Troops train with Army and Air Force for G20 Summit as part of martial law acclimation - picture prison planet.com
SORRY FOLKS MY COMPUTER WAS SERIOUSLY SLOW TODAY,I COULD HARDLY GET ANY STORIES ON.
AMERICA UNDER MARTIAL LAW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAtN58fxidQ&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvALDJu9yDU&feature=player_embedded
IS AMERICA DEPLOYING ELECTRO MAGNETIC PULSE WEAPONS - pictures
http://www.infowars.com/is-military-deploying-ads-weapons-in-u-s/
CHERTOFF GETS HIT BY 911 CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT5JZVUKPrs&feature=player_embedded
US GOVERNMENT MAY FALL IN 5-10 YRS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idoK9kk4JP0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w9jAvWnh64&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjIYib6Gbec&feature=player_embedded
Maximum Alert: U.S. Troops Now Occupying America
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Under the pretext of helping local communities short of police in difficult economic times, as well as preparations for a potential swine flu pandemic, U.S. troops are now occupying America as the country sinks into a state of de facto martial law.We have been inundated with reports over the last few weeks of uniformed soldiers and National Guardsmen running internal checkpoints all over the country as a frightening Red Dawn scenario unfolds not with a bang but with a whimper.The military are now being called upon to undertake roles normally designated to police as Americans are incrementally acclimated to accept the presence of troops on the streets as an everyday occurrence.The latest example occurred in Newport Kentucky earlier this month when military checkpoints suddenly appeared downtown on September 6. Military Police from the U.S. Army National as well as Marines were purportedly conducting traffic control because the city was strapped for funds and did not have enough police to do the job.Members of the WeAreChange Ohio group interviewed some of the troops, who when asked if they would be prepared to confiscate guns, shoot resisters in the back of the head, or throw people into ovens to incinerate bodies, refused to categorically deny that they would follow such orders.Watch the video below.
However, this was by no means the first time that troops have been used to fulfil roles normally ascribed to police in Kentucky.During the Kentucky Derby on May 2 this year, Military Police were on patrol to deal with crowd control. An Associated Press photograph shows armed MP’s detaining a man who ran onto the track following the 135th Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs.The military has NO BUSINESS policing the citizens except during extraordinarily exceptional times of national emergency by an executive order. This is very disturbing and completely un-American. Maybe even more disturbing is that no one seems to care how quietly and easily we have accepted the burgeoning police state,one respondent to the photo stated.As we reported last year, U.S. troops returning from Iraq are now occupying America, running checkpoints and training to deal with civil unrest and crowd control under the auspices of a Northcom program that by 2011 will have no less than 20,000 active duty troops deployed inside America to help state and local officials during times of emergency.Over the course of the last couple of years, we have reported on numerous instances of military involvement with local law enforcement in violation of Posse Comitatus.In January, soldiers from the Virginia National Guard. Soldiers from the Lynchburg-based 1st Battalion, 116th Brigade Combat Team, were used to conduct personal searches at checkpoints in Washington DC for the inauguration of Barack Obama.In March, we reported on U.S. Army troops dispatched to patrol the streets of Samson, Alabama, after a murder spree.On April 6, we reported on a DHS, federal, state, Air Force, and local law enforcement checkpoint in Tennessee. On April 3, Infowars was instrumental in the cancellation of a seatbelt checkpoint that was to be conducted in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and the 251st Military Police in Bolivar, Tennessee.
Last December, we reported on the Marine Corps Air and Ground Combat Center dispatching troops to work with police on checkpoints in in San Bernardino County, California.On April 22, we reported the deployment of 400 National Guard Combat Support Battalion troops to maintain public order at the Boston Marathon.Last June, Infowars posted an article by D. H. Williams of the Daily Newscaster reporting the deployment of 2,300 Marines in the city of Indianapolis under the direction of FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.We also reported a story on April 22 covering the assault of a local television news team by an irate police officer in El Paso, Texas. A video taken by the news videographer shows uniformed soldiers working with police officers at the scene of a car accident.The presence of uniformed and armed military police at the Kentucky Derby and those seen recently at the Riverfest celebration is part of an ongoing campaign to acclimate the populace to the presence of soldiers at public events.This has now rapidly accelerated with reports pouring in from our readers of military checkpoints being set up all over the country in preparation for the swine flu pandemic.Last week we reported on the testimony of a military whistleblower who warned that law enforcement and military personnel are training to set up checkpoints in order to catch people who refuse to take the swine flu vaccination.In a You Tube video, a woman describing herself as a soldier explains how she was part of a drill in California centered around setting up roadblocks and checkpoints so authorities could check who has received the swine flu vaccine. Those who have had the shots will be fitted with an RFID bracelet so they can be tracked. Those who have not taken the shot will be offered it there and then and if they still refuse, will be carted off to an internment camp, according to the woman.
As CNN reported back in July, the military will assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant swine flu outbreak in the U.S. this fall, stoking fears that the pandemic, which has claimed relatively few lives so far, will be used as an excuse to implement martial law and a mandatory vaccination program.The plan calls for military task forces to work in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. There is no final decision on how the military effort would be manned, but one source said it would likely include personnel from all branches of the military,states the report. Northcom has been preparing for mass flu pandemics for years and indeed, Gen. Victor Renuart spoke of the threat of a flu pandemic emerging out of Mexico just weeks before it actually happened.Testifying back in March, Renuart said Northcom would provide assistance in support of civil authorities during an epidemic, adding when requested and approved by the Secretary of Defense or directed by the President, federal military forces will contribute to federal support.However, Renuart then added,USNorthCom does not wait for that call to action.Northcom was only relatively recently assigned its own fighting unit – the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, which had been fighting in Iraq for five years before that. As we have previously reported, the Armed Forces Press Service has initiated a propaganda campaign designed to convince the American people that deploying the 3rd Infantry Division in the United States in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act is a good thing, with images of soldiers from the brigade helping in humanitarian rescue missions, such as car wrecks. This is all designed to condition Americans to accept troops on the streets and highways as a part of everyday life.
The assignment of the 1st Brigade Combat Team to Northcom alarmed the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).This is a radical departure from separation of civilian law enforcement and military authority and could, quite possibly, represent a violation of law,said Mike German, ACLU national security policy counsel.The last time the the national guard and military worked with FEMA and local law enforcement on a large scale in the United States was during Hurricane Katrina,when they aided in the confiscation of privately owned firearms of citizens, even those who lived in the high and dry areas and were unaffected by the hurricane.Another exercise that is training the U.S. military to take over law enforcement duties during a swine flu outbreak was revealed on Monday. According to Navy.mil, the Panamax 2009 drill, which is taking place in both Panama and San Antonio Texas, is designed to train soldiers to stop people from going to work and school,during a pandemic.Collating all the evidence of how the military has been seamlessly ingrained into the daily lives of Americans by way of uniformed troops undertaking law enforcement duties, there can be no doubt that the U.S. is already under a condition of undeclared martial law. If a deadlier swine flu pandemic returns this fall, as authorities have vehemently promised will happen, military checkpoints that are now dotted around the country will rapidly multiply and America will fully begin to resemble conditions witnessed in the historical dictatorships of Maoist China, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.Only by becoming aware of how far America has sunk into a militarized police state can we begin to reverse the incremental conditioning that has led Americans to accept the sight of troops on the streets demanding their papers.
WE ARE GONNA BE UNDER MARTIAL LAW TO FOLKS IN CANADA...LOOKOUT THE NEW WORLD ORDER OCCULT NEW AGE NUTCASES HAVE US ON THE RUN.
Toronto Cops Confiscate Guns in Safe-city Initiative
The Globe and Mail September 23, 2009
Toronto police have seized 400 guns from law-abiding owners whose licences had expired or been revoked.Project Safe City saw police seize unlicensed guns within Toronto. Owners were given the option to pay to renew their licences and pick them up again, or to forfeit the weapon.The 400 guns shown yesterday were forfeited. None of the owners were charged.This is a crime-prevention initiative, said Superintendent Greg Getty of Toronto’s guns and gangs unit.
Intelligent Pre-Crime Surveillance Cameras Coming Within Five Years - Minority Report style devices to monitor suspicious individuals Steve Watson Infowars.net Wednesday, Sept 23, 2009
Surveillance cameras that can identify suspicious individuals and prevent crimes before they take place could be rolled out all over the UK within the next five years scientists have claimed.The program, named ISIS (Integrated Sensor Information System), presumably after the Pagan Goddess, is in development at Queen’s University Belfast.The CCTV technology identifies suspicious individuals and behaviour and then acts to stamp out crimes before they happen, reports the London Telegraph.The cameras assess situations and individuals based on pre-programmed criteria and can relay warnings to police and control rooms.Potential criminal behaviour the cameras will be programmed to pick up on is listed as wearing hooded tops, making sudden movements, moving seats on public transport and engaging in verbal aggression.The developers are planning to add metal detectors, motion detectors and microphones to the technology, which they say can be used with any existing network of surveillance cameras.
This means the system could be integrated into the planned national CCTV database.
The idea for the cameras comes in response to revelations that CCTV does virtually nothing to prevent or even help solve crimes.A recent internal police report found that in London just one crime is solved a year by every 1,000 CCTV cameras, while a Scotland Yard study in 2008 found that only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images.In addition, police do not have the time or the man power to study hours of CCTV footage.Of course, instead of scrapping the things and re-directing the billions spent on them into other methods of reducing crime, such as improving the quality of life in high crime areas, deluded boffins believe the answer is to improve the cameras and turn the country into something akin to Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report.Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe. Estimates puts the total at 4.2 million, or one for every 14 people, with one million in London alone. Privacy International, assesses that the British public is the most watched citizenry in Europe.To put that in perspective, in the Communist police state of China, which has a population of 1.3 billion, there are just 2.75 million cameras, the equivalent of one for every 472,000 of its citizens.
Pre-crime cameras are just the latest in a long line of promised future technological upgrades to the panopticon being built around us. Here is a reminder of some of the other delicious big brother devices we have been promised:Behaviour monitoring cameras – An early predecessor to the proposed pre-crime cameras, these devices are programmed to sound an alarm when they spot suspicious behaviour, such as waiting somewhere for a prolonged period of time or just walking in a suspicious way. These have already been deployed in airports and train stations.Talking /
Shouting cameras - In an incredibly Orwellian move, loudspeakers are being fitted to surveillance cameras throughout major cities, allowing CCTV operators to bark commands at people who drop litter, act in an aggressive manner or loiter. Some of these cameras will even use the voices of children who will be recruited from schools to take part in the scheme and will be shown round CCTV operating rooms on school trips, learning how wonderful the big brother state is and how forcing people to behave in a certain way in public is the essence of a free society.
X-Ray firing cameras – Documents leaked from the Home Office have revealed that the government is looking into using X-ray technology cameras by concealing them in lamp posts to trap terror suspects. The cameras allow operators to see through people’s clothes and look for suspicious items.
Eavesdropping cameras – London police and councils are considering monitoring our conversations in the street using high-powered microphones attached to CCTV cameras that can pick up aggressive tones on the basis of 12 factors, including decibel level, pitch and the speed at which words are spoken.
Face scanning cameras – linked into the national CCTV database, software will allow cameras to scan hundreds of faces a second in crowds of people.
DISEASES
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
DRUG PUSHERS AND ADDICTS
REVELATION 18:23
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries (DRUGS) were all nations deceived.
