Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Tues 05.26.2009
Obama Vows to 'Stand Up' to North Korean Nuclear-Arms Threat The Obama administration sought to rally China and Russia behind a response to North Korea's nuclear test and missile launches yesterday and may seek options for direct talks with the reclusive regime. The U.S. may also contemplate moves to stiffen international sanctions on North Korea's Stalinist government as well as unilateral pressure on foreign entities aiding the regime.
Gold Battle Lines Drawn at $1,000 Again Here we go again. The forces of legitimate money versus the incumbent purveyors of the candy floss economy squared off at the $1,000 an ounce line over which yet another battle will be fought. Arrayed against either side are formidable new elements and tried and true old ones. As usual, the first volley has been catapulted over the walls of the hucksters by the defenders of the essential timeless truth of gold's naturally stored value against the counterfeit paper currencies. The liabilities of the enemy have increased, and the short positions in the COMEX market are sufficiently stacked that the big bank defenders simply cannot allow gold to win decisively. G7 governments are allied against gold to a man, while emerging economic behemoths China and Russia stand in opposition.
Gold to touch $1,000 per ounce soon: UBS Swiss bank UBS says that it is maintaining its one and three-month Gold Price forecasts as the yellow metal continues to find support among investors. The Swiss bank, which is the world's largest manager of private wealth assets, is keeping its one-month prediction at $950 per ounce and its three-month prediction at $1,000 per ounce.
Will Gold Pass $1,000 An Ounce Next Week? With gold closing at $957 and silver $14.70 an ounce last week there was cause for celebration among precious metal investors. Traders are pointing to overbought signals and cautioning that the market could pull back. But a peak price on Friday of $961 left gold just a tantalizing $39 below the $1,000 barrier. Market gurus like Jim Sinclair have noted that these round numbers are always a big issue in markets, and he says gold will make it past and stay past $1,000 on its third attempt - that is where we sit today.
Gerald Celente on Fox & Friends the 2012 Economic Apocalypse
Gold on verge of historic breakout? Is this it for gold? After a good week, gold watchers of all stripes think it may be. Again. After Friday's $956.50 close, Martin Pring - decidedly not a gold bug - set the tone in his Weekly InfoMovie Report: "Gold could be on the verge of a historical breakout. Watch that $990-1,000 area like a hawk." Pring has always laid very heavy emphasis on the predictive power of gold shares.
The Goldsmiths-Part LXXXII Do the Rothschild Cabal players think that we are all idiots--to include Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians and others? The Cabal's work for the last couple of years suggests that indeed they do believe that we all are too stupid to oppose their plans to steal the rest of the wealth of the world and establish world government under their control. In their view, they will successfully continue to steal from us and rip us off as they have been doing for the last 250 years. This Goldsmiths article will expand upon on how they are transferring the last vestiges of wealth in the world to their own big banks and holding companies. Once this process reaches a satisfactory level, they will be ready for WWIII to bring about the Cabal's real hope of ruling the world through its own controlled World Government.
These Commodities Will Have a Great Summer A Perfect Storm for Agriculture That commodity is food. This summer has the potential to be a very big one for agriculture commodities. The price of everything - wheat, corn, barley, sunflower, etc. - are on the verge of going much, much higher. . . . . . . . . Another bumper crop this year is highly unlikely. And it has nothing to do with farmers getting financing, fertilizer shortages, or anything which can be compensated for. The problem is completely out of control of the agriculture industry. The Sunspot Cycle
China Just Can't Quit The Dollar From time to time, China likes to talk about a post-dollar world or how they're concerned about the US' ability to pay it back. But they're not doing too much to put their money where their mouth is. As the FT puts it, China is stuck in a dollar trap, at least for now: In March alone, China's direct holdings of US Treasury securities rose $23.7bn to reach a new record of $768bn, according to preliminary US data, allowing China to retain its title as the biggest creditor of the US government.
Beijing is caught in 'trap' over dollar China's official foreign exchange manager is still buying record amounts of US government bonds, despite Beijing's increasingly vocal fear of a dollar collapse, according to officials and analysts. In recent months, senior Chinese officials, including Premier Wen Jiabao, have repeatedly signalled their concern that US policies could lead to a collapse in the dollar and global inflation. But Chinese and western officials in Beijing say China is caught in a "dollar trap" and has little choice but to keep pouring the bulk of its growing reserves into the US Treasury, which remains the only market big enough and liquid enough to support its huge purchases.
