In These New Times

A new paradigm for a post-imperial world

Author Archive

Holbrooke or Milosevic: Who is the Greater Murderer?

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

Diana Johnstone

Counterpunch

15th december, 2010

It is usually considered good form to avoid sharp criticism of someone who has just died. But Richard Holbrooke himself set a striking example of the breach of such etiquette. On learning of the death in prison of Slobodan Milosevic, Holbrooke did not hesitate to describe him as a “monster” comparable to Hitler and Stalin.

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Phone hacking approved by top News of the World executive – new files

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

Guardian

15th December, 2010

Click here for coverage of Sheridan trial

Lawyers have secured explosive new evidence linking one of the News of the World‘s most senior editorial executives to the hacking of voicemail messages from the phones of Sienna Miller, Jude Law and their friends and employees.

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Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

Independent

20th March, 2000

Britain’s winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.

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Kosovo report casts dark shadow over leader’s wartime past

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

Of course, the report fails to point out that these same people were criminals and drug-traffickers when the EU decided to support them dismantle Serbia and enable them to establish their idyllic little narco-republic. When the EU becomes a serious organization they will have to move to deal with this haven of criminality, the monstrous issue of their illicit union with Atlanticist militarism.

 

Deutsche-Welle

15th December, 2010

 

The Council of Europe shone a bright light on the young republic of Kosovo this week, with a damning report accusing its leadership of having been at the helm of criminal acts after the country’s war of independence from Serbia in the late 1990s.

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UK to earn £440m from Irish loan

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

A nifty bit of work by Tory, City spiv, George “artful dodger” Osbourne. In order to bailout British banks to the tune of £143  bullion Britain contributes a measly £3.25 billion and pockets a tidy sum at 5.9% interest. Well if we ain’t just crying our heart out for poor old Ireland.

Irish Times

15th December, 2010

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said Britain will earn £440 million in interest and fees from its loan to Ireland as he sought parliamentary backing for the aid.

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BIS stats on US/UK bank exposure to PIIGS

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

Zero Hedge

13th December, 2010

Last night, the BIS released its latest quarterly review, as always chock full of useful information. The one major item that caught our eye was the updated exposure toward the PIIGS countries by various foreign banks. And specifically the brand new category that had never been disclosed before by the BIS, namely the “other exposures” category, which per a rather closeted footnote is defined as: “other exposures consist of the positive market value of derivative contracts, guarantees extended and credit commitments.” This is exposure that appears for the first time in an official BIS document. And it is sizable: while total foreign claims stood at $2,281 billion, the newly disclosed category accounts for a whopping two thirds of a trillion: $668 billion. How generous of the BIS to share this data which as recently as 2 years ago may have been considered as material, and these days is merely dismissed with a laugh. After all who cares unless the potential loss has at least 12 zeroes in it. Yet what is most significant for the US taxpayer, who is now dead set on proving that St Sebastian was an amateur when it comes to (in)voluntary martyrdom, is that US exposure to the P(I)IGS (Italy excluded, for the time being – give it a few months), has just tripled as a result of this revelation. While before it was “common knowledge” that US banks have nothing to lose should Europe go down the drain, it has now been revealed that US banks actually have $353 billion in exposure, of which $233 billion is of this newly revealed “other category.”

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Afghanistan: Opium, the CIA and the Karzai Administration

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

Peter Dale Scott

Voltairenet

13th December, 2010

According to Peter Dale Scott, there is no point in deploring the expansion of drug production in Afghanistan and the heroin epidemic gripping great parts of the world. Conclusions must be drawn from the established facts: the Taliban eradicated poppy cultivation; NATO promoted it; drug money corrupted the Karzai government but it is especially inside U.S. institutions that drug corruption is rife. Therefore, the solution does not lie with Kabul but with Washington.

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Debt crisis threat to Spain and Belgium

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

The next stage of the attack on the euro has begun with the rating agencies as usual providing the cue to the media and the City hedge funds, with the IMF lurking in the wings. Spain’s interest rate jumped dramatically whilst Britain, with its traditional “good housekeeping”, its virtual economy and still intact AAA rating, still offers only 0.75%. (The road to success lies, it seems , in economic destruction.) The answer would seem to be to curb speculative inflows from outside the Eurozone, notably from the City of London; but is Europe read yet for this dramatic fissure in the unity of the West? For the moment, it remains wide open to continued attack.

This is Money

15th December, 2010

Spain and Belgium were dragged deeper into the European debt crisis on Tuesday as financial turmoil continued to rock the Continent.

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Moscow moves to counter NATO

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

“In sum, Russia trusts the need for a “reset” in ties with NATO, but is under compulsion to “verify” its sincerity. As Lavrov put it, “serious questions arise” out of the contradictory tendencies in NATO’s posturing toward Russia. Moscow decided to keep the CSTO as an effective counter-alliance – just in case McCain’s school of thinking gains ground in Washington.”

M.K.Bhadrakumar

Asia Times

14th December, 2010

Many people wouldn’t know that former United States president Ronald Reagan’s signature phrase “trust, but verify” is actually the translation of a Russian proverb – doveryai, no proveryai. Two decades into the post-Cold War era, Moscow wants to reclaim the self-contradictory phrase from the American repertoire and apply it to Russia’s “reset” of ties with the United States.

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Britain ‘pioneer in rights violation’

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

13th December, 2010
Mohammad-Javad Larijani, the Secretary of Iranian Judiciary’s Human Rights Headquarters, has said that British government is pioneer in human rights violation.

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‘Britain should mind its own business’

Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2010

PressTV

14th December, 2010

Iran’s human rights chief Mohammad Javad Larijani says Britain should take care of its own domestic affairs rather than resorting to baseless allegations to cover up its own problems.

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