In These New Times

A new paradigm for a post-imperial world

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Justice Secretary Jack Straw to be Accused on Torture in Parliamentary Inquiry

Posted by seumasach on March 22, 2009

Craig Murray’s Blog

19th March, 2009

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has agreed to hear my evidence on torture on Tuesday 28 April at 1.45pm. Many thanks to everyone who helped lobby for this.

I am delighted, as I have been trying for over four years to lay the truth about British torture policy before Parliament. I will testify that as British Ambassador I was told there is a very definite policy to accept intelligence from torture abroad, and that the policy was instituted and approved by Jack Straw when Foreign Secretary. I will tell them that as Ambassador I protested formally three times in writing to Jack Straw, and that the Foreign Office told me in reply to my protests that this was perfectly legal.

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The Malthusian question

Posted by seumasach on March 22, 2009

Malthus’s arguments were part of the inspiration for Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and they have validity in the natural world. On the savannah, in the rainforests, and across the tundra, animal populations explode when times are good, and crash when food reserves are exhausted. Is homo sapiens an exception?

A typical piece of feebled- minded insinuation and mendacity from the conscience of the British nation. No one disputes that population falls when there is insufficient food to maintain it. What Malthus argued is that rising population automatically, necessarily leads to food shortage and can only be overcome by decreasing population. Are we going to starve because there are 6 billion of us  or because of soil depletion, bio-fuels production, ruination of farmers, land left uncultivated, massive empty latifundia and disappearance of pollinators? With this shit hitting the editorials of the  liberal press there can be no doubt that the war on humanity has begun in earnest.

See also;

Influence of Malthus and Darwin on the European Elite

Guardian

21st March, 2009

Spring, the season of fertility, began yesterday, yet it is warnings of scarcity that are notably abundant. John Beddington, the government’s chief scientific adviser, warned this week of a “perfect storm”, with food, water and energy all dangerously depleted by 2030, thanks topopulation growth and rising prosperity. Next week the Optimum Population Trust will hold a conference at the Royal Statistical Society, arguing that the planet has room for 5 billion people at the most, and that the United Kingdom should be home to no more than about 18 million.

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The United States Of Ponzi

Posted by smeddum on March 21, 2009

 

The United States Of Ponzi

Nouriel Roubini03.19.09, 12:01

 Forbes.com

Behold the Madoff in the mirror.

pic

A reporter contacted me recently with the following question:

“I am a reporter, and I am doing a story on Bernard Madoff’s life after pleading guilty. As part of this, I was wondering if you could comment on what significance he will have in the history of this period. Will he represent more than a scamster who stole a lot of money from a lot of people? As Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay came to embody corporate greed and deceit, what will Madoff symbolize?” Read the rest of this entry »

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11th September 2001: a Global Provocation

Posted by seumasach on March 18, 2009

Leonid Ivashov

Voltairenet.org

17th March, 2009

Translation at foot of each paragraph

Politologue russe influent, issu des milieux nationalistes, le général Léonid Ivashov était chef d’état-major des armées le 11 septembre 2001. Ce jour-là, il avait placé ses satellites en alerte pour observer les manœuvres militaires aériennes annoncées aux USA, mais c’est un tout autre spectacle auquel il fut confronté. Au vu des analyses de cet événements par ses experts, il a écarté l’hypothèse Al-Qaïda et conclu à une provocation de l’élite financière anglo-saxonne.

[Influential Russian political scientist, of the nationalist school, Leonid Ivashov was Chief-of-Staff of the Russian armed forces on September 11th. On that day, he placed his satellites on alert to observe the announced US air force military manoeuvres, only to be confronted with something quite different. After an analysis conducted by his experts, he discarded the Al-Queda hypothesis and concluded that it had been an Anglo-saxon provocation.]

Sur cette base, il développé la vision stratégique russe du monde post-11-Septembre. Nous reproduisons ici un de ses articles, représentatif de sa pensée et de celle des officiers supérieurs russes. Le lecteur sera surpris de constater que ce qui est considéré comme un délire dans les pays de l’OTAN est une vérité d’évidence en Russie, comme d’ailleurs dans de nombreux autres régions du monde. Au-delà de la question d’établir la vérité, l’honnêteté intellectuelle exige de comprendre et d’accepter la relativité des points de vue. Cet article sera particulièrement précieux pour les militaires français au moment où le ministre de la Défense a engagé une chasse aux sorcières contre les enseignants de l’École de guerre qui ont osé rendre compte de la diversité des interprétations du 11-Septembre.

