Financial Panic Sweeps Europe

The Head Of The IMF Warns Of A “1930s Depression”

Are we on the verge of another Great Depression?  Christian Lagarde, the head of the IMF, said this week that if dramatic action is not taken immediately we could actually see conditions “reminiscent of the 1930s depression” and that no country on earth “will be immune to the crisis”.  Right now, financial panic is sweeping across Europe, but most Americans are not too concerned about it because they simply don’t understand how important the EU is.  The truth is that the EU has a much larger population than the United States does.  The EU has an economy that is nearly as large as the economies of the United States and China combined.  The EU hasmore Fortune 500 companies that the United States does, and the banking system of Europe is substantially larger than the banking system of the United States.  Anyone out there that believes that a massive financial collapse in Europe would not dramatically affect the rest of the globe is being delusional.  The European debt crisis is one of the biggest stories that we have seen in a long, long time and the coming financial meltdown is going to permanently change the global economy.

So far, politicians in Europe have held 19 high-level emergency meetings in an attempt to solve this crisis.

All of their efforts have failed.

Right now, this is the situation in Europe….

-Most EU governments are drowning in toxic levels of debt

-Bond yields have risen dramatically this year and this has caused borrowing costs for most EU members to soar

-In an attempt to get debt under control, governments all over Europe are implementing brutal austerity measures and this is causing European economies to slow down substantially

-There is a tremendous lack of confidence in the European financial system at this point and this is causing a massive credit crunch

-The credit crunch is causing the money supply to drop significantly in almost every nation in the EU

-Major banks all over Europe are massively overleveraged and are on the verge of failing

This is all so similar to what we saw back during the early 1930s.

In fact, things have gotten so bad that prominent world leaders are now using apocalyptic language when describing the situation in Europe.

Just check out what the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, recently said about Europe.  Speaking at a State Department conference in Washington D.C. this week, Lagarde made the following very shocking statements….

*“The world economic outlook at the moment is not particularly rosy. It is quite gloomy”

*“There is no economy in the world, whether low-income countries, emerging markets, middle-income countries or super-advanced economies that will be immune to the crisis that we see not only unfolding but escalating”

*“It is not a crisis that will be resolved by one group of countries taking action. It is going to be hopefully resolved by all countries, all regions, all categories of countries actually taking action.”

*“No country or region is immune. All must take action to boost growth. Work must start in the eurozone countries and must continue relentlessly. The risks of inaction include protectionism, isolation and other elements reminiscent of the 1930s depression.”

*“This is exactly the description of what happened in the 1930s, and what followed is not something we are looking forward to.”

But didn’t the politicians in Europe recently reach a deal which was supposed to fix all this?

Well, unfortunately the deal basically did nothing to fix the underlying financial problems that Europe is facing.

In fact, global financial markets seem entirely unimpressed by this recent deal.  A recent article by Professor Peter Morici detailed some of the problems with the deal….

Investors are rejecting the euro deal, because the agreement does not effectively meet the funding needs of Italy and other Mediterranean governments, address the weak balance sheets of European commercial banks, or fix the underlying structural flaws in the euro architecture.

The €440 billion European Financial Stability Facility is providing short-term funding—guaranteed by 17 Eurozone member states as a whole—to tide over the more troubled governments.

However, those bailouts impose huge cuts in spending and tax increases. Coupled with austerity plans also adopted by France and other healthier European states, those packages are pushing Europe into a recession that could last several years.

What is even worse is that there are signs that this recent deal is already unraveling.  Some EU nations have decided that they are not sure that they want to go along with the program.

The following comes from a recent article in the Telegraph….

Amid fresh warnings that Europe is triggering a 1930s-style global depression, the German chancellor faced open rebellion against the key plank of her Brussels accord. The leaders of Hungary and the Czech Republic told a joint conference in Budapest they were ready to reject the planned treaty changes and implied move towards a centralised tax system. Czech prime minister Petr Necas said he was “convinced that tax harmonisation would not mean anything good for us”.

In Poland, we are actually seeing people march in the streets to protest against this new agreement….

Poles marched under banners that read: “We want sovereignty, not the euro.” They were protesting against the Brussels deal that could see EU countries, including those outside the eurozone, face penalties for breaking tough centralised spending laws.

So not only does this new deal not address the fundamental problems that Europe is facing, there is also a tremendous amount of doubt about whether or not it will eventually be approved.

Meanwhile, the brutal austerity measures that are being implemented all over Europe are pushing many EU nations into recession.

The EU (led by Germany and France) and the IMF have been pushing financially troubled nations all over Europe to make incredibly deep budget cuts.  But these very deep budget cuts have had a devastating economic impact.

In a recent article, I discussed how brutal austerity measures have already pushed the economy of Greece into a full-blown depression….

Just look at what happened to Greece.  Greece was forced to raise taxes and implement brutal austerity measures.  That caused the economy to slow down and tax revenues to decline and so government debt figures did not improve as much as anticipated.  So Greece was forced to implement even more brutal austerity measures.  Well, that caused the economy to slow down even more and tax revenues declined again.  In Greece this cycle has been repeated several times and now Greece is experiencing a full-blown economic depression.  100,000 businesses have closed and a third of the population is living in poverty.  But now Germany and France intend to impose the “Greek solution” on the rest of Europe.

Right now, the flow of government money is drying up all over Europe and so is the flow of money from the banks.  European banks are shrinking their balance sheets and have dramatically cut back on lending in order to meet new capital requirements that are being imposed upon them.

All of this has created an environment where there is not much credit flowing in Europe at all.  When there is a credit crunch of this magnitude, it causes the money supply to start to shrink.  This is already happening all over Europe as a recent article in the Telegraph noted….

All key measures of the money supply in the eurozone contracted in October with drastic falls across parts of southern Europe, raising the risk of severe recession over coming months.

Right now, we are seeing the money supply in each of the “PIIGS” nations fall at a staggering rate.  The following comes from the same Telegraph article referenced above….

Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors said “narrow” M1 money – which includes cash and overnight deposits, and signals short-term spending plans – shows an alarming split between North and South.

While real M1 deposits are still holding up in the German bloc, the rate of fall over the last six months (annualised) has been 20.7pc in Greece, 16.3pc in Portugal, 11.8pc in Ireland, and 8.1pc in Spain, and 6.7pc in Italy. The pace of decline in Italy has been accelerating, partly due to capital flight. “This rate of contraction is greater than in early 2008 and implies an even deeper recession, both for Italy and the whole periphery,” said Mr Ward.

Those numbers scream “Recession, Recession, Recession“.

There may be one glimmer of hope on the horizon.  The Federal Reserve has been lending huge amounts of money to the European Central Bank and the European Central Bank has been lending that money out to European banks.  In turn, the European banks have been using much of that money to buy up European government bonds.  It is a massive Ponzi scheme, but it has stabilized bond yields in Europe for now.  This scheme was described in a recent article by Simone Foxman….

That’s because the European Central Bank may have already introduced roundabout measures that will solve some of Europe’s big problems—it’s making investing in peripheral sovereign debt a huge profit opportunity for banks.

Theoretically, financial institutions will be able coin money by borrowing ultra-cheap from the ECB and buying higher yielding sovereign debt.

Essentially, it appears the ECB might allow European banks to pledge everything but the kitchen sink in return for funds. First, the new policy allows European banks to hold far fewer assets as collateral in exchange for funding from the ECB—freeing up liquidity to the tune of €103 billion ($134 billion). More importantly, relaxing collateral restrictions could also allow European banks to use even somewhat risky sovereign assets as collateral for bond purchases.

But this Ponzi scheme cannot go on indefinitely.  A lot of European banks are already starting to run out of collateral for these loans as one Australian news source recently explained….

“If anyone thinks things are getting better, they simply don’t understand how severe the problems are,” a London executive at a global bank said. “A major bank could fail within weeks.”

Others said many continental banks, including French, Italian and Spanish lenders, were close to running out of the acceptable forms of collateral, such as US Treasury bonds, that could be used to finance short-term loans.

Some have been forced to lend out their gold reserves to maintain access to US dollar funding.

So will the European Central Bank keep lending them money once they are out of collateral?

If they do, the ECB itself could potentially be in a great deal of danger.

The truth is that the ECB is already playing with fire.  So far, the European Central Bank has spent over 274 billion dollars buying up European government bonds in an attempt to keep bond yields down.

How many toxic assets can the ECB buy up before they get into real trouble?

That is a very interesting question.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is becoming increasingly concerned about the financial panic that is sweeping Europe.

For example, Australian banks have been given  to perform a stress test that evaluates their ability to survive in the event of a European financial collapse.

Why all the urgency?

Do they know something that we don’t?

Just like back in 2008, we are seeing massive problems at some of the largest banks in the world.

On Thursday, Fitch Ratings downgraded  of the world’s most prominent banks….

The banks included Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, as well as Europe’s Barclays, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas.

Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Switerzland’s Credit Suisse were also downgraded.

The global banking system is a giant house of cards.  There is simply way too much debt, way too much leverage and way too much risk.

On average, major banks across Europe are leveraged .

If the value of the assets held by those banks declines by just 4 percent, they will be wiped out.

Yes, that is how serious things are.

And already we are starting to see major banks fail in Europe.

This week it was revealed that Germany’s second largest bank is going to need a bailout.  The following comes from a Sky News report….

Germany’s second largest bank, Commerzbank, is reportedly in discussions with the German government about a bailout after regulators said it needed to raise more money to cope with a potential default on its loans to governments.

“Intense talks” have been going on for several days, according to sources who spoke to the news agency Reuters.

So if Germany’s second largest bank is failing, are any banks in Europe safe?

Just like we saw back during the 1930s, we are starting to see a run on banks all over Europe.

In fact, according to a recent Der Spiegel article, a run on Greek banks has been going on for a while now and is rapidly accelerating….

He means that the outflow of funds from Greek bank accounts has been accelerating rapidly. At the start of 2010, savings and time deposits held by private households in Greece totalled €237.7 billion — by the end of 2011, they had fallen by €49 billion. Since then, the decline has been gaining momentum. Savings fell by a further €5.4 billion in September and by an estimated €8.5 billion in October — the biggest monthly outflow of funds since the start of the debt crisis in late 2009.

If you can believe it, approximately 20 percent of all bank deposits in Greece have been withdrawn since the start of 2011.

Europe is in a massive amount of trouble.  The euro is dropping like a rock and the European financial system is paralyzed by panic and fear.

It is going to take a miracle to prevent a massive financial collapse from happening in Europe in 2012.

Unfortunately, there do not appear to be any miracles for Europe on the horizon.

Source: The American Dream

Making Sense of The Russian Elections

Moscow is unusually warm: the temperature refuses to dip below zero degrees Centigrade, the freezing point.  Instead, it is wet and dark. The sun gets up late and goes to sleep early. To make matters worse, President Medvedev decided to keep Russia on daylight savings  time throughout winter. To offset this stupid decision, Christmas illumination was turned on a month before the usual time, in order to cheer up the voters. Now it lights the way for the armoured vans of the riot police sent in to pacify the cheery electorate.

The parliamentary elections were deemed in advance as a futile and vain exercise of no practical importance. “It does not matter how you vote, what matters is how they count”,  pundits said. But the results were quite impressive and they point to great changes ahead. The Russians have said to communism: “Come back, all is forgiven.” They effectively voted to restore the Soviet Union, in one form or another.  Perhaps this vote will not be acted upon, but now we know – the people are disappointed with capitalism, with the low place of post-Soviet Russia in the world and with the marriage of big business and government.

If communists proved the fallacy of their ideas in 70 years, the capitalists needed only twenty years to achieve this same result, quipped Maxim Kantor, a prominent modern Russian painter, writer and thinker. The twentieth anniversary of the restoration of capitalism that Russia commemorated this year was not a cause for celebration but rather for sad second thoughts. The Russians loudly regretted the course taken by their country in 1991; the failed coup of August 1991, this last ditch attempt to preserve communism, has been reassessed in a positive light, while the brave Harvard boys of yesteryear who initiated the reforms are seen as criminals. Yeltsin and Gorbachev are out, Stalin is in.

Despite the falsifications of election results(discussed below), the communists (CPRF and their splinter party the Just Russia or SR) greatly increased their share and can be considered the true winners. The ruling  United Russia (ER) party suffered huge losses. A loose confederation of power-seeking individuals, it could easily fall apart. There is a distinct possibility of the communists being able to form the government, that is, if they should be asked to do so by the President.

Pro-capitalist and right-wing parties were decimated by the voters. Neoliberal Right Cause (PD), the party of choice for market believers, languished with less than one per cent of the vote.  The liberal, pro-Western Apple Party (half-jokingly referred to as  “the Steve Jobs party”) did not cross the electoral threshold.  Many Russians think that, discounting falsifications, the communists “really” got over 50%, while the ER actually got less, perhaps much less. Given the chance, the people voted for communists, as had been predicted a few months ago by VT Tretyakov, a senior Russian journalist and chief editor, during an address to a Washington DC think tank. He correctly said that in fairly honest elections, the communists will carry the day, and the liberals will be gone, and he was right. If this change of heart does not find its expression in political action, people will feel cheated.

This turn towards communism took place with Russia busily restoring its lost legacy:

• The North Stream pipeline connected Russian gas with European consumers directly, leaving Poland (and by proxy, the US) without a point of leverage. Oil and gas pipelines are being built towards China, promising Russia a choice of customers.
• Putin’s idea of a Eurasian Union began to take shape. The Ukraine  has made friendly gestures, the crisis of Belarus is over, Kazakhstan is firmly inside.
• The Russian Navy aircraft carrier went to the shores of Syria, in a rare display of power, while Qatar’s ambassador in Moscow has been sent packing, as this tiny but rich emirate is apparently leading the anti-Syrian campaign.
• Last month, the fabulous Bolshoi theatre was lovingly and expensively restored to its purple-and-gold old glory. To conservative viewers’ chagrin, Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila opera (with wonderful American singer Charles Workman) was directed in an avant-garde manner, showing that the theatre will not act as a museum piece but will produce up-to-date art.
• Sochi is about to become the most expensive and luxurious sea-and-mountain resort ever in preparation for the Winter Olympics;
• Moscow has been beautified; thirty-foot-high elaborately decorated Christmas trees have been placed at prominent locations around the city, making the darkness of its northern nights almost bearable. City parks have been granted huge budgets for improvement; skating rinks have been prepared. Even fountains that collapsed twenty years ago have been rebuilt.
• But the most important recent sign of a resurgent Russia took place this month: A holy relic, the Virgin Mary’s Sash, has been brought to Moscow from its repository at  sacred Mount Athos.  A staggering three million Muscovites venerated it, queuing up for twenty-four hours on average  in freezing temperatures. This was Russia’s asymmetric response to America’s Black Friday shopping-mall queues.

Russia is full of problems, too.  Russia lost twenty million lives in the transition to capitalism with little to show for it; its villages stand empty, a brain drain has sent the best and brightest overseas.  Capital flight bleeds Russia dry; every search for a company’s owners ends at a Cyprus-registered offshore trust.  Bribes and extortion are ubiquitous; infrastructure is worn down, de-industrialisation has undermined the working class; agricultural lands have been taken over by speculators. The army is demoralised, its weapons outmoded, and Russian education is as bad as anywhere.

The rich are too rich, and one per cent of Russia’s population owns much of the country’s wealth. This wealth is not considered legitimate by people: the ongoing Berezovsky vs. Abramovich court case offered legal proof that the fabulous riches of the New Russians were obtained by embezzling national wealth. What’s worse,  big business is fully integrated with the government; oligarchs and government officials intermarry and live separately from hoi polloi.

People are quite unhappy with what they see as a dictatorial or even an “occupation” regime. While Putin is considered a hostile leader by the West, the Russians think he is too obliging to the West, a centrepiece of the regime installed in the 90s. They would prefer a stronger anti-imperialist position any day.

The elections may have little direct consequence:  The Russian constitution was written by Boris Yeltsin after he shelled Parliament in 1993 and imposed his personal rule (to the standing ovation of the Western media). This constitution allows the president to disregard Parliament. But the election results show the changed public mood.

And if that’s not enough, a big demonstration of some ten thousand citizens flared up in the middle of Moscow – something unheard of since 1993. The demonstrators protested against massive falsifications of  election results. Three hundred were arrested, among them popular and populist blogger Alexei Navalny who created the meme “Party of Thieves and Cheats” for the United Russia.  The next day police dispersed another demo in the centre.

With Arab Spring in the background, the authorities are worried. Troops have been dispatched to Moscow. Though there is no immediate prospect of riots,  the traditionally heavy-handed Russian authorities never use a few policemen if they can send a brigade, and so they deployed the fearsome Dzerzhinsky Special Force brigade.

Were the elections falsified? Independent observers reported many irregularities in Moscow; probably it was even worse elsewhere. It seems that the ruling ER party activists inserted many fake ballots, and probably skewed the results in their favour. A poll made by NGO Golos on the basis of a few polling places with no irregularities showed that the communists won big, while the ER almost collapsed at the polls. On the web, there are claims of massive distortions following the vote count. It is hard to extrapolate from the Moscow results to the whole country, but the Russians believe that the results were falsified. They are also tired of their Teflon rulers.

