How can Africa prevent the plunder of its lands by Western powers?

The history of the last 500 years on the African continent is a history of the plunder of its resources and the violent exploitation of its peoples by foreign powers who accumulated wealth at the cost of the suffering of millions of Africans and the destruction of their resources. The riches discovered by the first European navigators to reach the coasts of Africa spurred the various European powers of the day to invade the continent and subjugate its peoples through armed force, eventually perpetrating the ultimate theft of claiming the right of ownership over these lands, and even over the people living there, who were traded as slaves. The modern-day borders of most of the countries of Africa are the result of struggles between those European powers and have nothing to do with the territories of the native cultures that originally populated the continent, which were torn apart and lumped together according to the interests and possibilities of the colonial powers. The colonies of the German invaders were themselves swallowed up by the powers that defeated them in the two great wars unleashed to divvy up control of the world. Among the many ways the invaders found to appropriate the continent's resources, one of the most typical was the establishment of large plantations of sugar cane, cacao, peanuts, tobacco, oil palm and rubber trees initially based on slave labor and later on semi-slavery. In this edition of the show we ask; how can Africa prevent the plunder of its lands by Western powers?

Max Keiser on Europe's Brave New Debt

Alarms over the Euro's future are sounding in the heart of Europe. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned the single currency could collapse unless governments are more economically integrated. Eurocrats are currently pitted against Germany, as Chancellor Angela Merkel has once again rejected the idea of collective borrowing for the region. Source

Profile Muslims, Bring on the Drones? Ron Paul - civil liberty's last hope

Profile Muslims. Bring on the drones. Did we learn anything else from last night’s GOP debate on CNN? Well, once again, it appears as if Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul is the only candidate that wants to protect the liberties of Americans.

Speaking from DAR Constitution Hall in Washington DC Tuesday night, Paul and his peers discussed the topics of national security and foreign policy. While it’s been no secret that some of the more hawkish candidates are crazy for increasing defense spending and upping the American military presence overseas, Texas Congressman Ron Paul once again managed to separate himself from the rest of the pack by coming off as perhaps the only candidate truly committed to keeping liberty and freedom in place for Americans.

Right from the get-go, Paul used the allotted time to introduce himself to the audience by saying that the issues on hand last night were of great importance to the country. According to the congressman, America’s wars — which he deemed “needless” and “unnecessary” — not just add to the deficit of the country but also undermine the prosperity and liberty of America.

Perhaps most detrimental to those ways of American life, however, is the Patriot Act. While Newt Gingrich rallied to extend the legislation longer and Rick Perry and Herman Cain also offered their support for the controversial bill, Paul put himself apart from his fellow candidates by condemning the act.

“I think the Patriot Act is unpatriotic because it undermines our liberty,” Paul said. “I'm concerned, as everybody is, about the terrorist attack . . . Terrorism is still on the books, internationally and nationally, it's a crime and we should deal with it.” Paul added, however, that the framers of the Constitution warned the country not to “sacrifice liberty for security,” yet “Today it seems too easy that our government and our congresses are so willing to give up our liberties for our security.”

“I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights,” added Paul, to which the candidate was met with a round of applause.

According to former House speaker Newt Gingrich, however, there can be a happy medium where Americans only lose some of those liberties.

“We'll try to find that balancing act between our individual liberties and security,” said Gingrich.

While Paul went on to say that that establishing such a tyrannical regime over the American people could be an efficient way of curbing crime, it would also be a great way to end freedom.

“You can prevent crimes by becoming a police state,” Paul said. “So if you advocate the police state, yes, you can have safety and security and you might prevent a crime, but the crime then will be against the American people and against our freedoms.”

According to other candidates, however, those sacrifices are necessary for the protection against terrorism, something they made out to be a constant threat. “The terrorists have one objective that some people don't seem to get. They want to kill all of us,” said Herman Cain. To handle that threat, Cain proposed that “we should use every mean possible to kill them first or identify them first.”