REVELATION 9:21
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries (DRUGS), nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
NWO KILLER VACCINES
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2009/08/nwo-death-control-swine-flu-vaccines.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBeKB7aKzOs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2gteHfCa_k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwFNMtx2-8g&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_OcxtakWEc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxROe3ESwes&feature=related
MILITARY TO WORK WITH FEMA WHEN PANDEMIC HITS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtGofsHaj3M&feature=player_embedded
SAY NO TO THE VACCINES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGyCeCiG9Kk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqMK_yu8APg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASibLqwVbsk&feature=related
LAB MADE FLU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYrlFMFoaDE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fbritanniaradio%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj0gs1C83Ec&feature=channel
NURSES FIRED FOR NOT TAKING VACCINES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUe5acT1Ufs&feature=player_embedded
CHINESE WORKERS FORCED VACCINATIONS
http://www.prisonplanet.com/flu-shots-mandatory-for-all-chinese-american-planning-council-workers-even-house-keepers.html
CHKD WORKERS GET MANDATORY SHOTS - STORY,VIDEO
http://www.wvec.com/news/norfolk/stories/wvec_local_092209_chkd_flu_shots_for_workers.1a69ab887.html
JUDGE NAPOLITANO ON FORCED INJECTIONS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXSB2oca7f8&feature=player_embedded
EVIDENCE OF THIMEROSAL IN SEASON H1N1 VACCINE
http://www.infowars.com/evidence-of-thimerosal-h1n1-virus-in-seasonal-vaccination/
LEN HOROWITZ ON JONES PAST 2 DAYS
http://rss.nfowars.net/20090921_Mon_Alex.mp3 (SEPT 21)
http://rss.nfowars.net/20090922_Tue_Alex.mp3 (SEPT 22)
JONES SHOW TODAY
http://rss.nfowars.net/20090923_Wed_Alex.mp3 (SEPT 23)
Impending Mandatory Vaccinations Will Affect The Health, Jobs of Canadians SEPT 23,09
http://www.infowars.com/impending-mandatory-vaccinations-will-affect-the-health-jobs-of-canadians/ (LINKS)
After recent reports that Canada's public health officials are engaged in cover-up operations to conceal flu origin, there is now evidence and growing concerns and that all the warnings, dire predictions and preparations for the H1N1 swine flu are leading to mandatory vaccinations under the guise of voluntary cooperation initiatives from Canadian health agencies.The Canadian pandemic plan calls for the vaccination of the entire population over a period of two months. Vaccination campaigns are targeting the workplace, schools, recreational centres and even bars and nightclubs. Community mass vaccination clinics are scheduled to inoculate millions of people in every province in Canada.The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) state on their own website that International Health Regulations provide a legal framework under the World Health Organization (WHO) to protect against and control the international spread of disease such as a flu pandemic. They also state that they will establish a process that is to be followed by the WHO for determining and responding to a public health emergency of international concern. Under the WHO charter determined in 2005, it has the authority to dissolve Canada's government policies on emergency planning, mandatory vaccinations and to take control should there be a pandemic. This applies to any country signed onto the WHO. From the WHO 2005 declaration: (excerpted)Under special pandemic plans enacted around the world..., national governments are to be dissolved in the event of a pandemic emergency and replaced by special crisis committees, which take charge of the health and security infrastructure of a country, and which are answerable to the WHO and EU in Europe and to the WHO and UN in North America.
When it comes to the legal framework under the WHO, PHAC has absolutely no details or restrictions in terms of who will administer the inoculations and how. This means that once WHO pandemic policies are enacted, it could allow non-healthcare personnel, such as police and military to vaccinate people against their will to enforce mandatory vaccinations. These are obviously worse case scenarios, but the laws regarding pandemic preparedness and procedures are clear and these policies are not debatable once the government declares a nationwide emergency.Many countries are in the process of acquiring from Baxter, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline and other pharmaceutical companies enough doses of vaccine to vaccinate their entire population twice. Many countries are remaining quiet about mandatory vaccination, simply saying they will make vaccination available to all on a priority basis. But Greece and Switzerland have already announced that their programs will be mandatory and enforced by the military. There are unconfirmed reports that Norway and Israel have done the same.Confirmed reports of regional H1N1 pandemic planning documents from the UK indicate that local authorities intend to set up mass vaccination sites to be overseen by crowd control police. The United States is preparing for military assisted mandatory vaccination but has not explicitly declared its intentions to the public.Individual Canadian provinces are supposedly given the authority to decide how to achieve the highest level of vaccination. The Canadian government claims this does not mean they will make it mandatory or use physical force. However, there are tactics in place, including heavy doses of propaganda, along with various forms of social and economic coercion which suggest otherwise. Just how it will all play out depends very much on the individual province, but reports from the public suggest that the current theme of intimidation is requiring many Canadian workers to demonstrate that they have received the flu vaccination to remain employed.
Canada is deceiving the public and promoting a whole new dimension of voluntary cooperation for vaccines,said Margaret Sauvé, a nurse and medical administrator from Montreal, Quebec.If this is their idea of voluntary cooperation, I would really hate to see what a mandatory policy would look like, because we have no choice if we want to keep our jobs she added.The Association of Local Public Health Agencies in Ontario is already on record supporting mandatory seasonal flu shots for health workers. The group says that applies to H1N1 too. Our position is it should be mandatory irrespective of the pandemic; our position is on seasonal flu, which this could turn out to be,said Gordon Fleming, manager of public health issues.The flu is the flu is the flu.Seven years ago, facing vigorous protest, Ontario withdrew a law making it mandatory for paramedics to get flu shots. This law would be null and void under the powers of the WHO pandemic charter which would trump provincially mandated laws regarding vaccination policy.Health workers do have a responsibility to stay healthy and protect their patients and co-workers by getting a flu shot, said Andrew Morrison of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. The percentage of Canadian health care workers in long-term care facilities who get an annual flu shot is 50-70%. The evidence currently suggests that as a priority group targeted for vaccines, healthcare workers will not only be given priority, but will also not have any freedom of choice to refuse the vaccination.Healthcare workers who are in non-compliance for their inoculation of flu vaccines will likely be suspended pending an investigation, or terminated,stated a medical officer from a Toronto-based healthcare organization.A report from PHAC's website on August 6, 2009, stated that just over 50 million doses of H1N1 vaccine were ordered from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) under Canada's ten-year sole-supplier contract with them.
GlaxoSmithKline was criticized by health experts last year for continuing vaccine trials in Argentina which killed more than a dozen babies. GSK has routinely conducted trials in Third World countries on poor people who often feel trapped into participating in human health experiments in order to receive medical care or other necessities. Canada's yearly flu vaccine developed by GSK, contains (as noted on Biotechnology Information Institute website) a number of toxins including formaldehyde, sodium deoxycholate, thimerosal (a dangerous mercury derivative) and chicken embryo (egg) culture which has been linked to a vast number of allergic responses.In addition to the above toxins, the H1N1 vaccine scheduled for deployment in Canada will have the squalene adjuvant AS03, polysorbate 80, potassium dihydrogen phosphate, and aluminum adjuvant among others.Oil-based vaccination adjuvants like squalene have been proven to trigger chronic, auto-immune diseases, immune-mediated joint-specific inflammation and catastrophic injury to the nervous system causing diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosus.The use of the adjuvants in flu vaccines is not licensed or approved in the U.S. or Canada. Public health advocates are crying fowl and stating that it clearly demonstrates the irresponsible nature of American and Canadian health officials. They have willingly endangered the lives of their citizens, by-passing regulatory procedures for vaccine safety and efficacy in exchange for the emergency use practices declared by International Health Regulations.
Anti-vaccine advocates, drug investigators and health experts are warning Canadians at unprecedented rates, that not only are adjuvanted vaccines illegal for use in Canada, but it will be impossible for studies to conclusively determine their safety by the October-November timeline proposed for government vaccination campaigns. Some health experts question why Canada would order a small quantity of non-adjuvanted H1N1 vaccine (approx. 1.2 million doses) as part of its total order of just over 50 million doses. This implies that health officials in Canada are well aware of the dangers associated with squalene,stated Marco Antonescu, a Los Angeles based microbiologist and vaccine researcher.PHAC stated on their website that the purchase of a small quantity of non-adjuvanted vaccine is a precautionary measure for pregnant women as no clinical data of the safety of adjuvanted vaccine in this group is available.That's quite the overstatement,says Antonescu.There is no clinical data anywhere on the long-term safety of adjuvanted vaccines for any group.The side effects and contraindications listed for all adjuvanted vaccine studies are all based on short-term assessment. You cannot assess the safety of adjuvants without long-term subject studies, since this is when many of the problems arise, especially in the months and years that follow the vaccination,he added. High rates of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder that can cause paralysis was a result of adjuvanted vaccines used in the 1976 swine flu scare.Guillain-Barre syndrome is always a concern and Canada is obviously ready to pull the plug on these adjuvanted vaccines and make the switch to their non-adjuvanted stockpile should large numbers of people begin reacting, which is a likely scenario,Antonescu concluded.
Despite the dangers clearly associated with adjuvants, the WHO has maintained their position that there is no danger and insists that there are no special concerns about the safety of adjuvanted H1N1 vaccines.GSK admits that they have not completed even one of more than 15 studies in over 9000 adults and children (including infants) across Europe, Canada and the US to evaluate the H1N1 adjuvanted vaccine. No data from this clinical development programme has been submitted to Canadian health regulators, despite plans to begin inoculations as early as October.Yet, PHAC is stating that vaccine production remains on target.We remain on target to have a safe and effective vaccine available in November 2009.With all of the careless and ill-considered decisions made by Canadian health officials, PHAC still has the audacity to insist that the government of Canada employs the most advanced science available to help ensure the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Morever, they suggest that their ludicrous timelines are largely consistent with pandemic vaccine development internationally.Health epidemiologist, Michael Hager has worked with health agencies that deal directly with PHAC. He comments most of the directors of the Public Health Agency of Canada are the most cretinous and malicious health officials that could ever run a national health agency. They have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they simply cannot be trusted to safeguard the health and wellness of Canadian citizens.
Novartis chip to help ensure bitter pills are swallowed
Published online 22 September 2009
Patients who fail to pop pills on time could soon benefit from having a chip on their shoulder, under a ground-breaking electronic system being developed by Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceuticals group.The company is testing technology that inserts a tiny microchip into each pill swallowed and sends a reminder to patients by text message if they fail to follow their doctors’ prescriptions.The partnership with Proteus Biomedical , which originally developed the technology, is one of several alliances under development by Novartis as it and rival pharmaceuticals companies attempt to maintain high prices for innovative medicines by ensuring that they are taken as the doctor ordered. Pfizer’s Health Solutions division has developed a system to telephone patients to encourage them to take medicine.Joe Jimenez, head of pharmaceuticals at Novartis, said tests using the system – which broadcasts from the chip in the pill to a receiver on the shoulder – on 20 patients using Diovan, a drug to lower blood pressure, had boosted compliance with prescriptions from 30 per cent to 80 per cent after six months.The experiment comes amid rising concern among governments and health insurers that they are not seeing the health improvements claimed by drugs companies because patients do not take the medicines as prescribed unless they are closely supervised in clinical trials.
