statism watch

John Ward, Canadian Press
September 30, 2008

OTTAWA — A defiant military police watchdog agency has decided, despite government objections, to widen public hearings into the way Canadian soldiers handled detainees in Afghanistan.

The Military Police Complaints Commission will expand its hearings into allegations by Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Union that the Canadians handed detainees over to torture by Afghan authorities.

In the complaint filed in 2007, it was alleged that military police handed over prisoners on at least 18 occasions even though there was evidence of torture in Afghan jails.

The commission now will widen the time frame of its investigation by a year. It will also go beyond the issue of whether the transfers of detainees were appropriate, looking as well at whether senior officers failed to investigate allegations of torture by Afghan authorities.

(more…)

CBC News
September 30, 2008

Police oversight “has hit rock bottom in Ontario” because of a watchdog agency that is timid, fearful and lacking in rigour, Ontario’s ombudsman said Tuesday as he introduced a report on Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit.

“It is clear that something must be done to dispel the SIU’s image as a toothless tiger and muzzled watchdog if it is to earn the respect of police officials as well as the public at large,” André Marin says in a report titled “Oversight Unseen.”

The agency has been investigating cases of serious injury or death involving police for the past 18 years.

But serious concerns about its credibility and effectiveness have been raised with the ombudsman’s office by members of the community over the past two years, said Marin, who once headed the agency.

(more…)

CBC News
September 29, 2008

Profound changes in information and communications technologies require a new, radical approach to how we protect our privacy, says Ontario Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian.

Privacy protection must be built into new technologies right from inception, Cavoukian said in a paper delivered at the University of Waterloo Monday.

In the paper, titled Privacy and Radical Pragmatism: Change the Paradigm, Cavoukian stressed that she does not believe enhancing surveillance and security in society need to come at the expense of privacy.

“Conversely,” she said, “I am deeply opposed to the viewpoint that privacy must be viewed as an obstacle to achieving other technical objectives.”

(more…)

Sky News
September 29, 2008

The House of Representatives has voted against the $700bn bail-out plan for the US economy – sending the Dow Jones plummeting.

The Dow Jones immediately crashed by 6% on the news.

Earlier, in London, banks including HBOS, Lloyds TSB and RBS were among the FTSE 100’s biggest fallers.

The index of the UK’s top 100 companies closed down 5.3% at 4818.8 – the lowest it’s been since April 2005.

As concerns about the bail-out grew, central banks agreed to pump an extra $630bn (£350bn) into the money markets to restore confidence in the system.

(more…)

Paul Joseph Watson, prisonplanet.com
September 29, 2008 

Congressman slams Federal Reserve power monopoly on House floor as vote nears

As a vote nears on the $700 billion dollar plus bailout bill, Congressman Ron Paul took to the House floor this morning to warn that the passage of the legislation will destroy the dollar and the world economy.

Stating that the passage of the bailout bill would only make the problem worse, the Congressman from Texas said, “This has nothing to do with free market capitalism, this has to do with a managed economy, an inflationary system, corporatism, a special interest system, and this has nothing to do with the failure of our free markets and capitalism.”

Paul blamed the current crisis on a Federal Reserve power monopoly over the money and credit system, the ceaseless borrowing and printing of money, and dismissed the bill as nothing but more of the same.

(more…)

Steve Watson, Infowars.net
September 29, 2008

Economists, top EU officials call for more regulatory power 

With major European banks now failing, calls have increased for an entire restructuring of the financial system under a centralized EU supervisory body.

With Belgian-Dutch group Fortis becoming the first major European bank to buckle, British mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley also being nationalized, as well as several other banks failing in Iceland, Denmark and Germany, economists have warned that more are teetering on the brink and only a radical centralization of power in Europe can stave off financial ruin.

Earlier this month, German economist Daniel Gros warned in a report for the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) that several European banks have become so large that their governments would no longer be able to save them. Should they fail no rescue would be possible because the economy of the home nations are smaller than the banks that reside within them.

Now, in an interview with Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, Gros warns that European giants like Deutsche Bank, Barclays and UBS (Switzerland) are dangerously close to folding.

(more…)

Apparently Mr. Martin deplores the IMF, Financial Stability Forum, and BIS because they aren’t inclusive enough – meaning they don’t have buy-in from, and control over, the economies of every nation yet. If the problem is inherent in the centralization of these agencies, why has the suggestion of getting rid of them never crossed the lips of a single world leader? But decentralization of power will not be on the agenda in the forseeable future – what we are witnessing today is the death rattle of the independent nation-state to make way for regionalized trading blocs ruled by an economic elite.

Heather Scoffield, The Globe and Mail
September 29, 2008

Former prime minister warns the next financial crisis could rise in an emerging market 

OTTAWA — Emerging market governments need to be fully included in international discussions to resolve the deepening U.S. financial crisis, says former prime minister Paul Martin.

The global reach of the turmoil – which started with subprime mortgages in the United States but has caused banks in Europe to fail and credit conditions around the world to deteriorate – makes this crisis far larger than other financial calamities, Mr. Martin was scheduled to say today in a speech in Toronto.

“Today’s global concerns require a level of international co-ordination that is fundamentally different from any other period of history, and the creation of the structures that will oversee the economy of the 21st century has been delayed too long,” says the text of his speech to a Financial Times and Canada 2020 conference on the future of the global economy.

(more…)

Kristine Owram, Toronto Star
September 29, 2008

TSX down more than 400 points in early trading

The Toronto stock market plunged more than 400 points in mid-morning trading Monday amid sharply lower crude prices and investor uncertainty over an unpopular $700-billion plan to rescue troubled financial institutions.

Markets in New York also plummeted as investors awaited a vote on the bailout plan – expected at midday – and news that Citigroup will acquire Wachovia, the latest institution to succumb to mounting losses tied to toxic assets.

Toronto’s S&P/TSX index was down 434.86 points to 11,691.14 amid lower oil prices and falling metals stocks, after losing more than 400 points Friday.

(more…)

Graeme Wearden and Jill Treanor, The Guardian
September 29, 2008

FSA chairman warns nationalisation of Bradford & Bingley is not the end of the banking crisis

Shares in Britain’s banks plunged today in febrile market conditions caused by bail-outs of banks in the UK, continental Europe and the US.

The nationalisation of Bradford & Bingley, the rescue of Dutch-Belgian financial group Fortis and the rescue takeover of US bank Wachovia by Citigroup further hit sentiment in an already nervous market.

Royal Bank of Scotland tumbled by over 20%, while Lloyds TSB lost 15% and HBOS shed 12.5% – putting their merger in doubt.

Under the deal hammered out during a weekend of intense negotiations, the taxpayer is taking on B&B’s £41bn of mortgages and handing Spanish giant Santander £4bn to persuade it to take on the Yorkshire-based firm’s savers and branch network.

(more…)

The Guardian
September 29, 2008

MI6 is using the social networking site Facebook to recruit the next generation of spies. The Secret Intelligence Service, which has traditionally scoured the country’s elite universities for recruits, launched a series of online adverts this month as part of its attempts to attract people from a variety of backgrounds.

“A number of public channels are used to promote job opportunities in the organisation and Facebook is a recent example of this,” said a Foreign Office spokeswoman. MI6 runs agents in foreign countries and says it wants its officers to “reflect the society” they serve.

Before 2006 most recruits joined after getting a tap on the shoulder while studying at a leading university.

(more…)