After announcing that they will send military advisers to train Libyan rebels, France announced they will increase air strikes in Libya. France is a UN coalition member, but is not a member of NATO.
France was even reluctant to allow NATO to take official control of the coalition forces military actions against Libya. The latest decision by France, to increase air strikes, is independent of NATO.
The decision was made after rebel leaders met with French officials, and asked for more help.
To the people of the United States it’s one slap in the face after another. Recently President Obama gave a speech saying cuts need to be made to U.S. government spending. Then he gives $3 million so some students can study in China, and now he’s giving Libyan rebels $25 million in equipment!
On April 20, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the announcement. Obama is joining with United Kingdom, France and Italy in openly taking sides with Libyan militants, some of who might actually be al-Qaeda, according to military officials, including NATO boss U.S. Admiral James Stavridis.
Toyota announced that it will have to continue cuts in production in its North American factories. Continued parts supply problems being blamed.
Factories in Mexico, Canada and the United States will now suspend operations on Mondays and Fridays. Production will be cut in half on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The latest cuts will continue until June 3.
Toyota expects the new cuts to directly affect North American car sales.
“We are one shock away from a full-blown crisis.” Robert Zoellick, World Bank President
The World bank is run by the United States, and if the current situation within the U.S. is any sign, then the world economy, influenced by the World Bank, is in trouble.
The International Monetary Fund is worried as well: “Especially because of youth unemployment… there is now a risk that this will be turned into a life sentence, and that there is a possibility of a lost generation.”-Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF chief
One analyst says fiscal and monetary policies might actually make things worse: “What they do is they very often pressure government to adopt what we call pro-cyclical policies. The economy’s weak and in recession, they want them to cut spending or raise taxes. And that can be very dangerous, I mean you can slip back into recession, you can make a recession worse.”- Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Officials with the World Bank, and the IMF, say food prices, citizen security, justice and jobs, are the main issues for international economic stability. Yet history shows that the policies of the IMF and World Bank actually cause some of the problems: “The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank say that they are interested in reducing poverty. All their actions however said otherwise. Their actions have instead raised the poverty level and created under-development.”-Andrew Garvin Marshall, Center for Research on Globalization
The president of the World Bank has always been a United States citizen, since 1944.
Following the British announcement that they will send troops to train Libyan rebels, France and Italy say they will do the same.
The UN coalition members say, officially, they are within UNSCR 1973 because training rebel militants will protect civilians.
It’s interesting that Libyan government troops are being portrayed as non-Libyan, while rebels are being portrayed as the only Libyans. Don’t forget that even U.S. officials admitted that some rebels could be al-Qaeda.
This is not a rebellion, it is a Civil War.
An Iranian foreign exchange student, attending school in the United Kingdom, was attacked on April 13, by four British women. The British women said they attacked her because she would not remove her hijab (head covering).
“If it turns out that the incident has been a racial attack and the Iranian student has been assaulted because of her nationality, Iran will show reaction.”-Mahmoud Mollabashi, Deputy Minister of Science, Research and Technology
“Iran can have an effect on world energy and fuel. Fuel prices will go up dramatically. If sanctions are not removed, particularly sanctions against banks and other economic sanctions, the price of oil will go above $150 a barrel.”-Mahmoud Bahmani, Iran’s central bank
A top U.S. Federal Reserve official said that gasoline prices above $4 a gallon would throw the U.S. economy into another recession.
Iran is the world’s third-leading oil exporter, and thanks to U.S. backed sanctions, has just expanded their own oil refining abilities, now making them an exporter of gasoline as well.
On top of any threats of increased oil prices, Iranian oil Minister Massoud Mir-Kazemi, said factors remain that will ensure that oil prices will continue to go up, regardless of how much oil is pumped out of the ground: “The price of oil depends on two things: First, the fundamentals, including supply and demand, and then the political, psychological and unforeseen elements. Based on these factors, oil prices should increase again by end of the year.”
Tourism for Iran increases every year, despite UN sanctions. Iranian officials expect a huge leap in tourism for the 2011-2012 year (Iranian year 1389).
Where do the most tourists come from? Germany, then France. Iran hopes to attract three million tourists this year.
The Iran-Pak (or Pak-Iran) Gas pipeline just got a boost from Germany. A German company signed a deal to lay the new pipeline between Pakistan and Iran.
The German company might be ILF Consulting Engineers, who were hired to do a feasibility study earlier in the month of April.
The pipeline will begin from Iran’s Assalouyeh Energy Zone in the south, run through Pakistan, and could end up in China, depending on future deals with China. Originally the pipeline was to run to India, but there were issues with the Indian government.
Germany has agreed to provide Iran with the latest technology and training, to take advantage of the South Pars natural gas fields in Iran.
Iran is also working with several European countries for similar deals: “We are in talks with many foreign companies to attract U.S.$20 billion of investment.”-Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh, Managing-Director of the National Iranian Offshore Oil Company
Iran has already signed a deal with South Korea.
Iran had signed a deal with the French, but said the French failed to live up to their end of the bargain.
Iran hopes to push production of the South Pars gas fields up to 1.1 billion cubic meters per day.