 

	ER	SR	CPRF	LDPR
Official Results	49%	13%	19 %	11%
Popularly believed	32%	17%	35%	11%

 

This should provide a pretext for a revolution, but present-day communist leaders are not made of stern stuff like their legendary predecessors. They do not demand a recount, and generally accept their fate equivocally. In 1996, the communists won the elections, but accepted defeat as they were afraid of Yeltsin’s hit men led by the ruthless oligarch Boris Berezovsky. They are adamant about avoiding civil war; and it is doubted whether the super-wealthy will give up their wealth and positions just because  ordinary people voted this or that way. Many people believe that communist leaders are just part of the same ruling system, a kind of HM loyal opposition.

It is the right-wing opposition that is more persistent in denouncing the electoral manipulations, though no polls, independent or otherwise, indicate that their parties were successful. Moreover, this opposition is not famous for its love of democracy. Prominent Russian right-wing journalist Ms Julia Latynina has already called for the termination of  “the farce of democracy”:  the Russian people are too poor,  she said, to be allowed the right to vote, as they are likely to vote against their betters. This opinion was published in the best-known opposition paper Novaya Gazeta (owned by oligarch Mr Lebedev,  owner of the British Independent). For the Right, this is a chance to attack Putin and his regime.

The right wing is strongly anti-Putin; not so the communists who are ready to work with Putin any time. Can Putin change his spots and become Putin-2, a pro-communist president who will restore the Soviet Union and break the power of the oligarchs? He could certainly adopt some communist rhetoric and use the communist support.  Judging by his recent utterances at the Valdai forum, he is likely to turn Russia leftwards, with communists or without.

But stability of his regime is not certain. Putin should act swiftly if he wants to ride the wave of popular feelings, instead of being swept away by it.  Armoured vans are the last things he needs.

Credit Storm Batters Europe

So, how bad will the EU credit crunch get?

Credit conditions in the eurozone continue to deteriorate while yields on French, Spanish, Belgian and Italian bonds move higher. Italy’s 10-year yield increased 19 basis points to 6.89 percent on Tuesday, just a stone’s throw from the “unsustainable” 7 percent. French debt is also under increasing pressure. The spread between France’s 10-year debt and German bund hit a new high on Tuesday, widening by 174 basis points. If yields continue to rise,  European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi will be forced to either expand his bond buying program (Securities Markets Programme) or watch while defaulting sovereigns domino through the south taking most of the EU banking system along with them.

Germany will not permit the ECB to act as lender of last resort. As the Bundesbank’s president Jens Weidmann explained in an interview last week, unsterilized bond purchases (monetization) would violate Article 123 of the EU treaty.

“I cannot see how you can ensure the stability of a monetary union by violating its legal provisions.” Weidman said. “I think the prohibition of monetary financing is very important in ensuring the credibility and independence of the central bank, which allow us to deliver on our primary objective of price stability. This is a very fundamental issue. If we now overstep that mandate, we call into question our own independence.”

So, for now, the ECB’s hands are tied, but as bond prices continue to fall and credit markets freeze, German opposition will weaken and the ECB will asked to intervene.

Samsung Securities is now warning of a run on Italian banks. Here’s an excerpt from their report:

“A more immediate issue confronting investors is whether we are likely to soon witness a significant run on Italian-based banks. If the answer is yes, then this without question will be the end of the road for the eurozone and will confront the ECB and Germany with an inescapable choice of either providing unlimited support for all eurozone commitments (including deposits) or allowing the disintegration of the euro….

In the case of most countries that are starting to suffer from deposit outflow, the banks have to increasingly rely on higher interest rates to lure depositors. Is this starting to happen in Italy? The answer is yes, particularly in the case of corporate accounts….

One of the key leading indicators of a bank run is the bank’s increasing reliance on ECB’s refinancing facilities. Over the past three-to-four months, we have seen increasing reliance by Italian banks on eurosystem refinancing. Whereas in 2008 and 2009, Italian banks were average users of ECB facilities, accounting for only 3-4% of the total vs Italy’s share of 13.7% of the eurozone’s banking assets. However, since July, the share of ECB’s refinancing attributable to Italian banks rose to a historically high level of 18.8% (end-October)

….markets remain frozen…Banking refinancing markets remain largely closed. Whether one looks at OIS spreads (90bps on the euro), ECB deposits or CDS spreads between the eurozone’s senior and subordinated debt (235bps) remain at extremely elevated levels, indicating extreme reluctance of banks to lend to each other for longer than overnight or preference for depositing funds with the ECB rather than lending.” (“Samsung Securities, Prepare for the Italian bank runs”, Pragmatic Capitalism)

Samsung’s conclusions are no different than those of other analysts who’ve followed developments in the credit markets closely. Banks are depositing record amounts of money at the ECB rather than lending it out, funding is getting more difficult as US money markets reduce their lending to EU banks, credit gauges are steadily rising, and new capital requirements are forcing banks to dump risk-weighted assets on an already-saturated market. These are all signs of a deepening crisis. Here’s a clip from the Wall Street Journal:

“Worries over the fate of European nations are gumming up the intricate gears of the financial system….The rising cost of borrowing demonstrates the lack of faith investors hold in European leaders to resolve the region’s debt crisis. It also suggests that the region’s banks remain under stress, despite officials’ efforts to restore confidence. Taken as a whole, the markets show that private money is flowing only in fits and starts to select few European financial recipients.

“The funding market is not working properly,” said Giuseppe Maraffino, a European money-market strategist at Barclays Capital…

The latest sign came on Monday, when the European Central Bank reported that money going into its low-interest-rate overnight-deposit facility has been surging, effectively pulling money out of the banking system. Last week, euro-zone banks’ overnight deposits with the ECB hit €288.43 billion ($397.8 billion), the highest level since the debt crisis first erupted last year. (“Financing Markets Tighten Spigots”, Wall Street Journal)

So, how bad will the EU credit crunch get? That’s a question the Financial Times blog tries to answer on Monday in a post titled “It’s a capital ratio of two halves”. Here’s a clip from the article:

“In another sign of how bad this is looking, Commerzbank, Germany’s leading lender to central and eastern Europe, is ceasing all loan origination outside of its home country and Poland…….But assuming any adjustments to the rules will come too little to late, we could be in for €1,500bn to €2,500bn of deleveraging according to a note published by Morgan Stanley on Sunday.” (“It’s a capital ratio of two halves”, FT. Alphaville)

Well, now, if the banks are going to unload a hefty $3 trillion in assets, (in an effort to meet the new  9% capital requirements) then they’re not going to be doing a lot of lending now are they? And, if there’s no credit expansion (new loans) then there’s no growth, right? In that case, people would be well advised to pick a cozy spot outside the unemployment office now before the lines form.

Reuters blogger Felix Salmon has an excellent post (Monday) that explains the implications of the credit storm raging across the eurozone. Here’s an excerpt:

“Europe is in the middle of a textbook liquidity crisis. Banks are not lending to each other — and the ECB isn’t stepping in to solve the problem. This is a serious structural issue with the way that the European monetary system was constructed: the ECB is tasked only with guarding inflation, and not with ensuring the health of the banking system. Individual national central banks are meant to do that. But they can’t print money — only the ECB can. So when there’s a liquidity crisis, no one’s able to step in and solve it…..

There is no reasonable amount of capital that can cure a liquidity shortage. The reason why people are refusing to lend to the banks is not primarily because they fear an underlying solvency problem (although some people do), but because they fear an obvious and immediate liquidity problem. It is rational not to lend to an institution that you believe to be illiquid.

The real problem here is simply that banks are hoarding their cash and not lending to each other. Look at the way that bank debt issuance has fallen off a cliff…

And the way the banking sector works, banks have to be constantly lending to each other: in nearly every country in Europe, the amount of bank debt coming due every day is higher than the total amount of bank capital in the system. The overnight interbank market is the bloodstream of the European financial system, and the flow of blood is coming to a halt.” (” Europe’s liquidity crisis”, Felix Salmon, Reuters)

So, soaring yields on sovereign bonds are only a small part of a bigger and more complicated story. The real problem is in the credit markets, where plunging asset values and funding woes are paving the way for another full-blown financial meltdown.

Israel’s War Threats: Sheer Hollow Propaganda

Israel has awkwardly and desperately renewed its outworn war threats against Iran in the recent weeks, indicating that it’s getting prepared to launch a military strike on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities.

Last week, the Zionist regime successfully test fired a missile which is said to have the capability of carrying a nuclear warhead and reach Iran, as well as Russia and China. On November 2, TV stations around the world screened footages of a rocket-propulsion system being launched from somewhere around Israel coastal Palmachim military base. The missile’s range is claimed to be 10,000 kilometers and therefore,Iran will be easily within the reach of it, in the case that a military attack on Iran is opted for.

However, now even the most optimistic advocates of war with Iran within the fractured cabinet of Benjamin Netanyahu know that “empty vessels make the most noise” and that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities will be practically the same as the evaporation of the Zionist entity. They are well aware of Iran’s military might and the recent advancements and progresses in Iran’s weapons industry. Although the hawkish Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman has boasted of “keeping all the options on the table” with regards to Iran’s nuclear program, he dismissed the reports that the Israeli cabinet members have reached an agreement over launching an attack against Iran.

The deceptive and illusory claims of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he is lobbying to persuade the cabinet to authorize a military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations has even evoked the surprise and astonishment of the American media, who reacted to the war threats skeptically. In a November 2, 2011 report published just a few hours after Israel test fired its nuclear missile, CBS News wrote that the international community is used to hearing of Tel Aviv’s war threats against Iran and the recent warmongering statements of Netanyahu are nothing new and unexpected: “it remained unclear whether Israel was genuinely poised to strike or if it was saber-rattling to prod the international community into taking a tougher line on Iran. Israeli leaders have long hinted at a military option, but they always seemed mindful of the practical difficulties, the likelihood of a furious counter strike and the risk of regional mayhem.”

The words of Israeli officials, even though disproportionately aggrandized and exaggerated by the mainstream media, cut no ice anymore. The Israeli regime is too fragile and small to pose a threat to Iran’s security. Over the past 10 years, the White House, with the unreserved assistance of its client state, Israel, repeatedly threatened Iran against the possibility of a military attack. Even Barack Obama who is unquestionably a wolf in the sheep’s clothing and understands nothing of peace and cordiality had once in 2010 talked of the possibility of a nuclear strike against Iran; a reckless statement which was condemned by many politicians and pundits around the world.

It’s now clear to the international observers that Israel talks through its hat. It only runs a psychological operation againstIranto force it into giving in its nuclear rights. The irony is that it’s Israel, the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, which is hell bent on disrupting Iran’s nuclear program which it impetuously and irrationally claims to be aimed at military purposes.

The Israeli officials, however, frequently direct war threats against Iran with impunity and in breach of several internationally recognized treaties, conventions and charters. From one hand, any Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities can be considered a war of aggression which is “a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense” and since the Korean War of the early 1950s, waging such a war is a crime under customary international law. It’s conventional for the state of Israel to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity; however, if it frantically makes such a decision, it will be committing a crime which the international community should categorically respond to.

On July 3, 1933, the first convention that defined aggression was signed inLondonby representatives of Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Turkey, USSR, Iran and Afghanistan. It was initiated by Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov in response to threats of use of force by the German government following Hitler’s rise to power. The government of Finland acceded to the convention on January 31, 1934. These countries decided that any kind of aggressive behavior on behalf of the members of theLeague of Nationswould be illegal and illegitimate.

On the other hand, if Israelis madly attack Iran’s nuclear facilities while no serious threat is posed against them on behalf of thePersian Gulf country, their assault can also be categorized as a “preemptive war” which is illegal without the approval of the United Nations Security Council. “The initiation of armed conflict, that is being the first to ‘break the peace’ when no ‘armed attack’ has yet occurred, is not permitted by the UN Charter.”

Israel’s war threats against Iran also violate the UN Charter and so far, the UNSC has given no decisive response to this flagrant breach of the international law. According to Article 2, Section 4 of the UN Charter which is generally considered to be ‘jus cogens’ (compelling law), all UN members are prohibited from exercising “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” The Article 51 of UN Charter stipulates that defense by a member state is justified only if, “an armed attack occurs,” against the attacking country.

Moreover, it’s crystal clear that the Israelis are not in a position to threaten Iran against a military strike over its nuclear program. Israel even does not have the credibility of asking Iran to halt its nuclear program while it possesses 300 atomic warheads. It has been repeatedly clarified by the international organizations, including the NIE 2007 report that Iran doesn’t possess nuclear weapons and also doesn’t have any intention of building such weapons. Of course it’s dismantling the nuclear arsenal of Israel which should be put on IAEA’s agenda, not Iran’s nuclear program which has been clearly demonstrated that is aimed at civilian purposes.

At any rate, there are of course wise and prudent people in the political structure of Israel to know that taking any aggressive action against Iran will be equivalent to the disappearance of the Zionist regime. Furthermore, even the closest friends of the Israeli regime know that Netanyahu’s war threats against Iran are sheer hollow propaganda, even if they keep the options “on the table” for good! There are the United States and its European cronies who support this criminal and evil state and its illegal nuclear program; however, it’s the will of the Iranian nation that will prevail at the end.

Outsourcing The Dirty Work: Seattle, Horsemeat & Eye Trouble

Just three days before I was supposed to go on a two-week camping trip through the Northwest, my eyes started to burn and hurt.  And then my vision started to get blurry.  Yikes!  So I immediately got all upset and rushed off to the doctor — but also started comparing my own vision problems with those of America’s vision problems as well.  I am not alone.  America’s vision has also gotten pretty blurry recently.

For far too long, we Americans have sat back and placidly allowed just one percent of our number to own 99 percent of our money.  And, as a friend of mine in Poland recently wrote me, “Democracy is incompatible with capitalism as long as the three richest people in a ‘democracy’ have more money than the gross national income of the world’s 48 poorest countries.”

So I went off to my optometrist, got acupunctured, bought herbal eye remedies, stuck prescription drops in my eyes, packed up my computer and went camping anyway — hoping that my vision (and my country’s vision too) would somehow miraculously clear up.

The first stop on my tour of the Northwest was Seattle and the famous Pike Place Market, where someone had told me that they sold horsemeat.  According to traditional Chinese medicine, eating horsemeat is good for one’s eyes.  But I couldn’t find any there.  Apparently you have to go to Asia or Europe to find horsemeat to eat.  All they sold in Seattle was salmon.

But that’s okay.  I really didn’t want to eat horsemeat anyway.  Who the freak would want to eat horsemeat?  Horses are our friends!

“Here’s the story on horsemeat,” said someone I met while drinking coffee in Seattle (everyone drinks lots of coffee in Seattle, BTW).  “It is illegal to slaughter horses in the United States — so they are all rounded up and shipped off to immense slaughterhouses in Canada.”

Hey, that sounds like America’s foreign policy for the last decade or so.  Outsourcing slaughter.  The Multi-National Coalition helped the Pentagon slaughter folks in Iraq.  Israeli corporatists help American corporatists slaughter women and children in Palestine.  UN “peacekeepers” help the Bush-Obama administration slaughter Afghans.  And NATO is happily helping American oil companies slaughter civilians in Libya.  Plus American corporatists are now keeping their fingers crossed that Israeli corporatists will soon be slaughtering Iranians for them too.

Like America outsources its slaughter of horses, the corporatist “one percent” that now owns Washington also outsources its slaughter of people.

But not all Americans think that the butchery of human beings — either here or abroad — is a swell idea.  And in the city that gave us Grey’s Anatomy and the Space Needle and Starbuck’s, “Occupy Seattle” is now in full operation — right down the street from the historic 1999 WTO protests.

And then the next day I went off to visit “Occupy Spokane” too.  Perhaps America is finally getting its vision back after all.

In the misty Cascade mountains lies the small town of Leavenworth — not Leavenworth, Kansas, home of the famous prison where Bush, Cheney, Obama and half of Wall Street clearly belong, but Leavenworth, Washington — a cute tourist replica of some small town in Bavaria.

When the railroads no longer stopped in Leavenworth, Washington, and the logging shut down, people there were hurting so they thought of a gimmick to get themselves through the hard times — and went Bavarian.  Now Leavenworth is a regional tourist attraction with an Octoberfest and a Christmas-tree-lighting festival and everything.  See?  You don’t have to make war on strangers in order to survive economically these days.

But I gotta admit that the “Occupy Leavenworth” movement consisted mainly of me.  Everyone else was too busy wearing lederhosen and eating bratwurst.

Beyond the “Strategic Partnership”

The “Strategic Partnership” between Berlin and Moscow is usually understood in the English-speaking world in somewhat simplified terms: Russian energy meets German technology with a lot of high-minded political rhetoric on top. In the meantime, the received wisdom goes, Germany remains firmly anchored in the Euro-Atlantic framework of political, economic and military institutions and relationships. In other words, Moscow may be Germany’s partner, “strategic” or otherwise, but Washington remains Berlin’s primary ally and its primary institutional focus is still in Brussels.

This may have been so over the years but it need not be so in the future. A foreign policy realist would argue that in the years ahead of us the German decision-making elite would be well advised to critically reconsider old assumptions and to develop an overall strategy of greater equidistance vis-à-vis Moscow and Washington. (Instead of equidistance, “more equal proximity” may be a better term.)

If German political, economic and civilizational interests are considered in realist terms, without the rhetorical ideological shackles of common values and ideals, it transpires that the Federal Republic has a more natural community of long-term geopolitical interests with Russia than with the United States.

The fundamental German-Russian compatibility is that they are traditional European nation-states pursuing limited objectives by limited means. By contrast, the leaders of the United States of both parties still subscribe to the notion of America’s exceptionalism and to the propositional creed rooted in Puritan millenarianism.

