with makers of everything from handbags to shirts to basic electronic components relocating to cheaper locales like Southeast Asia.

FT

Dozens of expatriate workers have been kidnapped from an Algerian natural gas facility operated by BP and Statoil .

Business Secretary Vince Cable will say in a speech that the debate over Britain’s EU membership and a possible referendum is terrible timing, creating uncertainty for investors.

Opposition leader Ed Miliband said in an interview that Cameron’s inability to guarantee that Britain will be in the EU in five years’ time would be destabilising for investment.

Goldman Sachs cut its bonuses in the fourth quarter, boosting it to its highest profit level in three years.

Germany’s Bundesbank is planning to repatriate 54,000 gold bars worth 27 billion euros from Paris and New York between now and 2020.

New rules that force British banks to hold more capital against loans secured on commercial property are resulting in higher costs and scrapped projects for developers.

NYT

* Long seen as one of the most careful banks on Wall Street, JPMorgan Chase & Co on Wednesday drew back a curtain on a rare breakdown, showing traders acting on their own and concealing losses while managers seemingly turned a blind eye. In a 129-page internal report dissecting a bad bet on credit derivatives that cost the bank more than $6 billion, the bank confessed, in painstaking detail, to widespread “failures.”

* The Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday it was grounding all Boeing Co 787s operated by United States carriers until it can determine what caused a new type of battery to catch fire on two planes in nine days.

* Hewlett-Packard Co has received a number of inquiries from would-be buyers for its Autonomy and Electronic Data Systems units in recent weeks, though the technology company isn’t interested in selling at the moment, a person briefed on the matter said.

* Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Wednesday released financial results that demonstrated it was not only benefiting from cost-cutting, but it also finally had a significant rebound in its core businesses. It reported a fourth-quarter profit of $2.89 billion, or $5.60 a share.

* To combat a rise in cybercrime, the European Commission is considering a plan to require companies that store data on the Internet – like Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc, Google Inc and International Business Machines Corp – to report the loss or theft of personal information in the 27-nation bloc or risk sanctions and fines.

* A new type of flu vaccine won regulatory approval on Wednesday, and its manufacturer said that limited supplies are expected to be available this winter.

* After an estimated 500,000 patients in the United States have received a type of artificial hip that is failing early in many cases, the Food and Drug Administration is proposing rules that could stop manufacturers from selling such implants.

* Robert Wolf, a top Wall Street rainmaker who left UBS AG last summer, has hired Austan Goolsbee as a “strategic partner” for his new firm, 32 Advisors, the two men have told friends in recent weeks, according to people briefed on the matter.

* Nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are held in a vault at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – billions of dollars worth of postwar geopolitical history squirreled away for safe keeping below the streets of Lower Manhattan. Now the German central bank wants to make a big withdrawal – 300 tons in all.

Canada

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

* Canada’s energy and mining companies are facing new challenges from First Nations that are demanding the right to approve all resource projects on traditional territories and to participate in the revenues.

* French President François Hollande has personally asked Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to extend Canada’s contribution of a heavy-lift cargo plane for Mali, and to offer more transport help, testing Harper’s efforts to set strict limits on Canada’s military assistance.

Reports in the business section:

* Air Transat will cut $20 million in annual operating cost as part of its parent company’s efforts to restore profitability in the face of toughening competition.

Executives told employees on Wednesday that the airline needs to realize the savings in order to operate a fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft and replace those flown under subcontract by Nova Scotia-based Canjet since 2009.

* H&R Real Estate Investment Trust on Wednesday offered to buy Primaris Retail Real Estate Investment Trust for nearly C$3 billion ($3.04 billion), or C$28 a share, just above a hostile C$26 per share bid put forward in December by a consortium led by KingSett Capital.

NATIONAL POST

* An Ontario bodyguard who worked for Saadi Gaddafi — the son of slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi — provided “invaluable assistance” to the Libyan dictatorship as it attempted to brutally crush an anti-regime uprising in 2011, the Canada Border Services Agency said.

* A new study has indicated that overdose deaths have risen in close parallel with Canada’s soaring consumption of prescription narcotics and the painkillers have become the country’s most dangerous drugs after tobacco and alcohol, a leading addiction researcher of Simon Fraser University said.

FINANCIAL POST

* Calgary-based Sunshine Oil Sands Ltd has agreed to share oil sands exploration technology with a division of China’s CNOOC Ltd.

The one-year “cooperation” agreement comes roughly one month after the federal government approved the sale of oil sands producer Nexen Inc to CNOOC for $15.1 billion.

* Lululemon Athletica Inc has its sights on growing its share in menswear, CEO Christine Day said at the ICR XChange investor conference in Miami on Wednesday, a rare bright spot in last year’s apparel market.

A little over a year and a half ago, menswear represented 8 percent of sales at the Vancouver-based retailer. while on a year to date basis the category has hit 12 percent with the holiday season peaking at 15 percent, Day said.

China

CHINA SECURITIES JOURNAL

–The yuan’s real effective exchange rate (REER), which measures the currency’s value against a trade-weighted basket after adjustments based on inflation, hit a record high of 110.16 in December, Bank for International Settlements (BIS) data showed.

SHANGHAI SECURITIES NEWS

–In the first two weeks of January, new loans from China’s “big four” banks hit 270 billion yuan ($43.43 billion), with industry insiders expecting that the total new loans are likely to hit one trillion yuan in January.

PEOPLE’S DAILY

–China’s tax revenue rose 11.2 percent to 11.7 trillion yuan in 2012, data from the state administration of taxation showed.

Fly on the Wall 7:00 AM Market Snapshot

ANALYST RESEARCH

Upgrades

Adtran (ADTN) upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup
Bio-Rad (BIO) upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at CLSA
GT Advanced (GTAT) upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies
Infinera (INFN) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan
Juniper (JNPR) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan
Medtronic (MDT) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse
Mercury General (MCY) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie
Mohawk (MHK) upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Macquarie
PerkinElmer (PKI) upgraded to Buy from Outperform at CLSA
Rio Tinto (RIO) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup

Downgrades

Adtran (ADTN) downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS
Agilent (A) downgraded to Outperform from Buy at CLSA
BNY Mellon (BK) downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital
Boeing (BA) downgraded to Underweight from Hold at BB&T
Celsion (CLSN) downgraded to Sell from Hold at Brean Capital
Cisco (CSCO) downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JPMorgan
Columbia Sportswear (COLM) downgraded to Underperform from Buy at BofA/Merrill
Corning (GLW) downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital
Cree (CREE) downgraded to Underperform from Buy at Jefferies
Itron (ITRI) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies
Leap Wireless (LEAP) downgraded to Underperform from Hold at Jefferies
RBC Bearings (ROLL) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at William Blair
Regal-Beloit (RBC) downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer
Regeneron (REGN) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Brean Capital
SAP (SAP) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup
VIVUS (VVUS) downgraded to Sell from Hold at Brean Capital
Waters (WAT) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo
Williams-Sonoma (WSM) downgraded to Market Perform from Strong Buy at Raymond James
Williams-Sonoma (WSM) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman

Initiations

Alkermes (ALKS) initiated with a Neutral at Credit Suisse
Approach Resources (AREX) initiated with an In-Line at Imperial Capital
Asset Acceptance (AACC) initiated with a Neutral at Janney Capital
Concho Resources (CXO) initiated with an Outperform at Imperial Capital
Eli Lilly (LLY) initiated with a Sell at CLSA
Encore Capital (ECPG) initiated with a Buy at Janney Capital
Portfolio Recovery (PRAA) initiated with a Neutral at Janney Capital
Stillwater Mining (SWC) initiated with an Outperform at Wells Fargo
U.S. Silica (SLCA) initiated with a Sector Perform at RBC Capital
Vanda Pharmaceuticals (VNDA) initiated with an Outperform at JMP Securities

HOT STOCKS

FAA ordered Boeing (BA) to temporary cease operations of all U.S. 787 Dreamliners jets, Bloomberg reports
Rio Tinto (RIO) said CEO Albanese stepped down after charges
Expects non-cash impairment charge of $14B
Stryker (SYK) acquired Trauson Holdings for $764M in cash
Sun Life Financial (SLF), Khazanah Nasional Berhad to purchase CIMB Aviva for C$586M
Treasury Department hired Citigroup (C), JPMorgan (JPM) to sell General Motors (GM) shares, Bloomberg reports
Nokia (NOK) to cut 300 jobs, transfer 820 others amid changes in IT
AT&T (T) to enable FaceTime over Cellular (AAPL) for all iOS devices at no extra charge
CBS (CBS) began converting its Outdoor Americas division into a REIT, and will pursue a divestiture of its Outdoor operations in Europe and Asia
A. M. Castle (CAS) announced restructuring plan, will reduce workforce by 10%
eBay (EBAY) said Europe still “sluggish,” said Latin America an “important growth opportunity”
Said PayPal-Discover partnership to go live at end of Q2
K-Swiss (KSWS) to be acquired by E.Land World for $4.75 per share in cash

EARNINGS

Companies that beat consensus earnings expectations last night and today include: Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), Insteel (IIIN), BlackRock (BLK), Huntington Bancshares (HBAN), Virginia Commerce (VCBI), BB&T (BBT), H.B. Fuller (FUL), Bank of the Ozarks (OZRK), Clarcor (CLC), SLM Corp. (SLM), eBay (EBAY), Nautilus (NLS)

Companies that missed consensus earnings expectations include:
CVB Financial (CVBF), Plexus (PLXS), Kinder Morgan Energy (KMP), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Boston Private Financial (BPFH)

Companies that matched consensus earnings expectations include:
UnitedHealth (UNH), Pacific Continental (PCBK)

NEWSPAPERS/WEBSITES
Investors are grappling with what could be a watershed moment for Apple (AAPL). In many fund managers’ eyes, the recent decline could mark Apple’s transformation from a growth stock–one that is seen as risky but whose growth prospects could lead to big gains–to a more plodding value stock–one that trades at a low price relative to earnings and offers regular payments such as dividends, the Wall Street Journal reports
The power that U.S. baby boomers have exercised for some 50 years over the auto industry is starting to wane. Auto industry executives at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week made it clear with their designs for coming models that they are pivoting their attention–and their product strategies–toward the 20, 30 and 40-something consumers collectively known as Generations X and Y, the Wall Street Journal reports
PC makers, trying to beat back a tablet mania that’s hurting their sales, are making what may be a last attempt to sway customers by mimicking the competition, Reuters reports
Airbus (EADSY) reported a 43% drop in orders and lost its title as the world’s largest plane maker to Boeing (BA) in 2012, as it predicted improvements in orders and deliveries for 2013 as airlines look to reduce fuel costs. Adjusted for cancellations, Airbus had 833 net orders, while Boeing led on net orders with 921 aircraft, Reuters reports
Fed officials are increasingly concerned that record-low interest rates are overheating markets for assets from farmland to junk bonds, which could heighten risks when they reverse their bond purchases, Bloomberg reports
Treasuries fell, as 10-year notes halted a four-day advance, before Commerce Department data forecast to show U.S. housing starts rose last month, adding to signs the U.S. economy is improving, Bloomberg reports

SYNDICATE
Aveo Pharmaceuticals (AVEO) commences offering of common stock
CVR Refining (CVRR) 24M share IPO priced at $25.00
Imation (IMN) files to sell 3.32M shares of common stock for holders
Northern Tier (NTI) commences offering of 9M common units by holders

Pakistan’s anti-corruption chief has defied an order by the Supreme Court to arrest the country’s Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf over corruption charges.

Head of Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau Fasih Bokhari told the top court that there is not enough evidence to arrest the premier.

Bokhari, who was appointed to his post by President Asif Ali Zardari, said on Thursday that the investigating officers “were not able to bring incriminating evidence but relied on oral statements which are not warranted in the court of law.”

He described the investigation as “inaccurate” and “hurried,” saying that he needed more time to decide whether the prime minister should be arrested or not.

The Supreme Court ordered the arrest of Ashraf on Tuesday over the premier’s alleged involvement in a bribery case in 2010 when he was the minister for water and power.

The court also ordered the arrest of 16 others, including three former ministers, in connection with the allegations and gave the authorities one day to arrest the premier and the other suspects.

Bokhari’s comments come following protests held by followers of the anti-government cleric Tahir-ul Qadri in the capital Islamabad to demand the resignation of the government and the dissolution of the parliament.

The officials accuse the cleric of trying to delay the elections, due by May, and sowing political chaos.

TE/HMV/SS

Call Clegg, the weekly opportunity to listen to the deputy PM talk about what he would do if Cameron let him make any decisions, threw up an interesting scenario this morning.

As a final question Clegg was asked which party leader he would pick to back him up “if your back was against the wall”.

Despite insisting that in last week’s show he had tackled questions “head on”, he completely fluffed it in the name of domestic harmony and chose “my wife probably”.

The Huffington Post UK is no shirker and duly takes on the task of identifying the best tag-team buddy for a political punch-up.

As disclosed 10 days ago in its agreement with Fannie, Bank of America already warned that it would see a $2.7 billion pre-tax hit to earnings resulting from just one GSE reps and warrants settlement. Sure enough, this was the biggest one time adjustment to the company’s earnings which came out at $700 million on a pre-adjustment basis, or some $0.03. Excluding all the various incurred “charges”, the bank reported $0.29 in earnings. Of course, the assumption is that the bulk of the charges highlighted below are “one time” – yet, since most of them relate to the ongoing reps and warrants litigation, it is rather safe to put them in the recurring cost of business as the total amount of outstanding claims on R&W warrant cases has soared to a record $28.3 billion, compared to just $12.6 billion a year ago. Netting out the $13.5 billion in GSE claims which are now settled there are still some $125 billion in private and monoline claims which will continue to be a drain on BAC cash and EPS for years to come.

The full breakdown of Q4 “earnings”, including the rather odd $2.4 billion tax benefit, and all the charges is shown below. Oddly enough, a year ago it paid some $441 million in taxes.

In brief: $10.56 billion in net interest income, better than the $10.24 billion estimate, driven by the arbitrate $900 million in loan loss reserve releases for the quarter (see below). The far less adjustable non-interest income was just $8.34 billion, far below the estimated $11.7 billion. Of course, BofA’s argument is that this is due to one-time charges. Yet are these truly one time charges? A quick look at the outstanding Reps and Warrants claims shows there is much more legacy Countrywide pain to come for the bank:

In one years total claims have increased from $12.6 billion to $28.3 billion. Of this the GSE claims are now settled, which means only some $5-10 billion to settle the outstanding Private and Monoline R&W claims. In other words, it is safe to assume that the same kinds of “one-time” charges will be seen for years to come.

Net interest margin declined from a year ago, from 2.45% to 2.35%, although it rose by a tiny 3 bps from last quarter. This resulted in some $10.6 billion in Net Interest Income in the quarter, or well over half of the total revenue of $18.9 billion reported in Q4.

The $10.6 billion in Net Interest Income, which was “better than estimates” of $10.24 billion, was offset by some $2.2 billion provision for credit losses. Of course, this being Bank of America, there was a lot of Loan Loss Reserve Releases. Sure enough, as the chart below shows of the $700 million in unadjusted Net Income, some $900 million, or more than all of it, came from everyone’s accounting gimmick. Absent the release, the firm would have reported a negative pre-adjustment Net Income number.

The $900 million reserve reduction was accompanied by some $3.1 billion in charge offs, of which $2.9 billion in consumer and $251 million in commercial. Of the consumer charge offs, $714MM was in resi mortgage, $767 million in home equity and $978 million in credit cards. The total was $2.2 billion provision for credit losses.

The loan book did not improve much if at all, with some $15.3 billion in residential NPAs. This was driven by a reduction in the 180 day past dues from $10.1 billion to $9.2 billion, offset by an increase in the < 180 days from $5.7 billion to $6.1 billion. Home Equity NPAs was unchanged at $4.3 billion.

Then we look at sales and trading revenue, that other bastion of profitability of the New Normal bank hedge funds, where we find that it declined by $0.7 billion from Q3 to $2.5 billion ($1.8 billion in FICC and $0.7 billion in Equity Income), although rising from a year ago. A far cry from the blow out trading numbers reported by Goldman. What is odd, is that while the Goldman VaR plunged, BAC’s soared:

Finally, there were quite a few pink slips at the bank in the quarter, with some 228.5K FTEs at the end of Q4, down from 230.9K last quarter, and 242.3K a year ago.

In short: yet another quarter marked by “one-time” charges which will likely never go away, and ongoing deterioration in business fundamentals offset by loan loss reserve releases.

Full presentation below

BAC Q3 by zerohedge

As disclosed 10 days ago in its agreement with Fannie, Bank of America already warned that it would see a $2.7 billion pre-tax hit to earnings resulting from just one GSE reps and warrants settlement. Sure enough, this was the biggest one time adjustment to the company’s earnings which came out at $700 million on a pre-adjustment basis, or some $0.03. Excluding all the various incurred “charges”, the bank reported $0.29 in earnings. Of course, the assumption is that the bulk of the charges highlighted below are “one time” – yet, since most of them relate to the ongoing reps and warrants litigation, it is rather safe to put them in the recurring cost of business as the total amount of outstanding claims on R&W warrant cases has soared to a record $28.3 billion, compared to just $12.6 billion a year ago. Netting out the $13.5 billion in GSE claims which are now settled there are still some $125 billion in private and monoline claims which will continue to be a drain on BAC cash and EPS for years to come.

The full breakdown of Q4 “earnings”, including the rather odd $2.4 billion tax benefit, and all the charges is shown below. Oddly enough, a year ago it paid some $441 million in taxes.

In brief: $10.56 billion in net interest income, better than the $10.24 billion estimate, driven by the arbitrate $900 million in loan loss reserve releases for the quarter (see below). The far less adjustable non-interest income was just $8.34 billion, far below the estimated $11.7 billion. Of course, BofA’s argument is that this is due to one-time charges. Yet are these truly one time charges? A quick look at the outstanding Reps and Warrants claims shows there is much more legacy Countrywide pain to come for the bank:

In one years total claims have increased from $12.6 billion to $28.3 billion. Of this the GSE claims are now settled, which means only some $5-10 billion to settle the outstanding Private and Monoline R&W claims. In other words, it is safe to assume that the same kinds of “one-time” charges will be seen for years to come.

Net interest margin declined from a year ago, from 2.45% to 2.35%, although it rose by a tiny 3 bps from last quarter. This resulted in some $10.6 billion in Net Interest Income in the quarter, or well over half of the total revenue of $18.9 billion reported in Q4.

The $10.6 billion in Net Interest Income, which was “better than estimates” of $10.24 billion, was offset by some $2.2 billion provision for credit losses. Of course, this being Bank of America, there was a lot of Loan Loss Reserve Releases. Sure enough, as the chart below shows of the $700 million in unadjusted Net Income, some $900 million, or more than all of it, came from everyone’s accounting gimmick. Absent the release, the firm would have reported a negative pre-adjustment Net Income number.

The $900 million reserve reduction was accompanied by some $3.1 billion in charge offs, of which $2.9 billion in consumer and $251 million in commercial. Of the consumer charge offs, $714MM was in resi mortgage, $767 million in home equity and $978 million in credit cards. The total was $2.2 billion provision for credit losses.

The loan book did not improve much if at all, with some $15.3 billion in residential NPAs. This was driven by a reduction in the 180 day past dues from $10.1 billion to $9.2 billion, offset by an increase in the < 180 days from $5.7 billion to $6.1 billion. Home Equity NPAs was unchanged at $4.3 billion.

Then we look at sales and trading revenue, that other bastion of profitability of the New Normal bank hedge funds, where we find that it declined by $0.7 billion from Q3 to $2.5 billion ($1.8 billion in FICC and $0.7 billion in Equity Income), although rising from a year ago. A far cry from the blow out trading numbers reported by Goldman. What is odd, is that while the Goldman VaR plunged, BAC’s soared:

Finally, there were quite a few pink slips at the bank in the quarter, with some 228.5K FTEs at the end of Q4, down from 230.9K last quarter, and 242.3K a year ago.

In short: yet another quarter marked by “one-time” charges which will likely never go away, and ongoing deterioration in business fundamentals offset by loan loss reserve releases.

Full presentation below

BAC Q3 by zerohedge

An Iranian deputy foreign minister says the Islamic Republic and China regard as realistic the peace plan proposed by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resolve the crisis in the Arab country.

Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remark after his meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun on the Middle East developments in Beijing on Wednesday.

Pointing to close viewpoints held by Iran and China on international issues, Amir-Abdollahian said both countries stress non-interference of foreign parties in Syria, complete halt of terrorist activities, and control of borders.

We believe that the situation in Syria is improving and we should help the Syrian people and that the Assad plan must be supported, the Iranian deputy foreign minister added.

He reiterated that the only solution to the Syria unrest is political, saying that military measures in Syria are bound to fail and certain countries’ support of terrorist groups has had no result but human losses and infrastructural damages.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of army and security personnel, have been killed in the turmoil.

In a key speech on January 6, Assad called for an end to the terrorist operations inside Syria and urged “concerned states and parties” to stop funding, arming and harboring militants.

He said his government is always ready to hold talks with the opposition and political parties and will call for a “comprehensive national dialog” after foreign parties end their support for the militants and the terrorist activities cease in the country.

AR/SS

At least four Afghan civilians, including two children, have been killed by US forces in the western province of Herat, Press TV reports.

Two women and two children were killed after American forces opened fire on them in Shindand district of Herat Province.

The US military has confirmed the incident, but claimed that the victims were militants. Local officials have strongly condemned the attack.

Civilian casualties inflicted by US-led troops have increased anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan. The deaths have also been the main source of friction between Kabul and Washington over the past years.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the pretext of combating terrorism. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity remains despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops in the country.

The US-led war, which has caused record-high civilian and military casualties, has become the longest military conflict in the American history.

TE/HMV/SS

William Hague has condemned the killing of a Briton in the Algerian gas field hostage crisis as “cold-blooded murder” as forces surround the Islamist gunmen.

One Briton and an Algerian were killed when around 20 attackers from an al Qaeda-backed group stormed the In Amenas facility, which is part owned by BP.

They seized 41 Westerners, including several Britons.

Six people were wounded in Wednesday’s attack, which the group claims is retaliation for the French military intervention against al Qaeda-backed rebels in neighbouring Mali.

The raid is believed to have been planned by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a one-eyed Islamist known as Mr Marlboro and The Uncatchable.

His group goes under various names including Khaled Abul Abbas Brigade, the Masked Ones and The Blood Battalion and is said to be linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Mr Hague said he was sceptical the raid was carried out retaliation for the offensive in Mali .

Speaking during a visit to Australia, the Foreign Secretary said: “That is a convenient excuse, but usually operations like this take longer to plan.

“Whatever excuse is being used by terrorists and murderers, there is no excuse. This is the cold-blooded murder of people going about their business.”

Algerian interior minister Dahou Ould Kablia said Algiers would not negotiate with “terrorists”.

The plant has been surrounded by Algerian army and security forces, with army helicopters flying overhead.

A rapid deployment team has also been sent from the Foreign Office to reinforce British embassy and consular staff in Algeria.

Mr Hague added: “A number of people are held hostage. This does include a number of British nationals. This is therefore an extremely dangerous situation.”

Downing Street said David Cameron “expressed his sympathy and support” when he spoke to Algerian prime minister Abdelmalek Sellal on Wednesday evening.

The Irish government has said a 36-year-old Irish national was among the hostages. He was believed to be unharmed.

The Algerian interior ministry said the attack began when three vehicles carrying heavily armed militants ambushed a bus carrying employees from the gas plant to a nearby airport.

They were initially driven off, but then they were taken to the main complex.

The ministry said: “After their failed attempt, the terrorist group headed to the complex’s living quarters and took a number of workers with foreign nationalities hostage.”

The militant group Katibat Moulathamine – The Masked Ones – later contacted a news agency in the Saharan state of Mauritania to claim responsibility.

A spokesman for the Katibat told the Sahara Media Agency that Westerners of nine or 10 nationalities had been taken hostage, including seven Americans.

Five foreigners were being held in a factory, while 36 others were in living quarters at the plant, claimed the spokesman, who said the action was carried out in retaliation for Algeria allowing France to use its airspace to carry out raids on northern Mali.

Britain has provided two RAF C-17 transport aircraft to support the operation as well as offering to share intelligence with Paris.

The In Amenas facility, near the Libyan border, is jointly operated by BP, the Norwegian company Statoil and the Algerian state oil company Sonatrach.

BP said there was “an ongoing security incident” in the gas field, which was “attacked and occupied by a group of unidentified armed people”.

The attack happened as EU foreign ministers were preparing to meet in Brussels to discuss plans to send a 400-strong military training mission to Mali.

screenshot from http://www.sochi2014.com

Before buying tickets to the Sochi Winter Olympics fans will have to give their personal details to the Russian authorities for security reasons, the organizing committee head says.

In order to obtain a so-called spectator pass the Olympic guests will need to log their info with a new national database, the state ID, containing the owner’s passport information and even bank details, the R-Sport news agency reports.

“A person who wants to buy a ticket will be requested to voluntarily register on the database. It’s confirmation that he is a well-behaved fan. He joins a sort of Sochi 2014 fan club,” the source quotes the head of the organizing committee Dmitry Chernyshenko.

However, ‘voluntary’ to Chernyshenko means Olympic access denial for those, who refused to register.

“It’s similar to accreditation for sporting competitions. You don’t have to view this as a policing measure,” Chernyshenko stressed adding that this is all done for security reasons.

It is yet to be known how foreigners’ data would be used, or whether it would be added to the government database.

The first such cards were issued earlier this month and will be compulsory from the start of next year.

For obvious reasons the initiative has been met with criticism by some of the Russian civil liberties activists.

Forbes has recently published an article about New York Congressman Steve Israel’s promise to ban 3D printed high capacity ammunition magazines. The congressman’s comments come after Defense Distributed, an open source DIY gunsmith group working to manufacture both guns and their accessories using 3D printing technology, successfully printed and tested a 30-round AR-15 magazine.

Congressman Israel stated:

“Background checks and gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print high-capacity magazines at home. 3-D printing is a new technology that shows great promise, but also requires new guidelines. Law enforcement officials should have the power to stop high-capacity magazines from proliferating with a Google search.”

It seems that Congressman Israel doesn’t realize that background checks and gun regulations both in the United States and just over America’s border with Mexico, already don’t work — without advanced manufacturing and open source paradigms even playing a role. Criminals intent on breaking laws have existed since laws themselves. Additionally, technology like 3D printing, as Forbes correctly points out, will pose a serious challenge to gun control advocates in terms of enforcement. Forbes stated specifically:

“But for either [Congresswoman Diane] Feinstein or Israel’s bill, the same problem arises: How to enforce that prohibition in every garage and workshop in America that houses a 3D printer?”

Of course, without becoming Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union, or something far worse, there is no way to enforce these gun regulations. Criminals in particular will continue trumping the law, and because of the government’s refusal to actually tackle the socioeconomic factors driving violence and its insistence on instead punishing law abiding citizens, their authority, legitimacy, and ability to enforce even sensible legislation will be compromised.

And 3D manufacturing isn’t the only way to build your own gun. As a matter of fact, around the world where criminals are unable to buy guns, they do indeed already make their own — and then, as criminals are wanton to do, commit crimes with them, including, murder.

In Thailand, vocational schools are plagued by fierce gang-style rivalries. With standard tools, these students construct homemade guns which they frequently murder each other with. And just this New Year’s Eve, a British tourist was killed when a fight broke out at a party, and a homemade gun was fired. The difference between a Thai vocational education, and say a German or Japanese vocational education is one of culture and socioeconomics — not access to tools.

Image: This homemade handgun was made by an unruly Thai party-goer who claimed the life of a British tourist this New Year’s Eve. Despite the ubiquitous nature of guns, both homemade and manufactured in Thailand, and nearly no means of enforcing whatever legislation may or may not be on the books, gun violence (and violence overall) is still less than in the United States.

….

Preventing people from manufacturing guns, or worse yet, from possessing or using tools that can be used to create guns, is both ludicrous and impossible. Like with cars or anything else, laws are there to ensure we don’t harm others by abusing any given right or implement — not preventing us from having those rights or implements responsibly in the first place. In the end, one must address the factors in any given society that drive large numbers of people to commit violent crimes in the first place — regardless of their chosen means or method.

In reality, an honest public representative would already be far too busy improving education, infrastructure, and the economic prospects of their people to waste time on banning every conceivable implement that could be used in a crime, directly or indirectly. The goal of Congress members like Feinstein or Israel, is not to prevent violence — but to simply disarm the population as the corporate-financier interests they represent seek to be further unhindered as they loot people and nations both abroad and at home.

The fact that the White House is taking such bold actions against “guns,” citing “mass shootings” which account for a fraction of 1% of all homicides, indicates a far more insidious agenda — and one based not on real priorities, but built upon a carefully exploited, emotional campaign to exact an obvious but not forthcoming final goal.