Cain neglected to specify what he did actually want to do first — kill suspected terrorists or identify them — but others made it clear that in-depth analyses of alleged terrorists wasn’t really necessary for the safety and security of American citizens. Instead, rather, the government should just go after Muslims.

When quizzed by moderator Wolf Blitzer on how to deal with ethnic profiling, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said that such a practice was crucial in the War on Terror, and that the government should not just continue to profile people, but specifically go after Muslims.

“The folks that are most likely to be committing these crimes,” Santorum suggested should be the target of profiling.“Obviously Muslims would be someone you’d look at, absolutely.”

Similarly, Cain proposed what he called “targeted identification.” While he would not come out and say that Muslims specifically need to be profiled (although he has attacked them in the press repeatedly), he did declare that “If you take a look at the people who have tried to kill us, it would be easier to figure out exactly what that identification profile looked like.”

To Paul, however, none of these tactics for a war on terror seem like an appropriate response.

“That's digging a hole for ourselves,” said Paul. “What if they look like Timothy McVeigh? You know, he was a pretty tough criminal.”

“I think we're using too much carelessness in the use of words that we're at war. I don't remember voting on — on a declared — declaration of war. Oh, we're against terrorism. And terrorism is a tactic. It isn't a person. It isn't a people. So this is a very careless use of words. What about this? Sacrifice liberties because there are terrorists? You're the judge and the jury? No, they're suspects.”

Paul added that the executive powers established through the Patriot Act and other War on Terror legislation has made American citizens “vulnerable to assassination,” hinting at the reason execution of two US men with alleged al-Qaeda ties that were killed by drone strikes overseas.

The War on Terror isn’t the only unnecessary according to Paul, either. Responding to Texas Governor Rick Perry’s support of the War on Drugs, Paul said, “That’s another war we ought to cancel . . . And that’s where the violence is coming from.”

“I think the federal war on drugs is a total failure.”

“So the drug war is out of control,” added Paul. “I fear the drug war because it undermines our civil liberties. It magnifies our problems on the borders. We spend — like, over the last 40 years, $1 trillion on this war. And believe me, the kids can still get the drugs. It just hasn't worked.” Source

Court finds Bush and Blair guilty of war crimes

Those who lobbied to have George W. Bush and Tony Blair tried for their role in the Iraq War have finally got their wish. Though the verdict of the court carries no legal weight, its supporters believe its symbolic value is beyond doubt.

The court in Malaysia where the trial took place may not have the power to convict, but the verdict against the former British and American leaders was unanimous.  

“War criminals have to be dealt with – convict Bush and Blair as charged. A guilty verdict will serve as a notice to the world that war criminals may run but can never ultimately hide from truth and justice,” the statement from the Perdana Global Peace Foundation read.

The foundation was set up by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, who was always a staunch opponent of the war against the regime of Saddam Hussain in 2003. He previously branded Blair and Bush “child-killers”.

The tribunal, which consisted of a former federal judge and several academics, paid particular attention to the failure of the Western military to find a single weapon of mass destruction in Iraq. WMDs were cited by the Western coalition as a major reason for their military intervention. It also declared the war to be in contravention of the will of the United Nations.

“The evidence showed that the drums of war were being beaten long before the invasion. The accused in their own memoirs have admitted their intention to invade Iraq regardless of international law,” said the tribunal.

The tribunal has no powers of enforcement, and as yet there has been no response from Bush or Blair. But the Perdana Peace Foundation says it hopes to maintain pressure from the international community on the two leaders, both of whom have now retired from domestic politics. Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defence during the Iraq War, is next on the list to have his case heard by the mock court. Source

Sarkozy: Europe's "Liquidity Run" Has Begun Because There Is An Unsolvable $30 Trillion Problem