In world affairs this neurosis translates into self-appointed missions of “spreading democracy” and “humanitarian interventionism.” There is precious little to choose between the neoliberal interventionists, notably the ladies’ trio of Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and their neoconservative counterparts, such as Richard Perle, Paul Wofowitz, or Douglas Feith. They are but two sides of the same coin.

Germany has gone along with various American idiosyncrasies for a long time, but its elites have never been fully comfortable with the ideological arsenal of American postmodernia. Let it be noted that announcing the failure of the multiculturalist experiment, as Chancellor Merkel has done earlier this year, is unimaginable for an occupant of the White House from either party.

In geopolitical terms, like Russia but unlike the U.S., Germany is a continental power; and also like Russia but unlike the U.S., Germany has limited and “rational” strategic and security objectives. Both are weary of America’s self-appointed global missions, although Russia is unsurprisingly more vocal about its misgivings. Looking back over the past decade we find numerous areas of actual discord between Berlin and Washington reflecting divergent interests and strategic philosophies:

1. During the Bush years Germany was consistently lukewarm about NATO’s eastward expansion and notably unsupportive of the inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia in the Alliance, although this course was strongly advocated in Washington.
2. In 2003-4 Moscow and Berlin effectively developed a common front against the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
3. In the fall of 2004 Germany took a back seat during the U.S-driven financial, political and financial support for the “Orange” takeover in Ukraine.
4. In 2005, having rejected the U.S.-endorsed Polish proposal for a Western energy alliance, former Chancellor Schroeder went on to initiate the Nord Stream project, regardless of Washington’s displeasure at the bypassing of its Baltic-Polish clients.
5. Although reputedly more Atlanticist than her predecessor, Angela Merkel was unwilling to join the U.S.-led chorus of condemnation of Russia after Moscowt responded forcefully to Saakashvili’s aggression in South Ossetia in 2008.
6. In 2009 the U.S. exerted political pressure on General Motors, which had just received a massive Federal bailout only months earlier, to cancel plans to sell Opel to a Russian-backed consortium, although the deal was supported by the German government.
7. On the southeastern front, the Germans have been lukewarm about the stalled Nabucco pipeline, which has been strongly favored by the U.S., and have suggested Russia’s inclusion in it, even though it is clear that this would defeat the project’s rationale.
8. At the same time Germany is not averse to the Russian South Stream project, which is anathema to Washington and a number of its chronically Russophobic East European clients.
9. The United States and its European clients (notably Poland) would prefer the EU to present a single interface in its foreign and economic relations with third parties—including above all energy—while Germany wisely pursues bilateral arrangements which are also preferred by Russia.
10. Last but not least, earlier this year Germany remained on the sidelines while the U.S., Britain and France intervened in Libya under the aegis of NATO.

It is noteworthy that some of these trends have gelled, or maintained momentum, under Angela Merkel’s chancellorship, even though her government has made few moves to deepen German-Russian relations from the pinnacle of the Schroeder-Steinmeier years and she is personally by no means a cultural Russophile. This indicates that the logic of interests and objectives determined by the relatively constant factors of geography, resources and political culture, operate to a considerable extent independently of the decision-makers’ personal preferences.

The likely return to Russia’s presidency of Vladimir Putin in 2012 would be beneficial to the development of various currently untapped potentialities in German-Russian relations. As a cultural Germanophile with a strong sense of history and a firm rooting in the realist approach to grand strategy, Putin would also give an impetus to the return of what I would like to call the Neo-Bismarckian Paradigm. It was under the Iron Chancellor, the towering genius of the European 19th century diplomacy, that Germany and Russia last had a genuine strategic partnership, based on the compatibility of interests and the absence of truly insurmountable obstacles. Bismarck’s incompetent successors had abandoned this paradigm in favor of an unnecessary and ultimately fatal bid for multi-spectral hegemony (a Wilhelmine brand of neoconservatism) which finally entangled Germany in the affairs of the Habsburgs in The Balkans—which, as Bismarck had rightly pointed out, were not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier.

In the neo-Bismarckian framework Russia will pursue a strong, but bilaterally-based relationship with Germany and with other key European partners, such as France and Italy. It is neither in Russia’s interest, nor in the interest of Germany, to allow the apparatus of the European Union to impose itself as an interface. As the current financial crisis clearly indicates, the interests of different members and groups within the EU are too diverse, incompatible even, to allow for a single platform to interfere in the conduct of what are properly bilateral affairs.

It is almost axiomatic, for instance, that Russia cannot have the same kind of partnership with Britain as it does with Germany, and the terms of such relationships need to be determined in direct dialogue with London and Berlin, or Paris, or Rome. That is the optimal model for Russia benefiting from the German connection on its path to necessary modernization, and that is the optimal format for Germany to make its contribution. Had the Nord Stream project been subjected to a Brussels-based interface, it would not have been built.

As the global distribution of power regains its multipolar character and the United States continues to lose its briefly held position of full-specter dominance, as the European Union is in a period of chronic crisis, the traditional nation-states of Europe need to rediscover the benefits of togetherness based on spontaneously emerging, interest-based links, and not on multilateral, bureaucratically mediated institutional mechanisms.

To truly unite Europe by helping Russia modernize and deploy its full potential and by integrating it into the common European home, we need “Europe” indeed, but not necessarily in its current Brussels form, or let me be frank, not at all in that form—and certainly we don’t need interference or arbitration from Brussels when its traditional nations seek common ground on the basis of a plus-sum-game. Bismarck would understand this, I believe Vladimir Putin does, and I hope the German political and business elite will do likewise during his next mandate, to the benefit of all.

Norway killer Anders Behring Breivik recruited to a secret society in London

Remember that the hearings was closed to the public and the media. Classic Scandinavian style – an “open society” right.

The judge ordered that 32-year-old Andres Behring Breivik is to be detained without access to letters or visitors, apart from his lawyer. He’s getting four weeks in isolation. Maybe enought time to carry out more mind control experiments on Breivik.

Apparently the police knew the gunman’s name before the arresthe’s was on a intelligence watch list since March. Someone in Poland was said to be arrested, this is now being denied by Polish authorities.

Questions have been raised about why it took .

Breivik has said he was “surprised” he wasn’t stopped sooner.

Shooting Survivors Convinced There Were 2 Gunmen on Norway’s Utoya Island

In an article from the telegraph, Breivik now claims that he was recruited to a secret society in London and that he guided by an English “mentor”.

Not surprising considering his freemasonic ties and knights templar manifesto, with large chunks copied from mind control victim Ted Kaczynski.

We don’t know the truth about this “secret society” or English “mentor”, this could be nonsense put out by Breivik to further confuse the investigation. It could be the truth but it could also be the spin of the “advisers” and the “” behind the scenes.

Tragedies are always used for political purposes. This will justify another hunt for a “” that isn’t really there.

This might even change the fact that you have the right of meeting in “secret” or doing things in “secret”. Even if you might not agree to how the masons do business, I think most people value their privacy and right do do what they want to do – without the knowledge of authorities or other people …as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.

Now your thoughts and opinions are the target and all the “insane ideas” that are spreading on the internet.

Be sure that laws will be put in place, guns will be banned and nationalism will further be branded as “extremism”.

Paul Joseph Watson wrote:

It’s also a reminder that the mainstream press instantly falls in line with whoever the establishment designates the enemy du jour to be at any given time. Now that Muslims have been so vehemently demonized as terrorists, it’s the turn of so called “right-wing extremists,” or anyone who disagrees with mass immigration, loss of sovereignty and globalist financial looting, to feel the heat.

The effort to smear European conservatives as unhinged radicals who harbor simmering urges for bloodlust is now in full swing, and it’s a demonization campaign firmly founded on the carefully crafted public portrayal of Anders Behring Breivik.

This tragedy is now in the hands the media, the police and the politicians.

They are now spinning a web designed to further trap anybody that have valid points of criticism against how society is being guided down the toilet.

Source:  Henrik Palmgren | redicecreations.com

Why Palestine is Important

Palestine is important not because it is as beautiful as Tuscany, nor because the Palestinians are suffering, and not even because it is occupied by a Jewish state. What we need to understand is that the Jews have been handed Palestine not because they were so smart or so strong or so devoted, but by Imperial design.

Palestine is important because it is believed to be a linchpin of Empire, one of the key points necessary to control the world. Such was the conviction of the 19^th century British Empire-builders of the Rhodes variety, and this conviction has been recently and continuously reformulated into the terms of modern geopolitics. Once an arcane theory developed by HJ Mackinder, it has grown up to become a driving force behind globalism. We shall not go into its rational interpretation of mythological imagery; we must simply accept that this is the way the world’s powerful elite think.

Mackinder planned the subjugation of the whole planet to the Empire. He noted that the Arab world (apassage-land, in his terms) is central for this enterprise, and declared that “the hill citadel of Jerusalem has a strategic position with reference to world-realities not differing essentially from its ideal position in the perspective of the Middle Ages, or its strategic position between ancient Babylon and Egypt.” He believed that the “ideal position” of Jerusalem as the centre of the world of the medieval Crusader maps is no religious quirk, but an inspired understanding of the inherent quality of the place. In his exact words, “In a monkish map, contemporary with the Crusades, which still hangs in Hereford Cathedral, Jerusalem is marked as at the geometrical centre, the navel, of the world, and on the floor of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem they will show you to this day the precise spot which is the centre… The medieval ecclesiasts were not far wrong”.

 A strategist-mystic, Mackinder was a great supporter of Balfour declaration: “The Jewish national seat in Palestine will be one of the most important outcomes of the war. That is a subject on which we can now afford to speak the truth … a national home at the physical and historical centre of the world”.

In his fresh-from-the-presses book, The Great Games (rush out and buy it while stocks last, dear reader!), our friend and fellow Counterpuncher Eric Walberg says it best: “Mackinder’s inspiration was not Zionist but rather imperial, and by putting Jews in a Palestinian homeland he was assembling the pieces in today’s imperial order”.

Clearly, his imperialism, and his geography have had religious antecedents. Geopolitics is a secularised sacred geography, and its drive towards “the hill citadel of Jerusalem” and “Shambala” is not a coincidence. But then, every ideology is a crypto-religious doctrine; or in words of Carl Schmitt, «all of the most pregnant concepts of modern doctrine are secularized theological concepts».

People argue that geopolitics has more than a touch of mumbo-jumbo, but this doctrine is being applied by the elites. One can rationalise the fateful Imperial attachment to Afghanistan by a vague possibility to build there a pipeline; it is easier to see in the US drive to Afghanistan a new version of the search of Shambala.   Mackinder rationalised his feelings, he referred to Jerusalem’s army being able to defend the Suez, but the old maps influenced him – and other Empire-builders – more than he was ready to admit.

For this reason it is difficult to imagine that the Empire will ever voluntarily release Palestine; it is far too important ideologically, religiously, geopolitically, and strategically in the eyes of the Imperial elites. But why has the Empire chosen the Jews to be the shock troops in Palestine? Indiana University’s Professor of Geography, Mohameden Ould-Mey provides some explanation in a scholarly paper, a paper that was never successfully published. The paper had been duly reviewed and accepted by Political Geography’schief editor David Slater, but two years later a new chief editor came along who knew better on which side lies the butter, and he quickly spiked the paper. He used his position to instead commission some celebratory articles about Israel’s Independence Day.

In the never-published paper, Professor Ould-Mey revealed that the Zionist movement was not created by Jews in the 19^th century: they were busy looking closer to home. These starry-eyed Jews once dreamt of forming a homeland inside Ukraine or Poland, to build there an independent state “just like Serbia”. It was the British who had a different idea, namely, to turn the Jews into English colonists in the Middle East. They needed manpower to man the Hill Citadel, and “they wanted the Jews to fill in the blank for the non-existing native Protestants in the Holy Land”.  The idea was tried earlier and failed: Napoleon toyed with the idea of planting Jews in Palestine as France’s foot soldiers, but there were no takers among Jews. The Brits achieved what the French could not.

Enter William Henry Hechler (1845- 1931), “the British agent who actually fathered Zionism in Eastern Europe and Russia”. Hechler is the man who turned Leo Pinsker into a Zionist; Pinsker later became author of the first and most influential pre-Zionist pamphlet, Auto-Emancipation. “This is when and how the British began to inject their Zionism into an otherwise local and normal emancipation movement of Eastern European Jewry in their own ancestral homeland” in Eastern Europe, writes Ould-Mey.

After winning over Pinsker and establishing the first Jewish movement for settlement in Palestine (Hibath Zion), Hechler went to Vienna to entice Theodor Herzl. At that time, Hechler was already “described as an agent working for German and English interests and particularly as a ‘secret agent’ working for the Intelligence Service”.

“Hechler actively participated in the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland in August 1897…Hechler-Herzl relations (like the Hechler-Pinsker ones before them and the Balfour- Weizmann ones after them) would seem to resemble the tutor-tutored relations rather than prophet-prince relations as suggested by Zionist historiography. Beyond tutoring Herzl on what Zionism is all about, Hechler introduced both Herzl and Zionism to the German Emperor, the Russian Czar, the Ottoman Sultan, the Pope (Pie X)” and other luminaries.

“Herzl was essentially a British envoy to the Germans, the Russians, the Ottomans, and the Jews. It was said that Herzl was fitted to lead Zionism precisely because he knew neither the Jews nor Palestine or Turkey…”

Ould-Mey concludes: “The British wanted Palestine for imperial and religious motives and used the Zionist Jews as willing surrogates and proxies who down the road became more active agents.”

This makes sense, for it solves the mystery: why was the Jewish Zionist movement such a Johnny-come-lately? Jewish Zionism was still in its infancy when Russians, French and Germans had been buying up lands and building houses all over the Holy Land for 40 years. Ould-Mey’s theory answers all the pertinent questions nicely. It was an English coup de grace.

This discovery is very exciting, but a trifle short of sensational: the British Intelligence Service is known to have rocked the cradle of The Muslim Brotherhood, the CIA fostered the Taliban, Shabak fathered Hamas. There is no doubt that all these bodies became wildly independent, unleashed themselves from their masters and ended up causing them a lot of trouble. Ould-Mey’s discovery that the Zionist movement was established by the British Secret service does not necessarily imply that it remained under their control – or anybody’s external control.

Since then, Jews have become doubly integrated into the fabric of the Empire: as the holders of the geopolitical “hill citadel of Jerusalem”, and as the bearers of neo-liberal post-modern ideology, the ideology of the “islanders” in Mackinder’s terminology — which is surprisingly close to “the traditional Jewish ideology” in the view of Milton Friedman as expounded by Gilad Atzmon. The first group is located mainly in Israel; the second group is mainly in the US.

The Zionist conception that the Jews are natural placeholders of the “hill citadel of Jerusalem” is now under review. The Middle East has sprung forth new forces with which the Empire is already actively collaborating. Foremost are the aggressive Saudi Wahhabis whom Thierry-Meyssan has identified as theSudairi. Qatar’s Al-Jazeera is a powerful weapon that is in their hands. They  with Israel but they are not Zionist stooges. They are quite a nasty lot and are friends of the Empire by their own right.

Obama’s May speech has made this clear. Israel is no longer the only outpost in the wilderness of the Middle East, no longer a bastion of the West in the East. Obama’s proposal was similar to that made by Jimmy Carter to China and Taiwan in 1979, when the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing while carrying on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with Taiwan. Over 30 years have passed since then, and Taiwan has not suffered from being downgraded. Likewise, Obama offered Israel a similar deal: shrink a bit, and you will live a long and happy life. Contraction should be not only territorial, but strategic and ideological as well. You are welcome to stay a favorite son of the US in the Middle East, but as a son among other sons, not as a pampered baby among slaves. In short, be a Taiwan – don’t try to be a China.

As we know, Israel quickly neutralized this proposal by mobilising pro-Jewish American politicians. This has effectively humiliated Obama – and energized the new pro-Imperial Arab forces to action. Their new confidence was expressed in Prince Turki’s opinion piece and has been widely commented upon. This is one reason why Israel has been acting hysterically recently, as is evident from the attacks on the Flotilla, the detention of the fly-in tourists, and the massacre of the unarmed Palestinians upon the anniversary days of the Nakba and Naksa.

Israelis have a feeling that their position is being re-evaluated, and they are freshening up their connections with the Jews abroad and flexing the power of their lobbies, playing up anti-semitism hysteria. The most recent orchestrated surges of pro-Jewish sentiments have surfaced in the harsh treatment of film director Lars von Trier and designer John Galliano, but are by no means over.

Now an important debate of the last decade can be addressed. Noam Chomsky explained America’s obsession with Israel by hard-nosed Imperial interests, while John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt inter alia have explained it by activity of the Israel Lobby. Now we can try to square this circular argument.

Indeed, the imperial plans for conquest of the world as they were laid upon in the end of 19^th century included creation of the “hill citadel of Zion” manned by “ranging” (Mackinder’s term) Jews. New data proves that these plans were not inspired by Jews, but given to Jews by imperial planners. These plans passed from generation to generation, and presumably they are now accepted by the imperial elites as given.

During the Cold War this idea figured less prominently, but “since the end of the Cold War, as regional strategic concerns have replaced those of the global bipolar confrontation of the twin superpowers, the relevance of Mackinder’s study [and of his concepts] is once again apparent”, in words of Leut.-Gen Ervin Rokke.