Compliance often drops off rapidly for patients, especially those taking medicines for chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. This is because of unpleasant side effects or because patients do not rapidly develop symptoms and so fail to notice the value of the drug. However, with patients then going on to develop more serious forms of illness and require hospitalisation or surgery, the result is hundreds of millions of dollars a year in unnecessary costs.This industry is starting to explode, said Mr Jimenez, adding that he was close to recruiting a compliance tsar to oversee a wide range of other partnerships and programmes to strengthen appropriate use of medicines.Mr Jimenez stressed that Novartis would still need to work closely with regulators and doctors to overcome any concerns, and negotiate an exclusive contract with Proteus in order to expand the approach. But he was confident that such approaches to boost compliance would be widespread in the future.The Financial Times Limited 2009.
Sprint Provides Cellular and GPS Services to FEMA for its Nationwide Vehicle Tracking Program - Nextel handsets equipped with TeleNav Track(TM)GPS services offer FEMA ease of deployment and cost reductions for their emergency communications
OVERLAND PARK, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep. 21, 2009-- The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is relying on Sprint (NYSE:S) to provide 2,000 Nextel handsets in support of FEMA’s nationwide vehicle tracking system. As part of an agreement signed earlier this year, Sprint is providing handsets equipped with industry-leading Nextel Direct Connect and TeleNav Track, a cell phone-based GPS navigation and tracking service. This powerful combination of technologies allows the agency do its job efficiently during an emergency by supporting quick deployment and effective management of its critical resources. The ability to set up anywhere and at any time is crucial for FEMA, especially when the agency is called upon to provide disaster support. Several hundred of the 2,000 Motorola i365 phones are being used by FEMA employees and the rest are on standby and staged throughout the country, ready to deploy in case of an emergency. For example, units have been staged in the Gulf Coast region throughout the hurricane season. All phones are prepackaged in a FEMA kit - a rugged pelican case that includes the handset, a car charger, a wall charger, a splitter and two batteries.In addition to the devices, the Sprint solution also includes integration and project management services to ensure that the agency met its deadlines for setting up the vehicle tracking program before the hurricane season. After receiving the initial request, Sprint and TeleNav rapidly set up the entire program, including device configuration and testing.
Interoperable communications and emergency preparedness have always been top priorities for Sprint, especially in wake of some of the recent natural and man-made disasters. Whether it’s the reliability of our network or support from the Sprint Emergency Response Team (ERT), we have always been ahead of our competition in supporting our customers including the federal agencies tasked with disaster preparedness and recovery,said Bill White, vice president, Federal Programs at Sprint.We take pride in serving FEMA with our voice and data services powered by Sprint’s Now Network(TM).While Nextel Direct Connect allows instant and seamless communication among FEMA personnel and interoperable communications with first responder and law enforcement agencies, TeleNav Track allows FEMA to monitor in near real-time the location of its mission-critical resources, including ambulances, buses and trucks. With geo-fencing, authorized FEMA personnel can also receive alerts if a tracked unit travels outside or inside a defined geographic boundary. A key enabler of this solution is the rugged Motorola i365 handset with an embedded GPS location system and advanced operating system. The Motorola operating system includes features which automatically run the TeleNav Track application in the background on power-up, eliminating the need for any user interaction and preventing unauthorized changes to the application.Sprint, whose Now Network was recently named most reliable 3G network in a 13-city test by PC World, serves FEMA through its newly formed Business Markets Group (BMG). Composed of more than 4,000 sales, support, marketing and operations personnel, Sprint’s BMG is dedicated solely to enterprise, general business and public sector customers. BMG delivers wireless, wireline and converged solutions for companies, drawing on the nation’s most dependable 3G mobile broadband network,1-4G capabilities that are well ahead of Sprint’s competition, the fastest national push-to-talk network,2-and a comprehensive solutions portfolio of devices and applications. Sprint offers the following hurricane preparedness tips, pandemic flu tips for businesses and consumers. To learn more, click on this link to watch a Sprint executive speaking about Sprint’s pandemic planning and preparations tips for businesses and general consumers.For more information on Sprint business solutions, visit www.sprint.com/business or contact your Sprint account team. For more information on Sprint ERT, visit www.sprint.com/ert
1-Dependable based on independent, third-party drive tests for 3G data connection success, session reliability and signal strength for the 50 most populous markets, January 2008 – February 2009. Not all services available on 3G and coverage may default to separate network when 3G unavailable.
2-Fastest based on initial call set-up time.
ABOUT SPRINT NEXTEL
Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving almost 49 million customers at the end of the second quarter of 2009; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. The company’s customer-focused strategy has led to improved first call resolution and customer care satisfaction scores. For more information, visit www.sprint.com.
ABOUT TELENAV
TeleNav, Inc., a privately-held company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, was the first to launch a cell phone GPS system in the United States. Deployed by 14 carriers in 29 countries, TeleNav is a global leader in wireless location-based services (LBS). Currently, the company’s solutions are available in four continents, including North and South America, Asia and Europe.TeleNav’s solutions include GPS navigation, Mobile Resource Management (MRM), social networking and local search. The company’s flagship service, TeleNav GPS Navigator(TM), offers functionalities comparable to in-car systems and standalone navigation devices, such as automatically-updated maps and business locations, full-color 3D moving maps, traffic alerts with one-click rerouting, location-sharing, business reviews, speech recognition, Wi-Fi hotspot finder, gas price finder and more. TeleNav also delivers its award-winning navigation service on the TeleNav Shotgun(TM), a standalone GPS personal navigation device (PND) tailored specifically for business travelers. TeleNav’s enterprise application, TeleNav Track(TM), incorporates GPS-enabled tracking, time sheets, wireless forms and navigation. TeleNav Track is a widely adopted service with approximately 9,000 customer organizations using it today.
TeleNav services are available on more than 500 wireless devices and run on most major mobile platforms currently available.For more information on TeleNav, please visit www.telenav.com.Source: Sprint Sprint Sukhi Sahni, 703-592-7779
sukhi.sahni@sprint.com or TeleNav, Inc.MaryBeth Lowell, 425-531-0122
marybethl@telenav.com
List Of USA States Which Have Implemented Legal Actions In Response To The H1N1 virus FightBackH1N1 Wednesday, Sept 23rd, 2009
New York : According to the CDC, the following states have implemented legal actions in response to the H1N1 virus:
Florida – the Florida surgeon general suspended distribution permit requirements Florida statutes to allow wholesale distribution of Tamiflu and Relenza. The state has also distributed a series of blank quarantine order forms, including a voluntary home quarantine agreement, a quarantine to residence order, a quarantine to residence order (non-compliance), a quarantine to facility order, quarantine detention order, quarantine of facility order, building quarantine closure order and area quarantine closure order.
Iowa – In addition to the facility quarantine order listed above, Iowa has also made available forms for voluntary home confinement, home quarantine and home isolation.
Massachusetts – Massachusetts lists its own procedures for isolation and quarantine.
North Carolina – The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services released a draft isolation order that would provide for imprisonment for up to two years and pretrial detention without bail for any citizen who fails to comply with an isolation order.
Washington – Washington grants authority to local health officers to issue emergency detention orders causing citizens to be immediately and involuntarily isolated or quarantined for up to 10 days.
In addition, governors and health commissioners in the following states have declared a state of emergency since April following concerns about the H1N1 virus: California, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. Clearly this has nothing to do with public health and the qualitative ethical practice of medicine. What about all the people who already had swine flu? Those people, who have already built natural immunity, if forced to quarantine in close quarters with a bunch of other people who may have other types of infectious diseases such as seasonal flu, etc., then become exposed to other infectious diseases and are at greater health risk. This seems like a great plan to help SPREAD whatever disease(s) they want to spread.
French scientist : French military told to get ready for forced vaccinations
FightBackH1N1 Wednesday, Sept 23rd, 2009
French scientist : French military told to get ready for forced vaccinations-Paris : A French scientists has reported on his website that he has received information from the French overseas departments and territories (DOM-TOM) that the French military have been told to prepare for forced vaccinations and the arrest of demonstrators.Jean-Pierre Petit advises parents to keep their children at home to avoid mobile pandemic vaccination teams entering schools and giving children the swine flu jab outside the control by family doctors.He said : I have received information from DOM-TOM where the French military are saying that they have received orders without any equivocation: forced vaccination, demonstrators to be put under lock and key.All this will happen in months, or even weeks to come. You have seen the guidelines laid down by the duo of Bachelot – Hortefeux.When the vaccination campaign starts, mobile teams, freed from all medical advice from family doctors, will go into schools directly to operate. Which is tantamount to saying that if the parents have any doubts about the nature of this campaign and want their children to escape the vaccine, they should keep them safe at home.
Chemical Cocktail in Consumer Products Destroys Male Fertility
David Gutierrez NaturalNews Wednesday, Sept 23rd, 2009
Hormone-disrupting chemicals found in a variety of consumer products are destroying male reproductive health, according to a report released by the nonprofit CHEM Trust.
An increasing number of widely used chemicals are being exposed as endocrine disruptors, many of them ingredients in plastics, cosmetics, cleaning products and even food. Most of these simulate the action of the female sex hormone estrogen.
According to report author Richard Sharpe of the Medical Research Council, long-term exposure to a wide variety of these chemicals is probably to blame, at least in part, for rising incidence of a condition known as Testicular Dysgenisis Syndrome (TDS). Exposure to endocrine disruptors can feminize male children even in the womb, he said, by blocking the activity of the male sex hormone testosterone.TDS refers to a collection of observed disorders of the male reproductive system, including reduced sperm counts, malformed penis and testicular cancer.While exposure to one endocrine disruptor might not have a great effect, Sharpe said, there are so many different chemicals out there that their cumulative results must be taken into account.Because it is the summation of effect of hormone-disrupting chemicals that is critical, and the number of such chemicals that humans are exposed to is considerable, this provides the strongest possible incentive to minimize human exposure to all relevant hormone disruptors, especially women planning pregnancy, as it is obvious that the higher the exposure the greater the risk,he said.Chemicals that have been shown to act together to affect male reproductive health should have their risks assessed together,said Elizabeth Salter Green of the CHEM Trust. Currently that is not the case, and unfortunately chemicals are looked at on an individual basis. Therefore, government assurances that exposures are too low to have any effect just do not hold water because regulators do not take into account the additive actions of hormone disrupting chemicals.It is high time that public health policy is based on good science and that regulatory authorities have health protection, rather than industry protection, uppermost in mind,she said.Sources for this story include: news.bbc.co.uk.
Dangerous Mercury Contamination of Human Body Increasing, Study Finds
S. L. Baker NaturalNews Wednesday, Sept 23rd, 2009
It’s no secret mercury is a dangerous toxin that accumulates in the human body and can produce disastrous health problems involving multiple organ systems. It’s known to be a risk to unborn babies, too. Unfortunately, as NaturalNews has reported, mercury contamination of our environment and food sources is rampant. For example, scientists have found that fish(http://www.naturalnews.com/025935_m…) and high fructose corn syrup (http://www.naturalnews.com/026528_m…) are often loaded with the dangerous heavy metal. Now comes this worrisome news: deposits of mercury in the bodies of Americans are increasing at an alarming rate and the health repercussions could be staggering.Mercury especially targets the liver, the immune system and the pituitary gland. Numerous studies have associated chronic mercury exposure with elevated risks for autism, mental impairment and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Previous research by U.S. Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) researchers estimated that chronic mercury exposure caused between 300,000 and 600,000 American children to be born with elevated risks of neurodevelopmental disorders between 1999 and 2000.
