WARTA MALAYSIA

THE GROWING ARMY OF ANGRY MEN

2009-02-14T04:56:00.000+08:00

Mark Crovelli – Lew Rockwell.com February 10, 2009

Whose Lives Have Been Destroyed by the Federal Government

One of the hardest things to deal with in the current economic depression is the disgusting hypocrisy of the U.S. congress, the new president, and the members of the Federal Reserve System. It is one thing to be told, as we all are, that we must hand over fat wads of our hard-earned money to these warmongering and thieving snakes or face jail terms, but one feels a whole new level of revulsion when these people make statements to the effect that they, and they alone, are in a position to "save the economy" by "creating jobs." These statements are made by people who have done virtually everything in their power to destroy the American economy over the last few decades, but who have now proclaimed themselves to be our saviors. Only the most naïve and unlearned among us could possibly be falling for the idea that a bunch of self-serving politicians, bureaucrats and bankers are going to "save" us from problems they have caused.

On its face, the idea that politicians, bureaucrats, and bankers could "save" the economy is laughable. These are people, after all, who live exclusively at our expense. That is, these are people whose entire livelihoods are dependent upon taking money away from productive people and spending it on themselves and their favorite wasteful projects. It's true that they do not all share the same ideas about how to spend the money they take from us. Some prefer to use it to blow up innocent people in foreign lands, while others simply want to take our hard-earned money without our consent and hand it over to other people. The bankers, on the other hand, merely content themselves with printing vast amounts of new money out of thin air that they either hand over to the Treasury Department, or gift to their other banker-buddies to lend out at a profit at our expense. Nevertheless, it should be crystal clear that these people do not actually produce anything themselves (except the bankers, who are very skilled counterfeiters of money). They take money from us through taxation and inflation, (and threaten us with severe punishments if we refuse to obey), and then spend every last penny of it – and more – on war, socialized boondoggles, and welfare. These are the people who would have us believe that they can "save" the economy? How exactly would they accomplish such a thing? More taxes, more idiotic socialized projects, more war, and more newly-printed green paper? Do these actions really seem likely to produce a vibrant and healthy economy, or do they seem more like the actions undertaken by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.?

They would also very much like for us to believe that they are the only people in the world capable of "creating jobs" in the United States. A more ridiculous idea would be hard to find. Again, these people are only in the business of taking money from productive people, and either wasting it entirely (e.g., war), keeping it themselves, or giving it to other people (e.g., entitlement programs, foreign aid, and paychecks for bureaucrats). As such, any actions undertaken by these people will necessarily depend for funding upon those who are forced to pay taxes; namely, the increasingly-dwindling group of productive people who have not yet lost their jobs in the private sector. Does it really seem possible that this sort of parasitism on the productive people of the United States really can create jobs that produce the things that people actually want? If socialized job creation is the only way out of this economic quagmire, as the politicians would have us believe, then why don't they socialize the entire economy? If it were indeed the case that the federal government can "create" productive jobs better than the private sector, then why don't they take over all aspects of the American economy, and we can all live happily ever-after in a brave, new, socialized America where everyone is enslaved, I mean employed, by the State.

And don't think for a moment that the politicians and bureaucrats are themselves going to help the productive people shoulder this onerous tax burden. On the contrary, politicians and bureaucrats do not actually pay taxes. As Murray Rothbard has noted in this regard:

"If a bureaucrat receives a salary of $5,000 a year and pays $1,000 in 'taxes' to the government, it is quite obvious that he is simply receiving a salary of $4,000 and pays no taxes at all. The heads of the government have simply chosen a complex and misleading accounting device to make it appear that he pays taxes in the same way as any other men making the same income. The UN's arrangement, whereby all its employees are exempt from any income taxation, is far more candid."

Hence, while Mr. Obama is fond of telling us that "we" are going to have to get out of this recession together, what he really means is that those of us who are employed in productive private lines of work in this country are going to have to hand over more and more of our hard-earned money to those people in this country who pay no taxes at all; namely, men like Mr. Obama himself and the rest of the fat, parasitic political and bureaucratic class that infests this country.

Some of the more shameless of the political class in this country, or their academic lackeys, have even tried to convince us that the trillions of dollars they are wasting in Iraq and Afghanistan are going to help us get out of this depression. They have been taking our money and blowing it up in these two dreadfully poor countries year after year, and they would like for us to believe that this senseless destruction of wealth is going to make us richer. Often known as "Military Keynesians," this group is perhaps more aptly described as the "kill ourselves rich" crowd. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that neither you nor I are made better off when the federal government steals our money, hands it over to Lockheed Martin to purchase bombs, and then uses those bombs to blow up Pakistani civilians. The only people who benefit from this forceful expropriation of our money and indifferent murder are the merchants of death occupying lucrative posts at Lockheed, Blackwater and the Pentagon.

What the political and bureaucratic classes are actually accomplishing very well, however, is creating a veritable army of angry men whose lives have been destroyed by the federal government. Many have lost their jobs, thanks to the collapse of the largest artificial economic boom in American history – a boom that was directly caused by the actions of the federal government and the Fed. In addition, thanks to years of merciless and ceaseless money creation by the Fed, this army of men has found that their savings purchase fewer and fewer goods over time. This depreciation of the dollar will inexorably increase astronomically over the next few years as the massive amount of new money the Fed and treasury have already jointly printed, and are planning to print over the coming months and years, floods the system.

This army of angry men has very little to be optimistic about in the near future. At best, they might be able to keep their present jobs in the private sector – shouldering a heavier and heavier portion of the tax burden that funds the congress and president's wars and socialization schemes, while the value of their savings continues to erode into dust. Those who have lost their jobs might be permitted to work on Mr. Obama's "public works" projects, and thereby become virtual slaves to the whims of the political and bureaucratic classes. Many others will simply find it easier to start sucking at the state's teat in the form of unemployment insurance or food stamps, et cetera, and thereby lose all respect for themselves. One thing is certain for every member of this army of angry men, though; every single one of them will now find it very difficult, if not impossible, to carve out a living for himself, on his own terms, and without being at the complete mercy of politicians, bureaucrats, and bankers he has never even met. The age of the independent, responsible, and free American citizen is now dead.

The hour is fast approaching when each and every one of us will have to decide for ourselves whether we will try to fight this devastating government machine, or join it.

www.lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli23.html

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=10184

ISRAEL TO OBAMA: HOLD IRAN'S FEET TO FIRE, OR ELSE

2009-02-07T03:47:00.000+08:00

Alistair Lyon – Reuters January 6, 2009

Israel will go along with U.S. President Barack Obama's Iran diplomacy, but try to shorten the deadline for results by signaling its willingness to attack Iranian nuclear sites if need be.

Israel votes on Tuesday and its next prime minister – the front-runner is rightwinger Benjamin Netanyahu – is likely to go to Washington within a few months and press Obama to stick to his campaign promise not to let Iran develop an atomic bomb.

Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East negotiator now at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said the visit would entail a "strategic conversation" with Obama.

"It need not be conclusive or threatening, but it will be very serious and ... scare the daylights out of the president that unless the international community mobilizes to address the situation, the Israelis will," Miller said.

Unlike his predecessor, George W. Bush, Obama has offered direct talks with Tehran. But he has yet to define his policy, which officials say is under review. He has spoken of tougher sanctions if needed and has not excluded military action.

Israelis fret that diplomatic overtures will only give Iran more time to perfect its uranium enrichment program -- which the Iranians say is meant to produce electricity, not bombs.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found no proof of Iranian nuclear bomb-making. But the West sees as sinister Iran's refusal to stop enriching uranium -- an activity it is permitted as a Non-Proliferation Treaty signatory.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak called this week for a "strategic agreement" with Washington to ensure that any talks with the Iranians "should be kept short and followed by harsh sanctions and readiness to take action."

More: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=10151

INDONESIA CALLS ON ASEAN COOPERATION TO ADDRESS BOAT PEOPLE PROBLEM

2009-02-07T03:46:00.001+08:00

JAKARTA, Feb 6 (Bernama) -- Indonesia has called on Asean countries to work together to address the problem of boat people, which in the last two months has had Indonesia providing refuge for 391 boat people believed to be Rohingyas from Myanmar.

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said the boat people landed in groups on islands near Aceh and were given temporary refuge, while some received treatment at the hospitals.

In light of this, he urged their country or countries of origin to address the factors that made these people flee their country in boats to seek asylum in other countries.

"The measures should include putting an end to human rights abuses against minorities, while the boat people must not be physically harmed when on transit in another country or chased out to sea," he told a press conference, here, Friday.

He said the problem of boat people seeking asylum would indeed burden other countries in the Asean grouping.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=388272

SPENT SHELLS PROVE ISRAELI USE OF WHITE PHOSPHORUS, GAZA DOCTORS SAY

2009-01-16T03:43:00.000+08:00

Sheera Frenkel
Times Online

Remnants of an Israeli white phosphorus shell, identified by the marking on the outer casing - M825A1 - have been found in the village of Sheikh Ajilin in western Gaza.

Witnesses in Gaza said that the shell was fired on January 9 and was taken indoors as evidence. They recalled seeing thick smoke and smelling a strong odour in keeping with the garlic-like smell associated with white phosphorus.

Hebrew writing on the shell casing reads “exploding smoke” - the term the Israeli army uses for white phosphorus. Doctors who examined the shell said that it appeared to include phosphorus residue.

Residents said that they suffered burns on their feet when they walked where the shelling had taken place.

A suspected phosphorus victim was taken from Gaza across the border into Egypt yesterday. Abdul Rahman Shaer, 16, was transferred to an Egyptian hospital from Rafah. He was suffering from severe chemical burns to his face and body. Paramedics from Gaza said that doctors at the hospital were sure the chemical agent was phosphorus.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) reiterated that they would not comment on specific weaponry being used in Gaza but added that any ammunition used by the IDF was “within the scope of international law”.

The Geneva Treaty of 1980 stipulates that white phosphorus should not be used as a weapon of war in civilian areas but there is no blanket ban under international law on its use as a smokescreen or for illumination.

To read further please click:

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5519433.ece

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=10026

APA TO HAUL ISRAEL TO INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

2009-01-16T03:35:00.000+08:00

JAKARTA, Jan 15 (Bernama) - The Asian Parliamentary Association (APA) will haul Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICI) for war crimes, said APA president Agung Laksono on Thursday.

He said the move was in line with the resolution at an emergency meeting of the Parliamentary Union of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (PUIC) member states in Istanbul, Turkey on Wednesday.

"Speakers of Asian parliaments will bring the guilty to the ICI as war criminals," said Agung, Speaker of the Indonesia parliament, as reported by Antara, the Indonesian news agency.

He said if the former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, who was accused of killing 168 people could be sentenced to death, then Israel's atrocities in Gaza must be investigated and the individuals responsible brought to justice. - BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=384039

NEW US MEDIA CAMPAIGN PROMOTES MILITARY STRIKE ON IRAN

2009-01-13T04:37:00.001+08:00

By Patrick Martin

Front-page reports in two leading US newspapers Sunday signal a ratcheting up of US pressure on Iran and the preparation of American public opinion for a new round of US military aggression.

The New York Times published a lengthy article by its chief diplomatic correspondent, David Sanger, a long-time conduit for the concerns of the Pentagon and State Department, purporting to detail discussions between the Bush administration and Israel over the past year about possible air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The Washington Post carried a shorter but equally prominent article, written by correspondent Joby Warrick, recounting efforts by Iran to obtain electrical components from US and European suppliers, allegedly for Improvised Explosive Devices to be used against American forces in Iraq.

The provocative character of the Post article is demonstrated in its sensationalistic first sentence, which reads: “The Iranian businessman was looking for high-quality American electronics, but he had to act stealthily: The special parts he coveted were denied to Iranians, especially those seeking to make roadside bombs to kill US troops in Iraq.”
Other than the florid prose, the Post article adds little to the public record provided by a federal court filing last fall in Miami in which the US Department of Justice charged four companies, based in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, with acting as purchasing agents for the Iranian government. The principal company involved, Mayrow General Trading, was shut down by Dubai authorities in 2006.

As for the Times article, it provides new details about US-Israeli relations, as well as about US covert operations against Iran, which reportedly involve efforts to sabotage the Iranian nuclear enrichment program by supplying faulty equipment through third parties and also through the practice of cyber-warfare against Iranian computer systems.

More: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/usir-j12.shtml

ABDULLAH URGES UN TO SET UP WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL

2009-01-13T04:32:00.001+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 12 (Bernama) - Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Monday tabled a motion in the Dewan Rakyat calling on the United Nations to immediately set up a war crimes tribunal to investigate and prosecute Israelis suspected of committing war crimes against Palestinians.

The prime minister, who tabled the motion at a special parliament session on Gaza also proposed that the resolution be conveyed to the legislative bodies concerned, in particular the United States Congress, British Parliament and the European Parliament.

Speaking when tabling the motion on "condemning Israel's Zionist regime's attack on Gaza", Abdullah said, the bombardment and devastation in Gaza should be condemned by the world as it violated the international law.

"The attack on the Palestinian territory in Gaza violates international law, human rights law, international human rights law, the UN's charter, and is a war crime as it violates the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949 on the protection of civilians in times of war," he said.

The motion also urged the UN Security Council to compel Israel to immediately cease its aggression in the Gaza Strip through a ceasefire, and for the world body to deploy peacekeeping forces to enforce the ceasefire. – BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=383148

ISRAELI’S ATROCITIES IN GAZA: MORE VOICES OF CONCERN FROM MALAYSIA

2009-01-09T03:58:00.002+08:00

Special Parliament Session On Gaza Next Monday

PUTRAJAYA, Jan 7 (Bernama) -- The Cabinet today agreed that Parliament holds a special session on the Gaza onslaught next Monday, said Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.

The government as well as opposition Members of Parliament had been reported condemning the Israeli aggression and called for a ceasefire and an end to the crisis which began on Dec 27.

The government had also called for an Emergency Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly to address the issue. - BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=382135

Israel Must Be Forced Out Of Gaza, Says Abdullah

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 8 (Bernama) -- Any resolution passed by the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York Friday morning must ensure that Israel is forced out of Gaza, said Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

While thanking UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the convening of the Special Session which Malaysia and several other countries had urgently called for, Abdullah said the United States should also not oppose whatever resolution that would touch on Israel, which is on a military offensive in the Gaza Strip since Dec 27. - BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=382269

Israel Should Be Subjected To Sanctions, Says Abdullah

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 8 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said today Israel should be subjected to international sanctions because of its brutal onslought on Gaza which had killed many people.

He said the world would be a better and more peaceful place if ethics and morality were given due weight in the conduct of international relations.

"Perhaps, the international community should include outrageous breaches of basic moral standards in the list which must be subjected to international sanctions. The point is, we should shift moral purpose from the sidelines of international conduct to centre stage. The escalating crisis in the Middle East is a case in point. It is absolutely immoral for Israel to continue inflicting upon the people of Gaza an entirely disproportionate and excessive deployment of its military power," Abdullah said. - BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=382288

ISRAELI’S BRUTALITY IN GAZA STRIP: VOICES OF CONCERN FROM MALAYSIA

2009-01-07T02:23:00.000+08:00

ABDULLAH CONTACTS UN SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR SPECIAL ASSEMBLY

PUTRAJAYA, Jan 5 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has contacted the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, and the President of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, to hold a UN special assembly.

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, in announcing this, said the assembly was necessary after the UN Security Council failed to reach a decision to stop the Israeli aggression on Palestine.

He said Abdullah would also get in touch with all the heads of governments under the auspices of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), ASEAN and several other international organisations to press for the special assembly to be held as soon as possible. – BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=381659

MAHATHIR: US SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL UNLIKELY TO CHANGE

PUTRAJAYA, Jan 5 (Bernama) -- United States' President-elect Barack Obama is not expected to change his country's stand with regard to support for Israel although the Zionist regime had clearly acted brutally against Palestine, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Monday.

He said a major power like the United States needed Israel to support certain policies which the former implemented and turning away from the regime would mean losing the much-anticipated support.

"Although the United States' Congress consists of learned individuals, it condones terrorism. We see Israel as having no restriction and Israel actually rules the world through its proxies because no US presidential candidate, including Barack Obama, is bold enough to state that the United States does not support Israel.

"In fact, Obama's right-hand man (vice president-elect) Joseph Biden has openly declared that he is a Zionist. So, you can imagine Obama's foreign policy in the future," he said at a news conference called to condemn Israel's ongoing brutality against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, at the Perdana Leadership Foundation here. - BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=381673

ISLAMIC COUNTRIES SHOULD CUT TIES WITH ISRAEL

JOHOR BAHARU, Jan 6 (Bernama) -- Islamic countries that have bilateral ties with Israel should cut off diplomatic ties immediately to protest against the cruelty inflicted by the Jewish state's regime on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

Former Malaysian ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Datuk Syed Hussein Al-Habshee said Muslims could only protect themselves effectively from any form of cruelty and oppression through education as was done by the Jews. – BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=381936

MALAYSIANS JOINS BOYCOTT OF ISRAELI GOODS

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 6 (Bernama) -- The Council For Ex-Members of Parliament and State Assemblies, Federal Territory, on Monday joined scores of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and individuals in calling for the boycott of Israeli and Israeli related goods and services as a mark of protest against the regime's invasion of Gaza.

Its president, Aziz Yassin, said in a statement that this was the least Malaysians of all races could do to register their sympathy towards the Palestinians who had been suffering endlessly at the hands of the Zionists for the past 50 years. - BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=381804

IF HAMAS DID NOT EXIST

2009-01-07T01:59:00.000+08:00

Jennifer Loewenstein
Counter Punch January 1, 2008

Israel Has No Intention of Granting a Palestinian State

Let us get one thing perfectly straight. If the wholesale mutilation and degradation of the Gaza Strip is going to continue; if Israel’s will is at one with that of the United States; if the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and all the international legal agencies and organizations spread across the globe are going to continue to sit by like hollow mannequins doing nothing but making repeated “calls” for a “ceasefire” on “both sides”; if the cowardly, obsequious and supine Arab States are going to stand by watching their brethren get slaughtered by the hour while the world’s bullying Superpower eyes them threateningly from Washington lest they say something a little to their disliking; then let us at least tell the truth why this hell on earth is taking place.

The state terror unleashed from the skies and on the ground against the Gaza Strip as we speak has nothing to do with Hamas. It has nothing to do with “Terror”. It has nothing to do with the long-term “security” of the Jewish State or with Hizbullah or Syria or Iran except insofar as it is aggravating the conditions that have led up to this crisis today. It has nothing to do with some conjured-up “war” – a cynical and overused euphemism that amounts to little more the wholesale enslavement of any nation that dares claim its sovereign rights; that dares assert that its resources are its own; that doesn’t want one of the Empire’s obscene military bases sitting on its cherished land.

This crisis has nothing to do with freedom, democracy, justice or peace. It is not about Mahmoud Zahhar or Khalid Mash’al or Ismail Haniyeh. It is not about Hassan Nasrallah or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These are all circumstantial players who have gained a role in the current tempest only now that the situation has been allowed for 61 years to develop into the catastrophe that it is today. The Islamist factor has colored and will continue to color the atmosphere of the crisis; it has enlisted the current leaders and mobilized wide sectors of the world’s population. The primary symbols today are Islamic – the mosques, the Qur’an, the references to the Prophet Muhammad and to Jihad. But these symbols could disappear and the impasse would continue.

There was a time when Fatah and the PFLP held the day; when few Palestinians wanted anything to do with Islamist policies and politics. Such politics have nothing to do with primitive rockets being fired over the border, or smuggling tunnels and black-market weapons; just as Arafat’s Fatah had little to do with stones and suicide bombings. The associations are coincidental; the creations of a given political environment. They are the result of something entirely different than what the lying politicians and their analysts are telling you. They have become part of the landscape of human events in the modern Middle East today; but incidentals wholly as lethal, or as recalcitrant, deadly, angry or incorrigible could just as soon have been in their places.

Strip away the clichés and the vacuous newspeak blaring out across the servile media and its pathetic corps of voluntary state servants in the Western world and what you will find is the naked desire for hegemony; for power over the weak and dominion over the world’s wealth. Worse yet you will find that the selfishness, the hatred and indifference, the racism and bigotry, the egotism and hedonism that we try so hard to cover up with our sophisticated jargon, our refined academic theories and models actually help to guide our basest and ugliest desires. The callousness with which we in indulge in them all are endemic to our very culture; thriving here like flies on a corpse.

Strip away the current symbols and language of the victims of our selfish and devastating whims and you will find the simple, impassioned and unaffected cries of the downtrodden; of the ‘wretched of the earth’ begging you to cease your cold aggression against their children and their homes; their families and their villages; begging you to leave them alone to have their fish and their bread, their oranges, their olives and their thyme; asking you first politely and then with increasing disbelief why you cannot let them live undisturbed on the land of their ancestors; unexploited, free of the fear of expulsion; of ravishment and devastation; free of permits and roadblocks and checkpoints and crossings; of monstrous concrete walls, guard towers, concrete bunkers, and barbed wire; of tanks and prisons and torture and death. Why is life without these policies and instruments of hell impossible?