Get Involved.

Defense Distributed has a website — DefCAD.org — and the files for building their various designs available for downloading and use — for free. The files are in .IGS format and require a computer aided design program (CAD) to view them. FreeCAD is an open source, free to download program that works well. This is where, again, a local hackerspace pooling people’s resources together would help infinitely, especially when most hackerspaces come equipped with 3D printers and people capable of operating them and more importantly, capable of teaching you how to use them.

Image: Distributed Defense’s 30 round magazine opened in FreeCAD.

….

Right now, there seems to be only Distributed Defense pursuing this project in any meaningful manner — which should be a cause of concern for anyone who thinks this is a good idea. One group of people working on this alone is a giant, slow-moving target prone to failure from both within and beyond. Many people working on this in parallel, however, presents the same problem the movie and music industry face with file sharing — impossible victory/inevitable defeat.

Starting your own open source “distributed defense” group would be a good way to hedge the risk of having just one group coordinating efforts toward developing open source firearms accessible to all. DefCAD could be infiltrated, co-opted, or derailed in so many conceivable ways considering the implications the work it is doing have, it would be foolish not to hedge such risk.

The lack of direct participation in preserving our rights, and instead depending on lobbyists and protesters alone to to do it for us is one problem. Another problem is the purposeful polarization of the “gun debate” — of gun advocates and their critics along predictable political lines. The Washington Post, which is ironically run by a right-wing Neo-Con editorial board, recently celebrated President Obama’s “clever” use of the Constitution to turn the gun debate on its head. It also noted gleefully that part of the plan was getting the “people” themselves to demand stricter gun control. This will be done by getting half of America (the left) to take the guns away from the other half (the right).

Faux right-wing leaders take particular care in ensuring that to be a “gun rights activist,” you must also be a xenophobic crypto-racist, Islamophobic, and a conservative who believes the problem facing the world are closet-Communist liberals. Likewise, the faux left’s leadership ensures that their followers believe conservatives, their religion, and their guns are the root of all problems. In reality, the corporate-financiers run both sides of the debate and direct the talking points of prominent personalities on both the faux-left and faux-right.

Obviously, instead of digging in and playing along, our goal should be to reach across the aisle and close this artificial divide — by abandoning the leaders claiming to represent our particular political proclivities and working together to address the true causes of violence — social injustice, socioeconomic decay, and inadequate, impractical education.

Getting involved includes creating local institutions that find common ground and reject this artificial polarization — common ground that includes improving education, health care, and local economic prospects, which in turn reduces violence and leaves only responsible people with firearms (and the means to make them). Local efforts must be apolitical and all-inclusive — because if we are reduced to talking politics, it is because we don’t have a pragmatic solution to solve our problems.

DefCAD has a pragmatic solution — leveraging tangible, modern technology to ensure our rights are not trampled upon by insidious politicians. Taking away guns is not an option politically, and soon, not an option practically. All sides who truly seek to reduce the violence in society will be forced to look elsewhere for the solution. Since guns were never the problem to begin with, the advent of 3D printed guns and the insurmountable deterrence they present to “gun control,” may be a blessing in disguise for all who seek a more peaceful and just world.

David Cameron has no plans to cancel his long awaited speech on the European Union in the Netherlands on Friday, despite the on-going hostage crisis in Algeria, Downing Street has insisted.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson said on Thursday that the situation at the gas facility where militants are holding captive several Algerian and foreign nationals, including “several” Britons was a “very serious and dangerous situation”.

Cameron is due to hold a emergency meeting of the ministerial Cobra committee in London this afternoon to asses the situation in North Africa.

His trip to the Netherlands tomorrow where he is expected to use an Amsterdam speech to set out his plan for a referendum on membership of the EU will go ahead — but arrangements have been made for him to chair a Cobra meeting remotely from The Hague if necessary.

As Algerian troops surrounded a gas facility in the east of the country, No. 10 said the British government had agreed to let the Algerians take the lead on securing the release of the hostages.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson said the UK would consider any requests for assistance made by the Algerians – but none had yet been made. “If they had any requests we would consider them,” the spokesperson said.

Downing Street also believes the “nature and extent” of the attack in which one Briton has already died suggests an element of “pre-planning” on the part of the militants.

According to the Algerian government twenty foreign hostages, including Americans, escaped from their captors on Thursday morning.

SEE ALSO: Vince Cable Warns David Cameron Of ‘Dangerous’ EU Referendum

Also on HuffPost:

EU agrees to launch military mission to train Malian army

Exactly as predicted, the ongoing French “intervention” in the North African nation of Mali has spilled into Algeria — the next most likely objective of Western geopolitical interests in the region since the successful destabilization of Libya in 2011.

In last week’s “France Displays Unhinged Hypocrisy as Bombs Fall on Mali” report, it was stated specifically that:

“As far back as August of 2011, Bruce Riedel out of the corporate-financier funded think-tank, the Brookings Institution, wrote “Algeria will be next to fall,” where he gleefully predicted success in Libya would embolden radical elements in Algeria, in particular AQIM. Between extremist violence and the prospect of French airstrikes, Riedel hoped to see the fall of the Algerian government. Ironically Riedel noted:

Algeria has expressed particular concern that the unrest in Libya could lead to the development of a major safe haven and sanctuary for al-Qaeda and other extremist jihadis.

And thanks to NATO, that is exactly what Libya has become — a Western sponsored sanctuary for Al-Qaeda. AQIM’s headway in northern Mali and now French involvement will see the conflict inevitably spill over into Algeria. It should be noted that Riedel is a co-author of “Which Path to Persia?” which openly conspires to arm yet another US State Department-listed terrorist organization (list as #28), the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) to wreak havoc across Iran and help collapse the government there — illustrating a pattern of using clearly terroristic organizations, even those listed as so by the US State Department, to carry out US foreign policy.”

Now, it is reported that “Al Qaeda-linked” terrorists have seized American hostages in Algeria in what is being described by the Western press as “spill over” from France’s Mali operations.

The Washington Post, in their article, “Al-Qaida-linked militants seize BP complex in Algeria, take hostages in revenge for Mali,” claims:

“As Algerian army helicopters clattered overhead deep in the Sahara desert, Islamist militants hunkered down for the night in a natural gas complex they had assaulted Wednesday morning, killing two people and taking dozens of foreigners hostage in what could be the first spillover from France’s intervention in Mali.”

The Wall Street Journal, in its article, “Militants Grab U.S. Hostages in Algeria,” reports that:

“Militants with possible links to al Qaeda seized about 40 foreign hostages, including several Americans, at a natural-gas field in Algeria, posing a new level of threat to nations trying to blunt the growing influence of Islamist extremists in Africa.

As security officials in the U.S. and Europe assessed options to reach the captives from distant bases, Algerian security forces failed in an attempt late Wednesday to storm the facility.”

The WSJ also added:

“Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. would take “necessary and proper steps” in the hostage situation, and didn’t rule out military action. He said the Algeria attack could represent a spillover from Mali.”

And it is military action, both covert and incrementally more overt, that will see the West’s extremist proxies and the West’s faux efforts to stem them, increasingly creep over the Mali-Algerian border, as the old imperial maps of Europe are redrawn right before our eyes.

….

Meanwhile, these very same terrorist forces continue to receive funding, arms, covert military support, and diplomatic recognition in Syria, by NATO, and specifically the US and France who are both claiming to fight the “Free Syrian Army’s” ideological and very literal allies in North Africa.

In reality, Al Qaeda is allowing the US and France to intervene and interfere in Algeria, after attempts in 2011 to trigger political subversion was soundly defeated by the Algerian government. Al Qaeda is essentially both a casus belli and mercenary force, deployed by the West against targeted nations. It is clear that French operations seek to trigger armed conflict in Algeria as well as a possible Western military intervention there as well, with the Mali conflict serving only as a pretense.

BP CEO Bob Dudley. (Photo: AP)Ignoring overtly and by design the dire and repeated warnings of scientists who say that in order to avoid catastrophic and irreversible changes to the world’s climate we must drastically reduce carbon emissions by curbing our use of fossil fuels, BP has a different plan for the next two decades which translates to this: Burn it. Burn whatever we can find.

Amid release of its annual Energy Outlook Report, BP’s chief executive Bob Dudley says that a surge in unconventional carbon fuel extraction should be heralded, not challenged.

“The Outlook shows the degree to which once-accepted wisdom has been turned on its head,” Dudley said in the statement. “Fears over oil running out – to which BP has never subscribed – appear increasingly groundless.”

Focusing on shale oil and other hard-to-reach fuels and citing “favourable regulatory terms” in North American countries (namely the US and Canada) for current profit growth, BP plans says that it now hopes less developed countries “will succeed” in paving a path for more unconventional fuel extraction in the coming years. BP’s plan says that its global oil extraction could increase over the next two decades.

But the result, as The Guardian‘s Fiona Harvey points out, is that

carbon dioxide emissions will rise by more than a quarter by 2030 — a disaster, according to scientists, because if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change then studies suggest emissions must peak in the next three years or so.

So-called unconventional oil — shale oil, tar sands and biofuels — are the most controversial forms of the fuel, because they are much more carbon-intensive than conventional oilfields. They require large amounts of energy and water, and have been associated with serious environmental damages.

Dudley’s comments–and the Outlook report itself–shows the chasm that exists between what the world’s largest oil companies are preparing to do and what climate scientists are calling for with increasing urgency.

At one level, Dudley betrays his fundamental understanding of the term ‘peak oil.’ As energy expert Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed explained recently:

For most serious analysts, far from signifying a world running out of oil, “peak oil” refers simply to the point when, due to a combination of below-ground geological constraints and above-ground economic factors, oil becomes increasingly and irreversibly more difficult and expensive to produce.

Ahmed argues, despite what energy giants like BP would like to believe or say publicly, that moment is here.

And as author Naomi Klein outlines in an article written in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy last fall, it has become necessary to challenge the business model that thinks destroying the earth’s climate in the name of profit is permissible.

“These companies have shown that they are willing to burn five times as much carbon as the most conservative estimates say is compatible with a livable planet,” Klein said. “We’ve done the math, and we simply can’t let them.”

Same overnight pattern, different day. After a late day ramp in the US market, followed by a selloff in the futures after hours, taking the ES to trading session lows, we get the European trading crew which day after day sends the EURUSD soaring as Europe opens, pushing futures to unchanged or even green and easily negating the key news event of the day, in this case the full grounding of the entire global Boeing fleet which will once again weigh on the stock and DJIA. In the meantime, the big rotation behind the scenes in FX land continues, with the ongoing and very sudden pounding of the Swiss Franc taking the EURCHF to 1.2450, or the highest, since 2011. Same with the USDJPY which after another attempt to fall, rallies on more of the same regurgitated rumors. Not to mention the EURUSD of course, which as mentioned above has surged some 100 pips since the European open. In other words the overnight beating of the USD is enough to push the US stock market high enough in nominal terms, avoiding that there is no incremental cash flow. Then again, who needs cash flow when you have “multiple expansion.”

Elsewhere, Spain sold 30 year bonds for the first time, as the Social Security Fund pillaging continues. As a result, the Spanish pensions will soon be solely in the form of SPGBs – this is great as long as the Spanish bond complex is rising, but once the plunge resumes, there will be some very unhappy pensioners.

Germany’s Economy minister Roessler said a word or two out of place, and was promptly roasted by SocGen for daring to remind the world that all the “growth” is courtesy of central banks. To wit: “It scarcely seems possible but the words ‘ECB rate rise’ were muttered by German economy minister Roesler yesterday in the margin of the government’s presentation of the economic outlook for 2013. Having cut the real GDP estimate back to 0.4% from 1.1% previously, hardly a growth path that justifies monetary tightening (even with the debt crisis easing), nudging the debate in the direction of ‘higher’ interest rates should be a long way off. It is the latest example (it has been a while it must be said) of a flawed and incoherent communication strategy that has beset the eurozone over the past few years. Earlier in the day yesterday, outgoing Eurogroup chairman Juncker had fired his shot in the currency war after having taken to the wires saying that the euro exchange rate was ‘dangerously high’, to which Roesler later responded he didn’t see any danger in euro strength. Clearly there will be lots of currency discussions planned at the next G20 FinMin meeting in February, but from a eurozone perspective the disjointed nature of the rhetoric is back and perhaps is the clearest testimony to the optimism among officials that the world is moving on. The path is thus open for officials to return to their more individual ways and brings with it the danger of misinterpretation. Fortunately Mr Roesler’s words do not carry much weight (as junior partner in CDU/CSU coalition) given that his chances to survive in the post of economy minister later this year have been greatly diminished considering his party’s flagging popularity in the election polls.”

Finally, the US debt ceiling X-Date is now under a month away. The market is still convinced this is a non-event.

More from DB:

European equities initially started the day on the back foot, with the Stoxx600 trading about half a percent lower at the halfway mark before a solid set of earnings from JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs turned risk sentiment around in the second half of the session. Both banks beat estimates on the top and bottom line and investors took comfort from the 20% q/q revenue growth recorded in each banks’ investment banking businesses which offset double digit declines in FICC and equities trading revenues. More broadly, the US earnings season has started strongly with the running total showing that 15 of 21 S&P500 companies have beat EPS estimates so far, with the same proportion of companies beating revenue estimates — although it’s still clearly early days.

On the data front, there were generally a benign set of economic releases in the US. The NAHB Homebuilder sentiment index was a touch below consensus (47 vs 48 expected) but remains at the highest level since April 2006. December industrial production was in line with estimates (+0.3%mom) and would have been better if not for unseasonably warm weather which weighed on utility output. The December CPI headline was unchanged following a -0.3% decline in November and just a 0.1% increase in October.

Turning to the overnight session and risk assets are generally trading softer ahead of a big day of Chinese macro data tomorrow including Q4 GDP, December industrial production, fixed asset investment, property prices and retail sales. The Hang Seng (-0.2%), KOSPI (-0.2%) and Shanghai Composite (-0.7%) are all edging lower as we type and the ASX200 (+0.38%) is the only major index managing to trade higher on the day. The Nikkei is underperforming at -0.8%, not helped by the third consecutive day of yen appreciation against the greenback. Following recent comments suggesting official concern at the pace of yen depreciation, Japan’s trade minister Motegi sought to assure markets that there has been no change in stance to tackle the strong yen and overcome deflation. Meanwhile in the credit space, the attention continues to be on the recent patchy performance of new issues which is driving the benchmark Australian and Asian credit indices 1-2bp wider.

Reviewing some of the European headlines, the WSJ reported that the head of the ESM believes that allowing the fund to directly recapitalise banks would deplete its lending capacity much faster than extending loans to governments.

Officials are now discussing whether the home government should retain a stake in additional recapitalizations, echoing a similar report by the FT earlier in the week. Such national stakes could absorb the first round of losses on capital investments and protect the ESM and the rest of the eurozone (WSJ). ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said he did not share Juncker’s concern about the euro’s strength, adding that the ECB targeted price stability rather than exchange rates. Juncker said on Tuesday that the euro was “dangerously high” which helped cause a 0.6% selloff in EURUSD.

Returning to the US, the debt ceiling took a back seat to the gun control debate in Washington, but there was an interesting poll published by the Washington Post which indicated that Republican voters are divided on the GOP’s strategy of tying a debt ceiling increase to spending cuts. 48% of Republican supporters say any increase in the debt limit should be tied to cuts, while nearly as many, 45%, say that the two issues should be isolated, discrete issues. Overall, 58% of voters say spending cuts should be a separate matter to the debt ceiling, versus 36% who say that the two issues should be considered together. (Washington Post).

Looking at today’s calendar, the European data docket looks relatively light. Spain will sell 2015, 2018 and 2041 bonds while France will issue EUR7-8bn of two to five year bonds. The ECB also publishes its monthly report today. It will be another full day of data in the US with the Philly Fed, jobless claims, housing starts and building permits all scheduled.

Rebekah Wetmore and Ryan Romard (RW/RR): The crisis of world capitalism starting in 2007 was the most severe crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression and thus far the recovery, both globally and within Canada, has been weak at best. With this mind, to what extent is the current crisis cyclical and in what ways is this related to a broader, systemic crisis of the capitalist system?

Michael Lebowitz (ML): This is not a question for which there is a quick answer. What do we mean by a crisis of capitalism? I distinguish between a crisis in capitalism and a crisis of capitalism. For me, there is only a crisis of capitalism when there is an organized and conscious subject prepared to put an end to capitalism.

There are always crises, though, within capitalism. Understanding this distinguishes a Marxian perspective from the perspective of mainstream neoclassical economists for whom the normal state of capitalism is equilibrium and crises are aberrations. For Marx and Marxists, crises are inherent in capital’s tendency toward overaccumulation. It is inherent in the nature of capital that its orientation is to grow, to expand — to accumulate, accumulate! In a crisis, though, that process of accumulation is checked.

All crises take the form initially of the inability of capital to realize the surplus value extracted from workers through exploitation in the process of production. If capital is unable to realize the surplus value which is contained within commodities through sale of those commodities, it will cut back on their production. And, the result is unemployment as well as reduced demand for investment — in other words, reduced demand for the sector producing means of production. Growing unemployment in both the consumer goods sector and the sector producing means of production means that there will be greater difficulties in selling commodities. Thus, the initial emergence of the inability to sell commodities brings with it a deepening crisis within capitalism.

Part of that deepening of the crisis involves a significant reduction in the values of capital — in the value of raw material stocks, for example, but especially what is called fictitious capital. By fictitious capital, we mean the capital invested in various vehicles which, while linked ultimately to the fortunes of real capital within the spheres of production and circulation, takes on a life of its own. For example, the values of shares in corporations (which have their real basis in the profitability of those corporations) expand significantly in the period of a boom. Presumably, these values are related to expectations of that profitability but those stock values are determined instead by prospects of money to be made in the stock market. Until the moment of truth, there comes a point as a crisis within the real economy emerges in which there is an enormous destruction of those values contained in this particular form of fictitious capital — i.e., a crisis of the stock market. And this is not the only form of fictitious capital. We’ve seen a great destruction of fictitious capital in the form of various financial instruments such as derivatives, etc. as well as real estate values. All of this has its impact and feeds back on the real, underlying economy to deepen a crisis.

None of this explains why crises occur, though — why capital’s drive to expand comes up against barriers. In Marx’s Capital, he indicated that capital develops an ability to grow by leaps and bounds and comes up against no barriers except those presented by the availability of raw materials and the extent of sales outlets. Both those barriers are the result of capital’s tendency for overaccumulation. In the case of the first, Marx described how overaccumulation tends to be manifested in lagging production of raw materials and other products whose source is nature. Agriculture and extractive industries such as mining, Marx noted, are modes of production sui generis — they cannot be expanded in the same way as spheres of production which are users of raw materials. Precisely for this reason, then, in an extended period of accumulation, capital often comes up against the problem of the rising value of raw materials with the result that a greater proportion of capital outlays must be for what is called constant capital. These will be periods in which the rate of profit tends to fall because overaccumulation in industry has as its counterpart underaccumulation in the production of raw materials. You can see my discussion of Marx’s argument in “The General and the Specific in Marx’s Theory of Crisis,” which is reprinted in my book, Following Marx: Method, Critique and Crisis.

The second barrier that Marx identified is rooted in the antagonistic conditions within which capital functions — in other words, in the nature of capitalist relations of production themselves (recall that Marx stressed that the real barrier of capital is capital itself). Capital’s drive to increase the rate of exploitation brings with it a tendency for its ability to produce more and more articles of consumption to come up against a barrier in terms of its ability to realize the surplus value contained in those commodities; this tendency for overproduction of capital often takes the form of intensification of capitalist competition. The begged question, though, is if a rising rate of exploitation is significant, why doesn’t the relatively increased share of income for capital lead to increased capitalist expenditures (investment and consumption)? The answer is that capitalists are not likely to expand productive capacity if there is already unused capacity in the productive sector (because of overaccumulation) and falling profit rates because of the burden of the high costs of raw materials. The situation is one in which workers can’t spend and capitalists won’t. It’s a situation when capitalists choose to place their funds elsewhere — in securities, real estate, etc.

I have been describing a crisis which is essentially a cyclical crisis. Cyclical crises, though, by definition don’t last. For one, the process of destruction of values can restore the conditions for resumption of profitable production. But crises can be more than cyclical; they can also be structural. When we talk about the overaccumulation of capital, it is essential to recognize that capital does not expand in unison. There is an inherent tendency toward unevenness: some capitals will be the major contributors to the growth and accumulation of capital while others may bear the brunt of the effects of overaccumulation. In particular, there are periods in which capital expands in new areas, new geographical regions, more rapidly than in the old regions of capitalist expansion. This process may reflect new, advanced productive forces (thus, better means of securing relative surplus value) or very high rates of exploitation based upon low real wages and a high length and intensity of work — and sometimes it may be both modern techniques and very low wages.

This emergence of new capitals and new forms of production provides a basis for a structural crisis — in other words, a crisis which is the result of the changing structure of capital. Although it does not occur with the periodicity of a cyclical crisis, this definitely has happened before — in what was called the Great Depression in England in the latter part of the 19th century (as the result of the growth of production in Germany and elsewhere on the Continent as well as the U.S.) and in the 1930s (after the growth of mass production in the U.S. and the growth of the rate of exploitation in the 1920s). Crises in capitalism which embody both cyclical elements but also significant structural elements will be deeper and longer than those which only involve cyclical swings. Further, structural crises may generate significant tensions because the change in the geographical locus of capital resulting from unevenness may lead to an attempt to redivide spheres of influence and power (and thus inter-imperialist rivalry). Finally, their resolution may require a process of restructuring of capitalist institutions in order to incorporate the new elements and manage these new relations — the obvious case being the restructuring which occurred with the Bretton Woods agreements after the depression of the 1930s and World War II.

I have been stressing this question of restructuring because it is obvious that the current crisis within capitalism is both cyclical and also structural in this sense. There’s been a very significant growth in productive capacity, an accumulation of capital, in centres such as China, South Korea, India, Brazil, etc. A significant part of the explanation of this process has been the enormous reserve armies of labour in the countryside which could be drawn upon for the expansion of wage labour within industry at wage rates well below the levels in the old capitalist centres. As a result, this has been a period marked by a rising rate of exploitation on a world scale and at the same time a rising demand for raw materials from these new expanding centres of capitalist accumulation (reflected in prosperity in raw material producing centres).

Both these characteristics tend to generate a crisis within world capitalism; however, within that general crisis, the unevenness is obvious. In the old centres of capital, we see that rather than the expansion of productive capital, money has flowed into finance and real estate; thus, one can speak accurately about the separation of finance capital from productive capital there (much like England’s shift toward rentier capitalism in the late 19th century). But there is more: in the context of capitalist competition and pressures upon profits we see that capital in these old centres has managed to insulate itself somewhat because of its success in shifting the tax burden to the working-class — reducing taxes upon corporations and upon those with high income (who are described as the ‘job creators’). Capital has been able to do this because the defeat of the working-class in these centres.

To describe, though, the growth of finance capital at the expense of productive capital as characteristic of this crisis in capitalism (and especially to see this as a sign of the crisis of capitalism) is an example of one-sidedness (which happens to coincide with the location of those who come to this conclusion). It doesn’t look at all like a crisis of capitalism in China, Vietnam, India, Brazil etc. In short, what we are seeing is a change in the structure of world capitalism, and the attempt to manage the change in that structure is reflected in such developments as the shift from the G7 to the G20. Will that restructuring of capital succeed? I suggest that, in the absence of the ability of the working-class throughout the world to prevent it, capital will succeed in this as it has in the past.

Let me turn, though, to a question which you didn’t ask explicitly: is there anything in this existing situation which points to the ultimate, final crisis of capitalism? Although there are many Marxist economists who are predicting the end of capitalism (something Marxist economists are prone to do), my perspective is somewhat different. It is obvious that there is a very serious problem of an emerging ecological crisis to which capital is contributing substantially. However, that is a crisis of humanity — not a crisis of capital. How and if this crisis of humanity can be prevented depends upon a serious movement of working people to put an end to capitalism by all means possible and as soon as possible. And that will be the crisis of capitalism.

RW/RR: Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper has unashamedly promoted the myth that the financial crisis did not greatly affect Canada. Is this notion of Canadian exceptionalism warranted? If not, what might the next couple of years be like for Canadians, particularly in light of the recent austerity measures?

ML: It is true that Canada has not been as affected by the financial crisis as the United States. But that has really little to do with the actions of the Harper government. In part, it reflects the difference in the nature of the banking system and the traditions of finance in Canada. In part, too, it also reflects the difference in the risk orientation of Canadians. But this is not a case of Canadian exceptionalism at all. Not unless you forget about all those other exceptions like Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, and indeed all countries exporting raw materials to China and experiencing a boom based upon this.

There have been two distinct tendencies affecting the Canadian economy. One is the tendency related to the depression in the United States, given Canada’s long-term dependence upon that market. The other tendency reflects the resource boom based upon exports to China and other Asian countries. Those two tendencies reflect the changing structure of world capitalism, and the geographical division involved is reproduced within Canada itself. Thus, provinces like Québec and Ontario, which have focused upon manufacturing, are suffering significantly whereas Prairie provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in particular have been benefiting from their resources.

The Harper government has thrown its lot in with the latter group of provinces and with the emerging new centres of capital. In its so-called budget bill, its determination to push through pipelines to serve China, its interest in Chinese foreign investment, its removal of environmental protection measures, etc, we can see that it is placing a wager on the structural changes in capital. This strategy has major implications for the Canadian economy. Thomas Mulcair of the NDP has raised the question of the ‘Dutch disease’ — i.e., the blow to Canadian manufacturing as a result of a rising value of the Canadian dollar linked to resource exports. I think that’s a bit premature because we cannot say at this point how much of this particular decline is cyclical and how much is structural. However, over a long time period, I think it is correct to talk about the spectre of the Dutch disease. The Harper government strategy points in the direction of a new model — actually a return to the old model, that of the hewers of wood and drawers of water (i.e., to a hollowing-out of the economy similar to what happened to Venezuela over a number of years as the result of its oil wealth).

In this period, the two tendencies interact. Budget deficits reflect the fate of the old capitals — in particular, the problems in the U.S. economy and the pattern of tax cuts for corporations and high income earners that have occurred here. As in the case of the United States, the defeat of the working-class and the weakness of working-class institutions has meant the successful imposition of capital’s austerity plan which is an attack on the working-class. To this can be added the effect of resource exports which have significantly elevated the value of the Canadian dollar relative to that of the U.S. and seriously affected manufacturing exports as well as those of sectors such as the forest industry (and thus employment in these sectors).

Of course, it is essential to recognize that these two tendencies are not occurring in two separate worlds. The rapid accumulation of capital in China and other emerging capitalist countries has itself been based on the existence of markets in the developed North. To the extent that the latter continue to slump, it cannot help but affect the accumulation of capital in the former and thus their demand for resources. When that happens (and I think the only thing in question will be its extent), Canada faces the real prospect of a serious decline. All other things equal, this will accelerate and intensify the capitalist austerity project.

So, when you ask the question as to what may the next couple of years be like for Canadians, it is difficult to provide a definite answer. It depends. All other things are not necessarily equal. If the working-class continues to be defeated, we can look forward to one defeat after another — one attack after another on social services, health and safety, education, everything that people have made sacrifices and struggled to achieve in the past. It’s not, of course, inevitable. Nothing is inevitable when it comes to the question of class struggle.

RW/RR: In The Socialist Alternative, you argue that “given the heterogeneity of the collective worker (and its various forms of immiseration) and capital’s use of differences to divide the working-class in order to defeat it, a political instrument is needed to mediate among the parts of the collective worker, provide the welcoming space where popular movements can learn from each other and develop the unity necessary to defeat capital.” Is the anti-capitalist left in Canada ready to form such a party? If not, what can be done to foster the development of this type of party?

ML: My immediate response is no, the anti-capitalist left in Canada is definitely not ready to form a party which can defeat capital. But there is also the question as to whether an anti-capitalist left as such can ever defeat capital. I doubt that. When I was involved in Rebuilding the Left in Vancouver, I argued that we needed to go beyond organizing on the basis of anti-capitalism and instead to stress explicitly the necessity for a socialist alternative. Anti-capitalism means something different for everyone. For some people, it is opposition to big corporations; for others, it is opposition to the banks or the capitalist state or money or large-scale industry, international capital or inequality in income and wealth. Accordingly, the perceived alternative can range from breaking up the corporations to developing alternative currencies to supporting cooperatives and credit unions to putting an end to private ownership of the means of production and to returning simply to the good old days when people could anticipate a good job, a home of their own and all the amenities that their parents had. The multiplicity of views about what we don’t like about capitalism (ie., anti-capitalism) was apparent in the Occupy movement.