Obama's Economics Brains Trust is Still Getting it Wrong on the US Economy What to start with this week? The destructive Waxman-Markey "Cap-and-Trade" bill, the one guaranteed to savage American living standards? Perhaps the Obama-Axelrod proposal to regulate away the boom-bust-cycle away? Why not Obama's decision to run the car industry and dictate to the banks? See my dilemma? There is so much that is ridiculous about Obamanomics that it really is difficult to know where to start. So I thought I would begin with Alfred Marshall, one of the Greats of British economics. He warned that
Fed Inflates 'Bailout Bubble As the Federal Reserve throws more and more money at the economic crisis and holds interest rates down at historic lows, it could be inflating a devastating ‘bailout bubble,’ Gerald Celente, director of Trends Research Institute, told CNBC. “We’re looking at a bailout bubble that’s way bigger than the dotcom bubble before it and the real-estate bubble that we’re now getting out of, or attempting to,” Celente said. “This is unprecedented; the economic system is being restructured,” he said. The real-estate bubble was born out of the aftermath of the dotcom bubble because the Fed slashed interest rates and made more funds available, according to Celente.
Gerald Celente The bailout bubble is the mother of all Bubbles
China warns Federal Reserve over 'printing money' China has warned a top member of the US Federal Reserve that it is increasingly disturbed by the Fed's direct purchase of US Treasury bonds. Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, said: "Senior officials of the Chinese government grilled me about whether or not we are going to monetise the actions of our legislature." "I must have been asked about that a hundred times in China. I was asked at every single meeting about our purchases of Treasuries. That seemed to be the principal preoccupation of those that were invested with their surpluses mostly in the United States," he told the Wall Street Journal.
FDIC shifts failure cost burden to big banks Agency to collect added fee based on an institution's assets to help replenish insurance fund. Big U.S. banks will have to shoulder a larger portion of a one-time industry fee to replenish the fund used to resolve bank failures, according to a rule approved Friday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The FDIC will charge U.S. insured depository banks a 5 basis point assessment based on each institution's assets, minus its Tier 1 capital. It would be collected in the third quarter.
US issues guidance on gold & diamond US trade association Jewelers of America (JA) has revised its member guidance documents on conflict diamonds and responsible gold. The materials provide the latest information on each issue, encourage store owners to keep up-to-date on how each can impact their business and offer talking points. The conflict diamonds member guidance includes a "Conflict Diamonds Self-Assessment Checklist" to help retailers quickly assess their adherence to the chain of warranties; the association's sample letter to suppliers to help members communicate to suppliers about their obligations to the Kimberley Process; and a sample conflict diamonds policy statement, which they can cut and paste onto their own letterheads and give to consumers, display in-store or post to their websites.
Zombie banks still walk among us Small banks facing severe loan losses and in need of capital continue to operate, indicating a reluctance on behalf of regulators to shut them down. Maybe the so-called "zombie" banks didn't die after all. As recently as two months ago, many on Wall Street speculated that the nation's largest financial institutions -- banks like Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America -- were only operating as a result of extensive aid from the U.S. government. Now, many experts wonder how so many small regional and community lenders that are capital starved and overwhelmed by escalating loan losses are able to stay in business.
DOLLAR IN DISTRE$$ The greenback tumbled to its lowest level of the year on global fears that Uncle Sam is borrowing too much with credit that's already stretched too thin. Investors around the world dumped their hoards of dollars in favor of other currencies and under-priced stocks and corporate bonds, as they moved away from the belief that the dollar remained a haven for investors.
Peter Schiff on stocks, bonds, and the dollar Major change in markets -- bonds and dollar both fall with stocks --flight to quality now means flight from dollar and treasuries. This may well be the start of the next leg of the economic collapse --stay tuned. Also more nonsense from government on GMAC and mandatory paid vacations.
Wishes, Hopes, Fantasies Something like a week remains before General Motors is reduced to lunch meat on industrial-capital's All-You-Can-Eat buffet spread. The wish is that its deconstructed pieces will re-organize into a "lean, mean machine" for producing "cars that Americans want to buy," and that, by extension, the American Dream of a Happy Motoring economy may be extended a while longer.