The answer is because Israel has no intention of allowing a viable, sovereign Palestinian state on its borders. It had no intention of allowing it in 1948 when it grabbed 24 per cent more land than what it was allotted legally, if unfairly, by UN Resolution 181. It had no intention of allowing it throughout the massacres and ploys of the 1950s. It had no intention of allowing two states when it conquered the remaining 22 per cent of historic Palestine in 1967 and reinterpreted UN Security Council Resolution 248 to its own liking despite the overwhelming international consensus stating that Israel would receive full international recognition within secure and recognized borders if it withdrew from the lands it had only recently occupied.

It had no intention of acknowledging Palestinian national rights at the United Nations in 1974, when - alone with the United States - it voted against a two-state solution. It had no intention of allowing a comprehensive peace settlement when Egypt stood ready to deliver but received, and obediently accepted, a separate peace exclusive of the rights of Palestinians and the remaining peoples of the region. It had no intention of working toward a just two-state solution in 1978 or 1982 when it invaded, fire-bombed, blasted and bulldozed Beirut so that it might annex the West Bank without hassle. It had no intention of granting a Palestinian state in 1987 when the first Intifada spread across occupied Palestine, into the Diaspora and the into the spirits of the global dispossessed, or when Israel deliberately aided the newly formed Hamas movement so that it might undermine the strength of the more secular-nationalist factions.

Israel had no intention of granting a Palestinian state at Madrid or at Oslo where the PLO was superseded by the quivering, quisling Palestinian Authority, too many of whose cronies grasped at the wealth and prestige it gave them at the expense of their own kin. As Israel beamed into the world’s satellites and microphones its desire for peace and a two-state solution, it more than doubled the number of illegal Jewish settlements on the ground in the West Bank and around East Jerusalem, annexing them as it built and continues to build a superstructure of bypass roads and highways over the remaining, severed cities and villages of earthly Palestine. It has annexed the Jordan valley, the international border of Jordan, expelling any ‘locals’ inhabiting that land. It speaks with a viper’s tongue over the multiple amputee of Palestine whose head shall soon be severed from its body in the name of justice, peace and security.

Through the home demolitions, the assaults on civil society that attempted to cast Palestinian history and culture into a chasm of oblivion; through the unspeakable destruction of the refugee camp sieges and infrastructure bombardments of the second Intifada, through assassinations and summary executions, past the grandiose farce of disengagement and up to the nullification of free, fair and democratic Palestinian elections Israel has made its view known again and again in the strongest possible language, the language of military might, of threats, intimidation, harassment, defamation and degradation.

Israel, with the unconditional and approving support of the United States, has made it dramatically clear to the entire world over and over and over again, repeating in action after action that it will accept no viable Palestinian state next to its borders. What will it take for the rest of us to hear? What will it take to end the criminal silence of the ‘international community’? What will it take to see past the lies and indoctrination to what is taking place before us day after day in full view of the eyes of the world? The more horrific the actions on the ground, the more insistent are the words of peace. To listen and watch without hearing or seeing allows the indifference, the ignorance and complicity to continue and deepens with each grave our collective shame.

The destruction of Gaza has nothing to do with Hamas. Israel will accept no authority in the Palestinian territories that it does not ultimately control. Any individual, leader, faction or movement that fails to accede to Israel’s demands or that seeks genuine sovereignty and the equality of all nations in the region; any government or popular movement that demands the applicability of international humanitarian law and of the universal declaration of human rights for its own people will be unacceptable for the Jewish State. Those dreaming of one state must be forced to ask themselves what Israel would do to a population of 4 million Palestinians within its borders when it commits on a daily, if not hourly basis, crimes against their collective humanity while they live alongside its borders? What will suddenly make the raison d’etre, the self-proclaimed purpose of Israel’s reason for being change if the Palestinian territories are annexed to it outright?

The lifeblood of the Palestinian National Movement flows through the streets of Gaza today. Every drop that falls waters the soil of vengeance, bitterness and hatred not only in Palestine but across the Middle East and much of the world. We do have a choice over whether or not this should continue. Now is the time to make it.

Jennifer Loewenstein is the Associate Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She can be reached at amadea311@earthlink.net

www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein01012009.html

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9961

INTERVIEW: ‘THIRD PARTY BEHIND MUMBAI ATTACK’

2009-01-03T05:42:00.000+08:00

Chetan Upadhyaya – Sify, December 31, 2008

A war between India and Pakistan is unthinkable, believes Shah Zaman Khan, Minister, Press, at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi.

The war hysteria in both nations is being fuelled by “one common enemy that does not want India and Pakistan to be friends,” the senior Pakistani diplomat asserts. “What we have seen in Mumbai is altogether a third party conspiracy.”

Khan, who has a Master’s Degree in Economics, joined the Pakistan Foreign Service in 1978, and has served as Joint Secretary of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in Islamabad and Director General of the troubled North West Frontier Province before being posted to New Delhi in late 2007.

“The media has created all these clouds and in a week or two, all these clouds of war are expected to vanish,” Khan told Chetan Upadhyaya of the Satya Foundation in an exclusive interview. Khan also answered two other questions from people who phoned in during this interview.

Excerpts:

The war of words between India and Pakistan is at its peak. Media reports warn about heightened tensions and a possible war between the countries…

In my opinion, neither the public nor the leadership in India and Pakistan want any war. Whatever talks we are hearing about the war, it is all due to the media hype. The media has created all these clouds and in a week or two, all these clouds of war will vanish completely. And once again, India and Pakistan will hopefully resume the normal dialogue and talk process.

If two Germanys can reunite, why can't India and Pakistan? We were separated just 61 years ago, and the wounds and pain still linger. So many explosions in Pakistan and in India. Do you think that the time has come when we promote the concept of no boundary and no guns and bombs?

In my opinion, India and Pakistan can stay as two different entities, but in a dignified way. They can present an example of two friends who live separately, but harmoniously. The border is a geographical reality, and we cannot deny its existence. Every country has its own sovereignty and independence. We can maintain the individual existence and still maintain peace, friendship and brotherhood. We can live like good friends. What we have seen in Mumbai is altogether a third party conspiracy. There is one common enemy that does not want India and Pakistan to be friends. It is very necessary to remove that common enemy and that is possible only when we have mutual cooperation and trust and India and Pakistan help each other in eradicating this common enemy. Let the two countries not exploit each other’s weaknesses rather help each other in these trying conditions.

All this is the result of an international conspiracy?

Yes, it is all their game and both of us are suffering. It is high time that both India and Pakistan start accepting the reality and unite against international conspiracies. Let’s not be exploited by others. We must not allow ourselves to play in the hands of others.

Could you elaborate?

In order to promote their arms and ammunition, some powers are trying to ignite war between India and Pakistan. The arms lobby is forcing these powers to go with the “divide and rule” policy. This will stop only when India and Pakistan start realising that they are 'lost' brothers. The majority of us love each other. Only few rotten fish cannot continue to pollute the entire pond...! We must fight the terror collectively, without falling prey to the negative elements, which want both India and Pakistan to be broken into pieces. We all want peace and silence. The whole region is sick of the bloodshed and mayhem. After all, who knows the plight of terrorism more than Pakistan? We lost so many leaders and common men and women and innocent children. So many of our women became widows. If there are no wars, both India and Pakistan can spend more money on education, agriculture, industry, environment and employment. If we stand collectively, Pakistan and India together can show to the world that two brothers can finish the terrorism together and ensure complete peace... We are determined to give fatal blow to terrorism.

There are many organisations in South Asia that want a 'Mahasangh' of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and China. What do you think?

I agree with you that there should be openhearted dialogue and discussion between the people of these countries. The thoughts and emotions should find an expression. And the conspiracy of the ‘superpower’ should be exposed properly. I will not speak for the merger. All countries have their own sanctities and sovereignties and without disturbing the natural makeup of the countries, we can still go forward in the direction of complete peace and brotherhood. We must promote the political, social, cultural and economic collaboration between these countries so that there is no more bitterness and fighting amongst us. Only this way can we can develop together and create a world where there is no forward and no backward. Everyone will get equal opportunities for expansion and growth without disturbing the peace and tranquility of others. And when there is equal progress at the economic and political levels, the borders get weakened automatically. If you travel in Europe, you never come to know where is the beginning or end of the boundary of one country. You don’t need permission to go from one place to another. The same situation can come here if we can make progress in political, social and economic fields. We must start seeing each other’s progress in correct light and with a positive state of mind. We must take pride in each other’s progress. With changed state of mind, the concept of border will change and we will witness a new world.

In a recent interview with satyafoundation.com, the RSS chief, Mr. K.S. Sudarshan, said that there are good people in every religion and society and it is our duty to live in mutual harmony with each other. He also said that terrorism should not be linked to any particular religion. How do you see this?

I fully agree with Mr. Sudarshan that terrorists have no religion. They are mindless people who have actually no association with any one nation or religion. I also fully agree with his statement that there are good people, both in India and Pakistan. And as a result, we have witnessed so much of dialogue and the wave of mutual cooperation and peace process in the past few years. If one can remember, just before the Mumbai crisis, there was an atmosphere of goodwill and talks at the senior level. We believe that good people on both sides of the border are doing exemplary work for good relations and will continue with this for peace and tranquility. Let me say it categorically that this is only a temporary phase of tension, which will defuse very soon.

Chetan Upadhyaya is a journalist and holistic healer who contributes extensively to various newspapers/magazines. He also conducts programmes and workshops for Stress Management and total awakening of mind through music, meditation, yoga and natural lifestyle under the guidance of his Guru, Yogi Shri Ashish Chatterjee. He can be reached at: satyafoundation@sify.com

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14828593
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9935

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS, UNBELIEVABLE NEWS

2008-12-21T22:44:00.002+08:00

James W. Harris
[Liberator Online Newsletter, December 21, 2008]

World Government on the Horizon?

We know, we know. Mention anything about politicians scheming for a "world government" and you will instantly be slammed as a troglodyte, conspiracy theorist, wing nut, and so forth, followed immediately by snickering references to tinfoil hats and black helicopters.

Still... we find it most interesting to ponder a remarkable commentary entitled, "And now for a world government," published December 8 in the highly respected and influential international newspaper The Financial Times, which boasts 1.4 million readers. The piece was written by Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator for the publication. Rachman was formerly employed by the equally respected Establishment outlets the BBC and The Economist.

"For the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible," writes Rachman. He cites the financial crisis, global warming and the war on terror as creating unprecedented new opportunities for the concept.

"A 'world government' would involve much more than cooperation between nations," Rachman says. "It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union [EU] has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force."

A world government, Rachman stresses, could not be created democratically, because we ignorant unwashed masses, lacking the wisdom and foresight of those who rule us, mostly hate the idea.

"Even in the EU -- the heartland of law-based international government -- the idea remains unpopular. The EU has suffered a series of humiliating defeats in referendums, when plans for 'ever closer union' have been referred to the voters.

"In general, the Union has progressed fastest when far-reaching deals have been agreed by technocrats and politicians -- and then pushed through without direct reference to the voters.

"International governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic."

Hmmmmm. Pardon us if we hear the echo of jackboots in that last sentence.

Another reason Rachman is bullish about world government is the election of Barack Obama. He notes Obama has key advisors who are very enthusiastic about steps in the direction of world government. High among them is John Podesta, who heads Obama's transition team.

Podesta is also the head of the highly influential Center for American Progress think tank, and an advisor to the Managing Global Insecurity (MGI) project.

MGI, Rachman notes, favors among other things "the creation of a 50,000-strong UN peacekeeping force."

MGI, says Rachman, is "aware of the political sensitivity of its ideas," and thus carefully avoids scary terms like "shared sovereignty" and "world government," preferring more soothing phrases like "responsible sovereignty" and "global governance" so as not to alarm the slumbering masses.

"So, it seems, everything is in place," Rachman concludes. "For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious steps towards a world government."

However, he notes that, because of us darn stubborn ignorant rabble and our irritating lack of enthusiasm for world government, "any push for 'global governance' in the here and now will be a painful, slow process."

But of course, clever minds are working on that, too.

(Source: Financial Times, "And now for a world government"
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7a03e5b6-c541-11dd-b516-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
Thanks to Roy Lieberman )

http://www.theadvocates.org/liberator/vol-13-num-21.html#GBU

BARACK OBAMA: "AMERICA'S FIRST JEWISH PRESIDENT"

2008-12-16T23:26:00.002+08:00

Prof. James Petras
Information Clearing House

Obama asks Shimon Peres: "What can I do for Israel?"
– Haaretz, November 17, 2008

The UN Special Rappateur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories (Richard Falk) has said Israel's policies there amount to a crime against humanity…He said the UN must act to protect the Palestinian population suffering what he called `collective punishment'…He said the International Criminal Court should also investigate whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.

– BBC News, December 10, 2008

We need to ratchet up tough but direct diplomacy with Iran, making very clear to them that their development of nuclear weapons would be unacceptable, that their funding of terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah, their threats against Israel are contrary to everything we believe in…We may have to tighten up those sanctions…and give them a clear choice…whether they want to do this the hard way or the easy way.

– President-Elect Obama on NBC Meet the Press, December 7, 2008

According to a nationally prominent Zionist spokesperson, former Congressman, Federal Judge, White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton and early backer of Obama, Abner Mikvner, "Barack Obama is the first Jewish President". Mikvner's affirmation reflects both Obama's one-sided and longstanding commitment to the State of Israel and loyalty to the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) in the United States, as well as the long-term and successful effort of a network of financially and politically powerful Jewish Zionists to `embed' Obama to their `Israel First' political apparatus. What is striking about the latter is the demeaning and arrogant claims made by some leading Jewish Zionist about their `central roles' in the making of Obama's professional and political careers – in effect denying the President-Elect any credit for his own academic or professional success. (Historically this has been mirrored in the continuous claims of some American Jews to have fought and won the battle of Civil Rights in the 60's on behalf of African Americans – essentially denying black Americans any independent political role in their own struggle.) Even their personal flattery about his `wisdom', `brilliance' and `intellectual acuity' is always linked with his unconditional support of the State of Israel. One can envision how quickly his Zionist colleagues would replace their plaudits with crude insults regarding his intelligence if he suggested Israel end its starvation blockade of Gaza… Needless to say the Zionists know their man, as they confidently proclaim, he is a cautious and prudent politician, who measures power before he speaks, especially as he has filled the White House, economic councils and security apparatus with Zionist zealots.

The Making and Re-Making of Obama

The Chicago Jewish News, a nationally prominent Israel-First propaganda organ, published a lengthy article on `Obama and the Jews' by Pauline Dubkin (October 24, 2008), which quotes approvingly a `long-time Jewish observer of the political scene', who declared that, "Jews made him (Obama). Wherever you look there is a Jewish presence."

This is not merely the usual arrogant self-aggrandizing boasts of a Zionist power broker, with which we are constantly bombarded on so many political topics, this reflects an important part of what Obama has become, especially in advancing his latter day political ambitions. The Zionist self-promoters (ZSP), ever ready to take credit for any success (no matter how notorious and immoral) – Wall Street speculators, Ivy League professors, Pentagon militarists, cultural gurus and even the key patrons of art forms like jazz and constantly rewrite history (or biography in the case of Obama) to maximize their self-importance in all aspects of American life. The ZSP conveniently fail to mention in their articles that Obama's white Gentile grandmother gave him the intellectual nurturing and encouragement and diligently petitioned for scholarships for him to attend elite private schools, which formed the basis for his intellectual skills to write, speak and reason as an educated man. The ZSP exclude from their `revisionist and Judaized' biography of Obama, the central importance of Reverend Jeremiah Wright who transformed Obama from an elite Ivy university graduate into an effective social activist. Obama was able to participate and get involved in community organizing in Chicago's African-American neighborhoods because of Wright's endorsement and broad credibility. If it were not for Rev. Wright, Obama would never have had a social base or organizational experience to engage in Chicago politics. It is only after Obama had gained these skills and popular appeal that the Zionist politicos noticed him and went to work on his ego and ambitions, recruiting him to their pro-Israel agenda and financing his political career.

The Zionist re-write of his biography has gone curiously unchallenged by Obama. To suit his new mentors, the Israel-First ideologues and financial backers, he has wilfully discarded and insulted his former mentors, as well as any current policy advisers and political colleagues who doesn't adhere to the Zionist line of unconditional support for Israel. Two cases come immediately to mind. When leading Zionist ideologues objected to the presence of Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Malley, among Obama's foreign policy advisors, the Zionists in Obama's inner circle immediately marginalized them with his approval. When the notorious torture-promoting Zionofascist Harvard Law Professor, Alan Dershowitz raised a howl about former US President Jimmy Carter (a principled critic of Israel's apartheid policies) speaking at the Democratic Party Convention (following a century-long political tradition of honoring former presidents) the Zionist operatives blatantly humiliated the elderly Carter by denying him even a five-minute speech – with Obama's approval. `Professor' Dershowitz publicly crowed about his success and power over the Democratic nominee Obama in censoring the former President.

The conversion and promotion of Obama as an Israel-Firster is an excellent case study of the methods the ZPC has used to build a near invincible power base in the US political system. The construction of the ZPC is not the result of a cabal with a pre-planned centrally controlled operation. Obama's conversion began through an ideologically diverse, individual, family and community-based effort. As Obama rose from local to national political office, Zionist promotion evolved from local into a nationally organized and concerted effort including campaign funding, business career appointments and paid propaganda and indoctrination junkets to Israel.

The ZPC offers positive inducements for the `recruitable' and threats of retaliation and intimidation via media slanders and systematic public pillory through most Jewish communal organizations for the public political critics of Israel who remain recalcitrant and refuse to toe the Israel-First line.

Turning Obama into an Israel-Firster, according to the Chicago Jewish News article, began during his studies at Harvard Law School where he was `spotted' by a Zionist professor, Martha Minow, as "smart, promising, and politically ambitious" and a likely recruit. The professor proudly recounts how she contacted family members, including her father, a major Democratic powerbroker, and fellow Zionists who ran a law firm in Chicago and recommended they hire the Obama. In brief, the first step in Zionist recruitment was using a prestigious academic post for initial contact, followed by a promise of career advancement through a professional network.

The next step was to introduce Obama to an association of `friends and neighbors in the Jewish Community including prominent Zionist financial supporters. Obama's early promoters played a key role in convincing him that his political future depended on Zionist allies and that support depended on his total commitment to an Israel-First agenda. As Obama's ties with his Zionist-liberal backers in the Democratic Party thickened, his links to black community organizing and his pastor and former mentor, the progressive African-American minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright weakened. By the end of the 1990's, Obama was firmly embedded in the liberal Zionist Democratic Party network and through it he teamed up with two key Zionist figures who were crucial to his presidential campaign: David Axelrod, Obama's chief political strategist since 2002 and the chief architect and tactician of his presidential campaign in 2008 and Bettylu Salzman, daughter of Phillip Klutznick, a billionaire real estate developer, slumlord and zealous Israel-Firster. Salzman/Klutznick admits she never would have bankrolled and promoted Obama simply because of `his smarts' or liberal politics if he hadn't pledged his commitment to Israel's interests. She states, "Obviously I'm not going to support someone who is opposed to Israel and what it stands for. He's right on all the issues when it comes to Israel. He is in exactly the same place (Hillary) Clinton is, maybe stronger. He's a clearer thinker." (Chicago Jewish News, October 24, 2008) While Obama served in the Illinois Senate, he shared an office with an Orthodox Jew and fanatical Israel-Firster, Ira Silverstein, who boasts of his role in `educating' Obama about Jewish Orthodoxy and more important "shared pro-Israel feelings" to the point that … "When Silverstein sponsored numerous resolutions condemning PLO bombings Obama eagerly signed on as a co-sponsor." (ibid)

Fully embedded in the Zionist Power Configuration of Chicago, Obama was advised by the Axelrods, Klutznicks and other key strategists to make the obligatory ritual pilgrimage to Israel and pay obeisance to its leaders in the course of his Senate campaign. During his trip to Israel, two years later in 2006, Obama was accompanied and guided by the executive vice-president of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. Under Zionist guidance, Obama `connected' with the Israeli state, totally ignoring the plight of the Palestinians who were being savagely repressed by the Israel Army and assaulted on a daily basis by Zion-Fascist settlers. Obama returned a thoroughly committed Zionist African-American politician.

With the Israeli-ZPC certificate of approval, Obama's financial base of support widened to include some of the wealthiest pro-Israel Jewish Americans in the Midwest including Lester Crown, whose son, James Crown headed Obama's financial campaign in Illinois. According to Crown (pater), "From the time I met him, the times we talked about Israel and we talked about it several times, he has been an ardent backer of Israel's defense position (sic), Israel's security position." (Ibid)

To those Zionfascists who demand that Israel annex all of Palestine and expel `the Arabs' and were disturbed by Obama's passing reference to a two-state solution, Crown assured them that Obama's proposal was couched in such outrageously impossible demands for concessions from the Palestinians that it was a dead letter.

Not all Jews accept this view of a Zionist-embedded Obama: Some racists reject him as an untrustworthy and unqualified `Schvartze' because of his `very close intimate relationship' with Reverent Jeremiah Wright. The Zionist-influenced mass media took their cue from the far-right and orchestrated a hate campaign against Reverend Wright and his links to Obama. The `liberal Zionists', who strategized and ran Obama's presidential campaign, easily convinced Obama to publicly dissociate himself from his former minister and mentor of the 1980's. Obama complied. However, the alliance of the Republican Right and Zionfascists demanded Obama make a public denunciation of the Minister. The liberal Zionists prepared the script, which Obama recited, issuing a vicious condemnation of Rev. Wright and specifically listed Wright's defense of the sovereignty and self-determination of the Palestinians as one of his `crimes'.

