WHAT MAKES OBAMMMMMMMA TICK

WORLD GOVERNMENT

DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

DANIEL 12:4,1
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

REVELATION 13:1-3,7,8,12,16-18
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
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.

REVELATION 17:3,7,9-10,12,18
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.James Paul Warburg appearing before the Senate on 7th February 1950

Like a famous WWII Belgian General,Paul Henry Spock said in 1957:We need no commission, we have already too many. What we need is a man who is great enough to be able to keep all the people in subjection to himself and to lift us out of the economic bog into which we threaten to sink. Send us such a man. Be he a god or a devil, we will accept him.And today, sadly, the world is indeed ready for such a man.

Leaked Agenda: Bilderberg Group Plans Economic Depression
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Wednesday, May 6, 2009
http://www.infowars.com/leaked-agenda-bilderberg-group-plans-economic-depression/

On the eve of the 2009 Bilderberg Group conference, which is due to be held May 14-17 at the 5 star Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel in Vouliagmeni, Greece, investigative reporter Daniel Estulin has uncovered shocking details of what the elitists plan to do with the economy over the course of the next year.The Bilderberg Group meeting is an annual confab of around 150 of the world’s most influential powerbrokers in government, industry, banking, media, academia and the military-industrial complex. The secretive group operates under Chatham House rules, meaning that no details of what is discussed can ever be leaked to the media, despite editors of the world’s biggest newspapers, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Financial Times, being present at the meeting.According to Estulin’s sources, which have been proven highly accurate in the past, Bilderberg is divided on whether to put into motion, Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.

The information takes on added weight when one considers the fact that Estulin’s previous economic forecasts, which were based on leaks from the same sources, have proven deadly accurate. Estulin correctly predicted the housing crash and the 2008 financial meltdown as a result of what his sources inside Bilderberg told him the elite were planning based on what was said at their 2006 meeting in Canada and the 2007 conference in Turkey.Details of the economic agenda were contained in a pre-meeting booklet being handed out to Bilderberg members. On a more specific note, Estulin warns that Bilderberg are fostering a false picture of economic recovery, suckering investors into ploughing their money back into the stock market again only to later unleash another massive downturn which will create massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead,according to a Canada Free Press report.

According to Estulin, Bilderberg is assuming that U.S. unemployment figures will reach around 14% by the end of the year, almost doubling the current official figure of 8.1 per cent.Estulin’s sources also tell him that Bilderberg will again attempt to push for the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty, a key centerpiece of the agenda to fully entrench a federal EU superstate, by forcing the Irish to vote again on the document in September/October despite having rejected it already, along with other European nations, in national referendums.One of their concerns is addressing and neutralizing the anti-Lisbon treaty movement called Libertas led by Declan Ganley. One of the Bilderberger planned moves is to use a whispering campaign in the US media suggested that Ganley is being funded by arms dealers in the US linked to the US military, reports CFP.Daniel Estulin, Jim Tucker, and other sources who have infiltrated Bilderberg meetings in the past have routinely provided information about the Bilderberg agenda that later plays out on the world stage, proving that the organization is not merely a talking shop as debunkers claim, but an integral planning forum for the new world order agenda.Indeed, just last month Belgian viscount and current Bilderberg-chairman Étienne Davignon bragged that Bilderberg helped create the Euro by first introducing the policy agenda for a single currency in the early 1990’s. Bilderberg’s agenda for a European federal superstate and a single currency likely goes back even further. A BBC investigation uncovered documents from the early Bilderberg meetings which confirmed that the European Union was a brainchild of Bilderberg.

In spring 2002, when war hawks in the Bush administration were pushing for a summer invasion of Iraq, Bilderbergers expressed their desire for a delay and the attack was not launched until March the following year.In 2006, Estulin predicted that the U.S. housing market would be allowed to soar before the bubble was cruelly popped, which is exactly what transpired.In 2008, Estulin predicted that Bilderberg were creating the conditions for a financial calamity, which is exactly what began a few months later with the collapse of Lehman Brothers.Bilderberg has routinely flexed its muscles in establishing its role as kingmaker. The organization routinely selects presidential candidates as well as running mates and prime ministers.Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were both groomed by the secretive organization in the early 1990’s before rising to prominence.Barack Obama’s running mate Joe Biden was selected by Bilderberg luminary James A. Johnson, and John Kerry’s 2004 running mate John Edwards was also anointed by the group after he gave a glowing speech at the conference in 2004. Bilderberg attendees even broke house rules to applaud Edwards at the end of a speech he gave to the elitists about American politics. The choice of Edwards was shocking to media pundits who had fully expected Dick Gephardt to secure the position. The New York Post even reported that Gephardt had been chosen and Kerry-Gephardt stickers were being placed on campaign vehicles before being removed when Edwards was announced as Kerry’s number two.A 2008 Portuguese newspaper report highlighted the fact that Pedro Santana Lopes and Jose Socrates attended the 2004 meeting in Stresa, Italy before both going on to become Prime Minster of Portugal.Several key geopolitical decisions were made at last year’s Bilderberg meeting in Washington DC, again emphasizing the fact that the confab is far more than an informal get-together.

As we reported at the time, Bilderberg were concerned that the price of oil was accelerating too fast after it hit $150 a barrel and wanted to ensure that oil prices would probably begin to decline. This is exactly what happened in the latter half of 2008 as oil again sunk below $50 a barrel. We were initially able to predict the rapid rise in oil prices in 2005 when oil was at $40, because Bilderberg had called for prices to rise during that year’s meeting in Munich. During the conference in Germany, Henry Kissinger told his fellow attendees that the elite had resolved to ensure that oil prices would double over the course of the next 12-24 months, which is exactly what happened.Also at last year’s meeting, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice formalized plans to sign a treaty on installing a U.S. radar base in the Czech Republic with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.Rice was joined at the meeting by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who reportedly encouraged EU globalists to get behind an attack on Iran. Low and behold, days later the EU threatened Iran with sanctions if it did not suspend its nuclear enrichment program.

There was also widespread speculation that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s secret meeting,which was accomplished with the aid of cloak and dagger tactics like locking journalists on an airplane to keep them from tracking the two down, took place at the Bilderberg meeting in DC.It remains to be seen what kind of mainstream media press coverage Bilderberg 2009 will be afforded because, despite the proven track record of Bilderberg having a central role in influencing subsequent geopolitical and financial world events, and despite last year’s meeting being held in Washington DC, the U.S. corporate media oversaw an almost universal blackout of reporting on the conference, its attendees, and what was discussed.Once again, it will be left to the alternative media to fill the vacuum and educate the people on exactly what the globalists have planned for us over the coming year.

GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(ARAB) because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

ISAIAH 33:1,18-19 Woe to thee that spoilest,(destroys) and thou wast not spoiled;(destroyed) and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil,(destroy) thou shalt be spoiled;(destroyed) and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.
18 Thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? where is the receiver? where is he that counted the towers? (ISLAM BROUGHT DOWN THE TOWERS)
19 Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not understand.

JOHN 16:2
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.(THATS ISLAM WAR CULT FOR SURE)

THESE VERSES ABOVE ARE ARAB (ISHMAEL)VERSES AND SINCE OBAMA IS 90% ARAB PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO HOW GOD SAYS ARABS WILL REACT TO OTHERS.

WHISTLEBLOWER MAGAZINE NARCISSIST IN CHIEF Experts explain what makes Barack Obama tick May 06, 2009 12:54 am Eastern 2009 WorldNetDaily

He may be the most mysterious and secretive president in American history.

Though inexperienced and arguably unqualified for the presidency, he mesmerized the entire establishment press and more than half of voters, many regarding him nothing short of a political messiah. Though he can barely speak publicly without a teleprompter, he's praised as a transcendent communicator. Though his voting record is extreme left, he portrays himself as a pragmatic centrist. But beyond Obama's political ideology, many Americans are troubled also by his strange personality attributes: He greatly exaggerates his achievements, expects constant praise and admiration, believes he's special, doesn't appear to concern himself with other people's feelings, expresses disdain for those he feels are inferior, sets unrealistic goals, appears as tough-minded and unemotional, and other qualities – all of which are textbook symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Indeed, the word narcissist is increasingly being applied to America's 44th president. Pulitzer prize-winning columnist and former psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer asks, Does the narcissism of this man know no bounds? Jack Kelly, journalist and former high-ranking Reagan administration Pentagon official, says: The most dangerous thing about having a narcissist in a position of power is his unwillingness – perhaps his inability – to ever admit error. ... Obama acknowledged the troop surge in Iraq has produced dramatic improvements, but said he still would oppose it.Radio giant Rush Limbaugh said of Obama recently: He's supremely narcissistic … This is all about him. This has nothing to do with the country. It has nothing to do with our way of life. Every aspect of his presidency is about building him up, making him appear to be savior, messiah.Is the president of the United States indeed a narcissist, a condition psychology and psychiatry recognize as a serious personality disorder? That's the radioactive question the May issue of WND's acclaimed Whistleblower takes on, titled NARCISSIST IN CHIEF: Experts explain what makes Barack Obama tick.

In NARCISSIST IN CHIEF,Whistleblower's formidable team of experts – including psychiatrists, psychologists and astute political analysts – tackle this question, and in the process, serve up some stunning information and insights for readers. I think it’s critically important, now more than ever, to understand our president’s core beliefs and to realize that if we embrace them fully, we’ll be well on our way to becoming the U.S.S.A.,says Brian Russell, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist, attorney and familiar national television pundit. And according to Lyle H. Rossiter Jr., M.D., a board certified psychiatrist who has diagnosed and treated mental disorders for more than 40 years, it's not just Obama: America's leadership ranks are full of people with serious psychological problems, declaring that the modern liberal mind, its distorted perceptions and its destructive agenda are the product of disturbed personalities.This is surely one of the most fascinating – and possibly most important – Whistleblower issues we've ever produced,said David Kupelian, editor of Whistleblower and managing editor of WorldNetDaily. Some of the articles, including the ones by narcissism expert Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., and forensic psychiatrist Lyle Rossiter, M.D., and are nothing short of brilliant. They make it crystal clear for the reader exactly what's going on inside the brains of those leading America today. This is definitely a paradigm-busting edition of Whistleblower.