Romer, Bernanke, and the Flying Donkeys In 1992, Christina Romer published an article titled "What Ended the Great Depression?" in The Journal of Economic History. In her introduction, Roper explains how America recovered from the Great Depression: This paper examines the role of aggregate-demand stimulus in ending the Great Depression. Plausible estimates of the effects of fiscal and monetary changes indicate that nearly all the observed recovery of the U.S. economy prior to 1942 was due to monetary expansion [emphasis mine]. A huge gold inflow in the mid- and late 1930s swelled the money stock and stimulated the economy by lowering real interest rates and encouraging investment spending and purchases of durable goods. That monetary developments were crucial to the recovery implies that self-correction played little role in the growth of real output between 1933 and 1942. Mrs. Romer is now the chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors and was the co-author the administration's economic recovery plan.
America's governance reform must not be ducked The winds of change that brought President Barack Obama into office will soon blow through US boardrooms. Unfortunately, executives are not welcoming this as a breath of fresh air but see it rather as a dangerous intrusion into their affairs. Storm clouds are gathering at the US Business Roundtable, while the US Chamber of Commerce and Republican commissioners on the Securities and Exchange Commission are straining to hold back corporate governance reforms that will tip the balance of power away from managers to owners - the shareholders. The financial crisis exposed many boards as weak and incompetent. If boards failed to exercise effective oversight, why did shareholders not simply replace them? The answer is that US law and practice make it an uphill struggle for shareholders who want to hold boards to account.
It's Decision Time in the USA Last week Standard and Poor's announced that the AAA credit outlook of the United Kingdom was lowered to "negative" from "stable." The action caused many in the US, including Bill Gross, to impugn the United States' AAA credit rating and wonder if the same devaluation should be applicable here. If the reasoning behind S&P's decision to call into question Britain's ability to repay debt is due to their budget deficit this year being 175 billion pounds ($273 billion), or 12.4% of gross domestic product for this year alone, then America's budget deficit ($1.84 trillion and approaching 13% of GDP) should yield the same result. Investors agreed with that reasoning and sent the yield on the 10 year note soaring to 3.43% during Friday's trading session, up over 90 bps from the Fed's March 18th announcement to purchase $300 billion in treasuries.
US bonds sale faces market resistance The US Treasury is facing an ordeal by fire this week as it tries to sell $100bn (£62bn) of bonds to a deeply skeptical market amid growing fears of a sovereign bond crisis in the Anglo-Saxon world. The interest yield on 10-year US Treasuries - the benchmark price of long-term credit for the global system - jumped 33 basis points last week to 3.45pc week on contagion effects after Standard & Poor's issued a warning on Britain's "AAA" credit rating. The yield has risen over 90 basis points since March when the US Federal Reserve first announced its controversial plan to buy Treasury bonds directly, a move designed to force down the borrowing costs and help stabilise the housing market.
Thoughts on Austrian Economics The Austrians, following von Mises, have been too much the gentlemen not realizing that they have been dealing with goons and thugs like John Kenneth Galbraith and John Maynard Keynes. These people were leading the world back toward the system of the Middle Ages. And their first goal was to legalize stealing, meaning to legalize the counterfeiting of money by the commercial bankers. Today this is the policy of both Democrats and Republicans (called "stimulation of the economy"). Once the bankers have become dependent on the wealth they steal from us, they will have to start chipping away at our legal/political freedoms. If you study the way in which the will of the people was overridden by the bank bailout bill of October 2008, you realize that there is an irreconcilable conflict between the people who create the wealth and the counterfeiters who steal it.
Peter Schiff The Schiff Report Video Blog May 22 2009
Obama's ambitious agenda President's own party could cause his undoing Not long after President Obama was sworn into office, he faced a monstrous $1.8 trillion budget deficit that analysts said would force him to sharply curtail his big-spending agenda. But Mr. Obama saw the economic recession he inherited as another Great Depression (which it's not) that demands enactment of a long list of new social programs, the costs of which will drive total federal spending to more than $3.7 trillion in 2010 and add more than $9 trillion to total government debts over the coming decade.
Obama to Government Motors: "Let's Roll" The last remnants of the American free-market system are experiencing a quick death by strangulation. Perhaps the most disturbing casualties of government intervention are General Motors and Chrysler, two disgraced automakers that have gone from private ownership to the public trough virtually overnight. The US government has effectively grabbed a financial stake in each company while attempting to control the reorganization process without any constitutional authority to commence such actions.