Obama had crossed the River Jordan. His capitulation to the Zionofascists was the inevitable consequence of his intimate and longstanding ties to his liberal-Zionist backers. The public purging and scourging of a renowned African-American Christian theologian of the oppressed was only the beginning of the Zionist makeover of Obama as the first Jewish (or better Zionist) President of the United States. It was followed by further purges of any `centrist' or `realist' establishment adviser, who might at any time in the past have issued the mildest criticism of Israel's policies or even praised or associated with any other critic of Israel or the Jewish Lobby in the US. It was `guilt by association'.

The Zionofascists soon pressed their campaign to force Obama's liberal-Zionists to purge Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Cold Warrior National Security Adviser to former President Jimmy Carter, Samantha Power, author and lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Robert Malley, a former Clinton adviser for their perceived crimes against Zionism. Brzezinski was accused of advocating what he called "an even-handed Middle East policy", something clearly `anti-Semitic' in the eyes of the unconditional supporters of Israel who dominate the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO). Worse still he praised the Walt-Mearsheimer book critical of the Israel Lobby, a capital offense in the eyes of most of the Jewish political spectrum. Power and Malley also transgressed the Israel-First line. Although Brzezinski later recanted his praise of Professors Walt and Mearsheimers' study, he and the other members of the `objectionable three' foreign policy specialists were marginalized and excluded from having any input on policy issues related to Middle East.

Control of Obama's Middle East policy was taken over by Dennis Ross, a virulent Zionist advocate of Israel's ultra-militaristic policies, including an armed preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear and military installations. Ross is an unconditional supporter of the Israeli starvation siege of the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip and fully backed Israel's savage air attacks against civilian targets in Lebanon. Obama's appointment of Ross is the clearest guarantee to all Zionists, liberal, orthodox or fascist, that US policy in the Middle East will continue to be subordinated to the interests of the Israeli State and its military.

Obama's purge of any and all moderate voices on Middle East policy, his placement of fanatical Israel-Firsters in most key positions in his campaign and new Administration reflects his long-term, deep immersion into the Zionist Power Configuration. The result is a "Jewish President" – in the sense that most key White House, economic and security appointments reflect pre-election Zionist power in the making, indoctrination and scripting of the Obama candidacy.

The Configuration of the `Jewish President'

One of Obama's longest supporters, Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, provides a clue to Obama's affinity for Zionist appointments. According to Rabbi Wolf, "Obama is embedded in the Jewish world." While the Rabbi is presumptuous to assume that all Jews subscribe to his own Israel-First views, he is absolutely correct if he is referring to the Jewish-Zionist world.

Nothing better explains Obama's selection of demonstrably failed economists and security officials than his long-term, large-scale links to the ZPC.

Obama started with the appointments of dual US-Israeli citizen, Illinois Congressman Rahm Emmanuel and Zionist David Axelrod to top White House posts, as well as Lawrence Summers (long-time Harvard ally of the Judeo-fascist, torture advocate Alan Dershowitz) as chief White House economic adviser. Summers is a life-time Israel-Firster, who used his presidency at Harvard University as a bully pulpit to attack a student-faculty group critical of Israeli policies in the Occupied Terrtories. As the former Treasury Secretary under the Clinton regime he was a key architect of the speculator-dominated financial system, which is currently in total collapse. In line with the `Jewish Presidency', Obama named one of the foremost, unconditional Israel-Firsters to be his key Middle East policymaker – Dennis Ross, a leading Zionist ideologue and co-author of a presidential position paper advocating pre-emptive war with Iran. Ross is the pivotal Zionist figure in Obama's entourage and his appointment is the guarantee for the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO) that the Obama regime will follow and support with American guns and American tax-payer money every Israeli war crime, assault or invasion on its Arab and Parsi-speaking regional neighbors. Ross, Axelrod, Summers, Emmanuel and their craven followers in Congress together with the AIPAC and the entire Zionist community-based network will ensure that Obama is inextricably `embedded' in their agenda. They will not allow the publication or support of any intelligence investigation, judicial inquiry or United Nations report, which challenges Israel's occupation of Palestine and promotion of pre-emptive war with Iran based on the fabrication of data about its so-called nuclear threat. Each and every recently appointed Zionists has condemned the United Nations and International Atomic Agency reports refuting Israel's phony claims of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. They will make sure that newly appointed National Security Adviser, General James Jones will never bring up or make public his highly critical internal report based his on-site investigation of Israel's crimes against the civilian Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Obama and Defense Secretary Gates are so deeply `embedded' in the Zionist network and so deeply infused with the Israel-First ideology that ZPC `pressure' will not be necessary. The three are, in effect, Zionized Zombies, eager to fawn and truckle, even to grotesque excesses, at every wink and gesture, signaling military handouts, UN vetoes and repeated provocative acts of war against Iran. They have even exceeded President Bush in their eagerness to please their Zionist mentors by recognizing Jerusalem as the `undivided' capital of the Jews – effectively denying the rights of the Palestinian residents.

Nothing speaks to the dominance of the ZPC over US political life – domestic and foreign - than the election of their meticulously groomed first `Jewish President' – and the subsequent takeover of strategic economic and security posts in his administration.

Conclusion

The ascent of a minority of ambitious power-driven political operatives acting first and foremost for a militarist colonial power in a strategic region of the world economy represents the biggest threat to world peace and to US democratic values in recent history.

Think about it: Not only do the Zionists and their embedded clones rule the White House, they also have the political apparatus (left, liberal, center and right) to silence, insult, witch hunt and isolate any critic of their agenda, their organizations and of the State of Israel. When confronted by a critic the entire apparatus brays in unison about `anti-Semitism' and follows up with severe civil sanctions. As Obama's career under his Zionist handlers illustrates, they are capable of hurling repulsive denunciations against his former African-American mentor and spiritual councilor, Reverend Wright; capable of publicly humiliating and pushing aside a former President and Obama supporter, Jimmy Carter; capable of isolating and `sanitizing' former top foreign policymakers from earlier Democratic Administration like Brzezinski, simply for pointing out Israeli crimes against humanity (although such observations are made daily in the European press and political circles).

The apparatus combines the carrot (embedding and promoting Obama) and the stick (stigmatizing Carter): It all depends on whether an individual, politician, academic, writer or journalist is `useful' (i.e., an unconditional supporter) or `harmful' (i.e., critical) to the State of Israel.

The Obama experience illustrates how a small, close knit, well-organized and well financed minority operating through prestigious professional posts and powerful economic enterprises can penetrate major political institutions, capture upwardly mobile politicians and `turn' them into willing accomplices in promoting wars on behalf of a foreign colonial militarist power. If in the past we have experienced Zionist thuggery mugging our freedom of speech in civil society, think of what we can expect when these thugs have complete control of the White House. The `First Jewish President' of the United States indeed! Where does that leave the American people, their rights, their interests and their country's independent foreign policy?

Epilogue

In early December 2008, Israel's right wing party, Likud, under the leadership of `Bibi' Netanyahu, met and nominated its slate of candidates for the upcoming national elections (February 12, 2009). The majority of candidates nominated represent what most Israeli journalists call the `hard right' or what might be accurately described as Zionfascism. The Likud Party majority favors the expulsion of all Palestinians (i.e. non-Jews) from Greater Israel, the military seizure of Gaza, the end of any pretense of peace negotiations and the immediate bombing of Iran.

Currently Likud and its fascists have the support of a plurality of Israeli Jews. If they win, it is a virtual certainty they will receive the automatic support of all the principle respectable pro-Israel Jewish organizations in the US, who follow the line that: "It is not ours to question whom the Israelis vote for office. It is our duty to back the State of Israel."

The election of an Israeli-fascist regime will up the ante in Washington. Does Obama's embedding in the Zionist apparatus include support for Jewish fascism , the total ethnic cleansing of Palestine and their unilateral decision to `nuke' Iran? Three weeks into his presidency Obama will face his biggest Middle East challenge, which will define the nature of US policy in the region.

Obama has recently suggested that Washington would nuke Iran to protect Israel – which has never yet signed a treaty with the US – to which the Bush Administration replied contemptuously that it would be very hard to convince American parents in Kansas that their sons should risk nuclear incineration for the sake of a small country in the Middle East. Clearly Obama is a greater war monger on issues involving Israel then even Bush: It comes with being a "Jewish President"

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books).

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21449.htm

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9837

US MILITARY PREPARES FOR OBAMA’S EXPANSION OF AFGHAN WAR

2008-12-15T01:50:00.003+08:00

By James Cogan
13 December 2008

The US military and allied forces in Afghanistan are making feverish preparations for an influx of tens of thousands more American troops during the first months of the Obama presidency. Most of the reinforcements will be in place by the end of the harsh Afghan winter, in anticipation of a "spring offensive" in March and April by the burgeoning anti-occupation insurgency led by the Islamist Taliban movement.

General David Petraeus, the architect of the US troop "surge" in Iraq in early 2007 and now head of US Central Command (Centcom), is presiding over the preparations. This week, during a press conference in Italy, he confirmed that at least another "20,000 or so" American military personnel would be deployed to Afghanistan.

The intention is to have at least 55,000 to 60,000 US troops in Afghanistan, as well as the 33,000 troops from various NATO states and other US allies. The head of the NATO -commanded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), US General David McKiernan, told journalists: "I don't like to use the term ‘surge' here, because if we put these additional forces in, it's going to be for the next few years, this three- or four-year period. It's not a temporary increase of combat strength."

McKiernan's deputy, General Michael Tucker, told a Pentagon press briefing this week that an infantry brigade would be sent in January, followed by an air combat brigade to provide more attack and lift helicopters, as well as engineering units, logistics and extra surveillance and intelligence units. Several brigade-size marine formations are expected to make up the main frontline combat reinforcements.

Tucker said: "There's a very huge building campaign that has already begun. We're pushing dirt as we speak to prepare for the arrival of these forces. The Army, Central Command, the Joint Staff is working very closely with us so that we can set the conditions to receive these soldiers and provide adequate housing and infrastructure for them so that it's all set up prior to their arrival...

"For about the last month-and-a-half, we have done in-depth studies on specifically, to the man, how many billeting spaces, how many helicopter pads, how much force protection we're going to need, how many latrines, how many dining facilities, things of that nature, down to the actual number of boots on the ground, what would be required."

The first US reinforcements, a brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, will be deployed in the vicinity of the Afghan capital, Kabul. The rest, however, are slated for operations in the ethnic Pashtun provinces of southern Afghanistan where US, Canadian, British, Dutch and Australian forces have been engaged in heavy fighting with the Taliban throughout the year.

The UK press reported this week that British commanders expect at least 5,000 additional US combat troops to arrive in Helmand province over the next several months. Additional British troops are being sent following the announcement that the British force in southern Iraq will be reduced from 4,100 to just 400 by June. Special Air Service units are already redeploying to Afghanistan, along with helicopters.

US reinforcements will also be sent to Uruzgan province, where Dutch and Australian troops are fighting, and Zabul, where American units are operating.

The largest boost will take place in Kandahar, the province considered to be Taliban heartland. At the NATO base near Kandahar city, Canadian and American engineers are working overtime to prepare the facilities for as many as 10,000 extra US troops. Within 12 months, according to an engineer officer interviewed this week by the Canadian Globe and Mail, the base will have doubled in size. The airport runway is being extended and hangers erected to house dozens of helicopters and aircraft. The expansion will make the airfield the largest in the country, bigger even than the sprawling base that has been constructed at Bagram, in central Afghanistan.

As well as the military reinforcements, the Obama administration will make greater use of private security companies, or mercenaries. On November 26, the US Army began advertising for contractors to provide hundreds of armed guards to protect US bases in Afghanistan, as well as supply routes and transport convoys. The five provinces where the mercenaries will be operating are Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Zabul and Nimruz—the most volatile in the country. The initial contracts are to begin on January 1 and last for 12 months, with the option of them being renewed for a further three years.

A war without end

The extra troops and mercenaries will be battling an Afghan guerilla force that has been able to increase its activities substantially.

Afghan war analyst Sami Kovenan recorded 11,820 insurgent "violent incidents" this year as of November 23 - a 51 percent increase over the same time period in 2007. Attacks in the Kabul area have increased by 62 percent, while even in the predominantly ethnic Tajik and Uzbek north, which had been relatively stable, attacks are up by 54 percent. Taliban operations extend throughout the ethnic Pashtun tribal region of Pakistan. As the year draws to an end, US supply lines from the port of Karachi through the Khyber Pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan are under threat.

More US and NATO troops have been killed in 2008 - 277 so far - than in any other year of the now seven-year war. The army and police of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's corrupt and despised puppet government have suffered well over 1,000 fatalities.

This month's report on Afghanistan by the European-based International Council on Security and Development (ICOS - formerly known as the Senlis Council) made a grim assessment of the US-led occupation. It claimed that Islamist insurgents have a permanent presence in 72 percent of the country and are "closing a noose" around Kabul, exerting a degree of control over the main highways out of the city to the east, south and west.

ICOS commented: "Crucially, the Taliban appears to be winning on another front - the battle for hearts and minds. By tapping into a variety of local grievances against NATO-ISAF and the Kabul government, from [opium] poppy eradication and bombings leading to civilian casualties, to high levels of unemployment and chronic underdevelopment despite billions of dollars of aid, the insurgency has succeeded in attracting sympathy beyond its traditional support base and gained a measure of political legitimacy among many Afghans....

"Underlying the expansion of Taliban presence is the international community's failure to deliver on the many promises of a better life made to the Afghan people in the wake of the invasion. Seven years on, most of the country still lacks basic amenities and the majority of the population struggle to secure necessities such as food and shelter, let alone a sustainable livelihood. Field research by ICOS has presented a picture of acute hardship and deep uncertainty, with the majority of respondents worried about feeding their families."

General Petraeus outlined this week the tactics that will be pursued to try to crush the resurgent Taliban. As was done during the Iraq surge, he intends to order his subordinates to use cash bribes to buy off as many insurgent commanders as can be bought, and systematically seek to slaughter those who cannot. It was important, the general declared, "to separate the irreconcilables from the reconcilable".

Petraeus told journalists: "If they are truly irreconcilables then they must be killed, captured or run out of the country... others, if you do it right, can be embraced, can be made part of the solution instead of a continuing part of the problem, and that means sometimes sitting down across from a negotiating table with people who may have your blood on their hands."

For their part, the Taliban and other anti-occupation groups such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami have not given any signal that they are prepared to enter into talks with either the US military or Karzai's government.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar issued a statement to Karzai on Tuesday that read: "Do not ever presume that in the presence of the occupation forces, the followers of the path of Islamic resistance will ever abandon their legitimate struggle merely on your empty and farcical pledges, material privileges and personal immunity."

Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, told the Canadian press: "If the Americans are going to send more troops, we are ready for that. They will have to send more coffins as well for taking their dead bodies back."

In countries that have committed troops, the intractable character of the war in Afghanistan has generated disillusionment in ruling circles as public opposition continues to grow. The Netherlands and Canada have announced that they will be pulling out their forces by June 2010 and December 2011 respectively. Other European states may soon follow.

The despair is shared by figures in the American political establishment. Joe Klein, a well-known correspondent for Time magazine and member of the influential Council for Foreign Relations, wrote on Thursday:

"The war in Afghanistan - the war that President-elect Barack Obama pledged to fight and win - has become an aimless absurdity. It began with a specific target. Afghanistan was where Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda lived, harboured by the Islamic extremist Taliban government. But the enemy escaped into Pakistan, and for the past seven years, Afghanistan has been a slow bleed against an array of mostly indigenous narco-jihadi-tribal guerrilla forces that we continue to call the ‘Taliban'."

The reality is that curbing terrorism was never the motive for the invasion of Afghanistan. The September 11 attacks were seized upon as the pretext for an intervention into the very heart of Central Asia, a resource-rich region that was part of the former Soviet Union until 1991. Far from being "aimless", the purpose of the ongoing occupation is to establish a US client state and major military bases in a region that is vital for American economic interests.

Obama represents the factions of the American establishment most committed to this neo-colonial agenda. Throughout the election campaign, his candidacy became the political vehicle for a tactical shift in policy - the redeployment of US military assets from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the grounds those nations were the "central front" in the fraudulent "war on terror".

Defense Secretary Robert Gates - chosen by the president-elect to remain in that job and head the seamless foreign policy transition from the Bush to the Obama administration - described the Afghan war on Thursday as "an ideological conflict with violent extremists" that could only be compared with the Cold War. "The last ideological conflict we were in lasted about 45 years," he declared.

http://wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/afgh-d13.shtml

PHONE CALL HOAX TO INDIA TO PAKISTAN – YET ANOTHER MOSSAD OPERATION?

2008-12-14T05:28:00.000+08:00

Mark Glenn
The Ugly Truth

At the height of the 60-hour siege in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai last month a phone call was placed to Pakistan’s President, Asif Ali Zardari. The caller, claiming to be the Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, threatened war against Pakistan in retaliation for the terrorist attacks that killed almost 200 persons in Mumbai.

As a result of the phone call, Pakistan scrambled fighter jets -fully armed - and sent them screaming towards the Indian border. The Pakistani Prime Minister was contacted and ordered to report in the middle of the night. The Foreign Minister was shuffled onto a plane and flown to Islamabad. Pakistan was put on a war footing and all the major players needed for fighting a war were assembled in quick order.

Preparations were made to divert thousands of troops from the western border with Afghanistan where Pakistan is currently assisting NATO forces in fighting terrorists.

In sum, for 24 hours the two nuclear powers were a hair’s trigger away from war. The United States - having very close (and increasingly closer) ties to India was contacted by Zardari who informed the State Department about the increasingly dangerous situation. Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice contacted her Indian counterpart who informed her that no such call had been made.

For her part, Pakistan maintains that indeed the call originated from a recognized phone number within the Indian government’s Foreign Ministry, and while some protocols were not followed in terms of verification that it had all the earmarking of being “the real deal”.

Some will no doubt simply shrug this off as a prank call made by someone from within the Indian government angry at the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. However, there are other more troubling explanations that must be considered as well, one of which is that the call was a deliberate attempt on the part of certain unseen players in the whole scenario who want to see a war started between the two nations, and as it turns out, surprise, surprise, the most likely culprit for such an act happens to be Israel.

Using false flag operations in order to get two nations at each other’s throats is nothing new for the Jewish state. In 1954 Israel attempted to bomb American interests in Egypt for the purpose of destroying any growing rapprochement between the two countries in what became known as the Lavon Affair. In 1967 Israel attacked and attempted to sink the USS Liberty, again to be blamed on Egypt in order to start a war between the US and the Soviet Union. During the Reagan administration, a Mossad team broadcast messages from a remote location in Libya (termed Operation Trojan Horse) implicating the Arab country in a series of yet-unsolved terror attacks that resulted in the United States bombing the home of Muhammar Kaddafi, Libya’s president. In 1983, Israel learned of and refused to warn the US about a plot to bomb the American embassy in Beirut and its accompanying Marine Barracks that resulted in the deaths of close to 250 Americans. In 1995, immediately following the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Israeli spies and provocateurs working in American media tried pinning the attack on Iraq. And of course, there is the mother of them all, 9/11, the worst terrorist attack to take place on American soil that was used as the pretext for invading and destroying Iraq.

Therefore, Israel - with very close ties to India - has everything to gain by starting a war between the for-the-most-part Hindu nation of over a billion people and its Muslim neighbor to the west that has always been a thorn in the side of the Jewish state’s agenda.

Besides anomalies surrounding the attacks themselves (such as the blond haired/blue eyed assassins as they were described by witnesses) that resulted in close to 200 deaths, there are other perfectly reasonable reasons to assume Israel has her bloody hand in the entire event for her own far-reaching agenda. Given that India is one of Israel’s biggest buyers of her armaments, a sustained war between Pakistan and India would be a boon for the Jewish state, both in terms of sales and product testing. The weapons systems Israel is planning to use in her much-dreamed of war against Iran would get their “dry run” on the battlefield between India and Pakistan.

Next of course is the “clash of civilizations” Israel has worked tirelessly to create, a situation in which the rest of the world (and in particular, the Muslim Middle East and Christian West) wipes each other out, leaving the Jewish state unimpeded in imposing her “chosen people’ agenda upon what is left of humanity. What was (the day before the Mumbai attacks) a war between a billion Muslims and a billion Christians has now been expanded to include billion Hindus, the total sum of which encompasses over half the world’s population.

As far as the mechanics of the operation go, again Israel is the most likely of all the players in terms of means. In his most recent book “The Shadow Factory” former National Security Officer James Bamford details the depth to which the Jewish state has invested herself in the telecommunications industry and the capacity she now possesses in tapping into any phone line or internet connection worldwide. Through companies such as Verint and Narus, a redline with Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv now exists for listening in on every conversation throughout the entire world, which must include players as important to the survival of the Jewish state as India and Pakistan. Therefore, placing a call to the office of the Pakistani president and manipulating the logarithms of the telecommunication software to have it appear the call originated from within the Indian Ministry of Foreign affairs would be as easy to achieve as any of the special effects regularly seen in any production originating out of Jewish Hollywood.