 So apparently, Chomsky was right? Not so fast. We can reword the old argument in new terms: M&W argument can be read as “the old ideas of Mackinder are so much of old bunkum, and in reality the citadel became rather a hindrance than a useful defence, like Belfort”.  This coincides with the Arab pro-Imperialist view of the Saudis. Perhaps it is a convincing opinion, but the Lobby is still instrumental in blocking it.

The last and final answer to the “Jews and Empire” question was proposed by the modern Russian author, Viktor Pelevin:

- Everything is in the hands of Allah, – said the girl.

- I beg your pardon, – a young man turned to her rather unexpectedly, – How can it be? What about Buddha’s mind? Hands of Allah exist only in the mind of Buddha, you would not deny that, would you?

The girl smiled politely.

- Surely I wouldn’t. The hands of Allah exist only in Buddha’s mind. But the whole point is that the mind of Buddha is in the hands of Allah.

Russians Have Second Thoughts

Russia is different. The Americans, the Brits and the French by and large approve of their forces’ Libya bombing spree (yes, some doubt that it’s a good bang for the buck). The Russians are flatly against it, with no ifs, ands or buts. The Russian Ambassador in Tripoli, Vladimir Chamov, came back to a hero’s welcome in Moscow. President Dmitri Medvedev had dismissed him publicly after the Ambassador sent him a cable. In the five-points cable leaked to media, the Ambassador called Medvedev’s response to Libya crisis a “betrayal of Russian national interests”. (Meanwhile, the sides climbed down a bit: the Foreign Office said Chamov was not “fired”, just “called back” from Tripoli, and retained his ambassadorial rank and salary, while Chamov denied he had used the word “betrayal”.)

The Russians do not like the Western intervention in Libya. The rebels do not appear genuine, note the Russian bloggers; they are a peculiar mixed bag of Kaddafi’s ex-ministers fired for corruption, al-Qaeda mujahedeen, well-clod riff-raff beefed up by SAS soldiers and supported by these best friends of every Arab, American cruise missiles. The Russian media discovered that the first reports of massive civil casualties inflicted by the ruthless Kaddafi apparently were invented by editors in London and Paris. More civilians were killed by the Western intervention than by the government fighting the rebels. The mass-readership Komsomolskaya Pravda published reports from the Russian expats in Libya that flatly disproved claims of Kaddafi’s planes bombing residential quarters: this was done by the French and British bombers.

The Russians tend to a conspiratorial view of politics. They presume that the Arab risings were organised by their enemy: some “orange” Western forces, NED, CIA, Mossad, you name it, in order to create chaos, Iraq-style. They quote Israeli and American doctrines for the promotion of “constructive chaos”.And then they support Kaddafi, or even feel sympathy for Mubarak. This is especially true for patriotic Russians who remember that Kaddafi stood by Russia in 2008 during the Georgia conflict, and for a business community who were involved in many projects in Libya from gas to railways.

President Dmitri Medvedev has good reason to regret the haste with which he joined in the Western media onslaught, for he will be blamed for what already looks to Russians as Kosovo II. Probably he was misled by his media advisers who suggested he should jump on the internationally-acceptable media bandwagon of “stop the massacre in Libya”, and on he jumped. The first reports of the alleged massacre were still reverberating when President Medvedev warned Kaddafi of “crimes against humanity”, and later on he added that Kaddafi is persona non grata in Russia. Medvedev supported the decision to pass Libya’s case to ICC; though by that time he could have learned from the Russians present in Libya that nothing all that extraordinary took place in the country; that it was nothing beyond a small-scale rising on the way to being put down. It could be compared to Los Angeles riots of 1965 (threescore dead and thousands wounded) or of 1992 (fifty dead and thousands wounded), except that the LA blacks had no Tomahawks for aerial support.

Medvedev is also perceived as the man who ordered his Ambassador in the Security Council to abstain. Russia and China usually vote in agreement if they intend to go against the will of the world sheriff – ever since the fateful Zimbabwe vote in 2008 when Russia activated its veto for the first time since God-knows-when and stopped the West-proposed sanctions against the African nation. Then, the BBC reported, the UK foreign secretary David Miliband said Russia used its veto despite a promise by President Dmitry Medvedev to support the resolution. This time, apparently, Medvedev prevailed and acquiesced in what looks now as another Suez campaign (if you can still remember 1956, when the Brits and the French had tried to liberate Egypt from its Hitler-on-the-Nile, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and keep the Canal for themselves).

A few days later, the strongman of Russia, Vladimir Putin, roundly criticised this step of Medvedev; he called the Western intervention, “a new crusade”, and proposed the Western leaders should “pray for their souls and ask the Lord’s forgiveness” for the blood shed. People loved it. Medvedev tried to rebuff with a meaningless “don’t you speak of crusades”, but even he could not find anything positive about the NATO campaign in Libya.

Now as always, the Russians’ gut reaction is against any Western intervention. They were against American interventions in Vietnam and Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan, against British and French colonial wars – just like you were, my wonderful readers, the enlightened spiritual minority in the West. The Russians do not believe that the reasons for the Western intervention have anything to do with love of democracy, human rights or value of human life. For them, a rose is a rose is a rose, a Western intervention is a Western intervention, one of many they were on the receiving end of.

However, Medvedev did not let the Western intervention march on for purely sentimental reasons of “supporting Europe”. The idea is, better let NATO be occupied in the South than in the East. Libya is much less important for Russians than Georgia, Ukraine or even Afghanistan. If this beast has to eat somebody, let it better be somebody in the Maghreb, where the Russians never had strong positions anyway. A WPR writer called this turn a “Tilsit moment” for NATO: acknowledging the immutability of the West’s Eastern borders in exchange for a free hand in the South flank. That is why Poland was unhappy with the Odyssey Dawn operation: instead of being on the frontline of the most important confrontation, this southern switch left the Poles in a geopolitical cul-de-sac.

Indeed we should not be captivated by East-West thinking. As the US slowly declines, the European powers begin to reassess their role. The Libya war is a French project. The Libya war was started by Sarkozy as an attempt to rebuild the French Empire in North Africa fifty years after the Evian treaty ostensibly sealed its fate. This was his old idea, and he called for the establishment of a Mediterranean Union during his election campaign. The MU project was supported by Israelis – and now Bernard Henry Levy is the foremost proponent on the intervention. Turkey strongly opposed the MU and now the Turks oppose the intervention in their subtle way, as Eric Walberg has correctly described. Italy supported the MU and expectedly supported the intervention. Germany was against the MU and is against the intervention. From this point of view, the intervention in Libya is the beginning of a new wave of European colonization of the Maghreb.

A Russian observer noticed an uncanny resemblance of this operation to one that occurred one hundred years ago in Libya during the previous colonisation wave. Then, recently united aggressive Italy in search for its empire decided to seize Libya, an Ottoman province. Then, as now, the newspapers wrote of freedom-loving Libyans suffering under the Ottoman heel and of the Italians’ moral duty to liberate them. The Turks were in a bad shape and they tried to find a face-saving way to surrender. They proposed to hand Libya over to Italians for management and colonization provided the suzerainty should remain with the Sublime Porte. The Italians refused, and their Dawn Odyssey began. The Turks fought valiantly, and among them a young officer proved his valour: that was Mustafa Kemal, later nicknamed Ataturk. A lone voice against intervention was that of young Italian socialist Benito Mussolini. The Italians’ Libya campaign was the first ever air bombing, exactly one hundred years ago in 1911, and history has preserved the name of the first bomber, Flt Lt Giulio Gavotti, who was the first man ever to perform a bombing run.

Modern Russia is not the USSR; it has few world-wide ambitions. It is worried about its own part of the world, and is not keen to get involved elsewhere. For the Russians, Europe’s drive south is not a threat, rather a resumption of France’s regional role. That is why the Russians abstained at UNSC. So it will be the task of the enlightened forces of the West to stop the aggression – instead of relying on the Russian veto.

President Kaddafi succeeded in annoying a lot of people in a lot of places. He annoyed both the French and the Russians by striking deals and then not sticking to them. Wikileaks cables refer to that many times, notably in 10PARIS151 saying: “the French are growing increasingly frustrated with the Libyans’ failure to deliver on promises regarding visas, professional exchanges, French language education, and commercial deals. “”We (and the Libyans) speak a lot, but we’ve begun to see that actions do not follow words in Libya.” He annoyed the Saudis and worse, he annoyed his own people.

We are certainly against the intervention; but the case of supporting Kaddafi is not all that clear-cut. Muammar Kaddafi was/is a dual figure: on one hand, an autochthonous leader who provided his countrymen with the highest standard of living in Africa, with generous subsidies, free medical care and education, who supported the vision of One State in Palestine/Israel and befriended Castro and Chavez. On the other hand, for the last five years Kaddafi and his clique have been busy dismantling the Libyan welfare state, privatising and cannibalising their health and education systems, hoarding wealth, dealing with transnational oil and gas companies to their personal advantage. The “New Kaddafi” took away a lot of social achievements and did not give his people elementary political freedoms. His support of One State in Palestine dried up in 2002, a long time ago.

My friends in Tripoli do not support Kaddafi. They are certainly against western intervention, but they dislike the old colonel for his dictatorial habits. They are grown-ups, they want to be involved in the decision-making, they do not like corruption, they also want bigger role for Islam. In their eyes, Kaddafi kept his anti-imperialist rhetoric for public use, but his praxis was Western and neo-liberal. It is fine that Kaddafi teased the Saudi royals and brandished his sword against the western leaders; but at the same time he gave away Libyan wealth to the foreigners. So while certainly standing against the intervention, we should not forget that not all anti-Kaddafi forces are Western stooges or al-Qaeda fighters.

Politics do not provide a bed of laurels to recline on. With all due respect to Muammar Kaddafi and his past achievements, he overstayed his prime time. There are reasons to hope he will survive the storm; we heartily wish him the defeat of the interventionist forces. But that should be a departure point for democracy in Libya, not necessarily democracy-European style, but a better way for Libyans to participate in forging their own lives.

Europe Turns Against Israel

A German think-tank affiliated with the Social Democratic Party issued a new report last week that revealed “high levels of anti-Semitism in Germany, Poland and Hungary.”

Dr. Beate Küpper, a researcher from the University of Bielefeld who co-authored the study along with her colleagues Andreas Zick and Andreas Hoevermann, told The Jerusalem Post that the study showed a strong presence of “anti-Semitism that is linked with Israel and is hidden behind criticism of Israel, and is not neutral.”

Küpper termed the outbreak of Jew-hatred in Germany “remarkable” because, according to her, “there were widespread Holocaust remembrance and education events in Germany.”

It is possible that Küpper and others in the widely respected University have completely failed to notice a most obvious link here — It is more than likely that the mushrooming of Holocaust museums actually contributed to the resentment towards the Jewish state.  Those who are inclined to interpret the Holocaust as a universal and a moral message against racism and oppression would obviously also identify the Jewish State as a primary enemy of humanity and humanism.  I guess that Germans and others expect Jews to be at the forefront of the battle against racism. As it happens, the Jewish State sticks out as the total opposite; it is a leading abuser of human rights. It is a terrorist racist state that locks millions behind walls and barbed wires.

The study, entitled “Intolerance, Prejudice, Discrimination: A European Report” –questioned roughly 1,000 people in each of the selected EU countries. Asked to respond to the statement that “Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians,” 47.7 percent of the study’s participants in Germany expressed agreement – the highest number in Western Europe.

Given Poland’s lukewarm foreign policy toward Israel, the finding that 63.3% of the Poles questioned agree that Israel is seeking to obliterate Palestinians may be deeply alarming to some Zionist and Israeli Hasbara campaigners. It seems as if the Hasbara project has been a disaster — Israel has managed the buy more than a few politicians around the world – but the masses still see the Jewish state for what it is.

It seems as if the Holocaust indoctrination that is rallied and utilised by every Jewish and Zionist institution around the world  has backfired, and on every possible front:  more and more people around regard the Israelis as the Nazis of our time.

I must admit that I am uncomfortable with that comparison – I actually believe that Israel is far worse than Nazi Germany, at least from certain perspectives. Israelis, for instance,  are fully aware of their government and army’s brutal  measures against Palestinian civilian population – and yet, the vast majority of them support it all, and even affirm it democratically.

The researchers in Bielefeld were shocked to find out that the statement, “considering Israel’s policy, I can understand why people do not like Jews” met with general affirmation across Europe (35%-55%).

I would  like to try to help the unimaginative ‘scholars’: I would argue that  Israel presenting itself as the ‘Jewish State’  may have something to do with it — Zionism has successfully managed to redefine Jewish identity. While in the past, Jews where largely associated with a world religion, namely, Judaism, they are now associated with the Jewish State and Global Zionist politics. Considering the Jewish State’s atrocities then, it is only natural that Jewish political activity should reflect so badly on the image of world Jewry.

The research also asked Europeans whether “Jews try to take advantage of having been victims during the Nazi era” (as if we actually need a poll to know the answer to that one). Almost half the Germans responded in the affirmative. Poles who are subject to a constant flood of  hostile Shoa tourism, totally approved the statement  (72.2% affirmed). Furthermore, not only do Jews take advantage of their victimhood, there is also an extensive body of academic work that suggests that the Holocaust is the new Jewish religion : victimhood seems to be the current collective Jewish bond.

It seems as if Dr Küpper’s lameness knows no bounds — for instance she insists on making a link between the growing resentment towards Israeli barbarism – and the expanding intolerance towards marginalized minority groups: Poland and Hungary, she says,  are “ also plagued by extraordinary levels of sexism and homophobia”.

Someone should remind Küpper that gays are yet to lock their alleged  ‘foes’  in Bantustans, to surround them with walls and barbed wire, to impose a  blockade on  them with a gay Navy or drop bombs on them from aero planes decorated with gay symbols.

Gays and homosexuals do not use white phosphorus against people seeking refuge in UN  shelters, and they do not raid peace activists’ flotillas in the middle of the sea.

In short, the resentment towards gays which Küpper detected in Poland and Hungary has nothing whatsoever to do with the clear antagonism towards Jewish politics –describing anti Israeli feeling and anti gay sentiment  as originating from the same source, and explaining them as being rooted in a similar animus is both illogical and groundless.

It is embarrassing how lame academia has become.

I guess that the University of Bielefeld may have to raise its academic standards, and the sooner the better. I would like to suggest that it search for the right minds — those who can teach and discuss the true intellectual heritage of German thought.

Heidegger, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Schopenhauer could be a good start.

Cuba in the WikiLeaks Mirror: An Obsession

Hundreds of thousands of US State Department documents, in the form of cables from hundreds of embassies and consulates around the world, give us an in-depth picture of American interests and activities such as never before seen. Yet as we peruse cables that chronicle the changing faces of US diplomacy, there is one constant: Cuba.

Everywhere, from Dushanbe in the mountains of Tajikistan to Paris, from Kiev in the Ukraine to Sydney in Australia, American diplomats are busy watching over a small island in the Caribbean Sea with an obsessive malice. Like a professional womanizer who was once rebuffed by a small-town beauty, Uncle Sam can’t seem to get over it. The diplomats monitor all Cuban activities, make note of every Cuban utterance, and report every sighting of a migratory Cuban with the enthusiasm of a birdwatcher. It seems that the US has lost none of its Cold War passion for Cuba.

In far-away Uzbekistan, the US Ambassador is promoting the US case against Cuba and duly reports to Mme Clinton:

UNCLAS TASHKENT 000524 SIPDIS DEPT FOR WHA/CCA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM, KDEM, PREL, UZ SUBJECT: UZBEKISTAN/DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITHCUBAN PEOPLE REF: SECSTATE 46997 (U) on the margins of a May 5 meeting with Foreign Minister Norov, the Ambassador informed the Uzbek government of U.S. plans to mark solidarity with the Cuban people on May 21. In addition, the Embassy has placed a box in the Embassy newsletter ‘Dostlik’ marking the date and has added a brief statement about it on its web site. NORLAND

In a few days, the US diplomats “celebrate a day of solidarity with the Cuban people”.“Embassy Tashkent continues to promote and prepare for solidarity with the Cuban people on May 21. We have raised points with appropriate high-level Uzbek officials and have placed information on our website and in our quarterly English and Uzbek languages publication, ‘Dostlik’.

Now that takes me back to the 1970’s! In Brezhnev’s day, the Soviets were regularly mustered to express their solidarity with “the people of Cuba”, “the people of Vietnam”, “the people of Korea”, etc, and eventually it began to bore us all to tears. The Soviet Union was abandoned largely due to this boredom, and now the Uzbeks (and all the rest) are being offered the same boring dish again, only this time “the people of Cuba” represents little more than the catchphrase of CIA operatives in Miami.

When Uzbekistan established diplomatic relations with Cuba, the US ambassador vented his hurt feelings in a confidential cable. The Ambassador comments: Uzbekistan has only a minimal diplomatic relationship with Cuba, but we thought it important to make this demarche so our Uzbek interlocutors will see that the US government raises human rights issues around the world, not just with the GOU.

When a Cuban delegation visited Uzbekistan, US embassy staff snooped like jilted lovers. When the Uzbeks told them to mind their own business, the spurned Ambassador cabled home:  The Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs’s refusal to discuss this event with the Embassy is particularly laughable. Only a handful of employees work at the America’s Desk, and the same officials who were “unable” to give us any information were likely involved with the Cuban delegation’s visit. Some guys just don’t understand that “No” sometimes means “No”!