Of course people should struggle against every assault by capital and every violation of our conceptions of justice. Marx made the point well: without the struggles of workers over wages, workers would be a “heartbroken, a weak-minded, a worn-out, unresisting mass” and would be incapable of any larger struggles. Of course, too, it is essential to try to link these struggles. However, in the absence of a positive vision, capital can and will separate and defeat those who oppose it. Trade unions under attack and facing capital’s demand for concessions, for example, can look at issues outside their immediate concerns and say, ‘what’s this got to do with our members?’

Sometimes, though, capital and the capitalist state make it easier to connect issues. In 1983, a simultaneous blanket assault by the Social Credit government in BC created conditions in which it was possible to unify teachers, hospital workers, renters, poverty movements and private sector trade unions who were injured by the proposed legislation in a movement toward a general strike. Similarly, when capital is in a crisis period and moves to administer its affairs through a general programme of capitalist austerity, it is possible to bring together those under attack — both those suffering from the crisis itself and those under attack by the capitalist state. That is what Occupy, the Enraged and the Middle East Spring demonstrate. And, right now that potential is there as the result of the Harper Government’s so-called Budget Bill.

But, as the disintegration of the General Strike movement in BC demonstrated, many ‘No’s’ do not make a big ‘Yes’. At the present time, people are fighting against reductions in social services, against measures which make universities and education inaccessible for many, against the removal of measures protecting against the destruction of the environment, against the removal of support for our current healthcare system — against, indeed, many characteristics of what is viewed as our entitlement, an entitlement which didn’t drop from the sky but which was the result of years of struggle. In short, people are struggling out of a sense of fairness. But there’s a difference between struggling over questions of fairness (sometimes identified as characteristic of moral economy) and being able to understand why all this is occurring — enough so to be able to put an end to such attacks. If you don’t understand the underlying factors, you are likely to look upon what you’re fighting for as the restoration of the good old days.

Marx made this point in talking about the limits of wage struggles. 99% of those struggles, he said, were reactions against capital’s previous actions to drive down wages. They were attempts to restore the traditional standard of life and occurred under the conservative banner of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. And, it was accurate to describe this as a conservative slogan because workers fighting under that banner were seeking to conserve or preserve the pre-existing conditions. While though those struggles were essential for developing their collective strength and dignity, Marx stressed the necessity for workers to go beyond those guerrilla wars against capital and its state and to struggle under the revolutionary banner of putting an end to capitalist relations.

We need to understand the nature of capitalism, and we need a vision of a socialist alternative if we are to defeat capital. This is my point in The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development, where I argue for a vision of socialism which involves social ownership of the means of production, worker and community decision-making and production for social needs rather than exchange. A focus upon human development unifies these elements and, indeed, has the potential to unify all our separate struggles. This vision of a society in which all human beings are able to develop their capacities and realize their potential is the vision contained in The Communist Manifesto — a society in which “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” We need to communicate and struggle for the realization of that vision.

Defeating capital won’t happen spontaneously through some kind of collective epiphany. It requires conscious effort. But any attempt to create at this point a party to defeat capital would be viewed correctly as just another vanguard sect promising to deliver socialism. It is important to start from people’s conception of fairness and to understand why they are moved to struggle. However, we need to recognize the limits of guerrilla wars against capital and to learn to work together in practice to build an understanding about the nature of capitalism and the need for a socialist vision. That means finding ways to create spaces where popular movements can learn from each other — spaces and new forms like people’s assemblies at every level. We need but we’re not ready to form a socialist party that can defeat capital. But we can develop a socialist project, one which listens, educates and helps to create the basis for a new type of party which is integral to and does not stand over and above social movements.

RW/RR: Drawing on your work in Venezuela, Cuba and the former Soviet Union what might a socialistic response to the ongoing economic crisis look like? What has been Venezuela’s response to the economic crisis? What can socialists in Canada and elsewhere learn from these experiences about how to respond to the crises of capitalism?

ML: I’ve just completed a new book, Contradictions of ‘Real Socialism’: the Conductor and the Conducted, which stressed, among other things, the importance of building upon aspects of the ‘moral economy’ of the working-class in the former Soviet Union in order to move forward to socialism. As we know, however, what did happen was precisely the opposite — an attack on the concepts of fairness and justice of workers as part of the process of moving to capitalism. Unfortunately, too, there are many signs in Cuba that the response to their current crisis is to move in the same direction although it is still too soon to rule out the possibility that there can be a return to the ideas of Che Guevara about the importance of building socialist human beings.

Venezuela, though, does offer some ideas that Canadians can draw upon — precisely because it is a capitalist country with resource wealth, has the experience of suffering the Dutch disease and now has a government with the articulated goal of building a new socialism different from the experiences of the 20th Century. In particular, the government of Hugo Chavez has decided to use its resource wealth to expand enormously access to health services and education, to reclaim as state property the oil and other basic industries as well as telecommunications, electricity, steel, cement, airlines and a host of other sectors seen as important for satisfying the many needs of Venezuelans. By building up local industry, housing and agriculture with oil revenues, it is explicitly attempting to demonstrate that there is nothing inevitable about the Dutch disease if you have a government committed to food sovereignty and to creating opportunities for jobs that can serve the needs of people.

There are many problems in Venezuela, and not the least is the inherited culture of clientalism and corruption (as well as a tendency to populism) to which the Chavez government is not at all immune. But there are elements that can inspire many people within Canada who don’t think of themselves as part of an anti-capitalist or socialist Left. The idea of neighbourhood government where people can work together with their neighbours to solve local problems and to plan (something embodied in the communal councils and communes in Venezuela) and the idea of workers’ councils (without which, Chavez has said, you can’t build socialism) — these are ideas which don’t need oil revenues or major state-directed programmes. This concept of protagonistic democracy, a concept of democracy as practice through which people can develop their potential, can appeal to people precisely because of their sense of their powerlessness in modern capitalist society.

Are there ideas here for Canadian socialists to draw upon in the context of the current crisis and the capitalist austerity programme under way? Think about it. Taking resource wealth away from private corporations to be used for fostering the education and health of the people and building new socially-owned industry, creating new institutions which allow for the development of the capacities of people through their own practices, i.e., developing the ultimate productive forces — wouldn’t these be elements with which to counter capital’s austerity programme and to substitute for it a socialist austerity programme (i.e., austerity for capital)?

Consider how different would be the situation in the current crisis in Canada if resource revenues were poured back into the economy for education and health and for building and modernizing economic activity — investments for the future as well as a means of mitigating (instead of exacerbating) the current crisis. Capitalism, as Chavez has said, is a perverse system — one which doesn’t care about human beings. We can use the opportunity of the current crisis to demonstrate how it is a system that we need to go beyond. –

A little boy has been admitted to hospital with burns to his throat and stomach after he drank caustic soda while in a shop.

Police were called shortly before 7.35pm on Monday by staff at the Manchester Children’s Hospital after a two-year-old boy was admitted with burns to the throat and stomach.

The toddler was shopping with his mother when they went into a shop on Claremont Road in Moss Side, Greater Manchester, on Sunday, a police spokesman said.

The child was strapped into his push chair and when his mother was not looking he reached over to a bottle containing caustic soda, took the top off and drank some.

The toddler remains in hospital where his condition is described as serious but stable.

A joint investigation by Greater Manchester Police and Cheshire East Council Trading Standards is now under way.

Superintendent Sarah Jones, from the South Manchester Division, said: “Caustic soda is a highly toxic chemical commonly found in drain and oven cleaners.

“If it is touched, inhaled or swallowed it can cause severe burns. This little boy took a drink from a bottle and is now seriously ill in hospital.

“I want to take this opportunity to remind people when storing products of this nature to make sure the lids of the bottles are on tightly, keep them in a cool place and out of reach from children, preferably in a locked cupboard.”

US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar intends to step down from his post at the end of March, becoming the fifth cabinet member to leave the Obama administration.

The news of Salazar’s plan to leave the administration came on Wednesday as The Denver Post reported that the former Colorado senator intends to “return to Colorado to spend time with his family.”

Salazar’s office has reportedly confirmed news of his intent to leave Obama’s cabinet.

Others leaving the Obama administration in his second term in office are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leaon Panetta, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew is also due to leave his post since he has been nominated by President Barack Obama to replace Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Obama intends to appoint “a key national security deputy,” Denis McDonough, as his new White House chief of staff, widely viewed as the closest advisor to the US president and “the gatekeeper to the Oval Office.”

Democratic Massachusetts Senator and former US presidential nominee John Kerry has been nominated to replace Clinton at the State Department and is widely expected to win a Senate confirmation.

Former Republican Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel has been nominated to take over as the next US Defense Secretary, replacing Leon Panetta.

Hagel’s confirmation, however, is expected to be difficult as he has come under harsh attacks from pro-Israeli Republican conservatives for criticizing the “Jewish Lobby” in the United States and opposing US or Israeli military strikes as well as economic sanctions against Iran while he was in the US Senate.

MFB/MFB

There are awards for everyone. There are the Logies, the Commies, the Tonys, the Theas,  the Millies (“They cried with pride”) and now the Shammies.

The Shammies celebrate the finest sham media. “Competition for the 2013 Gold Shammy,” said the panel of judges, “has been cutthroat.”  The Shammies are not for the tabloid lower orders. Rupert Murdoch has been honoured enough. Shammies distinguish respectable journalism that guards the limits of what the best and brightest like to call the “national conversation”.

The Shammy judges were especially impressed by a spirited campaign to rehabilitate Tony Blair. The winner will receive the coveted Jeremy Paxman Hoodwink Prize, in honour of the famous BBC broadcaster who says he was “hoodwinked” over Iraq — regardless of the multiple opportunities he had to challenge Blair and expose the truth and carnage of the illegal invasion.

Short-listed for Hoodwink is Michael White, the Guardian’s political editor, whose lament for Blair’s “wasted talent” is distinguished by his defence of Blair as the victim of a “very unholy alliance between a familiar chorus of America-bashers and Blair bait[ers]”. (I am included).

On 19 December, another contender, White’s colleague, Jane Martinson, was granted a “rare” interview with Cherie Blair in her “stately private office” with its “gorgeous views over Hyde Park” and “imposing mahogany furniture”. In such splendour does Mrs. Blair (she prefers her married name for its “profile”) run her “foundation for women” in Africa, India and the Middle East. Her political collusion in her husband’s career and support for adventures that destroyed the lives of countless women was not mentioned. A PR triumph and odds-on for a Shammy.

Also nominated: the brains behind the Guardian’s front page of 8 November: “The best is yet to come”, dominated by a half-page picture of the happy-huggy-droney Obama family. And who could fail to appreciate the assurance from the BBC’s Mark Mardell that, in personally selecting people to murder with his drones, “the care taken by the president is significant”?

Matt Frei, formerly of the BBC now of Channel 4 News, drew commendation for his reporting of Obama as a “warrior president” and Hugo Chavez as a “chubby-faced strongman”. A study by the University of the West of England found that, of the 304 BBC reports on Venezuela published in a decade, only three mentioned the Chavez government’s extraordinary record in promoting human rights and reducing poverty.

In the Gold Shammy category, the judges were  struck by the outstanding work of the Guardian’s Decca Aitkenhead. “Everywhere we went, before my eyes people fell in love with him … no one seemed to be immune.” This was her memorable encounter with Peter Mandelson in 2009. She described his “effortless allure… the intensity of his theatre is electrifying to behold… His skin is dewey, as if fresh from a spa facial, and his grooming so flawless he looks almost hyper-real, the cuff links and tie delicately co-ordinated, with their detail inversely echoed in his socks … His whole body seems weirdly untroubled by the passage of time…”

Aitkenhead had previously “profiled” Alistair Darling, the Chancellor who presided over the worst financial collapse in memory. Greeted as “old friends” by Darling and his “gregarious” wife Maggie “who cooks and makes tea and supper while Darling lights the fire”, Aitkenhead effused over “a highly effective minister …he seems almost too straightforward, even high-minded, for the low cunning of political warfare.”

The judges were asked to compare and contrast such moments of journalistic ecstasy with the same writer’s profile of Julian Assange on 7 December.  Assange answered her questions methodically, providing her with a lot of information about the state’s abuse of technology and mass surveillance. “There is no debate that Assange knows more about this subject than almost anyone alive,” she wrote. No matter. Rather than someone who had exposed more state criminality than any journalist, he was described as “someone convalescing after a breakdown”: a mentally ill figure she likened to “Miss Havisham”.  Unlike the alluring, electrifying, twice disgraced Mandelson, and the high-minded, disastrous Chancellor, Assange had a “messianic grandiosity”. No evidence was offered. The Gold Shammy was within her grasp.

Then, on Christmas Eve, the BBC News magazine published an article marking the 40^th anniversary of the 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi. The bombing, wrote Rebecca Kesby, “was President Richard Nixon’s attempt to hasten the end of the Vietnam war, as the growing strength of the Viet Cong caused heavy casualties among US ground troops”.

In fact, Nixon promised “an honourable end to the war” four years earlier. His 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi in the north was as much concerned with peace as Hitler’s bombing of Poland: a cynical, vengeful act of barbarism that changed nothing in the stalled Paris talks. Kesby cites Henry Kissinger’s absurd claim that the North Vietnamese “were on their knees”. Far from hastening “the end of the Vietnam war”, America’s savagery ensured the war went on for another two a half years, during which more Vietnamese were killed than during the previous decade.

Kesby claimed that previous US targets had been “fuel depots and munitions stores”.  On my wall is a photograph I took of a hamlet in the north obliterated by F-105 and Phantom fighters flying at 200 feet in order to pick off “soft targets” — human beings. In the town of Hongai, I stood in the debris of churches, hospitals, schools. A new type of “dart bomb” was used; the darts were made from a plastic that did not show in X-rays, and the victims, mostly children, suffered until they died. Filmed by Malcolm Aird and James Cameron, a news report on this type of terror bombing was suppressed by the BBC.

Today our memory of all of this is sanitised.  America and its allies, using even more diabolical weapons, continue to “hasten to the end of war”. Such has been the BBC’s unerring theme since Vietnam. The Gold Shammy is richly deserved.

For more information on John Pilger, please visit his website at www.johnpilger.com

Some 30 Algerians and 15 foreign nationals, taken hostage after a deadly attack on a gas facility in Algeria, have managed to escape from the kidnappers, state media say.

Local officials said, “Thirty Algerian workers managed to escape on Thursday from the Tinguentourine gas facility, where they had been held hostage” by a group of armed men linked to rebel forces fighting in Mali, Algerian media reported.

On Wednesday, two people including, a British national, reportedly died in an attack conducted by gunmen in three vehicles on a bus carrying foreign gas workers near the In Amenas gas field, west of the Libyan border.

The assailants also claimed to had taken 41 foreign national hostages, among them French, British and American nationals.

On the same day, head of a French catering company said 150 of its Algerian employees are being held in the BP plant where the other hostages are being held.

According to reports, Algerian army forces have also surrounded the armed hostage takers at the desert gas field.

One of the kidnappers, identified as Abu al-Baraa, said that Algerian troops opened fire on the hostages’ location, injuring a Japanese national.

The rebel forces fighting in Mali say they have carried out the attack to avenge Algeria’s support for the French-led military operation in Mali.

On January 11, France launched an air offensive against militants controlling the north of the West African country.

The United States, Canada, Britain, Belgium, Germany and Denmark have already said they would support the French offensive against Mali.

MKA/MA

Militants in Algeria have demanded that the army withdraw from a gas field where they are holding a group of foreigners in order for negotiations to begin.

“We demand the Algerian army pull out from the area to allow negotiations,” said one of the kidnappers, identified as Abu al-Baraa, on Thursday.

Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia stated that the authorities “will not answer the terrorists’ demands and refuse all negotiation.”

On Wednesday, militants repelled an attack by the Algerian army trying to rescue over 40 kidnapped foreigners, among them French, British and American nationals.

The incident took place when Nigerian soldiers made an attempt to enter the gas installation in Algeria’s town of In Amenas. The gas field in is jointly operated by British oil giant BP, Norway’s Statoil and Algeria’s Sonatrach.

Baraa further said that Algerian snipers had opened fire at the site injuring a Japanese national.

He confirmed there were “around 41” hostages from several countries including Norway, France, the United States, Britain, Romania, Colombia, Thailand, Philippines, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, and Germany.

YH/HSN

A fire on board a train has caused major delays at one of London’s busiest railway stations during morning rush hour.

Smoke was seen pouring from the engine of a Gatwick Express train, forcing officials to evacuate and close Victoria Station.

Fire crews attended and put out the blaze, which was spotted by a commuter at around 7am.

The train was empty at the time, National Rail said, and no one is reported to have been injured.

All platforms have been since been reopened to the public, and trains are running.

However, commuters have been warned to expect delays of up to 50 minutes during the next few hours, until at least 10am.

Gatwick Express, Southeastern and Southern rail services in and out of the station are affected.

Tom Edwards, an antiques dealer from London, who was trying to get a train to visit his mother, said he spotted flames and black smoke coming from the train.

“There was just a little bit of flames by the wheels,” he said.

“They put it out and then started chucking everybody out of the building.

“There was no panic. It could have got pretty bad if they hadn’t done something about it straight away.”

On its Twitter feed, Southern rail confirmed the damaged train was a Gatwick Express service, adding: “No one was hurt which was good.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi says the Islamic Republic will pursue its national interests in line with commitment to international conventions and treaties.

“Commitment to international conventions and treaties is among Iran’s absolute principles in the field of foreign policy, and the advancement of interests and the maintenance of national sovereignty are carried out [by Iran] in line with these treaties,” Salehi said in an address to a national meeting on the legal regime of the Caspian Sea on Thursday.

He added that Iran is among the few countries in the world that have numerous neighbors and noted that Tehran seeks to achieve convergence with its neighboring states and remove possible differences with them.

The minister pointed to the bullying countries’ pressure on Iran and expressed confidence that the Islamic Republic will manage to withstand international pressure in the near future.

“If we are supposed to have sustainable political independence, we should pay the price for it,” Salehi pointed out.

The US and some of its allies have imposed sanctions based on the false claim that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is entitled to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

SF/HJL/MA

For vulnerable youngsters with no homes or parents to turn to, ‘bussing’ has become the preferred option to stay safe at night. Teacher Chloe Combi joined a group travelling across London

Read the whole story at The Independent

Barack Obama (R) and Benjamin Netanyahu (AFP Photo / Jim Warson)

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed damning comments by US President Barack Obama on Israel’s settlement policy. The heated rhetoric may signal a split in Israel-US relations, as Netanyahu is expected to win his country’s upcoming elections.

Responding to President Obama’s warning that Israel was “going down the path to near-total isolation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed Israel’s right to self-determination.

“Everyone understands only Israelis will determine who faithfully represents Israel’s vital interests,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza division. He emphasized that the US sought for Israel to “restrain our pressure on Iran, withdraw to the 1967 lines, divide Jerusalem and cease construction in Jerusalem.”

Shrugging off US influence, Netanyahu said that Israel had “fended off those pressures.”

The Israeli Prime Minister’s comments came after American political commentator Jeffrey Goldberg published a blog post on Bloomberg on Obama’s response to Israel’s announcement it will build thousands of homes in the West Bank.

“Obama said privately and repeatedly that Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are,” Goldberg wrote, quoting Obama. “With each new settlement announcement, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation.”

Following the UN’s recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state last year, Netanyahu announced plans to build 4,000 housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The plans provoked international condemnation by human rights groups and world governments.

The US voted against Palestine’s bid for de facto statehood in the UN General Assembly, but Goldberg warned in his blog that in the future, Israel may not be able to rely on US support and vetoes in the UN.

Members of Netanyahu’s Likud party were enraged by the US president’s comments, condemning them as “gross interference” and a US attempt to meddle in the upcoming Israeli elections.

The Obama administration’s relationship with Netanyahu has become increasingly frosty over the past year.

Netanyahu and Obama came close to diplomatic blows on a number of occasions over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. Last year, the Israeli prime minister repeatedly called for US aid for a military strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities. Obama has sought to defuse Netanyahu’s aggression towards Israel’s rival, and has preferred to ratchet up pressure on Tehran through financial sanctions.

The two leaders’ increasingly stormy relationship could herald a rift in a traditional alliance now that polls project that Netanyahu will win the upcoming Israeli elections.

Pavel Astakhov (RIA Novosti / Vladimir Pesnya)

The Presidential representative for children’s right says Russia has too many organizations dealing with orphans and wants to see a separate dedicated agency to deal with the issue.

Pavel Astakhov told a Thursday news conference in Moscow that the idea of a special state agency for orphans originated in the Lower House, adding that he as an ombudsman fully supported it but everything depended now on the President and the government.

The ombudsman says 19 separate organisations are dealing with children-related problems and they cannot be effective. Astakhov told reporters that in part the unifying function is now performed by the staff of the presidential plenipotentiary for children’s rights, but they could only make suggestions on action and lacked any control to ensure positive changes.

Astakhov emphasized that in order to successfully solve the problems of orphans the state must deal with the social causes.

He also promised a large-scale inspection of all orphanages in Moscow, scheduled for April this year. The ombudsman said his office was ready to initiate additional checks on institutions if there are any complaints. In particular the ombudsman offered to send psychologists to orphanages so that they could verify the facts behind the complaints.

Russian authorities raised the issue of a nationwide program on orphans’ problems after the parliament suggested banning US adoptions of Russian children. The move is part of Russia’s reply to the US Magnitsky Act, and was motivated by the refusal of US authorities to cooperate with Russians in probes over cruel treatment and even manslaughter of Russian kids in US foster families.

The bill containing the adoptions ban was unanimously approved by the parliament and came into force on January 1 this year but from the very beginning the ban met strong opposition from the public, media and even officials, including several federal ministers. The advocates of the new law say they shared the concerns about the children’s future, but insisted on the need to improve the situation inside the country rather than rely on foreign aid.

President Vladimir Putin instructed the legislators to prepare and introduce a special plan to boost Russia’s domestic adoptions, including state aid to orphanages and tax benefits for adoptive parents.

Rabbis from the Jewish orthodox Chabad Lubavitch of New York in Mumbai, India (AFP Photo / Indranil Mukherjee)

The Foreign Ministry has expressed outrage after a US court imposes a fine on Russia for its refusal to comply with a 2010 court order to return a collection of religious documents to a prominent US-based Jewish organization.

­The move comes shortly after the Magnitsky Act, which saw US legislators attempting to exert pressure on Russia’s judicial system. A court in Washington is now attempting to penalize Russia for its possession of a collection of books, manuscripts and other Judaic documents.

According to the ruling, Russia would be required to pay $50,000 a day to Chabad Lubavitch, an Orthodox Jewish movement headquartered in New York City, until it releases the Schneerson Library, of which the Jewish group claims rightful ownership.

“It is outrageous that a Washington court has taken this unprecedented step fraught with most serious consequences as the imposition of a fine on a sovereign state,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

The ministry statement slammed the US ruling as “exterritorial in nature,” and a violation of international law. Russia considers the ruling to be legally null and void, the statement added.

Meanwhile, the US Justice Department also spoke out against the decision, arguing the court cannot introduce sanctions of this type against Russia, and that such a move would further damage US-Russian relations.

Chabad Lubavitch claimed the Schneerson collection — which includes 12,000 books and 50,000 rare documents gathered since the 18th century by Rabbi Joseph I. Schneersohn and his descendants in the Russian city of Smolensk — was illegally seized during a wave of Soviet nationalization projects.

“The Schneerson Library has never belonged to the Chabad; it never left Russia, and was nationalized because there were no legal heirs in the Schneerson family,” the ministry said. “The ‘return’ of these books to the US is therefore not an issue in principle.”

Due to the controversial question regarding the ownership rights of the Schneerson Collection, Russian museums are hesitant to travel to the United States with any exhibitions for fear of them being held hostage in the court standoff.

Robert Bridge, RT

Ed Miliband renewed his warning to David Cameron on Thursday, that he is leading Britain towards an exit from the European Union.

The Labour leader said the prime minister’s expected plan – to be set out in a keynote speech in the Netherlands tomorrow – to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with the EU and then put it to a referendum would create uncertainty and damage the economy.

“The Prime Minister is taking us to the economic cliff,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“I fear the Prime Minister’s strategy is leading us towards the exit, which will cause real damage to our economy.

“If we put up a sign around Britain saying we might be out of the European Union within five years, I don’t think that is going to be good for our country.

“Putting up a big flag saying ‘Exit, Britain’s about to get out’ – is that a good negotiating strategy? I have to say that I think it is a hopeless negotiating strategy.”

Mr Miliband said Mr Cameron’s strategy was being driven by Eurosceptic Tories.

“He has been dragged by a neuralgic Conservative Party towards the position he is taking tomorrow,” he said.

However, Mr Miliband repeatedly refused to rule out the prospect that he could seek to stage a referendum on the EU – and made clear that Labour would not repeal the Government’s “referendum lock” requiring any fresh transfer of powers to Brussels to be put to a popular vote.

“There is legislation which is on the books, which we don’t propose repealing, which says that if there is a transfer of powers to the European Union, then there would be a referendum,” he said.

He added that he would also seek to repatriate some powers from Brussels relating to issues such as regional and industrial policy.

“I think there are areas where Britain actually needs some powers back,” he said.

Alexander Ovechkin (AFP Photo / Alexander Nemenov)

Russian ice hockey star Alex Ovechkin has pledged to take part in the 2014 Sochi Olympics even if the NHL doesn’t allow the players to participate in the event.

The NHL has yet to announce its stance on the issue, but Alex Ovechkin is sure to take part when Russia hosts the Winter Games. The Washington Capitals powerhouse says he hasn’t thought much about what the NHL will say.

“To be honest I didn’t think about it right now. It doesn’t matter what they’re going to say to me. Of course it means a lot for everybody, for all the Russians. I’ve been in the Olympic Games and I know exactly how it feels to play there. It’s pretty big, biggest event in the world,” the Washington Post quotes the Russian as saying.

On Wednesday it was announced Ovechkin will be one of the torchbearers for the 123-day relay prior to the Olympics.

“I’m very excited. It’s a big thing in Russia and it’s a very good thing,” Ovechkin said. “I’m very proud I’m one of the guys who is going to have a torch. I’m very happy and it means a lot to me,” he stated.

Unknown gunmen have shot dead a top Yemeni security official in the western province of Dhamar, a report says.

On Wednesday, armed assailants on a motorbike attacked the security official, Saba news agency reported.

“Two gunmen on a motorbike opened gunfire on Colonel (Abdullah) al-Mushki killing him immediately,” a security official told Saba.

“Security services are carrying out vast investigations to hunt down the criminals behind this crime which carries the fingerprints of al-Qaeda,” added the official, whose name was not mentioned in the report.

A similar attack was carried out on December 29, 2012, when two armed men killed Lieutenant Colonel Mutei Baqatyan in the city of Mukalla, in southern Yemen.

On December 18, the military intelligence chief of Yemen’s southeastern province of Hadramout, Colonel Mohammed Hadiq escaped an assassination attempt.

Yemeni security forces frequently come under attack by gunmen especially in the southern and eastern parts of the country.

SAB/HSN

Islamist militants are holding a number of Britons and foreign nationals hostage after armed terrorists stormed a natural gas field in the east of Algeria. British special forces are on standby and one Briton is said to have been among two people killed.

Here is a timeline of how the attack in the North African country unfolded.

Wednesday January 16, 2am THE ATTACK

• Heavily armed gunmen in vehicles storm the energy site in In Amenas, in the east of the African country, taking a group of international workers hostage.

The jointly operated BP oil field in In Amenas

12.20pm HOSTAGES FROM IRELAND, NORWAY, JAPAN AND FRANCE

• Unconfirmed reports say British workers are among the hostages, alongside a 36-year-old Irishman, Japanese, Norwegian and French nationals.

• Ireland’s Tanaiste (deputy prime minister) Eamon Gilmore calls for his compatriot’s immediate release

.

1pm BP ACTIVATES EMERGENCY RESPONSE SYSTEM

• Officials at the UK Foreign Office say they are “urgently” investigating whether any British nationals were involved.

• A BP spokesman confirms a “security incident” at the facility, activates its emergency response system and sets up a helpline for relatives.

Statoil Chief Executive Helge Lund answers questions about the situation in the gas field, which is jointly operated by the Norwegian energy company

1.45pm COBRA EMERGENCY MEETING TO BE CHAIRED

Downing Street officials confirm Prime Minister David Cameron will chair a meeting of the Government’s crisis committee Cobra later in the day.

2.30pm

The Foreign Office confirms that British nationals are caught up in the attack.

3pm

Officials say no family hotline has been set up for the incident because the number of British nationals involved is “very small”.

4.20pm TWO HOSTAGES KILLED

Reports from Algeria’s official news agency APS, attributed to provincial authorities, say one British and one French national were killed in the attack.

