statism watch

Which is precisely what the G20 will attempt to implement once the dollar and Euro have been knocked down to something closer to parity status.

Flashback: Sarkozy says world currency disorder unacceptable | Current And Former IMF Heads Call For New Global Currency | U.S. urges China to strengthen currency | George Soros Calls for World Currency and “New World Architecture” | U.S. dollar sags on global financial leaders’ omission | G20 Meet To Finalize Dumping Of Dollar This Weekend? | Dollar Reaches Breaking Point as Central Banks Shift Reserves | Fisk: Nations to hasten demise of dollar in new world order | US dollar set to be eclipsed, World Bank president predicts | Bilderberg Wants Global Currency Now | Dollar to fall under scrutiny at G20 summit | UN wants new global currency to replace dollar | G20 agrees to continue economic stimulus measures; Geithner shops international reserve accord | China Set to Buy $50 Billion in IMF Notes | Medvedev Unveils “World Currency” Coin At G8 | China calls anew for super-sovereign currency | China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds | Chinese economists deem huge holding of US bonds “risky” as Geithner visits | A Bigger, Bolder Role Is Imagined For the IMF | UK PM reveals G20 plan to boost IMF by $1 trillion, hails new world order (again) | UN & IMF Back Agenda For Global Financial Dictatorship | U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar | IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’ | Gordon Brown seeks sweeping reforms to give IMF global ’surveillance role’ | IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central bank” as crisis spreads | Globalists Exploit Financial Meltdown In Move Towards One World Currency | World needs new Bretton Woods, says Brown | IMF prescribes state regulation of ‘global financial order’ | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda | Banks face “new world order,” consolidation: report

UPI
February 26, 2010

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said Friday a new reserve currency should be explored as an alternative to the U.S. dollar.

Strauss-Kahn, answering questions after a speech at IMF headquarters in Washington, said a new reserve currency would be “intellectually healthy to explore,” The New York Times reported.

The IMF chief declared the need for a “renewed vision” of the world monetary body, which was formed in the aftermath of the 1994 Bretton Woods Agreements in New Hampshire, saying the organization must find better ways to uncover financial crises before risks metastasize throughout the global financial system.

“As long as the United States maintains sound macroeconomic policies and deep, liquid, and open financial markets, the dollar will continue to be the major reserve currency,” the Treasury Department said in an October 2009 report.

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Here’s the UK attempting to push through its requirements for national internet filtering, but placing the burden on access points rather than ISPs. Here comes ‘cyber-security’, the effect of which will be to stifle the flow of information, channeling it once more through official sources. Good-bye, online anonymity; good-bye, alternative media. For your safety, and the children, of course. (Incidentally, India is cracking down on open WiFi because it helps the terror. The Vancouver Sun stated in 2007 that ‘anyone with a laptop and wireless access could commit a terrorist act’ on the city’s open network – so you can see the associations being built up in the public mind here.)

Flashback: Swedish Justice Minister reluctant to store internet user’s data | UK: Telecom firms’ fury at plan for ‘Stasi’ checks on every phone call and email | Death Of The Internet: Censorship Bills In UK, Australia, U.S. Aim To Block “Undesirable” Websites | Australia introduces web filters | Obama Wants Computer Privacy Ruling Overturned | UK Internet surveillance plan to go ahead | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | Case for Internet spying not closed | Planned Internet, wireless surveillance laws worry watchdogs | UK ISPs condemn Internet surveillance plans | UK to found new ‘cyber-security’ units attached to national eavesdropping centre | ISPs must help police snoop on internet under new bill | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | Cybersecurity Is Framework For Total Government Regulation & Control Of Our Lives | Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate | EU wants ‘Internet G12′ to govern cyberspace | UK Home Secretary has secret plan to surveil, ‘Master the Internet’ | Munk Centre researchers discover botnet, call for international cyberspace ‘legal regime’ | NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress | Do We Need a New Internet? | Defense Contractors See $$$ in Cyber Security | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Sweden approves wiretapping law | Law Professor tells tech conference: plans to shut down Internet already on deck | UK Business Secretary sets date for blocking filesharers’ internet connections | The bait and switch: EU now to endorse internet disconnection for ‘piracy’ | UK: 70% oppose internet ban for filesharers, poll shows | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | UN Urges International Action on Cyber Security Threat | Judge in Pirate Bay Appeal Removed for Bias | MP Charlie Angus on copyright: industry lobby pulling for ‘dead business model’ | UK Government to consider internet disconnection policy, restrictions | The dawn of Internet censorship in Germany | Pirate Bay Retrial Denied | Stockholm Court: Pirate Bay Judge ‘Unbiased’ | Next up for France: police keyloggers and Web censorship | France passes ‘three strikes’ Internet surveillance law | Pirate Bay lawyer calls for retrial after judge confirms ties to copyright groups | Jail terms for Pirate Bay founders, appeal in works | Cybersecurity law would give feds unprecedented net control | Protests in Australia over proposal to block Web sites | Microsoft patents web moderator robots, forbidden phrases to be memory-holed | Berners-Lee W3C Consortium to ‘Authorize’ Website Content? | Canada Considering “Three Strikes and You’re Out” ISP Policy

