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Is Swine Flu A Biological Weapon?

2009/04/30 in E.U., Globalization, Government, NWO, Obama, Politics, Tyranny, U.K., U.S. by John Adlai | Comments closed

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 27, 2009

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There are some factors that suggest the swine flu killing people in Mexico may be a biological weapon, but obviously no such conclusion can be drawn at this time. The World Health Organization and the U.S. government have been quick to deny such claims.

The swine flu virus is described as a completely new strain, an intercontinental mixture of human, avian and swine viruses. Tellingly, there have been no reported A-H1N1 infections of pigs.

According to a source known to former NSA official Wayne Madsen, “A top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, concluded that H1N1 possesses certain transmission “vectors” that suggest that the new flu strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon.

Madsen claims that his source, and another in Indonesia, “Are convinced that the current outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in Mexico and some parts of the United States is the result of the introduction of a human-engineered pathogen that could result in a widespread global pandemic, with potentially catastrophic consequences for domestic and international travel and commerce.”

However, it’s important to stress that it is far too early to make this assumption. We have to bear in mind that the number of victims has been comparatively low when one considers the fact that hundreds of thousands in Mexico contract infectious diseases every year related to poverty like tuberculosis and malaria.

 

Fort Detrick, the U.S. Army Medical Command installation that was the source of the 2001 anthrax attacks, is again attracting suspicion in light of the swine flu panic after it was revealed that criminal investigators are probing whether virus samples recently went missing from its biolabs.

“Chad Jones, spokesman for Fort Meade, said CID is investigating the possibility of missing virus samples from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases,” reports The Frederick News.

In February, USAMRIID halted their work when virus samples were discovered that were not listed in its inventory. Criminal investigators from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division unit at Fort Meade are now probing whether virus samples are missing from the Army’s top biolab, which also studies pathogens including ebola, anthrax and plague.

Obviously, in light of the current swine flu scare, and the new strain’s possible synthetic origin, the fact that virus samples may have gone missing from the same Army research lab from which the 2001 anthrax strain was released is extremely disturbing.

A 2008 FBI and DOJ investigation concluded that Bruce Edwards Irvins, a microbiologist, vaccinologist, and senior biodefense researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland, was responsible for mailing anthrax to members of Congress and the media in September and October 2001.

The fact that Irvins apparently committed suicide shortly before the announcement led many to suspect that he was a patsy in a wider plot. Despite the suspicious circumstances, no autopsy was carried out on Irvins’ body. His attorney was certain that Irvins, who had cooperated with the 6-year investigation, was innocent of the five anthrax deaths.

The Department of Justice initially considered Dr. Steven Jay Hatfill to be a strong suspect in the anthrax attacks, but he later sued the government and won $5.8 million in damages. A New York Times piece on Irvins’ suicide asked the hypothetical question: “What if Dr. Hatfill had committed suicide in 2002, as friends feared he might? Would the investigators have released their evidence and announced that the perpetrator was dead?”

Fears that a mass pandemic was being readied as a biological attack have rumbled on in the conspiracy community ever since 9/11. Investigators point to the highly unusual number of deaths of top microbiologists to suggest that people with knowledge of the program are being eliminated.

Source: http://www.infowars.com/is-swine-flu-a-biological-weapon/

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G-20 Shapes New World Order With Lesser Role for U.S., Markets

2009/04/03 in E.U., Eurasia, Globalization, Government, NWO, Obama, Politics, Tyranny, U.K., U.S. by ciaccimon | 1 comment

April 3 (Bloomberg) — Global leaders took their biggest steps yet toward a new world order that’s less U.S.-centric with a more heavily regulated financial industry and a greater role for international institutions and emerging markets.

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At the end of a summit in London, policy makers from the Group of 20 yesterday delivered a regulatory blueprint that French President Nicholas Sarkozy said turned the page on the Anglo-Saxon model of free markets by placing stricter limits on hedge funds and other financiers. The leaders also pledged to triple the resources of the International Monetary Fund and to hand China and other developing economies a greater say in the management of the world economy.

“It’s the passing of an era,” said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, who helped prepare summits for presidents Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. “The U.S. is becoming less dominant while other nations are gaining influence.”

A lot was at stake. If the leaders had failed to forge a consensus — Sarkozy this week threatened to quit the talks if they didn’t back much tighter regulation — it might have set back the world’s economy and markets just as they’re showing signs of shaking off the worst financial crisis in six decades.

That’s what happened in 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt torpedoed a similar conference in London by rejecting its plan to stabilize currency rates and in the process scotched international efforts to lift the world out of a depression.

More Conciliation

Seeking to avoid a repeat of that historic flop, President Barack Obama junked the at-times go-it-alone approach of his predecessor, George W. Bush, and adopted a more conciliatory stance toward his fellow leaders.