Issue highlights include: Is Barack Obama crazy? by Joseph Farah.American idolatry by David Kupelian, on why experts believe we're becoming a nation of egomaniacs.
Psychobamanalysis by Brian Russell, Ph.D., in which the well-known psychologist explains how Barack Obama thinks.Barack Obama: Narcissist or merely narcissistic? by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., a comprehensive expert look at how the president’s behavior matches many markers of the troubling disorder.New study: Narcissists crave power.Poll: Obama beats Jesus as American hero by Chelsea Schilling.Farrakhan on Obama: The Messiah is absolutely speaking by Bob Unruh, on why the anti-Semitic Black Muslim leader says,Barack has captured the youth and will bring about universal change.Youth movements are bad news by Dennis Prager, who explains why Obama's powerful appeal to young people does not bode well Understanding Obama's cult of personality by Ali Sina, in which the Iranian ex-Muslim author recalls similar widespread public ecstasy over the charismatic Ayatollah Khomeini.Disturbed personalities’ leading America today by Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D., in which the veteran forensic psychiatrist explains the psychodynamics of today's radical liberal mind .The Obama Doctrine: Don't blame me by Ben Shapiro, on the dangers of a president being obsessed with his own greatness .Oratory – or hypnotic induction? Some analysts claim Obama's eloquence is augmented by hypnosis techniques .The strange roots of political correctness by Reb Bradley, who explains how raising coddled, narcissistic kids leads naturally to PC madness .Liberalism is a mental disorder by Michael Savage, in which the top radio talker invites confused Americans to throw off their chains.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me by Ellis Washington, in which the law prof highlights what he calls Obama's infantile, overarching, all-consuming sense of entitlement.Each monthly issue of Whistleblower, which many readers call the world's best newsmagazine, focuses cover-to-cover on one crucial issue – usually an issue twisted beyond recognition or totally avoided by the establishment press. Whistleblower has recently adopted to a very attractive, glossy, color format. If you haven't seen Whistleblower lately, says Joseph Farah, editor and CEO of WorldNetDaily, you have no idea what you're missing. It's not only powerful, it's also beautiful. I urge all WND readers to subscribe to Whistleblower. It's simply essential reading.

Israeli police bust Palestinians with ancient text By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 6, 6:23 pm ET

JERUSALEM – Undercover Israeli officers foiled an attempt by two Palestinian men to sell an ancient, valuable papyrus document on the black market, police said Wednesday. The men were arrested at a Jerusalem hotel Tuesday after a sting operation lasting several weeks, police said. The 1,900-year-old Hebrew document, previously unknown and valued at millions of dollars, was rescued, and police showed it to reporters.It was unclear where the two men obtained it, police and archaeologists said. Similar documents have been found in caves in the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea, where they have been preserved over the centuries by the dry climate, they said.

The most famous of those are the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient holy books and apocalyptic treatises thought to have been collected by an ascetic Jewish sect two millennia ago.

The document, six inches by six inches (15 centimeters by 15 centimeters), contains 15lines of Hebrew characters of a type also used in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but is a legal text apparently unrelated to the more famous scrolls.In this document, a widow named Miriam, daughter of Yaakov, legally transfers property to her late husband's brother, said Amir Ganor, an archaeologist with the government department entrusted with fighting antiquities theft.Dated to the 2nd century A.D., it is unique because it includes the names of Jewish villages and a date — four years from the destruction of the house of Israel.Ganor said that was likely an allusion to a Jewish revolt put down violently by Rome around 135 A.D.Ganor said scholars are 95 percent sure the document is genuine, but it will be tested to make sure it is not a fake like the ones that surface periodically on the lucrative market in Holy Land antiquities.Only few scrolls like this were found in Israel and all of the Middle East, and we hope that the historic situation of discovering this scroll will be helpful to the research about the period,Ganor said.The suspects, ages 48 and 60, are from the West Bank town of Beit Sahour, near Jerusalem, police said.After receiving information on the men and tracking them for several weeks, police caught the two at a Jerusalem hotel where they had arranged to sell the document, Superintendent Eli Cohen said.

They came to a place we chose, and they were arrested there,Cohen said, while refusing to reveal whether police agents posed as buyers.They are suspected of violating Israeli antiquities laws by illegally possessing and trafficking in archaeological artifacts and could face several years in prison if convicted. Police are trying to determine how the document fell into their hands.If authentic, the document could help scholars learn important details about Jewish life two millennia ago, said archaeologist Aren Maeir of Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv.It could be important to understanding everything from the geography, the names of people, the type of contracts they used, and the status of women, of weddings and relationships between families,he said.Similar documents belonging to a woman named Bavta, who lived around the same time, were found in the 1950s by the famed Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin, Maeir said, and this one could fit in nicely with those findings.

LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)

JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS

Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.

DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.

NAMES OF PEOPLE THAT COULD BE THE EU WORLD DICTATOR INCLUDE:JUAN CARLOS OF SPAIN,JAVIER SOLANA OF SPAIN,TONY BLAIR,SHIMON PERES,BARACK OBAMA (SINCE KISSINGER AND THE BILDERBERGS HAVE DESIGNATED HIM TO BRING ABOUT THE NEW WORLD ORDER.I BELIEVE THE EU DICTATOR HAS TO BE JEWISH BUT ANY LIER LIKE THE FUTURE DICTATOR WILL BE ABLE TO DECIEVE THE WORLD INTO BELIEVING ANYTHING.

Blair: New Mideast peace plan unveiled in weeks By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 6, 3:35 pm ET

JERUSALEM – The Obama administration and international negotiators are drafting a new strategy for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and expect to unveil it within six weeks, international Mideast envoy Tony Blair said.The plan — being devised by the U.S. administration but with input from others — should offer renewed hope, the former British prime minister told Palestinian reporters.We're about to get a new framework, Blair said late Tuesday.I can only speculate right now about what that framework is going to be. The reason I say people should be more hopeful, is that this is a framework that is being worked on at the highest level in the American administration, (and) in the rest of the international community.The Obama administration has promised to work for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. It has portrayed a two-state solution as the only way to solve the Mideast conflict and defined it as a U.S. national interest.President Barack Obama is holding separate meetings at the White House this month with the Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian leaders to hear their views.Once those meetings are over, the Quartet is to convene in Washington to discuss and present the new strategy, Blair said. The Quartet includes the U.S., the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. I think that within the next five to six weeks, you will have a very clear picture of what the plan is,Blair said.

He gave no details on what changes might be in store.

The last round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which had aimed for an agreement on Palestinian independence in 2008, ended without tangible results last year.In violence late Wednesday, Israeli forces fatally shot a Palestinian in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron, the military said. Israeli troops control part of Hebron where Jewish settlers live. The Palestinian approached troops guarding a holy site and ignored orders to halt, the military said. The troops suspected he was planning an attack.Israel's new hardline leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, has yet to commit to a two-state solution, and supports the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in areas the Palestinians seek for their state.The Palestinians are plagued by crippling internal division, with Gaza run by Hamas militants and the West Bank by U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Repeated efforts to forge a Palestinian unity deal, seen as a prerequisite for meaningful peace talks, have failed.In Gaza, the Hamas government appointed a hardline lawmaker as its new interior minister. The appointment of Fathi Hamad puts him in charge of Hamas' security forces. Hamad, in his mid-40s, is the founder of Hamas' TV, radio and satellite channels, which are known for their inflammatory broadcasts against Israel and Abbas.He succeeds Said Siyam, a hardliner who was killed in Israel's military offensive in Gaza in January. We will continue his path of development and construction,Hamad said late Tuesday.

The international community has refused to deal with the Islamic militant group, saying Hamas must first renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist. That has failed to persuade the group to soften its anti-Israel stance or push the Palestinian rivals to reconcile.Also Wednesday, Israeli planes bombed smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, the Israeli military and Palestinian security services said. Four people were wounded. The military said the planes hit three tunnels. Israel frequently hits the tunnels to try to stop Hamas arms smuggling.Gaza militants fired six mortar shells at Israel on Wednesday, the military said. No one was hurt.

THIS IS SURPRISING TO READ SINCE PERES IS AN EU WORLD GOVERNMENT BOUGHTOUT.

UN Gaza report outrageous, one-sided: Peres Wed May 6, 1:05 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – Israeli President Shimon Peres Wednesday blasted as outrageous and one-sided a UN inquiry that blamed Israel for six serious attacks on UN buildings during its Gaza offensive.It's outrageous, we shall never accept it (the report), he told reporters after conferring with UN chief Ban Ki-moon.We don't think we have to apologize because we have the right to defend the lives of our children and women.

Peres said the UN board of enquiry overstepped its authority, noting that it was supposed to probe damage to UN installations but instead decided to investigate the whole situation in Gaza.We don't accept one word, he added, slamming the conclusions as unfair,one-sided.But he appeared to exonerate Ban, saying he had the highest regard for him.The secretary general is not responsible for the report, Peres said. He tried to distinguish between what is necessary in order to be objective and fair and listen to us.The Israeli president insisted that his country has cooperated fully with the UN enquiry team and conceded that we made some mistakes.The UN report was drawn up by an independent panel set up to investigate nine cases in which UN buildings in Gaza were damaged by bombardments or arms fire during the three-week Israeli offensive.The findings laid out the latest criticism of Israel over the war it launched against the Hamas-run enclave on December 27 in response to ongoing rocket fire from Gaza militants. More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died.In six of the nine incidents, the board concluded that the death, injuries and damage involved were caused by military actions, using munitions launched or dropped from the air or fired from the ground, by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF),the report said.

A seventh less serious incident was also blamed on Israeli light arms fire during the offensive, while the eighth was attributed to a Palestinian faction, probably Hamas.

The probe by the UN panel, however, could not determine who was to blame for the ninth incident.The report accused Israel of failing to protect UN buildings and the civilians inside them, and recommended that the United Nations seek damages.Peres, meanwhile, was also asked whether the Jewish state under the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was still committed to a two-state solution under which a viable Palestinian state would be created alongside a secure Israel.Peres made clear that the current Israeli government announced it would respect the decisions made by the previous government.The previous government of Israel took the decision to accept the roadmap that was introduced by the (Middle East diplomatic) Quartet, he added. In the roadmap, there is a clear reference to the two-state solution and that is my answer.The roadmap, drawn up by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, foresees the peaceful co-existence of Israel and Palestine, and calls for a halt to Jewish settlement activity in Palestinian territories and an end to Palestinian attacks against Israel.The plan has made little progress since it was drafted in 2003.

HATE CRIME SHOCKER AUDIO
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=97218

NOTICE ITS MONEY THE WORLD COMES AGAINST THE CHURCHES ABOUT ALL THE TIME,WELL YESTERDAY THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWSPAPERS CAME AGAINST ALEX JONES ABOUT MONEY WHEN $14.8 TRILLION HAS BEEN STOLEN FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO THE OFFSHORE ROBBER BANKS SINCE THE PAST 7 MONTHS,INTERESTING,SINCE WERE ON THE SUBJECT OF MONEY AND THE WORLDLY WAY TO PUT CHURCHES DOWN.SATAN CAN JUST TRY TO MAKE PEOPLE NOT GIVE TO CHURCHES ANY WAY HE CAN,ONE WAY TO DECIEVE THE UNBELIEVERS AND TO ROB GOD OF HIS TITHES AND OFFERINGS.

Drug Company Money is Top Factor in Publication of Vaccine Studies
David Gutierrez NaturalNews May 6, 2009

Flu vaccine studies that are funded by industry are significantly more likely to be published in prestigious journals and to later be cited in the scientific literature than studies without such funding, according to a survey of 274 studies conducted by researchers from the Cochrane Vaccine Field in Italy, and published in the British Medical Journal.A good methodology, in contrast, had little impact on such factors. The study also found few studies providing good evidence that the flu vaccine is actually effective.In principle, a higher quality study should be published in a more prestigious journal and should be cited more frequently than a low quality study. But the researchers found no relationship between study quality and either of those factors. Instead, having a study partially or fully funded by industry was the best way to boost the prominence of a study.Overall, the authors also found that most flu vaccine studies were of poor quality, with only 18 percent of them reporting conclusions that were actually supported by their findings (concordance).