David Meyer, ZDNet.com
February 26, 2010

The government will not exempt universities, libraries and small businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this week.

This would leave many organisations open to the same penalties for copyright infringement as individual subscribers, potentially including disconnection from the internet, leading legal experts to say it will become impossible for small businesses and the like to offer Wi-Fi access.

Lilian Edwards, professor of internet law at Sheffield University, told ZDNet UK on Thursday that the scenario described by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in an explanatory document would effectively “outlaw open Wi-Fi for small businesses”, and would leave libraries and universities in an uncertain position.

“This is going to be a very unfortunate measure for small businesses, particularly in a recession, many of whom are using open free Wi-Fi very effectively as a way to get the punters in,” Edwards said.

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It’s the ample corroborating material that takes his statement from the realm of mere assertion or, say, false confession extracted by Iran (both potential objections to this story) to the realm of probability. Factor this knowledge of international intelligence involvement in Pakistani terror organizations into your judgement next time you hear that some dispossessed Muslim kid went to Pakistan to get ‘jihad training’, was subsequently trailed around by the secret service for months upon return, incited by informants to discuss plans with no hope of fruition before being set up in a sting.

Flashback: CIA admits Blackwater presence in Pakistan | Taliban: Blackwater to blame for Pakistan attacks | How the US Funds the Taliban | Taliban Chief Blames Blackwater, ISI for Peshawar Blast | Ex-CIA agent confirms US ties with Jundullah | Iranian commanders assassinated, Iran fingers Western intelligence | Madsen: CIA collusion with “Al Qaeda” financiers and attack planners | Whistleblower Who Linked “Taliban” Leader To US Intelligence Is Assassinated | Pakistani president Asif Zardari admits creating terrorist groups | Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries | The Main Result of the “War on Terror”: The Destabilization of Pakistan | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | Delta Force Officer: We Weren’t Allowed to Kill Osama Bin Laden | Key Benazir Bhutto assassination witness shot dead | CIA, Pakistani ISI have long, complicated relationship | US scales up covert destabilization efforts in Iran, continues funding ‘al-Qaeda’ | Report: U.S. Gave Green Light For Taliban Prison Attack | Investigative Reporter Seymour Hersh: US Indirectly Funding Al-Qaeda Linked Sunni Groups in Move to Counter Iran | US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

Steve Watson, Infowars.net
February 26, 2010

Al Qaeda affiliate says his group was armed and assisted by U.S., Britain and Israel

The leader of a Pakistan based terrorist organisation closely affiliated with Al Qaeda has detailed how his group benefited from extensive political and financial support from the CIA in return for continued attacks against the government, the people and the infrastructure of Iran.

Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of the Pakistan-based Jundullah terrorist organization was captured earlier this week by Iranian security officials in the south of the country.

Rigi was tracked by Iranian intelligence when he boarded a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday.

According to officials, Rigi was using a forged Afghan passport which was issued to him by the U.S. government.