After a 45-minute meeting of Whitehall’s Cobra emergency committee, Mr Cameron’s official spokesman says he cannot confirm that a Briton has died but says “several” UK nationals are involved.

He says Mr Cameron will speak to his Algerian counterpart Abdelmalek Sellal.

The oil field was stormed at 2am by militants

‘THOSE WHO SIGN THEIR NAME IN BLOOD’

Downing Street says it is “too early to speculate” on the motive for the attack, or whether it is linked to French support – backed by the UK – for Mali’s government in its fight against Islamist forces which have occupied the north of the country.

It is reported that a news agency in the Saharan state of Mauritania was contacted by the militant group Katibat Moulathamine – “The Masked Ones” – with a claim that yesterday’s attack was carried out by one of its affiliates, identified as “Those who sign their names in blood”.

41 WESTERNERS HELD, ALGERIAN WORKERS RELEASED

• A spokesman for Katibat tells the Sahara Media Agency that 41 Westerners of nine or 10 nationalities were taken hostage, including seven Americans.

• Five foreigners were being held in a factory, while 36 others were in living quarters at the plant, claims the spokesman, who says the action was carried out in retaliation for Algeria allowing France to use its airspace to carry out raids on northern Mali. Algerian workers are said to have been released.

7pm: ALGERIAN MINISTER REJECTS NEGOTIATIONS AND REFUSES TO LET MILITANTS LEAVE THE COUNTRY

• Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kabila tells reporters the militants wanted to leave the country with the hostages, but he had refused to let them go, the BBC reports. He says: “It seems [the militants] want to leave the country with the hostages – this is completely unacceptable for the Algerian authorities.We reject all negotiations with the group, which is holding some 20 hostages from several nationalities.”

• Mr Kabila says the kidnappers are Algerian and operating under the order of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a senior commander of al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) until late last year, when he set up his own armed group, the BBC says. Mr Kabila says as well as a Briton and Algerian national being killed, two other Britons, a Norwegian, two police officers and a security guard were also hurt in the gun battle. “Since then, they’ve been facing off. The security forces are consolidating their position around the base,” he says. Nearby border crossings have been closed as a precaution, he adds.

• A man claiming to be a spokesman for the militants tells BBC Arabic that al Qaida carried out the attack. He says they are only holding foreign nationals at the gas facility and had allowed Algerian workers to leave.

• The spokesman tells the BBC a list of demands has been sent to Algerian authorities, and the hostages will be killed if troops attempt to rescue them.”Storming the gas complex would be easy for the Algerian military, but the outcome of such an operation would be disastrous,” he warns.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta

US CONDEMNS ATTACK

Thursday January 17, 3.30am “COLD BLOODED MURDER”

Speaking from Australia, where he is attending the Australia-UK Ministerial Consultations, Foreign Secretary William Hague says there is no excuse for the attack, which he calls “cold-blooded murder”.

He says: “This is an absolute tragedy, of course, in this dangerous and rapidly developing situation. The next of kin have been informed.

“The government’s Cobra emergency system is in full operation, I have spoken to our ambassador in Algeria and dispatched a rapid deployment team to Algeria to strengthen our embassy there and help them in their work.

“Excuses being used by terrorists and murderers who are involved, there is no excuse for such behaviour, whatever excuse they may claim.

“It is absolutely unacceptable, of course. It is in this case the cold-blooded murder of people going about their business.

“So there is no excuse, whether it be connected to Libya, Mali or anywhere else.”

An infographic of the surrounding area

Israeli police have dismantled a tent camp that was set up by Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in protest against the Tel Aviv regime’s plans to construct a large settlement there.

Micky Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, said on Thursday, “The 24 tents in the encampment were dismantled during the night by police.”

Abir Kopty, a Palestinian activist who helped pitch the camp, also confirmed that the tent “village” had been taken down.

On Wednesday, an Israeli court issued a ruling that permitted Tel Aviv regime forces to remove the tents set up at E1 area near al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The Palestinians had received the court’s temporary injunction allowing them to keep the encampment. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the decision to be reversed.

On January 11, Palestinian activists set up the camp, which they named Bab al-Shams (Gate of the Sun) in a move to protest against Israeli plans to build more illegal settler units in E1 area.

Israeli forces, however, attacked the tents and forced the activists out of the location two days later.

On January 15, Palestinian protesters tried to return to the site, but Israeli forces blocked them, declaring the area a closed military zone.

The E1 project aims at connecting the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim to East al-Quds (Jerusalem), about six kilometers away. The plan will cut off the northern part of the West Bank from the south.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

MKA/HSN

A programmer at a US company outsourced his job to a Chinese contractor for a fraction of his six-figure salary. After handing over his login information, he spent his days on Facebook and perused cat videos while the Chinese firm worked in his name.

‘Bob,’ as he has been dubbed in the media, had his cover blown when an external audit showed that a Chinese company had been logging in under his name.

The audit revealed an active virtual private network (VPN) between ‘Bob’s’ workstation and a firm in Shenyang, China. Suspecting a breach in their security system, the company’s executives initially requested an audit from Operations Verizon.

“Evidence even suggested he had the same scam going across multiple companies in the area,” Andrew Valentine of Verizon said, adding that “he earned several hundred thousand dollars a year, and only had to pay the Chinese consulting firm about $50,000 annually.”

Verizon uncovered hundreds of PDF files and invoices exchanged between the Shenyang contractor and ‘Bob.’ Verizon said that the employee had sent his security credentials by Fedex to the Chinese company so they could log on with his username during working hours.

“Authentication was no problem. He physically FedExed his RSA [security] token to China so that the third-party contractor could log-in under his credentials during the workday. It would appear that he was working an average nine-to-five work day,” Valentine said.

Verizon revealed the Shenyang contractor had been working for ‘Bob’ for months, and had access to the classified files of the “critical infrastructure company.” This gives rise to the question: What did Bob actually do during his workday?

A look at the employee’s Internet browsing history revealed he whiled away the hours updating Facebook, surfing Reddit and perusing the Web for cat videos. And at the end of every workday, ‘Bob’ would send a personal email to the management to safeguard his integrity.

Official performance figures for the company where ‘Bob’ worked showed that he was the most productive developer in the building.

‘Bob’ has been described as “inoffensive, quiet” and talented, and is fluent in several different programing languages.

­

Unsung hero or couch potato?

The Internet lit up with comments after the story broke, with some praising ‘Bob’s’ ingenuity and resourcefulness.

One blogger opined that he was an “American hero,” worthy of a medal. “Where’s the problem? He improved his personal profit and the quality and efficiency of his work.”

However, Chinese users of Twitter-style social network Weibo were more critical of ‘Bob’s’ work ethic.

“Learn English and let’s find work in US. Why do we have to do the dirty work for such a cheap price in China?” one Weibo commenter wrote.
The real identity of ‘Bob’ has not yet been revealed, but he reportedly no longer works for the infrastructure company.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered American airliners to stop operating Boeing 787s, following an incident where one of the Dreamliner passenger aircraft made an emergency landing in Japan.

“As a result of an in-flight Boeing 787 battery incident earlier today in Japan, the FAA will issue an emergency airworthiness directive (AD) to address a potential battery fire risk in the 787 and require operators to temporarily cease operations,” the FAA said in a statement on Wednesday.

Japanese airlines Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL) suspended flights of all their Dreamliners on Wednesday following an emergency landing made by an ANA Boeing 787 Dreamliner with more than 130 people on board.

The two Japanese air carriers operate 24 planes out of the 50 Dreamliners sold around the world so far. They have also made large orders for more of the Boeing jets.

“Before further flight, operators of US-registered Boeing 787 aircraft must demonstrate to the Federal Aviation Administration that the batteries are safe,” the FAA statement added.

Meanwhile, United Airlines, the only US airline currently operating the 787, said it would “immediately comply” with the FAA’s directive and re-accommodate customers on alternative aircraft.

Airlines in Chile and India have also grounded their Dreamliners.

However, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney said, “We are confident the 787 is safe and we stand behind its overall integrity.”

“We will be taking every necessary step in the coming days to assure our customers and the travelling public of the 787’s safety and to return the airplanes to service.”

Boeing 787 Dreamliner has been troubled by a series of bad news this week including fire on a flight, fuel leak, a brake computer fault and a cracked cockpit window, which could hit global confidence in the new aircraft.

YH/HSN

Iran’s Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani has described Palestine as a significant issue in the Islamic world, saying the Islamic Republic of Iran is always ready to render assistance to Palestinian fighters against Israel.

In a Wednesday meeting with Emad al-Alami, a member of Hamas Political Bureau, Larijani added that the issue of Palestine and supporting the defenseless Palestinians against Israel’s bullying has been a concern for the Islamic Republic.

Larijani said that the resistance of the Palestinians, in particular the people of Gaza, against the aggressions of the Zionist regime sets a model for independent nations and added that the achievements by the Palestinians against Israel were made thanks to the morale of resistance, which needs to be maintained.

He reiterated that the Palestinian cause can be realized and the occupied lands can be liberated only through resistance.

The Hamas official, for his part, expressed gratitude towards Iran’s support for the Palestinians and said the Islamic Republic has been an advocate of Palestine in hard times.

He said that Iran has played a significant role in the triumphs of the Palestinians against Israel and added the recent victory of resistance against Israel indicated that the Zionist regime is bound to collapse and Quds will be liberated.

On November 14, the Israeli regime launched a deadly offensive on the blockaded Gaza Strip, which killed more than 160 Palestinians and injured some 1,200 others. In retaliation, Palestinian resistance fighters fired rockets and missiles into the Israeli cities, killing at least five Israelis.

An Egypt-mediated ceasefire agreement, which took effect on November 21, ended the eight-day Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

AR/HJL/MA

© Copyright 2010 Press TV. All rights reserved.

At least seven people have been killed in a car bomb attack carried out in Iraq’s Saladin province north of the capital, Baghdad, reports say.

At least 17 people were aslo wounded as another car bomb went off in Iraq’s holy city of Karbala on Thursday.

MKA/MA

Large swathes of England and Wales will see up to six inches of snow by the weekend as forecasters warned of plunging temperatures.

Travel disruption is expected when the severe winter weather hits on Friday.

Sky News weather presenter, Isobel Lang, said: “An active frontal system pushes in from the southwest bringing in rain and snow with strong south to southeast winds.

“Although some southern and western coastal counties are likely to see rain rather than snow, many parts of England and Wales could see around four to six inches of snow.”

Patchy fog and ice is expected over the next day or so, when any snow is likely to be confined to either East Anglia and Kent or across the western fringes of Britain.

But many places will see temperatures barely rise above freezing. Parts of Scotland, northern England, Wales, the Midlands and East Anglia will be looking at maximum temperatures of -1C or zero.

It comes after a bitterly cold night for much of the UK, with average temperatures between -3C and -7C, and -3C in London.

The lowest temperature so far this winter was recorded in the early hours of Wednesday in Marham, Norfolk, where -13.1C beat the -12.9C recorded in Braemar on December 16.

The freezing weather has already caused havoc on transport networks, with a six-vehicle pile-up leaving three people injured on Tuesday and the AA reportingabout 1,000 breakdowns an hour.

In Norfolk, 262 schools have closed due to the weather and freezing fog has made conditions hazardous in the Midlands, East Anglia and central and southern England.

A helicopter crashed in central London when it hit a crane on a high building in foggy conditions, killing two people.

Supermarket giant Tesco has placed full-page adverts in a number of UK national newspapers apologising to customers for selling beef burgers containing horse meat.

It has also promised to refund customers who bought the contaminated products, and said sorry for the “unacceptable” situation.

The apology came as a food expert claimed horse meat could have been in beef burgers for years, but remained undetected because of insufficient food regulation. The UK’s food watchdog, the Food Standards Agency (FSA), is also considering taking legal action against companies at the centre of the scandal.

Tesco promised refunds to customers who had bought the contaminated products, which it identified as Tesco Everyday Value 8 x Frozen Beef Burgers (397g), Tesco 4 x Frozen Beef Quarter Pounders (454g), and a branded product, Flamehouse Frozen Chargrilled Quarter Pounders.

In the advertisement entitled “We apologise”, Tesco said: “While the FSAI (Food Safety Authority of Ireland) has said that the products pose no risk to public health, we appreciate that, like us, our customers will find this absolutely unacceptable. We have immediately withdrawn from sale all products from the supplier in question, from all our stores and online… We and our supplier have let you down and we apologise. So here’s our promise. We will find out exactly what happened and, when we do, we’ll come back and tell you. And we will work harder than ever with all our suppliers to make sure this never happens again.” The apology came as a reported £300 million (360 million euro) was wiped off Tesco’s stock market value.

The FSA said it would consult relevant local authorities and the FSAI over whether to take action against any organisations embroiled in the controversy. But it was criticised for not carrying out tests in the past because horse meat posed no threat to public health, the Daily Telegraph said. Tim Lang, a professor of food policy at City University in London, told the newspaper: “It could have been going on for years but we wouldn’t know about it because we have never conducted tests. For too long we have had light-touch regulation. The Food Standards Agency has to be institutionalised into taking a more critical approach. They have to work on the assumption that things could go wrong.” After a meeting with food industry representatives, the FSA said it would continue its review of the traceability of the food products identified in an FSAI survey, which uncovered the scandal. It also said it would try to further understand how the lower levels of horse and pig meat contamination took place and help to carry out a UK-wide study of food authenticity in meat products.

Meanwhile, the food company at the centre of the scandal vowed to adopt strict DNA testing of its products to prevent a repeat. The ABP Food Group, one of Europe’s biggest suppliers and processors, is being investigated by health and agriculture authorities in the UK and Ireland over the controversy. Two of its subsidiaries, Silvercrest Foods in Ireland and Dalepak Hambleton in Yorkshire, supplied beef burgers with traces of equine DNA to supermarkets, including one product classed as 29% horse. An ABP spokesman said: “It is vital that the integrity of the supply chain is assured and we are committed to restoring consumer confidence.”

A third company, Liffey Meats, based in Co Cavan, was also found to be supplying products to supermarkets with traces of horse DNA. Liffey Meats said it believed horse DNA was originally contained in raw ingredient marked “bovine only” and supplied by an EU approved factory. It said the traces of horse in three of its products were minute. “Liffey Meats has never produced, purchased or traded any equine products,” the company said. “Ingredients were supplied from an EU approved plant and were certified from bovine sources only. We now believe that such imported raw ingredients were the ultimate source of the DNA traces found in some of our products.” Liffey Meats is also DNA testing all ingredients at its Ballyjamesduff plant.

The results of the FSAI survey, verified in laboratories in Germany, showed low levels of horse in beef products sold in Tesco, Lidl, Aldi, Iceland and Dunnes Stores in Ireland. Some burgers were also being sold in the UK but retailers insisted all suspect brands had been taken off the shelves within hours of the findings being released. Ten million burgers have been taken off shelves as a result of the scandal.

Simon Coveney, Ireland’s Agriculture and Food Minister, said the issue should not be seen in the same light as BSE or a dioxin scare in Irish pork meat from four years ago. “There’s no health issue here. But I’m not comfortable eating horse meat like lots of others,” he said. “But that’s not the issue. The issue is if someone has consumed a burger and something was in that burger that they did not know about. There’s no health risk with that.” Concerns have also been raised over the extent of reputational damage to Ireland’s food industry, worth nine billion euro last year. “There is a serious issue here because of that,” Mr Coveney said. “The most important issue here is that our systems have worked. They have flagged a problem and we have to deal with that problem and I think we need to deal with that quickly.” The minister said he was confident buyers of Irish food would not pull the plug on deals. “It’s important to understand that most of the beef and meat product that gets exported out of Ireland is fresh meat,” he said.

The ten things you need to know on Thursday 17 January 2013…

1) CABLE VS CAMERON

First there was an American diplomat. Then a German politician. Then a former British ambassador. And then, of course, a group of eurosceptic Tory backbenchers. Everyone seems to have something to say on Britain’s relationship with Europe ahead of David Cameron’s ‘tantric’ speech on the subject in the Netherlands tomorrow.

Tonight, just a few hours ahead of the PM’s address, it’s Vince Cable’s turn. As Ned Simons and I report:

“In a speech to business leaders on Thursday, the Lib Dem business secretary will say it is a ‘terrible time’ to have the ‘diversion and uncertainty’ which build up to a referendum would entail.

“’Uncertainty is the enemy of investment. At a time of extreme fragility in business confidence such uncertainty would add to the sense of unresolved crisis and weaken Britain’s ability to deliver more reform inside the EU,’ he will say.

“… Taking aim at eurosceptic Tory backbenchers, Cable will use his speech on Thursday evening to say that it will be “next to impossible” to safeguard the UK national interest in the Single Market if London tries to disengage from its existing commitments.

“’The eurosceptic calculation is that British permission is necessary for closer integration- via treaty change- and that this permission can be traded for the negotiating objectives. That seems to me a dangerous gamble to make,’ he will say.”

There aren’t many Tories who like Vince Cable and there’ll be even fewer after he delivers tonight’s speech in Oxfordshire. A senior Lib Dem official tells us that the the party wants “to give the Tories enough rope to hang themselves with”.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports:

“In the runup to the [Cameron] speech, a group of prominent City figures have written to the Telegraph in support of an in-out referendum, and a group of 30 pro-European Tory MPs, including Ken Clarke and Sir Malcolm Rifkind, have written a letter charging the prime minister with jeopardising Margaret Thatcher’s foremost European legacy, the single market. The MPs warn: ‘We fear that a renegotiation which seems to favour the UK alone would force other capitals to ask why they cannot simply dispense with those parts of the single market that don’t suit them, potentially endangering Margaret Thatcher’s defining European legacy.'”

2) ‘THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF’

The Tories’ seem pretty divided on Europe – something Ed Miliband was keen to highlight during prime minister’s questions yesterday. But what’s Labour’s position? We may found out today when shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander gives his own speech on Europe (yep, everyone’s at it!) in which he will say:

“The gap between the minimum the Tories will demand and the maximum our European partners can accept remains unbridgeable.”

Meanwhile, his boss, the Labour leader Ed Miliband, has told the Financial Times that David Cameron was about to take Britain “to the edge of an economic cliff” with a promise of an EU referendum, which he believes will also reawaken “collective” hysteria” in the Conservative Party.

Miliband told the FT that he is “not in favour now of committing to an in-out referendum – it wouldn’t be the right thing for our country. The priority for this country is to focus on our economic difficulties and getting out of those difficulties and you don’t do that by putting a big ‘closed for business’ sign around Britain.”

Cameron “should be listening to the CBI and not Nigel Farage”, the Labour leader added.

Oooh…

3) COLLECTIVE (IR)RESPONSIBILITY

Europhobes in the cabinet (IDS? Owen Paterson? Chris Grayling?) will be delighted – from the Guardian:

“The prime minister has refused to confirm or deny claims that he has given cabinet colleagues freedom to campaign for Britain to exit the European Union in a future referendum.”

It could be 1975 all over again…

4) ‘ROM THEIR WAY’

That’s the headline in the Sun this morning, which reports:

“Up to 350,000 Romanians and Bulgarians could flock to Britain when restrictions are lifted at the end of this year, a report warns today.

“The influx would equal a city the size of Leicester.

“A new analysis estimates 50,000 Romanians and Bulgarians could arrive each year – or 250,000 over the next five years. But that figure could hit 70,000 annually – or 350,000 over five years, according to…”

Hmm. According to who? Yep, you guessed it:

“…campaign group Migration Watch.”

But earlier this week, the prime minister said that the detail for such calculations “wasn’t there yet” and as the BBC reports:

“Sarah Mulley, of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank said that although it was ‘very difficult to predict migration flows with any degree of confidence in these circumstances’ the estimates put forward by Migration Watch ‘look high’.

“She said: ‘The UK is opening access to its labour markets along with the rest of Europe and the process of opening up to Bulgaria and Romania has been a gradual one, in contrast with 2004 when the UK was the only large EU country to open its labour market and when borders and labour market access were opened at the same time.

“‘So it would be very surprising if net migration from Bulgaria and Romania was on the scale predicted by Migration Watch.'”

Watch this space.

5) BARACK OBAMA VS THE NRA

Second-term Obama seems to have found his cojones – from my HuffPost colleagues in the US:

“In a bold and potentially historic attempt to stem the increase in mass gun violence, President Barack Obama unveiled on Wednesday the most sweeping effort at gun control policy reform in a generation.

“‘This is our first task as a society: keeping our children safe. This is how we will be judged,’ Obama said. ‘We can’t put this off any longer.’

“… [T]he president recommended requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales; reinstating the assault weapons ban; restoring a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines; eliminating armor-piercing bullets; providing mental health services in schools; allocating funds to hire more police officers; and instituting a federal gun trafficking statute, among other policies. The cost of the package, senior officials estimated, would be roughly $500 million, some of which could come from already budgeted funds.”

The NRA isn’t happy. Prior to the president’s announcement, America’s largest gun lobby released a TV ad in which

“… a narrator argued that the Secret Service protection provided to Obama’s two daughters, Sasha and Malia, is evidence that the president is an ‘elitist hypocrite,’ who wants armed guards for his own daughters, but not for other people’s children. The ad was widely panned as soon as it was released, and White House spokesman Jay Carney called it ‘repugnant and cowardly.'”

“Has the NRA lost it entirely?” asks Salon’s Joan Walsh.

Er, yes.

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR…

Watch this video of two dogs Skypeing each other.

6) AFGHAN REDUX?

From the Times splash:

“British special forces were on standby last night to mount a rescue mission after al-Qaeda militants in Algeria took scores of foreign workers hostage, including up to five Britons.

“One British citizen was killed in the bloody siege at a BP gas plant in the East of the country – the worst terrorist crisis of David Cameron’s premiership and one of the largest foreign kidnappings of recent times. The militants, from neighbouring Mali, claimed that they were responding to a decision by France, supported by Britain, to attack al-Qaeda Islamists in their country.”

The paper adds:

“In a move that could increase tensions further, MPs approved plans yesterday to send a small number of British military personnel to help to train Mali’s demoralised army as it battles to reclaim the sprawling north of the country from jihadists.

“Britain has contributed two transport aircraft to help the French mission, but was expected to send a small number of soldiers to Bamako, the Malian capital, as early as next month under proposals drawn up by the European Union.”

But the Daily Mail’s leader argues that “it would surely be disastrous for Britain to commit more of our overstretched men and equipment to a cause not obviously our own”. It says:

“Indeed, in the rapidly escalating conflict in Mali, where France will triple its troop deployment ‘within days’, aren’t there chilling echoes of Afghanistan? There, too – where the bloodshed continues after more than a decade – Britain took arms against a tribal enemy as a gesture of solidarity with an ally.

“In Mali, as in Afghanistan, the insurgents are proving a more formidable foe than expected, armed as they are with heavy machine guns, Kalashnikovs and rocketpropelled grenades.

“… As France calls for more international support, is it too much to hope that David Cameron will remember the British lives lost and the sobering lessons of our oh-so-recent history – and just say No?”

7) LABOUR’S IRON MAN?

The cover story of the Guardian’s G2 supplement has a rather startling headline this morning: “Could Ed be Labour’s Thatcher?”

Author Andy Beckett, a long-time Miliband-watcher, draws a fascinating comparison between the Labour leader and the Tories’ most famous, successful and right-wing leader. He writes:

“Members of Miliband’s unusually small inner circle are also open about their preoccupation with — and even sometimes admiration for — what Thatcher subsequently achieved in her 15 years as opposition leader and prime minister.”

The whole thing is worth a read – and not just because Beckett plugs my biog of the Labour leader in the opening paragraph.

8) AUSTERITY WATCH, PART 129

From the Times:

“More than 100,000 disabled people will lose basic home support under government reforms of social care, leading disability groups are warning.

“Five charities including Scope, Mencap and Leonard Cheshire argue that the care system is already underfunded by at least £1.2 billion and “is on the verge of breakdown”.

“… In a report published today the charities say that 40 per cent of disabled people are already failing to get the basic care they need, such as help with washing, dressing, cooking and eating.”

9) FORMER ISRAELI PM ACCUSES CURRENT ISRAELI PM

From the Daily Beast:

“Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says the government of Benjamin Netanyahu spent almost $3 billion in the past two years preparing for a war against Iran’s nuclear program that it probably never intended to wage.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Olmert said the sum was above and beyond the billions allocated to the defense budget and helped raise Israel’s fiscal deficit to heights it hadn’t reached in years. As a result, he said, Netanyahu would be forced to make broad spending cuts, if reelected next week…”

Now that’s what I call a deficit debate…

10) ‘MY MATHS ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH’

From the HuffPost UK:

“Wonga’s head of regulatory and public affairs has told a committee of MPs that he could not work out the interest on a loan from his own company because ‘my maths isn’t good enough.’

“Henry Raine, head of regulatory and public affairs at the payday loans company, defended his business to the House of Commons Public Accounts committee, where he was grilled by chair and Labour MP Margaret Hodge on the effectiveness of consumer credit regulation.”

PUBLIC OPINION WATCH

From the latest Ipsos-MORI poll:

Labour 43
Conservatives 30
Ukip 9
Lib Dems 8

That would give Labour a majority of 124.

140 CHARACTERS OR LESS

@DanHannanMEP The lobby is covering the PM’s coming speech in terms of party management. They’re missing the epochal significance of an In/Out referendum.

@edballsmp When David Cameron gets so desperate he has to claim Labour wants Britain to join the single currency, you know he’s really losing it..

@TheOnion On Tonight’s ONNCast: NRA Fights Legislation That Would Ban Gun Sales To Those Currently On Killing Sprees

900 WORDS OR MORE

James Forsyth, writing in this week’s Spectator, says: “Cameron’s European moment has come — a year late.”

Peter Oborne, writing in the Telegraph, says: “Tony Blair’s record in the Middle East is a sorry one — it’s time he quit.”

Slavoj Zizek, writing in the Guardian, says: “The west’s crisis is one of democracy as much as finance.”

Got something you want to share? Please send any stories/tips/quotes/pix/plugs/gossip to Mehdi Hasan (mehdi.hasan@huffingtonpost.com) or Ned Simons (ned.simons@huffingtonpost.com). You can also follow us on Twitter: @mehdirhasan, @nedsimons and @huffpostukpol

AFP Photo / Yoshikazu Tsuno

Global floors remain sluggish as traders register disappointment with the World Bank’s forecast of weaker-than-expected economic growth in 2013, and as US debt ceiling negotiations draw nearer.

Russian indices are expected to produce another day of slow trading on Thursday, as uncertainty prevails on international floors, according to Darya Pichugina of Investcafe. Russian stocks traded mixed Wednesday, with the RTS declining 0.34% to 1,571.15, and the MICEX rising 0.12% to 1,516.67.

Asian floors also began Thursday trading with mixed sentiments: The Nikkei has gained 0.15% and the Shanghai Composite has gone down 0.78%, Pichugina added.

The debate over the US debt ceiling is heating up as Washington is expected to reach its borrowing limit in February. Should the country fail to resolve the issue, the world’s largest economy could default, Fed chief Ben Bernanke and US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner have warned.

The debt ceiling is expected to dominate investor attention after the reporting period in the US concludes, J.J. Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade, told CNN Money.

“We may have a bit of a pause after earnings season ends and we head into debt ceiling negotiations,” Kinahan said. “That’s when you might see people start to hold back. For now, people are trading earnings as if it’s a normal market.”

The World Bank report was another point of concern for investors, as the Washington-based bank projected that the world economy would expand 2.4% in 2013, down from a June forecast of 3%, after growing 2.3% in 2012. The lowered expectations are due largely to austerity measures, high unemployment and low business confidence weighing down economies in developed nations, the World Bank said.

“Doubts have been growing that the strength in equities can be sustained as fears of the outlook for the global economy re-emerged after the World Bank downgraded its forecast for global GDP leading to some investors banking recent profits,” Angus Campbell, Head of Market Analysis at Capital Spreads, wrote in an email.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones fell 0.2% on Wednesday, with Boeing leading the decline. The S&P 500 closed almost flat, while the Nasdaq gained 0.2%. Boeing shares fell 3.4% as its ‘Dreamliner’ jet continued to disappoint. Two Japanese airlines grounded their fleets of the 787 aircraft after one of All Nippon Airways’ Dreamliners had to make an emergency landing.

European markets traded mixed as of the most recent closing prices. The CAC 40 gained 0.30% and the DAX rose 0.20%, while the FTSE 100 lost 0.22%.

A boy looks on as a customer inspects a pistol at the Saratoga Arms Fair at the City Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Jan. 12, 2013. (Photo: Nathaniel Brooks / The New York Times) Fuck you, that’s my name. You know why, mister? ‘Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, and I drove an $80,000 BMW…only one thing counts in this life: get them to sign on the line which is dotted.