The study shows that one of the levers for accessing prestigious journals is the financial size of your sponsor, said researcher Tom Jefferson. Pharmaceutical sponsors order many reprints of studies supporting their products, often with in-house translations into many languages. They will also purchase publicity space on the journal. Many publishers openly advertise these services on their Web site.It is time journals made a full disclosure of their sources of funding,Jefferson concluded.

The researchers also found that studies supporting the effectiveness of flu vaccines tended to be more poorly designed than studies not supporting their effectiveness. Concordance was also significantly lower in studies supporting vaccine effectiveness than in those refuting it — meaning that most studies failed to support the effectiveness of the flu vaccine.Government-funded studies were significantly less likely to find the flu vaccine effective than industry-funded studies.Sources for this story include: health.usnews.com.

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

Severe weather in South damages homes, businesses By JAY REEVES, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 6, 5:23 pm ET

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – More than 100 homes and businesses were damaged in the South by strong winds, heavy rains and golf ball-sized hail Wednesday, and with more rain in the forecast, officials increased the flow of water through dams to ease swollen rivers, including the Mississippi.Strong winds downed trees onto mobile homes in Arkansas, where several people suffered broken bones and some classes were canceled. Storm debris blocked roads and damaged houses in north Mississippi and Alabama, with some students sent home early. Tornado warning sirens interrupted students taking final exams at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and power was knocked out to thousands across the region.Stiff winds and heavy rains blew through a central Alabama campground near the Mississippi line.For a lot of people it was scary enough that they got in the bathhouse, said Margaret Simmons, a gate attendant at the Pickensville Campground. Our lights are out and our phones and television went out, but we're OK.No serious injuries were reported.Authorities said what appeared to be a weak tornado hit west of Huntsville, Ala.In the city of Madison we have a path of damage that is about four or five miles long, said the county's emergency management director, Rusty Russell. It's not major, things like trees down and shingles off buildings. We did have a tree on a trailer, but nobody was hurt.

Rain was still falling, and flooding could become a problem along parts of the Tennessee River.Tomorrow is probably going to be the worst of it if the river floods, he said.Forecasters said winds with gusts estimated at 70 mph knocked down trees and damaged homes in Tuscaloosa County, and a funnel cloud was reported near Hamilton in west Alabama.The heavy rains soaked grounds already saturated, raising flooding fears. Areas of southeast Mississippi have had up to 10 inches of rain already this month and in north Alabama near Hunstville, nearly eight inches of rain had fallen in May — those amounts on top of about five inches last month.Many parts of the region were under a flood watch or warning Wednesday, and the nation's largest utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority, temporarily halted dredging coal ash in the rain-swollen Emory River in Tennessee because the current was too swift at the site of a massive spill late last year.The utility also released water through its dams to prepare for the Mississippi River's expected crest Sunday. The TVA releases the water to create storage room in lakes and ease the threat of river flooding all the way to New Orleans.National Weather Service meteorologist Marlene Mickelson said Missouri and northwest Tennessee crops could be affected when the river crests, but there would likely be no evacuations.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it had allowed more water through Cumberland River dams in Russell, Ky., and Lancaster, Tenn., to help slow the recent rise of lakes.On Tuesday night, six tornadoes touched down in North Carolina, causing three minor injuries and damage to at least a dozen homes. National Weather Service forecasters said the severe storms could remain through Friday.As that moves east, the conditions will become more and more favorable for another round of storms,said Ryan Ellis of the service's Raleigh bureau. We are looking at unsettled weather all the way through to the weekend.In the Charlotte area, firefighters made at least 50 water rescues because of flash flooding, but no injuries were reported.Associated Press writers Garry Mitchell in Mobile, Chuck Bartels in Little Rock, Ark., and Timothy R. Brown in Jackson, Miss., contributed to this report.

Brazil gov't rushes aid to flood victims, 32 dead By ALAN CLENDENNING, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 6, 6:00 pm ET

SAO PAULO – Brazil rushed aid Wednesday by air, over land and through rapidly rising waters to scores of cities and towns isolated by floods that have killed at least 32 and left nearly 200,000 homeless.But in an ominous sign that worried officials, rain continued to fall across a vast region stretching from the Amazon jungle to the northeastern Atlantic coast and meteorologists predicted the bad weather could last for weeks.Isolated looting was reported in communities cut off by flooding, and some areas were experiencing their heaviest rainfall in two decades, officials said.In three Amazon states, at least 3,000 Indians near rivers that overflowed fled to higher ground or into the jungle after seeing their crops of manioc, bananas and potatoes destroyed, said Sebastiao Haji Manchiner, executive secretary of the Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Organization.In the hardest-hit state of Maranhao, some rivers were rising as much as 1 foot (30 centimeters) per day, destroying bridges and making it too dangerous for relief workers to navigate waterways.There are some places where the water is so high that not even a boat can get to people, said Brazilian army Lt. Ivar Araujo, in charge of 200 soldiers trying to help citizens in two towns where homes were submerged to their roof tiles and hundreds packed into shelters in gyms and schools on higher ground.The unusually heavy rains that have slammed the region for two months are now affecting 10 of Brazil's 26 states in a zone three times the size of Alaska. It stretches from the normally wet jungle to coastal states known for lengthy droughts, though not all parts of the states have been affected.Most victims drowned or were killed when mudslides swept apart ramshackle homes, but authorities feared the situation could get much worse because some areas have been isolated for days without shipments of food or water.

Civil defense workers used army helicopters to airlift supplies to some places. Trucks laden with emergency shipments of food and water were forced to stop at highway washouts so aid workers could transfer the goods onto boats for delivery, said Abner Ferreira, a spokesman for Maranhao's civil defense department.Ferreira said there were reports of scattered looting, and some people refused to leave homes submerged in 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water to prevent their belongings from being stolen.In the Para state city of Altamira, more rain fell in three hours than the jungle city of 90,000 normally gets in two months, Mayor Odileida Sampaio told the state-run Agencia Brasil news agency.About 5,000 buildings were damaged, and nearly a third of the city's residents were forced from their homes — many of whom live in rickety shacks erected atop stilts.It's a complicated situation that is affecting mainly the poor and the business owners,Sampaio said. Normally the Xingu River rises slowly, but this year it happened really quickly.Some victims said floodwaters rose so fast in recent days that they barely managed to survive.I didn't have time to get my things from the house, I lost everything,Francisca Antonia Gomes told Globo's G1 Web site in the state of Piaui, where 41,000 were displaced after the state had twice the normal amount of rain in April.Floods created a crater and a lake along the path of a key iron ore export railway that takes raw ingredient for steel from a jungle mine to an Atlantic port.The railway owner, Companhia Vale do Rio Doce SA, said in a statement it was working on repairs and would reopen the railway as soon as possible.

While the rainfall and floods are the worst that some parts of the region have seen since 1989, floods and mudslides last year in the southern state of Santa Catarina killed more than 100 people and displaced 80,000. Meteorologists blamed the rains on an Atlantic weather system that typically moves on by April but has remained longer this year. The system is staying farther south from where it usually stays this time of the year,said Luiz Kondraski of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research. If it were more to the north right now, the rains wouldn't be so intense.One thing the rains won't hurt is Brazil's environment, said Paulo Adario, coordinator of Greenpeace's Amazon campaign.The rainforest and the animals that live in it have coexisted with floods for centuries,he said. Floods are part of the annual cycle in the region.Nor is it expected to have any impact on long-standing land and natural resource disputes between Indians and settlers, said Luiz Claudio Teixeira, a missionary and member of the Roman Catholic Church-backed Indian Missionary Council.

Conflict between settlers and Indians is permanent in the region and will remain so with or without floods,he said. They may lead to a temporary truce which will end as soon as the waters recede.Meanwhile southern Brazil is in the midst of a severe drought blamed on the La Nina weather phenomenon, which lowers water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. Associated Press writers Tales Azzoni, Carolina Escalera and Stan Lehman contributed to this report.

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
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS THU MAY 07,2009

09:30 AM +0.32
10:00 AM +9.56
10:30 AM -77.80
11:00 AM -51.85
11:30 AM -84.03
12:00 PM -55.98
12:30 PM -77.02
01:00 PM -58.14
01:30 PM -100.04
02:00 PM -108.64
02:30 PM -106.49
03:00 PM -117.00
03:30 PM -113.28
04:00 PM -102.43 8409.85

S&P 500 907.39 -12.14

NASDAQ 1716.24 -42.86

GOLD 911.50 +0.50

OIL 56.30 +0.03

TSE 300 9971.39 -172.04

CDNX 1053.11 +5.25

S&P/TSX/60 605.65 -11.08

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -3.01%
S&P +1.80%
Nasdaq +11.55%
TSX Advances 1,121,declines 510,unchanged 236,Volume 2,991,188,008.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 505,Declines 385,Unchanged 351,Volume 337,556,317.

Dow +60 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -110 points at low today.
Dow +64 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $917.50.OIL opens at $58.18 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -140 points at low today so far.
Dow +64 points at high today so far.

DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 1,464,declines 2,113,unchanged 100,New Highs 22,New Lows 71.
Volume 3,442,195,487.
NASDAQ Advances 1,020,declines 1,607,unchanged 102,New highs 22,New Lows 12.
Volume 1,423,033,706.
TSX Advances 733,declines 661,unchanged 232,Volume 1,443,069,388.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 352,Declines 255,Unchanged 308,Volume 144,518,759.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -140 points at low today.
Dow +64 points at high today.
Dow -1.20% today Volume 476,312,394.
Nasdaq -2.44% today Volume 2,147,483,648.
S&P 500 -1.32% today Volume N/A

RECORD LOWS DOW
-Sept 30,1996 5,882.17
-Oct 30,1996 5,993.23
-Nov 6,1996 6,177.71
-Dec 16,1996 6,268.35
-Apr 15,1997 6,587.16
-Apr 21,1997 6,660.21
-Apr 28,1997 6,783.02
-May 1,1997 6,976.48
-May 7,1997 7,085.65

RECORD LOWS S&P 500
-Sept 5,1996 649.44
-Sept 6,1996 655.68
-Sept 11,1996 667.28
-Sept 12,1996 671.13
-Oct 1,1996 689.08
-Oct 28,1996 697.26
-Nov 4,1996 706.73
-Nov 5,1996 714.14
-Dec 17,1996 726.04

TAKING ON THE BANKING CABAL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsPq-6kIkvM&feature=player_embedded

Commission warns carbon targets risk falling short
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today MAY 7,09 @ 17:38 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission has warned that the offers of carbon emission reduction targets made so far by developed countries may not be enough to reach a global deal that will set the planet on a path away from dangerous climate change.Environment commissioner Stavros Dimas told a Brussels audience on Thursday (7 May) that apart from the EU, rich country targets were insufficiently ambitious.I urge ...developed countries to take another look at their own targets, he said,and to consider increasing their level of ambition so that our collective efforts will add up to the 30 percent reduction that is needed.