The 31-year-old terror leader issued a statement on Iranian state TV yesterday, during which he alleged that he had made a pact with the U.S. for safe haven and unlimited military aid to pursue terrorist activities against the Iranian government.

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Flashback: MI5 chief denies cover-up claims over detainees | UK Top judge: Binyam Mohamed case shows MI5 to be devious, dishonest and complicit in torture | Britain reveals details of Binyam Mohamed torture | UK: Rights watchdog reveals Pakistani spies pressed by British to torture detainees | UK: Move to withhold evidence in MI5/MI6 torture collusion claim | UK: New evidence in Binyam Mohamed torture case | UK: Secrets of CIA ‘ghost flights’ to be revealed | UK: CIA ‘put pressure on Britain to cover up its use of torture’ | Revealed — the secret torture evidence MI5 tried to suppress | Guantanamo’s closure window dressing — overseas CIA ‘black sites’ to stay | ‘If I didn’t confess to 7/7 bombings MI5 officers would rape my wife,’ claims torture victim | MI5 faces fresh torture allegations | UK: Government makes ‘unprecedented’ apology for covering up Binyam torture | Obama administration: Guantanamo detainees have ‘no constitutional rights’ | Tortured Guantanamo detainee set free | UK agents ‘colluded with torture in Pakistan’ | Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners | U.K. resident held at Gitmo alleges Canadian involvement in torture | Senior judges attack US over ‘torture evidence suppression’

Afua Hirsch, Robert Booth, Ian Cobain, The Guardian
February 26, 2010

Ministers back MI5 after highly critical verdict on secret service involvement in Binyam Mohamed case

The government has launched a co-ordinated counter-attack against three of the country’s most senior judges who defied ministerial pressure today to publish a highly critical verdict on secret service involvement in the alleged torture of the Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed.

In spite of concerted attempts to keep criticisms of MI5 and MI6 secret, Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls, made unprecedented public criticisms of the methods and ethics employed by the UK’s secret services, stating that officials had a “dubious record” of involvement in Mohamed’s mistreatment.

He said the security services made a false statement to the Cabinet Office’s intelligence and security committee by denying all knowledge of his ordeal. He added there was “reason for distrusting” assurances given by the security services about Mohamed’s treatment. The remarks were welcomed by human rights campaigners who said the court was right to push back against government pressure and exert its independence.

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Flashback: Halifax apologizes for razing Africville | Tamils languish in Sri Lankan camps | UN chief flies into Sri Lanka as Tamils herded into camps | Quarter of a million Sri Lankans face two years in camps | Fisherman, 78, faces eviction to make room for container terminal | Beijing families forcibly relocated for Olympics

CBC News
February 26, 2010

‘Canadians are going to be in the thick of it,’ says Brig.-Gen. King

Officials in Kandahar province have begun humanitarian preparations in advance of fighting later this year, when NATO forces are expected to launch their most ambitious assault on Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan since 2001.

Kandahar’s governor, Tooryalai Wesa, said officials are stockpiling tents, medical supplies and food as he expects as many as 10,000 people may have to flee their homes when the fighting starts.

NATO and Afghan forces are entering their third week of fighting in nearby Helmand province, with 15,000 troops engaged in battle in an effort to reclaim the insurgent-held town of Marjah and the district of Nad Ali.

More than 2,800 families – averaging about five members each – have been displaced before and during the fighting, according to the Afghan Organization of Human Rights and Environmental Protection, an independent group.

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Along with other unamed Wall Street insiders Soros, one of the most high-profile advocates of a global currency, is shorting the Euro. Now, one may dispute the causation here, but how could this announcement not this cuurency – helping drive it to parity with the dollar? If that isn’t smoking gun proof of market manipulation for political ends, then what is?