[On this basis, he developed a Russian strategic vision for the post-9/11. We reproduce here one of his articles, representative of his thinking and that of his superior officers. The reader may note that that which is taken for a delirium in the NATO countries is regarded as self-evident truth in Russia, as in other areas of the world. Beyond the question of establishing the truth, intellectual honesty demands the understanding and accepting of other points of view. This article will be particularly valuable for the French military at a moment when the Defense department is conducting a witch hunt against teachers at the War College who dare to present alternative interpretations of 9/11.]

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Jon Stewart’s Epiphany: Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

Posted by smeddum on March 17, 2009

by Pam Martens

Global Research, March 16, 2009
Counterpunch.org/

 

As testimony to how Orwellian life has become under the outrages of Wall Street hubris, last week saw a comedian, who poses as an anchor on a fake news show, grab the reins of the Wall Street investigation from the actual investigators in Congress. Read the rest of this entry »

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Germany and France reject Brown’s global economic recovery plan

Posted by seumasach on March 14, 2009

Reason has prevailed and most countries don’t want to channel every penny they have the way of a chosen banker elite. The plan’s other key element, the use of a recapitalised IMF to force through the policies of Washington and London also appears to have come to nothing:

Finance ministers and central bankers said the IMF’s resources should be increased “very substantially”, from their current level, to prevent developing countries suffering disproportionately from the credit squeeze; but they offered no immediate commitment to provide new funds.

Brown is a poor player and his one hour strutting and fretting on the global stage is now up. His plan is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”

Guardian

14th March, 2009

Gordon Brown‘s hopes of uniting the world’s most powerful economies behind a massive new package of tax cuts and public spending increases were in ruins today after he failed to persuade France and Germany to back his plan to revive the world economy.

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Trying Again to Stop Torture: My Formal Statement for the Joint Committee on Human Rights

Posted by seumasach on March 14, 2009

Craig Murray’s Blog

13th March, 2009

WITNESS STATEMENT TO THE PARLIAMENTARY JOINT COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

My name is Craig Murray. I was British Ambassador in Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004.

I had joined the Diplomatic Service in 1984 and became a member of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Senior Management Structure in 1998. I had held a variety of posts including Deputy High Commissioner, Accra (1998 to 2001) and First Secretary Political and Economic, Warsaw (1994 to 1997).
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Updating The Militarization And Annexation Of North America

Posted by seumasach on March 13, 2009

Stephen Lendman

Rense.com

13th March, 2009

The title refers to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), also known as the North American Union – formerly launched at a March 23, 2005 Waco, Texas meeting attended by George Bush, Mexico’s President Vincente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. It’s for a tri-national agreement, below the radar, for greater economic, political, and security integration with secret business and government working groups devising binding policies with no public knowledge or legislative debate.
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Spain will never recognise Kosovo – Zapatero

Posted by alfied on March 12, 2009

Spain will never recognise Kosovo - ZapateroUNITED: Serbian president Boris Tadic, left, and Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero  March 9 2009

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This climate crunch heralds the end of the end of history

Posted by seumasach on March 12, 2009

Here, former Blair adviser Anthony Giddens shows what a flexible tool global warming…, sorry, “climate change” theory is for the elite. As we have seen elsewhere it provides a handy cover to explain away the disappearance of bees and pollinators and to divert our attention from this ecological catastrophe. Is it coincidental that Brown’s global new deal, an attempt to recreate our financier oligarchy globally, is now directly linked to a new “post-industrial era” resulting from the “climate crunch”, with all its possible neo-Malthusian or neo-feudal possibilities?

We are on the brink of a revolution: the demise of the fossil-fuel economy. A new deal must jolt us out of orthodox thinking

Anthony Giddens

Guardian

11th March, 2009

Every crisis, Sigmund Freud said, is potentially a stimulus to the positive side of the personality and an opportunity to start afresh. Today we are facing two global crises in tandem – the economic recession and climate change. Both are deeply worrying, but what is their relationship likely to be?

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Nicolas Sarkozy ignores enemy fire as he marches France back into Nato

Posted by seumasach on March 12, 2009

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Times

11th March, 2009

Forty-three years after General de Gaulle threw American forces out of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, his political descendant, is expected to explain to a sceptical nation today why he is taking the country back into the core of the US-led Nato alliance.

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