The offers on the table so far risk falling short.

The commissioner was speaking at a briefing in Brussels outlining the commission's view of the state of play on national positions ahead of the upcoming UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December.Asked whether he expects there to be a global deal reached in December, the commissioner replied: I'm not optimistic. I'm not pessimistic. I'm determined.The European Union for its part is committed to a reduction in CO2 emissions of 20 percent on 1990 levels by 2020. However, over four fifths of this target will not be realised in Europe itself, but in the developing world via carbon offsets.The 20 percent target would nevertheless increase to a 30 percent reduction if at the Copenhagen meeting other developed countries also make a similar commitment.He cheered the new American administration's commitment to a reduction target of 80 percent on 1990 levels by 2050, noting that the EU also has adopted this figure as a target.But we have to see what will be achieved as mid-term targets,he cautioned, saying the new US pledge to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 means easy reductions now and hard reductions after 2020.Governments have a habit of setting ambitious targets that their successors have to meet,he said.

Developing world must commit to reductions too

The commissioner also emphasised that for any deal to be reached in Copenhagen, the developing world - in particular the better-off emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil - would have to commit to significant carbon reductions as well. Even if the developed world cuts its emissions to zero, we will lose the battle against climate change unless developing countries - and particularly the major emerging economies – also mitigate their rapid emissions growth.Recognising that northern industrialised nations are responsible for 75 percent of global warming, these countries have committed to making the bulk of CO2 reductions. At the same time, the commission does want the developing world to commit to CO2 reductions of between 15 and 30 percent below business-as-usual levels.The expected grand bargain in Denmark would be that if the EU and US stump up significant chunks of cash for cutting emissions and climate adaptation, leading developing countries will commit to considerable CO2 reductions in return.Fierce haggling over such a pact between north and south has already begun and the inability of the EU or the US to deliver any precise figures of monies they would be willing to commit to climate finance for the global south is a sore spot.It is no exaggeration to say that [climate finance] is the issue that will make or break the Copenhagen agreement,said the commissioner, who conceded that industrialised countries have not really stepped up to the plate.

However, the commissioner said that some of the climate finance funds from the EU would have to come from existing development aid allocations.[Climate finance to developing countries] will have to be both brand new funds and existing development monies,he said.But mostly it should be new.He added that Europe already makes funds available for climate finance through the UN Adaptation Fund, which is bankrolled largely by the EU.But in order to receive any funds, the EU executive wants developing countries to draw up and implement national low carbon development strategies,setting out mitigation actions for different sectors of the economy. A mechanism that would monitor and verify that emissions have indeed been made would be established under the umbrella of the UN, which would then disperse climate finance funds from the developed world.

CDM reform

The commissioner also said that he wants to see substantial reform of the Clean Development Mechanism - the scheme through which rich countries pay the global south to make their carbon reductions for them. The CDM has been widely criticised as not delivering genuine carbon reductions. According to David Victor, a leading carbon trade analyst at Stanford University, as many as two thirds of the approved CDM projects are not backed by real pollution reductions.The CDM must be changed so that it credits only those projects that deliver real additional reductions and that go beyond low cost options, the commissioner said. This would be achieved by changing the mechanism from offering carbon credits on a project-by-project basis to a sectoral basis, whereby credits are issued when a whole sector reduces emissions.

Once the CDM is changed in this way, then it can be the channel through which, according to Mr Dimas, one third or more of climate finance is delivered to the developing world.

Paper reductions

However, Oscar Reyes, of Carbon Trade Watch, an Amsterdam-based green NGO, warned that as problematic as CDM currently is, switching to a sectoral approach is even worse in terms of environmental integrity.He told EUobserver that under a sectoral approach, a baseline level of emissions is set based on current best practice in a particular industry, then those firms that beat this best practice are awarded emissions credits.The problem, he said, is that the figures on which these baselines are set come from the companies themselves or their national governments, which both have an incentive to inflate their stated current level of emissions so that large reductions are easier to make.The sectoral approach will result in paper reductions and not actual reductions. This can then be used to provide credits that can be sold back to the EU or US to offset quite real emissions.The real aim of introducing a sectoral approach, said Mr Reyes, was expanding the offset market in order to increase Europe's ability to make reductions overseas instead of domestically.This potentially could flood the market with dodgy carbon credits with even fewer checks and collapse the price of carbon still further,he explained.

EU employment summit short on results
ANDREW WILLIS Today MAY 7,09 @ 16:15 CET

EUOBSERVER / PRAGUE - The European commission and ministers from the Czech, Swedish and Spanish governments agreed a loose set of proposals to boost employment on Thursday (7 May) but failed to come up with concrete measures to tackle Europe's worsening jobs crisis. Speaking after a specially convened employment summit in Prague, commission president Jose Manuel Barroso defended the meeting's outcome saying several new ideas had been put forward that would be placed before EU leaders at the June European council. The drive for greater flexicurity is a very recent agreement he said, a measure that seeks to give employers greater flexibility over worker contracts while at the same time providing better retraining opportunities and social support for those who lose their jobs. The world will not be the same after this crisis,he added. There will be winners and losers and the question for Europe is which side do we want to be on.As well as improving re-training opportunities, the meeting's final statement highlights the need to modernise social security networks and continue the fight against protectionism. However ministers also re-iterated the potentially conflicting need to maintain sound public finances as European governments become increasingly concerned about the future implications of their spiralling debt.Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose government will take over the EU's rotating six-month presidency in July, stressed the fact that 23 out of the EU's 27 member states now had excessive budget deficits.I think we will see now a turnover to more of a reform discussion and of course this will also be a focus during the Swedish presidency,he said. Employer and trade union representatives who attended the summit refused to sign the final document, instead issuing their own list of priorities. There are some responses to the social agenda [in the final communiqué], but its not enough,the head of the European trade union confederation, John Monks, told EUobserver on the sidelines of the meeting. A recent commission forecast predicts 8.5 million EU citizens will lose their job over the course of this and next year.

A question of looking?

One man who will lose his job shortly is Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek whose government lost a parliamentary vote of no confidence in March. Asked how he felt about this Mr Topolanek suggested anyone could find a new job if they looked hard enough.I'm going to lose my post as prime minister but I'm not going to be out of a job. If you look for work you will find it and I think the same applies for everybody.
He added that it was up to business to create new jobs and in particular small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

Mr Topolanek's views are not shared by everyone.

Conny Reuter, the president of Social Platform representing around 40 European social sector NGOs told this website that Mr Topolanek's comments were unacceptable.There are a lot of people who lose their job who don't have the prospect to find another, he says.I think the citizens will feel this is some kind of provocation.This is certainly not a contribution to show that the European Union can bring solutions and policy orientations in the time of crisis.He added that the summit clearly could not be considered a success, firstly because of the successive downgrades in importance of the people attending, and secondly because the question of greater social inclusion had not been addressed.It was originally intended that all 27 EU leaders would attend the summit but the format was changed in March at the leaders' request.

Looking Back on the Greatest Depression
Gerald Celente Daily Reckoning May 7, 2009

On average, world trade fell 31 percent in January 2009. To varying degrees, recession and depression gripped globally.The outlook for global consumption remains bleak. Exports are likely to remain lackluster until global consumers regain their appetite for consumption,wrote Jing Ulrich, managing director at JPMorgan in Hong Kong, in response to the dire data.If it was an economic Pearl Harbor, the enemies were Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, A.I.G., Countrywide, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Bear Stearns, and all the other banks, brokerages, speculators, insurance companies, hedge funds and leverage buyout specialists that had launched the sneak attack on the American economy.To track and make practical use of trends requires critical analysis of not only the data but also of the interpretations arising from the data. This becomes particularly essential when interpretations express a virtual media consensus.Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect,advised Mark Twain.A case in point: On the surface, Ms. Ulrich’s assessment above does not seem unreasonable. It is a theme expressed, with minor variations, by a majority of economic analysts reported by the media. But that assessment rests upon a set of false or questionable assumptions.The first assumption was that all consumers need to do is regain their appetites for exports. But it has nothing to do with appetites.Consumers were broke. They were no less hungry for products – they just didn’t have the money to buy them.The second assumption was that once consumers started consuming again exports would regain luster. Implicit in this statement was that as exports grew, economies would rebound and everything would go back to normal. This normal refrain was endlessly repeated, not only by economic analysts, but by politicians and business leaders.Unquestioned was not only the inevitability, but also the virtue and desirability of a return to normal.What was normal? Normal, prior to The Greatest Depression, meant unchecked over consumption and over development made possible by the availability of cheap money and easy credit.

On the consumer end,normal was a death wish, shop til you drop – an obsessive compulsion by the profligate many to spend money they didn’t have but had to borrow. The spending spree extended to buying expensive new cars rather than affordable used ones. It had people building extensions and making home improvements when neither were necessary. It meant buying a McMansion when a Cape Cod would do. Splurging on expensive vacations, elaborate weddings and extravagant bar-mitzvahs to impress family and friends.Borrowed money financed a major lifestyle upgrade that otherwise could not have ever been imagined, but that corresponded to what most people considered the American Dream.Borrow to the limit now, and pay sooner or later was normal.On the commercial/financial end, normal was also the obsessive compulsion to endlessly acquire, not merely upgrade. Borrowed billions, lots of leverage and little collateral provided financiers and developers with the power to acquire ever more money, assets and prestige – through mergers and acquisitions, building developments, equity market speculation and predatory business practices that gobbled up or drove out the competition.Give or take a bit of regulation and self-restraint, this was the normal the popular new President promised to return to.Which brings us to the third assumption, and arguably the most important which was that the crisis – inability of banks to lend and businesses to borrow – was mainly responsible for the economic disaster. As President Obama put it,Our goal is to quicken the day when we restart lending to the American people and American business, and end this crisis once and for all.He said, You see, the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The ability to get a loan is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education; how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll.Sounds positive, doesn’t it? Ease the flow of credit. Make it easier to get a loan.But what the President meant and did not say was … take on more debt, borrow more money.

Sound familiar? Turn back the clock. Remember the advertisements at the start of the decade encouraging Americans to take out home equity loans, to buy new cars, to move up from a starter home into the dream house? With interest rates at 46 year lows and credit flowing, the public were suckered into betting on their futures with borrowed money they could only pay back as long as they had jobs, could make payments and the economy didn’t collapse.But when they lost their jobs, they couldn’t make payments and the economy began to collapse. Total unemployment (including discouraged workers and those with part time jobs looking for full time) was nearing 15 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the net worth of American households fell by the largest amount in more than a half-century of record keeping. By February 2009, the foreclosure rate was up 30 percent from February 2008.What Mr. Obama promised as the solution was, and had been, the problem. The country was already overwhelmed with debt … debt that it couldn’t pay back. In what way could incurring more debt end this crisis once and for all? It was a plain fact; the flow of easy credit produced a torrent of debt. In 2009, private sector credit market debt was 174 percent of GDP. Household debt-service ratio was at an all-time high. US households had 39 percent more debt than income. (In 1962, consumers had 37 percent less debt than income. To promote policies encouraging people to take out more loans and sink still deeper into debt was abnormal, not normal.The abnormal had been renamed the normal.Instead of encouraging people to live within their means, cut back, save money, and distinguish between wants and real needs, the official policy was to turn on the credit tap and flood the world with more debt.The sanity of the policy was never in question. Arguments raged only over the quickest and most effective way to turn on the money spigot.Everyone was looking for someone, somewhere, for rescue, and most eyes were turned to the United States. Even though the US was blamed for the flagrant economic abuses that brought on the crisis, given its economic clout and Superpower status, America was still looked to for the leadership needed to pave the way to recovery.