Frozen in time, Cold War ideology and language is still de rigueur in the State Department, as one sees in this cable from Ukraine:

Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights (known as the Human Rights Ombudsman), Nina Karpachova was in rare form during the Regions party congress in December. During a feisty speech, she declared that her lowest professional moment had come during the 2005 session of U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, where Ukraine’s Orange government had instructed her to vote “against Cuba, a small island nation that has helped us.” Pressed to explain that comment at a January 16 meeting with Ambassador, during which he passed her information about Cuba’s dismal human rights record, Karpachova launched into a lengthy defense of the Castro regime, praising the dictator for, among other things, curbing illiteracy and running summer camps for Ukrainian children affected by the 1989 Chornobyl disaster. Karpachova even blamed Cuba’s poor economic record on the U.S. embargo, which she advocated lifting.

The sulky Ambassador still insisted on having the last word. He: expressed surprise that a representative of a party that purportedly believes in business would ignore the fact that the socialist policies of the Castro regime were the primary cause of Cuba’s economic problems.

Caught recruiting spies in Bolivia, the US embassy cables Washington: Fulbright student Alex van Schaick reported to the Bolivian Foreign Ministry February 7 that he had been asked by Post’s Assistant Regional Security Officer to report contacts with Venezuelan and Cubannationals to the Embassy. Eventually the Americans apologized and the US diplomat was sent home.

The US continues to exert pressure on the UN to expand the decades-old US embargo of Cuba, but all efforts have been in vain. Every cable dealing with the UN includes these telling words: On embargo of Cuba we remain isolated. The US record of brokering UN resolutions against Cuba is even more dismal than their Middle Eastern efforts. Cuba is the one issue Americans cannot get traction on; they are always met with resolutions against their policy.

In Baku, Azerbaijan, the US ambassador coaxed the Azerbaijani foreign minister to support the US embargo, but received this strong response: On the Cuba Embargo resolution, Mammadyarov said that Azerbaijan had been “with the 184 countries.” Mammadyarov said that over 1,000 Cubans had been educated in Azerbaijan during the Soviet period, primarily at the oil academy and international law department, and that there is a large Azerbaijan diaspora inCuba. Mammadyarov also said that Azerbaijan could not have many embassies in South America because it had so few fluent Spanish speakers, so Cuba was an important element along with Mexico and Brazil. Responding to the Ambassador’s question about what interest Cuba would have in having an embassy in Baku, Mammadyarov said that this would be the first Cuban embassy in the Caucasus, with Cuba having over 145 embassies, mainly smaller one to two person posts.

In contrast, Armenia, after much prevarication, agreed to support the US, and it was “a grand gesture”, the Ambassador writes.

Diplomatic exchanges with Cuba are routinely met with American sabotage. The US Ambassador in Vilnius proudly reported: Last year, we succeeded in blunting an effort by some in Lithuania to recognize Cuba.

Despite continuous American efforts, the cables show that the winds of change are blowing in Cuba’s favor. A secret cable from Brasilia details the US Ambassador’s meeting with a Presidential adviser: The Ambassador asked what Garcia thought would come of the EU decision to lift its sanctions. Garcia said he did not see Raul Castro giving any type of concession to foreign pressure, and that the EU move was a sign that there is a perception Cuba is changing. He noted that in Brazil, both businesses and the press that had been critical of Brazil’sCuba policy have changed their tune. Businesses are now interested in investing, and there is less criticism in the press.

We are working on Spain

After Spanish Minister Dezcallar visited Cuba, he was immediately interrogated by the US ambassador. The cables show that the Spaniard attempted to mollify the Americans by claiming that the trip to Cuba: hadn’t immediately accomplished much for Spain, but said that through its new engagement, Spain would be able to exert influence and push for “Western values” as the Cuban transition advanced.

Dezcallar urged the American to take the long view, and called for ongoing, and discreet, coordination between the US and Spain.  But the ambassador is not placated. In the cables, he: emphasized Washington’s deep disappointment with the trip, which was not only a surprise but even a bit of a spectacle as world power Spain’s FM went to Cuba and came away with nothing. He noted that Moratinos didn’t meet with dissidents, and didn’t even try to correct the record when Cuban FM Perez Roque called the dissidents “mercenaries” in the pay of the US.So much for Spain’s independence! Their foreign minister is being told off like a schoolboy!

A cable from Poland shows that the US policy of Cuban isolation is quickly eroding:Szlajfer said there was a serious problem within the EU on Cuba policy. The Spanish had been attempting since 2004 to revise EU policy towards Cuba, saying that the EU’s hard line had brought no results and that therefore there should be a shift towards engagement with both the government and the opposition.

The Polish government still officially opposes engagement with “the Castro regime” and toes the hard line according to US dictat, but in the cables Szlajfer noted that times are a’changing: not only Spain, but also France and Great Britain might be playing a different game. Szlajfer added that their tough line on Cuba had diminished Poland’s influence with these countries and was affecting Poland’s commercial opportunities in the region. Ending the cable on a positive note, Ambassador Fried of the State Department cheered the Poles by assuring them: “We are working on Spain”.

The Czech Republic continues to cooperate with US orders. Like other pro-US outposts in Eastern Europe, they do all they can to isolate Cuba. The US ambassador reports: The Czechs continue to look for ways to raise support within the EU for a Cuba common position with teeth. The Czech NGO initiated an anti-Cuban conference and gained a pat on the head in US State Department cables.

Estonia is another obedient client state, and Estonian leaders are always ready to oblige their masters. A confidential cable from Tallinn relays an Estonian condemnation against Spain for being too soft on Cuba: Kahn [an Estonian diplomat] called Spain’s position, as the new EU President, both “strange and difficult to understand.” Spain is trying to encourage EU states to improve relations with Cuba at the expense of ties with the opposition, according to Kahn. In contrast, Kahn emphasized that the GOE supports engaging the Cuban Government, but only as a means to influence Cuba towards democracy. Estonia cannot accept any policy that forgets about the Cuban opposition. Kahn laid out three elements of Estonia’s Cuba policy: all meetings with the GOC have to be balanced by meetings with the democratic opposition; Cuba must free its political prisoners; and Cuba should be encouraged to undertake reforms providing democracy, free speech and freedom of assembly.

Khan noted, however, that because the GOE is so far removed from Cuba, and receives the majority of its information about Cuba from the press, that Estonia cannot be as staunch and active a supporter of democratic change as is, for example, the Czech Republic.

In another cable, the Ambassador of Estonia is interrogated over Cuba:

5. (C) Did the host country offer or deliver humanitarian or other assistance to the Cuban people in the wake of the major damage caused by Hurricanes Gustav (August 30) and Ike(September 8)? — No.

6. (C) What is the nature of investments (and names, if known) that host country businesses have in Cuba? What host country businesses participated in the Havana Trade Fair (November 3)? – There is no foreign direct investment in either direction between Estonia and Cuba. No Estonian businesses participated in the Havana Trade Fair.

7. (C) Are there any bilateral trade agreements between host country and Cuba? –

There are no bilateral trade agreements between the countries.

8. (C) Are there any exchange programs between host country and Cuba, including but not limited to: scholarships for host country nationals to study in Cuba; Cuban-paid medical travel for host country nationals; and Cuban doctors working in host country? — There are no official exchange programs between Estonia and Cuba and Estonia.

Estonians are eager to support US interests and will always side with the US, even against fellow EU members. In a cable, the US representative in Tallinn, Goldstein, “expressed our concern over Spanish FM Moratinos’ visit to Havana in April”. He received a very satisfactory reply: Estonia fully understands and agrees with U.S. concerns, and has quietly supported the Czech Republic, Poland, and other like-minded EU member states in EU fora. Juhasoo-Lawrence added that Estonia understands dictators such as Castro and what they can do to their people, and does not see any reason to ease up on him now. The EU, she said, is divided on this issue between new and old member states.

In contrast, Belarus has been much too independent for US tastes. The ambassador in Minsk reports with chagrin: A delegation from Cuba led by Minister of Government Ricardo Cabrisas visited Belarus and during the visit, the Cuban representative signed an agreement to purchase 100 buses manufactured by the Minsk Automobile Factory (MAZ) and discussed possible purchases of Belarusian farm machinery and trucks.

The cables note further: In a July 2007 greeting sent to Fidel Castro on the occasion of Cuba‘s “Rebellion Day,” Aleksandr Lukashenko called Cuba “Belarus’ main strategic partner in Latin America”.  They acknowledge that “thousands of Belarusian children from Chernobyl-affected zones who have traveled to Cuba for rest and recuperation since 1991.”

The ties are political as well. A Minsk cable acknowledges that: Belarus is actively working to reinvigorate the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and set up Lukashenko as the eventual successor to Cuban leader Fidel Castro as the next “Papa” of the anti-West block. Lukashenko is the ideal anti-globalist leader — he is young (51 years old), energetic, bold, and he sits at the helm of a growing, stable (for now) economy in the heart of Europe.

Could it be the reason for the US vehement attitude to Belarus? In a fit of green-eyed pique, the US refused to allow Lukashenko to refuel in Iceland as he returned from the 2006 meeting of Non-Aligned States. The American ambassador cabled that he had checked whether Iceland: had received a landing clearance request from Belarusian President Lukashenko, who had reportedly intended to refuel in Iceland on his way to the NAM summit. Gudjonson said Iceland had not, and gave assurances that any such requests would be denied.

The cable goes on to reveal that: The U.S. and EU imposed visa bans and froze the assets of the most odious GOB officials. When the USG and Canada refused to grant a refueling request to a Belarus delegation returning from Cuba, Lukashenko announced Belarus would respond by refusing overflight clearances to aircraft carrying USG and Canadian official delegations. More recently, the GOB announced it would freeze the assets of President Bush and Secretary Rice in Belarusian banks. These announcements remain ambiguous and even comical” …as they were certainly intended to be.

The Ukraine no longer complies with US demands. A cable from Kiev says that despite the US demarche, a Ukrainian diplomat told the ambassador: that Cuba continues to provide substantial assistance for the “Chornobyl children” [belonging to families affected by the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster] and that Ukraine’s position is to oppose the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. Ukraine would support the EU statement on the annual UNGA resolution introduced by Cuba condemning the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba. In another cable, the Embassy states: The Ukrainian parliament passed a resolution a few days earlier condemning embargoes on Cuba. Ukraine remains grateful for ongoing Cuban medical assistance for victims of Chornobyl.

Cuba is renowned worldwide for its extraordinary commitment to help all countries in need, regardless of politics. After an earthquake in Peru, the US ambassador in Peru was forced to admit in a cable: Cuban assistance has reportedly been targeted and effective, if not directly coordinated with the GOP. Cuba has sent at least two field hospital teams that have offered high-impact quality service, according to observers. At one camp where a U.S. Medrete team had been sent to provide services, a Cuban team had already been set up.

Cuba is no longer alone. The cables also document that when Bolivian President Evo Morales visited Peru, he: criticized U.S.-Latin American FTAs and called for continued struggle against colonialism, imperialism, and neoliberalism. He also praised Fidel Castro as a “father” and welcomed the presence of Hugo Chavez’s ALBA in Peru.

Relations with Russia: more profitable business

Russia has not yet succeeded in mending fences with Cuba, but the effort is there: Prime Minister Putin called for Russia to rebuild (its) positions in Cuba. The US Ambassador in Moscow reports on several upcoming events between the GOR and Cuba in 2010:

– Russia will host a preparatory meeting for the April 2010 Russian-Cuban Intergovernmental Commission on Economic, Commercial, Scientific, and Technical Cooperation.

Foreign Minister Lavrov will participate in the 9th Annual Havana Book Exhibition as a special invited guest. Lavrov will lead a delegation that includes heads of the Russian Ministry of Culture and the Russian Press Agency

Cuba will host a meeting of the Russian-Cuban Intergovernmental Commission. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin would likely lead the Russian delegation. Sechin’s last visit to Cuba was in July 2009 and resulted in several agreements, including a $150 million loan for Cuba to purchase Russian agricultural machinery.

Russia was currently providing humanitarian aid to Cuba in the form of grain shipments, with plans to send 100,000 tons of grain to Cuba this year. Also, the GOR plans to increase the number of scholarships granted to Cubans; 100 Cuban students received scholarships in 2009 to study in Russian universities.

In a secret/not-for-foreigners (NOFORN) cable, the US Ambassador informs the State Department that: Russia did not have a preference for working with Raul or Fidel Castro. As a general trend, Cuba-Russia ties were becoming stronger, but that the relationship had not changed significantly since Raul Castro came to power in 2008.

The cable continued with a report from a Russian academician: Russia perceived a difference between the two Castro brothers in how they viewed the Cuba-Russia relationship. Raul spent more time in the Soviet Union and Russia than Fidel and understood Russia better. Russia believed Raul to be the more pragmatic brother, according to Davydov, and that he did more to encourage outside investment in Cuba from a number of sources, including Russia. The MFA confirmed that Russia and Cuba were looking for mutually beneficial investment opportunities in Cuba.

Cuban President Raul Castro visited Moscow January 28 to February 4, 2009. Raul Castro and Medvedev signed a number of agreements … Russia also pledged two shipments of grain, of 25,000 and 100,000 metric tons, worth USD 37 million. Cuba has agreed to purchase or lease seven Russian-made aircraft. In addition, Kamaz, Russia’s largest truck manufacturer, has agreed to sell its trucks in Cuba and to establish a Cuban assembly plant with Cuba’s Tradex. Russia’s principal exports to Cuba are aircraft, heavy machines, and equipment. Cuba’s principal exports to Russia are sugar, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and cigars.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin negotiated a series of economic cooperation deals withCuban government officials in Moscow. A Gazprom-led consortium created in 2008 to develop Venezuela’s gas and oil fields signed a cooperation agreement with Cuba Petroleo to jointly work on exploration, production, and refining. Norilsk Nickel agreed to fund exploration of ore reserves inCuba, with the prospect of mining them in the future. Carmaker AvtoVAZ signed a deal to service its cars in Cuba. Sechin’s extensive role in mid-wifing the Russian-Cuban relationship likely reflects PM Putin’s personal interest in reasserting a Russian presence in the Western Hemisphere.

Cables also discuss the possibility of: enhanced military cooperation of Russia with Cuba. Deputy Chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on International Affairs Andrei Klimov told RIA-Novosti that “If America installs antiballistic missile (ABM) systems next to the Russian border, Russia too may deploy its systems in those states that will agree to take them.” Leonid Ivashov, head of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, told RIA-Novosti that the West was creating a “buffer zone” around Russia and that in response, Russia might expand its military presence in Cuba or other places.

The cables show that the need for support of Cuba is far from over. Americans will do well if they will ask their government to cease squandering their resources in this yesterday’s fight against a small island in the Caribbean.

Let’s talk infrastructure decay in the United States

In this continuing series on America’s challenges for the 21st century, William Dickinson, director of The Biocentric Institute, exposes underlying realities facing America. You may access much of the information here.

As we steam full speed into the 21st century Mr. Dickinson, what parts of America’s infrastructure need attention?

“Infrastructure is one of those words — such as process, paradigm, challenges — that cause a reader’s eyes to glaze over,” said Dickinson. “Too bad, because we are talking about the underlying foundation on which great civilizations are built. The Roman Empire flourished for centuries on the framework of paved roads and cleverly engineered aqueducts. The United States itself grew to greatness by building a national highway system, transcontinental railroads, massive dams generating electricity, and breathtaking bridges connecting people and commerce.

“But contemporary America has little taste for “public works” when they compete with private wants. Our consumer society is built on the here and now. We explain our reluctance to raise taxes or borrow for vital public purposes as a desire to avoid leaving our children and grandchildren with massive debt. Gov. Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, says that what we’re leaving our posterity instead are “roads so congested nobody’s going to get anywhere, with a light-rail system that’s a joke, with airports that are clogged and increasingly dangerous, with bridges that fall down.”

“This issue will spill over into the new Congress as well as state legislatures and city councils in 2011. It pits those who believe any further fiscal stimulus irresponsible against those who view infrastructure spending as an investment in America’s future. Each $1 billion of infrastructure spending, proponents argue, creates 25,000 jobs that can’t be outsourced. Public safety and improved quality of life also are seen at stake. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 15, 2010) acknowledged that many public works projects would be worth the money by contributing more to general economic efficiency and growth than they cost. “But they’ve been crowded out,” the Journal charged, “by the liberal vote-buying politics of transfer payments and government union payoffs.” Finding common ground won’t be easy.

“How bad is our nation’s infrastructure deficit? A recent report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that it will cost $2.2 trillion over a five-year period to raise the U.S. infrastructure grade from poor to acceptable. Measure this against the roughly $100 billion from the 2009 “stimulus” legislation that had in fact gone toward infrastructure construction projects as of last fall. Deficit-ridden cities find putting off preventive maintenance and replacing obsolete equipment as tempting ways to cut budgets. Henry Petroski, professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University, warns: “Potholes know no politics….Bridges will corrode and collapse. Pipes will crack and burst. The physical foundations of our civilization will crumble under the weight of our complaints about it and our neglect of it. It will happen so fast it will be impossible to keep up with its repair.”

“The dilemma posed by infrastructure spending was seen in microcosm last fall when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stopped work on a new commuter-train tunnel that would run under the Hudson River into Manhattan. A federally-assisted project that was supposed to cost $8.7 billion faced a revised cost of $11 billion to $14 billion. “I can’t put taxpayers on a never-ending hook,” Christie said. The fact that the nation can’t even afford to build a railroad tunnel under a river highlighted the failure of government to bring the nation’s infrastructure up to 21st century standards. This includes America’s out-of-sight network of water systems, some of them built by our great-grandparents and now threatening public health and safety.