“In a world that is as complex as it is, it is very important for us to be able to forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions,” Obama told a press conference at the conclusion of the summit.

Stock markets rose in response to the steps taken by the G-20 leaders. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 2.9 percent to 834.38. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 216.48 points, or 2.8 percent, to 7,978.08. Both closed at their highest levels since the second week of February.

In an effort to promote harmony, Obama soft-pedaled earlier U.S. demands that the summit agree on a specific target for fiscal stimulus in the face of opposition from France and Germany. Instead, he settled for a vague pledge that the leaders would do whatever it takes to revive the global economy.

Repudiation of Past

The president also signed on to a communiqué that Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz said repudiated the previous U.S.-led push to free capitalism from the constraints of governments.

“This is a major step forward and a reversal of the ideology of the 1990s, and at a very official level, a rejection of the ideas pushed by the U.S. and others,” said Stiglitz, an economics professor at Columbia University. “It’s a historic moment when the world came together and said we were wrong to push deregulation.”

In bowing to that view, the leaders conceded in a statement that “major failures” in regulation had been “fundamental causes” of the market turmoil they are trying to tackle. To make amends and to try to avoid a repeat of the crisis, they pledged to impose stronger restraints on hedge funds, credit rating companies, risk-taking and executive pay.

“Countries that used to defend deregulation at any cost are recognizing that there needs to be a larger state presence so this crisis never happens again,” said Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Financial Stability Board

A new Financial Stability Board will be established to unite regulators and join the IMF in providing early warnings of potential threats. Once the economy recovers, work will begin on new rules aimed at avoiding excessive leverage and forcing banks to put more money aside during good times.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had unsuccessfully sought to convince the U.S. and Britain to sign on to similar steps before the crisis began in mid-2007, hailed the communiqué as a “victory for common sense.”

The U.S. did, though, take the lead in getting the summit to agree on an increase in IMF rescue funds to $750 billion from $250 billion now. Japan, the European Union and China will provide the first $250 billion of the increase, with the balance to come from as yet unidentified countries.

“This will provide the IMF with enough resources to meet the needs of East European nations and also provide back-up funding to a broader set of countries,” said Brad Setser, a former U.S. Treasury official who’s now at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

IMF Allocation

The G-20 also agreed to an allocation of $250 billion in Special Drawing Rights, the artificial currency that the IMF uses to settle accounts among its member nations. The move is akin to a central bank such as the Federal Reserve effectively creating money out of thin air, except it’s on a global scale.

The increase in Special Drawing Rights will allow countries to tap IMF money without having to accept changes to economic policies often demanded as a condition of aid. The cash is disbursed in proportion to the money each member-nation pays into the fund. Rich nations will be allowed to divert their allocations to countries in greater need.

The G-20 said they would couple the financing moves with steps to give emerging economic powerhouses such as China, India and Brazil a greater say in how the IMF is run.

Emerging Markets Benefit

Citigroup Inc. economists Don Hanna and Jurgen Michels called the summit agreement “a boon to emerging markets” in a note to clients yesterday.

Mexico said Wednesday it will seek $47 billion from the IMF under the Washington-based lender’s new Flexible Credit Line, which allows some countries to borrow money with no conditions.

Emerging-market stocks, bonds and currencies rallied yesterday on speculation other developing nations will follow Mexico’s lead. Gains in Polish, Czech and Brazilian stocks helped push the MSCI Emerging Markets Index up 5.6 percent to 613.07, the highest since Oct. 15.

In a bid to avoid another mistake of the depression era, G-20 leaders repeated an earlier pledge to avoid trade protectionism and beggar-thy-neighbor policies that could aggravate the decline in the global economy.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted this week that global trade will shrink 13 percent this year as loss-ridden banks cut back on credit to exporters and importers.

Trade Finance

To help combat that, the G-20 said they will make at least $250 billion available in the next two years to support the finance of trade through export credit agencies and development banks such as the World Bank.

The summit took place amid speculation among investors that the deepest global recession in six decades may be abating. Data released yesterday showed orders placed with U.S. factories rose in February for the first time in seven months, U.K. house prices unexpectedly gained in March and Chinese manufacturing increased. Still, a report today is forecast to show U.S. unemployment at its highest in a quarter-century.

“If the economy turns more favorable, this meeting will probably be viewed as a milestone,” said C. Fred Bergsten, a former U.S. official and director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

The G-20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union. Officials from Spain and the Netherlands were also present.

To contact the reporters on this story: Rich Miller in Washington rmiller28@bloomberg.net; Simon Kennedy in Paris at Skennedy4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 2, 2009 20:22 EDT

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axEnb_LXw5yc&refer=home

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GUOMBYFC, not for the youth but this is my kinda activism!

