Category Archives: International

International, U.S.

World War 3: Japan to send troops to South Sudan

Japanese Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa announced that he will send about 200 troops to the new country of South Sudan in 2012. They will take part in UN peacekeeping operations.

Interestingly Ichikawa said the international community has been asking Japan to take on more UN peacekeeping roles, however I’ve not noticed any mention of that in all the international media sources I keep track of.  It’s probably more that the United States, in spreading its own military so thin, is putting pressure on Japan to take on more international military roles (also, payback for all the free U.S. aid in dealing with Japan’s on going nuclear disaster).

Japan’s current constitution does not allow their troops to carry weapons in other countries, but the new right wing government is trying to change that.

Most of the 200 Japanese troops slated to go to South Sudan are engineers.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Occupy the World: Elites being told to hoard more Money, as Greek government tries to please its citizens after key politician defects and joins the protestors, bailout loans part of plan to take over governments

“This may be the time not to expand production capacity. It might be better to just hoard the cash.”-John Lonski, Moody’s Capital Markets Group

This statement came after the Greek Prime Minister announced that he will let the Greek people decide if their country will accept the latest bailout offer.  It seems likely they will vote against the bailout.

That move came after a member of the ruling party resigned, effectivly joining the protestors.  This leaves the ruling party with a slim two seat majority in parliament.

The Greek Finance Minister also expressed doubts about what is going on: “I can no longer look at polls where the majority is against the agreement, the majority is against the program, but a majority is also in favor of staying in the euro.”-Evangelos Venizelos, Greek Finance Minister

The move to put the Greek bailout to a vote of the Greek people is causing stock markets to crash around the world.  This is proof that the banking/finance industry WANTS to force Greece (and other countries) to take on bigger debt in the name of being ‘bailed out’:  It actually makes governments more beholden to the private sector (Corporate America).

Now Germany and France have called a meeting between EU members and the IMF.  Reports say that what’s being discussed now is a way to kick Greece out of the European Union: “The situation is so tight that basically it would be a vote over their euro membership.”-Alexander Stubb, Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade of Finland

The banking/finance industry claims that if the Greek people refuse the latest bailout loan, then Greece will default, starting a domino affect across Europe and North America.  That might be true, but they might also escape the control of Corporate America.

 

 

International, U.S.

World War 3: UN recognizes Palestine. U.S. & Israel retaliate by cutting funding for UN

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) granted Palestine full UN membership on October 31!

The United States quickly retaliated against the UN by refusing to pay the U.S. share of funding for UNESCO.  Israel also ended its funding of UNESCO.

Palestine is now the 195th member of the U.S. created organization known as the United Nations.  Ironically, the UN has become something the U.S. doesn’t want to belong to, anymore (I guess the U.S. doesn’t want to play by the very rules it helped to create!).

The total amount of funding that UNESCO will lose, from the U.S. and Israel, is about one quarter its yearly budget.

The move by the U.S. is not a knee jerk reaction.  The pro-Israeli U.S. Congress created laws back in 1990s that stated if Palestine ever became a member of the UN, then the U.S. would end its funding.  Today, both Republicans and Democrats, in the U.S. Congress, denounced the UNESCO decision.

Who abstained from the UNESCO vote?  United Kingdom (Britain), Poland, Portugal, Denmark, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Ukraine, Switzerland, Romania and Latvia.

Who voted against recognizing Palestine?  United States, Germany, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Netherlands and Israel.

 

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? SAAB sold to China, at a loss

SAAB has new Chinese owners.  The car maker was sold at a loss, after it filed for bankruptcy in September.  SAAB hasn’t made any cars in its factory in Sweden, since April!

SAAB was originally offloaded by GM to Dutch company Spyker (now Swedish Automotive).  Chinese distributor Pang Da Automobile Trade, and auto manufacturer Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile will pay about U.S.$142 million for SAAB.

SAAB joins Volvo in becoming a Chinese owned company.  In 2010 Volvo was sold by Ford, also at a loss, to Chinese company called Geely.

SAAB sales in the U.S. suck, in September only 429 cars were sold.  So far for the year 2011 only 4,612 cars have been sold.  In 2003 SAAB sales in the U.S. were ten times that (40,000 cars)!

 

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology

German police NAZIs work with Skype, Yahoo, Firefox, MSN to spy on you, the United States is involved

“We got our hands on it and found it is doing much more than it is legally allowed to do.”– Frank Rieger, Chaos Computer Club

The German government allows cell phone conversations to be spied on, but hackers discovered that the software used actually violates the government’s own legal limits.

It’s called Bundestrojan. Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court said it was legal as long as it screened only internet telephone calls. But, Bavarian police, and several other German states, are logging keystrokes, activating cameras, monitoring internet users’ activities and sending data to government officials.  All illegal.

Hackers also found out the United States is involved: “To avoid revealing the location of the command and control server, all data are redirected through a rented dedicated server in a data center in the U.S.”–Chaos Computer Club

A Finnish tech company, in Helsinki, also found that the Bundestrojan is intercepting data entered into web browser Firefox, as well as the instant messaging programs MSN and ICQ.

Antivirus vendor, Kaspersky Lab in Germany, investigated Bundestrojan’s capabilities:  “Amongst the new things we found in there are two rather interesting ones: Firstly, this version is not only capable of running on 32 bit systems; it also includes support for 64 bit versions of Windows.  Secondly, the list of target processes to monitor is longer than the one mentioned in the CCC report.  The number of applications infected by the various components is 15 in total.”– Tillmann Werner, Kaspersky Lab

Targeted applications includes Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera, programs with VoIP and data encryption functionality, including ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, Low-Rate VoIP, CounterPath X-Lite and Paltalk.