“Meantime, many nations around the world look to the future by developing critical infrastructure. China plans to spend $295 billion in the next decade to build a high-speed rail network, totaling 10,000 miles, that will connect its major cities. A World Bank report last July praised the project, saying it could speed passenger traffic, free up overloaded freight routes and reduce dependence on autos. One route, between Shanghai and Beijing, could cut travel time from 10 hours to four at speeds up to 302 mph. And China will spend $10 billion to connect the inland cities of Chengdu and Xi’an with a 320-mile railroad that will cut travel time to two hours from the current 13. Contrast this with the decision by the newly elected governors of Wisconsin and Ohio to forgo $1.2 billion in stimulus money for passenger-rail projects in their states. And a high-speed rail project in California that would connect Los Angeles and San Francisco has been derided by critics as “a train to nowhere” because the first leg would connect L.A. with the inland city of Bakersfield.

“While the United States is in retreat from big public works projects, on the grounds of can’t-afford-it, other nations with equally bad debt problems have taken a different course. Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, cut dozens of social and military programs when he took office last fall. But he also unveiled a National Infrastructure Plan, a blueprint for spending $316 billion of public and private money over five years in his country’s railways, power stations, roads, internet access and scientific research. “The government is keen to point out,” said The Economist (Oct. 30, 2010), “that unlike many of its predecessors it has avoided the temptation to slash capital spending during a downturn, a habit that helps explain the current ropy state of the national infrastructure.”

“It takes years for taxpayers to see the returns on new infrastructure investment. If these investments make an economy more productive, they contribute to economic growth. Many rising economies – Poland, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, India – are building the showcase projects that once transformed the United States, Western Europe and Japan. India alone plans to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure between 2012 and 2017, twice the previous five years.

“What all these efforts have in common is a look to the future. Population growth will put new strains on almost every society. World population is projected to grow from today’s 6.9 billion to 9.5 billion by 2050, most of it in poor nations. Consider this: 40 percent of the world’s people now lack access to simple latrines, let alone sewer systems. U.S. population, now 311 million, may reach 419 million over the same span, if projections prove accurate. Cities, where the most of the world’s population now lives, can’t prosper in this crowded future unless they are efficient. Today, our crumbling infrastructure reflects the ascendancy of private desires over common wealth.”

Health Benefits of Dandelions

By Peter Gail | leaflady.org…

Suppose your doctor tells you, on your next visit, that he has just discovered a miracle drug which, when eaten as a part of your daily diet or taken as a beverage, could, depending on the peculiarities of your body chemistry: prevent or cure liver diseases, such as hepatitis or jaundice; act as a tonic and gentle diuretic to purify your blood, cleanse your system, dissolve kidney stones, and otherwise improve gastro-intestinal health; assist in weight reduction; cleanse your skin and eliminate acne; improve your bowel function, working equally well to relieve both constipation and diarrhea; prevent or lower high blood pressure; prevent or cure anemia; lower your serum cholesterol by as much as half; eliminate or drastically reduce acid indigestion and gas buildup by cutting the heaviness of fatty foods; prevent or cure various forms of cancer; prevent or control diabetes mellitus; and, at the same time, have no negative side effects and selectively act on only what ails you. If he gave you a prescription for this miracle medicine, would you use it religiously at first to solve whatever the problem is and then consistently for preventative body maintenance?

All the above curative functions, and more, have been attributed to one plant known to everyone, Taraxacum officinale, which means the “Official Remedy for Disorders.” We call it the common dandelion. It is so well respected, in fact, that it appears in the U.S. National Formulatory, and in the Pharmacopeias of Hungary, Poland, Switzerland, and the Soviet Union. It is one of the top 6 herbs in the Chinese herbal medicine chest.

According to the USDA Bulletin #8, “Composition of Foods” (Haytowitz and Matthews 1984), dandelions rank in the top 4 green vegetables in overall nutritional value. Minnich, in “Gardening for Better Nutrition” ranks them, out of all vegetables, including grains, seeds and greens, as tied for 9th best. According to these data, dandelions are nature’s richest green vegetable source of beta-carotene, from which Vitamin A is created, and the third richest source of Vitamin A of all foods, after cod-liver oil and beef liver! They also are particularly rich in fiber, potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and the B vitamins, thiamine and riboflavin, and are a good source of protein.

These figures represent only those published by the USDA. Studies in Russia and Eastern Europe by Gerasimova, Racz, Vogel, and Marei (Hobbs 1985) indicate that dandelion is also rich in micronutrients such as copper, cobalt, zinc, boron, and molybdenum, as well as Vitamin D.

Much of what dandelions purportedly do in promoting good health could result from nutritional richness alone. Vogel considers the sodium in dandelions important in reducing inflammations of the liver. Gerasimova, the Russian chemist who analyzed the dandelion for, among other things, trace minerals, stated that “dandelion [is] an example of a harmonious combination of trace elements, vitamins and other biologically active substances in ratios optimal for a human organism” (Hobbs 1985).

Recent research, reported in the Natural Healing and Nutritional Annual, 1989 (Bricklin and Ferguson 1989) on the value of vitamins and minerals indicates that:

* Vitamin A is important in fighting cancers of epithelial tissue, including mouth and lung;

* Potassium rich foods, in adequate quantities, and particularly in balance with magnesium, helps keep blood pressure down and reduces risks of strokes;

* Fiber fights diabetes, lowers cholesterol, reduces cancer and heart disease

risks, and assists in weight loss. High fiber vegetables take up lots of room, are low in calories, and slow down digestion so the food stays in the stomach longer and you feel full longer;

* Calcium in high concentrations can build strong bones and can lower blood pressure;

* B vitamins help reduce stress.

Throughout history, dandelions have had a reputation as being effective in promoting weight loss and laboratory research indicates that there is some support for this reputation. Controlled tests on laboratory mice and rats by the same Romanians indicated that a loss of up to 30% of body weight in 30 days was possible when the animals were fed dandelion extract with their food. Those on grass extract lost much less. The control group on plain water actually gained weight.

Beyond nutritional richness, however, are the active chemical constituents contained in dandelions which may have specific therapeutic effects on the body. These include, as reported by Hobbs (1985):

* Inulin, which converts to fructose in the presence of cold or hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Fructose forms glycogen in the liver without requiring insulin, resulting in a slower blood sugar rise, which makes it good for diabetics and hypoglycemics;

* Tof-CFr, a glucose polymer similar to lentinan, which Japanese researchers have found to act against cancer cells in laboratory mice; Lentinan is a yeast glucan (glucose polymer) that increases resistance against protozoal and viral infections.;

* Pectin, which is anti-diarrheal and also forms ionic complexes with metal ions, which probably contributes to dandelion’s reputation as a blood and gastrointestinal detoxifying herb. Pectin is prescribed regularly in Russia to remove heavy metals and radioactive elements from body tissues. Pectin can also lower cholesterol and, combined with Vitamin C, can lower it even more. Dandelion is a good source of both Pectin and Vitamin C;

* Coumestrol, an estrogen mimic which possibly is responsible, at least in part, for stimulating milk flow and altering hormones;

* Apigenin and Luteolin, two flavonoid glycosides which have been demonstrated to have diuretic, anti-spasmodic, anti-oxidant and liver protecting actions and properties, and also to strengthen the heart and blood vessels. They also have anti-bacterial and anti-hypoglycemic properties, and, as estrogen mimics, may also stimulate milk production and alter hormones;

* Gallic Acid, which is anti-diarrheal and anti-bacterial;

* Linoleic and Linolenic Acid, which are essential fatty acids required by the body to produce prostaglandin which regulate blood pressure and such body processes as immune responses which suppress inflammation. These fatty acids can lower chronic inflammation, such as proliferative arthritis, regulate blood pressure and the menstrual cycle, and prevent platelet aggregation;

* Choline, which has been shown to help improve memory;

*Several Sesquiterpene compounds which are what make dandelions bitter. These may partly account for dandelions tonic effects on digestion, liver, spleen and gall bladder, and are highly anti-fungal;

* Several Triterpenes, which may contribute to bile or liver stimulation;

* Taraxasterol, which may contribute to liver and gall bladder health or to hormone altering.

These chemicals, individually, are not unique to dandelions, but the combination of them all in one plant, along with high levels of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, proteins and fiber account for the many claims made regarding the plant.

These claims include the following results of clinical and laboratory research, again as reported in Hobbs (1985):

* A doubling of bile output with leaf extracts, and a quadrupling of bile output with root extract. Bile assists with the emulsification, digestion and absorption of fats, in alkalinizing the intestines and in the prevention of putrefaction. This could explain the effectiveness of dandelion in reducing the effects of fatty foods (heartburn and acid indigestion);

* A reduction in serum cholesterol and urine bilirubin levels by as much as half in humans with severe liver imbalances has been demonstrated by Italian researchers;

* Diuretic effects with a strength approaching that of the potent diuretics Furosemide and Lasix, used for congestive heart failure and cirrhosis of the liver, with none of the serious side effects, were found by Romanian scientists. They found that water extract of dandelion leaves, administered orally, because of its high potassium content, replaced serum potassium electrolytes lost in the urine, eliminating such side effects common with the synthetics as severe potassium depletion, hepatic coma in liver patients, circulatory collapse, and transmission through mothers’ milk;

* In 1979 a Japanese patent was filed for a freeze-dried warm water extract of dandelion root for anti-tumor use. It was found that administration of the extract markedly inhibited growth of particular carcinoma cells within one week after treatment;

* Dental researchers at Indiana University in 1982 used dandelion extracts in antiplaque preparations;

* In studies from 1941 to 1952, the French scientist Henri Leclerc demonstrated the effectiveness of dandelion on chronic liver problems related to bile stones. He found that roots gathered in late summer to fall, when they are rich in bitter, white milky latex, should be used for all liver treatments;

* In 1956, Chauvin demonstrated the antibacterial effects of dandelion pollen, which may validate the centuries old use of dandelion flowers in Korean folk medicine to prevent furuncles (boils, skin infections), tuberculosis, and edema and promote blood circulation.

Also, Witt (1983) recommends dandelion tea to alleviate the water buildup in PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome).

There are many testimonials from those who have benefited from the use of dandelions in the treatment of what ailed them.

Robert Stickle, an internationally famous architect, was diagnosed as having a malignant melanoma 21 years ago, and was given, after radical surgery had not halted its spread, less than 2 years to live. He said, in a letter to Jeff Zullo, president of the Society for the Promotion of Dandelions, (June 23, 1986):

” I went on a search for the answer to my mortal problem, and [discovered] that perhaps it was a nutritional dilemma…. To me, cancer is primarily a liver failure manifestation. {Italians are very concerned about problems of the ‘fegato’]. [I discovered that] the cancer rate in native Italians is very low among the farming population (paesanos). When they get affluent and move to the city, its the same as the rest of civilized man. Paesanos eat dandelions, make brew from the roots, and are healthy, often living to over 100 years.”

He states that he began eating dandelion salad every day, and his improvement confounded the doctors. When he wrote the letter in 1986, 18 years had passed and there had been no recurrence of the melanoma.

A benefit which comes from writing articles for national media is that you hear from people who have interesting stories to tell. I recently received a call from Peter Gruchawka, a 70 year old gentleman from Manorville, NY, who reported that he had been diagnosed with diabetes melitis 3 months before and was put on 5 grams of Micronase. At the time, he had a 5+ sugar spillover in his urine. He took Micronase for about a month before he learned, from his wife who is a nurse, that Micronase can do damage to the liver. He had read in “Herbal Medicine” by Diane Buchanan and “Back to Eden” by Jethro Kloss about the effectiveness of dandelions in controlling diabetes. Without saying anything to his doctors, he stopped taking Micronase and began drinking dandelion coffee each day. During the first week, his urinary sugar, measured night and morning, was erratic and unstable, but after a week, his sugar stabilized and when he called, he had been getting negative urine sugar readings for over a month. The doctors are amazed and can’t explain it. An interesting side benefit to replacing Micronase with dandelion coffee is that, while Micronase damages the liver as a side effect, dandelions are particularly known for strengthening the liver.

According to Mr. Gruchawka, he changed nothing but the medication. He had cut out pastries and other sugars when he was diagnosed and started on Micronase, and has continued to do without those things while taking dandelion coffee.

In reporting these claims, however, I must add three qualifiers:

1. First, unfortunately, neither herbs nor synthetic remedies work for everyone in the same way. Different bodies respond differently to medicines, and what works incredibly well for one person may not work at all, or work less well, for someone else.

2. Second, good health results from a combination of healthy diet and enough exercise to keep the body toned. Bob Stickle, for all his insistence that dandelions cured him, changed, according to a mutual friend, his entire lifestyle. He didn’t just add dandelion salad to what he was already doing.

3. People with health problems need to seek the advice and care of a competent physician, with whom this information can be shared. It is important to reemphasize that it is presented as information only. I am not a medical doctor, and neither advocate nor prescribe dandelions or dandelion products for use by anyone or for any ailment. Only your doctor can do that.

Because there are so many variables, it is hard to attribute Mr. Stickle’s cure to any one of them directly. Likewise, Italian farmers live a lifestyle which combines a healthy diet, lots of work and clean air. They heat and cook with wood, which they have to cut and split. They haul water for household use. When they move to the city, diet, exercise, and environmental conditions change. Stress and sedentary habits increase.

And there is the importance of faith in the healing process, whether it be faith in God or faith in the curative properties of the herb being taken.

While dandelions, given all these variables, may never be proved to cure any specific ill, they are an extremely healthy green which cannot in any way hurt you. Research on how much you would have to eat to cause harm indicates that eating grass is more dangerous than eating dandelions (Hobbs 1985). Therefore, with everything going for dandelions, it is highly probable that everyone can derive at least some nutritional benefit from them by eating or drinking them regularly.

The medical and pharmacological establishment is generally critical of claims regarding the use of herbs on disease, and their concerns need to be put in perspective.

Herbal medicines have been used very effectively far longer than synthetics, and many current pharmaceutical products have been derived from research on plants used as medicine by many cultures. The problem with plants, however, is that they are available to anyone. It is impossible to patent a plant, and thereby gain proprietary rights to it. As a consequence, pharmaceutical companies attempt to isolate the active properties from medicinal plants and synthesize them so that they can patent them. Many of the synthetics have serious side-effects which were not present in the natural plant product, often because other chemicals in the plant offset them (i.e. the large quantities of potassium in dandelions which allows for potassium replenishment when dandelion is used as a diuretic).

USDA botanist Dr. James Duke (1989) suggests that a proper and appropriate “herbal soup”, filled with “vitamins, minerals, fibers and a whole host of bioactive compounds,” from which the body can selectively strain the compounds it needs to restore itself to health, will be more effective than synthetic medicines containing a “very select and specialized compound or two plus filler, usually non-nutritive.” This is especially true if the “herbal soup”, in the form of a potent potherb like dandelion, is a regular part of the diet so that the appropriate bioactive substances are present in the right amounts when the body needs them.

The book that this reprint was taken from “The Dandelion Celebration-The Guide to Unexpected Cuisine” is recommended to anyone who would like to know more about this remarkable plant. It covers everything you could want to know about dandelions and more, including recipes, planting, picking and preparing, along with the wonderful history of this “Official Remedy for Disorders”, Taraxacum officinale, the common dandelion.

This is an excerpt from the book by Peter A. Gail, Ph.D., titled “The Dandelion Celebration-The Guide to Unexpected Cuisine.”

Minsk Elections in the Wikileaks Mirror

Part One…

Wikileaks once again has provided the proof positive to unlock a mystery. It’s not the stuff of attention-grabbing headlines and retweets, but it does illustrate how the US State Department can orchestrate riots in a quiet Eastern European country. As an international observer of the December 2010 elections in Belarus, I was witness to both the orderly vote and the shocking riot. This is the story of Belarus and how dollars were used to subvert and embarrass this peaceful constitutional republic.

1. Setting

Belarus in December is the ultimate winter land; a fair Nordic forest nymph dressed in a thick, luxurious lilywhite cloak – for it is much too cold to go naked. Outside the city, an endless white expanse meets the eye, broken only by a few sturdy houses and a church. The lonely roads are enlivened by white hares that leap from icy roadsides and flocks of wild geese that transverse the cloudy welkin. All is white in this country, as if in order to justify its name, for Belarus means the White Rus. The Rus were the Viking states established in the Slav hinterland a millennium ago, and so Belarus is forever connected to theGreat Rus of Russia.

The people of Belarus are not very different from their Russian neighbors but they do have their own character, just as the Northerners of Yorkshire differ from the Southerners of Somerset. They are fair and calm, peaceful and orderly, obedient and enduring. The sparsely populated Belarusian borderland was a battleground between East and West for centuries; the last war cost them one third of their population, the highest loss suffered by any country in WWII. The capital of Minsk was completely destroyed, Fallujah-style, by the Luftwaffe. Once upon a time, its forests and marshes trapped crack divisions of the German SS; now they sit again in peace, healed by many snowfalls.

After all this incessant white wilderness, Minsk is surprisingly civilised and human-sized; it was rebuilt in the comfortable 1950’s and refurbished fairly recently. The streets are neat and fit for pedestrians, small cafés are made cosy with glowing fireplaces, and there are English newspapers on every table. A large and festive Christmas tree marks the main square, which has been turned into an ice rink for the holidays, and pretty young girls in white skirts and red scarves skate the day through with smartly dressed boys. The rink is open and free for all, just as in Scandinavia. Indeed, Belarus is the East European counterpart of the Scandinavian socialist states of yesteryear; but while the Swedes and the Danes are busy dismantling their social systems, Belarus has so far resisted the drive toward privatization.