– Glengarry Glen Ross

A few hours before President Obama and Vice President Biden unveiled their proposals for gun reform in America, the National Rifle Association launched a preemptive strike on the president’s children. To wit: an NRA-sponsored television commercial claimed that, because Sasha and Malia get armed guards in school and your kids don’t, Mr. Obama is an elitist hypocrite.

Leaving aside the colossal tin-eared stupidity involved in attacking children in the midst of a debate that was initiated after 20 children were slaughtered, and notwithstanding the fact that, to no small degree, the presidential children need bodyguards to protect them from the very audience targeted by that NRA ad, the simple, ugly truth of the matter is that this most recent example of the NRA’s psychotic nonsense is pretty much what we can expect to hear now that the gun gauntlet has finally been thrown down.

The substance of the Obama administration’s proposals are historic in scope: enact a stronger assault weapons ban, limit the size of ammunition magazines, require universal background checks for all gun sales, strengthen mental health treatment options, and empower schools to deal with gun violence threats while addressing issues of bullying. Beyond that, Mr. Obama released a list of 23 Executive Orders aimed at beefing up existing gun laws, allowing the Centers for Disease Control to research the underlying causes of gun violence (something the GOP successfully quashed for years), and reviewing safety standards for gun locks and gun safes.

On the whole, the administration’s proposals are about as bold as one could hope for in this day and age; more than 900 people have been shot to death since the massacre at Sandy Hook, and Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot through the skull, and President Reagan was shot way back when, and his press secretary took a bullet to the head that day and has spent his whole life since trying to keep that from happening to anyone else, and Columbine happened, and Aurora happened, and the Sikh temple massacre happened, and the body count from American gun violence has been spinning like the fare meter on a Manhattan taxicab since Bobby Kennedy got his brains blown out in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen almost 50 years ago, and still, after everything that has happened and after everything we know, we all somehow became convinced that stuffing the Biblical camel through the eye of the Biblical needle would be easier than passing sensible gun control legislation on a national level in America.

That, my friends, is salesmanship.

Salesmanship the likes of which has rarely been seen in history, even in this nation of boiling commercialism. It is no small accomplishment to convince millions of people that their safety and security – indeed, their very existence as a nation – absolutely depends upon the astonishing preponderance of devices that kill them on the hour, every hour, every day.

All the gun lobby does is bellow about freedom, about the Constitution, about preserving the ability to defend oneself against the onset of an intrusive, tyrannical government. This is the song that has been sung for decades now, to the point that it is holy writ to those who think the ability to own an AR-15 with a magazine capacity large enough to take out half of Yankee Stadium, should the need somehow arise, is the apotheosis of American freedom. Good luck with that; send me a note from the front, hero. I’m sure your Red Dawn fantasy will unspool itself any day now.

Convincing so many people that their freedom is inviolably attached to things that kill them in piles every single day is amazingly successful salesmanship…and as we embark upon this national debate over guns, we must encompass this essential truth: all the grandstanding over personal freedom, over the Constitution, over the ability to defend oneself against the government, is the end-product of perhaps the most magnificent sales job ever deployed against anyone, ever.

Understand the bottom line here, best described by an astute observer: “I think the real problem gun manufacturers face is an inability to build planned obsolescence into their products. Unlike other instrument with moving parts, a gun can continue to shoot for a very, very long time. Hence, for gun manufacturers to remain profitable, the number of firearms in society and their lethality must continually increase if for no other reason than to maintain enough novelty to encourage new purchases.”

There it is.

The root of the problem.

The NRA and the gun lobby in general getting into bed with the Republicans and the far right, all the shouting about freedom and the Constitution, is just window-dressing to the gun-makers. They don’t believe that baloney; they just use it to sell their products, because unlike a Toyota or a blender, their products pretty much last forever.

There was a company once that made tractors, the best damned tractors ever assembled by anyone ever, and every farmer in the country bought one…and after a while, the company that made those excellent tractors went out of business, because all anyone needed was one, and the one they bought lasted forever, so no one ever bought another one.

For the gun-makers, it is about making the product they produce attractive enough to purchase over and over and over again. That is the only way they will be able to stay in business. Period, end of file.

We are going to hear a great deal of insane noise now that debate over guns in America has been fully engaged by – yeah, I’ll say it – a president I am proud of today. Do not ever forget, no matter the rhetoric that gets wrapped up in this argument, that this is about the ability to sell guns. This isn’t about freedom or the Constitution or anything else for the gun-makers and their friends.

It’s a sales pitch, and nothing more.

Beware. They’re huge. MB not KB.

I like Jesus Calling Jesus

Website here for other listeners.

another site here.

If I like a song I investigate the artist using the web

The first two pages of a US government document regarding GPS surveillance on American citizens given to the ACLU. (via aclu.org)

The American Civil Liberties Union has been given information on how Washington determines when it can surveil American citizens using GPS. The documents are so heavily redacted by the Justice Department, though, that they are essentially worthless.

­The redacted sections — which consume several paragraphs and even entire pages — are thought to show legal interpretations outlining the government’s rationale on tracking its citizens with GPS. With so much of the documents blacked out, Americans are still wondering whether the federal government is required to obtain a warrant before spying on them with GPS technology — and if so, when exactly it can do so.

The ACLU, one of the most powerful American civil rights groups, had to sue the government in August 2011 with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in order to get their hands on the memos.

­The memos “outline the Justice Department’s conclusions regarding its obligations” under US v. Jones, a January 2012 Supreme Court trial that saw a unanimous ruling in favor of requiring law enforcement to get a warrant before tracking American citizens without their knowledge, ACLU staff attorney Catherine Crump wrote in a statement on the matter. They also show how the Justice Department’s Criminal Division wrote up another memorandum, “Guidance Regarding the Application of United States v. Jones to GPS Tracking Devices,” in late February of 2012. That July, the same division wrote another document on the same topic that it said “should not be disseminated outside the Department of Justice.”

Such a move by Washington bureaucrats is not unprecedented by any means. For example, the government has refused American citizens access to the legal opinions guiding its use of PATRIOT Act Section 215, which applies to the seizure of personal material. The section’s vague language allows law enforcement to search or seize “any tangible things” based on a few guidelines.

The government also keeps secret its legal opinions on when it is or is not acceptable to kill Americans with drones. President Barack Obama has even blocked at least one senator, Ron Wyden (D-OR), from seeing the opinions — though legislators are required access to them by law. 

The ACLU says it will ask for a court order requiring the Justice Department to release the documents, which the group says are “improperly withheld.”

“The purpose [of] FOIA is to make sure the government doesn’t operate under secret law–and right now that’s exactly what these memos are,” the statement concludes.

This NASA photo shows NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and President and founder of Bigelow Aerospace Robert T. Bigelow as they talk while standing next to the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) during a media briefing where it was announced that the BEAM expandable space habitat technology will be tested on the International Space Station on January 16, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (AFP Photo/NASA)

NASA has spotted an evolution in space engineering that could save money for space exploration if privately developed inflatable space dwelling prove to be successful.

A new agreement between NASA and a Nevadan firm to add a privately built module to the International Space Station could evolve into uses of the innovative technology beyond low-Earth orbit, space agency and company officials said on Wednesday.

NASA’s $17.8 million venture with Bigelow Aerospace to build an inflatable module, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), is planned to be tested at the ISS in 2015.

California-based SpaceX company will help BEAM make it to orbit by providing a Falcon 9 rocket. Once in space, the module will be installed on an open dock of the station’s Node 3 by uniting the module using a robotic arm.

The Beam weighs around 1,360 kilograms and is about 4 meters long and 3.2 meters wide.

Bigelow Aerospace has so far spent around $250m to develop inflatable space habitation. It has preliminary agreements with seven non-US space and research agencies in the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Sweden and the UAE.

NASA has placed high hopes in private industries to develop ways to take its astronauts to and from the space station. That service is now provided by Russia at a cost of more than $60 million per person.

A French air force pilot stands near Mirage jets of the French army at the 101 airbase near Bamako during a visit of Malian president to the French troops on January 16, 2013. (AFP Photo/Issouf Sanogo)

Following almost a week of intense airstrikes, French troops have engaged in directs combat with Islamist rebels in central Mali only 400 kilometers from the capital Bamako.

­The first clashes erupted between Islamist rebels and Malian and French ground troops after they surrounded the rebel-controlled city of Diabaly north of the capital, Xinhua reported.

About 200 French soldiers took part in the operation, a Malian security source told Xinhua. According to witnesses, women and children had fled the town before the operation started.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reported that the fighting was happening about two kilometers away from the center of the city, “away from the civilians.”

Rebels also clashed with Malian troops near the central town of Konna “with support from the French army,” the source told Al-Jazeera giving no details on the kind of support.

French military meanwhile continues massive preparations for a full-scale ground offensive after six days of airstrikes failed to prevent the militants, who have seized vast areas in the north of the former French colony, from moving towards Bamako.

On Tuesday, France announced it would deploy as many as 2,500 soldiers, tripling its contingent on the ground.

A French army officer stand guard on January 16, 2013 while Malian president welcomes service at the military airbase in Bamako. (AFP Photo/Issouf Sanogo)

A French Army Land Rover and pallets of rations are seen on a Royal Air Force C17 cargo aircraft as it prepares to leave for Bamako in Mali from Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, January 16, 2013. (Reuters/Andrew Winning)

French soldiers prepare their ammunitions on January 16, 2013 at the military airbase in Bamako, before their deployment as part of the “Serval” operation against Islamists occupying northern Mali. (AFP Photo/Issouf Sanogo)

French troops from the 21st Rima (French Navy Infantry Regiment) arrive near the town of Markala to secure a strategic bridge on the Niger river on January 16, 2013 after leaving the capital Bamako Bamako the day before. (AFP Photo/Michel Moutot)

A French army helicopter arrives on January 16, 2013 at the military airbase in Bamako, as part of the “Serval” operation against Islamists occupying northern Mali. (AFP Photo/Issouf Sanogo)

This handout picture released and taken on January 15, 2013 by French Army Communications Audiovisual office (ECPAD) shows French soldiers carrying munitions at Bamako military airport as part of the “Serval” operation in Mali. (AFP Photo/Jeremy Lempin)

An Ivorian officer (sitting at R) and other ECOWAS army officers prepare a document during a meeting of chiefs of staff on January 16, 2013 at the Mali peacekeeping traning center in Bamako. (AFP Photo/Issouf Sanogo)

For those of you who have been following my series on how non-profits are abused to finance right wing agendas, campaigns and elections, this is a good sign. Mother Jones reports that former IRS director Marcus Owens has called for a bright-light focus on them.

“The government’s going to have to investigate them and prosecute them,” says Marcus Owens, who ran the IRS’ tax-exempt division for a decade and is now a lawyer in private practice. “In order to maintain the integrity of the process, they’re going to be forced to take action.”

In their initial applications seeking tax-exempt status under a particular provision of the tax code, section 501(c)(4), dozens of political non-profits told the IRS their political spending would be limited or, in some cases, non-existent. (Otherwise, they wouldn’t qualify for this advantageous tax status, which allows them to take foreign donationsand hide the identities of their funders.) But ProPublica reported that many of those groups have spent big on politics. In 2008, for instance, the Iowa-based American Future Fund assured the IRS on its tax-exempt application that it would spend “no” money to influence elections; the same day the group mailed its application, it released a web adhailing then-Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and went on to spend $8 million on politicking in the 2010 elections. Americans for Responsible Leadership, an Arizona-based nonprofit, was more bold: It told the taxman it would engage in zero political work. It then spent $5.2 million backing Mitt Romney.

Regular readers know I’ve been banging this drum for a very long time. In recent days, I’ve written about Americans for Job Security, American Commitment, and the American Action Network. I have several other reports in the pipeline about even more organizations because every time one is uncovered, four more pop up.

These organizations do not simply exist to function as conduits for elections. They exist to guide large sums of money into unaccountable silos to fight against candidates and issues on a state by state basis. No issue is too small for billionaires to take up, and the real beneficiaries are the consultants, media buyers and fundraisers who are paid millions to push the message out.

Millions in, garbage out. Yes, investigate and prosecute would seem to be a no-brainer. Ironically, the only 501c4 who has had their status denied is Emerge America, a group that recruits and trains Democratic candidates. Funding for Emerge America is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions that have flowed through these nonprofits on the right-wing side. Ironically, what cost Emerge America their exemption was the truth, which they told on their application for exemption.

Conversely, right wing organizations put a lot of nonsense and lies in their applications, get approval, and the IRS never spends another moment on them. Here’s an example of the crap they say:

XYZ Committee, Inc is a social welfare organization dedicated to educating and informing American citizens, in an in-depth manner, about free market principles and policies and about the importance of working together to encourage opinion leaders and public officials to support ideas, programs and policies that promote the concept of a free market.

XYZ Committee, Inc. will work to inform the general public about various public policy issues…and will promote the concept of a free market as the appropriate solution.

[…]

XYZ Committee, Inc does not plan to produce its own publications or advertisements at this time, but XYZ does intend to help other organizations plan for and create campaigns that will best communicate the policies and principles of a free market to the general public.

That particular organization received approval three months after they filed their application.

Despite repeated calls by watchdog organizations to look into the activities of Crossroads GPS and allied entities, nothing happens. Via the Mother Jones article:

Tax experts like Owens, Hill, and Tobin aren’t the only ones prodding the IRS to take action. Campaign finance watchdogs have hounded the agency for years for not investigating and punishing politically active nonprofits. In a letter dated January 2, lawyers with the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, two groups that favor more regulation of political money, urged the IRS to officially deny tax-exempt status to Rove’s Crossroads GPS. (The group’s application is technically still pending.)

“Crossroads GPS served as little more than a campaign operation in 2012,” the lawyers wrote.

Collegio, the Crossroads spokesman, has dismissed the letter as “the 25th identical letter that the partisans and ideologues at the Campaign Legal Center have sent to the IRS, and it doesn’t merit anyone’s attention.”

Well, yes. It absolutely merits attention. But it never seems to get any.

I will volunteer my time to the IRS to assist in the audit process of these organizations, if it would help get this done. If they allow these organizations to serve as money laundering operations for campaigns and elections, do you suppose there might be money laundering occurring in other contexts?

Get on it, IRS.

The majority of sunbeds expose users to double the radiation safety limits, increasing their risk of skin cancer, new research has found.

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation limits are set at 0.3 watts per square metre (Wm2) for sunbeds in Europe but tests by scientists found that hundreds exceed that level.

But the Sunbed Association said the research is “two years out of date” and that all new units manufactured since April 2009, when the level was introduced, are compliant with the limit.

Scientists from the University of Dundee tested 402 sunbeds between October 2010 and February 2011 and found that only 10% complied with the safety limits. The rest had average UV radiation levels of around 0.6Wm2.

Professor Harry Moseley, consultant medical physicist at University of Dundee and leader of the research, said: “The development of high-power sunlamps, along with clear failures of the sunbed industry to regulate themselves effectively, is putting young people at an even greater risk of skin cancer than we previously thought.

“We hope that these findings will make people think twice before using sunbeds as you can’t be sure how much radiation you’re exposing yourself to when you try to top up a tan.”

Senior health information officer at Cancer Research UK, Yinka Ebo, said: “It’s worrying to see that so many sunbeds are not meeting the safety standards. This strengthens our advice that using a sunbed just isn’t worth it.”

The Sunbed Association represents the companies which manufacture and operate tanning stations. Gary Lipman, association chairman, said: “The findings of this study are two years out of date. If the study was undertaken today, the results would be dramatically different.

“Sunbeds have been required to have a maximum UV output since 2009 and the Sunbed Association has been working with its members, non-members and the enforcement departments within local authorities since that time to inform about the change in UV emission levels, advise how to become compliant and ensure compliance.”

The research was funded by Cancer Research UK and appears in the British Journal of Dermatology.

If gold repatriation becomes a worldwide trend, it will be obvious that both the US and UK have lost their credibility as gold custodians. For gold markets worldwide, this move may mark a switch from “financial gold” to “physical gold”, but the process is definitely in its early stages.

The decision to repatriate the German gold is a big victory for a part of the German press that first forced the Bundesbank to admit that 69% of its gold is stored outside Germany. Almost certainly both the German press and at least several German lawmakers will demand a verification procedure for the gold bars returned from New York, just to make sure that Germany doesn’t receive gold-plated tungsten instead of gold. It seems that German decision makers no longer trust their American partners. (Voice of Russia, January 15, 2013, emphasis added)

While the issue is actively debated in Germany, US financial reports have downplayed the significance of this historic decision, approved by the German government last September.

Meanwhile, a “Repatriate our Gold” campaign has been launched by several German economists, business executives and lawyers. The initiative does not apply solely to Germany. It calls upon countries to initiate the homeland repatriation of ALL gold holdings held in foreign central banks.

While national sovereignty and custody over Germany’s gold assets is part of the debate, several observers —including politicians— have begged the question: “can we trust the foreign central banks” (namely the US, Britain and France) which are holding Germany’s gold bars “in safe keeping”:

…Several German politicians have … voiced unease. Philipp Missfelder, a leading lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party, has asked the Bundesbank for the right to view the gold bars in Paris and London, but the central bank has denied the request, citing the lack of visitor rooms in those facilities, German daily Bild reported.

Given the growing political unease about the issue and the pressure from auditors, the central bank decided last month [September] to repatriate some 50 tons of gold in each of the three coming years from New York to its headquarters in Frankfurt for ‘‘thorough examinations’’ regarding weight and quality, the report revealed.

…Several passages of the auditors’ report were blackened out in the copy shared with lawmakers, citing the Bundesbank’s concerns that they could compromise secrets involving the central banks storing the gold.

The report said that the gold pile in London has fallen ‘‘below 500 tons’’ due to recent sales and repatriations, but it did not specify how much gold was held in the U.S. and in France. German media have widely reported that some 1,500 tons – almost half of the total reserves – are stored in New York.

( Associated Press, Oct 22, 2012, emphasis added )

A full and complete repatriation of gold assets, however, is not envisaged:

“The Bundesbank plans to transfer 300 tonnes of gold from the Federal Reserve in New York and all of its gold stored at the Banque de France in Paris, 374 tonnes, to Frankfurt. beginning this year,

By 2020, it wants to hold half of the nearly 3,400 tonnes of gold valued at almost 138 billion euros — only the United States holds more — in Frankfurt, where it stores about a third of its reserves. The rest is kept at the Federal Reserve, the Banque de France and the Bank of England. (Reuters, January 16, 2012)

The German Federal Court of Auditors has called for an official inspection of German gold reserves stored at foreign central banks, “because they have never been fully checked“.

Are these German bullion reserves held at the Federal Reserve “separate” or are they part of the Federal Reserve’s fungible “big pot” of gold assets.

Does the New York Federal Reserve Bank have “Fungible Gold Assets to the Degree Claimed”? Could it reasonably meet a process of homeland repatriation of gold assets initiated by several countries simultaneously?

Why is German Gold held outside Germany?

“Why is our gold in Paris, London and New York” and not in Frankfurt ?

The official explanation —which borders on the absurd— is that West Germany at the outset of the Cold War decided to store its gold assets in London, Paris, and New York to “put them out of reach of the Soviet empire” which was allegedly intent upon looting West Germany’s gold treasures.

According to Reuters:

As the Cold War set in, Germany kept its gold reserves put, keeping them out of reach of the Soviet empire. But government officials have grown uneasy about the storage set-up and have called for the Bundesbank to inspect the bars.

The Bundesbank now wants to change the arrangement too, even though it has said it does not see a need to count the bars or check their gold content itself and considers written assurances from the other central banks as sufficient.

With the end of the Cold War it was no longer necessary to keep Germany’s gold reserves “as far to the west and as far from the Iron Curtain as possible”, Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele told reporters on Wednesday.

The Bundesbank gained more space in its vaults after the transition to the euro from the deutschmark. Reuters, January 16, 2013)

According to the Western media, in chorus, the threats of the “evil empire” in the course of the Cold War era had so to speak encouraged the “looking after” and “safe-keeping” of billions of dollars of German gold bullion in the secure central bank vaults of France, England and America. This was a “responsible” initiative undertaken by these three countries —”friends of West Germany”— with a view to assisting the Bundesbank located in Frankfurt am Main against an imminent attack by The Red Army.

But now fourteen years after the official end of the Cold War, the Bundesbank “plans to bring home some of its gold reserves stored in the United States’ and French central banks, bowing to government pressure to unwind a Cold War-era ploy that secured the national treasure.”

What was the objective of the US, in the wake of the World War II in pressuring countries to deposit their gold bullion in the custody of the US Federal Reserve?

Historically, the accumulation of gold bullion in the vaults of the US Federal Reserve (on behalf of foreign countries) has indelibly served to strengthen the global dollar system, both during the period of the (Bretton Woods) post-war “gold exchange standard” (1946-1971) as well as in its aftermath (1971-).

History: In the Wake of World War II

The gold bullion storage arrangement has nothing to do with the Soviet threat.

It has a lot to do with the history of World War II and its immediate aftermath.

The early postwar central banking arrangement was dictated by the Victors of World War II, namely America, France and Britain.

The military occupation governments of these three countries directly controlled the post-war monetary reforms implemented in West Germany starting in 1945.

West Germany had been split up into three zones, respectively under the jurisdiction of the US, Britain and France (see map below). From 1945 to 1947, The Reichmark continued to circulate with new paper money printed in the US.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Post-Nazi German occupation borders and territories. Areas in beige indicate territories east of the Oder-Neisse line that were attached to Poland and the USSR. The Saar Protectorate, on the lefthand side of the map, is also shown in beige. Berlin is the multinational area shown within the red Soviet zone.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In 1947, the US and UK controlled occupation zones merged into an Anglo-American “BiZone”. In 1948, under a so-called “First Law on currency Reform”, the occupation military government set up the Bank deutscher Länder (Bank of the German States) in liaison with the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. The currency reforms were implemented in parallel with the Marshall Plan, launched in June 1947.

The Bank deutscher Länder (BdL) was to manage the monetary system of the Länder  (equivalent to states in a federal structure) in the Bizone under the jurisdiction of the US-UK military government, leading to the establishment of the Deutsch Mark in June 1948, which replaced the Reichsmark.

Ludwig Erhard —who became Finance Minister under the FGR government of Conrad Adenauer and then German Chancellor (1963-1966)— played a central role in the process of monetary reform. He started his political career as an economic consultant to the US military Government (USMG). In 1947, he was appointed chairman of the currency reform commission. From January 1947 to May 1949, the US military governor of the US zone (USMG) who supervised the setting up the new currency arrangement was General Lucius D. Clay, nicknamed “Der Kaiser”.

The Deutsche Mark initiative was then extended to the occupation zone controlled by France in November 1948 (“TriZone” arrangement), with the inclusion and participation of the Banque de France.

While the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) (Bundesrepublik Deutschland), was created in May 1949, the Bundesbank only came into existence 8 years later, in 1957.

Germany’s gold reserves were under the jurisdiction of the Bank deutscher Laender (and subsequently of the Bundesbank). But the BdL was an initiative of the US-UK-France military occupation.

The important question is the following:

Did the procedures and agreements determined by the occupation military governments in 1947-48 envisage a framework whereby part of West Germany’s gold bullion was to be held in the victors’ central banks, namely the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve and the Banque de France?

Gold Reserves from the Third Reich

The issue of the gold reserves of the Third Reich is a subject matter in itself, beyond the scope of this article.

A couple of observations: As of 1945, large amounts of gold from the Third Reich were transferred into custody of the military governments. Part of this gold was used to finance war reparations:

In September 1946, the United States, Britain, and France established the Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold (TGC). The commission has its roots in Part III of the Paris Agreement on Reparation, signed on January 14, 1946 concerning German war reparations. Under the 1946 Paris Agreement, the three Allies were charged with recovering monetary gold looted by Nazi Germany from banks in occupied Europe and placing it in a “gold pool.”

Claims against the gold pool and subsequent redistribution of the gold to claimant countries were to be adjudicated and executed by the three Allies. ” ( for further details see US State Department, Tripartie Gold Commission, February 24, 1997,

A Foreign Exchange Depositary (FED) had been established at the Reichbank in Frankfurt. Referred to as the Fort Knox of Germany, a process of collection had been established `by the FED on behalf of the Allied Occupation Council.

Gold was collected by the FED, both in monetary and non-monetary form. By October 1947 —coinciding with the establishment of the Bank deutscher Laender—  the FED, had accumulated 260 million dollars of monetary gold (at the 1947 price of gold, this represented a colossal amount of bullion).

A large part of this gold was restituted to different claimant countries, organizations and individuals. In 1950, the remaining assets of the FED —which were minimal, according to the US State Department— were transferred to the Bank deutscher Laender. (William Z. Slany, US Efforts to Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany During World War II, US State Department, Washington, 1997, p. 150-59)

Submitted by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market blog,

A Message To The ‘Left’ From A ‘Right Wing Extremist’

Some discoveries are exciting, joyful, and exhilarating, while others can be quite painful. Stumbling upon the fact that you do not necessarily have a competent grasp of reality, that you have in fact been duped for most of your life, is not a pleasant experience. While it may be a living nightmare to realize that part of one’s life was, perhaps, wasted on the false ideas of others, enlightenment often requires that the worldview that we were indoctrinated with be completely destroyed before we can finally resurrect a tangible identity and belief system. To have rebirth, something must first die…

In 2004, I found myself at such a crossroads. At that time I was a dedicated Democrat, and I thought I had it all figured out. The Republican Party was to me a perfect sort of monster. They had everything! Corporate puppet masters. Warmongering zealots. Fake Christians. Orwellian social policies. The Bush years were a special kind of horror. It was cinematic. Shakespearean. If I was to tell a story of absolute villainy, I would merely describe the mass insanity and bloodlust days of doom and dread wrought by the Neo-Con ilk in the early years of the new millennium.

But, of course, I was partly naïve…

The campaign rhetoric of John Kerry was eye opening. I waited, day after day, month after month for my party’s candidate to take a hard stance on the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I waited for a battle cry against the Patriot Act and the unconstitutional intrusions of the Executive Branch into the lives of innocent citizens. I waited for a clear vision, a spark of wisdom and common sense. I waited for the whole of the election for that man to finally embrace the feelings of his supporters and say, with absolute resolve, that the broken nation we now lived in would be returned to its original foundations. That civil liberty, freedom, and peace, would be our standard once again. Unfortunately, the words never came, and I realized, he had no opposition to the Bush plan. He was not going to fight against the wars, the revolving door, or the trampling of our freedoms. Indeed, it seemed as though he had no intention of winning at all.

I came to see a dark side to the Democratic Party that had always been there but which I had refused to acknowledge. Their leadership was no different than the Neo-Cons that I despised. On top of this, many supporters of the Democratic establishment had no values, and no principles. Their only desire was to “win” at any cost. They would get their “perfect society” at any cost, even if they had to chain us all together to do it. 

There was no doubt in my mind that if the Democrats reoccupied the White House or any other political power structure one day, they would immediately adopt the same exact policies and attitudes of the Neo-Conservatives, and become just as power-mad if not more so. In 2008 my theory was proven unequivocally correct.

It really is amazing. I have seen the so-called “anti-war” party become the most accommodating cheerleader of laser guided death and domination in the Middle East, with predator drones operating in the sovereign skies of multiple countries raining missiles upon far more civilians than “enemy combatants”, all at the behest of Barack Obama. I have seen the “party of civil liberties” expand on every Constitution crushing policy of the Bush Administration, while levying some of the most draconian legislation ever witnessed in the history of this country. I have seen Obama endorse enemy combatant status for American citizens, and the end of due process under the law through the NDAA. I have seen him endorse the end of trial by jury. I have seen him endorse secret assassination lists, and the federally drafted murder of U.S. civilians. I have seen him endorse executive orders which open the path to the declaration of a “national emergency” at any time for any reason allowing for the dissolution of most constitutional rights and the unleashing of martial law.

If I was still a Democrat today I would be sickly ashamed. Yet, many average Democrats actually defend this behavior from their party. The same behavior they once railed against under Bush.

However, I have not come here to admonish Democrats (at least not most of them). I used to be just like them. I used to believe in the game. I believed that the rules mattered, and that it was possible to change things by those rules with patience and effort. I believed in non-violent resistance, protest, civil dissent, educational activism, etc. I thought that the courts were an avenue for political justice. I believed that the only element required to end corruption would be a sound argument and solid logic backed by an emotional appeal to reason. I believed in the power of elections, and had faith in the idea that all we needed was the “right candidate” to lead us to the promise land. Again, I believed in the game. 

The problem is, the way the world works and the way we WISH the world worked are not always congruent. Attempting to renovate a criminal system while acting within the rigged confines of that system is futile, not to mention delusional. Corrupt oligarchies adhere to the standards of civility only as long as they feel the need to maintain the illusion of the moral high ground. Once they have enough control, the mask always comes off, the rotten core is revealed, and immediate violence against dissent commences. 