No, not that Sarkozy. His half-brother - the one who actually can use a calculator. In an interview on CNBC, the Carlyle group head had the temerity to tell the truth, the whole truth, and use math - that long-forgotten concept which one has to scour various backwater blogs to rediscover - to explain nothing but the truth which is that Europe needs many more trillions than either the EFSF or the ECB can afford to give. Actually, we take that back. The ECB can inject the needed €3-5 trillion, but after that concerns about localized episodes of (hyper)inflation, especially now that Kocherlakota has confirmed that the transmission mechanism between bank reserves and inflation may be broken, will be all too justified. In the meantime, Sarkozy on Europe math fail: "The math i'm working with is very simple. In the US banking sector, we had 3 trillion of wholesale funding that needed to be stabilized, got stabilized by the implementation of TARP which saw the US treasury buy $212 billion worth of preferred in the banking sector to stabilize that $3 trillion, give our banks the time to work through hair problem their problem assets. In Europe, that $3 trillion is $30 trillion. so if you multiply the $212 by 10, you get the $2.12 trillion. In my view, the issues on the European banks are bigger than the issues on the books of the US Banks. So if you want to stabilize that $30 trillion and in my view it's not that you want to, it's that you have to, you do not have a choice, you're going to have to be at least at 2.1 trillion and i suspect it may need to be more." Q.E.D. - there, the math wasn't that difficult, was it? Source

Russia will target US missile defense sites if no deal - Medvedev

Responding to Washington’s failure to bring Russia on board the European missile defense system, President Dmitry Medvedev announces sweeping plans to address what Moscow is calling a threat to national security. Medvedev said he will deploy strike systems in the west and south of the country and deploy Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region in order to counter the risk posed by the European missile defense system.

“By my order the Defense Ministry will run in a warning system radar station in Kaliningrad without delay,” the Russian President said, commenting from his resident of Gorki on the outskirts of Moscow Russia may also refuse to undertake additional steps toward disarmament in the event that its national security remains at risk.

“In the event of unfavorable developments (in regards to European missile defense), Russia reserves the right to halt further steps in the disarmament sphere and, respectively, weapons control,” Medvedev said. “Besides, given the inseparable interconnection between the strategic offensive and defensive weapons, grounds may appear for our country’s withdrawal from the START treaty.”

New START, which limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, was signed on April 8, 2010 in Prague and went into force on February 5, 2011.

Meanwhile, Medvedev stressed that Russia remains open to dialogue with the US and NATO regarding missile defense issues, but the cooperation must have clear legal parameters.

"We are not closing the door to further dialogue on missile defense with the US and the North Atlantic alliance, nor to practical cooperation in this area. We are ready for further dialogue," the Russian leader stressed. "The path towards such work depends upon the creation of a clear legal basis for our cooperation that will reflect our legitimate interests."

There is still time to come to mutual understanding, the Russian leader said.

Medvedev reiterated his belief that the formation of a “joint and sectored missile defense system,” which he proposed at the Russia-NATO Council summit in Lisbon, would open up the prospects for a “real strategic partnership between Russia and NATO.”

"Europe doesn't need new demarcation lines,” Medvedev said. “It needs a single perimeter of security with equal legal participation from the Russian side."

Medvedev said that US and NATO reluctance to cooperate is unfortunate because “even now such an approach is opening unique opportunities for Russia and NATO's advancement towards a truly strategic partnership."

President Medvedev also mentioned that in 2009 when US President Barack Obama decided to “scrap” the missile defense plans laid out by his predecessor, George W. Bush, Russia’s reaction was quite positive.He said the apparent change allowed the two states to sign the New START treaty. Later, however, the United States started to implement the so-called stage-by-stage missile defense plan, while denying Russia’s participation in the project. Naturally, this concerns Russia, Medvedev said.

“Arab Springs” Not As Spontaneous As Mainstream Media Would Have Us Believe

“Arab Springs” are not as spontaneous as the Western mainstream media would have us believe. Their behind-the-scenes instigators always get “a little help from their Global Power Elite mega-planning friends...”

Isn’t it rather odd that after long decades of slumber, starting in early 2011 millions upon millions of Arabs throughout North Africa and the Middle East suddenly woke up, took to the streets, violently clashed with police and security forces, overthrew their governments and in one instance – Libya – managed to deliver their country to a perverse alliance of foreign terrorists, local thugs, CIA operatives and NATO bombers, eventually murdering their own exceptional leader, Muammar Gaddafi, live on global TV?