G.M. Bankruptcy Would Be History's Most Complex The decline of General Motors may be putting thousands of auto workers and managers out of work, but it will be putting a lot of lawyers to work. How many lawyers will end up working on G.M.'s expected bankruptcy case still is not clear, but in legal circles, the joke is that there may not be enough experienced bankruptcy lawyers available to handle the filing. In part, that is because so many top lawyers are already running up lots of billable hours working on the Chrysler bankruptcy case, while others have been hired by the government, which is financing the way through bankruptcy for Chrysler and, presumably, G.M.
EPA: Cap-and-Trade Bill Could Hurt U.S. Manufacturing, Send Factory Jobs Overseas According to an analysis of climate legislation performed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the cap-and-trade system favored by President Barack Obama and many congressional Democrats could potentially damage the U.S. manufacturing sector and force jobs to move overseas. The policy, under certain scenarios, for example, "can cause domestic production … to shift abroad," reads the EPA analysis, and result in greater greenhouse gas emissions in countries that do not have similar cap-and-trade rules.
Amid Housing Bust, Phoenix Begins a New Frenzy PHOENIX - Every weekday morning, Lou Jarvis drives the sun-baked suburban streets looking for investment gold: a family that will lose its house in a foreclosure auction within a few hours. If the property looks promising, Mr. Jarvis puts in a bid on behalf of any of his dozens of clients eager to become landlords. When he wins, he offers to let the family stay in the house and rent for much less than their mortgage payment. With this sweltering desert city enduring one of the largest tumbles in housing prices for any urban area since the Depression, there is an unrelenting stream of foreclosures to choose from. On some days, hundreds are offered for sale at the auctions that take place on the plaza in front of the county courthouse.
Phoenix Fixing Its Own Housing Market As Foreclosure Sales Go Crazy In Phoenix, the real-estate market is fixing itself with no help from the government. How? Houses owned by folks who can't afford to own them are being sold at auction. In some cases, happily, the buyers are then turning around and renting the houses to their previous owners with at rents that are much lower than the previous mortgage payments. This is the free-market at work. And it's better than any solution that has so far been floated by the government.
Why Are Long-Term Rates Going Up? Because Lenders Think We're Screwed? The whole world is deflating, but long-term interest rates are moving up. (See the chart for the 10-yr Treasury at right). Why? Tim Geithner thinks it's because traders are recognizing that the economy's beginning to recover. That's one happy theory. And it's possible (fingers crossed). But here are two less-happy theories:
First, long-term rates are going up because traders are getting nervous about future inflation
Second, long-term rates are going up because traders are realizing that the world's big economies will need to issue trillions of dollars of new debt to pay for all their deficit spending...and there's just not enough dumb money in the world.
Democrats Are Fast-Tracking Nearly 1,000-Page 'Cap-and-Trade' Bill That Would Increase Electricity Bills Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee put their cap and trade global warming bill--that would increase U.S. energy prices, including electricity bills--on the fast track Monday. Republicans, meanwhile, are complaining that the expedited process is designed to avoid well-informed public debate about what the bill will do and its consequences for American consumers.
Saudia Arabia: $200 Oil In 2 Years Saudi Arabia warned oil prices could spike to beyond the near $150 record high of 2008 within two to three years, as energy leaders on Monday decried a blow to investment in expanding capacity due to the financial crisis. Energy ministers and officials at the Group of Eight energy summit in Rome are meeting as oil prices hover at a six-month high of over $60 a barrel, but below the $75 a barrel level producers say is needed to spur investment in new production.
Recession hurts pension, benefit plans worldwide The global economy's troubles are unraveling public and private social-security networks worldwide, and programs in wealthy nations are the most threatened, international experts say. Potentially crippling financial losses will require mending the social-security nets that cover millions of people with a combination of pensions, disability, family benefits, injury and compensation, unemployment and sickness insurance.
Spam sales soar as buyers seek value Spam luncheon meat and canned chilli have joined Kraft macaroni and cheese, Jell-O desserts and Kool-Aid powdered drinks as the recessionary foods of choice as the global downturn grips US households. Hormel, the meat products company that launched Spam in 1937, said on Thursday it had seen double-digit increases in sales of the canned meat during the quarter ending on April 26, continuing a trend that started late last year.