It is highly likely, given the events taking place at that time, that had Zardari not contacted Sec of State Rice the world would be a much different and more dangerous place than it already is. Having Pakistani jets screaming towards India, a nation that had just suffered a series of deadly attacks by terrorists said to be of Pakistani origin would have resulted in India assuming another attack was underway, resulting in India “jumping the gun” so to speak, sending her jets and troops westward towards Pakistan with guns a-blazing. In the hysteria and confusion of it all, the situation between the two countries (that have always been a hair trigger away from war with each other anyway) would have escalated and gotten out of control in no time. Israel for her part would no doubt take advantage of the event to attack Iran while the attention of her military, political and intelligence apparatus was looking at and concentrating on events taking place eastward. Israel would then have the war she desperately needs against her ancient nemesis Persia in order to re-consolidate the social cohesion necessary to hold the Zionist state together in what is an organically fractured Jewish society.

The situation between Pakistan and India is by no means over. As former US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer once said, “What Israel wants, Israel gets”, and indeed if this latest attempt to start a war between the two nations fails, that indicates that another way will be found, and no doubt operating under the motto of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad, “By way of deception, thou shalt do war.’

http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/phone-call-hoax-to-india-yet-another-mossad-operation

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9799

ARREST PROVIDES MORE EVIDENCE INDIA, ISRAEL, AND THE U.S. BEHIND MUMBAI ATTACKS

2008-12-09T04:54:00.000+08:00

Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com

It is becoming increasingly a hard sell to pin the blame for the Mumbai attacks on Pakistan and thus set the stage for an attack on Pakistan after Barack Obama enters the White House in a few weeks. It now appears Indian intelligence played a large part in the terrorist attacks. On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that a “counterinsurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission” was arrested for illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the gunmen.

Mukhtar Ahmed is an Indian police operative who provided cell phone SIM cards to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan terrorist group blamed for the Mumbai attacks.

The counterinsurgency operative, Mukhtar Ahmed, worked for the police in Indian Kashmir. “The implications of Ahmed’s involvement - that Indian agents may have been in touch with the militants and perhaps supplied the SIM cards used in the attacks - added to the growing list of questions over India’s ill-trained security forces, which are widely blamed for not thwarting the attacks,” reports the Associated Press.

In other words, Indian intelligence had penetrated Lashkar-e-Taiba and were running a false flag operation through the terrorist group, putatively connected to Pakistan’s ISI.

Indian police in the Kashmir city of Srinagar told Calcutta police that Ahmed is “our man and it’s now up to them how to facilitate his release,” said one senior officer speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information. Other police officials in Kashmir supported his account, reports the Associated Press.

Indian intelligence staging false flag terror attacks and blaming them on Muslims is nothing new. On November 23, Andrew Buncombe, writing for the Independent, reported: “India is in something of a state of shock after learning from official sources that its first Hindu terror cell may have carried out a series of deadly bombings that were initially blamed on militant Muslims.” In addition to bombing attacks in the Muslim town of Malegaon in the western state of Maharashtra in September, the Hindu terror cells are allegedly responsible for last year’s bombing of a cross-border train en route to Pakistan, which killed 68 people, according to Buncombe.

It should be noted that the head of the Maharastrian Anti-Terrorist Squad making the allegations about Hindu false flag terrorism, Hemant Karkare, was assassinated as he led his team into the Hotel Taj Kahal during the Mumbai attacks. “Killed in the line of duty, Hemant Karare was targeted as the man who was an immense problem for the BJP [the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party] because his forthright investigation revealed Hindutva terrorism and he was not about to stop. Clearly this invalidated the BJP campaign rhetoric against Muslim terrorism, but the BJP will still use the emotional fervor of Hindutva to win against the Congress party,” writes Allen Heart for OpEdNews.

An exposé carried in a national daily published in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh alleges that Indian intelligence supported extremist Hindutvadis in their murderous Malegaon campaign with the cooperation of Israel’s Mossad. “The newspaper writes that relations between Mossad and CIA are world known,” notes the Pak Alert Press blog. “The national daily… has exposed that the officials of the national intelligence agencies have categorically stated that American secret service agency, CIA together with Israel’s secret organization Mossad, has carried out several secret operation all over Asia,” Pak Alert Press reports, translating from the original Urdu.

Indian intelligence, however, is no minor player and its foreign policy objectives currently parallel those of the CIA and Mossad in regard to covert destabilization in South Asia and elsewhere. “RAW [the Research and Analysis Wing, the Indian version of the CIA] , ever since its creation, has always been a vital, though unobtrusive, actor in Indian policy-making apparatus,” writes Isha Khan.

Since its creation in 1968, RAW has been “given a virtual carte blanche to conduct destabilization operations in neighboring countries inimical to India to seriously undertook restructuring of its organization accordingly. RAW was given a list of seven countries (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Pakistan and Maldives) whom India considered its principal regional protagonists. It very soon systematically and brilliantly crafted covert operations in all these countries to coerce, destabilize and subvert them in consonance with the foreign policy objectives of the Indian Government.”

Specifically, RAW “considers Sindh as Pakistan’s soft under-belly. It has, therefore, made it the prime target for sabotage and subversion. RAW has enrolled and extensive network of agents and anti-government elements, and is convinced that with a little push restless Sindh will revolt. Taking fullest advantage of the agitation in Sindh in 1983 and the ethnic riots, which have continued till today, RAW has deeply penetrated and cultivated dissidents and secessionists, thereby creating hard-liners unlikely to allow peace to return to Sindh.” Sindh includes Urdu-speaking Muslim refugees who migrated to Pakistan from India upon independence.

It now appears obvious that India’s RAW with the help of the CIA and Israel’s Mossad created the current situation and have set-up Pakistan’s ISI to take the blame for the Mumbai attacks. Senator McCain, flanked by senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham, told Ejaz Haider, a senior editor with the Daily Times group, that it could be a “matter of days” before India carried out surgical air strikes if Pakistan did not act on the evidence provided to it on elements linked to the attacks, according to the Daily Star. “If the terrorists succeed in confounding relations between these two great countries, they will achieve their aim. We cannot let that happen,” McCain declared.

A conflict between the two nuclear armed nations may very well be the “international crisis, a generated crisis” Joe Biden mentioned in October that will “test” president Barack Obama.

In August, 2007, Obama said “the United States must be willing to strike al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan,” a comment that has led more than a few commentators to conclude that the U.S. will attack Pakistan in the coming months. It now appears the false flag Mumbai attacks, described as India’s “9/11,” will serve as a pretext to get the ball rolling on “surgical strikes” against Pakistan. - http://www.prisonplanet.com/arrest-provides-more-evidence-india-israel-and-the-us-behind-mumbai-attacks.html

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/

PART TWO: EPOCHAL TRANSFORMATION ACCELERATES AS GLOBAL FINANCIAL MATRIX DISINTEGRATES

2008-12-08T04:54:00.001+08:00

T. Anthony Michael
Truthseeker

The derivatives market represents the single greatest threat to worldwide economic stability and financial security. It poses such great potential for financial abuse and economic devastation that the current institutional arrangements of this commercial realm have become completely unacceptable. The alarming proliferation of hedge funds, as well as the growing number and variety of derivative instruments, has reached a critical mass that is incompatible with living a financially sound life on planet Earth. Simply put, some of these instruments are so far from the street – economic reality – that they put into jeopardy all the hard work, which appears in the form of real goods and services, that is produced by any economy at any given time. This predicament signifies a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER to us all.

Remember – DERIVATIVES are the real megilla. Derivatives, by their very nature, can be highly radioactive, and can go nuclear any time circumstances conspire in just the right, or wrong, way. Those who control their destiny can, likewise, utilize their inherent threat as a means of conducting financial and economic terrorism anytime, anywhere completely under the radar screen. It’s time for them to go. And we trust it’s just a matter of execution at this point.

Mass Consumerism & Perpetual Economic Growth – the Fric & Frac of our Age – are history. One need not look any further than the inside of one’s own home to see the ravages of these adopted twins. They own the bedroom, the living room, the family room and all the closets. They’ve taken over the kitchen, the den and the garage, as well. Since their middle names are Amass and Accumulate, we can only imagine what might lay hidden in the attic, the basement and the shed.

Ever since they became the twin pillars of Kali Yuga’s overarching philosophy of life, things started to really go to hell in a handbasket … or rather gilded cage. How so? What else could one expect from a political economy that demands growth, necessitates growth and extols the virtues of growth at every turn (and on every other commercial and newscast). Growth, at the expense of WHAT!! We’ll tell you what – Life!
One of the most tragic parts of this ever-unfolding tragedy has been the dramatic change in the spirit of the people with whom these twins associate. The very society loses its refinement, as the culture becomes debased. Aren’t so many things associated with Americana experienced as coarse, and crude, and crass? Likewise, the nation, which was once known as the “land of the free; home of the brave”, morphs into a country reviled for its unkindness, lack of compassion and cruelty. Before anyone realizes, the citizenry is easily being herded, and then stampeded, into wars and conflict of every sort and kind.

What else could be expected when the meme of consumerism is subliminally implanted at such a young and tender age, and relentlessly reinforced from cradle to grave? And, what does it really say about a society when all who belong to it are known as consumers. Kind of like little pac-men (and pac-women) gobbling up everything in sight. Starts out with BIG Macs and 24 oz cokes, then super-sized HUMMERS, then oil fields and gold mines and precious rainforests, and then whole countries.

Likewise, in the corporate realm, any board director, company officer, division president, regional director, department manager, production supervisor, etc. will candidly speak to the greatest pressure in their lives. More income, more sales, more profit, more production, more revenue – anything that will show an increase in year over year growth. Always gotta GROW, even though yuv been out of puberty for 20 or 30 years!?

Well, you can imagine that this state of affairs can only go on for so long. As a matter of fact, this party’s now over. And the hangover is about to begin. Perhaps it’s time to send these twins on a permanent vacation to the waterless region.

War, as a means of wealth creation, is now bankrupt. War, as a means of conflict resolution, is over. As a means to any end whatsoever, war is finished. You get the picture, don’t you? War has outlived its usefulness, and has become as obsolete as the derivatives hawker. There is simply no more place for it in civil society. It’s time for the curtain to fall on this show for the last time, and for all of its bad actors to hit the stage exit.
It never was a legitimate policy for conflict resolution, as we know. Virtually all conflicts and wars were manufactured in the boardrooms of the world. And impeccably stage managed by the directors of the war studios. Isn’t the Iraq war a perfect example of this kind of terrible and awful-to-watch “B” movie?

Any deliberate, probing and unprejudiced analysis of all the major wars going back to the French Revolution will reveal an extraordinary degree of carefully calculated and coordinated events leading up to the actual conflagrations we call war. Just read the actual history that is only now beginning to surface, and you will reach this very same conclusion.

War has consistently served its masters in three ways which no longer have relevance in an enlightened civilization: (i) population control (ii) artificial creation of wealth for the plutocracy (iii) imposition of a tyrannical order in the wake of the chaos that always results from war. Population control in this context has different meanings. The number of people who are systematically genocided, wantonly annihilated and deliberately infected with disease agents serve the purpose of population reduction. Then there is the sheer terror of war and its effects on whole populations (see how easily controlled both the Germans and Japanese were after WWII). “Order out of chaos” is made easy when all concerned parties have been faced with the extraordinary distraction, mayhem and pandemonium that war always brings.

There are, of course, many other declared wars whose battlegrounds are far from the traditional battlefields of armed conflict. The WAR on Drugs. The WAR on Poverty. The WAR on Crime. The WAR on AIDS. Just like the WAR on TERROR, all of these so called wars are entirely bogus and fabricated, as they all have consistently produced outcomes that are completely contrary to their stated purposes. How so? Because each of them has been designed, and engineered, to perpetuate and expand the status quo. The War on Drugs, for instance, was designed in part to ensure that the opium (and all of its profitable derivatives) flows freely and efficiently from the poppy fields of Afghanistan to the targeted markets in America and elsewhere. In this way, all clandestine US and foreign intelligence agencies/secrets services are able to fund their innumerable black operations without any congressional oversight or public scrutiny from the massive revenues generated that this perfectly controlled black market provides. Oh, yes, did we forget to mention that most of these black ops are actually wars as well. What a Racket?! As Major General Smedley Butler once proclaimed to the world in his book: “WAR IS A RACKET.”

May the shadow governments of the warmongering and real Axis of Evil – the USA, the UK and Israel – truly imbibe the message contained in this ongoing proclamation: WAR is no longer an option. For each of these nations is facing an economic armegeddon of staggering and unprecedented proportions. When confronted with such an incapacitating monetary meltdown, the impulse (and subsequent orchestrated plan), historically, has been to provoke wars through false flag attacks/operations. This knee-jerk, and carefully calculated, reaction will no longer work. The consequential global financial apocalypse this time around will simply be too demanding and debilitating, especially for those who would attempt to plunge the planet into a WWIII scenario.

The 4th Reich has completely run its course. This last covert phase of the “Holy Roman Empire” is finally over. And it’s now imperative that Her controllers in ‘Rome’ get over it. Let us once again proclaim, here and now, that: WAR HAS COME TO AN END.

There is a very profound and significant connection between the US Government sponsored and staged terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 and the PRE-PLANNED Financial & Economic 9/11 of 2008 that may be difficult for many to fully embrace. But here it goes:
The OMEN that 911 truly was, looks a little bit like THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

Remember the Twin Towers? When they came down in NYC, it was a message to humankind that the reign of the Almighty Dollar was coming to an end. As a nation’s currency goes, so goes its destiny. Her financial strength and economic prowess were on the wane, and soon to be greatly diminished. Just as the WTC (financial capital of the world) was pulverized into dust, the US Dollar would be swept into the ash heap of history. Just as we see it collapsing all around us, exactly 7 years after the original 911 apocalyptic events.

When the Ring of Power was finally destroyed, like the Pentagon (ring-shaped command center of the military-industrial complex) was mortally wounded and damaged, the message was equally clear. Her military might and superior force would be reduced to rubble in the twinkling of an eye. She would, likewise, soon see the demise of Her all-pervasive state sponsored terrorism. This, because She had lost all moral ascendancy. Besides, the empire could no longer be sustained politically, financially, practically or ethically, as the seeds of its own destruction had fully sprouted. The most fatal seed grew into that extremely corrupt and predatory form of corporate, crony capitalism which was so socially unconscious, and so environmentally unaware, it was quite doomed from the very beginning.

The GOOD NEWS is that this nation – its people – will now be compelled to beat their “swords into plowshares” and their “spears into pruning hooks”.

Just as the Phoenix rose from its ashes, so too will America ascend to even greater heights. As long as She ascends with the guidance of the highest of ideals, loftiest of principles and noblest of intentions. And She reforms, and transforms Herself, in good faith, in earnest and with haste.

As a modern day prophet said in the days immediately following September 11, 2001:

“America, Wake up ! ! ! Seize this God-given opportunity. There is no more time to dally in fear and ignorance and greed. For yours is a destiny that must serve as a beacon of Light and Hope and Peace to the world. Make haste, the time is drawing nigh!”

[Publication, posting and printing of this article is expressly authorized.]

PART ONE: EPOCHAL TRANSFORMATION ACCELERATES AS GLOBAL FINANCIAL MATRIX DISINTEGRATES

2008-12-06T15:23:00.001+08:00

T. Anthony Michael
Truthseeker

Now that the genie is out of the bottle, worldwide economic, political and social events will proceed with the inexorable force of destiny. The forthcoming changes, shifts and breaks with the past that are delineated below do concern the unsavory business of WHAT, positively, will not be brought into the future. This is of critical importance. Why? Because those who do not know, and understand, and heed history, are always, always forced to repeat it.

As we all sat back and waited for this year’s October Surprise, please know that it came a little bit early this year on September 15th which will forever be known as PITCH BLACK MONDAY. Actually, the entire month of October was set up to be a series of Black Monday’s, as well as every other day of the week shaped up to be. It’s really a good time to brace your self since this year’s election cycle, and beyond, will bring with it a whole new season of surprises. Things like the beginning of the end of FIAT money – the real root cause of all our financial problems and economic ills. This foundational flaw, together with all of the multi-layered financial/economic/accounting mechanisms and schemes that have insidiously crept into the system, are the ‘not talked about’ institutionalized culprits and structural deformities that really need to go. Without them, the perps wouldn’t be so tempted to stack the deck against us all the time.

The only legitimate currency is that which is backed by GOLD, or some other precious commodity that is universally valued, and issued directly by the US Government, not a privately owned, organized crime syndicate like the FED. Debt driven, fractional-reserve banking – the real bane of global finance – will then be banished from the planet forever, along with the overlords of disaster capitalism, institutionalized usury & loan-sharking (e.g. World Bank & International Monetary Fund), as well as their economic hitmen. Finally, the central organizing principle of modern society, and especially Western Civilization, will no longer be: maximizing shareholders’ wealth.

The writing is on the wall: THE FED IS DEAD. And so is the Fed’s collection agency – the IRS. The FED has obviously been on extreme life support since September ’08, and the only compassionate response is to let it go peacefully into the sunset. Perhaps we should organize a simple taxpayers’ revolt, not too unlike those that occurred prior to the American Revolution, to bury this beast forever. When the people do wake up, and realize that the Federal Reserve Note that they carry in their pocket is exactly that – a note (i.e. debt, obligation, debit, commitment, instrument of indebtedness), things will start to get REEEEAL interesting !

Another little surprise will come in the form of an announcement that goes something like this: The USA was conceived to be a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, not a democracy by plutocracy. Or corpocacy, or oligarchy/synarchy, or crony capitalism or any other ism/cracy/archy they have tried to foist upon US. The founding fathers would be absolutely horrified to see the “mob rule by the privileged elites” into which this once great nation has degenerated. Every political philosopher knows that democracy, when sufficiently dumbed down and unduly influenced by the moneyed ruling class, will always devolve into a despotic tyranny. Therefore, the wholesale exportation of our fraudulent notion of democracy, and its supposed freedoms (to buy, buy, buy after watching the boob tube hucksters), by the political and corporate classes must be reconsidered. And it will be soon, on a new channel during this “Fall” season’s new lineup! Stay tuned ---

The recent presidential election, incidentally, is perhaps the most flagrant example of how the US constitutional republic has been repeatedly suspended (at the very least, once every 4 years, right?). Just as much as the voting populace has been suspended in the state of perpetual ignorance is bliss for generations. Can you imagine – the winner having raised close to $700 MILLION in campaign contributions – just how many debts the president-select (Demoplican or Republocrat – either way they are still both sides of the same coin. The coin of the realm which excludes We The People.) has incurred?! How, pray tell, do you think these debts will be paid back in light of the trillions that are already owed across the world by the US Treasury, US corporations, US citizens, etc. They won’t be paid, because they can’t be paid. The US Corporation is, and has been, bankrupt for quite some time now. It’s stone cold broke and plum busted. And We The People are thoroughly disgusted. Therefore, this fraudulent corporate entity can now be trotted off the global stage, so that the REAL Constitutional Republic can be resurrected to its proper place in the nation’s governmental and political life.

Another announcement will be made, in the not too distant future, about the business entity commonly known as the CORPORATION – the main huckster of this ‘brand’ of faux democracy. Surely, if the devil were to ever choose the perfect form in which to enter in order to carry out his nefarious designs, Inc. is it. Is there any other entity on earth – person or party, organization or association, government or institution, jurisdiction or bureaucracy, club or group, fraternity or sorority, etc. that can function with such impunity, as it hides behind the shield of LIMITED LIABILITY. Those two words have given complete cover for the flagrant and wanton destruction of planet Earth.

You name it – oil slicked coastlines, razed rainforests, beaches strewn with dead dolphins and whales. Not to mention the complete erosion of human, civil and national rights, wherever INC decides to set up shop.

Let’s pick a country. Let’s go to India and visit Bhopal of Union Carbide fame. Close to 8000 people died within two weeks of that December day in 1984 in what is known as the worst industrial disaster of the last century. Now that Dow Chemical owns Union Carbide, you can only imagine the veritable phalanx of attorneys who are paid unconscionable fees to ensure proper responsibility and accountability will never be assumed by their master.

Or let’s visit the Punjab and talk to the thousands of widows of farmers who committed suicide because of Monsanto’s “seedless seeds”. Or go to just about anywhere on that subcontinent where a Walmart is being protested for land theft, encroachment and despoilation. Let’s not forget about all the Coca Cola bottling plants that have become notorious for stealing the most precious commodity that every Indian cherishes and covets – WATER. Well, that takes care of land, water, air … and blood. What else in heaven’s name do these stakeholders want?!

We all know the deal. It’s the one where the individual, and his/her environment, is always trampled in favor of the corporate interest. Isn’t it time to really take stock of what our current predicament has left us with? Perhaps it’s also time to seriously think about actually re-ordering the ORDER, instead of once again rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. Like we’ve said, “optimizing stockholder profit” will soon be history, as the cease and desist orders are not far from being issued to Corporate America. Might as well get a head start on dissolving (or re-chartering) that corporation.

Termination of Globalization: The dominating and predatory form, that is. No other global initiative has been more unsuccessful at creating a framework for a more efficient transfer of goods and services around the planet. Truly, every aspect of this corporate inspired policy has failed miserably. Wherever it promoters trumpet its stated intention to make markets more streamlined, effective and resilient, it has done quite the opposite.