Question: just how spontaneous are these major social convulsions that lead to revolution, chaos, battles on streets and squares, thousands dead and injured, and the violent overthrow of entire governments?  To a certain degree they are, no doubt, spontaneous: people are growing weary of their national governments’ growing inability to resolve vital collective problems.  

In fact, a survey of public opinion in any country in the world will show that, on average, half the population rejects their on-going governments, and even their entire political classes.  The more lucid and aware see them all as mere puppets subordinated to Money Power elites in one form or another: whether banking cartels, oil and mining companies, media moguls, domestic and foreign lobbies, or a wide array of war-mongers.  

Because it’s not just the streets of Cairo, Tripoli, Damascus or Benghazi that are in turmoil, but also the streets of New York, London, Oakland, Madrid, Athens and Rome. Uncannily, the standard image of social violence is the same everywhere: disgruntled, exasperated, impoverished protesters clashing with police and security forces: sad scenes of the poor fighting the poor… whilst one can imagine mega-bankers looking down from their 50th floor boardrooms, sipping their whisky and laughing at the scene down there…

What is different, then, about today’s optimistic sounding “Arab Spring”?  Basically, that ready-to-happen civil commotions and popular uprisings are purposely and maliciously being triggered by well-trained, well-financed, well-supported foreign and domestic agitators and agents, who have vested interests in destabilizing countries in that region to promote their own agendas, totally unrelated to the National Interest of the locals. They have a very different axe to grind, aligned to the interests of specific foreign powers – notably the US, UK, Israel, France, EU countries and their regional pawns in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait – where the Global Power Elite is embedded.

In fact, this is a whole new form of waging war based on PsyWar (psychological warfare), where the mainstream global media become veritable weapons of mass mental destruction of people’s ability to see and understand what is really being done to them. As with all wars, its objective is conquest and control of entire countries and regions.

Modern war is waged by powerful nations on five different overlapping, holistic levels of aggression against weaker, appetizing countries, ranging from stark naked aggression to subtle subversion:

1. Military Invasion – Allows direct control by fully overthrowing and overpowering the target nation. It has one major drawback: it looks really bad on the evening news.  Today, this applies to Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine; Libya is a moving target…

2. Military Coup – Identifies and supports domestic military/civilian allies and traitors willing to support a foreign power against their own people.  Latin America saw US-backed coups in the 60’s and 70’s in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina…  Now we seem to be seeing this in Egypt. 

3. Financial Coup – Banking cartels corner any government they please to do “the Global Power Elite’s bidding or else..!”  Examples: Argentina’s 2001/2 collapse, preceded by Mexico (1997), Russia (1998), Brazil (1999).  Today: Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Iceland…  Instead of tanks, they use the IMF, World Bank, US Treasury, ECB…

4. Political Coup – Flexibly uses combinations of “crises” to impose unelected governments such as Trilateralists Mario Monti in Italy, and Lucas Papademos in Greece… 

5. Social Coup – Today’s PsyWar. First you map out internal social grievances and woes, strife and ancestral hatreds, then you pin the fault on a suitable scapegoat/patsy, then you support and arm domestic and foreign agitators and “freedom fighters”, ensuring that the Western Media clearly tell the world who are the “good guys” and who the “bad guys”.  Today, the “Arab Spring”.  Tomorrow, maybe we’ll see “Latin American Springs” or “South East Asian Springs…” or “Former Soviet Republics Springs…” 

Many countries today fit one of these categories and/or a combination of several of them, escalating to/descending from one to another.  Egypt began as a “Category 5” and escalated to a “Category 2”.  Libya also began as a “Category 5” and was bombed into a veritable “Category 1”.  