With its globally popular new president, hopes ran high that American know-how would know how to fix the problem … as though it were an intellectual exercise that could be solved by applying the correct economic formula.No such formula existed. Yet so desperate was the world that it placed its hopes on the very people responsible for the deregulation of the financial industry largely blamed for the crisis. The deregulators now occupied key positions within the cabinet of that globally popular new President.Billionaire investor Warren Buffett added a military dimension, dubbing the meltdown an economic Pearl Harbor.Buffett called on Congress to unite behind President Barack Obama, comparing the economic crisis to a military conflict that needed a commander-in-chief. Patriotic Americans will realize this is a war,he said.

If it was an economic Pearl Harbor, the enemies were Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, A.I.G., Countrywide, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Bear Stearns, and all the other banks, brokerages, speculators, insurance companies, hedge funds and leverage buyout specialists that had launched the sneak attack on the American economy.It had nothing to do with patriotism, unless being a Patriotic American meant appeasing and rewarding the enemy with trillions of dollars of taxpayer money and not being allowed to know where the money went.

Fed Refuses to Release Bank Data,
Insists on Secrecy

March 5, 2009 (Bloomberg) – The Federal Reserve Board of Governors receives daily reports on bailout loans to financial institutions and won’t make the information public, the central bank said in a reply in a Bloomberg News lawsuit.The Fed refused yesterday to disclose the names of the borrowers and the loans, alleging that it would cast a stigma on recipients of more than $1.9 trillion of emergency credit from US taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

The public had been cozened into believing:

That disclosing the identities of the recipients would poorly reflect upon their public image and therefore their ability to function. Secrecy, on the other hand, allowed them to continue making disastrous decisions, while bamboozling clients who would not know they were dealing with incompetents – who stayed in business only because of huge taxpayer-financed infusions of corporate welfare.

The too big to fail had to be bailed out by taxpayers in order to keep the credit markets from seizing up.But the consequences of seized up credit were rarely if ever spelled out.

Many financial analysts no less expert than those pushing through the bailouts were convinced that allowing the credit markets to seize up would, in the long run, prove far less costly than endlessly printing money and pouring it down a plush-lined sink hole. Buffett was wrong. It wasn’t a war at all. It was a criminal case, or should have been, but the accused took a financial Fifth Amendment – the right to remain silent, since any statement made could be used as evidence against them – and got away with it.When, at a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was asked, Will you tell the American people to whom you lent $2.2 trillion of their dollars? He answered, No.Regards,Gerald Celente.

Web of Debt: The Inner Workings of the Monetary System
Stephen Lendman Global Research May 7, 2009

This is the first of several articles on Ellen Brown’s superb 2007 book titled Web of Debt,now updated in a December 2008 third edition. It tells the shocking truth about our money system, (how it) trapped us in debt, and how we can break free.Given today’s global economic crisis, it’s an appropriate time to review it and urge readers to digest the entire work, easily gotten through Amazon or Brown’s webofdebt.com site. Her book is a remarkable achievement - in its scope, depth, and importance.In the forward, banker/developer Reed Simpson said:Since Andrew Jackson’s presidency (1829 - 1837), the federal debt hasn’t been paid, only the interest - to private bankers and other owners of US obligations.I have been a banker for most of my career, and I can report that even most bankers (don’t know) what goes on behind (top echelon) closed doors….I am more familiar than most with the issues (Brown covered, and) still found it an eye-opener, a remarkable window into what is really going on….(Although many banks follow high ethical practices), corruption is also rampant, (especially) in the large money center banks, in one of which I worked.

Credible evidence (reveals) a world (banking) power elite intent on gaining absolute control over the planet and its natural resources, including its subservient human (ones).Money is their lifeblood,and fear (their) weapon.Ill-used, they can enslave nations and ensure perpetual wars and bondage.” Brown exposes the scheme and offers a solution.

Debt Bondage
What president Andrew Jackson called a hydra-headed monster….entraps entire nations in debt. Financial commentator Hans Schicht listed how:
— by making concentrated wealth invisible;
— exercising control through leverage(d) mergers, takeovers or other holdings annexed to loans; and
— using a minimum of insider front-men to exercise tight personal management and control.

Powerful bankers want to rule the world by creating and controlling money, the very lifeblood of world economies without which commerce would cease. Professor Henry Liu calls the monetary system a cruel hoax in that (except for government issued coins) there is virtually no real money in the system, only debts - to bankers for money they created with accounting entries….all done by a sleight of hand,only possible because governments empowered them to do it.The solution is simple but untaken. As the Constitution mandates, money-creation power must be returned to the government and the people it represents.Imagine the possibilities:

— the federal debt could be eliminated, at least a more manageable amount before it mushroomed to stratospheric levels;
— federal income taxes could as well; entirely for low and middle income people and at least substantially overall;
— social programs could be expanded….without sparking runaway inflation; and
— financial resources would be available to grow the nation economically and produce stable prosperity.

It’s not pie-in-the-sky. It happened successfully under Abraham Lincoln and early colonists. More on that below. Brown’s book explains that:
— the Federal Reserve isn’t federal; it’s a private banking cartel owned by its major bank members in 12 Fed districts;
— except for coins, they create money called Federal Reserve notes, in violation of the Constitution under Article I, Section 8 that gives Congress alone the right To coin (create) money (and) regulate the value thereof….;
— tangible currency (coins and paper money comprise) less than 3 percent of the US money supply;the rest is in computer entries for loans;
— money that banks lend is new money that didn’t exist before;
— 30% of bank-created money is invested for their own accounts;
— banks once made productive loans for industrial development; today they’re a giant betting machine using countless trillions for high-risk casino-type operations - through devices like derivatives and securitization scams;
— since Andrew Jackson’s presidency (1829 - 1837), the federal debt hasn’t been paid, only the interest - to private bankers and other owners of US obligations;
— the 16th Amendment authorized Congress to levy an income tax; it was done to coerce (the public) to pay interest to the banks on the federal debt;
— the amount has mushroomed to about $500 billion annually and keeps rising;
— creating money doesn’t cause inflation; it’s caused by banks expanding the money supply with loans;
— developing nations’ inflation was caused by global institutional speculators attacking local currencies and devaluing them on international markets;
— it could happen in America or anywhere else just as easily; and
— escaping this trap is simple if Washington reclaims its money-issuing power; early colonists did it; so did Lincoln.

As long as bankers control our money, we’ll remain in a permanent web of debt and experience cycles of boom, bust, inflation, deflation, instability and crisis. Yet none of this has to be nor repeated and inevitable bubbles - created by design, not chance, to advantage empowered moneychangers,much like today with its fallout causing global havoc. Prior to the Fed’s creation, the House of Morgan was dominant in contrast to the early colonists’ model. Operating out of Philadelphia, the nation’s first capital, it favored state-issued and loaned out money, collecting the interest, and return(ing) it to the provincial government in lieu of taxes. Lincoln used the same system to finance the Civil War, after which he was assassinated and bankers reclaimed their money-issuing power. Wall Street’s silent coup (was) the passage of the (1913) Federal Reserve Act,the most destructive ever congressional legislation, thereafter extracting a huge toll amounting to permanent debt bondage with national wealth transference from the public to private bankers - with most people none the wiser.

From Gold to Federal Reserve Notes

After the 1862 Legal Tender Act was rescinded (the so-called Greenback law letting the government issue its own money), new legislation replaced it empowering bankers by making all money again interest-bearing. Here’s the problem. As long as the money supply (is an interest-bearing) debt owed back to private bankers….the nation’s wealth (will) continue to be drained off into private vaults, leaving scarcity in its wake.Dollars should belong to everyone. Early colonists invented them as a new form of paper currency backed by the full faith and credit’ of the people.Today, a private banking cartel issues them by turning debt into money and demanding due interest be paid.Ever since, it’s controlled the nation and public by entrapment in permanent debt bondage, and they do it through the Federal Reserve that’s neither federal nor has reserves. It doesn’t have money. It creates it with electronic entries, any amount at any time for any purpose, the main one being to enrich its owner banks.This body is a power unto itself, secretive, unaccountable, and independent of congressional oversight or control. It’s a money-creating machine by turning debt into money, but only a small fraction of the total money supply. Individual commercial banks create most of it.A 1960s Chicago Fed booklet (called Modern Money Mechanics) explained how - through fractional reserve alchemy. It states:(Banks) do not really pay out loans from the money they receive as deposits. If they did this, no additional money would be created. What they do when they make loans is to accept promissory notes in exchange for credits to the borrowers’ transaction accounts.Money is created by building up deposits in the form of loans. They, in turn, become deposits, not the reverse.This unique attribute of banking goes back centuries, the idea being that paper receipts could be issued and loaned out for the same gold (in those days) many times over, so long as enough gold was held in reserve so depositors had access to their money. This sleight of hand (became known) as fractional reserve banking,using money to create multiples more of it.

As for credit market debt, William Hummel (on the web site Money: What It Is, How It Works) explains that banks create only about 20% of it. The rest is by other non-bank financial institutions, including finance companies, pension and mutual funds, insurance companies, and securities dealers. They recycle pre-existing funds, either by borrowing at a low interest rate and lending at a higher (one) or by pooling (investor) money and lending it to borrowers.In other words, just like banks, they borrow low and lend high, pocketing the spread as their profit.But banks do more than borrow. They also lend the deposits they acquire….by crediting the borrower’s account with a new deposit.Banks thus increase total bank deposits that grow the money supply. It amounts to a sleight of hand like magically pull(ing) money out of an empty hat.The US money supply is the federal debt and cannot exist without it. (To) keep money in the system, some major player has to incur substantial debt that never gets paid back; and this role is played by the federal government.It’s why the nation’s debt can’t be repaid under a banker-controlled system. Today’s size and debt service compounds the problem, around double the amount Brown cited, growing exponentially to unimaginable levels.

