In These New Times

A new paradigm for a post-imperial world

Save the banks and kill the economy

Posted by seumasach on September 14, 2010

Prof Rodrigue Tremblay

Global Research

14th September, 2010

It has become a truism to say that the Democrats and the Obama administration now  “own” the crucial issue of the economy. Justly or unjustly, voters are bound to hold them accountable for the poor state of the U.S. economy. This is not an enviable political position to be in just before an election, at a time when disgusted voters are most angry and very anxious about the economy and their economic future. Recent polls indicate that nearly two-thirds of Americans think their nation is in a state of decline and that the economy will remain in the same recessionary state or get worse next year.

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Obama’s newest giveaway to the banks

Posted by seumasach on September 14, 2010

Michael Hudson

Global Research

14th September, 2010

I can smell the newest giveaway looming a mile off. The Wall Street bailout, health-insurance giveaway and support of real estate prices rather than mortgage-debt write-downs were bad enough, not to mention the Oil War¹s Afghan extension. But now comes a topper: the $50 billion transportation infrastructure plan that Obama proposed in Milwaukee  cynically enough, on Labor Day. It looks like the Thatcherite Public-Private Partnership, Britain¹s notorious giveaway to the City of London underwriters. The financial giveaway had the effect of increasing prices for basic infrastructure services by building in heavy financial fees  guaranteed for the banks, who lent the money that banks and property owners used to pay in taxes in more progressive times.

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Research suggests neurobehavioral symptoms and cancer increase in populations near mobile phone base stations

Posted by seumasach on September 14, 2010

Epidemiological Evidence for a Health Risk from Mobile Phone Base Stations

Vini G. Khurana, Lennart Hardell, Joris Everaert, Alicja Bortkiewicz, Michael Carlberg, Mikko Ahonen

In International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, Vol 16, No 3 (2010)

ICJ

Abstract

Human populations are increasingly exposed to microwave/radiofrequency (RF) emissions from wireless communication technology, including mobile phones and their base stations. By searching PubMed, we identified a total of 10 epidemiological studies that assessed for putative health effects of mobile phone base stations. Seven of these studies explored the association between base station proximity and neurobehavioral effects and three investigated cancer. We found that eight of the 10 studies reported increased prevalence of adverse neurobehavioral symptoms or cancer in populations living at distances < 500 meters from base stations. None of the studies reported exposure above accepted international guidelines, suggesting that current guidelines may be inadequate in protecting the health of human populations. We believe that comprehensive epidemiological studies of longterm mobile phone base station exposure are urgently required to more definitively understand its health impact.

Click here to read full study

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British troops in Afghanistan face heroin smuggling probe

Posted by seumasach on September 13, 2010

Dawn

13th September, 2010

LONDON: British military police are investigating claims that the country’s servicemen may have trafficked heroin out of Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence in London said Sunday.

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Will our generals ever shut up?

Posted by seumasach on September 13, 2010

As at the end of the Roman Empire politics becomes reduced to its basic power elements: the executive, the oligarchy and the army or, in this case, the presidency, Wall Street and the Pentagon. As this article shows, it’s the Pentagon which is currently making the running with a sort of incremental or creeping coup d’etat.

Tom Engelhart

Asia Times

9th September, 2010

The autumn issue of Foreign Policy magazine features Fred Kaplan’s “The Transformer,” an article-cum-interview with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. It received a flurry of attention because Gates indicated he might leave his post “sometime in 2011”. The most significant two lines in the piece, however, were so ordinary that the usual pundits thought them not worth pondering. Part of a Kaplan summary of Gates’ views, they read: “He favors substantial increases in the military budget … He opposes any slacking off in America’s global military presence.”

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Dr David Kelly’s body ‘had obviously been moved’

Posted by seumasach on September 13, 2010

Telegraph

12th September, 2010

The paramedic who confirmed the death of Government scientist Dr David Kelly has claimed his body had ‘obviously been moved’ in the minutes after it was found.

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Kelly: vital report ‘is lost’

Posted by seumasach on September 13, 2010

Chris Hastings

Daily Mail

12tyh September, 2010

The controversy over the death of Government scientist Dr David Kelly has deepened after ambulance chiefs admitted that a vital medical record relating to the case has vanished.

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The West has made even more mistakes in Afghanistan than us, says Russian envoy to Kabul

Posted by seumasach on September 13, 2010

Telegraph

11th Septmebr, 2010

Andrey Avetisyan, a veteran Kabul diplomat, said talk of a handover to the Afghans was currently unrealistic because the coalition had failed to build the nation’s forces or economy.

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West needs new missile shield against Iranian nuclear threat, Nato chief says

Posted by seumasach on September 13, 2010

Leaving aside for the moment the lunatic option of attacking Iran, the deployment of Blair and . now, Rasmussen to highten tensions around a supposed Iranian threat serve two purposes. Respectively, to rally British and American public sentiment behind their bankrupt elites and to tie Europe into the Anglo-American sphere. Both aims can only be attained on the basis of an overwhelming threat, which, in the face reasoned judgment, they claim is posed by Iran. Thus, short of the WW3 option, all this hysteria is basically defensive in nature, being based on the steady and inexorable haemorrhaging of US/UK power.

Telegraph

11th September, 2010

Anders Fogh Rasmussen told The Sunday Telegraph he has full American backing for a proposed €200 million (£165 million) defensive “shield”, which he hopes will be agreed in November at a summit of members in Lisbon.

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Russia Today questions the official version of 9/11

Posted by seumasach on September 12, 2010

RT

11th September, 2010

On the ninth anniversary of the worst terror attacks to strike the US mainland, many questions remain unanswered, not least of all concerning the true identities of the perpetrators.

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Kurt Sonnenfeld: A witness for the persecution

Posted by seumasach on September 11, 2010

Thierry Meyssan and Gaia Edwards

Voltairenet

10th September, 2010

Kurt Sonnenfeld’s case is outstanding for at least two reasons. He is in possession of official documentation that contradicts the U.S. Government’s account of the 9/11 events. He is a high-profile U.S. citizen forced to seek refugee status because of his government’s dogged persecution. Any relation between these two facts is not purely coincidental. Voltaire Network’s second exclusive interview of Kurt Sonnenfeld, conducted in Buenos Aires, is presented below.

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