Unemployment 20% higher in Democrat strongholds Latest jobless figures in states Obama won bode ill for administration Unemployment in April remained 20 percent higher in states won by Democratic candidate Barack Obama in last fall's presidential election than in states won by Republican candidate John McCain, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics released yesterday. Nationwide, the unemployment rate went from 8.5 percent in March to 8.9 percent in April.
Job Losses Push Safer Mortgages to Foreclosure As job losses rise, growing numbers of American homeowners with once solid credit are falling behind on their mortgages, amplifying a wave of foreclosures. In the latest phase of the nation's real estate disaster, the locus of trouble has shifted from subprime loans - those extended to home buyers with troubled credit - to the far more numerous prime loans issued to those with decent financial histories. With many economists anticipating that the unemployment rate will rise into the double digits from its current 8.9 percent, foreclosures are expected to accelerate. That could exacerbate bank losses, adding pressure to the financial system and the broader economy.
Early retirement claims increase dramatically Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers. Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, claims have been running 25% ahead of last year, compared with the 15% increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration.
Realtors are abandoning a listing ship The housing crunch and Internet are shrinking the ranks of agents. Marco Huerta and Youngmin Bae bought their Burbank home without ever meeting their real estate agent. Instead, they scoured listings for their favorite neighborhoods, haggled over prices and even wrote their offer using Marco's cellphone. There was no housewarming plant on the porch when they moved in, but the couple aren't complaining: They received a $10,000 check as a "rebate" from their agent's 3% commission.
Californians revolt, slash governor's pay Schwarzenegger to cut 5,000 state jobs, deport illegals from prisons California voters have rejected five budget measures in a special election, forcing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to face a $21 billion deficit, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports. Just to drive the point home, the day after state voters rejected Schwarzenegger's spending ballot measures, the California Citizens Compensation Commission voted to slash pay for the governor, legislators and statewide officeholders by 18 percent.
State of Paralysis California, it has long been claimed, is where the future happens first. But is that still true? If it is, God help America. The recession has hit the Golden State hard. The housing bubble was bigger there than almost anywhere else, and the bust has been bigger too. California's unemployment rate, at 11 percent, is the fifth-highest in the nation. And the state's revenues have suffered accordingly. What's really alarming about California, however, is the political system's inability to rise to the occasion.
Secret billionaire club seeks population control Gates, Rockefeller, Turner, Oprah, Buffett, Soros, Bloomberg attend meeting Some of the richest men and women in the world met secretly recently in New York to conspire on using their vast wealth to bring the world's population growth under control. The meeting included some of the biggest names in the "billionaires club," according to the London Times - Bill Gates, David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett, George Soros and Michael Bloomberg. The meeting at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and president of Rockefeller University, was the inspiration of Gates and took place three weeks ago.
Crisis spurs spike in 'suburban survivalists' Six months ago, Jim Wiseman didn't even have a spare nutrition bar in his kitchen cabinet. Now, the 54-year-old businessman and father of five has a backup generator, a water filter, a grain mill and a 4-foot-tall pile of emergency food tucked in his home in the expensive San Diego suburb of La Jolla. Wiseman isn't alone. Emergency supply retailers and military surplus stores nationwide have seen business boom in the past few months as an increasing number of Americans spooked by the economy rush to stock up on gear that was once the domain of hardcore survivalists.
Home: No place for Bible study County demands pastor spend thousands on 'Major Use' permit to host friends A San Diego pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a county official and warned they will face escalating fines if they continue to hold Bible studies in their home. The couple, whose names are being withheld until a demand letter can be filed on their behalf, told their attorney a county government employee knocked on their door on Good Friday, asking a litany of questions about their Tuesday night Bible studies, which are attended by approximately 15 people. "Do you have a regular weekly meeting in your home? Do you sing? Do you say 'amen'?" the official reportedly asked. "Do you say, 'Praise the Lord'?" The pastor's wife answered yes. She says she was then told, however, that she must stop holding "religious assemblies" until she and her husband obtain a Major Use Permit from the county, a permit that often involves traffic and environmental studies, compliance with parking and sidewalk regulations and costs that top tens of thousands of dollars.