One only needs to look at the current debacle within the European Union concerning the banking, credit, and stock market breakdowns. Never has a response from the appropriate governing bodies been more disorganized, full of mixed messages and working at cross purposes with the member states. It’s like watching The Three Stooges (France, Germany & Italy) play musical chairs blindfolded with no clothes on. What an unprecedented spectacle, and in plain view for the entire world to watch! This will undoubtedly put the brakes on the concretizing of a North American Union and their planned currency – the Amero. Praise the Lord!

As a matter of fact, all of the financial unions and economic superstates (e.g. European Union; Southeast Asian Association for Regional Cooperation; Union of South American Nations) that have been created over the past many years will, by sheer necessity and desperation, be forced to re–organize themselves in the coming months and years. Even South America, which has two distinct camps that are constantly gummin’ up the works for each other, will abandon their current emerging model in favor of one that enjoys complete freedom from its North American taskmaster. To their credit, they have set the bar higher than it has ever been set concerning their strongly stated desire to be free of IMF and World Bank control. Only Russia has exceeded their standards, as they had already been fleeced by the Oligarchs in what may very well be the grandest larceny of national wealth/resources in history. This, of course, was preceded by a 75 year scourge of incessant rape, pillaging and plundering by the Bolsheviks and their Western financiers & handlers. Clearly Mr. Putin will not allow a repeat of any such conduct within his borders, and the international persecution that he has suffered certainly reflects their displeasure and frustration with him. No wonder Vladimir Putin is now considered a “reincarnation” of Peter the Great by his own people.

The ruinous influence of these two globalization thugs (IMF & WB) can be instantly assessed by looking at the economic calamities they caused in Argentina (1999-2002), as well as in Thailand, South Korea & Indonesia during the 1997 Asian currency crisis. Likewise, every nation in Africa that has chosen to take on their monetary yoke has only misery and war and financial oppression to show for it. Wherever these 2 scrooges show their faces, it’s quite like Ebenezer himself showing up to make a house call. You know the patient will soon find himself in a pine box after all the gold fillings and rings have been removed.

We have seen this globalization scam unfold in country after country, as a ruse to steal a nation’s resources, always taking from those who have, and giving to those who want it. In fact, an objective assessment of all the world’s current conflicts would reveal that the vast majority are directly the result of this geo-political/commercial dynamic. The privatization of water sources/bodies/supplies/rights is perhaps the most provocative and glaring, and can be found at the root of a number of these resource wars.

Clearly the verdict has been delivered: Economies are much less vulnerable, the more locally they are positioned and the less centralized their decision-making process. This arrangement affords much greater resiliency when dealing with the vicissitudes of the marketplace. And it takes the power away from those who are insulated in ivory towers, and far from the plight of the common man. It is time for everyone on the planet to “think globally; act locally”.

V. Stock market will become extinct. There is no greater tool at the disposal of those who can, and do, manipulate the various markets than the charade of “setting up” a formal system of trading, buying and selling of anything, as exemplified by the NYSE. This is where it all happens. From devastating whole national (and regional) economies, to toppling uncooperative corporate execs, to bringing 150 year old multi-billion $$$ companies to their knees within a week’s time. From triggering stockholder revolts, to propping up corporate raiders, to extorting billions from national and/or corporate treasuries. They can, and do, do it all right there on the floor.

Really, the very best example of what occurs in these speculative market exchanges is the gambling casino. In Vegas, everyone knows that the house ALWAYS wins. It never loses. Even when there is the appearance of losing, it still wins. Go figure, but it’s true. Your stockbroker is not too unlike the blackjack dealer. And your financial planner is often a croupier in disguise. So, the question remains, do you honestly know what your hard earned retirement money is invested in? If not, this is a very good time to find out!!!

For those of us who have been there, we know that whether you call it an oil bourse, a commodity exchange, or a bond market, you’re still playing in a game that can go against you at any time. Wipe out your earnings in a heartbeat; devour your principal in a flash. It’s often been said that when he comes, “he comes like a thief in the night”. Do you still feel you know where your entire life savings is currently residing? – [to be continued in part two]

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE TO LOOK INTO EUROCOPTER, MAYBANK, TM DEALS

2008-10-16T03:43:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 — The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will be conducting inquiries into a number of recent controversial deals involving both the public and private sector, including the acquisition of Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) by Maybank, the Eurocopter deal and the broadband project awarded to Telekom Malaysia.

Its chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid told reporters today that the committee will soon be calling in the relevant parties to understand their rationale behind the decisions.

He said that the committee had yet to fix a specific date to begin their inquiries.

Asked if the committee would call in the Deputy Prime Minister to assist in their inquiries, Azmi smiled and said: “We will see first. We don’t want to jump the gun.”

More:http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13855/84/

NAJIB MUST KEEP CRONIES AND FAMILY MEMBERS AT BAY, SAYS MAHATHIR

2008-10-13T04:13:00.001+08:00

MELBOURNE, Oct 12 (Bernama) -- Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak should not be surrounded by cronies and family members when he is prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said here Sunday.

"There are several former members of parliament and experts whose advice he should seek to run the country," the former prime minister told Bernama after addressing a Malaysian youth seminar at the University of Melbourne.

"There is a lot of work to be done to restore the confidence of the people in the government," Dr Mahathir said.

"But Najib must not try to do everything himself. He must get proper advice from the right people.

"He should not be surrounded by cronies and family members as this will not be good for the country." – BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=363974

MUHYIDDIN THE BEST PERSON FOR DPM JOB, SAYS MAHATHIR

2008-10-13T04:12:00.001+08:00

MELBOURNE, Oct 12 (Bernama) -- Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said on Sunday that Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is the "best person" to be the Malaysian deputy prime minister.

"There are many contestants for the Umno deputy president's position, but I think Muhyiddin is the best person to be deputy to (Datuk Seri) Najib (Tun Razak)," the former Malaysian prime minister said.

Dr Mahathir said the International Trade and Industry Minister had been "very vocal" over the leadership issue of late.

While backing Najib for the prime minister's position, Dr Mahathir said Muhyiddin would bring in a great deal of grassroots experience and knowledge.

"With hard work and co-operation, Najib and Muhyiddin would be able to lead a good government.

"With the global financial turmoil, Malaysia needs strong and decisive leadership," said Dr Mahathir who is here to speak at a Malaysian youth seminar and at an international multicultural symposium. He returns to Kuala Lumpur on Monday. - BERNAMA

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=364000

IMF WARNS THAT MARKETS COULD COLLAPSE BY ANOTHER 20%

2008-10-13T04:11:00.001+08:00

The world is on the brink of financial meltdown, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last night. His bleak warning came as finance ministers tried to calm the frenzy in markets that saw share prices crash by more than 20% last week.

Separately, the IMF’s chief economist predicted that shares could slump by another 20% before stabilising. G7 finance ministers pledged to take all necessary steps to support the banking system and stave off an economic slump.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF, warned that the measures so far “have not yet achieved the goal of stabilising markets and bolstering confidence”.

He said: “Intensifying solvency concerns about a number of the largest US-based and European financial institutions have pushed the global financial system to the brink of systemic meltdown.” Countries would need to take further measures, including interest rate cuts and steps to bolster the banks.

Olivier Blanchard, his chief economist, said stock markets had further to fall. “At the worst, the governments will need another few weeks to make the right assessment and the stock exchanges could fall by another 20%; then there will be a turnaround,” he said.

The warnings came as G7 finance ministers, including Alistair Darling, met George Bush at the White House. “We are in this together,” the president said. “We will come through it together.” Other experts warned that the instability was likely to continue.

More:http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9501

ELECT LEADERS FOR THE FUTURE OF UMNO, SAYS NAJIB

2008-10-11T00:40:00.000+08:00

ALOR STAR, Oct 10 (Bernama) -- UMNO deputy president Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak today reminded all party members and delegates to think of UMNO's future in choosing the candidates who would become their leaders.

He said it was now the season for the election of leaders at the branch, divisional and national level and they should not choose candidates based on personality.

"Remember the advice of the elders, think of the future when you want to do things. It is also the same when it comes to choosing leaders, pick the best for the future of the party," he said at a Gathering With Heads of Federal Departments and Community Leaders organised by the State UMNO Liaison Body, here.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=363698

I FEEL COMFORTABLE WORKING WITH NAJIB, SAYS MUHYIDDIN

2008-10-11T00:39:00.000+08:00

SEREMBAN, Oct 10 (Bernama) -- "I feel comfortable working with (Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri) Najib (Tun Razak) as a team in the cabinet as well as in matters concerning the party," said UMNO vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

However, he stressed, the cooperation did not mean it was a political partnership.

Muhyiddin said this when asked to comment on the claim by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad several months ago in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan that Muhyiddin and Najib had formed a partnership and promised to undertake reforms in UMNO, and to cooperate with each other. - BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=363772

NAJIB, MUHYIDDIN EARLIEST TO RECEIVE NOMINATIONS

2008-10-11T00:38:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 10 (Bernama) -- Datuk Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin have received early nominations for the post of UMNO president and deputy president in the party elections in March when two UMNO divisions held their meetings Friday.

The Kimanis UMNO division in Sabah and the Machang division in Kelantan were the first of the 191 UMNO divisions nationwide to hold their delegates meeting. - BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=363733

CONTEST FOR TOP UMNO POSTS ALMOST A CERTAINTY

2008-10-08T03:40:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 (Bernama) -- The contest for the top posts in UMNO in March is believed to be unavoidable with attention being focused on the tussle for the deputy presidency.

Besides Datuk Seri Mohamed Ali Rustam, who is a vice-president, others vying for the UMNO Number Two post are Supreme Council (MT) member Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Pulai UMNO division head Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed, who is also the youngest aspirant at the age of 42.

Three others who are said to be eyeing for the post are vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, UMNO information chief Tan Sri Muhammad Muhamad Taib and MT member Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.

Although many feel that every UMNO member has the right to contest, there are others who feel that the prospective candidates must evaluate their own capability because the UMNO deputy president, by convention, is also the Deputy Prime Minister.

The final decision, however, lies with the 191 UMNO divisions that will hold their delegates conference beginning Thursday, as the prospective candidates must secure nominations from at least 38 divisions, or 20 per cent of the total number of divisions, in order to be eligible to contest.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=362993

KU LI SAYS A UNITY GOVERNMENT MAY BE THE WAY FORWARD

2008-10-08T03:39:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 - Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah says he is considering an enlarged coalition to form a unity government if he wins the UMNO presidency.

The UMNO veteran says he sees himself as a leader who can bring together all the rival factions in Malaysian politics and forge a “safer road” for the country.

“I think I am quite acceptable to a lot of people. I can talk to all the various factions,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

He said he had brought up the matter of a unity government in meetings with opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Pas president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang and DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang.

Over the next few weeks, he is expected to bring up the matter in discussions with Barisan Nasional leaders.

Tengku Razaleigh has offered himself as a candidate for the UMNO presidency, and is likely to take on Datuk Seri Najib Razak if, as expected, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi does not defend his post.- The Malaysian Insider

More:http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13514/84/

ABDULLAH’S PIVOTAL “NON-DECISION”

2008-10-06T22:38:00.001+08:00

M. Bakri Musa

There are three possible decisions that Abdullah Badawi could make on or by October 9, 2008 , ahead of his party’s divisional meetings. One, he could bravely declare that he will defend his post; two, announce his resignation; and three, waffle and leave it up in the air, effectively a “non-decision.”

This third option would be more in character with him. Throughout his tenure Abdullah has shown a singular inability to make even the simplest decisions. He would defer them until the last minute when the decision would be forced upon him, as the other choices would have been effectively taken away by changed circumstances.

With the third choice, Abdullah, with advice from his “bright” advisors, would of course frame or “spin” it not as a “non-decision;” rather he would dress it up in a language more in tune with our culture. He would for example “leave his fate to Allah,” or for his “party members to decide.” This would also be a classic Abdullah’s non-decision and “flip-flop!”

More:http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13470/84/

ABDULLAH'S SILENCE RAISES LOUD SPECULATIONS

2008-10-06T22:36:00.000+08:00

He is not going to defend his party president’s position but Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s silence on the matter is spawning several theories and prompting some division chiefs to nudge him along by openly declaring support for Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak even before the divisional meetings.

At the emergency supreme council meeting last Friday, the Prime Minister announced that the party elections would be postponed from December to March and that he would state before Oct 9 whether he would accept nominations for the top position.

His decision to keep his options open has set off speculation that he is still harbouring a desire to contest the party polls, a move which will see him face off with Najib.

Senior party officials and his supporters have met Abdullah since Friday and the indication they get is that he is not interested in defending his position, though he believes that the “groundswell’’ of anti-Abdullah sentiment among divisions was manufactured by his political enemies and several highly-placed individuals in the party whom he trusted. - THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

More:http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13254/84/

SELANGOR EXCO MEMBER RONNIE LIU SUES DR KHIR TOYO

2008-10-06T22:35:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 (Bernama) -- Selangor Executive Council (Exco) member Ronnie Liu today filed a suit against former Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo as he claimed that the latter had slandered him.

He filed the suit at the High Court Civil Registry, Jalan Duta, through his lawyer Gobind Singh Deo, seeking for general damages, aggravated damages and examplary damages, interests, costs and other reliefs deemed fit by the court.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=362822

NOMINATIONS BY UMNO DIVISIONS BEGINS FRIDAY

2008-10-06T22:29:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 (Bernama) -- The candidates chosen by the Umno grassroots for key positions in the party especially for the posts of president, deputy president and vice-presidents will be known by Friday at the earliest.

A check by Bernama finds that so far, the Umno divisions have chosen Friday as the commencement date for their delegates conference although they have been allowed to start from Thursday.

Machang and Kimanis are among the earliest Umno divisions to hold their meetings on Friday, followed by the Tumpat and Besut divisions on Saturday.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=362843

KIT SIANG TO PM : CALL SNAP POLLS OR WORK WITH PAKATAN TO END UNCERTAINTY

2008-09-29T01:10:00.000+08:00

IPOH, Sept 28 - Veteran opposition leader Lim Kit Siang last night outlined several options for Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to end uncertainty over his political future, asking him to either call for snap polls or cooperate with the Pakatan Rakyat to change the federal government.

The DAP supremo said the Prime Minister has less than 12 days to mull the current options available to him to either get 58 nominations for the UMNO polls, not contest the party elections or announce his retirement from the country's top post by Oct 9.

More:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/9718-kit-siang-asks-pm-to-call-snap-polls-or-work-with-pakatan-to-end-uncertainty

PAK LAH'S DEPARTURE MAY SPELL TROUBLE FOR ANWAR

2008-09-29T01:07:00.000+08:00

SEPT 28 - With Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi eclipsed, his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Razak on the rise and the UMNO succession dispute all but settled, it is tough times ahead for Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the erstwhile prime minister-in-waiting.

While meeting fund managers In Hong Kong on Thursday Anwar put up a brave front to questions on whether it is troubling him with Najib set to get the job he craves and whether the leadership transition in UMNO means a strong and united UMNO training its guns on him.

"No," Anwar told them. "In fact the changes makes it easier for me…nothing really has changed because the corrupt system remains, the cronyism remains and race and discrimination remains."

More:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/9720-pak-lahs-departure-may-spell-trouble-for-anwar-

RAZALEIGH TO GO FOR NO. 1

2008-09-29T01:06:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 27 — Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah said today he will contest the Umno presidency even if Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi decides against defending his post.

He also spoke out against the postponement of the party polls, and urged members to push for the reinstatement of December as the date of the annual general assembly.

Tengku Razaleigh also called on Umno grassroots to reject the latest transition of power plan involving Abdullah and party deputy president Datuk Seri Najib Razak. - The Malaysian Insider

More:http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13151/1/

WILL UPKO DO AS "SAPP"?

2008-09-29T01:05:00.000+08:00

KOTA KINABALU, Sept 28 (Bernama) - When Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president Datuk Yong Teck Lee announced the party's decision to leave the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition on Sept 17, it did not surprise many people as it was something to be expected.

This was because three months beforehand, SAPP had displayed such a tendency.

But when United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (UPKO) yesterday threatened to review its position in BN, it came as a shock and was seemingly reminiscent to SAPP's political move.

UPKO thus became the second BN component party in Sabah to make a "strong statement" against BN after SAPP. - BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=361755

KOH: 60% WANT GERAKAN TO LEAVE BN

2008-09-29T01:04:00.000+08:00

Although the sentiment among the grassroots for Gerakan to leave Barisan Nasional (BN) is prevalent because of incidents that took place over the last two months, the party is adopting a cautious stand as it needs to examine and ponder over its survival post-BN.

"At least 60% say 'let us be relieved of this burden', which is considered an emotional burden, but we have to go beyond that, we have to go beyond sentiments," the party's acting president, Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon, said today.

"Now, after the initial feelings and sentiments because of things that have happened, especially in the last one to two months, have subsided, they are becoming much more calm, collected and mature in their approach and are able to think over the things that have been discussed," he said at the opening of the Federal Territory (FT) Gerakan Wanita and Youth delegates conference. – The Sun

More:http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13191/84/

FT GERAKAN MEMBERS DEFECT TO PKR

2008-09-29T01:03:00.000+08:00

PETALING JAYA: More than 20 Federal Territory Gerakan members have defected to Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) with “more expected in the coming weeks.”

Former Federal Territory Gerakan information bureau chief Gan Kok Keng said there would be at least 300 members from four divisions joining the opposition party soon.

The divisions involved are the Setiawangsa, Wangsa Maju, Bukit Bintang and Kepong divisions. – The Star

More:http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13188/84/

"DANGEROUS GULF" OPENS BETWEEN RUSSIA AND WEST

2008-09-29T01:02:00.000+08:00

The West's pillorying of Moscow over last month's invasion of Georgia has kindled a fierce Russian resentment that poses dangers for security in Europe and in trouble spots beyond.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lectured Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during a United Nations gathering in New York, telling him Russia was now isolated. Lavrov countered that his appointment book for the meeting had never been fuller.

Behind the studiedly gentle riposte lay a sense, echoed on the streets in Russia, that the West was not granting resurgent Russia the respect it feels it merits. Animosities ascribed in earlier times to ideological schism between communism and capitalism are proving hardier than many might have expected.

Russia's sense of grievance over the Georgian war stems from Western governments' unwillingness to acknowledge publicly what many say privately – that Tbilisi started the conflict.

Adding insult to injury for the Russians is strong Western support for Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili – loathed by Moscow – and Western media coverage which has overwhelmingly favored Georgia during the conflict.

More:http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9421

EXIT PAK LAH

2008-09-26T21:12:00.000+08:00

SEPT 26 - It is game over for Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

His 2010 transition plan was shredded by his deputy and the Umno Supreme Council today and he was presented with little choice but to accept the exit plan.

The plan calls for the Umno General Assembly and party elections to be postponed from December till March next year. Divisions will still meet from Oct 9 and nominate candidates for top positions in the party.

At a brief press conference after the Supreme Council meeting, Abdullah appeared to suggest as much that the 2010 plan had been dumped.

The Umno president said: "If we want to make it before 2010, it is not an issue."

He also added that he would make an announcement before Oct 9, when party divisions will meet to nominate their candidates for the party leadership.

One name not likely to be considered is Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. He is expected to announce that he will not defend his party president's position, possibly just after the Hari Raya holidays.

He will then stay on as party president and prime minister until March 2009. Presumably he will be given some time to complete some of the reforms he promised Malaysians and then be given a grand send off at the party assembly.

Party vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who has been one of those pressuring Pak Lah to step down earlier, said after the meeting, that the postponement of the general assembly was effectively a new deadline for Abdullah to leave office.

The extension of his term of office until at least March will not remove the bitter feeling among Abdullah's supporters that he allowed himself to be outflanked by Najib and other supreme council members,

More:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/9640-exit-pak-lah

WINNERS AND LOSERS

2008-09-26T21:11:00.000+08:00

SEPT 26 - The decision by the Umno Supreme Council to postpone the party polls till March next year will have a major impact on many of the big players in the party. Below is the Malaysian Insider's take on who benefits from it and who loses big time.

WINNERS

• Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak:

After Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi does the inevitable and announces that he will not seek re-election as party president, nearly all 191 nominations from the divisions will flow to Najib.

This new transition plan works for the Deputy Prime Minister like a dream. By persuading Abdullah to accept the March transition plan, he has managed to remove the two impediments to the top job in the party – the possibility of him having to face the wrath of the ground by continuing to stay with Abdullah or the possibility of having to confront Abdullah in a no-holds barred contest.

Not too shabby for someone who only a few months ago was having to defend himself against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

The Opposition leader implicated Najib in the murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shariibuu and accused him of benefiting in several defence deals while Dr Mahathir accused him of being a coward by not forcing Abdullah out of office after Election 2008.

With Abdullah all but gone, Dr Mahathir will probably rejoin Umno, team up with Najib and fight Anwar. Najib will inherit a united Umno.

• Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin:

He wore the broadest grin today. Not surprising since today was a victory of sorts for the party vice-president.

He has been leading the charge within Umno to force Abdullah to step down since March 8, moving his criticisms from behind closed doors to public forums. Muhyiddin's main plank of attack was that the party and Barisan Nasional has lost confidence in the PM.