A new University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) study of government data on more than 6,000 women in the US found not only that mercury loads in bodies are increasing but it also identified significant associations between chronic mercury exposure and immune and endocrine system functions. The research specifically revealed that levels of the pituitary hormone, lutropin (also called luteinizing hormone) are significantly associated with chronic mercury exposure. This could explain a mechanism for how mercury causes or contributes to degenerative and neurodevelopmental diseases.My study found compelling evidence that inorganic mercury deposition within the human body is a cumulative process, increasing with age and overall in the population over time,study author Dan R. Laks, a neuroscience researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said in a statement to the media.My findings also suggest a rise in risks for disease associated with mercury over time.For his research, which was recently published online in the international biology, biochemistry and medicine journal Biometals, Laks studied computer analyses of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). He investigated inorganic mercury levels in the blood of 6,168 women between the ages of 18 and 49 in NHANES data sets from 1999 to 2000, 2001 to 2002, 2003 to 2004 and 2005 to 2006. In all, between 1,455 and 1,622 women were in each two-year matched group.
Mercury has elemental, organic and inorganic forms, depending on the sources of exposure. Mercury in contaminated fish, for instance, is organic. However, studies in animals have shown that with chronic exposure to organic mercury, the metal changes to its inorganic form — so inorganic mercury is usually considered the best measure of chronic mercury exposure. And when Laks looked for inorganic mercury in the blood of women studied in 2005-2006, he found it in 30 percent of the blood samples. That’s an increase in mercury of two percent over women in the 1999 to 2000 study.What’s more, the overall population average of blood inorganic mercury concentration increased significantly between 1999 and 2006, as well. Neuroscientist Laks also conducted a separate statistical analysis of older women and discovered they had more inorganic mercury in their blood than younger women.These results suggest that chronic mercury exposure has reached a critical level where inorganic mercury deposition within the human body is accumulating over time. It is logical to assume that the risks of associated neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases will rise as well,Laks stated.
For more information:
http://www.newswise.com/articles/hu…
http://www.naturalnews.com/mercury.html
http://orf.od.nih.gov/Environmental…
VIDEO SEGMENTS FROM BENJAMINS INTERVIEW
http://www.cnn.nl/video/?iref=videoglobal
NETANYAHU ON BLITZER - ON GAZA WE-PROTECTED OURSELVES FROM 10,000 ROCKETS AGAINST US,WHILE ARBS COMITTED DOUBLE WAR CRIMES-FIRING ON ISRAELI CIVILLIANS WHILE HIDING BEHIND THEIR OWN WOMEN AND CHILDREN.WAY TO GO BENJAMIN.AND ON JERUSALEM-NETANYAHU-ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM NEVER DIVIDED.SEPT 22,09 6:15PM
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: A big day today, the president of the United States hosting a summit with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders right here in New York.
Let's get right to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He's joining us.Mr. Prime Minister, thanks very much for coming in.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Good to be with you, Wolf.
BLITZER: The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, told our Fareed Zakaria the other day that he had an assurance from the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, that Israel has no intention of attacking Iran.
Is that true?
NETANYAHU: Well, I'm not going to deal with hypotheticals.
I think the important thing is to recognize that Iran's ambitions to acquire or develop nuclear weapons is a threat, not only to Israel, but to the entire world.
Remember, this is the country that sponsored terrorism worldwide. And imagine what would happen if these terrorists had a patron that had -- that gave them a nuclear umbrella, or, worse, actually gave them the nuclear weapon. I think that these are catastrophic consequences. And it's the interests of the entire international community to make sure this doesn't happen.
BLITZER: So, are you willing to repeat what you have been quoted in the Israeli press as saying, that -- quote -- all options for Israel are on the table right now?
NETANYAHU: Well, I'm willing to say that -- what President Obama has said, namely, that all options are on the table is a position we support.
BLITZER: Have you been concerned at all about the Obama administration's diplomatic initiative in trying to reach out to Iran to see if that will secure some results?
NETANYAHU: Wolf, I have spoken to President Obama several times about this. And he assured me that the goal of all his activities, diplomatic and otherwise, is to ensure that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons.And I think the goal is what counts. And, increasingly, I think people understand in Washington and certainly in -- certainly in Washington and elsewhere, in the major capitals, that the problem of Iran's acquiring nuclear weapons threatens everyone. It threatens world peace in a way that very few events could possibly threaten it.I'm hopeful and I would like to believe that the international community understands that Iran has to be pressed strongly. There are ways of pressing this regime right now, because it's weak. It's weaker than people think. It doesn't enjoy the support of its own people.
BLITZER: How much time is there, Mr. Prime Minister?
NETANYAHU: Whatever time is there, Wolf, it's getting shorter, because Iran is moving ahead.But this is a regime that is -- is susceptible to pressure. It's been exposed for what it is. It tyrannizes its own people. The Iranian people detest this regime, as has been plainly evident in the recent election fraud. But, equally, I think that Iran is susceptible because its economy is susceptible. And pressure -- the time for pressure is now, with or without talks.
BLITZER: Would you act unilaterally, without U.S. support?
NETANYAHU: Well, there you go again asking a hypothetical question.
I -- I would like to believe that the United States and the major powers of the world understand that this threat, that this danger threatens them as well. And you know what? From everything that I have seen and heard, speaking to President Obama, speaking to President Sarkozy this afternoon as well, speaking to all the major -- many of the major leaders of the world, I stand by that assessment. Iran is certainly a grave threat to Israel, but it's a grave threat to international peace. It's a grave threat to America and to everyone else.
BLITZER: I want to read to you what -- some comments that the former national security adviser to then President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, wrote the other day. He said this. He said: We,referring to the United States, are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? If they fly over, you go up and confront them, Brzezinski writes. They have the choice of turning back or not.That's a pretty strong statement. What does it say about the current state of U.S.-Israeli relations when a former national security adviser writes something like that?
NETANYAHU: See, now you're asking me to comment on a hypothetical on a hypothetical. I'm not going to do that.But I will tell you that the state of the U.S.-Israeli relations is very good, indeed. I was very pleased with the meeting hosted by President Obama today. For months, I have been calling for such a meeting, to put aside all these preconditions, and get on with the business of talking about peace.
It's very hard to make peace unless you talk about it, although we have been improving conditions on the West Bank, and life is getting a lot better there. But we can do a lot more if we talk to each other. So, on Iran, I have given you my answer. But, on peace, I think the -- the possibilities are there. Let's just get on with it. Let's move. And I think that a good and firm U.S.-Israel relationship is the pivot of that peace and the pivot of security in the Middle East.
BLITZER: I want to get on and talk a little bit about the peace process.
But just give me an answer, if you can, to a sensitive question that a lot of people are asking, especially friends of Israel here in the United States. Who is a better friend of Israel, the former President George W. Bush, who had a very close relationship with you, or the current president, Barack Obama?
NETANYAHU: Let me tell you something about President Obama, because I think this should be fully appreciated.He stood before the entire Muslim world. I don't know if a billion people heard him, but hundreds of millions of people in Muslim countries heard him. And he said: The bond between America and Israel is unshakeable. We are absolutely committed to Israel's security. I think that was a very important statement. And I think every president of the United States has had his contribution to Israeli- American relations and to the friendship between our countries. It is a very strong friendship, indeed. And I appreciated the president's comments in Cairo. And I appreciated his comments today, too.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: I hear you saying you trust this president.
NETANYAHU: I think that President Obama's commitment to Israel has been expressed very loud, very clearly by him. And I think this reflects the underlying friendship between our two countries. It's very strong.You know, I walk on the streets of -- well, New York, yes, but also the Midwest and every part of the United States. I have been in every part of it. I will tell you, it's warm -- heartwarming, because I see this tremendous, tremendous effusion of friendship towards Israel as a sister democracy, yes, often embattled by these dark forces of terrorism that embattle all of us.And I think Israel has a terrific friend in America and the American people. And I want the American people to know that you -- they have a terrific friend in Israel. In the Middle East, you don't have that many friends, but we're definitely right at the top of the list.
BLITZER: In the first eight months of his administration, he's repeatedly appealed to you to freeze all settlement activity, and you have declined that request. Did anything change today?
NETANYAHU: I think what is important is that we're moving on to talk peace. And I hope to make peace.Any time we have encountered an Arab leader who wanted to make peace, we made peace. Anwar Sadat came. Menachem Begin of the Likud made peace. The late King Hussein came. Yitzhak Rabin of Labor made peace. I'm telling you that, if Mr. Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, genuinely steps forward and says, we recognize the state of Israel, we're willing to make peace with the Jewish state, just that, the Jewish state, and it will be a peace of the recognition and security, then my government will make peace.I'm no exception, because the people of Israel want peace. And I think people understand that now. As to the question of settlements, I think that raising this condition, something that hasn't happened in 15 years of Israeli- Palestinian dialogue -- nobody put this precondition -- this is just costing us a great deal of time.The issue of settlements has to be discussed at the end or in the context within these negotiations, not before. It has to be resolved. And we're prepared to look into this issue, as into other issues. But we have to talk in order to talk about it. That's obvious. And yet we haven't. For six months, we have been waiting to talk about talks. I say let's put that aside. Let's just get on with it and start the peace process again.
BLITZER: We're hearing from U.S. officials and Palestinian officials that the president gave them, the Palestinians, a commitment that, once the negotiations resume, they would resume where they left off, including such sensitive issues as the future of Jerusalem, allowing Jerusalem to -- at least part of it, to be under Palestinian control.Is that even available to you? Is that even open to you, that Jerusalem could be a subject for these negotiations?
NETANYAHU: Well, you asked me two questions in that question.The first is, will the talks continue where they left off? Well, there were no agreements. I mean, the previous government spoke for three years, but came to no agreements. And we were elected with a clear mandate to provide peace and security. And, of course, we will do that.We will take into account the 15 years of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but we're -- we will be committed to the mandate that we received. And that mandate seeks to arrive at a better future for all of us. That is a future of peace for our children and for future generations of Israelis and Palestinians, and, for that matter, any Arab party in the Middle East. We're prepared to begin negotiations immediately or go anywhere.
(CROSSTALK)
NETANYAHU: Yes.
BLITZER: Are you ready to talk about Jerusalem?
(CROSSTALK)
NETANYAHU: Well, now the -- we have certain views about Jerusalem. I think the fact that it's been united under Israeli sovereignty has ensured that, for the last four decades, all major faiths, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, all monotheistic faiths, have enjoyed the great freedom of worship and access to their religious sites, something that hasn't happened before since the rise of the three monotheistic religions.It's only under Israeli sovereignty that this city has been open to all religions. Jerusalem for us is our internal capital. We don't want to redivide it and see a Berlin Wall in the center of it. So, obviously, that's our position. The Palestinians will raise their point of view. And that's clear. But we will talk about these things, but my position is well- known.
BLITZER: You know this United Nations commission, which just came back with a scathing report suggesting that Israel, your military, committed war crimes or something close to that, crimes against humanity, perhaps, even, during the fighting in Gaza.And I know you strongly disagree, but I want you to react to that United Nations report.
