Before we all join the chorus of abuse against the robber agencies, let us not lose sight of what is happening in the eurozone. The EU authorities are attempting to muzzle free opinion, first by threatening Fitch, Moodys, and S&P with vague retribution, and then by drafting restrictive laws to prevent them from publishing unwelcome messages.
It is financial repression, pure and simple. The same will be done to the press in due course. Then to you, dear reader.
We must break the oligopoly of the rating agencies, says German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble. By we, of course, he means the EU apparatus of coercion.
The European Commission has already created a pan-EU oversight body with binding powers to breathe down the necks of these agencies. It will draft restrictive legislation by the end of the year. The Portuguese downgrade ensures that it will be even nastier. Developments since the sovereign-debt crisis show we need to take a further look at reinforcing our rules, said Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.
Continued on Page 47
#1
So they can muzzle the rating agencies. Big deal. Then a default by a EU country will be a surprise to the non-informed, and the collapse will still take place. The financial patient will still be terminal. Morons (/channeling Holden Caulfield)
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/07/2011 20:49 Comments ||
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A French boat participating in the flotilla hoping to break the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip was detained along with its crew by Greek authorities in Crete on Thursday, CNN reported.
On Tuesday afternoon, organizers announced that the small French yacht Dignity had left waters near Greece with eight passengers on board en-route to Gaza. The Dignity was stopped while attempting to refuel in Crete, CNN quoted Maxime Gimberteau of "A Boat for Gaza" as saying.
"Andreas, call the cops. We don't want their kind round here."
Boneheads. They departed illegally from a Greek port, have the Greek legal authorities and coast guard after them, and then decided it would be perfectly safe and reasonable to go to a Greek island to refuel. These people aren't smart enough to be chum.
Greek coast guard spokesman Elias Sambatakakis said that authorities were "checking the identities of the passengers" and "the ship's documents."
Ah yes, Greek bureaucrats. They've been developing their techniques for a long time.
"It is not yet clear what will happen once procedures are completed," CNN quoted him as saying. "Obviously if the ship asks for permission to go to Gaza, this will be declined," he added.
Continued on Page 47
#5
Busting out of a harbor without authorization is a criminal offense; and doing so when your departure has been forbidden is a much worse criminal offense.
By the Law of the Sea, using a ship for criminal activities is defined as "piracy". And on top of an expressed desire to break a blockade, an even *more* serious offense, they're looking at years in prison.
Right now, if they can determine the captain of the vessel, he and any ships officers are facing the jug. If they continue to deny their role, unless passengers obviously could not qualify, like minors, everyone on the ship could face criminal charges.
We've recently discussed the genocide of Srebrenica by the Serbs in the Bosnian civil war, and how it was organized by the Serb commander, Ratko Mladic. In case you're wondering whether or not it was really genocide, whether the UN was complicit, and whether the world would really like to forget the whole thing and move on, read this article.
#2
"The day after the collapse of Srebrenica, July 13, I arrived in Bratunac and stayed there for eight days. I was able to go wherever I wanted to. I was granted all possible assistance; nowhere was I stopped. Everybody is parroting everybody, but nobody shows hard evidence. I notice that in the Netherlands people want to prove at all costs that genocide has been committed. If executions have taken place, the Serbs have been hiding it damn well." - Dutch UN Officer Captain Schouten
Captain Schouten was the only UN military officer in Bratunac at the time the alleged genocidal transport from Srebrenica to Bratunac was supposed to have taken place.
"Naser Oric was the Islamist Commander at Srebrenica, who met with journalists, showed them videos of the bodies of Serbian civilians decapitated by his troops during raids on nearby villages."
"The supposed eyewitness reports of Serbian revenge killings at Srebrenica which have been much trumpeted by the mass media, are thoroughly contradictory. Not only do different witnesses give contradictory accounts but witnesses tell contradictory stories to different reporters."
"Serbian observers have been falsely quoted as admitting the massacre took place. Their objections to these supposed confessions have been refused for publication."
"The Muslims burned 192 villages in Eastern Bosnia, slaughtering many Serb civilians." - Dutch UN officer LTC Karremans
Serb cameraman and journalist Zoran Petrovic-Pirocanac is considering legal measures now that his work is being falsely used as legal evidence concerning mass murder.
The German weekly magazine Stern of 16 November 1995, placed the following caption under a picture taken from his videotape:
"Seconds before the murder: Armed Serbs contain a group of Muslims near Konjevic Polje. A Serb cameraman shot the scene until the first rounds were fired."