Sometimes the only solutions left in the face of tyranny are not peaceful. Logic, reason, and justice are not revered in a legal system which serves the will of the power elite instead of the common man. The most beautiful of arguments are but meaningless flitters of hot air in the ears of sociopaths. Sometimes, the bully just needs to be punched in the teeth.

This philosophy of independent action is consistently demonized, regardless of how practical it really is when faced with the facts. The usual responses to the concept of full defiance are accusations of extremism and malicious intent. Believe me, when I embarked on the path towards the truth in 2004, I never thought I would one day be called a potential “homegrown terrorist”, but that is essentially where we are in America in 2013. To step outside the mainstream and question the validity of the game is akin to terrorism in the eyes of the state and the sad cowardly people who feed the machine. 

During the rise of any despotic governmental structure, there is always a section of the population that is given special treatment, and made to feel as though they are “on the winning team”. For now, it would appear that the “Left” side of the political spectrum has been chosen by the establishment as the favored sons and daughters of the restructured centralized U.S. However, before those of you on the Left get too comfortable in your new position as the hand of globalization, I would like to appeal to you for a moment of unbiased consideration. I know from personal experience that there are Democrats out there who are actually far more like we constitutionalists and “right wing extremists” than they may realize. I ask that you take the following points into account, regardless of what the system decides to label us…

We Are Being Divided By False Party Paradigms

Many Democrats and Republicans are not stupid, and want above all else to see the tenets of freedom respected and protected. Unfortunately, they also tend to believe that only their particular political party is the true defender of liberty. The bottom line is, at the top of each party there is very little if any discernible difference between the two.  If you ignore all the rhetoric and only look at action, the Republican and Democratic leadership are essentially the same animal working for the same special interests. There is no left and right; only those who wish to be free, and those who wish to control.

Last year, the “Left and the “Right” experienced an incredible moment of unity after the introduction of the NDAA. People on both sides were able to see the terrifying implications of a law that allows the government to treat any American civilian as an enemy of war without right to trial. In 2013, the establishment is attempting to divide us once again with the issue of gun disarmament. I have already presented my position on gun rights in numerous other articles and I believe my stance is unshakeable. But, what I will ask anti-gun proponents and on-the-fence Democrats is this: How do you think legislation like the NDAA will be enforced in the future? Is it not far easier to threaten Americans with rendition, torture, and assassination when they are completely unarmed? If you oppose the NDAA, you should also oppose any measure which gives teeth to the NDAA, including the debasement of the 2nd Amendment.

Democrats Are Looking For Help In The Wrong Place

Strangely, Democrats very often search for redress within the very system they know is criminal. For some reason, they think that if they bash their heads into the wall long enough, a door will suddenly appear. I’m here to tell you, there is no door. 

The biggest difference between progressives and conservatives is that progressives consistently look to government to solve all the troubles of the world, when government is usually the CAUSE of all the troubles in the world. The most common Democratic argument is that in America the government “is what we make it”, and we can change it anytime we like through the election process. Maybe this was true at one time, but not anymore. Just look at Barack Obama! I would ask all those on the Left to take an honest look at the policies of Obama compared to the policies of most Neo-Cons, especially when it comes to constitutional liberties. Where is the end to Middle Eastern war? Where is the end to domestic spy programs? Where is the end to incessant and dictatorial executive orders? Where is the conflict between the Neo-Cons and the Neo-Liberals? And, before you point at the gun control debate, I suggest you look at Obama’s gun policies compared to Mitt Romney’s and John McCain’s — there is almost no difference whatsoever…

If the two party system becomes a one party system, then elections are meaningless, and electing a new set of corrupt politicians will not help us.

Democrats Value Social Units When They Should Value Individuals Instead

Democrats tend to see everything in terms of groups. Victim status groups, religious groups, racial groups, special interest groups, etc. They want to focus on the health of the whole world as if it is a single entity. It is not. Without individuals, there is no such thing as “groups”, and what we might categorize as groups change and disperse without notice. Groups do not exist beyond shared values, and even then, the individual is still more important in the grand scheme of things. 

As a former Democrat, I know that the obsession with group status makes it easy to fall into the trap of collectivism. It is easy to think that what is best for you must be best for everybody. This Utopian idealism is incredibly fallible. Wanting the best for everyone is a noble sentiment, but using government as a weapon to force your particular vision of the “greater good” on others leads to nothing but disaster. The only safe and reasonable course is to allow individuals to choose for themselves how they will function in society IF they choose to participate at all. Government must be left out of the equation as much as possible. Its primary job should be to safeguard the individual’s right to choose how he will live. You have to get over the fact that there is no such thing as a perfect social order, and even if there was, no government is capable of making it happen for you.   

Democrats Can Become As Power-Mad As Any Neo-Con

I think it is important to point out how quickly most Democratic values went out the door as soon as Barack Obama was placed in the White House. Let’s be clear; you cannot claim to be anti-war, anti-torture, anti-assassination, anti-surveillance, anti-corporate, anti-bank, anti-rendition, etc. while defending the policies of Obama at the same time. This is hypocrisy. 

I have heard some insane arguments from left leaning proponents lately. Some admit that Obama does indeed murder and torture, but “at least he is pushing for universal health care…”. Even if it did work (which it won’t), is Obamacare really worth having a president who is willing to murder children on the other side of the world and black-bag citizens here at home? Do not forget your moral compass just because you think the system is now your personal playground. If you do, you are no better than all the angry bloodcrazed Republicans that bumbled into the Iraq War while blindly following George W. Bush. 

There Is A Difference Between Traditional Conservatives And Neo-Cons

Neo-Cons are not conservative. They are in fact socialist in their methods, and they always expand government spending and power while reducing constitutional protections. The “Liberty Movement”, of which I am proudly a part, is traditional conservative. We believe that government, especially as corrupt as it is today, cannot be trusted to administrate and nursemaid over every individual in our nation. It has proven time after time that it caters only to criminally inclined circles of elites. Therefore, we seek to reduce the size and influence of government so that we can minimize the damage that it is doing. For this, we are called “extremists”. 

Governments are not omnipotent. They are not above criticism, or even punishment. They are merely a collection of individuals who act either with honor or dishonor. In the Liberty Movement, we treat a corrupt government just as we would treat a corrupt individual. We do not worship the image of the state, nor should any Democrat.

Liberty Minded Conservatives Are Not “Terrorists”

There will come a time, very soon I believe, when people like me are officially labeled “terrorists”. Perhaps because we refuse gun registration or confiscation. Perhaps because we develop alternative trade markets outside the system. Maybe because some of us are targeted by federal raids, and we fight back instead of submitting. Maybe because we speak out against the establishment during a time of “declared crisis”, and speech critical of the government is labeled “harmful to the public good”. One way or another, whether you want to believe me now or not, the day is coming. 

Before this occurs, and the mainstream media attacks us viciously as “conspiracy theorists” and traitors, I want the Left to understand that no matter what you may hear about us, our only purpose is to ensure that our natural rights are not violated, our country is not decimated, and our republic is governed with full transparency. We are not the dumb redneck racist hillbilly gun nuts you see in every primetime TV show, and anyone who acts out of personal bias and disdain for their fellow man is not someone we seek to associate with. We fight because we have no other choice. Our conscience demands that we oppose centralized tyranny. We do what we do because the only other option is subservience and slavery.   

Many of the people I have dealt with in the Liberty Movement are the most intelligent, well-informed, principled and dedicated men and women I have ever met. They want, basically, what most of us want:

• to be free to determine their own destinies.
• To be free to speak their minds without threat of state retribution.
• To be free to defend themselves from any enemy that would seek to oppress them.
• To live within an economic environment that is not rigged in favor of elitist minorities and on the verge of engineered collapse.
• To live in a system that respects justice and legitimate law instead of using the law as a sword against the public.
• To wake up each day with solace in the knowledge that while life in many regards will always be a difficult thing, we still have the means to make it better for ourselves and for the next generation.
• To wake up knowing that those inner elements of the human heart which make us most unique and most endearing are no longer considered “aberrant”, and are no longer under threat.

The pain for Boeing never stops. Just out from Reuters:

• U.S. FAA says requiring airlines to temporarily stop flying Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. #BREAKING
• FAA: Battery failures on Boeing 787s could damage critical systems and structures, spark fire, if not corrected
• FAA: Will work with Boeing, airlines to develop corrective action plan to resume 787 operations as “quickly and safely as possible”
• FAA: Decision to ground Boeing 787s prompted by second incident involving lithium ion battery failure
• FAA: Will also examine Boeing 787 batteries as part of comprehensive review announced last week

So, will Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (i.e., the US government) perhaps reassess his conclusion from last week that the Dreamliner is “Dreamliner?

Some have argued that the market is dead. They may be right, as the following sequence of S&P 500 closes from the past 5 days:

1472, 1472, 1471, 1472, 1473

…suggests that V-Fib has set in among the equity indices. Perhaps, as the movie Flatliners noted “Some Lines [like SPX 1470] Shouldn’t Be Crossed.” Meanwhile the 10Y Treasury yield has slipped from 1.90% to 1.82% over the same period.

January 16, 2013  |  

On Wednesday, President Obama said strengthening background checks for gun buyers was one of the key features of his package of gun control reforms, before he signed an executive order telling federal agencies to “clarify that no federal law prevents healthcare providers from warning law enforcement authorities about threats of violence.”
 
And on Tuesday, the fine print of New York’s new gun-control law–rushed through its legislature and signed that day by Gov. Andrew Cuomo–went even further. New York is now requiring mental health professionals to report any mental illness that could lead to violence to police agencies. The police, in turn, will use that referral to revoke any gun license issued to that person, confiscate any guns they own (but pay them), and possibly order forced hospitalization if that person doesn’t follow a treatment plan.

These steps–from the White House issuing executive orders to try to get more and better information into the FBI’s national background check database for gun buyers, to what New York’s Gov. Cuomo is calling the nation’s “ most comprehensive” gun law–are conveying to Americans that better gun buyer background checks are on the horizon.

But health law and policy experts say both the White House–and to a much greater extent, New York state–are overpromising what can be delivered in the near future to strengthen gun buyer background checks, especially when it comes to including and acting on mental health records and information.

“There’s a lot of technical stuff embedded in these issues,” said Richard J. Bonnie, a public policy professor at University of Virginia’s law school who led his state’s review of its gun laws after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting that left 33 people dead. “My own view is this is worth doing–trying to make the system have the data that the system is designed to have. But trying to make the system as good as it can be is a big challenge. It’s a bigger challenge than people are willing to indicate.”

The public discussion following the Sandy Hook school shooting in December has included calls for more and better background checks for gun buyers.

On the “more” side of this ledger, was Obama’s call for “universal” background checks. In 1986, Congress created a loophole for buying guns privately at gun shows, with no background check by the FBI. Forty percent of all guns are now sold this way. On the “better” side of this equation is submitting more mental health information to federal and state gun licensing databases, which, as Bonnie said, gets complicated.

The federal background check system is hardly all that it can be, for a variety of reasons.

The first reason is states don’t have to participate if they don’t want to. They can decide what mix of court records–from criminal matters to mental health orders–to submit, as a result of a 1997 Supreme Court decision authored by Justice Antonin Scalia. “A recent report by the Government Accountability Office found that there are still 17 states that have made fewer than 10 mental health records available,” the White House said in a report issued Wednesday, highlighting this gap.

“If they don’t want to do it, they can’t be made to do it,” said Bonnie, referring to the Supreme Court ruling about state’s compliance with the 1994 Brady Bill, which created a nationwide system of gun background checks.     

What Congress has done since the 1997 ruling and what the White House proposed on Wednesday, is to offer states new money to create the technical and administrative capacity to collect and submit the background check data. In many states, the lack of political will, incompatible state and county computing systems, and varying mental health systems from county to county are sizeable obstacles, Bonnie said.

Mental Health Privacy Laws

With the market yet another algo-controlled snoozer, programmed to close the S&P just green (as otherwise confidence in central planning may fail), the key things we learned today are as follows:

Obama proposed 23 “gun controling” executive actions, which do little to actually control guns – that part falls to Congress, where the proposal will be promptly killed – but which will add some $4.5 billion to US spending, and which will “push for further action on his health care law, including insisting on the kind of mental health coverage states must provide under their Medicaid programs.”

The breakdown of the spending is as follows, per Weekly Standard:

• $4 billion for the president’s proposal “to help keep 15,000 cops on the streets in cities and towns across the country.” (That is roughly $266,000 per police officer.)
• $20 million to “give states stronger incentives to make [relevant] data available [for background checks] … “$50 million for this purpose in FY2014”
• “$14 million to help train 14,000 more police officers and other public and private personnel to respond to active shooter situations.”
• “$10 million for the Centers for Disease Control to conduct further research, including investigating the relationship between video games, media images, and violence.”
• $20 million to expand the National Violent Death Reporting System.
• $150 million to “put up to 1,000 new school resource officers and school counselors on the job.”

What can one say: politics, fully, theatrically and embarrassingly “endorsed” by the children sitting behind the president.

* * *

But the biggest news of the day comes from the official Buba announcement that, in its official capacity as a prudent central bank, it – as first of many – is looking to repatriate some 300 tons of gold from the New York Fed. That, however, is not today’s news – that was Monday’s news.

What is news is that courtesy of the supplied calendar of events in the Buba statement, it will take the Fed some seven years to procure Germany’s 300 tons of gold. This is the same Fed that, in its own words, holds some “216 million troy ounces of gold” or some 6720 tons, in its vault 80 feet below ground level.

Putting the above in perspective, the amount of gold that Germany will have to wait 7 years for is shown in red. The amount of gold the Fed supposedly holds, is shown in yellow with a shade of tungsten. Why it will take the Fed 7 years to part with an amount of gold that is less than 5% of its total holdings is anyone’s guess…

unless of course, the bulk of the gold in the column on the right has been rehypothecated numerous times to serve as collateral for countless counterparties, and it is no longer clear just who own what to anyone.

* * *

We can only wonder how many centuries it will take the New York Fed to deliver all the gold held by third parties in its vault, once the demand notices start rushing in…

For all those curious how the Fed itself describes the gold vault and its contents, can read more in the pamphet below:

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A helicopter has crashed into a crane in Vauxhall, south London, hitting two cars as it plummeted into the ground.

The crash involved an unknown number of people, London Fire Service said.

Sky sources said one person was aboard the aircraft, which is believed to be an Augusta 109.

The helicopter appeared to have hit a crane on top of a building, Scotland Yard said.

Flames and a huge column of black smoke could be seen at the crash site just off South Lambeth Road near the River Thames.

Witnesses said at least some 22 fire engines were at the scene, as well as police and ambulances.

A spokesman for London Fire Brigade was unable to give details but said: “We are taking lots of emergency calls at the moment.”

A Met police spokesman said: “We had a call at approximately 8am this morning and we are dealing with an incident.”

The accident happened close to a railway line and train services were briefly suspended.

More follows…

At least eight foreigners, including an Irishman, have been kidnapped from a gas facility part-operated by BP in Algeria.

The Foreign Office confirmed a “terrorist” incident was ongoing soon after BP said it had reported a “security incident” to the UK authorities.

But the company was yet to confirm a link to reports that Islamist militants, said to be linked to al Qaeda, had seized a number of people in an attack that had a possible revenge motive for French military action in Mali .

A French citizen was killed, according to the AP news agency, which quoted an Algerian security official.

He suggested the attack on the base, about 60 miles from the Libyan border, came at 2am and the militants involved came from Mali.

The official claimed that the Algerian army had since surrounded the militants and their hostages and negotiations had started.

In its statement BP said: “We can confirm that there has been a security incident this morning at the In Amenas gas field in the eastern central region of Algeria.

“The In Amenas field is operated by a joint venture of which BP is a member. Algerian authorities are engaged with the incident; UK authorities have also been advised.

“BP has activated its emergency response system and is setting up a helpline for relatives.”

The company did not say whether foreigners were taken away from the facility.

The Foreign Office said: “The British embassy in Algiers is aware of the incident and is liaising with local authorities.

“We are aware that British nationals are working in the area. We cannot confirm at this stage whether any are involved in the incident. We are urgently seeking clarification from oil companies working in the area.”

Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DPA) confirmed a 36-year-old married man from Northern Ireland, travelling on an Irish passport, was among those taken.

It is understood that Japanese, Norwegian and French nationals were also part of the group.

Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore called for the Irishman’s immediate release.

He said: “The Government stands ready to use all the resources available to us to ensure that our citizen is released as soon as possible.

“I would ask that the family be allowed privacy at this difficult time.”

The country’s DPA added it was providing consular assistance to the family and was in close contact with its international partners and a wide range of other contacts in order to establish the facts of the situation.

A spokesman said: “At this stage, the identity and motives of the kidnappers is unknown.”

More follows…

Vince Cable has sided with Labour leader Ed Miliband in warning David Cameron that any pledge to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership on the EU would damage the British economy – and deepened the coalition split on the issue.

In a speech to business leaders on Thursday, the Lib Dem business secretary will say it is a “terrible time” to have the “diversion and uncertainty” which build up to a referendum would entail.

“Uncertainty is the enemy of investment. At a time of extreme fragility in business confidence such uncertainty would add to the sense of unresolved crisis and weaken Britain’s ability to deliver more reform inside the EU,” he will say.

“Any reopening the whole question of British membership creates additional uncertainty at a time when there is already fragile economic confidence in the wake of the financial crisis.”

He will add: “I have never met or heard of a business that exports widely, within or beyond Europe, that thinks it would be better to be doing this from outside the EU.”

Cable’s intervention signals a ratcheting up up of the Lib Dem attack on Cameron’s increasingly eurosceptic position, although The Huffington Post UK understands that the Lib Dems have no plans to make a formal, Leveson-style, response to the prime minister’s speech on Friday.

“We want to give the Tories enough rope to hang themselves with,” a senior Lib Dem official told HuffPostUK.

On Monday, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said that talk of a referendum would have a “chilling effect” on jobs and growth.

“We should be very careful, at a time when the British economy is still haltingly recovering from the worst economic shock for a generation, to create a very high and prolonged period of uncertainty,” the deputy prime minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Cable’s comments come the day before David Cameron’s much-anticipated speech on Britain’s future relationship with the EU, although HuffPost UK understands that the business secretary’s speech was in the diary long before the date of the prime minister’s address was known.

Cameron is expected to use his speech in the Netherlands on Friday to commit the Conservative Party to a holding a referendum on Britain’s ‘renegotiated’ relationship with the EU – if, that is, the Tories wins the next election outright.

Ed Miliband launched a similar attack to Cable’s on Cameron during prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.

“At a time when one million young people are out of work and businesses are going to the wall, what is the Prime Minister doing? He has spent six months preparing a speech to create five years of uncertainty for Britain,” he said.

Taking aim at eurosceptic Tory backbenchers, Cable will use his speech on Thursday evening to say that it will be “next to impossible” to safeguard the UK national interest in the Single Market if London tries to disengage from its existing commitments.

“The eurosceptic calculation is that British permission is necessary for closer integration- via treaty change- and that this permission can be traded for the negotiating objectives. That seems to me a dangerous gamble to make,” he will say.

“There are many in Europe, notably in France, who would be happy to see the back of the UK (whatever that may mean in practice) and even the UK’s allies on market reform (notably Germany) have limited political capital to spend getting a more favourable arrangement for the UK.”

Cable’s view that Tory eurosceptics are risking with Britain’s position inside the Single Market mirrors comments made by veteran europhile and Conservative minister Kenneth Clarke, who told the Financial Times yesterday that any referendum would be a “gamble” that could lead to the UK leaving the union.

On Thursday evening shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander will also deliver a speech on Britain and the EU, outlining Labour’s European vision, rejecting a referendum and slamming Cameron’s eurosceptic position.

“For many in his Party, getting David Cameron to commit now to an in/out referendum is not about securing consent. It is about securing exit,” he will say.

“The gap between the minimum the Tories will demand and the maximum our European partners can accept remains unbridgeable.

In words that are almost identical to Cable’s, Alexander will say committing to a referendum “risks up to seven years of economic uncertainty which could deter potential investors and undermine the prospects for recovery”.

Soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad travel in a Syrian Army tank in al-Arqoub neighbourhood, after clashes between Free Syrian Army fighters and regime forces in Aleppo city September 23, 2012. (Reuters/George Ourfalian)

A classified State Department cable relayed US officials’ beliefs that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against opposition rebels but an investigation on Monday concluded that Assad was in fact using riot-control gas.

Foreign Policy’s “The Cable” reported Tuesday that a secret diplomatic cable provided information that Assad’s military had used chemical weapons in an attack that left five dead and injured about 100 in the city of Homs.

“We can’t definitely say 100 percent, but Syrian contacts made a compelling case that Agent 15 was used in Homs,” a White House official told Foreign Policy Magazine under condition of anonymity. Agent 15, also known as 3-Quinuclidinyl Benzilate (BZ), is an incapacitating chemical that causes hallucinations and confusion and can sometimes be lethal.

The cable had been signed and classified as “secret” by US consul general in Istanbul, Scott Frederic Kilner. It included interviews with activists, doctors and defectors who all believed the Assad regime had used chemical weapons in an attack against the rebels, which means he would have crossed the “red line” US President Barack Obama spoke about last August. Crossing this line would have evoked the possibility of direct US intervention in the Syrian conflict.

Foreign Policy claimed the report ‘confirmed’ US officials’ worst fears: that chemical weapons were being used in Syria and that Assad was ‘testing US red lines.’

But the results of a State Department investigation show that the material used by the Assad regime was a “riot control agent” which was designed not to have any lasting effects but was more dangerous than officials estimated, since it was released in dense areas.

“It is meant to be short term,” a State Department official told CNN. “But just like with tear gas, if you breathe in an entire canister, that can have a severe effect on your lungs and other organs.”

Dr. Abu al Fida, who treated about 30 of the gas victims, told CNN that proximity to the substance played a significant role in the severity of the symptoms. Victims who were closest to the riot gas suffered paralyses, seizures, muscle spasms and in some cases blindness — symptoms that could have also resulted from exposure to chemical weapons.

Some of the victims were effectively treated with a medication normally used to treat people exposed to the chemical weapon sarin.

The results of the new investigation may bring comfort to Americans worried about a US intervention in Syria, since riot gas does not classify as a chemical weapon and its use, however deadly, would therefore not be crossing the ‘red line’.

“The president was very clear when he said that if the Assad regime makes the tragic mistake of using chemical weapons, or fails to meet its obligation to secure them, the regime will be held accountable,” National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor told CNN.

Most Britons will be able to pay for items using their mobile phone next year.

Banks and financial institutions representing 90% of current accounts have agreed to launch the UK’s first industry-wide mobile payment service in spring 2014.

Using a process similar to texting, people will be able to sign up to send and receive payments using their own number.

It will be done without the need to disclose their bank account details.

The Payments Council , the industry body that is leading the project, said using mobiles to buy goods and services, as well as send money to friends and family, would become a mainstream option due to the popularity of the plan among banks.

Eight financial institutions have already committed themselves to offering the service, and discussions are under way for others to join.

The council pointed out that while there are existing ways to pay using a mobile, the project is the first to have the potential to link every bank account in the country with a mobile number.

Chief executive Adrian Kamellard said: “This new service will offer a simple, secure way to split a bill for dinner, receive money from a friend or pay a tradesman without needing to remember or share account details.”

Before the service launches, the financial institutions involved will invite customers to register via their online banking service, mobile app or other approved method.

The Payments Council said more details about the industry-wide registration process and the precise launch date would be announced later.

More than 5,000 consumers took part in Payments Council research, which revealed the service is likely to prove most popular with smartphone users, who accounted for 67% of those surveyed.

One in three smartphone users said they were either “definitely” or “extremely likely” to sign up to the new service when it launches.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, flanked by children who wrote Obama letters about gun violence in the weeks following the Newtown shooting, at a news conference, signing 23 executive actions on gun control, at the White House, in Washington, Jan. 16, 2013. Obama on Wednesday unveiled plans to introduce legislation by next week that includes a ban on assault weapons, limits on high-capacity magazines and other steps. (Photo: Stephen Crowley / The New York Times)

Flanked by four schoolchildren, President Obama unveiled a sweeping plan to address gun violence on Wednesday which includes 23 executive orders, closing background check loopholes and asking Congress to restore a ban on military-style assault weapons.

Under the president’s plan, the ban on assault weapons would include magazines that hold more than ten rounds, which were used by the shooters in recent high-profile mass shootings, including the shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, and a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

“In the month since 20 precious children and six brave adults were violently taken from us at Sandy Hook Elementary, more than 900 of our fellow Americans have reportedly died at the end of a gun – 900 in the past month,”Obama said in an address. “And every day we wait, that number will keep growing.”

A ban on assault weapons was in place from 1994 until 2004, but Obama admitted that it would not be easy to convince Congress to reinstate the ban. The president’s plan is the biggest push for gun control Washington has seen is decades and is expected to meet considerable backlash from the powerful gun lobby and its allies in Congress.

“There will be pundits and politicians and special interest lobbyists publicly warning of a tyrannical, all-out assault on liberty – not because that’s true, but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves,” Obama said. “And behind the scenes, they’ll do everything they can to block any commonsense reform and make sure nothing changes whatsoever.”

The president will also push Congress to pass legislation to close the “gun show loophole”and require criminal background checks for all gun sales, including those made by private sellers who are currently exempt from background check requirements.

The plan also includes a comprehensive strategy to make schools safer which includes incentives for schools to hire “school resource officers”and mental health professionals. The president also wants to “end the freeze on gun violence research” and allow the Centers for Disease Control to conduct research on the cause and prevention of gun violence, including links with video games and the media.

Congress has barred such research in the past, according to the White House.

The White House also released memorandums today requiring executive agencies to improve the availability of federal records to the national criminal background check system, engage in public research on the cause and prevention of gun violence, and ensure that all firearms confiscated during federal investigations are traced through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

The 23 executive orders signed by President Obama today do not appear to have an impact on current individual gun owners. Here’s a list:

1. Issue a presidential memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

4. Direct the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

8. Conduct a review by the Consumer Product Safety Commission of safety standards for gun locks and gun safes.

9. Issue a presidential memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

10. Release a Department of Justice report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.

11. Nominate an ATF director.

12. Provide law enforcement, first responders and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.

13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

14. Issue a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

15. Direct the attorney general to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.

16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.

18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.

20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretary of Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on mental health.

A food company at the centre of a scandal over horse meat in beef burgers has vowed to adopt strict DNA testing of its products to prevent a repeat.

The ABP Food Group, one of Europe’s biggest suppliers and processors, is being investigated by health and agriculture authorities in the UK and Ireland over the controversy.

Two of its subsidiaries, Silvercrest Foods in Ireland and Dalepak Hambleton in Yorkshire, supplied beef burgers with traces of equine DNA to supermarkets, including one product classed as 29% horse.

An ABP spokesman said.”It is vital that the integrity of the supply chain is assured and we are committed to restoring consumer confidence.”

A third company, Liffey meats, based in Co Cavan, Ireland, was also found to be supplying products to supermarkets with traces of horse DNA.

Suppliers in the Netherlands and Spain have been identified as the possible sources for incorrectly labelled ingredients after the scandal was uncovered through DNA testing of samples by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI).

The results, verified in laboratories in Germany, showed low levels of horse in beef products sold in Tesco, Lidl, Aldi, Iceland and Dunnes Stores in Ireland. Some burgers were also being sold in the UK but retailers insisted all suspect brands had been taken off the shelves within hours of the findings being released on Tuesday evening.

Prime Minister David Cameron said supermarkets had to take responsibility for what he said was an extremely disturbing case. He added: “This is a completely unacceptable state of affairs. It is worth making the point that, ultimately, retailers have to be responsible for what they sell and where it has come from.”

The FSAI analysed 27 beefburger products with best before dates from last June to March 2014 with 10 of the 27 products – 37% – testing positive for horse DNA and 85% testing positive for pig DNA.

Simon Coveney, Ireland’s Agriculture and Food Minister, said the issue should not be seen in the same light as BSE or a dioxin scare in Irish pork meat from four years ago. He added: “There’s no health issue here. But I’m not comfortable eating horse meat like lots of others. But that’s not the issue. The issue is if someone has consumed a burger and something was in that burger that they did not know about. There’s no health risk with that.”

Call it “X Date”, call it “D(elinquent/efault)-Day“, call it what you will: it is simply the day past which the US government will no longer be able to rely on “extraordinary measures” to delay the day of reckoning, and will be unable to pay all its bills without recourse to additional debt. It is not the day when the US defaults, at least not defaults on its debt. It will begin “defaulting” on various financial obligations, such as not paying due bills on time and in full, but since this is something Europe’s periphery has been doing for years, it is hardly catastrophic. 