When Abdullah and Najib agreed on the 2010 transition plan, it seemed that Muhyiddin's efforts were going to end up in tears. But the BN defeat in Permatang Pauh in August galvanised Muhyiddin and other critics of Abdullah.

They whipped up the percolating anti-Abdullah sentiment, making it difficult for either the PM or DPM to ignore them. Now as critic-in-chief, he is poised to be the favourite to suck up most of the nominations for the deputy president's position.

More:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/9652-winners-and-losers

KU LI: MALAYSIA HAS BECOME A LAUGHING STOCK

2008-09-26T21:09:00.001+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 - The prime minister and his deputy are turning Malaysia into a banana republic and a laughing stock, according to Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

In a press statement on the outcome of today's emergency Umno Supreme Council meeting, he called Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi and his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Razak "two grown men playing this endless children's game of 'yours and mine' with the most important responsibility in the land, oblivious of the law, oblivious to the damage they are doing to the nation."

The Kelantanese prince said that it appeared that their political careers appeared to be more important than the future of the nation.

"Instead of a national economic plan or any kind of reform, all the Umno leadership has only given us since March 8 is a transition plan designed to save two individuals from the inconvenience of facing elections," he said.

Razaleigh has also been critical of the original mid-2010 pact between Abdullah and Najib, calling it a "fantasy which rides roughshod over the party's constitution and the rights of its members."

The former finance minister has declared his intentions to challenge for the party presidency but doubts continue over his ability to garner the required 58 nominations to be eligible to contest the top post.

Razaleigh is scheduled to speak further on this matter in a press conference tomorrow.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/9654-ku-li-malaysia-has-become-a-laughing-stock

EARLY POWER TRANSITION DATE?

2008-09-26T00:57:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 25 (Bernama) -- Will the special Umno supreme council (MT) meeting Friday decide to set an early power transition date between Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak or discuss more effective ways to strengthen the party?

The former was the question uppermost among politicians and political observers soon after it was made public that Umno would convene an MT meeting at 10am at the party's headquarters here.

Over the last two days, the political rumour mill has been going on overdrive, with speculation that the nation's top two leaders were involved in "re-brokering" the transition date originally set for June 2010, which some say had caused dissatisfaction among Umno members aligned to some leaders.

The two leaders had earlier agreed that Abdullah would transfer power to Najib by June 2010, but this was seen by some segments in Umno as being too long, especially with the largest political party in the country holding its party polls in December this year.

The first signs of dissent was evident after Abdullah on Sept 17 made a public announcement that he did not rule out an early handover of power and was swapping his Finance Minister portfolio with Najib's defence portfolio. – BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=361356

MALAYSIA'S POLITICAL WAITING ROOM

2008-09-26T00:52:00.000+08:00

It's as if an entire nation is holding its breath.

Malaysia's embattled Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has already said he will give up power to take responsibility for the ruling coalition's humiliating performance in polls earlier this year. But Abdullah hasn't specified exactly when he might hand over the reins to his deputy, Najib Razak, even though the government's popularity figures are languishing at a record low.

Meanwhile, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, whose People's Alliance did surprisingly well in the March elections, boasts that he has lured enough defectors from the governing alliance to form a new government. But despite promising to unveil his new team in mid-September, Anwar hasn't shown the goods yet. As the political standoff heightens, Malaysians can only sit and hope that someone will soon tackle the nation's problems: a growing racial divide, a lagging economy, a judiciary whose independence has been questioned, and, most fundamentally, a sense that things in Malaysia aren't quite right.

No one doubts that Malaysian politics are about to undergo a sea change. The only questions are when and how - and those are big questions in a country that is trying to secure its status as a model Muslim-majority democracy.

More:http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13071/84/

GUAN ENG: ONLY ANWAR KNOWS WHO'S ON CROSSOVER LIST

2008-09-26T00:51:00.000+08:00

PETALING JAYA: Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has held the list of Barisan Nasional MPs allegedly "crossing over" to the Pakatan Rakyat so close to his chest that even the DAP has not been privy to it.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said the Parti Keadilan Rakyat adviser had also not revealed the list to Pas leaders.

"I have not seen the list and in my meeting with Anwar on Tuesday night, he told me that he has not shown the list to any Pakatan Rakyat leaders," he told a press conference at party headquarters yesterday.

More: http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13093/84/

MALAYSIA LEADER'S POWER TRANSFER PLAN IN JEOPARDY

2008-09-26T00:36:00.001+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's government sought to allay fears Thursday that growing demands for the prime minister's resignation could spark rifts in the ruling party and enable its opposition foes to seize power.

Speculation about political strife increased after Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak canceled a trip to the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York just hours before his scheduled departure Wednesday.

Najib said government duties kept him from leaving, but independent news portals reported that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib were discussing when Abdullah should hand power to his deputy.

Abdullah has said he will defend his position as chief of the ruling United Malays National Malay Organization in December elections and that he wants to remain in office until mid-2010 _ though he has said he could retire earlier. Every prime minister since independence in 1957 has been the UMNO leader.

More:http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13090/84/

THE PRE-PLANNED FINANCIAL/ECONOMIC 911 OF 2008

2008-09-26T00:34:00.001+08:00

WHAT: A pre-planned collapse of the US (and global) financial and economic systems.

WHO: The same characters who perpetrated the original 911.

WHERE: New York City & DC, of course. Plus a sideshow in Washington state.

WHEN: The days surrounding September 11, naturally.

HOW: Instead of painted drones, missiles with fins and fake airplanes, they used the much more stealthy short seller.

WHY: To remake the economic/financial order of the world.

WHY Really: Think about it! And then ask yourself, “Cui bono?”

The 911 blueprint worked so magically for the world controllers that they were compelled to use virtually the same playbook. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

So, what’s the real deal here?

More:http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9402

SUPREME COUNCIL

2008-09-24T22:04:00.001+08:00

By Dr. Mahathir Mohamad

1. The goings on in the UMNO Supreme Council are supposed to be secret. So it was quite a surprise when the press reported some important details regarding the Supreme Council's meeting on Thursday, September 18. What is even more surprising is that the reports expose the attacks against Dato Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi by several members of the council and their demand that the transfer of power should take place before the divisional meetings which would nominate the candidates for President.

2. It appears that the words used by some of the members were very strong. Dato Seri Rafidah Aziz even attacked the roles played by Abdullah's son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin and the PM's son, Kamaluddin.

3. So harsh were the words used that Abdullah's face changed and he was reeling from the onslaught when Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak, ever the protector of Abdullah, stopped the proceedings. Najib promised he would speak on the matter with Abdullah.

4. It seems that the other Supreme Council members were not happy as once again controversial council matters were made into private deals between Abdullah and Najib. It is the kind of negation of council rights that both Abdullah and Najib had frequently resorted to. The two would later come out with decisions which were unsatisfactory to the council members. Najib would then stress on the need to be united and loyal to the President.

5. This time around it is not going to be any different. When faced with a tricky problem Abdullah would consult his family members, usually his son and son-in-law but now also his wife.

http://test.chedet.com/che_det/2008/09/supreme-council.html

RAIS CALLS FOR RETURN TO THE 'OLD UMNO'

2008-09-24T22:03:00.001+08:00

WASHINGTON, Sept 24 - It is time for the top two positions in UMNO to be contested to strengthen the party's democratic process, Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim said here yesterday.

“UMNO is in dire need of a strong democratic process and I belong to that group where the (positions) of the president and the deputy president should be challenged," he said after chairing a meeting of 13 heads of Malaysian missions in the Americas at the Malaysian Embassy here.

“Any office should be subject to contests – public office should not be sacrosanct -– UMNO should go through a process of reversion," back to the way it was,” he said. - Bernama

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/9520-rais-calls-for-return-to-the-old-UMNO

KU LI: GOVERNMENT AND UMNO HAVE LOST THE PLOT

2008-09-24T22:02:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 24 - The government and UMNO are no longer viable and all Malaysians must come together to rectify the “dangerous situation” the country is in, former Finance Minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah said yesterday.

“The government, in its present form, and under the present leadership, led by the party to which I have given my life, are now structurally and inherently incapable of providing the direction and confidence that the country needs,” he said in a statement yesterday.

The MP for Gua Musang and aspiring UMNO presidential candidate said the country was facing a political and economic crisis because of a leadership vacuum and the country was in turmoil because the rule of law was uncertain and the Constitution was not being upheld.

"Everyone must come together in humility, beyond party politics, to hold an honest discussion, in the spirit of shared citizenship, to steer the country out of the crisis," he said.

More:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/9503-ku-li-government-and-UMNO-have-lost-the-plot

NAJIB CANCELS TRIP TO NEW YORK

2008-09-24T22:01:00.000+08:00

Deputy Prime Minister Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Tun Razak, who is supposed to leave for New York tonight, has made a last minute decision to cancel his trip.

Political observers say that Najib's decision is prompted by the advice given by several Supreme Council members that he should not leave the country as the UMNO divisional meetings draw close.

More:http://jejakpujangga.blogspot.com/2008/09/breaking-newsnajib-cancels-trip-to-new.html

MCCAIN WOULD PREEMPTIVELY STRIKE IRAN

2008-09-24T22:00:00.000+08:00

In an appearance on CBS 60 Minutes, Senator McCain was asked if his administration would engage in a preemptive war against a country that might pose a threat to the US but has not attacked the US.

McCain echoed the Bush Doctrine and said that such an attack would be legitimate 'if it is a provable direct threat'.

The Bush Doctrine, introduced in the wake of the September 11 attacks, is a series of aggressive foreign policy principles set by President George W. Bush's administration, such as an anticipatory self-defense right - the right to launch preemptive strikes against any country that might attack the United States.

"Suppose that the Iranians had nuclear weapons. And you had a whole lot of other information about Iranian intentions and you could make the case to the American people and to the world, I think it's obvious that we would have to prevent what we're absolutely certain is a direct threat to the lives of the American people," McCain expounded.

At a time when the US presidential election is greatly overshadowed by a major economic crisis and candidates are competing to prove they are capable of resolving this problem, Iran remains a major foreign policy challenge for both camps.

The Bush administration has long blamed Iran for the violence in Iraq, a country that is under US military occupation. Tehran maintains it only seeks the restoration of security and stability in its neighboring country.

More:http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9396

ANWAR MEETS PAS LEADERS

2008-09-24T02:48:00.001+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 23 (Bernama) -- Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim Tuesday met up with PAS leaders in an effort to convince them that PAS members of parliament (MPs) would not be marginalised should the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) form the next federal government.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat information chief Tian Chua said Anwar, who is also PKR advisor, wanted to impress upon PAS leaders, especially its spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat and party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang that Muslim MPs would not be sidelined if the PR gains power.

"We have to do this before proceeding to the next course of action," he told Bernama without revealing what the next course of action would be.

Last week, Anwar issued a Sept 23 deadline to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to call for an emergency Parliament session in an attempt to move a motion of no-confidence against the government, claiming that he had 31 Barisan Nasional (BN) MPs in the opposition's fold. - BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=360885

SAVING ABDULLAH

2008-09-24T02:47:00.001+08:00

The most important political development in town has very little to do with Anwar Ibrahim. Instead, it is about the dynamics of the relationship between the Prime Minister and his deputy and how they approach the UMNO party elections that are set to commence with the divisional meetings on 9 October.

Neither Abdullah Ahmad Badawi nor Najib Tun Razak wants to fight the other. They know that this would be disastrous for the party and even prove to be the final nail in its coffin. Both want to honour the spirit, if no longer the exact letter, of the transition plan which originally intended for Najib to take over the premiership and party presidency in June 2010. It was a deal brokered directly by the two men and endorsed by the party Supreme Council.

But things began to fall apart after the loss at the Permatang Pauh by-election even though this had very little to do with Abdullah's leadership (in fact it was seen more as a battle between Anwar Ibrahim and Najib). There was a resurgence of dissent within party ranks led by vice president, Muhyiddin Yassin, and egged on by Mahathir Mohamed from the outside. This was an opportunity to renew the pressure on Abdullah to go now rather than later. But the spark that lit the fire was Najib's statement a couple of weeks ago that although he was committed to the transition plan, he would also leave it to the divisions to decide whether they want to support it as well. Politics is all about signaling. For many in the party, that statement by Najib was a signal that he would contest the presidency against Abdullah.

More:http://hantulautan.blogspot.com/2008/09/saving-abdullah.html

ABDULLAH STARTS COUNTING THE NUMBERS

2008-09-24T02:46:00.001+08:00

Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's decision to "stand and fight" has begun in earnest. Yesterday, the Umno president and PM was in Kelantan to break fast and meet members of the Kelantan Umno Liaison Committee.

On Sunday, Abdullah was in Johor Baru. He'll be all over the country to meet as many Umno division chiefs as possible to tell his side of the story, ie, to try and defend his post as Umno's number one chief.

Many senior members of the supreme council have told him to forget the idea of defending his post in the December party elections. In fact, many of them told him to step down and pass the baton to his deputy, Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak, ahead of the transition plan.

Under the plan, Abdullah is supposed to quit in June 2010 and pass the leadership to Najib. Many council members, grassroot leaders and ordinary members believe that 2010 is too late and could spell big problems for Umno and the Barisan Nasional come the next general election.

At the last council meeting, Abdullah was told to step aside and avoid a potentially-embarassing contest in December. Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has offered himself to be nominated, and expressed confidence that he would get the 30 per cent quota needed to qualify to challenge for the post (ie at least 58 nominations out of 191).

Talk is widespread that Abdullah won't be able to get sufficient nominations to contest. Grassroot leaders have voiced open endorsement for Najib, with vice president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as the most popular choice for the deputy's post.

More:http://ahmadatalib.blogspot.com/2008/09/abdullah-starts-counting-numbers.html

BN, UMNO FACE OBLIVION WITHOUT REFORM: MUHYIDDIN

2008-09-24T02:44:00.000+08:00

Trade Minister and Umno vice president Muhyiddin Yassin today warned that the ruling party and the coalition it has led for half a century faces oblivion at the next elections if it fails to reform.

The Barisan Nasional coalition, helmed by the ruling Umno, has floundered since March elections which saw a resurgent opposition score unprecedented victories.

Muhyiddin, who has called for premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to stand down before his planned departure in 2010, said the party must address internal conflicts and the opposition threat.

"It is a situation which is very serious. It is of concern not only to Umno members but to the country at large, to the Barisan Nasional and people who cares about what is happening to the government," he told a press conference.

More:http://www.suaradu.com/2008/09/muhyiddin-bn-umno-akan-hancur-tanpa.html

PAK LAH SET TO DEFEND UMNO PRESIDENCY

2008-09-23T02:48:00.001+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 22 - Barring a last-minute turnaround, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will go ahead and defend his position as Umno party president, despite some pressure from the ground for him to short-circuit his transition plan.

Sources told The Malaysian Insider that the Prime Minister reached this decision after meeting several Umno supreme council members, state liaison chiefs and political operatives over the weekend at his official residence Sri Perdana.

The consensus among this group, which includes Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Mansor, is that Abdullah should be able to garner the minimum 58 nominations needed to contest the top post. Abdullah's supporters said that with the green light from him, they will hit the ground and conduct a no-holds-barred campaign for the next few weeks to ensure that he gets the nominations when Umno divisions begin their divisional meetings.

This decision by Abdullah to defend his party president's position will come as a surprise to many, especially those in Datuk Seri Najib Razak's camp. During the supreme council meeting on Thursday, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein, Datuk Rafidah Aziz and Datuk Shafie Apdal urged Abdullah to hand over the reins to Najib soon, with Rafidah saying that the PM will face difficulty getting the minimum number of nominations.

Hearing this feedback, many party officials and political pundits expected him to announce that he would not contest the party elections.

But instead of demoralising Abdullah and his supporters, the attack by Hishammuddin and others had the opposite effect. Abdullah's camp felt that despite being magnanimous by handing over the Finance portfolio and even suggesting during a press conference that he would hand over power to Najib much earlier than 2010, he was being pushed to the wall.

A senior party official told The Malaysian Insider: "You can push someone up to a point only. After that it becomes humiliating. So it is rubbish to say that Pak Lah will be humiliated if he contests the party elections. Some people are already trying to do this. He has nothing to lose by keeping to the original transition plan.''

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/9390-pak-lah-set-to-defend-umno-presidency

MUHYIDDIN PUTS MORE PRESSURE ON PAK LAH

2008-09-23T02:46:00.002+08:00

(Sin Chew) KUALA LUMPUR: Umno vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said Monday (22 Sept) it is up to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to decide whether to hand over power before 9 Oct.

Speaking to reporters here, he said, he believed that Abdullah knew what was happening on the ground.

Muhyiddin's comments came after several Umno supreme council members said over the weekend that there was no pressure on Abdullah to step down before the agreed transition period timeframe of June 2010.

Abdullah himself had indicated that he might decide whether he would leave earlier than the June 2010 deadline. - 22 September 2008

http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/12966/84/

MAT TAIB SLAMS OPPORTUNISTS WHO LEAK INFO ON SUPREME COUNCIL MEETINGS

2008-09-23T02:46:00.001+08:00

(Bernama) Umno Information Chief Tan Sri MuhammadMuhammad Taib today slammed "opportunists" who leaked information on matters discussed in the party's supreme council meeting.

He said as supreme council members, they should uphold the ethics when attending meetings whether at the supreme council or at state level.

"If we leak things that we discuss in closed-door meetings, it means that we are opportunists.

"There should not be opportunistic traits among party leaders," he told reporters after handing over donation to 71 Sungai Panjang residents whose house were destroyed in a storm yesterday. - 22 September 2008

http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/12976/84/

WHAT WAS MYSTERIOUS ACTIVITY GOING ON IN THE MARRIOTT HOTEL?

2008-09-23T02:45:00.001+08:00

Marriott Hotel has now become a ghost house which was yesterday the most beautiful and prestigious hotels in the Islamabad. While the condemnation of the blasts and the deaths and the loss of property is going on from all the quarters, some intriguing news is also pouring in.

After the blast, mysteriously fire was started at the fourth and fifth floors. It was said that this fire was the result of gas pipeline burst running through the hotel. The million dollar question is that was the gas pipeline not running through the other floors? Why the fire broke out from the fourth and fifth flours? That is the question which perhaps holds the key to the mystery as why the hotel was targeted yesterday, in which more than 60 people died including many foreigners.

Though it would never get confirmed but the fire on the fifth and fourth floor of the hotel broke out because those flours were housing the mysterious steel boxes under the heavy guard of United States marines and no one including the Pakistani security forces and the security men of the hotel were allowed to go near with the them. These boxes were shifted inside the hotel when the Admiral Mike Mullen met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad.

It is said that one member of parliament Mumtaz Alam who belongs to the PPP, the ruling party was there eye witnessed the whole scene when the white truck of US embassy came to the gate of Marriot Hotel and US marines themselves unloaded the steel boxes from the trucks and shifted them to the fourth and fifth floors without passing through them the scanners at the entrance of the hotels. When the truck was there, all the entrance and the exit passage way to the hotels were closed.

And now this blast has occurred at the Marriott, while that mysterious activity was going on. Pakistan Daily – September 21, 2008

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9385

MARRIOTT HOTEL BOMBING: ANOTHER SIGN OF PAKISTAN’S DEEPENING CRISIS

2008-09-23T02:44:00.001+08:00

The massive bomb blast that devastated the luxury Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday evening is one more sign of the deepening political crisis in Pakistan produced by the Bush administration’s spreading “war on terrorism”. While no one has claimed responsibility, the blast was undoubtedly in retaliation for continuing attacks by the US and Pakistani military in the country’s border region with Afghanistan against Islamist militias.

Investigators have recovered a videotape showing a dump truck exploding after being stopped at the hotel’s security gates. The blast from an estimated half tonne of explosives left a huge crater some 20 metres wide and 8 metres deep and sparked a fire that rapidly engulfed the hotel and took 12 hours to bring under control. At least 53 people were killed and more than 250 injured. Among the dead were the Czech ambassador Ivo Zdarek, a Vietnamese woman and two unnamed US Defence Department officials.

The bombing was clearly aimed at sending a message to the Pakistani government. The Marriott Hotel is in the political centre of Islamabad, near the parliament building, the prime minister’s residence, presidential offices and foreign embassies. As one of the capital’s two five-star hotels, it was frequented by top foreign visitors and government officials as well as the capital’s business elite. Senior Interior Ministry official Rehman Malik immediately declared that “all roads lead to FATA”—the Federally Administered Tribal Areas where the Pakistani military is currently waging a major offensive against militias supportive of anti-occupation insurgents in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The blast came just hours after Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari addressed a joint session of the country’s parliament pledging to free Pakistan from “the shackles of terrorism”. Since taking office earlier this month, Zardari has been engaged in a delicate balancing act—on the one hand, bowing to US demands for a crackdown on Islamist militants in the FATA, and, on the other, attempting to placate popular anger over what is seen as a proxy war on behalf of the US.

More: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/paks-s22.shtml

UMNO POWER TRANSITION TO HAPPEN SOONER

2008-09-19T06:10:00.003+08:00

A lot sooner. They told me it was one of the hottest supreme council meetings that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi ever chaired.

All the top Umno leaders who spoke this afternoon, save for one who hailed from the East Coast, spoke up on the need to save the party, i.e. for the president to give way for a change in leadership, i.e. for Pak Lah to step down and leave Najib with the task of repairing the damage suffered by Umno over the last few years before it's too late.