2009/03/08 in E.U., Finance, Government, U.K. by John Adlai | Comments closed

Source: http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Find-Freedom.htm?EdNo=001&At=046888

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EU communications derided as ‘biased propaganda’

2009/01/30 in California, Cars, E.U., Finance, Government, Politics, Porn, Smoking Bans, U.K. by ciaccimon | Comments closed

The European Union spent €2.4bn last year on “biased information campaigns” to “promote itself and its central aim of ‘ever closer union’,” alleges a new study by Open Europe, a UK-based think tank. But the report’s findings were denied by the European Commission, which said it “makes no apologies” for supporting schemes such as the Erasmus student exchange programme.

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“By promoting its policies, actions and principles, the EU serves to justify its own existence and […] cement the European Commission’s view that continued European integration is the best, or even the only, future path for progress,” according to the report.

Presenting the study, entitled ‘The hard sell: EU communication policy and the campaign for hearts and minds’, at the Brussels offices of Libertas, a European political party, on 27 January, Open Europe Director Lorraine Mullally said “much of what the Commission does is laudable, but is very specifically aimed at promoting EU integration”.

Examples cited in the report include funding the production and distribution of literature throughout the continent via a “sophisticated network of information outlets,” and the “tens of millions” of Commission funding set aside for outside organisations, such as NGOs and think tanks, which promote EU objectives.

Commission questions report’s findings

Joe Hennon, spokesperson for EU Communications Commissioner Margot Wallström, questioned the amount cited in the study, saying that his department’s budget “is €100m a year”. “Half of the Open Europe figure is reserved for education and culture, so I presume that Open Europe doesn’t think the EU should be spending money on this,” Hennon opined.

The study indeed argues that Commission funding allocated under its education and culture programmes, including for initiatives such as the Erasmus student mobility scheme and town-twinning, aim to “buy loyalty” by “promoting European citizenship and a common European culture,” in an effort “to engender support for the EU”.

But the EU executive “makes no apologies” for spending money on such programmes, Hennon said, because national governments have been asking it to do so since the Treaty of Rome.

Funding outside organisations ’skews the debate’

“The EU’s propaganda – and in particular the outsourced propaganda that results from the EU funding outside think tanks and NGOs which share its vision – matters because it artificially skews the debate on the EU” in favour of Commission-funded, pro-EU bodies argues the report.

Hennon admitted that the EU funding tended to support organisations supportive of EU integration over others. But this is because “we fund NGOs through calls for tender, and it is usually the pro-EU ones that respond,” he said.

“I also want to get out of this cosy club,” the Commission spokesman insisted, encouraging more Eurosceptic bodies to apply for financial support. Refuting claims that organisations part-financed by the EU executive are biased, Hennon said “we’ve never stopped a Commission-funded NGO from criticising us”.

Commissioner Wallström’s spokesman was not the only one to reject Open Europe’s assessment. “Opposition is there if needed,” insisted Hendrik Kröner, secretary-general of the European Movement, citing EU consumers’ organisation BEUC, part-financed by the EU executive, as an example. “BEUC is not an organisation that always listens to the Commission. I know that from experience,” he said.

‘More controversy required’

The problem with the EU’s communication efforts so far is that there is not enough quality debate to generate interest in European affairs, according to Hans-Martin Tillack, a journalist at Germany’s Stern magazine. “If you want to teach people about Europe, you need controversy. Pure PR doesn’t fill knowledge gaps,” he argued.

The next elections to the European Parliament are set to take place in June, meaning debate around the EU’s role in European politics is likely to intensify in the coming months.

Source: http://www.euractiv.com/en/opinion/eu-communications-derided-biased-propaganda/article-178942

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EAST LONDON: ARRESTS OVER SHOOTING ON ESTATE

2009/01/30 in E.U., Shootings, U.K. by ciaccimon | Comments closed

Two people have been arrested in connection with a double shooting outside a community centre in Lower Clapton.

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The 18-year-olds are being quizzed by police over the incident outside the Shellness Community Centre in Shellness Road on the Pembury estate on Wednesday evening.

Shots were fired when a gang of youths descended on the community centre at about 9.25pm.

Two teenagers, both 18, were taken to hospital suffering from gunshot wounds. One remains in a serious condition.

Sandra Maitland, the mother of stabbed teenager Shaquille Smith, had earlier given a talk about the dangers of gun and knife crime at the community centre and teenagers as young as nine hosted a fashion show.

Shaquille was just 14 when he was stabbed to death outside his home in St Thomas’ Place, South Hackney, on August 30.

Anyone with information is asked to call the investigation team on 020 8217 7377 or, to remain anonymous, contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

–Hackney Gazette

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Vigilantes claim that they will report extreme porn file sharers!