Flashback: Goldman role in Greek crisis probed | How EU Countries Cooked Books Using Derivatives | Goldman Sachs Helped Greece Obscure Debt Through Currency Swaps | Collapse of the euro is ‘inevitable’: Bailing out the Greek economy futile, says French banking chief | Euro currency union shows strains | Stimulating our way into debt crises | EU leaders reach secret Greek bailout deal | Will Greece set off ‘global debt bomb’? | Davos 2010: George Soros warns gold is now the ‘ultimate bubble’, calls for IMF to handle climate fund | George Soros Calls for World Currency and “New World Architecture” | Soros: China Will Lead New World Order | Globalists Exploit Financial Meltdown In Move Towards One World Currency | Soros points out regulated markets fail to operate on market fundamentals, calls for more regulation

Karl West, Daily Mail
February 26, 2010

A secretive group of Wall Street hedge fund bosses are said to be behind a plot to cash in on the decline of the euro.

Representatives of George Soros’s investment business were among an all-star line up of Wall Street investors at an ‘ideas dinner’ at a private townhouse in Manhattan, according to reports.

A spokesman for Soros Fund Management said the legendary investor did not attend the dinner on February 8, but did not deny that his firm was represented.

At the dinner, the speculators are said to have argued that the euro is likely to plunge in value to parity with the dollar.

The single currency has been under enormous pressure because of Greece’s debt crisis, plus financial worries in Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland.

But, it has also struggled because hedge funds have been placing huge bets on the currency’s decline, which could make the speculators hundreds of millions of pounds.

The euro traded at $1.51 in December, but has since fallen to $1.34. Details of the secretive dinner emerged days after Mr Soros, chairman of Soros

Fund Management, warned in a newspaper article that the euro could ‘fall apart’ even if the European Union can agree a deal to shore up support for stricken Greece.

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The Federal Reserve, probing Goldman Sachs? Some skepticism may be called for here.

Flashback: How EU Countries Cooked Books Using Derivatives | Goldman Sachs Helped Greece Obscure Debt Through Currency Swaps | America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels | How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash | Goldman Sachs breaks record with $16.7bn bonus pot | More US Bank Failures and The Coming Deposit Insurance Bailout | Arrest Over Software Illuminates Wall St. Secret | The Lords of Time: Goldman Sachs and low-latency trading | Record quarterly profits and bonuses: Goldman Sachs makes out like a bandit on taxpayer’s dime | Goldman-Sachs: Pilfered trading code could be used to ‘manipulate markets’ | Taibbi: NYSE ends transparency to protect Goldman Sachs | Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine | 10 U.S. banks to repay U.S. bailout money | Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress | Barclays, Lloyd’s, RBS join Goldman-Sachs in the black | Goldman-Sachs to repay TARP loan, resume private operations, bonuses, at “earliest time” possible | Which Banks Will Rule? | Wall Street’s Big Takeover | Behind the panic: Financial warfare over the future of global bank power | Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda

Alan Rappeport, Tom Braithwaite, Financial Times
February 26, 2010

The US central bank is looking into Goldman Sachs’s role in arranging contentious derivatives trades for Greece, which helped the country to massage its public finances, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, revealed on Thursday.

“We are looking into a number of questions relating to Goldman Sachs and other companies and their derivatives arrangements with Greece,” Mr Bernanke said, apparently referring to Greek currency transactions structured by Goldman.

Testifying before Congress, Mr Bernanke also responded to concerns that instability in markets for Greek debt and other securities has been heightened by trading in other derivatives, known as credit default swaps, which compensate investors in case of default.

Mr Bernanke said default swaps are “properly used as hedging instruments” and that “using these instruments in a way that intentionally destabilises a company or a country is counterproductive”.

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Flashback: Headed to National Socialism | Pro-rights ‘Charter 08′ Manifesto author could face prison in China | An inconvenient truth: Libertarianism is a counterexample to traditional political categories | ‘Idea of Communism’ conference sells out in London | Atlas felt a sense of déjà vu | Freedom isn’t failing us – we’re unhappy because we’re no longer free | The Illustrated Road to Serfdom | Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

Paul Steinhauser, CNN.com
February 26, 2010

A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken – though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what’s broken can be fixed.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey.