NETANYAHU: Now you're being a diplomat.I strongly disagree? I think this is preposterous. It's absurd. Israel was rocketed, pummeled for eight years by thousands of rockets that came from Gaza. We vacated all of Gaza, hoping that this thing would stop, and they fired not one rocket, but thousands of rockets, after we left Gaza.So, what's a country to do? I mean, what would you do if thousands of rockets fell on -- Where are you talking from, Wolf, Washington, right? -- Washington, D.C., or any part of the United States? You know what the United States would do.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: The argument, though, Mr. Prime Minister, was -- the argument in this U.N. report is that you overreacted, and, in the process, you killed a lot of civilians.
NETANYAHU: We overreacted, did we? Well, let me tell you, after millions -- I million, a million or so of our people were under rocket fire, progressively larger and larger circles of rockets falling on our cities, we did what no -- no -- what every reasonable country would do. We tried to get at the rocketeers, those terrorists firing those missiles and rockets who placed themselves, embedded themselves in homes and schools and mosques, and you name it.And we tried to target these people. We even sent them SMS text messages, telling the Palestinian civilians, please get out of harm's way, cellular phones, you name it. So, we did everything possible to minimize the loss of innocent civilian lives.And yet the Hamas that -- actually was committing a double war crime, firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians. That's a double war crime. We're -- they're the ones who sort of get a free bill out of this biased U.N. report, and Israel, that is defending itself, is accused.
BLITZER: All right.
NETANYAHU: So, the terrorists are exonerated. The victims are accused. That's -- that's an upside-down world. And I think this does grievous harm to the battle against terrorism, because the terrorists are basically being told, you get a free ride. All you have to do is fire at a democracy from -- from built-up areas, from residential quarters, and you will get a clean bill of health. And I think it does a great disservice to peace, too, because we're asked to take risks for peace. The international community says, if you take risks for peace, we will support your right of self- defense. And yet we did just that. We vacated Gaza in the hopes of -- that this would advance peace.And when we're rocketed with thousands of rockets and missiles from the places we vacated, people say Israel is the war criminal.
BLITZER: All right.
NETANYAHU: Come on. I mean, this is absurd.
BLITZER: If there is a trial at the International Court and the accusation is that Israel committed war crimes, or crimes against humanity in Gaza, will you cooperate with that?
NETANYAHU: Well, that's -- the question is, will any serious country cooperate with it? I took note of the fact that the leading democracies that were in this U.N. commission, they -- they opposed this. They were against this mandate, because it looked like a kangaroo court in the first place, where Israel was basically hanged, drawn, and quartered morally and given an unfair trial to boot right at the start of these proceedings. I think this is wrong. But understand this. It's not only we who will be damaged. It's you, too. I mean, American pilots, NATO pilots, let alone Russia and other countries that are fighting terrorists, are going to be put on the dock, too, because it's said that you cannot fight terrorists. It means that all the terrorists have to do is put themselves in a residential quarter, and they receive immunity. And that's not something that any country fighting terrorism can accept. And I don't think you can accept it either.
BLITZER: Mr. Prime Minister, there was an op-ed article written in The New York Times back in July by an Israeli journalist named Aluf Benn, who writes for the Haaretz newspaper. And, among other things, he said that President Obama is ignoring Israel, has not visited Israel, even though he's been to several Arab countries, and he's not reaching out to the Israeli people, the way he's reaching out to the Arab and Muslim world. He hasn't given any interviews, as far as I know, to the Israeli press, for example, or Israeli television.Do you agree with that assessment?
NETANYAHU: I think that people should not rush to judgment. I -- I think that these are two new administrations, my own new government and the new government in Washington. We have found a way to communicate. I think we have resolved a lot of the issues between us. We can have differences. That happens among the best of friends. It even happens in our own families.But I think there's a -- there's a growing closeness that I have found. What people don't know -- and I -- and I'm not referring to the public diplomacy -- but I want to tell you something about private diplomacy. There's virtually not a day that goes by that the Obama administration and my own government don't communicate in a very -- on a very senior level on very important matters in a very confidential and respectful way.And I say that advisedly. I'm choosing my words carefully. There's barely a day that goes by without that happening. So, that should give you some indication of the growing -- of the closeness of that relationship. And it's getting better, for sure. There's no question about it.
BLITZER: Because there was a very explosive charge in that same article on the op-ed page of The New York Times.And I will read it to you, because I want -- give you a chance to respond. It caused a huge commotion. This is what Aluf Benn wrote in The New York Times.In Mr. Netanyahu's narrative, the president has fallen under the influence of top aides, in this case, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, and David Axelrod, the White House adviser, whom the prime minister has called -- quote -- self-hating Jews.Is that true?
NETANYAHU: No. No, it's not. I never -- I never called them any such thing. And I don't think that. I have known Rahm Emanuel for some time. I just met David Axelrod today, in fact. And I think they're American patriots. They think of what is important for the United States. And they certainly bear no enmity to Israel.They probably want the best for Israel, too. So, I think that this is -- and we can have, as we say, occasional differences of opinion. But I never called them those things, and I don't think that, and I'm -- I'm sorry that anyone has given credence to this kind of nonsense. It's just...
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: Did you reach out to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod and reassure them that that -- that that was a lie?
NETANYAHU: Well, we immediately denied it. And, yes, we did reach out to them, of course.
BLITZER: Did you personally call them?
NETANYAHU: I didn't personally call them, but I had my aides communicate this to the White House as quickly as we could.
BLITZER: All right, let's move ahead and take and look and see where the situation goes from here. You have now met with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Are there going to be more direct meetings with you and the Palestinian leader without the United States in the room?
NETANYAHU: I hope so. And I think we should.I said to Mr. Abbas today, listen, we're old hands. We have had many meetings in the past when I was prime minister during my first tenure, and I met him. And I respect him. And I think there is a lot we can do together. Look, we have -- you know, we have lifted all these roadblocks in the West Bank, checkpoints. I've opened the Allenby Bridge on the Jordan River to allow the inflow of goods into the West Bank.So life is getting better. The IMF is talking about a seven percent growth rate in the West Bank.And guess what, Wolf?
I think we can top that. I think -- this is what we're doing. I mean we're easing those restrictions and opening up passage, even though there's a certain security risk involved, because I think that prosperity is good for peace. I don't think it's a substitute for a political peace, but I think it really enables it because young Palestinians see there -- there is a future there. I mean they -- they have jobs. They're -- there are investments. There are buildings sprouting out in Palestinian cities like Ramallah and Jenin and not missiles, as in Gaza, but, you know, high rises, apartment blocks, office buildings.This is what I'd like to see. I'd like to see this dynamic of peace, prosperity and security. And if we meet, then we can -- we could get a lot more of this going and that's good for us. It's good for the Palestinians. It's good for peace.
BLITZER: Mr. -- Mr. -- Mr. Prime Minister, a year from now, will there be an agreement, a peace treaty, if you will, between the Israelis and the Palestinians?
NETANYAHU: Well, I -- I think -- I don't want to set a timetable on it or a stopwatch, but the sooner we get going, the sooner we'll get an agreement. If there is a willingness on the part of the Palestinians to remove the main obstacle to peace. And the main obstacle to peace is the persistent refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish state -- the nation state of the Jewish people.There are non-Jews living there and they have equal rights. The Arab citizens of Israel vote in the Knesset. They're represented in every form of life and have political rights. But -- equal political rights. But Israel is the state -- the nation state of the Jewish people. And I think if we're asked to recognize the Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinian people, then the least we expect from the Palestinians is to come right out and say yes, you know, it's over. Yes, we accept the state of Israel...
BLITZER: But if the Palestinians do that...
NETANYAHU: ...and this (INAUDIBLE).
BLITZER: If the Palestinians do that, Mr. Prime Minister, are you ready to bite the bullet and make the tough concessions that have to be made? And everybody seems to know what the final agreement is going to look like.Are you ready to make those territorial concessions and go back, sort of, close to the '67 line?
NETANYAHU: Well, I think we need to make sure that Israel can defend itself and defend the peace. Because even if the Palestinian leaders make that simple statement that they so far haven't made, that they recognize the Jewish state -- and I think that's imperative for peace -- it may take a long time for this to be internalized by the Palestinian people that have been subjected repeatedly to very harmful propaganda against Israel.So we have to make sure that we can defend ourselves, that we don't have these Palestinian territories become the sites for the -- the launching of thousands of missiles and rockets, which is exactly what happened to us from the other areas we vacated.We need a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state. That's the winning formula for peace.Now, look, any time Israel was faced with an Arab leader that genuinely wanted peace, whether Anwar Sadat or -- or the late King Hussein, Israel made peace. And if President Abbas takes this forceful step, deciding that he wants to be a Sadat and not an Arafat, then he will find in me a partner for peace. And believe me, the Israeli people are yearning -- yearning is not -- praying, hoping that we have such a Palestinian partner on the other side.
BLITZER: Prime Minister Netanyahu, thanks very much for joining us.And good luck to the Israelis, good luck to you, good luck to the Palestinians.We'll be covering this story every step of the way.We appreciate it very much.
NETANYAHU: Thank you, Wolf.
DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.
JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
WORLD MARKET RESULTS
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09:30 AM -0.38
10:00 AM -6.85
10:30 AM -5.21
11:00 AM -24.18
11:30 AM -5.44
12:00 PM +1.29
12:30 PM +10.28
01:00 PM +15.34
01:30 PM +17.76
02:00 PM +29.70
02:30 PM +55.17
03:00 PM +35.98
03:30 PM -5.44
04:00 PM -81.32 9748.55
S&P 500 1060.87 -10.79
NASDAQ 2131.42 -14.88
GOLD 1,009.80 -5.70
OIL 68.30 -3.46
TSE 300 11,504.59 -81.14
CDNX 1277.85 -3.78
S&P/TSX/60 689.70 -5.88
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +12.00%
S&P +18.64%
Nasdaq +36.10%
TSX Advances 1,007,declines 568,unchanged 220,Volume 496,134,500.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 499,Declines 440,Unchanged 373,Volume 307,221,865.
Dow +6 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -32 points at low today.
Dow +11 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,013.50.OIL opens at $71.45 today.
INVENTORIES
CRUDE OIL +2.8 MILLION BARRELS
GASOLINE +5.4 MILLION BARRELS
REFINERY UTILIZATION -1.3% TO 85.6%
DISTILLATE INV +3 MILLION BARRELS
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -32 points at low today so far.
Dow +55 points at high today so far.
DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 1,647,declines 1,955,unchanged 107,New Highs 230,New Lows 30.
Volume 2,435,112,953.
NASDAQ Advances 1,254,declines 1,315,unchanged 130,New highs 95,New Lows 03.
Volume 1,061,434,408.
TSX Advances 581,declines 723,unchanged 253,Volume 252,735,547.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 303,Declines 333,Unchanged 303,Volume 164,240,095.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -90 points at low today.
Dow +87 points at high today.
Dow -0.83% today Volume 233,294,449.
Nasdaq -0.69% today Volume 2,548,136,981.
S&P 500 -1.01% today Volume N/A
AUDIT THAT FED HAS 290 HOUSE MEMBERS AND 27 SENATE MEMBERS SIGNED UP.$23.7 TRILLION WASTED AFTER 10 MONTHS OF GIVING TO BANKS,IT MUST BE AT LEAST $28 TRILLION BY NOW,THE LAST UPDATE WAS A MONTH AND HALF AGO.
HR 1207 Hearing, 9-25-09 at 9:00 – ACTION REQUIRED!