As a reminder, the technical definition of default is being unable to pay the interest or maturity on one’s debt – for the US this is not an issue (at least not for the near term), as the revenues brought in by taxes more than cover cash interest requirements. It is, however, the day past which the US government will slowly but surely have to begin shutting down non-vital services and cut spending for non-core services, as it is forced to begin prioritizing who gets what from the remaining money. In short: it the day when America has no choice but to live within its means (no wonder the crank spending to infinity “Magic Money Tree” brigade – the same that has no idea that IRR on government “investments” is always below zero, is screaming bloody murder).

And while we have done the full analysis some 18 months ago when the US found itself in the exact same place, it is time for a refresh of precisely what the next steps are if, some time after the second half of February, there is still no debt ceiling resolution, and the “catastrophic outcome” (in the words of Tim Geithner) becomes reality.

First, as everyone knows, the US hit its debt ceiling on December 31, and has since been utilizing some $200 billion in Extraordinary Measure to stave off X Date. The exact same thing happened on May 15, 2011, when for three and a half months, until August 2, the government used the same delay tactic. Alas, this time around there is only 1 – 1.5 months in “extraordinary” dry powder time, because, as the Bipartisan Policy Center politely puts it, “February is a “bad” month for the federal government’s finances” and “Fewer measures available” (one does wonder just what month is “good” for federal finances when the US government is burning over $1 trillion a year but that’s a different story).

The $200 billion in “Extraordinary Measures” are summarized as follows:

In other words, the government will basically defund yet more retirees in exchange for another IOU. And how long will this strategy go for? Not too long. As the chart below shows, the drama will end some time between February 15 and March 1, depending on inflows, and the calendarization of expenditures:

Once the $201 billion, consisting primarily of plundering the government retirement G-fund, runs out, the Treasury has two options:

• Remaining cash on hand (including any leftover funds from the emergency $201 b)
• Daily cash inflows (federal revenues received each day)

Since there will be virtually no cash on hand, absent some much more drastic measures, such as selling the Treasury’s gold, Jack Lew will have to make do with spending what he makes: i.e., tax revenues.

And here comes the rub, because should we get to T+1, we will be in history territory, as “There is no precedent; all other debt limit impasses have been resolved without reaching the X Date. Treasury has never failed during a debt limit impasse to meet a payment obligation.” No precedent? Kinda like the Fed injecting $3 trillion into the stock market…

None other than the Chairsatan has chimed in: “[Going past the X Date] would no doubt have a very adverse effect very quickly on the recovery. I’m quite certain of that.”

So what will happen, assuming the world does not end? Simple: prioritization. To wit:

If we reach the X Date, Treasury might either prioritize payments or make full days’ worth of payments once they receive sufficient revenues to cover all of a day’s obligations.

• Interest on the federal debt would likely be prioritized in either scenario.

Scenario # 1: Pay some bills, but not others

• Treasury might attempt to prioritize some types of payments over others. Prioritized payments would be made on time, others would not.
• Uncertain legality (no precedent)
• Unclear if it is feasible, given the design of Treasury’s computer systems

Scenario # 2: Make all of each day’s payments together once enough cash is available

• Treasury might wait until enough revenue is deposited to cover an entire day’s payments, and then make all of those payments at once.
  • (For example, upon reaching the X date, it might take two days of revenue collections to raise enough cash to make all of the payments due on day one. Thus, the first day’s payments would be made one day late. This, of course, would delay the second day’s payments to a later day.)

The issue, under scenario 1, is that the Treasury would have to choose and sort between 100 million monthly payments, and that roughly 40% of the funds owed for the month would go unpaid. As the chart below shows, of the 20 business days between February 15 and March 15 2013, there is a $175 billion deficit, 40% of the total outflows of $452 billion.

Specifically, the Yes/No option means that should the government pay these bills:

It won’t be able to pay these bills:

For those who enjoy micromanagement, here is the two week daily cash flow forecast from February 15 to March 1, showing inflows and, mostly, outflows, in the period under discussion. Keep in mind that should the debt ceiling not be resolved in this 15 day period, the same cash flow analysis, usually done by bankruptcy consultants at the corporate level, will have to be extended on a month to month basis:

Yet the reality that while manageable, payments will quickly become problematic, especially for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, military, etc, as group after group scrambles to demand priority in order of payment.

In effect, the US will become one ongoing bankruptcy assignment, where the various impaired unsecured creditors will demand a right of superpriority. It is unclear which bankruptcy court they can voice their objections to, however.

* * *

But perhaps the biggest threat for the US when it crosses the X Date is not so much the debt interest, nor the prioritization of payments, but the roll over risk of some $500 billion in debt maturing between February 15 and March 15! That’s right – recall that when it comes to the US debt, it is the ever greater frontloading of short-term maturities that amplify the interest rate risk facing the country. And while interest rates are likely to explode across the curve, what is virtually assured is that the rolling of the half trillion in debt will become impossible due to lack of funding, and the inability to find buyers of matched short-term debt to roll the retiring paper, in an environment in which suddenly it is unclear if even 4 week Bills will be money good. And for all those predicting a failed Treasury auction, this will be your time to shine, as it is unclear if even full direct and outright monetization of ultra short term debt by the Fed will be enough to get piggyback buyers on paper whose rate of return is so low as to not justify the risk of exposure to a real deal maturity non-payment default.

What else will happen? the BPS has some other ideas:

Additional borrowing costs for the federal government from delay in increasing the debt limit

• Additional rating agency downgrades are possible
• S&P downgraded last summer and reaction was not severe
• But there is uncertainty about effects of another downgrade since many funds are prohibited from holding non-AAA securities

Market risks beyond the X Date:

• Treasury market, interest rates
• Potential for serious equity market reaction (401(k)s, IRAs, other pensions)
• Our economy
• The global financial system

No guarantee of the outcome; risks are risks

In other words: while it is not the end of the world, what would happen on Day 1 (2, 3, etc) is the sudden realization that the game is, indeed, over, and that little by little everyone’s head will have to be pulled out of the ponzi sand.

* * *
Finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, because realistically Congress will come to a compromise, even if it means 2-3 days of payment defaults, even if it means the early onset of the sequester, which together with the payroll tax cut expiration, would mean recession for the US as explained previously, is the final chart in the BPC presentation, which shows just how much the US debt ceiling will have to be increased by to get the country through the end of 2013 and 2014. The answer? See below:

That’s right: we are looking at 2 more years of $1 trillion+ deficits, which means by January 1, 2015, there will have been 6 years in a row of $1 trillion deficits.

Sadly, “Banana republic” does not even come close to doing this country justice.

Source: Bipartisan Policy Center

In today’s On the News segment: In New York City, more than 8,000 school bus drivers walked off the job in strike on Tuesday; a school shooting in eastern Kentucky claimed the lives of two people; Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal wants to get rid of personal income and corporate taxes – and replace them with a higher sales tax in his state; and more.

TRANSCRIPT:

Thom Hartmann here — on the news…

You need to know this. Working people are again on strike. In New York City on Tuesday, more than 8,000 school bus drivers walked off the job. It’s the first time school bus drivers have gone on strike in New York City in 33 years — and it’s the largest bus drivers’ union in the nation. The union claims bus drivers’ jobs are in danger as the city puts their contract up for bid in an effort to reduce costs. On average, the drivers make $35,000 a year — with starting pay at $14 an hour — barely enough to get by, especially in New York City. These school bus drivers in New York City are facing the same problem as police officers in Camden and sanitation workers in Detroit. This is made worse by their cities teetering on the edge of bankruptcy since Wall Street crashed our economy — and the Bush Housing Bubble loaded everyone with debt. Now, looking to get their balance sheets in order, cities are cutting public services and selling our commons off to private corporations that don’t like unions and don’t give a damn about paying their workers a living wage. Luckily, as we’ve seen over the last few years in Wisconsin, Ohio, at Walmarts across the nation, at fast food joints in New York City, and at shipping ports on the east and west coasts — American people are saying enough is enough, and are going on strike. And as we know, progressive change in America has always moved forward by the efforts of organized working people.

In screwed news…return of the reverse Robin Hoods! Louisiana Republican Governor — and potential 2016 presidential candidate — Bobby Jindal is pushing tax reform in his state. And, as you’d expect — it’s the sort of tax reform that gives the super-rich a hefty break — while raising taxes on the poor. Jindal wants to get rid of personal income and corporate taxes — and replace them with a higher sales tax. According to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, this plan will raise taxes on the poorest 80% of Louisianans, while cutting taxes for the top 1%. To break it down, Jindal wants to hit the poorest 20% of taxpayers in his state with $395 a year in new taxes. The middle 20% would be hit by $534 in new taxes. But the richest 1% would get a not-too-shabby tax cut of more than $25,000. This is trickle-down economics on steroids. And it demonstrates what billionaire Leona Helmsley once said, “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.”

In the best of the rest of the news…

Another school shooting claimed the lives of two people on Tuesday. This time it was at a community college in eastern Kentucky. A gunman opened fire into a vehicle on campus — killing a man and a woman and injuring a third. The gunman was not caught. This latest school shooting paves the way for President Obama today to unveil his proposals for gun control. Reports indicate the President will call for a new assault weapons ban — including a ban on high capacity ammo clips — as well as universal background checks for all gun purchases. On those measures, the President will need to get Congress on board, too. However, he is expected to announce more than a dozen executive actions he can legally take on his own to stem gun violence across America. The President is putting forward a bold proposal to at least slow this scourge of violence on our society — and he’s about to meet maximum resistance in Congress from Republicans and some Democrats who are in the pocket of the gun industry. It’s up to us to get active and convince the President that this is a fight worth having.

26-year-old Internet activist Aaron Swartz was laid to rest on Tuesday just outside of Chicago after taking his own life over the weekend. At the funeral, Swartz’s father told mourners that his son was “killed by the government.” Swartz, who was caught tapping into the MIT network and downloading millions of online academic journals, was facing as many as 30 years in prison and a million dollar fine as a result of an overzealous Department of Justice. Under this pressure, and amid a long battle with depression, Swartz killed himself. On Tuesday, Republican Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee Darrell Issa said he will investigate the DOJ’s handling of Swartz. Speaking to reporters, Issa talked about the extreme sentence and then said Swartz was, “certainly someone who worked very hard…Had he been a journalist and taken that same material that he gained from MIT, he would have been praised for it.” Congressman Issa has wasted taxpayer dollars and derailed President Obama’s agenda with witch hunt investigations into Fast and Furious and Benghazi. But he’s finally doing what he should be doing — and that’s looking into the Department of Justice’s extreme actions toward peaceful activists. As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

More than ten years ago, President George W. Bush launched a campaign to bring democracy to the entire world with bombs and guns. A decade later, we know the results of Bush’s crusade — it was a failure. According to an annual report by Freedom House — democracy is on the decline around the world. Although there are three more nations enjoying full freedom than were in 2011, according to the report, 27 other nations have actually clamped down on their populations tighter — restricting speech and the media. Currently, about 3 billion people around the world enjoy full freedom living in a democracy. Another 1.6 billion enjoy partial freedoms, and 2.3 billion live in nations deemed not free. Reacting to this news, the report calls for a “critical need for leadership from the United States and other democracies.” That doesn’t mean forcing democracy through violence — it means strengthening our own democracy at home to inspire other people around the planet. As my friend Dick Gregory once told me, if democracy is so good, we don’t need to force it on anyone — they will steal it for themselves. And all we need to do is be there to help when they do.

And that’s the way it is today — Wednesday, January 16, 2013. I’m Thom Hartmann — on the news.

Work to restore the flow of oil through a major UK pipeline system in the North Sea has begun.

The oil company TAQA announced that it has started the process which will see production levels of crude oil reach 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) through the Brent pipeline after it was shut down on Monday.

The pipeline system was stopped and 92 men airlifted from the Cormorant Alpha platform 94 miles from Shetland after a release of hydrocarbons was detected in one leg of the platform.

A statement from the Abu Dhabi based company explains the rig pipeline with the leak is separate to the Brent system.

“Investigations have found there is no connection between the Brent pipeline system and the pipeline involved in the release. The process of restarting Brent throughput follows a thorough technical evaluation that shows it is safe to do so without any increased risk to Cormorant Alpha,” the company said.

Hydrocarbon levels inside the platform leg have been monitored since the discovery on Monday and measurements show the volume released is small, the oil firm said. None have been released into the environment, it said.

An investigation into the source of the hydrocarbons is continuing. “Work is under way to mitigate the release of hydrocarbons, and preparations are being made to stop it and effect repairs,” the company said.

Sir Robert Smith, Liberal Democrat MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, previously said: “This is another reminder of the importance of maintaining our mature assets in the North Sea, especially the key hubs and pipelines that are so crucial to UK production.

“If the UK is to retain its high safety and environmental protection standards and if it is to maximise production in the North Sea, it is vital that it continues to attract investment in its ageing infrastructure.”

Oil transported through the Brent pipeline is said to represent between 5% and 6% of the UK’s North Sea oil and gas production. Of the 90,000 barrels (bpd) normally handled a day by the Cormorant Alpha, 42,600 are produced by Abu Dhabi energy company TAQA, which took over the platform in 2009.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: One month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, we turn now to a growing debate over what types of security measures should be taken in schools to prevent future tragedies. The NRA has just launched a new campaign called “Stand Up and Fight” as part of its push to place armed officers in every school. The NRA issued this new ad criticizing President Obama on Tuesday.

NRA AD: Are the president’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security–protection for their kids, and gun-free zones for ours.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre first made the call for armed guards in U.S. schools last month during a press conference.

WAYNE LAPIERRE: The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation, and to do it now, to make sure that blanket safety is in place when our kids return to school in January.

AMY GOODMAN: The call for armed guards is gaining momentum. On Monday, the superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools proposed forming the school system’s own police force.

For more, we turn now to a debate between two guests. In Boston, Sean Burke is with us, president of the School Safety Advocacy Council. He was formerly director of public safety for the Lawrence Public School’s Police/Safety Department, where he coordinated all safety efforts, including the creation of the school’s crisis plan, which now serves as a model throughout the country. His organization does not support the NRA call for armed volunteers, but it does support more efforts to place more police officers in schools.

And here in New York, Damon Hewitt is with us, director of the Education Practice Group at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In 2002, he launched the group’s Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline Initiative, which challenges racial disparities that criminalize students and push them out of schools. The Legal Defense Fund is one of the groups that submitted recommendations to Vice President Biden’s task force on guns.

Before we talk about the issue of guns in schools, I wanted to get your response, Damon Hewitt, to the ad that the NRA has just put out targeting President Obama’s daughters.

DAMON HEWITT: Thanks for having me, Amy.

You know, I think that ad is a perfect example of how the public debate is so polarized and so driven by a culture of fear instead of a culture of solutions. We really have to move beyond rhetoric and beyond fear and really start to talk about how do we meaningfully keep schools safe, how do we develop not just school environments, but also environments in our communities where we won’t have these kinds of fears, where we won’t be afraid of mass shootings and all of these assault weapons, which are just so rampant in this country today.

AMY GOODMAN: Sean Burke, would you like to respond to the ad that says, “Are the president’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards?” Do you think this is appropriate?

SEAN BURKE: Good morning, Amy.

And I also don’t like anything that–that is bent out of fear. I don’t think that fear is going to be good for school safety. I don’t think fear is good for the United States. And I don’t think it’s going to produce anything that’s going to be positive in the way of changes in school safety. So, I don’t think it’s an appropriate ad to be running in the United States, no.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sean Burke, can you elaborate your responses to the Newtown shooting and what you think ought to be done to increase safety in schools?

SEAN BURKE: Well, first of all, we promote reasonableness. I don’t think there is–there is call to go off on wild tangents or go out of the norm with a lot of ideas that are coming up nowadays. I think that we should be going back and putting an emphasis on things that we were doing, somewhat limited, before the shooting, but take advantage of this now, this public outcry that things have to be done in school.

I think that, ultimately, the only good thing the NRA does say is that there should be a police officer in every school, a well-trained police officer in every school. But we know that’s not a reasonable request in today’s budgetary area. So, what we proposed is a program called LEEP, Law Enforcement Enhancement Procedures, where patrol officers, while they’re doing their routine duties, or officers that are reserves promoting other duties, would stop by schools, have satellite offices in schools, get to know the administration, get to know the children that attend there, forge relationships. And, by that, it will be a deterrent for violence in the school. It will serve as police officers becoming more knowledgeable of the layout in case there is an emergency, and really promote safer schools by just that regular visiting on your daily patrol.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Damon Hewitt, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund co-authored a report called “Police in Schools Are Not the Answer to the Newtown Shooting.” So can you respond to what Sean Burke said and what your report recommends?

DAMON HEWITT: Sure. Well, we think–we think we have to learn from the past, and not-so-distant past, in particular the tragedy at Columbine High School and the reactions thereto. We know that in–with the best of intentions, police officers were placed in many schools throughout Colorado, throughout the United States. We also know that in Denver public schools, for example, in the five years after the Columbine tragedy, we saw a 71 percent increase in referrals of students to law enforcement by schools, and the vast majority, over 90 percent of those referrals, were not for anything that was remotely dangerous at all.

What we started to see was that the line between matters of school safety and matters of school discipline have become completely blurred. In essence, throughout the country now, school resource officers, some of which are paid for at times by federal dollars, are actually becoming–or functioning, rather, as the disciplinary arm of schools. They’re actually enforcing discipline codes and criminalizing students for behavior that most of us wouldn’t consider criminal, things like using profanity, running in the classroom, talking back to teachers–behavior that should be disciplined, and students shouldn’t do those things, but they certainly shouldn’t get a citation, summons or arrest for those kinds of activities.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of police officers–the idea that Sean Burke is putting forward, of police officers casually being in the schools so they can get to know them more easily, but in so doing, they’re in the schools?

DAMON HEWITT: Well, what we understand is this: You know, the call for a police officer in every school, in some communities that may give the appearance of safety, but it’s just that, the appearance. What we know is that this won’t keep us safer. There was a guard on duty at Columbine High School when that tragedy happened. At Virginia Tech, where Colin Goddard–when that tragedy happened, we know that there was an entire police force. So this isn’t going to keep us safe. What actually keeps us safe is the root cause solutions that the administration is working on. And also what keeps us safe is having a safe, functioning, healthy school environment, where children aren’t afraid of police officers, but children actually can engage their school leaders, they can engage their teachers, on matters of instruction or matters of a healthy climate, instead of feeling like their school is being treated like a prison.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sean Burke, can you respond to what Damon Hewitt said and address specifically whether you have any concerns about a large number of police officers in schools playing a role–a disciplinary role, not just a security one?

SEAN BURKE: Well, the first point is that, of course, people are going to feel safer with a police officer in your school. I think any citizen that is doing nothing wrong feels much safer with a police officer nearby. You’re going to have a decreased fear of crime. Once you get to know that officer and develop a relationship with him, you’re going to feel comfortable with him. So I think the notion or any idea put forward that you’re not going to feel safer with a police offer in school, I don’t agree with that at all.

Secondly, to address the issue of the Columbine shooting, there was an SRO on duty, and the SRO exchanged fire with the gunmen before they entered the school, delaying their entrance into the school, thus cutting back–

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sorry, Sean Burke, can you explain what an SRO is?

SEAN BURKE: A school resource officer is a certified police officer, and they’re usually from a sheriff’s department or a police department. And they work cooperatively with the education, with the school district, and they work full time in the school. They’re part of the administration team. They are highly trained to deal with issues such as special education, emergency response, even providing educational classes to schools.

So, what you have is a school resource officer, better known as an SRO, for short, he was working at Columbine. And as I said, he exchanged fire with the gunmen on the outside. Now, the failure at Columbine was the response after that. The SRO did his job, exchanged fire, delayed the entrance. The problem was the police response after that. Since then, tactics have changed. And now, instead of waiting for the SWAT team to gather and going into a school, now we know that police officers, even alone, are going to risk their lives and go into a school.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me get a response–

SEAN BURKE: So, the idea that–

AMY GOODMAN: Let me get a response from Damon Hewitt on the point that Sean Burke has made that anyone feels safer with a police officer nearby.

DAMON HEWITT: Well, we think that’s absolutely false. I mean, first of all, from a civil rights perspective, for many years, communities of color have actually felt under threat. They don’t have equal protection of the laws. They feel like they’re under assault. Students of color throughout–students of color throughout the country feel the same way in their schools. We know that what may appear to be a safe environment in some communities, in other communities it actually feels like danger.

And the racial disparities in the school-to-prison pipeline actually bear this out. We know that the U.S. Department of Education only recently began collecting data on school-based arrests. And although African-American students only comprise about 18 percent of public school students nationwide, they represent 35 and 42 percent of those students who are referred to law enforcement and arrested by law enforcement on school campuses. And so, unless you believe that African-American youth are somehow, in and of themselves, out on some rampage of crime, which is actually ridiculous, then you have to believe that there’s some type of cultural disconnect between what police are doing in schools, what SROs are doing in schools. And there’s a cultural disconnect, frankly, with your other guest’s statements, which just seem completely out of step with the reality that young people face and communities face throughout the country.

AMY GOODMAN: Sean Burke, your response, that not all people feel safe when a police officer is right there?

SEAN BURKE: Well, I think–I think you can take a reality and change it to fit your political agenda. And I believe that SROs do make schools safe. I believe that when you talk about prison-to pipeline, and you throw out all these stats to really scare, that maybe imply that police are racist, I think that’s a problem. And I think that doesn’t take into account, number one, victims’ rights. You talk about misdemeanors and people being arrested and summons for misdemeanors. Well, assault and battery isn’t a misdemeanor. So, what is a police officer to do if another student is assaulted or a teacher is assaulted? Is he to go to them and say, “I can’t help you because you’re in a school, and I can’t press charges, I can’t protect you”? I agree, there are instances–and we can name instances–where there are acts that may not have been correctly decided as far as actions against younger students and bringing them into the court system, but it’s hard to Monday-morning-quarterback an incident. And it’s also [inaudible]–

AMY GOODMAN: Let me get a quick comment from Damon Hewitt.

DAMON HEWITT: Well, you know, you don’t need to Monday-morning-quarterback when a student is given a criminal citation for cursing on a school campus. That’s absolutely ridiculous.

When we talk about agendas, let’s talk about the agenda of an industry. Look, I’ve worked very closely with law enforcement throughout my career. You know, I actually ran a task force for the former governor of New York regarding police-on-police shootings, where police shot other officers when they mistook them for criminal suspects. And they were black and Latino officers, primarily. So, the police community knows that there’s an issue here.

And it’s actually unfair not just to students, communities and teachers in schools; it’s also unfair to law enforcement, just to simply throw them into schools and say, “Police these school hallways.” You know, you can’t bring that kind of mindset into a school, because you completely alter and disrupt the entire school environment. And what happens is, you don’t make schools safer. All the research shows, from the American Psychological Association, from the American Bar Association, none of the leading experts actually believe that simply placing cops in schools makes them safer.

Now, we can talk about training and have an honest conversation about that. And the current leadership of NASRO, the organization that your guest once headed, does talk somewhat about training. But we also have to just say, first things first, don’t use this strategy–this tragedy, rather, as an excuse, as a reason to advance an agenda to simply propagate and populate schools with more and more police officers. Let’s actually address the root causes.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to go back to the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre. He appeared on Meet the Press last month.

WAYNE LAPIERRE: If it’s crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our school to protect our children, then call me crazy. I’ll tell you what the American people–I think the American people think it’s crazy not to do it. It’s the one thing that would keep people safe. And the NRA is going to try to do that.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Wayne LaPierre of the NRA. Sean Burke, your response to what he had to say?

SEAN BURKE: Well, as I said before, one of the few statements from the NRA that I do suggest–that I do agree with. The bad thing is, we don’t have the money in this country to do it. And the bad part is also that we have these people now that have opinions on what happens in school, strictly by looking at numbers, never look at instances individually, you know, and when you have these people that criticize law enforcement in schools, my question to them: Have you ever worked in a school?

I was an SRO, and SRO commander, and I was there for 15 years. And I have numerous and countless stories of how I’ve helped people. And I know SROs all around the country that work hard every day and that it takes a certain kind of individual. You know, you can’t just have this idea of this macho cop walking in the school halls and arresting people for swearing or for horsing around with their friends. That’s just not the reality. The reality is, incidents happen in schools, police are called for one reason or another by the school administrator, and sometimes action is taken. And that’s the way it is. Schools are safer with cops in there. With a well-trained police officer, they are going to be safer. And it does take a special kind of police officer to work in schools. And I personally have worked in schools, and I know the response from the administrators. I know the response from the kids. I’ve never had a problem getting relationships started with kids. And I think it carries over to the street. I think when you have a good relationship with an SRO, or a school resource officer, I think it carries over to police, in general, where children and students are not afraid to come up and talk to them. If we look at school shootings–

AMY GOODMAN: Sean Burke, a quick question, as we wrap up: Do you also support the assault weapons ban?

SEAN BURKE: I support meaningful gun changes. I think that there has to be some changes in our gun laws in this country, and I think it’s imperative.

AMY GOODMAN: Just very directly, an assault weapons ban and a high-capacity magazine ban that’s being proposed today, that the NRA opposes?

SEAN BURKE: I haven’t seen the full ban, but I really don’t think that anyone needs a 100-round drum. I don’t think anyone needs a machine gun to go hunting. So, if you’re talking about bans on that, I do agree on that.

AMY GOODMAN: And final comment, Damon Hewitt?

DAMON HEWITT: Sure. You know, we have to really think about the perspective that communities have throughout this country, especially communities of color. They are being policed, and they feel under assault. Children, when they leave their homes, as they walk to school or catch a bus to school, when they’re in school and on their way back, it’s like they’re under constant assault. We really have to keep and understand that perspective. The notion that we have an Officer Friendly in every school who smiles and shakes hands, that’s a great aspiration, but it’s actually pollyannaish, and it doesn’t comport with reality. Until we have a bright line between officers’ involvement in matters of school safety, in matters of school discipline, then it will be irresponsible to just ad hoc say, “Let’s bring officers into schools en masse.” Unless we deal with the unintended consequences, we’re actually doing more harm than good.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, and I thank you both for being with us, Damon Hewitt, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Sean Burke, School Safety Advocacy Council, speaking to us from Boston.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we look at the NRA’s links to weapons manufacturers. Stay with us.

As the S&P 500 pulls within a few percentage points of its nominal all-time highs, despite macro-uncertainty and micro-delusion, perhaps (as UBS’ Peter Lee notes) a longer-term perspective is warranted. For over 80 years, the S&P 500 (or its proxy) has cyclically reverted to it its logarithmic trend-line growth. The last time the market pulled away from this bullish up-trend was in 1982 (and the previous period of cyclical reversion took 32 years from 1942 to 1974) and suggests the S&P 500 could well revert to around an 850 level within the next year or so. Perhaps Lee (the anti-thesis of JPM’s Tom Lee) needs to read some Birinyi to really understand how to extrapolate? Still, an 80-plus year trend-line perhaps offers some color.

The 80-Year S&P 500 Log Chart Trendline…

Chart: Bloomberg

Spanish football coach, Josep Guardiola (AFP Photo/Lluis Gene)

One of football’s most wanted coaches, Josep Guardiola, has finally found a new job, signing a deal with German powerhouse, Bayern Munich.

­The sides have struck a three-year deal on Wednesday, with Guardiola to take charge of Bayern this summer — after the end of the 2012/13 season.  

“We are delighted we’ve succeeded in appointing leading coach Pep Guardiola, who has been pursued and contacted by many big-name clubs, for FC Bayern,” Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Bayern chairman, told the club’s official website. “Pep Guardiola is one of the most successful coaches in the world, and we’re certain he will add great flair to both FC Bayern and German football.”

Bayern’s current coach, Jupp Heynckes, will most likely remain at the Munich club after the reshuffle, taking a position in administration.

“We are extremely grateful to Jupp Heynckes for all his work,” Uli Hoeness, Bayern Munich supervisory board chairman, commented. “Following his decision, we would be delighted if the team was to give this coaching great the glorious farewell he deserves. As a worthy successor to Jupp Heynckes, only a coach of Pep Guardiola’s caliber comes into question.”

Guardiola has claimed 13 trophies during his four years at FC Barcelona, including three Spanish La Liga titles and two wins in the Champions League.

The 41-year-old left the Catalan club, which was referred to as the best team in the world during his rule, in April 2012, saying he needed rest.

There have been numerous rumors about the Spaniards new job in the past month, with Chelsea, Manchester City and the Russian national football team all being mentioned as possible options.

While moustachioed managers, contrary to the far better insight of their superiors, and mainstream spivs are trying to talk down Germany’s somewhat stunning shift in thinking – i.e. to repatriate its gold – as nothing but political pandering (or cost-saving); it seems, just as we predicted, the rest of the world are seeing this crack-in-the-confidence-armor the same way we have suggested. As we noted here, the first party to defect from the prisoner’s dilemma of all the bulk of global gold being held by the Fed, defects best (then the second, or even the third perhaps) and sure enough, via RTL, we see the Dutch CDA party has requested that Holland’s gold supply be repatriated. Who next?