You are not likely to read a blow-by-blow account in any of the government-controlled media.

More:http://rockybru.blogspot.com/2008/09/umno-power-transition-to-happen-sooner.html

'I WILL DECIDE WHETHER TO CONTEST OR OTHERWISE', SAYS ABDULLAH

2008-09-19T06:10:00.002+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 18 (Bernama) -- Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said today that whatever decision concerning his position as Umno president and the transition of power will be made by him personally.

The Prime Minister said whatever changes would be discussed together with his deputy, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

"Because the (divisional) meetings have not started, and whatever things that I need to do, whatever action that I will take, it's all up to me.

"I will talk to (Deputy Prime Minister) Datuk Seri Najib (Tun Razak), there's no need to repeat," he told reporters after chairing the Umno Supreme Council meeting here.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=360032

BADAWI ASKED TO LEAVE

2008-09-19T06:10:00.001+08:00

The UMNO Supreme Council, with an overwhelming majority, has TOLD Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to relinquish his post as Umno president and Prime Minister.

Abdullah has been given the ultimatum to announce his RETIREMENT on or before October 9, 2008 when the Umno Divisional Meetings begin.

A senior Umno member who was present at the meeting said the most vocal among senior Supreme Council members was Wanita Chief and Kuala Kangsar Member of Parliament, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz.

The Supreme Council members, except for a few rookies, told Abdullah that he should announce his intention of NOT seeking re-election during the party polls in December or risk being HUMILIATED.

They explained that Abdullah would face the greatest humiliation if he fails to garner enough nominations to retain his position as president.

“They made it very clear to the President that a vast majority of grass-root Umno members and leaders, both at Branch and Division levels, want him OUT.

“We just hope that he understands the actual scenario now and leave gracefully,” the source said.

It appears that Umno Divisional leaders have already started to distance themselves from Abdullah.

More:http://apanama2020.blogspot.com/2008/09/badawi-rejected-asked-to-leave.html

US TO SELL BUNKER-BUSTING BOMBS TO ISRAEL: PENTAGON

2008-09-19T06:10:00.000+08:00

The US Defense Department has notified Congress of plans to sell 1,000 bunker-buster bombs to Israel in a deal worth 77 million dollars.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the possible arms sale of the GBU-39 small diameter smart bombs on its website. The deal still requires approval from Congress.

The bombs, which are touted as more precise than larger munitions, have the capacity to penetrate 1.8 meters (six feet) of reinforced concrete and carry a 50 percent probability of reaching a target within five meters.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the bombs could help Israel in a possible strike against Iran's nuclear sites, some of which are protected by bunker-like structures.

Last month, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that his country will never accept Iran developing a nuclear weapons capability and refused to rule out "any options."

Israel, the region's sole if undeclared nuclear armed state, considers Iran its main strategic threat because of its nuclear programme, which Israel and its staunch US ally suspect is aimed at developing weapons. - AFP September 16, 2008

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9354

WILL MUHYIDDIN MARTYR AS ANOTHER DEAD MALAY HERO?

2008-09-18T01:41:00.004+08:00

Malay heroes are usually dead. Some heroes like Hang Tauh and Hang Jebat does not qualify the moral standard to be called one.

After our heroes have outlived their death defying heroic pursuit and the public salutation, they are left to the elements. Some heroes are left uncared for in their old age. Some ended life in a pathetic state. Only to be revered and glorified upon their death.

In the post GE 12 UMNO political struggle to remove the Prime Minister – an incompetent and highly suspected puppet of some invisible parties, there were many lone voices expressing the grassroots grouse and demand him to take responsibility for BN’s extremely poor showing by resigning.

There was the eminent Tun Dr Mahathir, filial son Dato Mukhriz, loyal lieutenant Tan Sri Sanusi Junid, former rival Tengku Tan Sri Razaleigh Hamzah, and many others mostly retired politicians.

But Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is the lone voice of conscience that consistently stood up from amongst the kow towing members of the UMNO Supreme Council to put the party ahead of self interest.

Guided by his moral conscience, his latest move to demand the power transition immediately persuaded Dr Mahathir to rejoin UMNO and provided Najib the moral strength to set aside the power transition agreement.

This will likely be the might be the tipping factor to make that change. But will Muhyiddin ended up as another martyred “dead” hero?

More: http://anotherbrickinwall.blogspot.com/

UMNO'S POWER TRANSITION HAS BEGUN

2008-09-18T01:41:00.003+08:00

SEPT 17 Mid-2010 is the finish line but the transfer of power from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak kicked in today.

By handing over the powerful finance portfolio to Najib, Abdullah was making good on a promise to flesh out his transition plan and give the DPM more important responsibilities to prepare him for the top job in the country.

It was also a concession:

- To someone who has stuck by him through a tumultuous six months since the debacle of Election 2008, when calls for him to step down as president of Umno and the PM have grown louder and more bellicose. And whose support he still needs to fend off the challenge of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin;

- To concerns among investors and the public that someone new was needed at the helm of the finance ministry to inject confidence in the handling of the economy.

The Malaysian Insider understands that the ministry swap - Najib going to finance and Abdullah taking over defence - was discussed during three meetings in recent days between both men.

More:http://m.themalaysianinsider.com/articles.php?id=9151-umnos-power-transition-has-begun

MEDIA MANIPULATION: LEADING JOURNALISTS EXPOSE MAJOR MEDIA MANIPULATIONS

2008-09-18T01:41:00.001+08:00

The riveting excerpts below are from the revealing accounts of 20 award-winning journalists in the highly acclaimed book Into the Buzzsaw. These courageous writers were prevented by corporate media ownership from reporting major news stories. Some were even fired or laid off. They have won numerous awards, including several Emmys and a Pulitzer. Join in building a better world by helping to spread this news across the land.

Jane Akre—Fox News. After our struggle to air an honest report [on hormones in milk], Fox fired the general manager [of our station]. The new GM said that if we didn’t agree to changes that the lawyers were insisting upon, we’d be fired for insubordination in 48 hours. We pleaded with [him] to look at the facts we’d uncovered. His reply: “We paid $3 billion dollars for these stations. We’ll tell you what the news is. The news is what we say it is!” [After we refused] Fox’s GM presented us an agreement that would give us a full year of salary, and benefits worth close to $200,000, but with strings attached: no mention of how Fox covered up the story and no opportunity to ever expose the facts. [After declining] we were fired.

Dan Rather—CBS, Multiple Emmy Awards. What's going on is a belief that you can manipulate communicable trust between the leadership and the led. The way you do that is you don't let the press in anywhere. Access to war is extremely limited. The fiercer the combat, the more the access is limited, [including] access to information. This is a direct contradiction of the stated policy of maximum access to information consistent with national security. There was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways the fear [now in the U.S.] is that you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. That fear keeps journalists from asking the tough questions. I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism.

Monika Jensen-Stevenson—Emmy-winning producer for 60 minutes. Robert R. Garwood—14 years a prisoner of the Vietnamese—was found guilty in the longest court-martial in US history. At the end of the court-martial, there seemed no question that Garwood was a monstrous traitor. Several years later in 1985, Garwood was speaking publicly about something that had never made the news during his court-martial. He knew of other American prisoners in Vietnam long after the war was over. He was supported by Vietnam veterans whose war records were impeccable….My sources included outstanding experts like former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Tighe and returned POWs like Captain McDaniel, who held the Navy’s top award for bravery. With such advocates, it was hard not to consider the possibility that prisoners (some 3,500) had in fact been kept by the Vietnamese as hostages to make sure the US would pay the more than $3 billion in war reparations. [After the war] American POWs had become worthless pawns. The US had not paid the promised monies and had no intention of paying in the future.

More: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/

ITALY: BERLUSCONI GOVERNMENT SEEKS TO REHABILITATE FASCISM

2008-09-18T01:41:00.000+08:00

Within months of returning to power, the right-wing Italian government is becoming increasingly explicit in its political pronouncements. Prominent members of the ruling coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi have recently launched a concerted campaign for the rehabilitation of fascism.

It was Berlusconi who fired the first shot shortly after assuming office as prime minister. On April 25, Italy’s national holiday marking the country’s liberation from fascism, Berlusconi declared that, while it was appropriate to acknowledge the anti-fascist resistance (Resistenza), it was also necessary to understand the motives of the “Ragazzi di Salò.”

Berlusconi was referring to those Italian soldiers who defended Benito Mussolini’s “Republic of Salò.” This so-called “Italian social republic” established by the Italian fascists existed from 1943 to 1945 under the military protection of Germany’s Nazi regime in northern Italy.

Similar comments had been made during the spring election campaign by the entrepreneur and senator Giuseppe Ciarrapico, a close friend of Berlusconi. “The Italian social republic never sent anybody to the concentration camps; the Germans were to blame,” Ciarrapico declared.

Now, the country’s defence secretary Ignazio La Russa has also expressed his admiration for the Italian fascists. Provocatively using the occasion of a ceremony commemorating the Rome resistance fighters of September 1943, La Russa evoked the memory of those fascists who sided with Mussolini after the official surrender of Rome.

More:http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/ital-s16.shtml

ANWAR CLAIMS TO HAVE ENOUGH MPS TO FORM NEW GOVERNMENT

2008-09-16T04:45:00.000+08:00

PETALING JAYA, Sept 15 (Bernama) -- Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim Monday night claimed that he had sufficient majority to form a new government.

He also claimed to have sent a letter to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Monday afternoon on the list of Barisan Nasional members of parliament who would cross over to Pakatan Rakyat.

However, Anwar who spoke before some 12,000 supporters at a 45th Malaysia Day celebration at the Petaling Jaya City Council Stadium in Kelana Jaya here, did not name the MPs involved.

Anwar, who is also the Opposition leader in parliament, said he would later be meeting the prime minister to discuss the change of government.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=359355

I WON'T RESIGN - MUHYIDDIN

2008-09-16T04:44:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 15 (Bernama) -- Umno Vice-President Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin says he will not resign from his post despite his recent remark on the country's leadership transition plan.

Muhyiddin, who said on Wednesday that the timeframe for the plan was too long, said today he would instead leave it to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to determine if he had done anything wrong which deserved action.

The International Trade and Industry Minister insisted that he did nothing wrong as he was only doing his duty as cabinet and party member in conveying the views of the grassroots.

"I have done nothing wrong; there are many people who have spoken about many things and there are even among Umno leaders who have said things that can be considered going against (the party).

"I don't think that my statement is unusual or burdening the country; I just want to help improve (the situation) and create awareness (about it)... because if we don't do something, a bigger problem may occur," he said.

"There may be people who don't like to see my face in the cabinet, so they demanded (for my resignation), but I've been discharging my duties and responsibilities... what then is the problem?" he told reporters after launching the Women Entrepreneurs Award 2008 today.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=359248

RUSSIA SAYS NO TO WAR, SANCTIONS ON IRAN

2008-09-16T04:43:00.000+08:00

"We should not take any unilateral steps. It is not acceptable to opt for a military scenario,"" President Medvedev said Friday at the Valdai Club, which sees journalists and academics specializing on Russia.

His remarks come as speculation runs high that Israel and the U.S. are drawing up plans to launch a military strike against Iran in a bid to hamper the country's nuclear program.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested last week that should Iran continue with its uranium enrichment program, it could be attacked by Israel.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says a strike on Iran would not be questioned ""We could find one morning that Israel has struck (Iran),"" said the French president, adding that no one would question the legitimacy of such an act of aggression.

The U.S. President George W. Bush and upper echelons in Tel Aviv have repeatedly threatened Iran with war under the pretext that Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), seeks nuclear weaponry.

Under the U.S. pressure, the UN Security Council has so far imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran, demanding the country to halt its enrichment program.

This is while the UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Iran enriches uranium-235 to a level of 3.7 percent - a rate consistent with the construction of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear arms production requires an enrichment level of above 90 percent.

The Russian president says Moscow only supports negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program, Reuters reported.

President Medvedev added that the talks between Iran and the West, led by European Union foreign policy Chief Javier Solana, 'have been quite positive'.

""We should not adopt any additional sanctions now,"" he warned.

More:http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9338

ADVICE TO STOP CALLING FOR MUHYIDDIN'S RESIGNATION

2008-09-15T00:28:00.000+08:00

MELAKA, Sept 14 (Bernama) -- An Umno leader today advised party leaders and members against calling for the resignation of Umno vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin over his suggestion for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to rethink his transition plan to step down by 2010 as the timeframe was too long.

Datuk Asa'ari Ibrahim, vice-head of the Bukit Katil Umno Division, said Muhyiddin was right in giving his opinion as an Umno vice-president in representing the grassroots.

"As an Umno vice-president and chairman of the party's committee on the constitution, Muhyiddin knows that the decision of the supreme council must be endorsed by the party divisions at their respective annual meetings," he told Bernama.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=359038

TUN WILL BE NEW ADVISOR FOR NEW GOVT IN DECEMBER?

2008-09-15T00:27:00.000+08:00

Two huge assumptions in the heading there.

Self proclaimed Maharaja Blogger seems to think that the pressure from the grassroots for an accelerated change will be to great for the leadership to resist. He predicts a leadership change by the end of the year.

The prediction also states that former Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir wil play the role of adviser to the new Government.

News like this is going to make ti difficult for Anwar's boys to get Umno MPs to jump ship, in fact the Fantastic Five sent to Taiwan admitted that some of the BN MPS do not want to jump because they hear news of interesting development within Umno that could strengthen the coalition and make it more relvant to the people. - Posted by Shamsul Yunos

http://marahku.blogspot.com/2008/09/tun-will-be-new-advisor-for-new-govt-in.html

WILL ZAID ALSO ADVICE NAJIB TO QUIT?

2008-09-15T00:26:00.000+08:00

DATUK Zaid Ibrahim, a first-timer in the Malaysian Cabinet, has 'advised' his senior colleague, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, to resign from his portfolio if he's unhappy with his boss, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

The defacto Law Minister also 'advised' Abdullah to sack Muhyiddin, an UMNO vice president, for publicly suggesting that Abdullah should not wait till June 2010 to put into effect the Umno transition plan which has been endorsed by the party supreme council and subsequently by the Cabinet.

Zaid's comments were carried in today's newspapers. I scanned the newspapers but didn't see if Zaid had also commented on deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who suggested that the transition be put to Umno members for their views.

Najb's statement is a departure from his previous stand that the transition plan should be supported. Today, Najib's statement had emboldened other Umno leaders to also suggest the plan be tabled at divisional meetings which begin next month. - Posted by Ahmad A Talib at 2:00 PM

More:http://ahmadatalib.blogspot.com/2008/09/will-zaid-also-advice-najib-to-quit.html

RAMPANT CORRUPTION AT US AGENCY RESPONSIBLE FOR COLLECTING OIL ROYALTIES

2008-09-14T04:46:00.000+08:00

Reports released by the US Interior Department on Wednesday revealed that employees at the US agency in charge of collecting royalties from energy companies have been involved for years in inappropriate and illegal behavior, including accepting gifts, handing out sweetheart deals and engaging in sex and illegal drug use with oil company employees.

The reports from Interior Department Inspector General Earl E. Devaney detail the activities of employees of an arm of the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the agency that issues lucrative drilling leases to energy companies and collects royalties from the leasing of federally owned land.

MMS takes in up to $10 billion a year in royalty revenue from energy companies, making it one of the US government’s largest non-tax sources of revenue. The revelations of misconduct at the agency come as Congress prepares to lift restrictions on offshore drilling and leading Democrats move closer to an agreement on expansion of the practice.

At the center of the investigation, conducted over two years at a cost of $5.3 million, is the 60-employee Denver, Colorado-based Royalty in Kind (RIK) program, which collects royalty payments made “in kind,” e.g., in oil instead of cash, and then resells the resources on the open market. Energy companies named in the report include Chevron, Shell Oil, Hess Corp. and Gary Williams Energy Corp.

According to the inspector general’s investigation, employees of RIK engaged in a “culture of substance abuse and promiscuity.” Employees also reportedly allowed energy companies to revise their lease agreements, resulting in millions of dollars of lost government revenue.

Between 2002 and 2006, according to the investigation, “nearly one-third of the entire RIK staff socialized with, and received a wide array of gifts and gratuities from, oil and gas companies with whom RIK was conducting official business.” These gifts included, among others things, meals, high-priced wines, golf outings, sporting event tickets, concert tickets, paintball games, concert tickets and a desert-island treasure hunt.

More: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/ener-s13.shtml

CONSOLIDATION PROCESS TAKING SHAPE IN UMNO

2008-09-14T04:45:00.002+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 13 (Bernama) -- After a period of unease following the March 8 general election, Umno is seeing winds of change blowing it towards rehabilitation and consolidation.

There are two vital signs pointing to that, one of which is former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's intention to return after announcing that he was leaving the party on May 19 in a move that had shocked many.

The other is the clarion calls among leaders and grassroots members, urging the party to do away with the quota system for the sake of democracy in the party and to curtail money politics.

The party's divisional elections will begin next month while the main party elections will be held at the party's general assembly from Dec 16-20.

The rumoured cross over of Umno members of parliament to Pakatan Rakyat (PR) so far, is just that -- a rumour -- and is seen as mere political gimmick by PR leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Dr Mahathir's intention to return to Umno was announced by vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin on Tuesday following his meeting with the former prime minister at the latter's house on Saturday.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=358868

SARAH PALIN – ISRAEL’S BITCH

2008-09-14T04:45:00.001+08:00

‘Bitch’–It’s an ugly word, for sure, and I am not using it as cavalierly as some might imagine here. I always winced when I heard it growing up as a kid, mostly because I always held women in such high respect and because I was sure that in 9 out of 10 cases where the word was used it was most likely unjustified. After all, they–women–are the bringers of life and who civilize us (hopefully) through their influence in the home. Can you imagine what a mess the world would be in if it was the guys raising the children instead of the gals? The kids would speak in mono-syllabic grunts rather than full sentences and would settle all issues with their fists instead of their mouths and brains.

So my use of the word ‘bitch’ comes with a LOT of hesitation, believe me. Mz. Palin is the mother of 5 children, and for that she deserves mucho respecto as far as I’m concerned. She–like a good number of women in the ‘Christian’ west these days–could have kneeled at the communion rail of Roe V Wade on many occasions, including when she learned her most recent child would be born with Down’s Syndrome. Instead, she elected to have the chalice pass from her lips, much to the rage of feminists who pay to have their children killed for matters of simple convenience in what has become something of a sacramental rite in America these days, God help us. Despite what I consider to be her seriously-misguided religious ideas concerning Israel and the Jews, I’m sure had she been around in a better time period in this nation’s history–meaning a time when the Jewish state and her spies DID NOT dominate our political system–she would have been a great stateswoman.

Let me clarify further–I use that ‘b’ word in describing her not because she stomps around barking out orders at those around her, complaining about this and that and generally making life hell for everyone in her vicinity. In this case, the word ‘bitch’ encompasses the more modern understanding and use of the word, meaning ‘whore’, or someone willing to lower herself (or himself) into doing immoral, degrading, and life-threatening things for a fistful of dollars, or, as in the case of our elected representatives, a fistful of political power. As she demonstrated to the world in the last few weeks since her nomination as Republican VP, she–like a streetwalker negotiating with a prospective client over what services she’s willing to perform and for what price–has let it be known she is willing to go ‘all the way’ with Israel’s demands, regardless of how raunchy or immoral these demands are. Not only towing the line with regards to the fatal myth that the Jews are ‘God’s chosen’ and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, namely stealing the real estate between the two ‘great rivers’ of the Nile and the Euphrates as well as the right to murder anyone they see fit at anytime they so decide, she has also embraced the other fatal myths of our modern times as well–that Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and that Iran must be stopped at all costs from ‘wiping Israel off the map’. She calls herself ‘pro-life’ but in perfect Zionist double-speak has signaled she will use her office to rain down death on millions, possible even billions of innocent people and all of it for the ‘Jewish cause’. She calls herself a Christian and yet has promised Israel that the Jewish state will continue receiving her daily diet of 15 million dollars from good ole Uncle Sam so she can continue de-Christianizing the land made sacred by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and in general making life for the Palestinians there a living hell.

And if these weren’t bad enough, Mz. Palin has now gone on record saying that war with Russia is a real likelihood, and not ‘war’ as in the ‘cold’ one but rather the real deal, just as the Neocons have wanted since Trotsky and his gang were ousted from power in the early 20th century.

More:http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9337

ISRAEL ASKS US FOR ARMS, AIR CORRIDOR TO ATTACK IRAN: REPORT

2008-09-12T06:07:00.000+08:00

United States has refused to provide Israel a security aid package fearing that the Jewish state would use it to attack Iran to foil its nuclear ambitions, a media report said.

Israel has requested the US for large number of "bunker-buster" bombs, refueling of planes and permission to use an air corridor to Iran, which has raised eyebrows in Washington in an apparent hint of advanced stage of preparations to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, an online news agency reported.

Officials from both countries have been discussing the Israeli requests over the past few months and rejection of the same would make it very difficult for Israel to attack the Islamic Republic, the report said.

Israeli media had reported about a month ago that the US administration had turned down an Israeli request for certain security items that could upgrade Israel's capability to attack Iran.