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Flashback: The Federal Reserve as Giant Counterfeiter | Americans Deserve a Transparent Federal Reserve | Bernanke continues pressing for sweeping new powers for Fed | Federal Reserve Appeals Order to Disclose Emergency Bank Loans | Judge Orders Federal Reserve To Disclose Who Received Bailout Trillions | Former NY governor Spitzer: Federal Reserve is ‘a Ponzi scheme, an inside job’ | Hands off the Fed, Bernanke warns Congress | US Senate Blocks Bill To Audit The Fed As Government Prepares For Second Round Of Looting | Congressman Ron Paul Slams Federal Reserve’s New Dictatorial Powers | Federal Reserve To Be Given Sweeping New Powers | HR 1207: Battle To Audit The Fed Has Only Just Begun | Geithner Said to Have Prevailed on the Bailout | Banks won’t say where U.S. bailout money going | Paulson, Bernanke defend change of plan: $700-billion now to be given directly to banks | Congress Accuses Federal Reserve Bagman Of Bailout “Bait and Switch” During Angry Hearing | U.S. government won’t use bailout fund to buy troubled assets | The Bush gang’s parting gift: a final, frantic looting of public wealth | Why Paulson’s Plan is a Fraud | Congressman Ron Paul: Bailout Will Destroy Dollar, World Economy | Congressman Ron Paul Schools Fed Chairman Bernanke on the Bailout Plan

Scott Lanman, Alison Vekshin, Bloomberg
February 26, 2010

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke renewed his push to keep bank-supervision authority as some senators expressed support and others wavered.

Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee that it would be a “grave mistake” to remove the Fed’s authority to oversee banks, as the panel’s chairman, Christopher Dodd, has proposed.

Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana and Republicans Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Mike Johanns of Nebraska, on Capitol Hill yesterday for a committee hearing with Bernanke, said they support Bernanke’s position. Rhode Island’s Jack Reed suggested the Fed may lose at least some of its authority.

“I don’t think it’s going to maintain its current role completely,” Reed, a Democrat, told reporters after the hearing.

There’s an “emerging consensus” on the panel to move the Fed’s regulation of smaller banks to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. At the same time, there is a “real substantive question” about the Fed’s role in overseeing large firms and its position on a council of regulators that would monitor risks to the financial system, Reed said.

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Iceland has been completely screwed by the criminals that bought and ran Landsbanki as a massive ponzi scheme. See here and here and here. The people there know this, and they do not want to pay this tab, because they know it’s not theirs to pay. Here’s a radical idea – why don’t the UK, the Netherlands, and Iceland all get together and hunt these individuals down in whatever paradisical Caribbean island state they’ve made off to? EconomicDisasterArea.com has further details.

Flashback: EU executive recommends fast-track membership for Iceland | No solution in dispute over Iceland deposits | Iceland sets date for Icesave vote | Iceland says IMF aid likely delayed | Iceland blocks central bank debt repayment deal | Icelandic parliament rolls over, votes for EU membership | Iceland to be fast-tracked into the EU | Iceland’s government collapses | In Iceland, the heat is on | Police fire pepper spray at Iceland protesters | Icelanders storm central bank in protest | Iceland inflation soars to 17.1% | 5 injured during protest in Iceland over economic meltdown

Simon Johnson, Reuters
February 26, 2010

Iceland is now staring at twin crises, one economic and the other political, after it failed to strike a new deal on repaying debts to Britain and the Netherlands.

Iceland President Olafur Grimsson has angered Britain and the Dutch

As long as the so-called Icesave dispute hangs over the island, it can expect the economy to be starved of cash. Add to that the chance of political instability as the government has to take responsibility for a mess which will leave Icelandic taxpayers with a huge bill for years to come.

“Nobody dares invest anything in Iceland until this issue is resolved,” said Danske Bank senior analyst Lars Christensen.

Talks collapsed this week on a new deal to replace one agreed late last year, which proved to be deeply unpopular on the island. Britain and the Netherlands say Iceland owes them more than $5-billion after they compensated savers who lost money in Icelandic “Icesave” deposit accounts.

A referendum has been scheduled for March 6 on the old accord, and it is expected to be soundly rejected. Angry Icelanders believe the terms are unduly harsh.

Had a new agreement been forged, Reykjavik might have been able to get financial aid flowing again.

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