Campaign For Liberty Wednesday, Sept 23rd, 2009
After months of knocking on doors and attending rallies and functions to gather signatures on HR 1207 petitions, the House Financial Services Committee will finally hold hearings this Friday, September 25, beginning at 9:00 AM EST. Please check this link for any changes to the schedule, and to watch the live feed from the hearings.
In the coming days, it is vital that we all call our own Representatives, as well as the five from Illinois that serve on the Financial Services Committee. It is imperative that we remind our Representatives not just to support an audit of the Fed, but we must also demand that they vote on this bill on it’s own merits, without adding or taking away from it in any way, and without adding it to any other legislation.
Illinois Financial Services Committee Members:
Judy Biggert (CD-13) (cosponsor) 202-225-3515
Donald Manzullo (CD-16) (cosponsor) 202-225-5676
Melissa Bean (CD-8) (NOT a cosponsor) 202-225-3711
Bill Foster (CD-14) (NOT a cosponsor) 202-225-2976
Luis Gutierrez (CD-4) (NOT a cosponsor) 202-225-2976
ALL REPRESENTATIVES
http://www.prisonplanet.com/hr-1207-hearing-9-25-09-at-900-action-required.html
Tehran dumps dollar for euro by Martin Morris Monday, 21 September 2009
MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD: Iranian president signs-off on move to demote US dollar. (Getty Images)Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the replacement of the US dollar by the euro in calculating the value of the country's Oil Stabilisation Fund (OSF).The edict, issued on Sept 12, follows a recommendation by the trustees of the country's foreign reserves, Iran's English-language daily The Tehran Times said on Monday, citing Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency.The move was taken because the government wishes to protect itself from the fragility of the US economy and the weak dollar.The OSF, which forms part of Iran’s foreign exchange reserves, is a contingency fund set aside to cushion the economy against fluctuating international oil prices.It is also used to help both the public and private sectors with their hard currency needs by extending loans.Press TV meanwhile reported that following the switch the interest rate for facilities provided from the foreign exchange reserves is to be cut to 5 percent from 12 percent.Since its introduction in 1999 by the EU the euro has gained popularity internationally and there are now more euros in circulation than the dollar. refered by ...... -> http://www.prisonplanet.com/tehran-dumps-dollar-for-euro.html
url is -> www.arabianbusiness.com%2F568241-tehran-dumps-dollar-for-euro
Pittsburgh National Guard Prepare For Crowd Control Duties - Troops train with Army and Air Force for G20 Summit as part of martial law acclimation Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Wednesday, September 23, 2009
As military-run internal checkpoints rapidly multiply across the United States and the country sinks into a state of de facto martial law, it has been announced that no less than 2,500 National Guard troops will work with Army and Air Force personnel to undertake crowd control duties during the upcoming G20 Summit in Pittsburgh.As we reported earlier today, uniformed soldiers are being deployed all over the country to fulfil roles normally ascribed to police as Americans are incrementally conditioned that men in cammo with machine guns will now provide security in the new Amerika.Part of that security includes dealing with civil unrest and crowd control, a role also being undertaken by the 20,000 battle hardened troops that are being redeployed inside America under Northcom after returning from Iraq. In the meantime, the Pentagon is attempting to station a further 379,000 active duty troops inside the U.S., a plan being fiercely opposed by the National Governors Association.
That’s also a role being performed by the Pittsburgh National Guard, along with the Army and the Air Force in preparation for the G20 Summit which gets underway tomorrow.More than 2,500 Guardsmen have been called up for Operation Steel Kickoff, the description of which by the DefenseLink website sounds more like a military assault than an act of peacekeeping.Operation Steel Kickoff started Sept. 20 with a joint reception, staging, onward movement and integration point process led by the Guard’s 213th Area Support Group, which is working out of a hangar at the 171st Air Refueling Wing in Coraopolis, Pa.,reports DefenseLink.We’re the support role, helping the soldiers and airmen get out and do the things they need to do, said Army 1st Lt. Matthew Springer, the team leader for Operation Steel Kickoff’s JRSOI process.Our focus is on ensuring the war fighter is getting the things they need to be successful in their mission.The Guardsmen’s mission as those involved term it, will be to work with the Army and Air Force to help local, state and federal authorities keep Pittsburgh safe as demonstrators take to the streets in protest of the worldwide economic summit. Troops are training to perform, movement techniques, formations and crowd and riot control.We’re working hard right now because we have Army and Air Force members who haven’t trained together before,said Army Sgt. 1st Class Ronald Bittner, a platoon leader from 1/110th, D Company.We are working to mesh, because we all take a lot of pride in this mission.
This is definitely a different mission,said Air Force Master Sgt. Pauline Gonzalez, a 23-year veteran and personnel specialist with the 211th Engineering Installation Squadron.It’s very hard and very challenging, but it’s been a rewarding experience.
The fact that soldiers see it as a rewarding experience to completely violate the oath that they swore by undertaking duties totally at odds with Posse Comitatus, the law that bars the military from engaging in law enforcement duties, is a damning indictment of how far the specter of troops on the streets has seeped into everyday life in America.Claims that the troops are merely there to make sure the citizens are protected do not correlate with the fact that the entire scope of their mission is to intimidate and oppress peaceful protesters. Military weapons used in Iraq are now being turned on the American people. Tea Party protesters in San Diego were recently targeted with Long-range acoustic devices [LRADs], a torture device used to control insurgents that can cause serious and lasting health problems. LRADs are now a routine fixture at all major demonstrations and now it seems as small local protests too as the entire apparatus of Homeland Security and the war on terror is shifted to focus on Americans who dare attempt to exercise their rights.
White House Pares Its Financial Reform Plan By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: September 23, 2009
WASHINGTON — As a senior House Democrat announced an ambitious schedule to complete legislation overhauling the nation’s financial system, the Obama administration on Wednesday abandoned a symbolically significant provision in the face of widespread political and industry opposition.U.S. Hopes for Global Accord on Financial Reforms (September 23, 2009) At a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner announced that the administration had dropped one provision in its plan for a consumer financial protection agency — a requirement for banks and other financial services companies to offer plain vanilla products, like 30-year fixed mortgages and low-interest, low-fee credit cards.Mr. Geithner’s decision followed a wave of criticism by Democrats and Republicans, some with close ties to the industry, that the plan was the first step toward a new regulatory regime in which the administration would be handing new powers to government bureaucrats approving and disapproving a wide array of financial products. Republicans in particular had embraced that line of attack and said it is similar to the flaws in the administration’s health care program of giving government too much power.Among those who had said the provision stood no chance of passage was the committee chairman, Representative Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, who announced on Tuesday evening that it would not be part of the legislation.
There has been a lot of concern that if you invest the government with the ability to decide what’s appropriate here and there, that will lead to less competition and choice,Mr. Geithner said.The chairman’s proposals, which I’ve had a chance to quickly read, provides a better balance of choice and protection.Consumer groups offered a measured response to the changes, expressing some relief that a stand-alone consumer-protection agency had not been scrapped altogether.I don’t think anything here is intended to weaken or eviscerate this in any way,said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the United States Public Interest Research Group.The agency will still have a primary role of protecting consumers, and it will still have authorities.Mr. Frank said he intended to draft the legislation with the committee in the coming weeks in the hope of getting it to the floor of the House as early as November.Media reports that it is dead for the year are inaccurate, Mr. Frank said.This will be a very busy schedule.In the Senate, the chairman of the banking committee, Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, has also said he intends to introduce comprehensive legislation soon after further consultations with committee members.
Hoping to move the legislation along, Mr. Frank disclosed important limits on the administration’s proposal intended to remove the political obstacles that had stalled that plan. Mr. Frank’s version restricts the scope of the proposed agency, but still leaves it significantly more powerful than the banking industry would like. Since the administration proposed the creation of the agency last June, the industry has mounted a major lobbying campaign to kill it.Mr. Frank announced that the legislation he was drafting would exempt a variety of businesses — merchants, retailers and providers of retirement plans, among others — from oversight by the new consumer financial protection agency. The agency was proposed by the administration to protect consumers from deceptive or abusive credit cards, mortgages and other kinds of loans.Mr. Frank said the legislation would provide for a way to resolve disagreements between regulators at the new agency and those at the other agencies that examine banks.The proposal by Mr. Frank was an effort to address the widespread criticism of the new agency by banks, while trying to assure that the new agency has some regulatory teeth. While narrowing the agency’s authority, the Frank plan would give the agency both the authority to write and enforce regulations.
Both Mr. Frank and Mr. Geithner emphasized that the legislation would be designed to limit the too big to fail policy of bailing out the nation’s largest institutions. That policy, which has provoked widespread voter anger, was central to the bailouts of Bear Stearns and American International Group and led to big loans to the largest banks in the nation.We will be putting a package of legislation together that will substantially diminish that problem,Mr. Frank said.We will be providing for mechanisms for putting financial institutions out of their misery. There will be death panels enacted by this Congress but they will be for large institutions that are seen as too big to die. We are talking here about dissolution, not resolution. We are talking about making it unpleasant for these institutions to die.Mr. Geithner said those institutions whose problems could shake the financial system will face far greater regulatory scrutiny and higher capital standards. But under questioning from Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee, he refused to rule out the possibility of future bailouts of big companies.You can’t have a system, how shall I say it, where you abolish the fire station, or lock the doors to the fire station,Mr. Geithner said.That’s not a system that works.Jack Healy contributed reporting from New York.
Palin Attacks Fed on Hong Kong Visit, Wants Responsible China
By Daniel Ten Kate and Cathy Chan
Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin used her first trip to Asia to attack the Federal Reserve for creating asset bubbles and encouraging excessive risk-taking that hurt working-class Americans. In a wide-ranging, 80-minute speech to fund managers in Hong Kong today, Palin spoke about issues ranging from Alaskan fishing to energy independence to U.S.-Sino ties. She repeated calls for market-oriented health-care reform and said governments shouldn’t regulate executive compensation.The Fed and the government sent a message to companies that the bigger that you are, the more problems that you get yourself into, the more likely the government is to bail you out, Palin said in the closed door speech, according to a tape of the event given to Bloomberg News. Of course the little guys are left out then. We’re left holding the bag, all the moms and pops all over America.The speech was Palin’s first major public appearance since quitting as Alaska governor on July 26, less than a year after she ran with John McCain in an unsuccessful campaign against now-President Barack Obama. People at the event said she focused on a wide range of global and domestic issues rather than her own political future.It was a very safe speech,said Suyeon An of RCM Asia Pacific Ltd, who left before Palin stopped talking.Boring I have to say.
Packed Ballroom
Palin, 45, spoke to a full house in the main ballroom of Hong Kong’s Grand Hyatt hotel. Reporters were kept out of the investor forum organized by CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, the regional brokerage unit of Paris-based Credit Agricole SA.It was a great speech,Jonathan Slone, CLSA’s chief executive officer, said.People got a lot of information and are now fully informed on Sarah Palin’s views.Palin criticized Obama’s plan to give the Fed powers to monitor risks to the financial system. A meltdown last year led to $1.6 trillion of bank losses and writedowns and triggered a global recession.How can we think that setting up the Fed as monitor of systemic risk in the financial sector will result in meaningful reform,she said.The words fox and henhouse come to mind.Palin, who only obtained a passport in 2007, faced criticism last year after saying her state’s proximity to Russia and Canada bolstered her foreign-policy credentials.