Colonial Paper Money - Another Way Predating the Republic’s Birth

In 1691, three years before the Bank of England’s creation, Massachusetts became the first local government to issue its own paper money….in the form of a bill of credit bond or IOU….to pay tomorrow on a debt incurred today.This money was backed by the full faith and credit of the government.Other colonies then did the same, some as IOUs redeemable in gold or silver or as legal tender money to be legally accepted to pay debts. Cotton Mather, a famous New England minister, later redefined money - not as gold or silver, but as a credit: the credit of the whole country.Benjamin Franklin so embraced the new medium of exchange that he’s called the father of paper money, then called scrip.It made the colonies independent of British banks and let them finance their local governments without taxation. It was done in two ways, and most colonies used both:

— direct issue bills of credit or treasury notes; essentially government-backed IOUs to be repaid by future taxes, with no interest owed bankers or foreign lenders; they were just credits issued and sent into the economy on goods and services;and
— a system of generating revenue in the form of interest by taking on the lending functions of banks; a government loan office called a land bank (issued) paper money and (loaned) it to residents (usually farmers) at low interest rates….the interest paid….went into the public coffers, funding the government;it was the preferred way to assure a stable currency rather than by issuing bills of credit.Pennsylvania did it best. It’s 1723-established loan office showed it was possible for the government to issue new money (in lieu of) taxes without inflating prices.For over 25 years, it collected none at all. The loan office provided adequate revenue, supplemented by liquor import duties. Throughout the period, prices remained stable. Prior to this system, Pennsylvania lost both business and residents (for) lack of available currency.With it, its population grew and commerce prospered. The secret was in not issuing too much, and in recycling the money back to the government in the form of principal and interest on government-issued loans.Colony-based British merchants and financiers objected strongly to Parliament. Enough so that in 1751, King George II banned new paper money issuance to force colonists to borrow it from UK bankers. In 1764, Franklin petitioned Parliament to lift the ban. In London, Bank of England directors asked him to explain colonial prosperity at a time Britain experienced rampant unemployment and poverty. It’s because Colonial Scrip was issued, he stated, our own money with no interest owed to anyone. He added:You do not have too many workers, you have too little money in circulation, and that which circulates, all bears the endless burden of unrepayable debt and usury.With banks loaning money into the economy, more was owed back in principle and interest than was lent in the original loans (so) there was never enough in circulation to pay interest and still keep workers fully employed.Unlike banks, government can both lend and spend money in circulation - enough to pay interest due on the money it lent, (keep) the money supply in proper proportion’ and (prevent) the impossible contract problem (of having) more money owed back on loans than was created (from) the loans themselves.

Franklin’s efforts notwithstanding, the Bank of England got Parliament to pass a Currency Act making it illegal for the colonies to issue their own money. It turned prosperity into poverty because the money supply was halved with not enough to pay for goods and services. According to Franklin:the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament got colonists to hate the British enough to spark the Revolutionary War.The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters (if) England (hadn’t taken their money), which created unemployment and dissatisfaction.So much that outraged people again issued their own money in spite of the ban. As a result, they successfully financed a war against a major power - with almost no hard currency and no taxation. Thomas Paine called it the Revolution’s corner stone.However, British bankers responded by attacking its competitor’s currency,the Continental, driving down its value by flooding the colonies with counterfeit scrip. It was battered but remained stable.Where Britain failed, speculators succeeded - mostly northeastern bankers, stockbrokers and businessmen, who bought up the revolutionary currency at a fraction of its value after convincing people it would be worthless after the war.It had to compete with states’ paper notes and British bankers’ gold and silver coins….The problem might have been avoided by making the Continental the sole official currency, but the Continental Congress (didn’t have) the power to enforce such an order - with no courts, police or authority to collect taxes to redeem the notes or contract the money supply.Having just rebelled against British taxation, colonists weren’t about to let Congress tax them. Speculators took advantage and traded Continentals at discounts enough to make them worthless and give rise to the expression not worth a Continental.

How the Government Was Persuaded to Borrow Its Own Money

John Adams once said: there are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.The latter method is stealth enough so people don’t know what’s happening and submit to their own bondage. Openly, nothing seems changed, yet a whole new system becomes master in the form of debts and taxes that people think are for their own good, not tribute to their captors. That’s today’s America writ large.After the Revolutionary War,British bankers and their Wall Street vassals pulled it off by acquiring a controlling interest in the new United States Bank. It discredited paper scrip through rampant Continental counterfeiting and so disillusioned the Founders that they omitted mentioning paper money in the Constitution. Congress was given power to coin money (and) regulate the value thereof, (and) to borrow money on the credit of the United States….It left enough wiggle room for bankers to exploit to their advantage - but only because Congress and the president let them.Alexander Hamilton bears much blame, the nation’s first Treasury Secretary and Tim Geithner of his day (1789 - 1795). He argued that America needed a monetary system independent of foreign control, and that required a federal central bank - to handle war debts and create a standard form of currency. In 1791, it was created, hailed at the time as a brilliant solution to the nation’s economic straits, one that disposed of an oppressive national debt, stabilized the economy, funded the government’s budget, and created confidence in the new paper dollars….It got the country up and running, but left the bank largely in private hands - to be manipulated for private gain, much like today. Worse still, the government ended up in debt for money it could have generated itself.Instead, it had to pay interest on its own money in lieu of creating it interest free. Today, Hamilton is acclaimed as a model Treasury Secretary. For Jefferson, he was a diabolical schemer, a British stooge pursuing a political agenda for his own ends.He modeled the Bank of the United States on the Bank of England against which colonists rebelled. It so angered Jefferson that he told Washington he was a traitor. It fostered a bitter feud between them with Jefferson ultimately prevailing. Hamilton’s Federalist Party disappeared after 1820 while Jefferson and Madison’s Democratic-Republicans became the forerunner of today’s Democrats after the party split into two factions, the Whigs no longer in existence and Jacksonians that by 1844 officially became the Democratic Party. Shamefully they veered far from Jacksonian and Jeffersonian principles.For his part, Hamilton wasn’t entirely bad. He stabilized the new economy and got the country on its feet. He restored the nation’s credit, established a national currency, and made it economically independent. However, his legacy has a dark side - a privileged class of financial middlemen (henceforth able) to siphon off a perpetual tribute in the form of interest.He delivered money power into private hands, subservient to an elite class of oligarchical financiers,the same Wall Street types today holding the entire nation hostage - in permanent debt bondage.

From Abundance to Debt

Charging excessive interest is called usury,but originally it meant charging anything for the use of money. The Christian Bible banned it, and the Catholic Church enforced anti-usury laws through the end of the Middle Ages.Old Testament scripture was more lenient, prohibiting it only between brothers.Charging it to foreigners was allowed and encouraged, which is why Jews unfairly were called moneychangers.They, like others, suffered greatly from money-lending schemes. For centuries, they were persecuted for the profiteering of a few,then scapegoated to divert attention from the real offenders.Fiat money is legal tender by government decree - a simple tally representing units of value to be traded for goods and services. Paper money was invented in 9th century Mandarin China and successfully used to fund its long and prosperous empire. The same was true in medieval England. The tally system worked well for over five centuries before banker-controlled paper money began demanding payment in the form of interest.History portrays the Middle Ages as backward, impoverishing, and a form of economic enslavement only the Industrial Revolution changed. In fact, the era was entirely different, characterized by 19th century historian Thorold Rogers as a time when a labourer could provide all the necessities for his family for a year by working 14 weeks,leaving nearly nine discretionary months to work for himself, study, fish, travel, or do what he pleased, something today’s overworked, over-stressed, underpaid workers can’t imagine.Some attribute Middle Age prosperity to the absence of usurious lending. Instead of paying tribute in the form of interest,people relied largely on interest-free tallies.They avoided depressions and inflation since the supply and demand for goods and services grew in proportion to each other, thus holding prices stable. The tally system provided an organic form of money that expanded naturally as trade (did) and contracted (the same way) as taxes were paid.No bankers set interest rates or manipulated markets to their advantage. The tally system kept Britain stable and thriving until the mid-17th century, when Oliver Cromwell (1599 - 1658)….needed money to fund a revolt against the Tudor monarchy.

The Moneylenders Take Over England

In the 19th century, the Rothchild banking family’s Nathan Rothchild said it well:I care not what puppet (sits on) the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain’s money supply controls the British empire, and I (when he ran the Bank of England) control the British money supply.

Centuries early, moneylender power was absent. But after the 1666 Coinage Act, money-issuing authority, once the sole right of kings, was transferred into private hands. Bankers now had the power to cause inflations and depressions at will by issuing or withholding their gold coins.King William III (1672 - 1702), a Dutch aristocrat, financed his war against France by borrowing 1.2 million pounds in gold in a secret transaction with moneylenders, the arrangement being a permanent loan on which debt would be serviced and its principle never repaid. It came with other strings as well:
— lenders got a charter to establish the Bank of England (in 1694) with monopoly power to issue banknotes as national paper currency;
— it created them out of nothing, with only a fraction of them as reserves;
— loans to the government were to be backed by government IOUs to serve as reserves for creating additional loans to private borrowers; and
— lenders could consolidate the national debt on their government loan to secure payment through people-extracted taxes.

It was a prescription for huge profits and substantial political leverage. The Bank’s charter gave the force of law to the fractional reserve banking scheme that put control of the country’s money in private hands. It let the Bank of England create money out of nothing and charge interest for loans to the government and others - the same practice central banks now employ. For the next century, banknotes and tallies circulated interchangeably even though they weren’t a compatible means of exchange. Banker money expanded when credit expanded and contracted when loans were canceled or called,producing cycles of tight money and depression alternating with easy money and inflation.In contrast, tallies were permanent, stable, fixed money, making banknotes look bad so they had to go.For another reason as well - because of King William’s disputed throne and fear if he were deposed, moneylenders again might be banned. They used their influence to legalize banknotes as the money of the realm called funded debt with tallies referred to as unfunded,what historians see as the beginning of a Financial Revolution.In the end, tallies met the same fate as witches - death by fire.

They were money of the people competing with moneylending bankers. After 1834 monetary reform, tally sticks went up in flames in a huge bonfire started in a House of Lords stove.Ironically, it got out of control and burned down Westminster Palace and both Houses of Parliament, symbolically ending an equitable era of trade (by transferring power) from the government to the central bank.Henceforth, private bankers kept government in debt, never demanding the return of principle, and profiting by extracting interest, a very lucrative system always paying off like a slot machine rigged to benefit its operators. It became the basis for modern central banking, lending its own notes (printed paper money), which the government swaps for bonds (its promises to pay) and circulates as a national currency.Government debt is never repaid. It’s continually rolled over and serviced, today with no gold in reserve to back it. Though gone, tallies left their mark. The word stock comes from the tally stick. Much of the original Bank of England stock was bought with these sticks. In addition, stock issuance began during the Middle Ages as a way to finance businesses when no interest-bearing loans were allowed. In America, usury banks fought for control for two centuries before getting it under the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. An issue that once defined American politics,today is no longer a topic for debate. It’s about time it was reopened.

Jefferson and Jackson Sound the Alarm

Moneylenders conquered Britain, then aimed to entrap America - by provoking a series of wars. British financiers funded the opposition to the American War for Independence, the War of 1812, and both sides of the American Civil War.They caused inflation, heavy government debt, the chartering of the Bank of the United States to fund it, thus giving private interests the power to create money.Jefferson opposed the first US Bank, Jackson the second, and both for similar reasons:
— distrust of profiteers controlling the nation’s money; and
— concern about the nation’s banking system falling into foreign hands.

Jefferson got Congress to refuse to renew the first US Bank charter in 1811 and learned on liquidation that two-thirds of its owners were foreigners, mostly English and Dutch and none more influential than the Rothschilds. Later, Madison signed a 20-year charter. However, when Congress renewed it, Jackson vetoed it.