Macro-management by the Global Power Elite is governed by their specific goals and interests in each country, because they still need a strong US, a nuclear Israel and a stable Germany, but they definitely do not want a strong Russia and China, a nuclear Iran and a stable Latin America…
Like Hurricane Watches in the Caribbean, maybe we should start mapping out Political Regime Change Watches on a regional, even global, basis.  It would certainly help in tracking the dark clouds of war, death and destruction that are gathering. 

Adrian Salbuchi for RT Source

Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV commentator in Argentina. www.asalbuchi.com.ar

BBC's Greg Palast: The Global Corporate Dictatorship

Alex talks with New York Times-bestselling author and a freelance journalist for the BBC, Greg Palast. Greg talks about the MF Global heist and the money filched from segregated client accounts, now totaling more than $1.2 billion. Palast is the author of Vultures' Picnic and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. He has also appeared in a number of films, including American Blackout and Bush Family Fortunes. Source 

Tax-exempt Elite in Britain - A Simple Question

Of the 100 leading companies listed on the Britain's stock exchange, 98 avoid paying taxes by using offshore tax havens. 

Is that fair? Or is it one set of rules for the corporate elite and another for the rest of us? Source

The Story of Gold since 2001 Part I: The Tail Wags the Dog

Source

Cairo Carnage - News Analysis

The evolution of the revolution continues in Egypt. Fresh clashes have erupted in Cairo's iconic Liberation Square for the fourth straight day as Egyptians are being urged to take part in another million-man march. 

Egyptian protesters are still camped out in the square for the fourth consecutive day despite the ruling junta's deadly crackdown on fresh peaceful protest rallies in the capital and other cities.

This episode of News Analysis discusses the Egyptian cause. Source


Additional: Egypt's Secret Police Renames Itself "Homeland Security" - Alex Jones & Paul Watson Report 

Notorious human rights abusers draw inspiration from US authorities.

Here You Go: It's Over, Not Even Your Bank Account Is Safe.

We're done folks.
CNBC is reporting that there are now clients running out of the markets entirely because they do not believe their customer funds are safe.
That's the end of it.  The belief that there are more MF Globals has now taken hold.  The thieves have pushed it too far and now we've got the start of a global liquidity run, and with good reason.
The authorities both in the regulatory side and on the prosecutorial side have refused to put a stop to the thievery and now the risk factors have turned into realized risk.
The market is done folks.  You can be right but if you make your bet in the markets, are right, and then get screwed anyway when someone steals the money and nobody goes to jail there comes a time when people begin to understand that it can happen to them and will unless they depart the market.
We're there folks.
Oh sure, there will be rallies and there will be selloffs.  But there is no longer a market, there is no longer a thing to trade, and there is no longer a reason to believe that superior analysis will lead to profit or even safety.
This isn't just about speculators - it is also about farmers, shippers, airlines, manufacturing concerns, everyone in business who has a need to hedge.
More than four years ago I said that the government had to step in and demand that both off-balance sheet games be ended permanently and in all forms and that all derivatives had to be put on an exchange, without exception, and that every dollar of underwater position had to be backed by an actual dollar of capital in real money, held and known to be safe.
The regulators refused and now it appears that what was put up on a regulated exchange was effectively stolen.
Well folks, then none of your investment accounts -- not your IRA, 401k, not even your bank account -- is safe.
Diversification is a strategy but the risk remains.  It is up to you to decide how much you're willing to risk losing to a crook.  If the answer is "none" or you cannot reduce the at-risk portion of your assets to what you're willing to lose to fraud then you can no longer participate in the market at all, in any form, nor even do business with a bank.
That sucks, but it is what it is and if this meme spreads -- and it will until it's stopped -- we run the risk of a "sudden stop" economic event.
I hope you're ready for it -- I am to the best of my ability, and you ought to be. Source

Knesset member: Israel, racist regime

Israeli Knesset member Haneen Zoabi has described Israel as "a racist system with laws discriminating against Palestinians," Press TV reports.

Zoabi, who represents the Balad party in the Knesset (parliament), said in an exclusive interview with Press TV on Tuesday that there are "43 laws which legally discriminate against the Palestinians." Source