1,000 Missiles
In her speech, she called the Obama administration’s decision to impose duties on Chinese tires a mistake and said America’s alliance with Japan must continue to be the linchpin of regional security.We simply cannot turn a blind eye to China’s policies and actions that could undermine international peace and security. China has some 1,000 missiles aimed at Taiwan and no serious observer believes that it poses a military threat to Beijing,she said.Those same Chinese forces made our friends in Japan and Australia kinda nervous. China provides support for some of the most questionable regimes from Sudan to Burma to Zimbabwe.Palin said her comments did not show any hostility towards China.We simply want them to rise responsibly, she said.Trade with China will grow, including exports of U.S. high- tech goods, though for that to happen we need China to improve the rule of law and protect intellectual property,she said.In the end, though, our economic relationship will truly thrive when Chinese citizens and foreign corporations can hold the Chinese government accountable when their actions are unjust.
Building Nest Egg
CLSA has declined to say if or how much Palin was paid. The speech may augment both her bank account and overseas profile ahead of a possible 2012 White House bid, said Charlie Cook, publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington. When Palin resigned her governorship, it was assumed that it was in part to make more money, build a nest egg and lay the groundwork for a 2012 presidential race,he said prior to the speech.This trip is simply an example of her doing so.Little-known outside Alaska before McCain picked her as his running mate, Palin has largely kept a low public profile since stepping down as governor. Citing a scheduling conflict, she didn’t appear at a Sept. 19 Values Voter Summit in Washington that brought together some of the most ardent social conservatives in the U.S.Palin remains on most lists of potential candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, along with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, two 2008 contenders, among others. She hasn’t said whether she would pursue a campaign.In a Bloomberg News poll this month, Palin had the highest unfavorable ratings among a list of public figures, at 55 percent. Asked about the difficulties of balancing her political career with her home life, Palin said today: I have a husband. I could have used a wife.To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net
G-20: Globalization Goes Bankrupt
Chris Hedges Global Research September 23, 2009
The rage of the disposed is fracturing the country, dividing it into camps that are unmoored from the political mainstream. Movements are building on the ends of the political spectrum that have lost faith in the mechanisms of democratic change. You can’t blame them. But unless we on the left move quickly, this rage will be captured by a virulent and racist right wing, one that seeks a disturbing proto-fascism.
The delegates to the G-20, the gathering of the world’s wealthiest nations, will be protected by a National Guard combat battalion, recently returned from Iraq. Every day counts. Every deferral of protest hurts. We should, if we have the time and the ability, make our way to Pittsburgh for the meeting of the G-20 this week rather than do what the power elite is hoping we will do—stay home. Complacency comes at a horrible price.The leaders of the G-20 are meeting to try and salvage their power and money after everything that has gone wrong,said Benedicto Martinez Orozco, co-president of the Mexican Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT), who is in Pittsburgh for the protests.This is what this meeting is about.The draconian security measures put in place to silence dissent in Pittsburgh are disproportionate to any actual security concern. They are a response not to a real threat, but to the fear gripping the established centers of power.
The power elite grasps, even if we do not, the massive fraud and theft being undertaken to save a criminal class on Wall Street and international speculators of the kinds who were executed in other periods of human history. They know the awful cost this plundering of state treasuries will impose on workers, who will become a permanent underclass. And they also know that once this is clear to the rest of us, rebellion will no longer be a foreign concept.The delegates to the G-20, the gathering of the world’s wealthiest nations, will consequently be protected by a National Guard combat battalion, recently returned from Iraq. The battalion will shut down the area around the city center, man checkpoints and patrol the streets in combat gear. Pittsburgh has augmented the city’s police force of 1,000 with an additional 3,000 officers. Helicopters have begun to buzz gatherings in city parks, buses driven to Pittsburgh to provide food to protesters have been impounded, activists have been detained, and permits to camp in the city parks have been denied. Web sites belonging to resistance groups have been hacked and trashed, and many groups suspect that they have been infiltrated and that their phones and e-mail accounts are being monitored.Larry Holmes, an organizer from New York City, stood outside a tent encampment on land owned by the Monumental Baptist Church in the city’s Hill District. He is one of the leaders of the Bail Out the People Movement. Holmes, a longtime labor activist, on Sunday led a march on the convention center by unemployed people calling for jobs. He will coordinate more protests during the week.
It is de facto martial law,he said,and the real effort to subvert the work of those protesting has yet to begin. But voting only gets you so far. There are often not many choices in an election. When you build democratic movements around the war or unemployment you get a more authentic expression of democracy. It is more organic. It makes a difference. History has taught us this.Our global economy, like our political system, has been hijacked by a tiny oligarchy, composed mostly of wealthy white men who serve corporations.They have pledged or raised a staggering $18 trillion, looted largely from state treasuries, to prop up banks and other financial institutions that engaged in suicidal acts of speculation and ruined the world economy.They have formulated trade deals so corporations can speculate across borders with currency, food and natural resources even as, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, 1.02 billion people on the planet struggle with hunger. Globalization has obliterated the ability of many poor countries to protect food staples such as corn, rice, beans and wheat with subsidies or taxes on imported staples. The abolishment of these protections has permitted the giant mechanized farms to wipe out tens of millions of small farmers—2 million in Mexico alone—bankrupting many and driving them off their land. Those who could once feed themselves can no longer find enough food, and the wealthiest governments use institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization like pit bulls to establish economic supremacy. There is little that most governments seem able to do to fight back.But the game is up. The utopian dreams of globalization have been exposed as a sham. Force is all the elite have left.
We are living through one of civilization’s great seismic reversals. The ideology of globalization, like all utopias that are sold as inevitable and irreversible, has become a farce. The power elite, perplexed and confused, cling to the disastrous principles of globalization and its outdated language to mask the political and economic vacuum before us. The absurd idea that the marketplace alone should determine economic and political constructs caused the crisis. It led the G-20 to sacrifice other areas of human importance—from working conditions, to taxation, to child labor, to hunger, to health and pollution—on the altar of free trade. It left the world’s poor worse off and the United States with the largest deficits in human history. Globalization has become an excuse to ignore the mess. It has left a mediocre elite desperately trying to save a system that cannot be saved and, more important, trying to save itself. Speculation, then-President Jacques Chirac of France once warned, is the AIDS of our economies.We have reached the terminal stage.
Each of Globalization’s strengths has somehow turned out to have an opposing meaning,John Ralston Saul wrote in The Collapse of Globalism.The lowering of national residency requirements for corporations has morphed into a tool for massive tax evasion. The idea of a global economic system mysteriously made local poverty seem unreal, even normal. The decline of the middle class—the very basis of democracy—seemed to be just one of those things that happen, unfortunate but inevitable. That the working class and the lower middle class, even parts of the middle class, could only survive with more than one job per person seemed to be expected punishment for not keeping up. The contrast between unprecedented bonuses for mere managers at the top and the four-job families below them seemed inevitable in a globalized world. For two decades an elite consensus insisted that unsustainable third-world debts could not be put aside in a sort of bad debt reserve without betraying Globalism’s essential principles and moral obligations, which included an unwavering respect for the sanctity of international contracts. It took the same people about two weeks to abandon sanctity and propose bad debt banks for their own far larger debts in 2009.The institutions that once provided alternative sources of power, including the press, government, agencies of religion, universities and labor unions, have proved morally bankrupt. They no longer provide a space for voices of moral autonomy. No one will save us now but ourselves.The best thing that happened to the Establishment is the election of a black president, Holmes said.It will contain people for a given period of time, but time is running out. Suppose something else happens? Suppose another straw breaks? What happens when there is a credit card crisis or a collapse in commercial real estate? The financial system is very, very fragile. The legs are being kicked out from underneath it.
Obama is in trouble,Holmes went on.The economic crisis is a structural crisis. The recovery is only a recovery for Wall Street. It can’t be sustained, and Obama will be blamed for it. He is doing everything Wall Street demands. But this will be a dead end. It is a prescription for disaster, not only for Obama but the Democratic Party. It is only groups like ours that provide hope. If labor unions will get off their ass and stop focusing on narrow legislation for their members, if they will go back to being social unions that embrace broad causes, we have a chance of effecting change. If this does not happen it will be a right-wing disaster.
The stock market rally is just another bubble – and it's set to pop By MoneyWeek Editor John Stepek Sep 21, 2009
Central bankers: forever blowing bubbles-Stock markets continue to expect the best of all worlds.There will be a V-shaped recovery. Everything is headed back to normal. At least, that's what you'd believe if you just look at the way stocks have surged. But the real economy is telling a different story. And it's one that could spell a very sticky ending for the current rally.
We're in a bubble
Money printing by the Bank of England and other central banks across the world has worked. Sort of. The free and easy money being dished out by the world's central banks is finding its way into assets, particularly financial assets such as stocks and bonds. That's great for asset prices, as the surge in stock market since March has demonstrated. But so far, it's not having much impact on the real economy. In other words, the money is being pumped into financial assets, but it's not being loaned out to businesses and individuals to fund business expansion and investment, or increased consumption. In fact, businesses and individuals are still in cutback mode, and show no real sign of coming out. So it seems we're having a surge in financial assets that has no backing in economic reality. There's a name for that – a bubble. Instead of getting consumer inflation from all this central bank liquidity, we are seeing asset price inflation and we all know that usually does not end well for investors,Steven Ricchiuto of Mizuho Securities told the Financial Times this weekend.
What this means for property
It's interesting to look at the property market with this in mind. On the one hand, the property market benefits at the very top from the renewed boom in asset prices. You get bankers getting all excitable again, and foreign investors and people with cash looking for returns and getting fed up with the dull sub-5% or less return they're getting on their savings. So top-end homes in the South particularly look attractive again. But as the latest Rightmove survey points out, at the bottom end, things are a lot tougher.This recession appears to have hit prices harder in the North, and this is compounded by lenders' more conservative attitude to risk. Lenders quite naturally prefer to lend to lower-risk borrowers in better locations, with better job security, larger deposits and more resilient property values,says Rightmove's Miles Shipside.In other words, there's plenty of demand for now for high-end homes that can be bought with cash or big chunky deposits. For sellers who depend on buyers who actually need home loans, the outlook is far less upbeat.
Unemployment in California reaches 70-year high
Andrea Peters WSWS September 22, 2009
Official unemployment in California, the most populous state in the US, has reached a new historical milestone. At 12.2 percent in August, it is now at the highest level since 1940. It has risen 4.6 percentage points over the course of the last year alone.The recently released unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal the social reality that lies behind official claims of an end to the economic downturn. Just last week, speaking before an audience at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke claimed that the recession is very likely over. For workers throughout the country, however, the crisis is intensifying.As high as it is, the statistic fails to capture the true gravity of the jobs situation in California. The 2.5 million people represented in the August figure do not include those who are out of work but have given up looking for a job, or those who are involuntarily working part-time. By some estimates, when calculated together, the unemployment and underemployment rate in California stands at 23 percent.Even this number, however, does not take into account the thousands of undocumented immigrants out of work in the state. Many immigrants are employed in the construction industry, which has been extremely hard hit by the downturn. Thus, the economic crisis in California affects workers in Mexico and Central and South America, as millions of families are dependent on remittances from relatives.