2009/01/30 in E.U., Government, Porn, U.K. by ciaccimon | Comments closed

This week, the new law on extreme porn went live throughout the UK (except Scotland). Hopes in some quarters that this law would prove a panacea to the nastier end of internet kinkiness were dashed last week when ACPO announced that they would not be actively policing it.

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All change, however, as an organisation calling itself extremeporn.org.uk mails The Register to announce that if the government won’t do it, they will. A slightly topsy-turvy argument on its homepage states:

We believe that the law should be enforced; not doing so breeds laziness and impreciseness in the legislature, lack of inspection of the law outside of the legislature, increased power of the executive due to selective enforcement and permits many people guilty – of a crime, if nothing else – to get away Scot-free … This is bad for everyone.

Some more explanation of what it plans to do is contained a little further into the site. They claim that they will primarily categorise and monitor torrents. Once a torrent has been added to their system, they will periodically poll the tracker for peer IPs and then use GeoIP technology to identify UK-based IPs. Where a match is found, the system will, in principle, email the abuse contact for that IP. (This is where extremeporn’s claims become a little vague: they seem to be agreeing, however, that there are practical issues with this stage of the process.)

They claim already to have filed more abuse reports than the Government planned to prosecute in an entire year.

…See Extreme porn vigilantes are after you from theregister.co.uk by John Ozimek

Original legislation: Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008

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Revealed: Day the banks were just three hours from collapse

2009/01/29 in E.U., Finance, Government, U.K. by ciaccimon | Comments closed

Britain was just three hours away from going bust last year after a secret run on the banks, one of Gordon Brown’s Ministers has revealed.

City Minister Paul Myners disclosed that on Friday, October 10, the country was ‘very close’ to a complete banking collapse after ‘major depositors’ attempted to withdraw their money en masse.

The Mail on Sunday has been told that the Treasury was preparing for the banks to shut their doors to all customers, terminate electronic transfers and even block hole-in-the-wall cash withdrawals.

Only frantic behind-the-scenes efforts averted financial meltdown.

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If the moves had failed, Mr Brown would have been forced to announce that the Government was nationalising the entire financial system and guaranteeing all deposits.

But 60-year-old Lord Myners was accused last night of being ‘completely irresponsible’ for admitting the scale of the crisis while the recession was still deepening and major institutions such as Barclays remain under intense pressure.

The build-up to ‘Black Friday’ started on Monday, October 6, when the FTSE 100 dropped by nearly eight per cent as bad news on the economy started to multiply.

The following day, Chancellor Alistair Darling began all-night talks ahead of an announcement on the Wednesday that billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money would be used to pour liquidity into the system.

But shares continued to plummet, turning into a rout on the Friday when the FTSE crashed by ten per cent within minutes of opening.

Both Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS were nearing complete collapse – but Lord Myners, who built up his fortune during a long career in the City, said the problems ran far wider.

‘There were two or three hours when things felt very bad, nervous and fragile,’ he said. ‘Major depositors were trying to withdraw – and willing to pay penalties for early withdrawal – from a number of large banks.’

The threat to the system was so severe that the Bank of England was forced to contact RBS’s creditors in New York and Tokyo to persuade them not to withdraw their funds, but it is not known which other banks faced a run on their reserves.

‘We faced the very real problem of how banks could stop depositors from withdrawing their money,’ a Treasury source said yesterday.

‘The banks themselves were selling their shareholdings, accelerating the stock-market falls, and preparing to shut up shop. Mortgages would have been sold on and savers would have been spooked, to put it mildly. It would have been chaos.’

After a weekend of crisis talks, which concluded at dawn on the Monday, it was announced that Lloyds TSB was taking over HBOS, supported by £17billion of taxpayers’ money, and RBS would receive an injection of £20billion – prompting the resignation of RBS’s infamous chief executive, Sir Fred ‘the shred’ Goodwin. Share prices at last started a small rally.

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Lord Myners: 'There were two or three hours when things felt very bad, nervous and fragile'

Ruth Lea, economic adviser to the Arbuthnot Banking Group, said last night that it was ‘highly irresponsible’ for Lord Myners to reveal the scale of the problems because it could serve to further wreck already fragile levels of confidence.
‘We are not out of the woods yet,’ she said. ‘I fear for Barclays, after the fall in its share price, and Lloyds has been damaged by the HBOS takeover.’

She added: ‘If it was panning out in that way, then the Government would have had no choice but to step in and nationalise the entire financial system.’

Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers Association, said: ‘The issues related only to HBOS and RBS. To imply that all the banks would have gone under is wrong. It is complicated.’

Lord Myners also said that bank executives had been ‘grossly over-rewarded’ during the ‘golden days’ of big bonuses. ‘They are people who have no sense of the broader society around them,’ he said. ‘There is quite a lot of annoyance and much of that is justified.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1127278/Revealed-Day-banks-just-hours-collapse.html

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