But Petrovic says he spent plenty of time at the scene, before as well as after he filmed. And he did not see or hear any gunshots, nor witness any crimes. As such, the Stern caption is pure fabrication, attached to his video stills, yet is now being used as evidence in criminal trials.
He also complains about the words Frank Westerman and Harm van den Berg of the Dutch daily 'NRC Handelsblad' put in his mouth: "In total, our forces have massacred two thousand Muslims." According to Petrovic, he did not say that, nor did he see evidence that Muslims were massacred, though many did die while armed and fighting.
One witness appearing at the trial about mass murders with two thousand or more victims is Mevludin Oric, from a town not far from Srebrenica. He has turned out to be a relative of Naser Oric.
Mevludin Oric left as a volunteer to Croatia in January 1992, getting military training there. After serving in the notorious Croatian volunteer brigade 'King Tomislav', he went to the city of Posavina, where the first mass murder took place and the war hadnt even started. Its victims were Serbs.
Mevludin Oric was captured by Serbs near Kravica and claims the Serbs took him via Bratunac to a school gymnasium in the town of Glumina, west of Zvornik. From there, the men were supposedly transported in lorries to the site of execution.
But his story has changed three times. The first time he was allegedly taken to "basketball stadium near Bratunac". In an interview a month later, he said it was at "soccer stadium in Nova Kasaba," from where he and others were moved to be killed, "probably in a town called Grbavce."
Two months after that, in yet another interview, he said he was taken to "a school in Krizevci".
Human Rights Watch has not been "able to trace survivors of this crime." But they still assert a crime has been committed.
In 1991, the SDA, the Muslim party of [Islamist leader] Alija Izetbegovic met in Congress held in December. The party decided to implement a radical ethnic policy with the ultimate goal the dzamahirija or Islamist State of Bosnia.
Muslims had to settle in Serb majority lands in Eastern Bosnia in large numbers. Thus, on the orders of the SDA, thousands of Muslims from Sandzak migrated to Bosnia, and descendants of Bosnian Muslims who had settled over a period of time in Turkey received an appeal to return.
In 1992, Serbs were shocked again as invitations were distributed throughout the republic for a mass meeting of Muslims at Bratunac, to be held at the first day of the Bajram, the celebratory end of the Ramadan.
The initiative for this event at the "geographic centre of Muslims from entire Yugoslavia" came from the National Muslim Council which openly advocated arming people and establishing a Muslim state within the Bosnian boundaries. Armed Muslim gangs, some of them factions of the Patriotic League which was formed in the neighboring Vlascenica started to intimidate and drive out Serb inhabitants of smaller towns with Muslim majorities.
That's where they lost me. It's an oxymoron. You're going to tell someone who is fighting for his life that he has to obey some law? War is a crime. There can be no law in war. Not if you're fighting to win.
#4
Despite some fine British and American trial work, the prosecution erred by insisting that all his crimes should be tried in one endless proceeding, and by the end of four years both the presiding judge and the defendant were dead, with no verdict taken.
Four years at the Hague and they couldn't pin a single crime on Milosevic? Fine trial work? Sounds like a monumental failure to me. Sounds like a miscarriage of justice. You keep a guy locked up for four years while you try to get your facts straight? How long are they gonna take with Mladic?
All during the 90's when these wars were being fought all I ever heard from the TV and newspapers was how bad those Serbians were. Only years later did I start to hear little bits and pieces that indicated there might have been two sides to the story. Then I started learning about the historical context going all the way back to the Middle Ages, the Crusades and the Turkish invasions of Europe. Then 9/11 happened. Then I started wondering if perhaps the Serbians know their enemy better than we do.
I guess my biggest problem here is that I don't believe the MSM will ever give us the whole truth about the Balkan Wars. This article is no better. It is obviously slanted toward assumptions of Mladic's guilt when the trial hasn't even started yet. And why the tie in with the Fourth of July? Mladic probably never even heard of it. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
(KUNA) -- European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso Wednesday expressed his regret over yesterday's decision by credit rating agency Moody's to downgrade Portuguese debt to junk status.
"I deeply regret the decision of one rating agency to downgrade the Portuguese sovereign debt and I regret it both in terms of its timing and its magnitude. It adds speculative elements to the situation," he told a presser in the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
"European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... decisions on financial matters are not based on market players position but on the objective assessments of the European Commission and the European Central Bank," he said.
Moody's suggested that there is a "growing risk" that Portugal will require a second bailout and that this will include some form of private sector creditor participation.