German officials are calling for an investigation.  Hackers say this is a result of society putting security ahead of freedom: “Unfortunately, for too long the (government) has been guided by demands for technical surveillance, not by values like freedom or the question of how to protect our values in a digital world.”–Chaos Computer Club

 



Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Economic War: What’s really going on with the possible China rescue deal for Europe? China pushing to be A Number 1, got burned bailing out U.S. banks

That’s right, it wasn’t just U.S. taxpayers and the U.S. central bank (Federal Reserve) that bailed out Corporate America’s big financial institutions in 2007/08.  China Investment Corporation played a part and lost.

So when it comes to bailing out European governments, China’s financial sector is willing but cautious: “The $3 trillion in reserves are the fruits of the hard work of the Chinese people.  We’re willing to work with those European countries in distress for a better solution.  But…we have to be accountable to the people.”-Jin Liqun, China Investment Corp

Both the U.S. media and the Chinese media are reporting that China wants nit picking details concerning any European bailout.  The Chinese think the European governments haven’t done enough when it comes to austerity measures.  They want to see more cuts, and more taxes imposed on the European people.

But there’s another reason China is taking its time with agreeing to any European bailout; they want to use the situation to bring China closer to being the A Number 1 economic and financial authority throughout the World: “It will also help China gain a greater say in the global financial system.”-Zhong Wei,  Financial Research Center at Beijing Normal University

In fact, today, October 28, China called on the G20 to become more united (under China?): “The opinions of emerging markets and developing countries should be taken seriously no matter when we talk on the reform of the international currency system, the global economic governance, or the price of commodities.  These countries’ presence and say should be increased.”–Cui Tiankai, Vice Foreign Minister of China

The next Group of 20 meeting is November 3-4 in the southern French city of Cannes.

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Whirlpool announces big layoffs, will close factories around the world

“…recessionary demand levels in developed countries, a slowdown in emerging markets and high levels of inflation in material costs.”, that’s what Whirlpool Chief Executive Jeff Fettig says about the economy, basically it stinks!

As a result Whirlpool sales are down, and they have to layoff 5,000 employees, and shut down their Arkansas refrigerator factory!

Whirlpool joins the growing number of big businesses that say: “During the quarter, we experienced weaker than expected global industry demand and elevated material costs.”

No sh*t Sherlock, Corporate America keeps laying people off.  Ironically even Whirlpool CEO Fettig blames Corporate America’s job cuts!

Whirlpool will also close a dishwasher factory in Germany, moving production to Poland (Poland is a member of the European Union, but does not use the Euro, they use their own money).

The result is not only lost jobs, but if you need a new home appliance in the near future it’s gonna cost you more; Whirlpool is jacking up their prices (hello inflation).

 

 

 

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Occupy America! Police begin shutting down protests, arrests across the U.S.

“…handful of gigantic banks that have simply hijacked the economy and the populations of the world for their own interest.”-F. William Engdahl, economic researcher

Police in New York City have been busy arresting protestors today, the day before major international protests are to take place.  OWS personnel are planning a major march on Times Square.

Also, police in Denver, Colorado, have been dispersing protestors, who were camped out in front of the state’s capitol building.  In San Diego, California, police are busy arresting protestors there, as well as police arresting protestors in Austin, Texas.

October 13, police in Washington DC arrested at least six protesters, some of them elderly.  Many of the protestors in the country’s capitol are disgruntled elderly people, not just disgruntled youth.  According to the local NBC TV station, they were “…arrested for unlawful conduct – demonstrating.”

Economic analyst F. William Engdahl, says one answer is to nationalize the too big to fail banks: “…nationalize major banks and draw a fence around the problematic institutions until they can be sorted out.”

Engdahl says nationalization is not socialism, it is a way of admitting that a capitalist system has failed, and needs to be fixed!

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Occupy the World! Italian Protestors attack Goldman Sachs office, international protests to hit Idaho

Italian students stormed the central Milan office of one of the world’s leading investment banks, Goldman Sachs.  Police chased them off.

Protesters also threw eggs at the headquarters of UniCredit, Italy’s biggest bank.

The attack on the Goldman Sachs office comes a day before planned international protests.  October 15 will see coordinated international demonstrations against the finance industry.

People living in eastern Idaho get ready to take part: Occupy Idaho Falls and Pocatello (as well as smaller communities) are planning to take part.

Watch Occupy Pocatello’s march, from Wednesday October 13.

 

 

International, U.S.

World War 3: U.S. Navy to establish new base in South Korea, China the target

“There is a growing resentment in the two Koreas, and also in Okinawa and Guam. Everywhere people are saying, ‘We have had enough of the US military occupation, it is time to close down the bases and time to find different ways for achieving security.'”-Christine Ahn, Korea Policy Institute

To remember the 2010 sinking of a South Korean ship, South Korea commemorated a new naval base.  It will be the United States who uses that new base.

Local Koreans are opposed to the base.  The base will be completed by 2015.  Analyst say it will increase tensions between the U.S. and China: “If this base is tied to the U.S. missile defense system, it might be part of the U.S. strategy to contain China. Beijing is concerned with the U.S. military getting closer to its territories.  This deal is going to foment a regional arms race, which pits Korea in between the U.S. and China.”- Christine Ahn, Korea Policy Institute

Who said Obama was a man of peace?