The Powerful Rothschild Family

The House of Rothschild was British in name only. In the mid-18th century, it was founded in Frankfort, Germany by Mayer Amschel Bauer, who changed his name to Rothschild, fathered 10 children, and sent his five sons to open branch banks in major European capitals. Nathan was the most astute and went to London. Over the course of the nineteenth century, NM Rothschild would become the biggest bank in the world, and the five brothers would come to control most of the foreign-loan business of Europe.Belatedly, Jefferson caught on to the scheme - that private debt masquerading as paper money….owed to bankers placed the nation in bondage. In his words,deliver(ing) itself bound hand and foot to bold and bankrupt adventurers and bankers….Jefferson’s idea for a national bank was a wholly government-owned one issuing its own credit without having to borrow it from private interests.Jackson believed the same thing in calling the Bank of the United States a hydra-headed monster.When the bank charter was renewed, he promptly vetoed it, yet understood that the battle was just beginning.The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead,he said.He was right. The Bank’s second president, Nicolas Biddle, retaliated by sharply contracting the money supply. Old loans were called in and new ones refused. A financial panic ensued, followed by a deep economic depression.However, Biddle’s victory was short-lived. In April 1834, the House rejected re-chartering the Bank, then January 1835 became Jackson’s finest hour.He did something never done before or since. He paid off the first installment of the national debt, then reduced it to zero and accumulated a surplus. In 1836, the Bank’s charter expired. Biddle was arrested and charged with fraud. He was tried and acquitted but spent the rest of his life in litigation over what he’d done. Jackson had beaten the Bank.Imagine today if Obama defeated the Fed and its Wall Street puppeteers instead of embracing them with limitless riches.

Lincoln Foils the Bankers and Pays with His Life

Like Jackson, Lincoln faced assassination attempts, before even being inaugurated. He had to deal with treason, insurrection, and national bankruptcy during his first days in office. Considering the powerful forces against him, his achievements were all the more remarkable:
— he built the world’s largest army;
— smashed the British-financed insurrection,
— took the first steps to abolish slavery; it became official on December 6, 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified, eight months after Lincoln was assassinated;
— during and after his tenure, the country became the greatest industrial giant in the world;
— the steel industry was launched; a continental railroad system was created; the Department of Agriculture was established; a new era of farm machinery and cheap tools was promoted;
— the Land Grant College system established free higher education;
— the Homestead Act gave settlers ownership rights and encouraged new land development;
— government supported all branches of science;
— standardization and mass production was promoted worldwide;
— labor productivity increased by 50 - 75%; and
— still more was accomplished with a Treasury that was completely broke and a Congress that hadn’t been paid as a result.

It was because the government issued its own money. National control was reestablished over banking, and the economy was jump-started with a 600 percent increase in government spending and cheap credit directed at production.Roosevelt did the same thing with borrowed money. Lincoln did it with United States Notes called Greenbacks. They financed the war, paid the troops, spurred the nation’s growth, and did what hasn’t been done since - let the government print its own money, free from banker-controlled debt slavery, the very system strangling us today the way Lincoln feared would happen.His advisor was Henry Carey, a man historian Vernon Parrington called our first professional economist.Lincoln endorsed his prescription:

— government regulation of banking and credit to deter speculation and encourage economic development;
— its support for science, public education and national infrastructure development;
— regulation of privately-held infrastructure to ensure it met the nation’s needs;
— government-sponsored railroads and scientific and other aid to small farmers;
— taxation and tariffs to protect and promote productive domestic activity; and
— rejection of class wars, exploitation and slavery, physical or economic, in favor of a Harmony of Interests between capital and labor.Leaders like Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln are sorely missed, but for Lincoln it was costly.

He Loses the Battle with the Masters of European Finance.

German Chancellor Otto von Bismark (1815 - 1898) called them that in explaining how they engineered the rupture between the North and the South to use it to their advantage, then later wrote in 1876:The Government and the nation escaped the plots of the foreign bankers. They understood at once that the United States would escape their grip. The death of Lincoln was resolved upon.The last Civil War battle ended on May 13, 1865. Lincoln was assassinated on April 15.European bankers tried but failed to trap him with usurious war loans, at 24 - 36% interest had he agreed. Using government-issued Greenbacks shut them out entirely, so they determined to fight back - eliminate the thorn, then get banker-friendly legislation passed, achieved through the National Bank Act reversing the Greenback Law. It was only a compromise with bankers, (but) buried in the fine print,they got what they wanted.Although the Controller of the Currency got to issue new national banknotes, it was just a formality. In fact, the new law authorized the bankers to issue and lend their own paper money.They deposited bonds with the Treasury, but owned them so immediately got their money back in the form of their own banknotes.It was an exclusive franchise to control the nation’s money forcing government back into debt bondage where it never had to be in the first place. A whole series of private banks were then chartered, all empowered to create money in lieu of debt free Greenbacks.One other president confronted bankers and paid dearly as well - James Garfield. In 1881, he charged:

Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce….And when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.Garfield took office on March 4, 1881. On July 2, he was shot. He survived the next two and half months, then died on September 19. It was a time of depression, mass unemployment, poverty, and starvation with no safety net protections.The country was facing poverty amidst plenty,because bankers controlled money and kept too little of it in circulation - an avoidable problem if government printed its own.

Gold v. Inflation - Debunking Common Fallacies

The classical quantity theory of money holds that too much money chasing too few goods causes inflation, excess demand over supply forcing up prices. The counter argument is that if paper money is tied to gold, an inflation-free stable money supply will result. Another fallacy is that adding money (demand) raises prices only if supply remains fixed.In fact, if new money creates new goods and services, prices stay stable. For thousands of years, the Chinese kept prices of its products low in spite of their money supply being flooded with the world’s gold and silver, and now with the world’s dollars….to pay for China’s cheap products.What’s important is not what money consists of but who creates it. Whether the medium of exchange (is) gold or paper or numbers in a ledger,when created by and owed to private lenders with interest,more money would always be owed back than was created…spiraling the economy into perpetual debt….whether the money takes the form of gold or paper or accounting entries.Today’s popularism is associated with the political left. However, 19th century Populists saw a darker, more malevolent force….private money power and the corporations it had spawned, which was threatening to take over the government unless the people intervened.

Lincoln also feared it saying:

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few and the Republic is destroyed.Today’s America is the reality he feared. A tiny elite own the vast majority of the nation’s wealth in the form of stocks, bonds, real estate, natural resources, business assets and other investments. In contrast, 90% of Americans have little or no net worth. Of all developed nations, concentrated wealth and inequality extremes are greatest here with powerful bankers sitting atop the pyramid, now more than ever with their new riches extracted from public tax dollars and Fed-created money.A follow-up article will discuss how bankers capture(d) the money machine.

Rupert Murdoch: Internet Will Soon Be Over
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Thursday, May 7, 2009

Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch gave a strange response when asked about plans for mainstream news websites to charge for content, declaring, The current days of the internet will soon be over.He was making reference to the fact that corporate media websites cannot continue to survive under their current failing business model.

The establishment media is dying and advertising revenue has plummeted as people turn to blogs and the alternative media for their news in an environment of corporate lies and spin.This has forced sectors of the corporate media to charge the dwindling number of loyal readers they have left for news content, a practice which is set to become widespread according to Murdoch. This will only send more people over to the alternative media as the old organs of de facto state-controlled propaganda wither and die.Asked whether he envisaged fees at his British papers such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World, (Murdoch) replied: We’re absolutely looking at that,reports the Guardian.Taking questions on a conference call with reporters and analysts, he said that moves could begin within the next 12 months‚ adding:The current days of the internet will soon be over.Murdoch’s newspapers and TV networks, which include Fox News and the Asian Star Network, have seen profits plummet from $216m to just $7m year-on-year. MySpace.com is also floundering despite a recent move to replace the company’s entire management staff.It was all but over for the Boston Globe this week, following a threat to close the 137-year-old publication after net losses of $85 million this year alone. Only a last minute cost-cutting agreement on behalf of its owner, The New York Times Company, and The Boston Newspaper Guild, saved the newspaper.But it’s not just establishment newspapers that are struggling to survive - social networking websites like Twitter and corporate online video giant You Tube are also deep in the red. Apparently, paying out millions in server fees for half the population of the planet to watch clips of cute puppies isn’t a sustainable business model.

This is why You Tube is being forced to pursue lucrative partnerships with giant production studios and broadcasters, at the expense of user generated content which has been relegated to a sub-section of its website, taking the You out of You Tube altogether. Content that may be deemed harmful to You Tube’s corporate agenda and its multi-million dollar partnership deals, like The Alex Jones Channel, is being systematically erased from You Tube’s website under the pretext of flimsy copyright infringement claims.The jig is up for the corporate media. If they continue to allow free access to their content they will go out of business because there’s not enough advertising revenue coming in, whereas if they charge for content they will lose a huge chunk of their audience and their influence in shaping the news agenda will wane completely.This is the price the corporate media has paid for lying, spinning and obfuscating on behalf of the virulently corrupt power elite and expecting the population to eat it up without question.The corporate media monopoly has terminal cancer and they are losing their power, which is why they are aggressively supporting moves to phase out the old Internet altogether and replace it with Internet 2, a highly regulated and controlled electronic Berlin wall, where alternative voices will be silenced and giant corporate propaganda organs will dominate once again.This what Murdoch is really getting at when he assures us that,The Internet will soon be over and it’s down to us to stop that agenda from being realized.

Russia's rhetoric not helpful for jittery Georgia, EU says
VALENTINA POP Today MAY 7,09 @ 18:40 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Russia's criticism related to the Nato exercises in Georgia is mostly rhetorical and does not help to stabilise the situation, the head of the EU's monitoring mission along the borders with South Ossetia and Abkhazia (EUMM) told EUobserver.The political tensions in Georgia's capital Tbilisi, where opposition protests calling for President Mikheil Saakashvili's resignation have been going on for almost a month now, have so far not had any impact on the security along the administrative borders with the two separatist regions recognised as independent countries by Moscow, Hansjorg Haber said.Last week, Russia signed border agreements with the two regions and started to deploy additional personnel to the territories, but the EUMM was not able to give any numbers.President Mikheil Saakashvili said in a TV address on Tuesday night that in recent weeks, Russia has increased its presence on the occupied territories of Georgia three-fold and stationed practically the entire Black Sea fleet in the territorial waters of Georgia.Having no access to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the EUMM cannot monitor this deployment properly. However, we have seen some new camps for Russian personnel,Mr Haber said.Last August, Tbilisi launched a military assault on South Ossetia, immediately followed by a Russian invasion of the entire Georgian territory. The ceasefire agreement, concluded under EU mediation, stipulates that Russia must withdraw to the positions prior to the outburst of the war and allow the unarmed EU monitors into the whole territory of Georgia, including the two regions.