It will take you a long time before you spot your first policeman, usually a simple traffic cop. There is no sign of a police state here: no mysterious black cars, no furtive stillness, no Soviet-style drabness, no post-Soviet garishness. The youngsters are stylish, friendly and open. The streets are crowded, paved and clean. The President of Belarus, the man the US State Department calls the last dictator of Europe, walks freely among his people.

But what is a dictator these days? The epithets aimed at world leaders are surprisingly consistent, but the words themselves have been redefined. To earn the title of ‘dictator’, it seems that a leader need only spurn the advice of the IMF. If a leader chooses not play along with NATO, he may well qualify for the title of ‘bloody dictator’. We have been told that Castro is a ‘dictator’. We have been told that Chavez is a ‘dictator’. We are now being told that Ahmadinejad is a ‘bloody dictator’. Long-time thorns in the flanks of US imperial might are eventually upgraded to ‘monster’ status, as were Stalin and Mao. Belarus itself has one of these State Department titles: it is to be called a ‘rebel state’. When the USSR was broken down into digestible chunks, it was tiny Belarus that chose to keep the Soviet flag, the Soviet arms, and the socialist ethos. Belarus was not as quick as other countries to cast off what was stable and good within the Soviet system. While other countries suffered under IMF-imposed privatization, Belarus took the slow and steady path to intelligently upgrade and restore their industries and cities. End result: Belarus is as up-to-date as any country in the East.

2. December 19, 2010

I was in Belarus to observe the Presidential election, and to tell the truth I was expecting some sort of staged little event to mar the day. The outcome of the election was in little doubt. The people were happy, fully employed, and satisfied with their government. They were well aware of what had happened when neighboring countries had embraced the IMF, and they felt no ideological need to tread that same dark road. Some people, however, are more motivated by dollars than patriotism, and these are the people I was expecting. The pro-Western ‘Gucci’ crowd can always be counted on to protest the choices of the majority. They protested in Iran after the election victory of Ahmadinejad. They protested in Palestine when Hamas was voted into power. They actually overturned the vote in nearby Ukraine in 2005, and the orange gangs succeeded in stealing the presidency for five long years. If they cannot convince the people with Western dollars, then they simply riot and try to take it by force.

All day long I watched the people of Belarus queuing at their election booths. I spoke to many of them. Their President Lukashenko is an East European Chavez, who stubbornly sticks to the socialist way. A friend of Hugo Chavez and the Castro regime, he gets his oil in Venezuela and Russia, does business with the Chinese, and tries to maintain good relations with his neighbours. The people know him, and know what to expect from him. Hardly anybody knew the opposition candidates by name. There were official election posters hanging in every election centre, and these posters carried the name and photo of each candidate, but these strangers and their feel-good slogans could not touch the national spirit.

The voting was as clean as any other European election, and was attended by hundreds of international observers; no one noticed any irregularities. Each person’s vote was secret, and they cast their ballots without fear. Even most pro-Western analysts, like Alexander Rahr of Germany, concurred: Lukashenko carried the elections with an astounding 80% of the popular vote. Exit polls showed similar results. Like it or not: he won.

It was only after the news began to report the exit poll results that the opposition forces in Minsk – perhaps some five thousand strong – began to march from the main square towards the government offices. They walked peaceably, and so did not attract much police presence. There were certainly much fewer police on hand than what a similar march would draw in London or Moscow. The government expected a rally at the square. They did not expect these well-dressed people to begin storming the building where the votes were counted! This mob of educated and well to do urbanites smashed the windows and broke the doors in an effort to break into the building. It was clear to all bystanders that this riot was anything but spontaneous and that this was a determined attempt to destroy the ballots and invalidate the election.

The live broadcast of rioters forcing their way into the building shocked the republic. The people of Belarus expect and demand an orderly, law-abiding society. This is always the moment of truth for authority: challenges from outside the law must be met with immediate and lawful force. The police did their duty, waded into the violence and detained the rioters. But Belarus is not China, and this was not Tiananmen Square. It was not even Seattle or Gothenburg. There were no casualties; the whole event was comparable to the kind of riot raised by Manchester United, or say Luton fans after their defeat by York. Certainly the thing was disgraceful; yet suddenly, as if on cue, my colleagues, my fellow journalists in the press centre, began to send hysterical cables extolling the dreadful bloodshed caused by the last dictator’s secret police. Thank God, the Belarusians are too orderly for such excesses. Even the opposition Communist party approved of sending in the riot police. A threat to an orderly election is a threat to everyone; it is a threat to the basis of any democracy.

My cynical friend, the professor of local university and no sympathiser of Lukashenko (the President is a boorish moron in his eyes) said this to me: the opposition had to make a good show to justify all the grants and subsidies. The dollars pour in from the State Department, the NED, from Soros and the CIA in an effort to undermine the last socialist regime in Europe. All this money keeps the opposition leaders in the style they are accustomed to, but once in a while they are expected to show their mettle.

Wikileaks has now revealed how this undeclared cash flows from US coffers to the Belarus “opposition”. In the confidential cable VILNIUS 000732, dated June 12, 2005, an American diplomat informs the State Department that Lithuanian customs detained a Belarusian employee of a USAID contractor on charges of money smuggling. The courier was arrested as she attempted to leave Lithuania for Belarus with US$25,000. In addition, she admitted that had moved a total of US$50,000 out of Lithuania on two prior trips.

In case it’s not obvious by now, these dollars are just the tip of the iceberg of cash that flows from US taxpayers to fund the Belarus opposition. A Lithuanian official boasted that the Government of Lithuania “uses a variety of individuals and routes to send money to groups in Belarus, including its diplomats”. Lukashenko has always maintained that the US has spent millions of dollars to dismantle the government of tiny Belarus. Western officials automatically denied it. The Western press ridiculed it: BLOODY DICTATOR BLAMES OPPOSITION ON YANKEE MEDDLING. The proof is written in a confidential cable from a US Embassy to the US State Department. It is undeniable.

The Magic of Lukashenko

Why does the US need to pay people to oppose Lukashenko? What is the secret behind Lukashenko’s charm? He was democratically elected in 1994 just as the USSR was disintegrating. In a way, he was able to transform a chaotic collapse into a graceful denouement. He stopped privatization, he ensured full employment for everybody, he fought and defeated organized crime; in short, he preserved order and maintained the existing social network intact. For a visiting Westerner, Belarus is a rather neat and well-functioning minor East European state, not very different from its Baltic neighbors. But for an arrival from Russia or Ukraine, their immediate neighbors, it is the Shangri-la of the post-Soviet development theycould have had. They, like Belarus, could have had clean streets, full employment, shops selling local products, police that do not extort bribes, pensions for old people, and economic equality.

Lukashenko stopped the kind of IMF privatization schemes that had ruined Belarus’ neighbors. In Russia, a few cronies of then-President Yeltsin (like the now-imprisoned billionaire Khodorkovsky) walked away with whole industries, iron mines and oil basins. Much of it they sold to the Western companies who raided the East in a rapacity unprecedented since Cortez’ visit to America. While ordinary Russians lost their jobs, their homes, and their social services, the super-rich oligarchs began shopping for real estate in Belgravia and the Cote d’Azure, for big yachts and football teams. It was President Putin who put a stop to this IMF-organized fire sale of assets and saved Russia, but no one will ever forget the nightmare of the “awful Nineties”.

Organized crime is a big problem in the post-Soviet space. Just last month Russian citizens read about a gang that had forced its rule upon the prosperous Kuban district of Russia, raping and murdering at will for years, the gangsters and the cops sharing alike in the crimes and the spoils. But in Belarus, there is no organized crime, no Mafia-like secret structures. “The gangsters ran away in the Nineties,” I was told by the natives. Policemen take no bribes in Belarus, a feat still beyond the reach of any other ex-Soviet state. Lukashenko achieved this police compliance by granting retired policemen decent pensions, well above average, and by mercilessly ridding the service of corrupt cops.

In Belarus, there are no oligarchs. Socialism is limited to major employers; private property and private businesses are absolutely respected. The local businessmen told me that there is little corruption, and much less than in neighboring countries. There are plenty of prosperous people but no super-rich; there are many nice cars on the streets of Minsk, but much fewer and much fancier are the cars in Moscow, where it might be said you are in a Bentley or on foot. The vast majority of cars in Minsk are modern European and Japanese economy vehicles. The old Soviet cars are practically gone.

Belarus has no national, ethnic or religious strife. Catholic and Orthodox churches share the same square; the many mosques and synagogues were built centuries before multiculturalism appeared. The East was always multicultural: Orthodox peasants, Catholic nobility, Jewish traders and Tatar horsemen lived together in Belarus long before the 15^th century when this land was a part of the Great Duchy of Lithuania, then the greatest state of Europe. The old Belarusian language was the language of the Duchy, and Belarusian warriors – together with Polish and Russian soldiers – defeated the crusaders on the fields of Grunwald 500 years ago.

The opponents of Lukashenko tried to play the ethnic card that was so efficient in Ukraine and Lithuania at alienating traditional allies. They promoted Belarus nationalism and the old Belarus language, but both turned out to be non-starters. The opposition’s beatific vision of a Belarusian ethnic revival is very poetic, like the revival of Welsh, but this practical people is not willing to fight over it.

Lukashenko’s Soviet-style economy preserved the sources of local production, and alongside the ubiquitous imports you will find that the core staples are provided locally.  Belarusian cheese, milk, bread and vegetables are all organic and Russian visitors always buy and carry home as much as they can carry of the delicious, healthy and inexpensive stuff. Their industry also remained intact, even as the IMF shepherded their neighbors into third world status with a speedy process of de-industrialization. Belarus still produces everything from TV sets to tractors, from giant lorries to Ives Saint Lauren-designed fashions.

Belarus has no political parties. This is not a case of one big political party like in Russia, nor is it the good-guy/bad-guy dual party system as in the US. No political parties at all. The parties are not forbidden, but they just have not developed. This was one of the great ideas of Simone Weil, the French post-Marxist philosopher and friend of T.S. Eliot, though she would have them banned altogether.

Belarus represents an interestingly successful model of economic development. It has reminded the world that a wise ruler can save a country. This lesson is an especially timely one since the IMF has littered the globe with bankrupt and insolvent countries. The world is now looking at the IMF and other international investors with caution. Monetarism is bankrupt. Military aggression, on which Bush relied, has failed. We live in the post-crisis era. A search for other ways of development is now underway.  Now people are starting to think: isn’t there a better way? Belarus may lead the way.

One of Belarus’ major achievements is that it was able to fend off the large international companies. During the 20 years of western raids around the world, tiny Belarus was able to preserve its assets. This is a very important lesson for many countries. Belarus may not have produced a single Abramovitch, but the country is home to millions of rather content ordinary citizens.
The vast majority of the Belarusian people are content with their lives. Their salaries are modest, on a par with neighboring Russia, but they have no unemployment and they do not worry that their place of work will get shut down. Their cities are clean, their food is inexpensive, the heating and rent are heavily subsidized, and transport is well organized. They are not subservient to the Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, the Pentagon, nor to the Masters of Discourse. They are the cause of soul-searching for their neighbors, a living proof that the Soviet Union did not have to be destroyed, that socialism can work, and that it often works better than financial capitalism.

It is exactly for this reason that the bad guys wish to destroy Belarus.

The country is isolated from the West: it is very difficult for a Belarusian to go and visit his cousin in neighboring Poland or Lithuania because the EC will not give them visas. Poland is especially hostile: previously colonial masters of Belarus, the Poles view themselves as enforcers of the West’s will in the East. The visas are extremely expensive by local standards. The only international airport is practically empty; there are very few flights in or out.

Relations with Russia are far from perfect. The Russian oligarchs have struggled to squeeze loose Belarusian assets, industries and pipelines. Lukashenko resisted the raiders from New York and Berlin and has no intention of giving up the national jewels to raiders from Moscow. The result is tension. While there is much to be said for a close alliance to Russia, Belarus is well aware that the oligarchs lie somewhere behind the Russian smile. The more Russia can muzzle the voracity of the oligarchs, the less suspicion there will be to poison their natural affinities and mutual support.

For now, Lukashenko prefers to play a complicated game with the EC, even discussing the possible entry of Belarus to the united Europe. It is not impossible: economically Belarus is in much better shape than the majority of East European states who are EC members.

Belarus has friendly relations with Venezuela and Cuba, with China and Vietnam. It is a socialist country, but the socialism is soft, with plenty of room for private enterprise and personal freedoms. Belarus has found new life in preserving and developing the elements of socialism which in the early 1990s were most discredited. In the wake of IMF despair, socialism suddenly pops back up with a confident gait, in new clothes and carrying with it a new hope. It is wonderful that Belarus has managed walk this tightrope between freedom and responsibility in the midst of a disintegrating union and foreign interference. The lesson for neighboring Russians is especially valid, and even poignant. The Russian political analyst Sergey Kara Murza has said that the Belarusian system could serve as the pattern for the resurrection of the socialist state.

His words reminded me of the story of the Mosque of Cristo de la Luz. When King Alfonso VI (as the legend hath it) rode into Toledo in triumph in 1085, his horse knelt before the door of the mosque. Curious, a shaft of light guided the king to a secret chamber where he discovered that a candle had burned continuously behind the masonry throughout three and a half centuries of Muslim rule, illuminating a hidden crucifix. It was a clear sign that Christianity would not fail return even after a long, dark time.  If and when socialism will be victorious again, the victors will discover the shining lamp of socialism still burning in Belarus.

Fracking the life out of Arkansas and beyond

The last four months of 2010, nearly 500 earthquakes rattled Guy, Arkansas. [1]  The entire state experienced 38 quakes in 2009. [2]  The spike in quake frequency precedes and coincides with the 100,000 dead fish on a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River that included Roseville Township on December 30. The next night, 5,000 red-winged blackbirds and starlings dropped dead out of the sky in Beebe. [3]  Hydraulic fracturing is the most likely culprit for all three events, as it causes earthquakes with a resultant release of toxins into the environment. [4]

A close look at Arkansas’ history of earthquakes and drilling reveals a shocking surge in quake frequency following advanced drilling. The number of quakes in 2010 nearly equals all of Arkansas’ quakes for the entire 20th century. The oil and gas industry denies any correlation, but the advent of hydrofracking followed by earthquakes is a story repeated across the nation.  It isn’t going to stop any time soon, either.  Fracking has gone global.

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) pumps water and chemicals into the ground at a pressurized rate exceeding what the bedrock can withstand, resulting in a microquake that produces rock fractures. Though initiated in 1947, technological advances now allow horizontal fracturing, vastly increasing oil and gas collection. [5] In 1996, shale-gas production in the U.S. accounted for 2 percent of all domestic natural gas production, reports Christopher Bateman in Vanity Fair. “Some industry analysts predict shale gas will represent a full half of total domestic gas production within 10 years.” [6] In 2000, U.S. gas reserve estimates stood at 177 trillion cubic feet, but ramped up to 245 tcf in 2008. These new technologies prompt experts to increase global gas reserve estimates ninefold. [7]

The grid below shows a section of the Arkansas River, with Roseville Township at bottom, where the first reports of the fish kill originated. The green lines surrounding and crossing the river indicate gas pipes, ranging from 8-20” in diameter. Any number of leaks in the pipes can explain the fish kill. Gas wells are shown by yellow ‘suns’ (see red arrows) and range from 1,500 to 6,500 feet deep. (Disposal wells, where drilling waste products are injected at high pressures, go as deep as 12,000 feet.) The red numbers next to the ‘suns’ give the number of gas wells in that spot, numbering close to 50 in this small area. [8]

(The gray numbers relate to the Township Numbering System. Each square equals one square mile. Click map for larger image.)

In December alone, over 150 earthquakes rocked Arkansas. [1] The swarm of quakes in Guy likely results from six years of intense drilling. Guy sits within the Fayetteville Shale Formation which, according to the Arkansas Geological Survey (AGS), is “the current focus of a regional shale-gas exploration and development program.”  A billion cubic feet of gas has been produced from this area since 2004. [9]

Thousands of wells are in operation in North-Central Arkansas (blue section of the following map). [10] Beebe, where the bird kill occurred, is in White County and Guy is at the northern end of Faulkner Co., where the anomalous earthquakes continue.

Red-winged blackbirds roost in clusters up to a million or more birds, often with other species like starlings and cowbirds. (In the 1950s and ’60s, roosts could number 20 million birds.)  Blackbirds prefer low, dense vegetative cover in wetlands or near streams. Though some may perch 30 feet above the water, most perch within one to two feet of it, and some will roost with their feet resting in water. Blackbirds can range up to 50 miles a day from roost to feeding sites, but they all settle in for the night before sunset. [11]

An earthquake of whatever scale can release a stream or cloud of gas and fracking chemicals which could easily explain why sleeping birds would suddenly take flight, and then quickly die as they succumbed to the toxic fumes. Of note, eight measured quakes within 40 miles of Beebe, and within 75 miles of Roseville, hit the area on December 30 thru several minutes past midnight on January 1st. [12]  This excludes any micro- or miniquakes which can have the same effect.  Significantly, the area is known for its prolific microquakes — numbering 40,000 since 1982. [1]

Canadian Geologist Jack Century crusades against induced seismicity from irresponsible drilling. In a 2009 speech before the Peace River Environmental Society, he provided a brief explanation of how fracking induces earthquakes, completely refuting industry denial that fracking causes quakes. Fracking induces not only micro- and mini-seismic actions that can compromise the integrity of well casings, but also large earthquakes registering on the order of 5 to 7 on the Richter Scale, resulting in human deaths. [13]

Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for AGS, told CNN in December that while earthquakes aren’t unusual in Arkansas, the frequency is. [14]  Indeed, they’ve had a 1,200 percent increase in earthquakes over 2009 data just in the last four months of 2010. All of the quakes registered less than 3 on the Richter Scale; over 98% of them occurred near Guy, where we find the largest concentration of gas wells; and 99% occurred outside the New Madrid Fault zone (circled in red below) where seismic activity is expected, implying they are human induced [1]:

Though AGS publicly claims no earthquake relation to drilling, in early December, Arkansas banned new drilling permits until further notice.

