Sunday, July 19, 2009
China Confidential.
Forgotten by the World, Prisoners are Beaten, Starved to Death in North Korean Labor Camps
Where is the outrage?
The conditions in the North Korean concentration camps are well known: prisoners barely kept alive on diets of corn and salt, clothed in rags, beaten and starved to death. Clickhere for a report.Will the Yuan Dethrone the Once Almighty Dollar?
Money Morning reports on China's moves to replace the dollar with the yuan as the world's dominant currency.China has taken yet another step to transform the yuan into the dominant global currency, a long-term initiative that could ultimately dethrone the dollar as the world’s top unit of exchange.
In the last four months alone, China has signed currency swap agreements worth more than $95 billion (650 billion yuan) with an array of nations - including: Argentina, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Belarus and Hong Kong - that are only too glad to move away from the increasingly shaky U.S. dollar.
For Westerners who are struggling to come to terms with the notion of a disarrayed dollar, the thought of oil, gold or other commodities being priced in yuan instead of dollars has to seem about as likely as having another country put a man on the moon.
But the Chinese yuan is already well on its way to becoming that globally accepted standard unit of exchange and the proverbial genie, as they say, is out of the bottle. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say the dollar’s days of dominance are numbered and with each new round of bailout chicanery, the clock is winding down ever faster.
Continue here.Armed Mexican Agents Could Roam US Roads
Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you anystinkin' badges!
Welcome to Obamaworld. Click here.
"Black Jack" Pershing must be rolling in his grave. His beloved country has apparently gone nuts.
And be sure to click below for a preview of things to come.Dateline Jerusalem: Qatari Islamist Funding Hamas Activities in Israel's Capital; Israel Resisting Obama Pressure to Surrender to Hitlerian Monsters
Haaretz reports:Qatar-based Sheikh Yousuf Qaradawi has allocated $21 million to a charity funded by Hamas to allow the Palestinian group to buy land and set up infrastructure in Jerusalem, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said on Sunday.
Qaradawi, an 82-year-old Egyptian-born Muslim scholar with strong links to the Muslim Brotherhood, is a keen supporter of suicide bombings in Israel, which he describes as "martyrdom operations.
Abbas aide Rafiq Husseini dismissed the report. "We wish there was Arab money to buy threatened houses," he told The Associated Press, "but that's not the case." Qaradawi could not be reached for comment.
Diskin made the comments during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. He also told the ministers that the Palestinian Authority and its security forces have been working actively to thwart the sale of Palestinian land to Jews, particularly in East Jerusalem.
He added that Hamas was placing political and diplomatic moves higher on its agenda. Diskin said public statements by senior Hamas officials show the militant group's efforts to portray itself as interested in an end to the conflict with Israel.
The officials say they seek a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 borders in exchange for a long-term hudna, or ceasefire, Diskin said.
"This is not because of an abandonment of fundamental ideological values," he noted. "Hamas' move toward to the political theater is designed to challenge the sole leadership of Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas]."
The security service chief also told ministers that there had been a steady trickle into Gaza of foreigners linked to global jihad.
Continue here.
The Jerusalem Post reports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not go along with the Obama administration's demands to stop Jews from living in their ancient capital."What does [US President Barack Obama] think to himself? That after I built 20,000 homes in Jerusalem during my last term I'm going to stop the building of 20 more?" Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reportedly said Sunday in closed conversations, according to Channels 10 and 2.
Netanyahu's remarks came after Israel's Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren was summoned to the US State Department over the weekend and was told that the Obama administration wanted Israel to put an end to construction work at the site of the historic Shepherd's Hotel in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Sources close to the prime minister said that Obama "had crossed a red line" when his administration began demanding Israel cease building projects in its sovereign capital.
Earlier, during Sunday's cabinet meeting, Netanyahu remarks took a much softer tone, but the gist of his statement was similar. "Jerusalem is the "unified capital of Israel and the capital of the Jewish people, and sovereignty over it is indisputable," he said.
Click here for the Times' piece.
Monday, 20 July 2009
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