What is happening in California is not unique to the state. Nevada and Rhode Island both have even higher jobless rates. In Michigan, the forced bankruptcies of Chrysler and General Motors, which were planned, orchestrated, and overseen by the Obama administration, have contributed to an unemployment rate of 15.2 percent. In Ohio, another state that had been part of the country’s industrial heartland, the unemployment now stands at 10.8 percent. Official unemployment for the US as a whole will soon reach double digits.However, the unemployment rate in California has a special historical significance. Known as the Golden State,California was once a symbol of post-war prosperity in the US. In addition to being a major agricultural producer, it was also home to a significant portion of the country’s aerospace, shipping, automotive, and technology industries.In the post-war period, millions of people flocked to the state. Between 1940 and 1960, the population grew by an unprecedented 128 percent. California’s vast highway, higher education, public parks and recreation systems date from this period. Now, the entire infrastructure that was built up at that time is being effectively left to waste.The social catastrophe now afflicting California is not simply the product of blind economic forces. It is a conscious class policy pursued by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Democratic-controlled State Legislature, and the Obama administration, which is using widespread joblessness to drive down the living standards of the working population.Facing a $45.5 billion budget shortfall, the state government recently approved more than $15 billion worth of budget cuts to education and social programs.
The Obama administration refused to bail out California, or any of the states facing budget shortfalls. While the administration insists that no money can be made available to prevent the destruction of California’s public infrastructure, the US government has pledged trillions of dollars to rescue Wall Street. Bonuses paid out at the nine major banks, all beneficiaries of government largess, totaled $33 billion last year—a figure that would cover a significant portion of California’s deficit by itself.California programs gutted as a consequence of budget cuts include: Medi-Cal, supplemental social security payments, child welfare and health services, foster care, domestic violence shelters, and health care programs for HIV/AIDS patients and children with dental disease. In addition, cost-of-living adjustments for Cal-Works, the state welfare program, have been eliminated.State workers have been furloughed three days a month, resulting in a 15 percent wage cut. The crisis has also reverberated down to local governments. In Los Angeles, the mayor recently announced thousands of layoffs and unpaid time off for city employees.
Meanwhile, cuts in public education have resulted in widespread job losses for teachers and school support staff in K-12 school districts. At the university level, well over half a million students are facing fee hikes of 30 percent or more at state-funded institutions, while thousands of staff and faculty have been laid off statewide.Much of California’s industrial base is being eliminated as a result of the economic crisis. Toyota has announced that it will shut down the NUMMI plant in Fremont, resulting in the elimination of 4,600 jobs and the closure of the state’s last automobile manufacturing enterprise.The return of unemployment to levels not seen since just after the Great Depression is a clear expression of the failure of American capitalism and the American political system.The crisis in California underscores the necessity for the working class to adopt a new political strategy. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) calls for the implementation of a multi-trillion dollar public works program nation-wide to guarantee employment and rebuild the state’s infrastructure—roads, public schools, parks, community and cultural centers. This program would be aimed at real productive investment, and not the diversion of public money into financial speculation.The SEP demands immediate relief for the unemployed, including an increase and extension of unemployment benefits to prevent the loss of income. There should be an end to all home foreclosures. Guaranteed health benefits should be made available to all laid off workers.The realization of these basic social demands, however, requires a coordinated political struggle of the international working class. As a recent WSWS perspective made clear, the jobs crisis is a global crisis. It is the product of a ruthless offensive of the ruling class against the living standards of workers around the world.The return of conditions of life not seen since the Great Depression is ultimately the product of a society that subordinates the needs of the vast majority to the profit interests of the giant banks and corporations. This crisis can be resolved only by building the Socialist Equality Party as the independent party of the working class, which has as its aim the socialist reorganization of economic life to meet social need, not private profit.
Up next, has the United Nations become completely irrelevant? That's the subject of our Face Off debate tonight. We'll be joined by four leading experts.LOU DOBBS SEPT 22,09 AND GUESTS.
DOBBS: President Obama gave his first speech at the United Nations today but just how relevant, how effective is the United Nations? That is the subject of our "Face-off" debate here tonight and joining me, Bruce Jones who is the director and senior fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation, also a senior fellow at Brookings Institution. Stephen Schlesinger, adjunct fellow at the Century Foundation who is the former director of the World Policy Institute at the new school and Claudia Rosett journalist and resident at the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies, and Anne Bayefsky who is senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Thank you all for being here.
Anne, let me begin with you. You say no amount of reform can fix what's broken with the United Nations. That sounds like a good starting point for a discussion.
ANNE BAYEFSKY, HUDSON INSTITUTE: The U.N. is a 20th century organization. It's not meant for the 21st century. It has very little hope of meeting the major issues of our time. It can't stop nuclear proliferation. It hasn't done a good job of preventing genocide in the major crimes against human rights. And I think that it's the fact of the matter is it's no longer an organization which is run by democracies for democracies, and the numbers simply, you do the math, it doesn't have the will to change dramatically.
DOBBS: Steve?
STEPHEN SCHLESINGER, CENTURY FOUNDATION: Well, I would disagree with that proposition.
DOBBS: I was counting on it.
SCHLESINGER: The fact is that when the U.N. was set up, it was set up to provide security in this world. We went through two terrible conflicts, the first war and the Second World War, and it was set up to prevent the third war. There have been a lot of small wars, but a lot of other wars have been prevented by U.N. intervention. There are 16 peace keeping missions going on right now which if the U.N. weren't doing, we would be in great problems because there would be no other organization to deal with those kind of conflicts. And right now, the U.N. is the one body putting sanctions on two rogue states, North Korea and Iran. Who else can do that kind of thing? We have to have the U.N. around to provide that kind of security for our world.
DOBBS: Claudia Rosett? You say it's not only a broken institution, but the United Nations is fundamentally corrupt.
CLAUDIA ROSETT, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Unfortunately, that wasn't the plan, but it's a huge collective. And the main security, I was just over there, the main security right now is for Ahmadinejad and Gadhafi arriving at the general assembly, the general assembly now chaired by a former minister of Gadhafi's administration where the voting bloc had 137 members and picked Sudan. That's the kind of organization it is. With respect, I would actually argue it wasn't the U.N. who prevented the terrible wars. It was the United States. And a lot of the peace keeping missions have been disasters. Rwanda with the genocide. Sudan is a mess. Lebanon which allowed Hezbollah to dig bunkers right under their noses and a war broke out in 2006. And sanctions sound good, U.N. sanctions, but the U.N. is phenomenally leaky. Again, it's actually tends to be U.S. enforcement of these enforcement of these sanctions that gets somewhere. We could do a whole show on ineffectual U.N. sanctions but they're not stopping --
DOBBS: We're going to do one debate, on relevance and effectiveness. Bruce, the importance of the president sitting down as is first chair of the security council, does this rise to a level of importance that will be lasting, that will be significant?
BRUCE JONES, NYU CTR. ON INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION: I think it's going to make a difference. I don't agree with much of what's been said so far, to be honest. I think the U.N. does important things. If you look, for example, at the track record on civil wars and small wars I think the data's pretty clear. We've seen an 80 percent decline in the level and number of civil wars since the early 1990s and all the evidence shows U.N. peacekeeping is part of that. Fails sometimes, succeeds sometimes, as do most institutions and we have to judge it on evaluation. On the president's chairmanship of the Security Council this week, what it's going to do is stake his personal political prestige on this issue. The issue isn't the U.N., the issue is Obama. He's saying, I'm going to be willing to pay serious attention to this body and put serious political prestige and will through this body but you better be serious on the nonproliferation agenda as well.
BAYEFSKY: If I may just comment on that, that's exactly the problem. He's lending his prestige to a body that has no hope whatsoever of doing anything about stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It was the president, because he decided to turn this into a summit, that issued an invitation to Colonel Gadhafi to come. What he's done is he's raised the profile and the legitimacy and the organization itself of course is granting legitimacy to Iranian President Ahmadinejad by an election obviously a fraud. Yet he'll stand before the general assembly, reap applause, probably a big hug from the president of the general assembly like he did last year, give him credibility where none is due.
JONES: We could have a United Nations of the United States, Sweden, Norway, Canada. We could easily pass resolutions and agree to do things. But so what?
ROSETT: That's a great idea, actually I think that's a wonderful proposal.
JONES: The whole point is to have confrontation with people who we don't agree with. That's the whole point.
SCHLESINGER: When the U.N. was set up we had both dictators and Democrats in the organization. The theory was you had to bring both in if you wanted to create security around the world. That's the way you got the peace. You couldn't exclude people. That's the way the U.N. was put together. And frankly, in the last 50 to 60 years Democratization has spread around the world. In 1950, it was about 33 percent of the world's population was under democracy. By the year 2000, about 67 percent was under some kind of Democratic rule.
ROSETT: Statisticians would call that Steve Schlesinger correlation, the fact that U.N. existed with that, so did window cleaner. It doesn't prove the U.N. was the reason. I would suggest perhaps a bigger reason is that by the time World War II was over, the United States was really engaged with the world. There had been a tremendous statement made. And when you look at sort of what's happened over the past 20 years with the expansion of peacekeeping, what's also happened is the Soviet Union collapsed. And it's not necessarily the U.N. that's been doing good things here.
JONES: The correlations are pretty well-studied. There was a spike in civil wars after the collapse of the Soviet Union and it took the deployment of large numbers of peacekeepers and mediators by the U.N., with substantial U.S. involvement, by the Europeans and others.
BAYEFSKY: Let's talk about the 21st century. Here we are. Sorry.
DOBBS: Let me raise this. The president talking about a new world order. Talking about new world regulations of markets and economies and a specific special role for the G-20. Is the concept of a new world order an appropriate discussion for this institution? And is it likely to be an effective discussion, if indeed it were even termed to be desirable? Bruce, you first.
JONES: Well, let's bear in mind he's talking about the economic issues of the G-20, which is not a U.N. body. I think that's actually the right place to do it. One of the things people have tried to do in the past is involve the United Nations in big economic questions and that's a disaster. The U.N.'s irrelevant on these issues. Getting the big economies together to talk about the major issues they're confronting and the financial increase sister through the G-20 is the right move.
DOBBS: Steve?
SCHLESINGER: Yeah, I mean, I think the fact is that, you know, the U.N. has limitations. Nobody's going to expect the U.N. to bring peace tomorrow. You know, it's an ongoing process. But the fact is that the U.N. does provide a forum for different viewpoints to come together and ways to come to agreements that produce results. And this idea that you can just dismiss the U.N. as an irrelevant body seems to me preposterous.
ROSETT: I don't think they're irrelevant. I actually think they're extremely dangerous. Talking shop would be marvelous. To bring people together to confront, discuss, I think there's a real reason for that, need for that. But the U.N. spilled over those bounds a long time ago. If you actually get down to the nitty gritty of how it works it's staggeringly corrupt. It's unaccountable. And the idea that it's going to sort of work through to good conclusions, just is disconnected from the reality. It's a lovely dream.
DOBBS: You get the last quick word.
BAYEFSKY: Well I'd have to say that the problem today and over the next couple of days is that it's President Obama is going to try to use the united nations to change the subject. Take his -- the attention off the failed -- failing domestic policies. And unfortunately give status to an organization which is not really in sync with American values.
SCHLESINGER: Nonproliferation is a pretty important subject, though.
DOBBS: Thank you very much. Appreciate you all being with us. Come back soon.
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