CNN reported that “According to the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, there are at least a half dozen ‘disposal wells’ within a 500-square-mile zone around Guy.” Ausbrooks noted similar “incidents in Colorado in the 1960s at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, where deep water injection was tied to earthquakes.” [14]

Arkansas Earthquake and Drilling History

When comparing Arkansas’ earthquake history with its drilling history, a causative correlation becomes obvious.

The entire 19th century saw 15 recorded earthquakes and none in the first decade of the new century.  A total of 694 quakes rocked Arkansas in the 20th century.  That number was surpassed in 2009-2010, with the bulk (483) occurring the last three months of 2010. Table 1 was prepared using complete quake data thru 2009 [15], complete data from August thru December, 2010 [1], and just North Central Arkansas quake data from January thru July, 2010. [16]

Arkla, Inc., through its many morphs, mergers and acquisitions,  is and has been a key gas driller in Arkansas.  Between 1975 and the early 1980s, the company found more gas than it produced. By 1982, Arkla was able to sell Central Louisiana Electric Company more than 100 million cubic feet of gas daily. By the early 1990s, it operated the sixth-largest pipeline system in the United States and was among the ten largest operators of natural gas reserves. [17] Its production timeline coincides with the massive jump in earthquakes in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, 37 companies drill for gas and oil in Arkansas. [18]

Unregulated Fracking on a Global March

The U.S. and Canada are not alone in exploiting this highly destructive technology. Poland also embraces fracking. Several energy companies are currently exploring Poland’s reserves, including Conoco-Phillips, ExxonMobil, Marathon, Chevron, Talisman, Lane Energy, BNK Petroleum, Emfesz, EurEnergy Resources, RAG, San Leon Energy and Sorgenia E&P. [19]  These new technologies will significantly impact the global trade in natural gas, according to Forbes [20]:

“Poland consumes 14 billion cubic meters of gas a year and imports more than 70% of it from Russia. It is easy to see how the country could benefit from starting shale gas drilling as soon as possible. Not only could it decrease its dependency on Russia, it might even turn into a gas exporter.”

Bateman noted that Western and Central Europe have leased their lands to frackers. Australians are suffering from the same frack contaminations as Americans, and China is also exploiting the new technology. [6]

Josh Fox’s 2010 film, Gasland, documents a multitude of harmful consequences on animal and human life, as well as property values. The most infamous scene shows people able to ignite their contaminated tap water [21]:

Fox makes the point that Dick Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, lobbied for and won exemptions from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, Superfund, and the Safe Drinking Water Act, thanks to our corporate-owned Congress.

Nor do drillers have to disclose the toxic chemicals used, contrary to the 1986 Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. [22]  Though it did not hesitate to pass on Wall Street’s gambling debts to the public (twice), Congress has not found the will to pass the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act.

In 2004, the Environmental Protection Agency determined that fracking poses no threat to water supplies and that no further studies were needed. [23]  From some Orwellian nightmare, however, at least 65 of the chemicals used in fracking are considered hazardous by the EPA. They have been linked to “cancer; liver, kidney, brain, respiratory and skin disorders; birth defects; and other health problems,” according to a 2005 report by the Oil and Gas Accountability Project. Of primary concern to citizens, OGAP notes that “Approximately half of the water that Americans rely on for drinking comes from underground sources.” [24]

Wyoming took a proactive stance on full disclosure of fracking chemicals when it passed new rules in September. Loopholes, however, still allow companies to claim proprietary ownership of such information, restricting it from public view. [25]

Given the EPA’s position that fracking is safe, it’s not likely that Arkansas citizens will get much help from the federal government. Nor will they find a friend at the state level. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has so far been unwilling or unable to stop UMETCO Minerals Corporation from illegally dumping toxic chemicals into streams. [26]

The same situation applies across the nation where state governments protect industry over environmental and human health.  Recently, outgoing Governor David Paterson vetoed legislation that would have put a moratorium on vertical and horizontal hydraulic drilling in New York. [27]  Already, Pennsylvania leases a third of its public lands to private energy drillers. [21]

Given government bias toward energy giants, and BP’s destruction of the Gulf of Mexico is a case in point, more direct action may be required by citizens, if environmental and human health are to be saved from the fossil fuel industry.

Notes:

1. Arkansas Geological Survey, “Arkansas Earthquake Updates.” http://www.geology.ar.gov/geohazards/earthquakes.htm

2. Arkansas Geological Survey, “2009 Earthquakes.” http://www.geology.ar.gov/xl/2009_Earthquakes.xls

3. Food Freedom, “Massive fish kill and 1000s of birds fall from the sky in Arkansas,” 2 Jan. 2010. http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/massive-fish-kill-and-1000s-of-birds-fall-from-the-sky-in-arkansas/

4. Earthworks, “Hydraulic Fracturing and Earthquakes.”  http://www.earthworksaction.org/fracturingearthquakes.cfm

Also see:

Ben Cassleman, “Temblors Rattle Texas Town: Residents Suspect a Drilling Boom Is Triggering Small Quakes, but Scientists Lack Proof,” Wall Street Journal, 12 June 2009. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124476331270108225.html

James Glanz, “Deep in Bedrock, Clean Energy and Quake Fears,” New York Times, 23 June 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/business/energy-environment/24geotherm.html

James Glanz, Video: “The Danger of Digging Deeper,” New York Times, 23 June 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/06/23/us/Geothermal.html

5. U.S. Department of Energy, “Hydraulic Fracturing White Paper,” June 2004.  http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/uic/pdfs/cbmstudy_attach_uic_append_a_doe_whitepaper.pdf

6. Christopher Bateman, “A Colossal Fracking Mess,” Vanity Fair, 16 June 2010. http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/06/fracking-in-pennsylvania-201006?currentPage=all

7. Martin Walker, “Russia’s Fracked Future,” UPI, 1 Feb. 2010. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/2010/02/01/Walkers-World-Russias-fracked-future/UPI-21421265042152/

8. Arkansas Geological Survey, “Fayetteville Shale Gas Play West Map,” Last updated 2 March 2010. http://www.geology.ar.gov/maps_pdf/fossilfuels/Fay%20West%20Map%2042×44.pdf

9. Arkansas Geological Survey, “Gas.” http://www.geology.ar.gov/fossil_fuels/gas.htm

10. Arkansas Geological Survey, “Fayetteville Shale Gas Play.” http://www.geology.ar.gov/home/fayetteville_play.htm

11. Brooke Meanley, “The Roosting Behavior of the Red-Winged Blackbird in the Southern United States,” Wilson Bulletin, Vol. 77 No.3, pp 217-228, Sept. 1965. http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Wilson/v077n03/p0217-p0228.pdf

12. U.S. Geological Survey, “Map Centered at 35°N, 93°W” Accessed Jan. 5, 2010: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/US2/34.36.-94.-92.php

13. Jack Century, “Earthquake Risks: Building a Nuclear Power Plant near Peace River, Alberta,” Peace River Environmental Society, May 2009 (71 mins.) http://peaceriverenvironmentalsociety.org/; 8-part video at

14. CNN, “Arkansas Earthquakes,” 13 Dec. 2010. http://www.wibw.com/nationalnews/headlines/Arkansas_Earthquakes_111815534.html

15. Arkansas Geological Survey, “Earthquake Archive,” 2009. http://www.geology.ar.gov/xl/Earthquake_Archive.xls

16. Arkansas Geological Survey, “Recent and Historical Earthquakes in North-Central Arkansas,” October 2010 http://www.geology.arkansas.gov/maps_pdf/geohazards/CentralArkansasMediaMap.pdf

17. Funding Universe, “Arkla Inc.” n.d. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/ARKLA-INC-Company-History.html

18. Manta.com, “37 Drilling Oil and Gas Wells Companies in Arkansas,” n.d.

http://www.manta.com/mb_44_E317D_04/drilling_oil_and_gas_wells/arkansas

19. STRATFOR, “Poland: Fracing On The Rise?” Forbes Magazine, 1 June 2010. http://blogs.forbes.com/energysource/2010/06/16/poland-fracing-on-the-rise/

20. TREFIS Team, “ConocoPhillips Has Big Fracking Plans For Poland, Stock Has Upside,” Forbes Magazine, 14 Dec. 2010. http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2010/12/14/conocophillips-has-big-fracking-plans-for-poland-stock-has-upside/

21. Josh Fox, Gasland, 2010. http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/. See trailer showing ignited tap water at .

22. Sarah Collins and Tom Kenworthy, “Energy Industry Fights Chemical Disclosure: Natural gas companies want to prevent oversight of fracking,” Center for American Progress, April 2010. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/04/fracking.html

23. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs Study,” June 2004. http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/wells_coalbedmethanestudy.cfm

24. Lisa Sumi, “Our Drinking Water at Risk: What EPA and the Oil and Gas Industry Don’t Want Us to Know about Hydraulic Fracturing,” Oil and Gas Accountability Project, April 2005. http://www.earthworksaction.org/pubs/DrinkingWaterAtRisk.pdf

25. Earthworks, Powder River Basin Resources Council, “Wyoming Requires Disclosure of Chemicals in Natural Gas Drilling,” 16 Sep 2010. http://earthworksaction.org/PR_WYdisclosure.cfm

26. Karoline Wightman, “UMETCO Minerals Corp not yet fined for releasing chemicals,” Fox News, 16 Nov. 2010. http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/UMETCO-Minerals-Corp-not-yet-fined-for-releasing/cOwdIEMf-kugosx8EWbrQQ.cspx?rss=315

27. Tom Zeller, “New York Governor Vetoes Fracking Bill,” New York Times, 11 Dec. 2010. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/new-york-governor-vetoes-fracking-bill/

Putin Prepares For War

Vladimir Putin is the most popular leader in the world today. His personal approval ratings are in the stratosphere, usually well-above 80 percent. He is admired for his quiet, confident manner and for having restored Russia to its former greatness following the chaotic breakup of the Soviet Union. The Russian people love Putin. Parents name their children after him, vodka and caviar producers use his name to boost sales, and his face appears on the tee-shirts of students and young people. It’s unthinkable that he would step down after his term as prime minister is over a year from today. The Russian people want him to stay on and run for a third term as president, and that’s probably what he’ll do.

Putin and George Bush were supposedly good friends, but US-Russian relations have steadily deteriorated since February 10, 2007 when Putin gave a speech at a conference in Munich. In his 45 minute presentation, Putin gave his views on how world leaders should manage global security issues. It was a succinct but hard-hitting analysis that rankled US diplomats and infuriated the Bush White House. Here’s an excerpt from the speech.

Vladimir Putin: “The universal, indivisible character of security is expressed as the basic principle that “security for one is security for all”. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said during the first few days that the Second World War was breaking out: “When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.”

Midway through the speech, Putin gave a pointed critique of US foreign policy and the dangers it poses to global security.

Putin: “What is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making.

It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.

And this certainly has nothing in common with democracy. Because, as you know, democracy is the power of the majority in light of the interests and opinions of the minority.”

By this time, everyone attending the conference could see that Putin was not talking about the threat of terrorism, but the threat of preemption, aggression and global dictatorship. And, even though Putin tried to characterize his views as ‘a frank discussion among friends’, it was clear that he was singling out the United States as the world’s biggest troublemaker.

Putin: “Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centers of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished. And no less people perish in these conflicts – even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!

Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. As a result we do not have sufficient strength to find a comprehensive solution to any one of these conflicts. Finding a political settlement also becomes impossible.

We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?

In international relations we increasingly see the desire to resolve a given question according to so-called issues of political expediency, based on the current political climate.

And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this – no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race.

The force’s dominance inevitably encourages a number of countries to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, significantly new threats – though they were also well-known before – have appeared, and today threats such as terrorism have taken on a global character.

I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security.” ( read the whole speech here )

This is why Washington hates Putin and why western media disparage him as an “autocrat”, because he has identified himself as an opponent of the unipolar world view. He does not accept the theory that (as George H. Bush said) “That whatever the US says, goes”. He seeks a multipolar world where individual states are treated equally and with respect. But Putin’s naivete is a bit surprising. Did he really think that criticizing US meddling around the world would lead to constructive changes in policy? US foreign policy doesn’t change. It is immutable, relentless and vicious. America owns the world and demands that foreign leaders obey Washington’s directives. “Follow orders, or else”; that’s all one needs to know about US foreign policy.

Putin: “I am convinced that the only mechanism that can make decisions about using military force as a last resort is the Charter of the United Nations… Along with this, it is necessary to make sure that international law have a universal character both in the conception and application of its norms….”

This type of idealistic blather is unworthy of a shrewd leader like Putin. Where do we see any evidence that the UN prevents wars or that international law serves any purpose other than to provide an excuse for future aggression by the US or Israel? The UN means nothing to Bush, Obama or anyone else who occupies the White House. It’s just one of many props that’s used to achieve strategic objectives.

Putin wants to reduce weapons and troops on both sides of the Russia-Europe border, but the US plans to deploy missile systems to Eastern Europe and push NATO/US forces and military bases into Central Asia, thus, encircling Russia and destabilizing the region. Bush/Obama’s plan for missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic would integrate US nuclear facilities around the world providing the US with a first-strike capability that Russia will have to counter with more targets in Europe. Putin can’t allow this threat to Russia’s national security to go unanswered. Whether he wants to reduce the number of nuclear weapons or not is irrelevant, he will be forced to escalate. Missile Defense has made an another arms race unavoidable.

Putin may have stumbled in his early years as president, but he’s shown that he’s a quick learner who now understands how to handle the US. Along with US/NATO military bases sprouting up throughout Central Asia, and CIA-sponsored “color coded” revolutions toppling regimes that had been friendly to Moscow; Putin has had to deal with US-funded NGOs operating in Russia that are working to destabilize the government. These faux-human rights organizations are now watched carefully by Russian intelligence agencies and often harassed by right wing, nationalist youth groups, like “Nashi”.

Putin’s real “awakening” came about when Georgia’s President Mikail Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia 4 years ago. At the time, all of the western media reported that Russia had started the war, but now we know that wasn’t the case. Here’s a brief summary of what really happened by former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev:

“For some time, relative calm was maintained in South Ossetia. The peacekeeping force composed of Russians, Georgians and Ossetians fulfilled its mission, and ordinary Ossetians and Georgians, who live close to each other, found at least some common ground….What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas….Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a “blitzkrieg” in South Ossetia…Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against “small, defenseless Georgia” is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity.” (“A Path to Peace in the Caucasus”, Mikhail Gorbachev, Washington Post)

Gorbachev’s account is accurate, but leaves out some important details. There aren’t any military installations in Tskhinvali. In fact, there aren’t any military targets at all. It’s an industrial center consisting of lumber mills, manufacturing plants and residential areas. It’s also the home of 30,000 South Ossetians. When Saakashvili ordered the city to be bombed by warplanes and shelled by heavy artillery, he knew that he’d be killing hundreds of civilians in their homes and neighborhoods. But he ordered the bombing anyway.

The Georgian army entered the city unopposed after most of the townspeople had fled across the border into Russia. The old and infirm huddled in their basements while the tanks rumbled bye firing at anything that moved. Some critics have compared the assault to Israel’s invasion of Gaza where the full force of a modern army was used against a civilian population. It’s a fair comparison.

Less than 24 hours after the initial invasion, Russian armored units swarmed over the border and into Tskhinvali scattering the Georgian army without a fight. Journalist Michael Binyon summed it up like this, “The attack was short, sharp and deadly—enough to send the Georgians fleeing in humiliating panic.” Indeed, the Georgians retreated in such haste that many of them left their weapons behind. They simply dropped their guns and ran. It was a complete rout and another black-eye for the US-trained army.

By the time Tskhinvali was liberated, the downtown area was in engulfed in flames and the bodies of those who had been killed by sniper-fire were strewn along the streets and sidewalks. The city’s only hospital had been reduced to smoldering rubble. All told, more than 2,000 civilians were killed in an operation that was clearly engineered and supported by the Bush White House.

The clash in South Ossetia was a valuable lesson for Putin who had hoped that US/Russia relations would gradually thaw. Now he knows that’s not possible. When another nation kills your people, everything changes. Each side becomes more inflexible and the prospects for peace dim. At the same time, US strategic objectives in Central Asia haven’t changed at all, so Putin must prepare for the next confrontation. That’s why he’s strengthening alliances that challenge US dominance in the region and in the world. That’s why he’s looking for opportunities to weaken US power and erode US prestige. That’s why he wants to dump the dollar. It’s all preparation.

When trouble breaks out, Putin will be ready. Russia is fortunate to have such a leader.

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