So far, the security situation along the administrative boundary lines did not change,Mr Haber said, adding that the EU mission has concluded two agreements with the Georgian government to promote a limitation of troops aimed at diminishing the risk of a new conflict. He now expected to sign similar agreements with the administrations in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.For its part, Nato said Russia did not inform them about its troop movements and strongly disapproved of the border arrangement,which goes further down the road that Russia is on in terms of violating the agreements they had with the EU and away from supporting Georgia's territorial integrity. We don't like this manoeuvre that they have engaged in,Nato spokesman James Appathurai told EUobserver.In terms of leverage, however, he conceded that Nato was not going to send forces into Georgia and simply stressed that Russia should accept the EU monitors into Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as was agreed last August.

Nato exercises politicised by both sides

Nato military exercises, described as a crisis response simulation by the alliance, started yesterday in Georgia involving over 1,000 troops and ministerial staff from Nato and partner countries. The actions were deemed muscle flexing and provocative by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Mr Haber said that everyone had taken note of Russia's criticism and that there was an element of rhetoric in it.But be that as it may, it does not contribute to stabilising and calming the situation,he stressed.

Regarding the failed mutiny at a military base on Tuesday, which the Georgian authorities initially blamed Russia for, Mr Haber said that the EUMM did not see the evidence the Georgian government has gathered against the mutineers. The link to Russia seems very uncertain. In a departure from previous statements on the same day, the Georgian government said in a briefing for ambassadors in Tbilisi that they had no evidence for such a link,Mr Haber added.On the Nato side, diplomats were scoffing not only at Russia's criticism against the exercises, but also at President Saakashvili's hasty conclusion that Russia had plotted a military coup against him.

The exercises have been politicised by too many parties. Everybody knows or should know two things: first, that Georgia is not the object of these exercises, nor the subject of them. It is simply the host of exercises that took place in Armenia last year and that are not Nato, but partnership exercises,Nato's spokesman said. Mr Appathurai stressed that Russia was invited several times to send observers and Moscow could still do so.Georgia should also not link this exercise to anything else that might have happened, for instance the mutiny or whatever it was and we have conveyed that message. Yes, unfortunately it has been misused in public by more than one party,he said in reference to Mr Saakashvili's claims that the mutiny was aimed at disrupting the Nato exercises.

Russian-Nato relations not frozen

Despite the tit-for-tat expulsion of two Nato envoys in Moscow after two Russian diplomats were stripped of their credentials to the Brussels-based Nato headquarters due to a spy row which first emerged in Estonia, Russia-Nato relations were certainly not frozen,Mr Appathurai said.Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday announced he would cancel his meeting with Nato counterparts, as a sign of protest over the expulsion and against the backdrop of the Nato exercises.However, first signs of a thaw already emerged on Thursday, with the speaker of Russia's lower house, Boris Gryzlov, confirming that his country would take part in a session of the Nato parliamentary assembly. It is clear that now, even despite the moves made by Nato, we want to continue the dialogue,the speaker said.According to Nato diplomats, Russia does not want to freeze relations, as it genuinely has an interest in the US-led talks on arms control. The spat over Georgia and the spies was just a bit of showing off,they say.

Iceland to table bill on EU membership talks
ELITSA VUCHEVA Today MAY 7,09 @ 09:20 CET

Iceland is to ask its parliament to approve the launch of membership talks with the European Union, the country's prime minister announced on Wednesday (6 May).There will be a government resolution tabled [on EU talks],Social-democratic prime minister Johanna Sigurdardottir told Icelandic state television.Ms Sigurdardottir did not give any details on when the bill authorising the start of EU membership talks would be presented to the deputies, but it is likely to happen when parliament convenes next week, Reuters reports political sources as saying.Iceland's new government was elected on 26 April, when the centre-left Social Democrats and far-left and ecologist Left Green Movement won a clear majority after 18 years of centre-right government, which voters blamed for the country's wrecked economy.The Social Democrats are strongly in favour of Iceland's EU membership and when elected, Ms Sigurdardottir said she wanted to start the application process within weeks.The Left Greens, on the other hand, have been much more cautious, saying the EU is too undemocratic and neo-liberal.Earlier this week, Ms Sigurdardottir said she hoped the two parties could agree on the terms of a coalition by the weekend, with the EU issue being the thorniest in their talks.According to Icelandic media, the parties would settle their different views on EU accession by letting the parliament – the Althing – deal with it. But Left-Green leader and finance minister Steingrimur Sigfusson said that "nothing has been finally decided in this.Meanwhile, many of the around 320,000 Icelanders have been warming up to the idea of starting EU membership talks in the wake of the global economic crisis.A Gallup poll on Wednesday showed almost two thirds (61.2%) of Icelanders in favour of the move and 29.6 percent against, although the question of actual membership still divides them.For its part, the European Commission has indicated that if Reykjavik applied for membership, its accession process would be short and it could become an EU member by 2011.The country already applies some 75 percent of EU legislation through its existing membership in The European Economic Area (EEA) along with Liechtenstein and Norway.Iceland is one of the oldest democracies in the world and its strategic and economic positions would be an asset to the EU,enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said in January.If Iceland applies shortly and the negotiations are rapid, Croatia and Iceland could join the EU in parallel,he added.Croatia is expected to end EU negotiations by the end of this year and join the bloc in 2011.

Absent leaders deflate EU's eastern summit
ANDREW RETTMAN Today MAY 7,09 @ 17:44 CET

EUOBSERVER / PRAGUE - Georgia's president came to Prague on Thursday (7 May) despite unrest at home, but many Western leaders stayed away in a sign that the EU's "Eastern Partnership" project matters more to ex-Communist states. Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili arrived in the Czech capital to talk about deeper EU relations amid ongoing street protests in Tbilisi, a failed army coup, massing Russian troops and controversial NATO war games.Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was too busy receiving a report on equal rights, Italy's Mr Berlusconi was dealing with his divorce and Spain was embroiled in talks on unemployment. The UK gave no reason for not attending.The leaders of Austria, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus also had other things to do.German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the only big Western player to personally back the event. [Germany] has interests in the east as well as in the west,she told press on her way into the summit venue.

The Dutch prime minister and Nordic leaders also turned out.

It is important not to leave these countries to stand alone, the Netherlands' Mr Balkenende said, referring to the six ex-Soviet states - Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan - covered by the new EU policy.We have a serious economic crisis and we all face problems at home so it can be hard to find the time [to come],Finnish leader Matti Vanhanen told EUobserver, by way of excusing his colleagues.I hope it's nothing political,Lithuania's foreign minister Vygaudas Usackas said on Mr Sarkozy's absence.Lithuania was the only ex-Communist EU state not to send its top man. The president had to meet the king of Spain and the premier had to defend his budget in parliament, Mr Usackas explained. It's awkward, but it is in no way significant in terms of our support for the Eastern Partnership.On the non-EU side, potential show-stealer, Belarus' authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, as well as Moldova's hard man, President Vladimir Voronin, also sent deputies - but for different reasons.Lukashenko made a clever choice. Europe is not ready to embrace him,one EU minister said.The Prague summit venue saw small-scale protests by Belarusians and Moldovans, with the latter angry over a police crackdown last month that left three people dead. The host, Czech Prime Minister Topolanek, at one point strolled over to the barrier to say the Eastern Partnership does not legitimise the Belarussian regime, with the placard-holders dissolving into the spring sunshine shortly afterward.The summit declaration, to be signed by the mixed bunch of 33 envoys, pledges allegiance to democratic values and foresees economic integration, but gives nothing in terms of enlargement promises and little on relaxing the EU visa regime.If you speak about European countries you speak about a European future [accession],the Netherlands Mr Balkenende said, explaining why the declaration text calls the six states partner countries,instead of acknowledging their European identity.

The summit fringe saw two interesting bilateral meetings.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders held rare talks on the still-simmering Nagorno-Karabakh conflict - one of the goals of the Eastern Partnership is to build better relations among the group of six countries. Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko also spoke with EU foreign affairs commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner on creating a joint project on the development of Crimea.Crimea, where Russia is busy handing out passports to the majority ethnic-Russian population, is seen as a potential conflict hotspot by Germany, Poland and Mr Yushchenko's clan.

European parliament enters campaign mode
HONOR MAHONY Today MAY 7,09 @ 17:40 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The European Parliament finished its last legislative session on Thursday as campaigning begins for the June European elections, with politicians once again battling the downward trend in voter turnout.Marking the end of his term as parliament president, Hans-Gert Poettering noted that the institution had become the decisive seat of political compromise in the European Union.Today very few decisions are taken without the explicit consent of the parliament,said the German centre-right politician.Since the beginning of the current legislature, in 2004, the parliament has passed a myriad of laws. They range from food labelling to banning mercury in thermometers, from regulating pay for temp workers to outlining how much advertising is allowed on TV.Among the most far-reaching legislative proposals passed by MEPs were those concerning the EU's climate change targets, requiring certain dangerous chemical substances to be registered and on liberalising the services and energy markets.Euro-deputies have also sent the European Commission back to the drawing board on several issues. They outright rejected both an attempt to liberalise ports in the EU and the software patents directive, which would have allowed patenting of computer-implemented inventions. More recently, they held tough on proposals to overhaul a law on regulating the number of hours worked a week and refused to endorse a proposal to the internet access of illegal downloaders, a move that will potentially delay the overall telecoms package for months.

New MEPs

Internally, the parliament's biggest change over the past five years was the welcoming of politicians from 12 new member states, overwhelmingly from central and eastern Europe.Their integration, deemed one of the biggest successes of this parliament by Mr Poettering, changed the focus of the assembly in areas such as foreign policy. The foreign affairs committee, headed by centre-right Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, has put a far stronger - and generally tougher - emphasis on tackling EU relations with Russia and on energy security. It has also increased parliament's activity towards countries such as Ukraine and Georgia, with eastern deputies largely more sympathetic to their EU membership aspirations.Culturally, the new batch of euro-deputies have brought their history to an assembly filled largely with western European politicians. A recent resolution against totalitarianism that the parliament produced earlier this year was agreed only after much debate about the legacies of Hitler and Stalin.

Looking ahead

The new parliament (2009-2014) will have a series of new challenges to tackle once it starts work in September.Among the most pressing areas will be improving financial regulation in the aftermath of the current economic crisis and dealing with the bloc's ageing population. Further enlargement of the EU will also be up for consideration as well as how to tackle the urgent problems posed by climate change.

But one of its first tasks will be agreeing the new European Commission president and the college of commissioners.How the parliament manoeuvres on this will be closely watched. In October 2004, it put itself on the power map by rejecting Italy's proposal for an EU commissioner on the grounds that the candidate was too socially conservative for the post of justice and home affairs commissioner.Italy withdrew the nominee after it became clear that the parliament was gearing itself up to reject the entire commission on the back of the dispute. Since then, the commission has been much more careful to court the parliament's opinion and consent across the board.

Getting to the next legislature

The inaugural session of the next parliament will take place mid July, following elections on 4-7 June.Fear of an apparent rise in euroscepticism, the founding of anti-Lisbon treaty party Libertas, as well as the fact that election turnout has fallen every year since 1979 have meant that MEPs have been approaching this election with more of a sense of urgency than in the past.Last month, the European Parliament launched a multi-million dollar publicity campaign to remind the EU's 375 million voters that its decisions affect almost every facet of their lives and that they should use their vote.