The bunker-buster bombs, which weigh 2.2 tonnes each and can penetrate six metres of reinforced concrete, were supplied by the United States to Israel during the Second Lebanon war but a request for a large consignment of the same has been turned down.

More:http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9325

ABDULLAH EXPRESSES SURPRISE OVER MUHYIDDIN'S STATEMENT ON TRANSITION PLAN

2008-09-12T06:05:00.000+08:00

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 11 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi today expressed surprise over a statement by Umno vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin that his transition plan to step down in June 2010 was too long.

Abdullah, who is also Umno president, said the Cabinet understood and agreed with the transition plan and the Umno Supreme Council had also agreed to it.

"I'm surprised that a member of my Cabinet should come up with that kind of statement. It is against what has been agreed to," he told reporters after chairing the 20th MSC Malaysia Implementation Council Meeting at his office here.

Abdullah was asked to comment on the statement yesterday in Singapore by Muhyiddin, who is also International Trade and Industry Minister, that the transition plan had "sunk away" and that people were not thinking about it anymore.

Abdullah also said he was surprised that Muhyiddin came up with such an opinion as he had agreed to that (transition plan) before. Under the plan for transition of power, Abdullah is to hand over the post of prime minister, the chairmanship of the Barisan Nasional (BN) and the presidency of Umno to his deputy, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, in June 2010.

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=358479

ANOTHER CRIMINAL US MISSILE STRIKE INSIDE PAKISTAN

2008-09-12T06:02:00.001+08:00

A third US missile strike in less than a week inside Pakistan again underscores the danger that the escalating war in Afghanistan will spread into its neighbour. At least 20 people died on Monday when up to five missiles fired from US unmanned Predator drones hit a madrassa or religious school and a compound in North Waziristan—part of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the border with Afghanistan.

The strike on the village of Daande Darpkhel targetted Jalaluddin Haqqani, who established the school and backed the Taliban following the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. His son Sirajuddin is now reportedly leading the Haqqani militia and has been accused by the US military of being behind a series of assaults inside Afghanistan, including an attempt on the life of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a suicide bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.

Pakistani intelligence officials told the Associated Press yesterday that four foreign militants were among those killed but provided no evidence. The dead included Jalaluddin Haqqani’s wife and sister, several other women and at least four children. Some 15 to 20 people were wounded, mostly women and children, and were taken to the hospital in nearby Miram Shah. Another of Jalaluddin Haqqani’s sons, Badruddin, told the Pakistani media that neither his father nor Sirajuddin were in the compound at the time.

More:http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/miss-s10.shtml

MANY KEY ISSUES TO BE THRASHED OUT AT BN SUPREME COUNCIL MEETING

2008-09-09T03:42:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 (Bernama) - Key representatives of the 13-member Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition will meet here Tuesday and facing them are a myriad of issues which may sap their stamina and solidarity.

How the government is going to steer the country out of the current phase of uncertainty following the sabre-rattling and wild boasts of Opposition politicians will definitely be discussed.

The management of the economy will be another. For the fence-sitters and all their idle-talk in running down the economy and everything else that they do not see eye-to-eye with, due credit must be given to the crafting of the 2009 Budget by the government.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has put in place a business-friendly budget and now it is up to the business sector to take up the challenge amidst the tougher economic environment. - BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=357894

KK HIGH COURT DECLARES KURUP'S VICTORY IN PENSIANGAN NULL AND VOID

2008-09-09T03:41:00.000+08:00

KOTA KINABALU, Sept 8 (Bernama) -- The High Court here Monday declared null and void the election of Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) president Tan Sri Joseph Kurup as the unopposed winner of the Pensiangan parliamentary seat in the March 8 general election.

In delivering the landmark judgment, Justice David Wong Dak Wah ruled that the wrongful rejection of the nomination papers of the petitioner, Parti Keadilan Rakyat's Danny Anthony Andipai, had breached the petitioner's constitutional right to take part in the election and the written law relating to the conduct of the election.

In his 36-page judgment, Wong said the decision of the deputy director of the Sabah Election Commission to accept Andipai's nomination papers was final and could not be overruled by the returning officer, Bubudan OT Majalu, under the pretext that there was an objection during the objection period.

The deputy director was exercising a power provided for by law in making the decision, said the judge who also ruled that Bubudan's decision to uphold the objection was a wrong decision. - BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=357824

AFGHAN PRESIDENT BLAMES “THE WEST” FOR ISLAMIC EXTREMISM

2008-09-09T03:40:00.000+08:00

By James Cogan

The propaganda used to justify the US-led occupation in Afghanistan typically leaves out any explanation of the origins of tendencies such as Al Qaeda, the Taliban movement and other Islamist groups resisting American and NATO troops. The spin merchants of the so-called “war on terror” would have people believe that the US and its allies are fighting religious fanatics who have no support in the country and are motivated by an inexplicable and irrational hatred of Western civilisation.

On rare occasions, however, someone deviates from the script and draws attention to historical facts regarding present-day Islamic extremism that Washington and its allies prefer to leave unmentioned. One occasion was an interview on August 19 with Time magazine with a very close American ally—Hamid Karzai, the man who was installed by the Bush administration as President of Afghanistan in 2002.

Challenged by Time to answer how an enemy could be fought that “only has annihilation as its goal”, Karzai felt compelled to note the current situation was a by-product of US support in the 1980s for the creation of an Islamic fundamentalist army to wage a jihad or holy war against a pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan and embroil the Soviet military itself in a decade-long guerilla conflict.

Karzai told Time: “In order to fix terrorism at large, we need to remedy the wrongs of the past 30 years. Remedy means to undo. The world pushed us [Afghan jihadists] to fight the Soviets. And those who did walked away and left all the mess spread around. September 11 is a consequence of this ...

More:http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/karz-s08.shtml

IS PAK LAH A GOOD MAN WHO DID NOTHING?

2008-09-08T00:40:00.000+08:00

SEPT 7 - Once again, Umno president Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi has shown that he is unable to keep in check his party politicians.

If racial tensions have risen in the past few weeks, the blame should lay squarely with him because he is the good man who did nothing while Datuk Ahmad Ismail postured and catapulted himself from an unknown regional politician to the national stage by standing up to his party president.

But it is not just Umno politicians he has failed to keep in line.

He also allowed anger to mount among Chinese parties in the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, to the stage where both the MCA and Gerakan are facing pressure from within to pull out of BN.

Now he is asking everyone to cool it. He says it is the collective responsibility of all Malaysians to preserve racial harmony.

But that is not likely to end the debate.

More:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/8640-is-pak-lah-a-good-man-who-did-nothing-

UMNO MUST MOVE FOR ALLIES TO STAY ON

2008-09-08T00:39:00.000+08:00

SEPT 7 - Over the last few days, Gerakan's Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon has been sending out an SOS of sorts to close friends in government and the Barisan Nasional.

The gist of this message was that he alone could not hold the line against the rising tide of party members who wanted Gerakan to ditch the ruling coalition.

The way he put it, he was facing a critical situation and only the strategic intervention by the BN leadership could help. If he tried to fight the momentum on his own, he would be swept aside.

Officials in government who know the former Penang chief minister well say that he is prone to over-dramatising and is not above political posturing if it serves his ultimate goal of protecting his position.

In this case, the BN officials speculated after receiving word from Koh, that he was preparing them for a piece of bad news, and making sure they understood that he had tried his best and should be absolved of blame if Gerakan cut its links with the Umno-led coalition.

More:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/8656-umno-must-move-for-allies-to-stay-on

SAMAK ADAMANT, THAI CRISIS CONTINUES

2008-09-08T00:38:00.000+08:00

BANGKOK, Sept 7 (Bernama) -- Thailand's political stalemate is set to prolong after Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej vowed to remain in office and used his weekly television address today to bash the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) leaders.

Despite repeated calls for his resignation by the PAD and other groups bent on seeing him thrown out of office, the 73-year-old premier said he would stay in power to protect democracy and the monarch.

"I don't know what is their (PAD) intention but I will remain as prime minister," he said over NBT channel.

Samak, whose office was hijacked by PAD supporters on Aug 26 and currently operating from the Armed Forces headquarters, took the opportunity to slam the movement and its demands, which he said were unreasonable. – BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=357654

BARISAN NASIONAL SEEN AS PANICKY

2008-09-07T04:12:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 6 - Top government leaders yesterday defended an overseas trip planned for Barisan Nasional MPs over the next two weeks, dismissing speculation that it was to prevent their defection to the opposition.

“Why connect their trip to the Sept 16 issue? They are not the ones planning to jump and leave the BN,” said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

“We will not give them the opportunity to set up government on Sept 16,” Abdullah said.

The Deputy Premier, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, confirmed that he had approved the trip from Sept 7 to 19 organised by the BN Backbenchers Club for its 75 members.

Sept 16 is the date on which opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim claimed that he would topple the BN government with help of at least 30 BN defectors.

Despite their denials, the coincidental timing swiftly cemented the impression of a panicky BN, as rumours spread wildly yesterday that the first wave of crossovers was imminent.

More:http://www.malaysiainsider.com/index.php/malaysia/8603-barisan-nasional-seen-as-panicky

FUKUDA'S LAST E-MAIL

2008-09-07T04:10:00.000+08:00

I was actually shocked when Japanese premier Yasuo Fukuda resigned abruptly last week. After a series of e-mails, I finally got a simple explaination from him, probably his last e-mail as a Prime Minister.

"There is a saying that I like very much: Dragons do not have snake scales. A dragon is covered with hundreds of thousands of scales. But if even one of them is a snake scale, then that is no true dragon. It is merely a snake that has turned into a false dragon. My take on this expression is that no matter how excellent a certain policy may appear to be, if it contains a single lie, you will not be able to trick the people into buying into it. I believe that politicians must constantly feel and fear the sharp gaze of the people on them. Unless the people are able to be certain that the political realm is safe, they cannot be reassured. Only when the people feel safe and reassured will they definitely come to place their trust in politics. Safety, a sense of reassurance, and trust. I will say no more. Thank You"

I pray for his success and health in his new undertakings... and I still remember a John Howard's (former Aussie premier) e-mail to me about two years ago... "every leader must subscribe to the right liberty..."

http://justread-whatever.blogspot.com/2008/09/fukudas-last-e-mail.html

MCA KNOWINGLY ALLOWS PKR PROPAGANDA TO SEEP INTO THE PARTY OR AT LEAST IN PERAK!?

2008-09-07T04:09:00.000+08:00

Perak MCA made a resolution for the party to leave the Barisan Nasional because an irresponsible UMNO member made a disparaging remark about Malaysian Chinese.

The onus is on the word "irresponsible". The thing is no responsible UMNO members in their right minds would think of making such an irresponsible remark as the one made by Bukit Bdendera UMNO division chief, Datuk Ahmad Ismail.

Ahmad purportedly to have said that Chinese are squatters in this land called Malaysia. Well he is wrong! Malaysian-Chinese is part of this country and in a very large part helped this country grows to be where it is today. And as citizens they have every right to get angry over such an insensitive statement.

But, my point is if Perak MCA made such a resolution it would it not be similarly an irresponsible statement then, when Gerakan and DAP only cited the statement made by the Bukit Bendera UMNO member as "immature".

More:http://barkingmagpie.blogspot.com/2008/09/mca-knowingly-allows-pkr-propaganda-to.html

'SEPT 16 GOVT' OF OPPOSITION WILL NOT HAPPEN, SAYS PM

2008-09-06T14:36:00.000+08:00

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 5 (Bernama) -- Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said today no Barisan Nasional (BN) member of parliament would leave the coalition by Sept 16 to join the opposition in setting up a new government.

"I am sure (the government of) Sept 16 will not happen. Pakatan Rakyat (PR) is banking on our party members to leave us but our people will not desert us," the prime minister said.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) advisor and Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had repeatedly said that several BN members of parliament would join the opposition to enable PR to form the federal government by Sept 16.

"We will not give them the opportunity to set up government on Sept 16. No," said Abdullah at a news conference after launching the Business Licensing Electronic Support System (BLESS) at the Prime Minister's Department, here.

He said the opposition would not be able to set up government if it was depending solely on the crossover of BN members of parliament to the opposition to make it happen. – BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=357384

SABAH BN DISMISSES RUMOURS OF DEFECTION

2008-09-06T14:35:00.000+08:00

KOTA KINABALU, Sept 5 (Bernama) -- Leaders of several Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties in Sabah have expressed disgust at the ongoing rumours of Sabah BN parties defecting to Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

They were even surprised by rumours today that seven BN component parties were purportedly holding a news conference this evening to announce their defection, the rumours augmented by a Short Messaging Service (SMS) text circulated by unknown persons in the name of the Malaysian National News Agency, Bernama, on the non-existent news conference.

The rumours came in the wake of statements by Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) advisor and parliamentary opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim that the PR would form the federal government by Sept 16 following the defection of BN MPs. -- BERNAMA

More: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=357442

CHENEY IN GEORGIA: GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY IN PURSUIT OF OIL

2008-09-06T14:33:00.000+08:00

The US is continuing to ratchet up tensions with Russia in the aftermath of last month’s war in the Caucasus.

On Thursday, US Vice President Dick Cheney appeared in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Cheney reiterated US support for Georgia’s incorporation into NATO, while making bellicose denunciations of Russia.

Only a day earlier, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice proposed the staggering sum of $1 billion in aid to the impoverished Black Sea nation.

During his visit, Cheney made statements tantamount to declaring Georgia an American military protectorate. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Cheney said, “can count on continued support and assistance from the United States. I assured the president as well of my country’s strong commitment to Georgia’s territorial integrity.”

“Georgia will be in our alliance,” Cheney promised. “NATO is a defensive alliance. It is a threat to no one.”

More: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/chen-s05.shtml

WHY DON'T I DO SOMETHING

2008-09-05T00:19:00.000+08:00

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad

1. All four computers in my house are somehow not connected to the Internet. I wonder if other people are having the same trouble?

2. I cannot access my blog though I was able to do so this morning. I read some of the comments.

3. I wanted to reply but I can only do so imprecisely from memory.

4. One comment asked me what am I doing about the current situation and my criticisms about it? It also suggested what I should do.

5. I have always been asked to do "something". I had done my best and:

a) I had openly blamed Dato Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and asked him to step down

b) I had criticised his decision on the bridge

c) I have openly accused him of corruption

d) I have told UMNO leaders and members that they are destroying UMNO etc etc

More:http://test.chedet.com/che_det/2008/09/why-dont-i-do-something.html

SOI LEK: BN SHOULD BECOME ONE MULTI-RACIAL PARTY

2008-09-05T00:18:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 4 - Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek today echoed Gerakan leader Tun Dr Lim Keng Yaik's call for Umno to reform and further suggested that Barisan Nasional become a single multiracial party.

"The Pakatan Rakyat is turning into what BN used to represent," the former MCA vice-president wrote in his blog. "BN should eventually turn into a single multi-racial party which really represents the interest of all Malaysians.

"Realistically this cannot happen immediately of course but we must set it as a real target, instead of brushing the suggestion aside."

More:http://malaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/8523-soi-lek-bn-should-become-one-multi-racial-party

GERAKAN SPLIT ON WHETHER TO LEAVE BN

2008-09-05T00:17:00.001+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 4 — Tun Dr Lim Keng Yaik’s interview in Off The Edge seems to be the latest marker in a widening schism in Gerakan.

The party’s influential adviser and former president’s assessment of the membership’s desire to quit the Barisan Nasional is agreed to by grassroots leaders and observers alike, but they are divided on his suggestion that they give the Umno-led coalition one last chance despite his scepticism over their ability to reform.

Political analyst Khoo Kay Peng, whose book on the party was recently published, says that the difference in opinions goes all the way up to the top leadership.

More:http://malaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/8479-gerakan-split-on-whether-to-leave-bn

QUESTION OF LEGITIMACY LOOMS AS SEPT 16 DRAWS NEAR

2008-09-05T00:16:00.001+08:00

Wan Hamidi Hamid

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 4 - Twelve more days and it will be revealed whether Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's Sept 16 takeover of the government is a reality or nothing more than the former deputy prime minister's psychological warfare against Barisan Nasional (BN).
One thing is real though - BN, especially its backbone Umno, is under a tremendous pressure, both externally and internally.

Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's stern warning to Anwar last week - at the end of his 2009 Budget speech in the Parliament - was a reflection of what was going on in his mind at the moment.

More:http://malaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/8514-question-of-legitimacy-looms-as-sept-16-draws-near-

MAZLAN HARUN LODGES SECOND REPORT TO ACA CLAIMING UMNO LEADERSHIP ABUSES POWER

2008-09-05T00:14:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 4 (Bernama) -- Umno veteran Datuk Mazlan Harun Thursday lodged a second report to the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) against the Umno top leadership whom he claimed committed political graft in party elections.

He also handed over an album containing photographs, videos and documents in support of his complaint.

"What are in the album I cannot tell in details. I am only asking for the matter to be investigated quickly," he told reporters.

An Umno member from Muar, Datuk Kadar Ninam Shah, who accompanied Mazlan said if the ACA still did not take action that it was supposed to within a certain period, a follow-up action would be taken. – BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=357125

NO SABAH BN MPS WILL DEFECT TO PR STARTING FROM FRIDAY, SAYS ANIFAH

2008-09-05T00:13:00.000+08:00

KOTA KINABALU, Sept 4 (Bernama) -- Sabah Barisan Nasional (BN) Parliamentary Backbenchers Club chairman Datuk Anifah Aman has denied widespread speculation that some BN Members of Parliment (MPs) from Sabah would defect to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) starting from Friday.

"There is no such thing... no Sabah BN MPs have indicated their intention to defect," he told Bernama here Thursday. -- BERNAMA

More:http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=357200

GEORGIA AIRFIELDS EARMARKED FOR WAR ON IRAN

2008-09-05T00:12:00.000+08:00

Georgia permitted Israel to use two military airfields for 'a potential pre-emptive strike' against Iranian nuclear sites, a report says.

The revelation came after Georgia's offensive into South Ossetia in early August prompted Russia to march its Special Forces into the region, United Press International reported.

Russian Special Forces raided the airfields - in addition to other Israeli facilities in southern Georgia -, where Israeli drones were captured.

According to the report, Israel had used the airfields to 'conduct recon flights over southern Russia, as well as into nearby Iran'.

"A secret agreement between Georgia and Israel had earmarked two military airfields in the south of Georgia for use by Israeli fighter-bombers in a potential pre-emptive strike against Iran," read the report.

More:http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=9278

THE SO-CALLED EMINENT PERSONS PANEL

2008-09-03T00:16:00.000+08:00

1. Suddenly, in the aftermath of the disastrous Permatang Pauh by-election an announcement was made that a panel of retired judges from India and Pakistan and lawyers from Australia and Malaysia had been set up to review the 1988 judicial crisis in Malaysia.

2. The Panel was set up in August 2007. Yet until now there had been no news about it and its work. Now we are given its report mainly to blame me for what it termed Malaysian Judicial Crisis and the removal of Tun Salleh Abas as Lord President of the Malaysian Courts in 1988.

3. This is a new idea by the Bar Council to invalidate the findings of the Tribunals set up according to the Constitution of Malaysia, the Supreme Law of Malaysia. It is a negation of the rule of law and a slap in the face for the Malaysian King, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

4. It was the Agong who complained against Tun Salleh for writing two letters, one to complain about the noise made in repairing the Agong's residence and one alleging that the then Prime Minister was undermining the independence of the judiciary. Both letters were extended to all the Rulers which the Agong regarded as putting pressure on him. He found the letters offensive and against the Malay custom in which the customary thing to do was to have an audience with his Majesty and to make verbal complaints. The letters could follow but should be to him alone. He then requested me as PM to remove Tun Salleh as Lord President.

5. In keeping with the provisions of the Constitution a Tribunal was set up. But Tun Salleh tried to stop the Tribunal from doing its work and reporting to the King.

6. Now the Bar Council is resorting to extra-legal means to vilify me. If it can set up panels to nullify the findings of a properly constituted Tribunal then everyone should have a right to set up panels to negate the findings of the Malaysian courts, Tribunals and Commissions. There is no need to appeal to the higher courts set up for the purpose of hearing appeals against the decisions of lower courts. It should be noted that Tun Salleh had not resorted to the courts over the findings of the Tribunal.

7. Is this what we call the rule of law which the Bar is said to advocate? If you cannot get the judgment you want in a proper court, then set up your own court and get the decision you want. But do it quietly in case the decision, despite your choice of panel members, did not decide in your favour. The whole thing stinks of political skulduggery - an attempt to get at someone and to seek revenge for some imagined wrong done in my past.

8. There seems to be a pattern here. First we have a Royal Commission set up to find that I had been influenced in my choice of judges. Then we have Justice Chin, secure in his court accusing me of threatening to sack judges. And now this private and mysterious court to blame me for the "Judicial Crisis" of 1988.

9. I wonder what else will be coming. The President of the Bar Council is very pally with the de-facto Law Minister and the Prime Minister. Even the dinner given by the Bar is paid by the Government.

10. If by these vilifications they think I would stop criticising this corrupt government and its allies then they are wrong. I am not intimidated.

11. As a matter of curiosity, perhaps the Bar Council would like to enlighten the public regarding the cost of the panel, who paid for it and how much did each member get? Or is this another secret of a secretive Bar and its shenanigans.

http://test.chedet.com/che_det/2008/09/the-socalled-eminent-persons-p.html