Climate change summit hijacked by biggest polluters, critics claim A vital meeting in Copenhagen this weekend that will help shape the agenda for the most important climate change talks since the Kyoto protocol has been hijacked by some of the biggest polluters in the world, critics claimed today. Among those attending the World ?Business Summit on Climate Change is Shell, which has just been named by environmentalists on the basis of new research as "the most carbon-intensive oil company in the world". There is concern that the big energy companies will be pushing carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a way of keeping the oil-based economy running. At the meeting yesterday, the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, and Nobel prize winner Al Gore urged more than 500 business leaders - including the chief executives of PepsiCo, Nestlé and BP - to lend their corporate muscle to reaching a global deal on reducing greenhouse gases.
Obama climate change bill defies Republicans to pass key committee Bill weakened on its way to full House of Representatives, but still regarded as tough on fossil fuel emissions New laws to impose the first limits on US greenhouse gas emissions took a significant step forwards late on Thursday, clearing a key House of Representatives committee in the face of strong Republican opposition. The Energy and Commerce Committee approved the sweeping climate change bill 33-25 after repeatedly turning back Republican attempts to kill or weaken the measures during four days of debate. After the vote on the legislation, President Barack Obama said: "We are now one step closer to delivering on the promise of a new clean energy economy that will make America less dependent on foreign oil, crack down on polluters, and create millions of new jobs all across America."
China and US held secret talks on climate change deal A high-powered group of senior Republicans and Democrats led two missions to China in the final months of the Bush administration for secret backchannel negotiations aimed at securing a deal on joint US-Chinese action on climate change, the Guardian has learned. The initiative, involving John Holdren, now the White House science adviser, and others who went on to positions in Barack Obama's administration, produced a draft agreement in March, barely two months after the Democrat assumed the presidency. The memorandum of understanding was not signed, but those involved in opening up the channel of communications believe it could provide the foundation for a US-Chinese accord to battle climate change, which could be reached as early as this autumn.
US troop surge in Afghanistan 'could push Taliban into Pakistan' Joint chiefs of staff chairman concedes risk but tells US Senate that troop increase is the right move The buildup of US troops in Afghanistan could force more Taliban fighters into neighbouring Pakistan, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff conceded last night. Admiral Mike Mullen told the US Senate's foreign relations committee: "We can't deny that our success may only push them [the Taliban] deeper into Pakistan." Mullen said military planning was under way to overcome that risk. He said the increase of 21,000 US forces in Afghanistan was "about right" for the new strategy of trying to quell the insurgency and speed up training of Afghan security forces. "Can I [be] 100% certain that won't destabilise Pakistan? I don't know the answer to that," Mullen told the committee.
Britain looks to the land of the rising sun with envy Loss of "AAA" status is not in itself a death sentence. A string of rich countries have been ejected from the club over the past decade without calamitous results, and most have clawed their way back in after a few years of penance. It is less clear whether Britain can hope to muddle through so easily if Standard & Poor's pulls the trigger, given its reliance on foreigners to fund its debt and deficits. Norway lost its AAA in 1987, Finland in 1990, Sweden in 1991, Canada in 1994 and this year Spain and Ireland, both acutely vulnerable since, as eurozone states, they cannot devalue their way out of trouble or print money. The risk does not go away in a currency union: it shifts from debasement to default.
OIC Role Reportedly Proposed as Battle for Jerusalem Heats Up As Israelis marked “Jerusalem Day” Thursday, local media reported that the Palestinian Authority was considering favorably a proposal for control of the Temple Mount – the most bitterly contested piece of land in the Mideast conflict – to be handed to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) as part of a future peace deal. The Ha’aretz daily cited Palestinian sources as saying the P.A. would accept a proposal that would divide sovereignty of Jerusalem’s Old City between Israel and the government of a future Palestinian state, with the OIC managing the Temple Mount.
Ahmadinejad Calls Predecessor’s Agreement to Freeze Nuclear Activity Disgraceful Iran's hard-line president criticized as "disgraceful" a 2003 deal his predecessor reached with Europe to freeze the country's nuclear program, saying his own decision to stand up to the West restored Iran's dignity. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been touting Iran's nuclear achievements ahead of the June presidential election, hoping to offset criticism from his opponents that he has spent too much time slamming the West and not enough focused on the country's faltering economy.