The Dutch government says it has 612 tonnes of gold – with a value of around E24 billion – and is thereby in the top 10 of countries with gold reserves. The bulk of the Dutch gold reserves is in America and, to a lesser extent, in Canada and the United Kingdom. The rest, about 10 percent, is in Amsterdam.

Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom (AFP Photo/Michael Bradley)

Mediaworks, a New Zealand media company, has cancelled an ad campaign for Kim Dotcom’s new business Mega, a file-locker service. The enfant terrible of web media still faces extradition to the US for breaking copyright laws.

Mediaworks, a New Zealand based television, radio and interactive media company has said that it has cancelled an advertising campaign for Kim Dotcom’s new business, Mega.

Mega says it will be capable of transferring confidential information securely, which previously has required the installation of dedicated software. .

Mega launches on Sunday January 20th at Kim Dotcom’s Coatesville mansion in New Zealand.

The advertisements were expected to run on Mediaworks’ the Edge radio and other stations from Wednesday.

Dotcom tweeted Wednesday that Mediaworks had pulled the plug on the radio ad campaign, which had been booked prior to Mega’s launch:

Dotcom added that he was “Not blaming Mediaworks. They are a great company with great people. It’s the music labels that are abusing their power, again.”

Dotcom has appealed to other radio stations to play the ad campaign instead.

Media works confirmed they had canceled the ad but didn’t say why.

“When it comes to details of relationships with all our clients, including Mr. Dotcom, we keep those arrangements pretty confidential”, said a Mediaworks spokeswoman. Although she did say that cancelling an ad campaign was a “unique situation” for Mediaworks.

Despite a series of legal victories against prosecutors, Dotcom still faces an extradition hearing next year amid allegations that he should be made to face trial in the US over charges his wealth has been obtained by widespread copyright infringement.

Dotcom and his co-accused, Finn Batata, Mathias Ortman and Bram Van der Kolk, deny the charges.

“If I win my case and Mega becomes a powerful business that creates thousands of jobs, I get involved in startups and contribute to the economy — then I want to be New Zealander of the year,” The German National previously told the Weekend Herald, with regards to his new business Mega.

Satanists plan rally in support of Florida governor

The Satanic Temple is planning a rally outside of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s office to support his bill allowing students to pray at school events.

Senate Bill 98 gives students “sole discretion in determining whether an inspirational message is to be delivered” at a school assembly — including religious prayers. Scott has long advocated for students to be able to pray at school events, but he wasn’t expecting Satanists to jump on the opportunity.

To celebrate the governor’s signing of the bill, Satanists will rally outside of his office on Jan. 25 to show their support for Scott’s decision, as well as to promote their own beliefs.

“You don’t build up your membership unless people know about you,” Satanic Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves told the Palm Beach Post. “So this allows us to get our message out in public. We’re hoping it will reduce the stigmatism.”

Neil Bricke, founder of the Satanic Temple, will travel from his home in New York to Florida to speak at the rally.

“New York is a pretty good place for Satanism. Florida is too,” Greaves told ABC News. Currently, the Satanic Temple is “more or less an online community”, but its members are trying to bring their places of worship to US cities.

“Though we have far to go before public education leads to a mainstream embrace of our Satanic religion, we feel that our own public ‘coming out’ will go a long way toward raising the consciousness of the populace … and the social environment has never yet been better prepared for the welcoming of the Satanic era.”

Gov. Scott is an evangelical Christian who supports prayer in schools and has therefore always supported Senate Bill 98, which was sponsored by Sen. Gary Siplin. The bill was subject of heated opposition in early 2012, with the American Civil Liberties Union, the Anti-Defamation League and Americans United claiming it would alienate students whose religions are in the minority.

Gov. Scott did not expect the Satanic minority to publicly thank him for the legislation and hold a rally outside of his office, but told ABC News that every group has a right to express themselves.

The Satanic Temple does not know how many people will attend the Jan. 25 rally, since most of its followers have expressed online interest and could be located anywhere in the world. But one thing is clear: they want the Republican governor to know the effect the new legislation is having on their community.

“Satanists are happy to show their support of Rick Scott who — particularly with SB 98 — has reaffirmed our American freedom to practice our faith openly, allowing our Satanic children the freedom to pray in school,” the Temple said in a press release announcing the rally. 

Documentary that explores the history of plastic and how it came to dominate our lives. From styrofoam cups to artificial organs, plastics are perhaps the most ubiquitous and versatile material ever invented. No invention in the past 100 years has had more influence and presence than synthetics. But such progress has had a cost.

For better and for worse, no ecosystem or segment of human activity has escaped the shrink-wrapped grasp of plastic. ADDICTED TO PLASTIC is a global journey to investigate what we really know about the material of a thousand uses and why there’s so darn much of it. On the way we discover a toxic legacy, and the men and women dedicated to cleaning it up.

ADDICTED TO PLASTIC is a feature-length documentary about solutions to plastic pollution. The point-of-view style documentary encompasses three years of filming in 12 countries on 5 continents, including two trips to the middle of the Pacific Ocean where plastic debris accumulates.

The film details plastic’s path over the last 100 years and provides a wealth of expert interviews on practical and cutting edge solutions to recycling, toxicity and biodegradability. These solutions – which include plastic made from plants – will provide viewers with a hopeful perspective about our future with plastic.

Via Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,

Sometimes the writing on the wall seems painfully obvious. But occasionally it’s a good idea to step back and look at the big picture:

1) The Land of the Free is set to impose fresh restrictions on firearm ownership… to include a ban on assault weapons, increased background checks, psychological screenings, and criminalizing ammunition magazine clips with a capacity beyond ten rounds.

And if they can’t pass these measures by law, the President is prepared to enforce them by royal decree, i.e. executive order.

It’s amazing that people have become so fearful, they are now abdicating one of the most fundamental responsibilities of humanity– protecting and safeguarding our families.

Instead, many Americans are choosing to outsource this responsibility to the same folks who bathe them in radiation at airports, spy on their phone calls and emails, wage senseless wars in foreign lands… and have a horrible track record of screwing up everything they try to do.

Great idea, seems like a hell of a trade-off.

2) The German central bank has announced that they will begin withdrawing their massive gold holdings from the United States.

In what is likely to be the first move among many other sovereign nations, it’s clear that governments no longer trust each other, and that the goodwill of the United States is being viewed with increasing suspicion.

As gold holdings flee the United States, how long will it be before they ‘close the window’ and ban gold exports? Do you really want to find out first hand?

3) The United States government is just weeks away from defaulting on its mountain of debt. Having already technically breached the debt ceiling, their only temporary fix is to seize federal pensions and engage in fraudulent accounting tricks.

Obviously this forebodes a number of potential consequences– seizure of private retirement accounts, capital controls, etc. And yet, people in US will merely trust that their government is going to ‘fix it’, and do absolutely nothing to hedge their bets.

4) European politicians have declared an end to the euro crisis. Notwithstanding the wave of riots across the continent, or the record level of unemployment that was just reached this month, politicians are engaging in self-congratulatory back-slapping for their courageous handling of the crisis.

At this point, Europe has almost become a caricature… its politicians like monocled cartoon villains, twirling their moustaches in dark room.

Absolutely nothing has changed on a fundamental level. Most countries still have massively high debt burdens, pension obgliations, and deficits. And they’re still living hand to mouth on the backs of German taxpayers and quantitative easing.

Pretending that the situation has magically resolved itself is either the height of incompetence or intellectual dishonesty.

Curiously, most people seem to know this. Yet they will do absolutely nothing.

They know, for example, that a US default is an entirely feasible option on the table. They understand that the consequences would be disastrous. And yet, most folks will do nothing and simply hope for the best.

The best response is to take steps which make sense in either scenario… no matter what happens.

You won’t be worse off for taking control of your retirement account. You won’t be worse off for holding some of your hard-earned savings in a strong, stable bank overseas, in a jurisdiction where your politicians can’t seize it. You won’t be worse off for having some precious metals stashed away overseas… or owning productive land abroad.

All of these steps make sense no matter what. And it’s an important strategy to adopt.

President Obama announced his plan for stricter gun safety laws on Wednesday, saying that while some of his approach would be instituted by executive order much of the broader strokes would necessarily have to pass through Congress if they were to become law.

Meanwhile, at the nation’s largest gun show taking place in Las Vegas this week, talk swirled about how the National Rifle Association was plotting ‘the fight of the century‘ against any efforts in Washington to pass new legislation that would potentially injure the bottom line of the gun industry they so elegantly serve.

Gun safety advocates applauded Obama’s speech while the predictable detractors were apoplectic and irrational about the announcement’s implications.

To give a sense of national opinion, a Washington Post-ABC News poll on Monday showed 58 percent of adults and 59 percent of registered voters support a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons.

“The smart analysis says that the chances of Congress passing serious gun control legislation decrease by the day.” —Harry Enten

But amid all the fanfare and talk about ‘Obama vs. the NRA’ or ‘Obama vs. the House Republicans’ it seems, by many accounts, that the largest obstacle to pushing through the proposed measures–no matter how modest they are in most regards–will be members of his own party.

During Wednesday’s televised remarks that followed an introduction by his vice president Joe Biden, Obama said that together they would do everything they could to pass the plans set forth, but took special care to mark what is surely the most essential reality of the fight brewing over guns in Washington, by telling his audience–the American people–that moving even the modest measures he proposed forward would not be possible unless “the American people demand it.”

“And by the way, that doesn’t just mean from certain parts of the country,” Obama added, seeming to acknowledge the magnitude of difference between passing gun control laws in a place like New York versus a state like West Virginia or Montana. That said, it is powerful Democrats in those states that are likely to be political obstacles to new guns laws, not their champions.

“We’re going to need voices in those areas and those congressional districts where the tradition of gun ownership is strong to speak up and to say this is important. It can’t just be the usual suspects,” he continued. “We have to examine ourselves in our hearts, and ask yourselves what is important?”

“If parents and teachers, police officers, and pastors, if hunters and sportsman, if responsible gun owners, if Americans of every background stand up and say, enough. We’ve suffered too much pain, and care too much about our children to allow this to continue, then change will — change will come.”

But, as many political observers point out, the rhetoric of gun safety laws comes easy–perhaps more easy from one of the most eloquent politicians in American history–but perhaps too easy when it comes to glossing over the political realities that reside fully and deeply, as the facts show, within the president’s own Democratic party.

As Politico reports, the Democrat-controlled Senate is likely to give Obama tremendous problems when he turns to it to re-instate an assault weapons ban:

…other than background checks, it’s not at all clear whether Senate Democrats will hold votes on any other piece of the Obama plan, most notably on the assault weapons ban. Reid – who benefited when the National Rifle Association stayed out of his 2010 reelection contest – threw cold water on passing an assault-weapons ban in a recent televised interview.

And political analyst Harry Enten at The Guardian writes:

I can’t imagine a senator from a red state, especially one in which there are more guns per household than the national average, wanting to go up against a barrage from pro-gun forces.

That’s why Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Tim Johnson of South Dakota all have A ratings from the NRA. They all come from states ranked third or fourth in gun ownership — at least 57% of households have a gun in the home. Baucus voted against a renewal of the assault weapons ban in 2004; Begich said he’d vote against it even after Newtown; and Johnson has seen his NRA grade go from a C+ in 2003 to an A, with an NRA endorsement, during his 2008 re-election fight.

The electoral prospects for each man adds to the unlikelihood that any will cast a vote in favor of serious gun control legislation. According to Public Policy Polling (PPP), Baucus has a net approval rating of -3pt and leads a generic Republican candidate by only 3pt. Begich won election 2008 by only 1pt and is rated as “vulnerable” by the Cook Political Report, which also pegs Johnson as the incumbent most likely to lose in 2014.

Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, too, is likely a goner on serious gun control legislation, despite a C from the NRA. She voted against renewing the assault weapons ban in 2004, and pretty much every other gun control measure of the past eight years. She won re-election in 2008 by six points — against a relatively weak opponent and in a state that voted for Romney by 17pt. She is “at risk” per the Cook Political Report. In Louisiana, 44% of households have a gun, 14th most in the nation.

Given the popular support for better gun safety laws, it’s likely that some legislation will pass, but when it comes to the measures that safety advocates say would have the most impact–banning semi-automatic assault rifles and large ammunition clips–Sean Sullivan at the Washington Post puts likelihood of that passage at a mere fifty percent.

And Enten, even less optimistic, concludes: “the smart analysis says that the chances of Congress passing serious gun control legislation decrease by the day. The House is a foregone conclusion. When all these numbers start getting added together, I’m not even sure you can find a simple majority of senators to agree on tougher gun control.”

With that in mind, it’s worth noting that legislative action on Obama’s proposals is not expected until February.

__________________________

The pilot of a helicopter which crashed in central London was one of the country’s most experienced and had flown in films such as Die Another Day and Saving Private Ryan.

Pete Barnes was killed when the AgustaWestland 109 Power he was flying hit a crane on a high rise building in Vauxhall and plummeted to the ground.

Mr Barnes had amassed around 12,000 hours of flying time, including 3,500 hours in Agusta helicopters.

During his 18-year career as a pilot the 50-year-old had flown air ambulances and worked as a pilot on adverts and films such as James Bond’s Die Another Day, Saving Private Ryan and Tomb Raider II.

He had been working as a freelance pilot for Rotormotion , a company which counts among its clients the Prince of Wales, Prime Minister David Cameron, former PM Tony Blair and the Dalai Lama.

In a statement the firm, which describes itself as a “boutique helicopter charter business”, paid tribute to Mr Barnes, referring to the crash as a “tragic accident”.

“Captain Peter Barnes, aged 50 from the Reading area, has been flying with RotorMotion since it was established over 15 years ago,” the company said.

“He was a very highly skilled pilot, one of the most experienced in the UK, with over 12,000 flying hours.

“We are devastated by the loss of a highly valued colleague and very dear friend. Our thoughts and condolences are with Peter’s wife and children.”

In 2004 Mr Barnes helped rescue a motorist from a flooded ford in County Durham while working for the Great North Air Ambulance.

Jolyon Palmer, a racing car driver who competes in the Formula One feeder GP2 series, said the pilot saved his life in 2007.

He tweeted: “Helicopter pilot Pete Barnes helped save my life in 2007 after I had a serious quad bike accident. Extremely sad news today.”

Mr Barnes also flew the Newcastle Traffic and Travel helicopter as the Voice of Metro FM and worked as a helicopter instructor.

Broadcaster Alan Robson of the Tyneside-based radio station said the pilot was a pioneer of “eye in the sky” traffic reports in this country.

Mr Robson, an award-winning radio host, also worked with Mr Barnes on TV shows, and said that while he would pull off daring manoeuvres, he was safety-conscious.

“He was a stylish, lovely guy. He could have auditioned for James Bond,” Mr Robson recalled.

“He was handsome, the girls melted. He walked it and he talked it.

“He was a genuinely lovely guy. I am absolutely gutted.”

Mr Barnes originally worked as a ski instructor and guide in Europe after completing a business studies degree, before going into advertising.

But he later moved to the US to train as a helicopter pilot, earning a US Commercial and Instructors Licence flying helicopters around Florida and the East Coast before moving back to the UK.

In its somewhat typical fashion, the Beige Book was dominated by the four ‘M’ words ‘mixed’, ‘moderate’, ‘measured’, and ‘modest’ as any weakness was blamed on fiscal cliff uncertainty (even though macro data and the market itself seems to have shrugged all of that silliness off rather dismissively). Employment conditions were little changed, Real Estate prices rose in 11 districts,and energy sector activity was mixed:

• *FED: TRENDS IN WAGES, PRICES, EMPLOYMENT ‘RELATIVELY UNCHANGED’
• *FED REGIONAL BANKS REPORT ‘MODEST OR MODERATE’ ECONOMIC GROWTH

Unleash the anecdotal spin…

In one of the last interviews before his fall, Nicolae Ceausescu was asked by a western journalist how he justified the fact that Romanian citizens could not travel freely abroad although freedom of movement was guaranteed by the constitution. His answer was in the best tradition of Stalinist sophistry: true, the constitution guarantees freedom of movement, but it also guarantees the right to a safe, prosperous home. So we have here a potential conflict of rights: if Romanian citizens were to be allowed to leave the country, the prosperity of their homeland would be threatened. In this conflict, one has to make a choice, and the right to a prosperous, safe homeland enjoys clear priority …Nicolae Ceausescu addresses Romania’s Communist party congress in November 1989, shortly before he was deposed and executed. (Photograph: Gerard Fouet/AFP)

It seems that this same spirit is alive and well in Slovenia today. Last month the constitutional court found that a referendum on legislation to set up a “bad bank” and a sovereign holding would be unconstitutional — in effect banning a popular vote on the matter. The referendum was proposed by trade unions challenging the government’s neoliberal economic politics, and the proposal got enough signatures to make it obligatory.

The idea of the “bad bank” was of a place to transfer all bad credit from main banks, which would then be salvaged by state money (ie at taxpayers’ expense), so preventing any serious inquiry into who was responsible for this bad credit in the first place. This measure, debated for months, was far from being generally accepted, even by financial specialists. So why prohibit the referendum? In 2011, when George Papandreou’s government in Greece proposed a referendum on austerity measures, there was panic in Brussels, but even there no one dared to directly prohibit it.

According to the Slovenian constitutional court, the referendum “would have caused unconstitutional consequences”. How? The court conceded a constitutional right to a referendum, but claimed that its execution would endanger other constitutional values that should be given priority in an economic crisis: the efficient functioning of the state apparatus, especially in creating conditions for economic growth; the realisation of human rights, especially the rights to social security and to free economic initiative.

In short, in assessing the consequences of the referendum, the court simply accepted as fact that failing to obey the dictates of international financial institutions (or to meet their expectations) can lead to political and economic crisis, and is thus unconstitutional. To put it bluntly: since meeting these dictates and expectations is the condition of maintaining the constitutional order, they have priority over the constitution (and eo ipso state sovereignty).

Slovenia may be a small country, but this decision is a symptom of a global tendency towards the limitation of democracy. The idea is that, in a complex economic situation like today’s, the majority of the people are not qualified to decide — they are unaware of the catastrophic consequences that would ensue if their demands were to be met. This line of argument is not new. In a TV interview a couple of years ago, the sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf linked the growing distrust for democracy to the fact that, after every revolutionary change, the road to new prosperity leads through a “valley of tears”. After the breakdown of socialism, one cannot directly pass to the abundance of a successful market economy: limited, but real, socialist welfare and security have to be dismantled, and these first steps are necessarily painful. The same goes for western Europe, where the passage from the post-second world war welfare state to new global economy involves painful renunciations, less security, less guaranteed social care. For Dahrendorf, the problem is encapsulated by the simple fact that this painful passage through the “valley of tears” lasts longer than the average period between elections, so that the temptation is great to postpone the difficult changes for the short-term electoral gains.

For him, the paradigm here is the disappointment of the large strata of post-communist nations with the economic results of the new democratic order: in the glorious days of 1989, they equated democracy with the abundance of western consumerist societies; and 20 years later, with the abundance still missing, they now blame democracy itself.

Unfortunately, Dahrendorf focuses much less on the opposite temptation: if the majority resist the necessary structural changes in the economy, would one of the logical conclusions not be that, for a decade or so, an enlightened elite should take power, even by non-democratic means, to enforce the necessary measures and thus lay the foundations for truly stable democracy?

Along these lines, the journalist Fareed Zakaria pointed out how democracy can only “catch on” in economically developed countries. If developing countries are “prematurely democratised”, the result is a populism that ends in economic catastrophe and political despotism — no wonder that today’s economically most successful third world countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Chile) embraced full democracy only after a period of authoritarian rule. And, furthermore, does this line of thinking not provide the best argument for the authoritarian regime in China?

What is new today is that, with the financial crisis that began in 2008, this same distrust of democracy — once constrained to the third world or post-communist developing countries — is gaining ground in the developed west itself: what was a decade or two ago patronising advice to others now concerns ourselves.

The least one can say is that this crisis offers proof that it is not the people but experts themselves who do not know what they are doing. In western Europe we are effectively witnessing a growing inability of the ruling elite — they know less and less how to rule. Look at how Europe is dealing with the Greek crisis: putting pressure on Greece to repay debts, but at the same time ruining its economy through imposed austerity measures and thereby making sure that the Greek debt will never be repaid.

At the end of October last year, the IMF itself released research showing that the economic damage from aggressive austerity measures may be as much as three times larger than previously assumed, thereby nullifying its own advice on austerity in the eurozone crisis. Now the IMF admits that forcing Greece and other debt-burdened countries to reduce their deficits too quickly would be counterproductive, but only after hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost because of such “miscalculations”.

And therein resides the true message of the “irrational” popular protests all around Europe: the protesters know very well what they don’t know; they don’t pretend to have fast and easy answers; but what their instinct is telling them is nonetheless true — that those in power also don’t know it. In Europe today, the blind are leading the blind.

Is our national habit of eating dead animals dragging us closer and closer to a flu pandemic that could kill tens of millions of Americans? Dr. Michael Greger believes so.

He’s the author of the new book, Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, and he recently came on our show, The Big Picture, to ring the alarm bell.

“Up to sixty million Americans get the flu every year,” he said before asking, “What if it turned deadly?”

The question wasn’t exactly rhetorical.

We do know that the flu is already deadly. Hundreds, sometime thousands, of Americans do die every year from the regular seasonal flu, which according to the Center for Disease Control has a mortality rate of about two-tenths of one percent.

A particularly severe and infectious form of influenza struck the world in 1918 infecting a third of the global population and killing as many as 100 million people. In the United States, that flu took the lives of more than a half-million Americans. Unlike the average seasonal flu that we’re confronting today with a mortality rate of .2%, the 1918 strand of influenza had a mortality rate of 2.5%. It was the worst plague in history.

But what if a strand of influenza swept across the nation that was twenty-five times deadlier than the 1918 strand? What if we were dealing with a flu pandemic that had a 60% mortality rate?

Here’s the frightening news: We already are.

An extremely deadly and contagious form of bird flu, H5N1, has already infected people in several countries including densely populated China and Indonesia, as well as Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, among others.

Just in 2012, known cases of H5N1 bird flu in Cambodia killed 90% of those infected. In China, 65% died. In Indonesia, the mortality rate was 83%. And in Laos and Nigeria, the mortality rate was 100% – every single person who got it, died.

If the 60 million Americans who get the flu every year suddenly got this particular strand of the flu, H5N1, then upwards of 40 million Americans would die. It would be a disaster on a scale never before seen in this nation other than, possibly, how Europeans wiped out Native Americans when they first brought the flu from Europe. And if it spread around the rest of the world, it would make the Black Plague of the 14th century look like the common cold.

Dr. Greger warned: “It’s like crossing one of the deadliest known human diseases, Ebola, with one of the most contagious known diseases, influenza.” He added that the single factor that was most likely to cause this is factory farming.

We should be doing everything we possibly can to defend against this apocalyptic pandemic. Yet, each day we as a nation continue factory farming, we’re tempting fate.

That’s because the only thing stopping the H5N1 influenza from killing billions around the planet is the H5N1 flu itself. Only about 600 people have been infected so far by this flu, simply because it hasn’t yet mutated to a form that can more easily infect humans.

As Dr. Greger said, “Right now, H5N1 is good at infecting the viral receptors that coat the trachea or windpipe of birds. It needs to mutate to better attach to human receptors.” He continued, “But there’s evidence that there is a strand in Indonesia and Egypt acquiring those mutations.”

Jamming birds together in factory farming slaughterhouses, beak to beak, and pumping them up with antibiotics promotes these mutations. Now that local small, family farms and local-supermarket butchers have been replaced by giant transnational slaughterhouses, we’ve seen a radical and rapid increase in mutant strains of the flu, along with other diseases that come from factory farms like the newly-mutated and now deadly forms of E. Coli and Salmonella.

“We’ve domesticated bird for thousands of years,” Dr. Greger noted. “It’s really just been in the last few years where we’ve seen this unprecedented emergence of these highly pathogenic strains, which have killed hundreds of billions of birds.”

Factory farms, according to Dr. Greger, are the, “perfect storm environments for the emergence and spread of these super-strains of influenza.”

Other consequences of factory farming are well known. Our national diet now has more meat it in it than ever before, thus accelerating heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other illnesses that are responsible for increasing healthcare costs.

Factory farms requires enormous food and water. And, according to a report by the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation, 51% of all greenhouse gas emissions are the direct or indirect result of giant factory farms raising cattle, pigs, and poultry.

In other words, factory farming is hurtling our planet toward catastrophic climate change.

But so far, these reasons haven’t been strong enough to really motivate us to change. Americans and policymakers haven’t been ready to move away from the factory farm model to bring back local farming and reform our diet by eating fewer dead animals.

But, if nothing else, the fear of a worldwide pandemic that kills more than half the human race should motivate us to change how we farm and how we eat.

Let’s hope. Because whatever joy we as a nation get out of eating chicken wings will be far outweighed by the catastrophe of watching millions of our fellow humans die.

To save the human race, we need to end factory farming now.

Jeff Swensen / Getty Images / AFP

Committing a crime just became a whole lot easier to get away with in Scranton, Pennsylvania. A city examiner there this week ruled that the chief of police is prohibited from performing the duties assigned to lesser officers of the law.

Under current labor rules in the city of Scranton, non-union workers are more or less barred from performing the duties guaranteed to members of a bargaining unit. But while most law enforcement officers in the Electric City belong to the local Fraternal Order of Police union, the chief of police has been precluded from joining since 2002 following a decision made by the city’s mayor.

Neither the union nor Scranton is arguing to have the chief of police allowed in the FOP, but the workers’ group says that the top officer in the city isn’t permitted to act like a cop, even if he’s the leading figure in the law enforcement community.

Of biggest concern among the union are the actions of Dan Duffy, the former Scranton police chief who resigned only this past July. During his two year tenure at the top of the department, the union says Duffy time and time again performed the official duties of his lesser officers. In one instance, he arrested heroin dealers during a drug bust inside of a cemetery. In another, Duffy personally apprehended a person that was the subject of an outstanding warrant.

It may sound like the routine work of a police officer, but the Scranton POF says it isn’t allowed.

“Historically, the chief has not performed bargaining unit work,” the Scranton Labor Relations Board hearing examiner Jack Marino finds [PDF]. Before Duffy, he says, the chief of police never engaged in patrol activities or performed the work of the bargaining unit – that is, the rest of the department. Instead, says Marino, the chief’s duties are managerial and serve the financial and operational needs of the department.

Essentially, says WNEP News’ Stacy Lange, this decision ensures that the chief of police holds on to solely a desk job for the unforeseeable future.

The police union asked Marino to intervene after Duffy conducted a series of arrests before his resignation, citing a contract that forbids chiefs from doing the work of bargaining unit members. The union said his behavior constituted unfair labor practices, but the city, which has been on the brink of bankruptcy for months, declined to send an attorney or other representative to present their case during a meeting before the Board. Now in response, Marino is siding with the union and making it clear that no chiefs – now or ever – are allowed to engage in actual police work unless of extraneous circumstances.

“I did what any public servant should do,” Mr. Duffy tells the Scranton Times-Tribune. “I would have never done anything in violation of the law nor do I believe I did anything that I should not have been doing.”

The union, on the other hand, is applauding Marino’s ruling.

“It’s labor law,” union president Lt. Bob Martin adds to the paper. “If we look the other way, then we lose our exclusivity. … If we were to look the other way, then we would forever give up our right to challenge it again.”

“The problem we have is when a non-bargaining unit member goes out and seeks out our work and does our work of a bargaining unit member. Then that’s when we have a problem and that’s what this decision is about,” he adds to WNEP.

“If the chief is standing on the corner, and a crime is being committed in his presence, he is morally and he is legally obligated to act. … Absolutely, no problem with that,” he tells the Tribune. “We endorse that and we would come and aid him in every way. He was doing differently.”

In the Marino’s findings, he says the arrests performed by Duffy did not fit into a category that warranted immediate intervention from the chief. Those arrests included incidents where Duffy apprehended wanted suspects, mostly drug dealers.

“I believe a police chief should actively show concern for the city and not be afraid to get involved on the streets,” Duffy tells the Tribune. “This is something that should be expected of a police chief. It should not be a group of union leaders saying, ‘You can negotiate and we’ll give you permission to do something that should not be done’ … For somebody to say the police chief is not allowed to go out and look for trouble? Come on.”

The City of Scranton says they will not fight the ruling since Mr. Duffy is no longer working in local law enforcement. He took a job last year with Lackawanna College. The results of the hearing require the city to cease and desist from interfering with the duties contractually promised to lesser police officers.

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