Portugal has already been granted a EUR-78-billion bailout by the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Barroso, a former Portuguese Prime Minister, encouraged his country to continue on the path defined by the EU and added "our institutions know Portugal a little bit better," than the rating agencies.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2011 00:00 ||
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Activists demand flotilla be allowed to leave for Gazoo; American captain of Gazoo flotilla ship released after Saturday arrest.
A group of Gazoo flotilla activists occupied the Spanish embassy in Athens on Tuesday, demanding that the Gazoo-bound flotilla be allowed to leave Greece for the Gazoo Strip.
The 21 Spanish activists intend on sailing on the Spanish boat Guernica, which has been docked on the southern Greek island of Crete for the past few weeks, awaiting an opportunity to sail as part of a flotilla that aims to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gazoo. The activists insist that they will continue to occupy the premises of the embassy until the Spanish government asks Greek authorities to allow them to sail to Gazoo.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, John Klusmire, the American captain of the flotilla boat Audacity of Hope, was released from custody on Tuesday after he was incarcerated on Saturday on charges of setting sail without permission and endangering passengers.
Continued on Page 47
#1
Dont you just love this soap opera? Oh, and how's that old Audacity of Hope, workin' out fer 'ya?
What is it about the Palestinians that attracts this wealth of resolve and character? It just seems to attract flies all over this kind of issue for some strange reason. "The Audacity of Hope", yeah, dont step in it, 'cause apparently a lot of fools have. Half the United States population standing there with their faces beaming in the supernal Light of the One. Greek columns. Rainbows. The Messiah who was going to bring a "better world".
It isnt going to get better anytime soon either, is it? They are going to default, you know? Sure they are. And then they wont accept responsibility, they will blame each other and still continue to do nothing. And eventually the lights will fail and your money will be paper stacked in a wheelbarrow.
And you can sit there late in the winter in your Perry Como sweater and look at the burned out neighborhood. Do you own a gun? You dont?
Well, there you are. How good is your Spanish?
Posted by: de Medici ||
07/07/2011 1:50 Comments ||
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Interbulk to return 25,000 euros to Swedish activists who intended on transporting some 3,000 tons of cement as aid to Gaza on flotilla.
The Swiss company that had sold cement to Swedish activists planning to sail to Gaza as part of an international aid flotilla said Wednesday that due to "force majeure,"
According to Wikipedia, force majeure includes things like war, embargo, government sanction, and the usual acts of God, which make it impossible for a contract to be fulfilled.
it had decided to cancel the deal.
Aw rats. How in the world can we send the flotilla to the bottom of the Med without good quality Swiss cement?
Interbulk has sold the Swedish delegation some 3,000 tons of cement, which were meant to be transferred to Gaza as aid on the Swedish-Greek-Norwegian ship, Free Mediterranean, as part of a Gaza flotilla.
Interbulk intends on returning the 25,000 euros it had gotten from the organizers, who gathered the money from thousands of donors in Sweden over the course of the past year.
In a letter it sent to the Gaza flotilla organizers, the Swiss company said that it had to cancel the deal due to "force majeure", and attributed the move to the Greek government's ban on Gaza-bound ships as well as to a letter by UN chief Ban Ki-moon discouraging Mediterranean countries from supporting the departure of the Gaza flotilla from their ports.
I suspect Interbulk got a letter from that Israeli legal group, too.
#1
It's hard to imagine the Swiss canceling a business transaction "force majeure" o non. Somebody must have offered a better price for their cement.
Posted by: regular joe ||
07/07/2011 11:57 Comments ||
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#2
They probably got two letters: one from the UN stating that their company will no longer be eligible for any UN contracts, and one from the Israeli legal firm that says "we'll tie you up in litigation for the next 40 years if you continue this deal." Either way, they decided it wouldn't be a good investment to sell the cement.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/07/2011 13:27 Comments ||
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#3
They probably got two letters: one from the UN ...and one from the Israeli legal firm ...
The second one I can believe. The first one seems seems implausible.
As for "How in the world can we send the flotilla to the bottom of the Med without good quality Swiss cement?", howzabout cheap-ass torpedoes and limpet mines made by the lowest bidder.
#4
Actually I've been involved in an intensive, professional development course (too intensive for you all to handle), so I wasn't able to provide you with my enlightening comments.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A French boat participating in the flotilla hoping to break the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip was detained along with its crew by Greek authorities in Crete on Thursday, CNN reported.
(KUNA) -- European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso Wednesday expressed his regret over yesterday's decision by credit rating agency Moody's to downgrade Portuguese debt to junk status.