Legal jihad in Europe Extremists gain ground daily No doubt about it - in Europe, Islamic lawfare gains ground day after day. The following sentence patently explains the reason why it is proper to call this lawfare "Islamic" and why we have to be very careful with it. "The term we translate [as] 'oppressed people' refers to those who could not listen to a correct exposition of the Islamic doctrine and, since they are ignorant, they easily came to believe to the oppressors' lies against Islam. Oppressors are orientalists, authorities of religions other than Islam, journalists and all those people who contribute to the campaign of misinformation about Islam and Muslims. All those people will receive bitter punishment."
Obama admin sees Jerusalem divided 'He told us city will never be united under Israeli sovereignty' The Obama administration told the Palestinian Authority that Jerusalem will never be united under Israeli sovereignty, a top Palestinian Authority official told WND today. "Americans said an open Jerusalem - yes. But a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty - no," Hatem Abdel Khader, the PA's minister for Jerusalem affairs, said in comments to both WND and Israel's Ynetnews website. "(The Obama administration) has made clear that Jerusalem must be accessible to everyone - but not united under Israel's rule," Khader said. Khader claimed the U.S. is cooperating with the PA to "thwart Israel's plans in Jerusalem."
International community condemns North Korea nuclear test As the international community condemned North Korea's nuclear test and missile launch today, analysts said the tests signaled Pyongyang's growing disillusionment over the U.S. refusal to conduct bilateral talks. North Korea's ailing leader Kim Jong Il, determined to seek more drastic measures to bring the Obama Administration to the bargaining table, could even carry out more nuclear tests as a way to bully the U.S. and its allies, experts said today.
Obama issues statement of "grave concern" over North Korea The White House issued a statement today on behalf of President Obama regarding the urgent situation in North Korea. The president calls the situation on the Korean Peninsula a matter of "grave concern." The statement calls North Korea's announced nuclear test and suspected missile test "blatant defiance" of the U.N. Security Council that "directly and recklessly" challenges the international community, increasing regional tensions and deepening North Korea's isolation.
Obama: NKorea 'recklessly challenging' the world President Barack Obama assailed North Korea Monday for new missile tests, saying the world must "stand up to" Pyongyang and demand that it honor a promise to abandon it nuclear ambitions. Appearing on the White House steps, Obama said that its latest nuclear underground test and subsequent test firings of short-range ground to air missiles "pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action."
North Korea tests nuclear weapon 'as powerful as Hiroshima bomb' Country risks further international isolation as underground nuclear explosion triggers earthquake North Korea today risked further international isolation after it claimed to have successfully tested a nuclear weapon as powerful as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The test comes less than two months after the North enraged the US and its allies by test firing a long-range ballistic missile. The KNCA news agency, the regime's official mouthpiece, said: "We have successfully conducted another nuclear test on 25 May as part of the republic's measures to strengthen its nuclear deterrent."
Timing of Test Hints at Succession Issues SEOUL, South Korea - When North Korea suddenly announced Monday that it had conducted a second nuclear test, the initial view across the region was that this was yet another defiant gambit by Pyongyang to extract more concessions from Washington. That has been the oft-repeated pattern in the past, and is likely one motivation now as well, say North Korea watchers. But this time around, North Korea's primary audience may not be the United States but its own population, many experts believe.
Iran's Ahmadinejad rules out nuclear talks Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that the Islamic republic will not hold nuclear talks with the group of world powers known as 5-plus-1. "The nuclear issue is over for us. The talks outside the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) will only be about participation in the management of the world and bringing peace to the world," he told journalists from international news organisations.
Iran sends six warships to international waters Iran has sent six warships to international waters, including the Gulf of Aden, to show its ability to confront any foreign threats, its naval commander said on Monday. Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, quoted by the ISNA news agency, made the announcement five days after Iran said it test-fired a surface-to-surface missile with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles). Iran said on May 14 it had sent two warships to the Gulf of Aden to protect oil tankers from the world's fifth-largest crude exporter against attacks by pirates but ISNA did not make clear whether they were among the six Sayyari talked about. Iranian waters stretch along the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman. Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 40 percent of the world's traded oil is shipped, if it were attacked over its nuclear programme.
Max Keiser on the new on The Edge 1/2
Max Keiser Interviews Marc Faber 2/2 U.S. is on its way to a banana republic; in long run it will be an inflationary environment
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