Saturday, July 16, 2016

War Is Coming And The Global Financial Situation Is A Lot Worse Than You May Think

ORIGINAL LINK

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

On the surface, things seem pretty quiet in mid-July 2016.  The biggest news stories were about the speculation surrounding Donald Trump’s choice of running mate (no we know), the stock market in the U.S. keeps setting new all-time record highs, and the media seems completely obsessed with Taylor Swift’s love lifeBut underneath the surface, it is a very different story.  As you will see below, the conditions for a “perfect storm” are coming together very rapidly, and the rest of 2016 promises to be much more chaotic than what we have seen so far.

Let’s start with China.  On Tuesday, an international tribunal in the Hague ruled against China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.  The Chinese government announced ahead of time that they do not recognize the jurisdiction of the tribunal, and they have absolutely no intention of abiding by the ruling.  In fact, China is becoming even more defiant in the aftermath of this ruling.  We aren’t hearing much about it in the U.S. media, but according to international news reports Chinese president Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army “to prepare for combat” with the United States if the Obama administration presses China to abandon the islands that they are currently occupying in the South China Sea…

“Chinese president Xi Jinping has reportedly ordered the People’s Liberation Army to prepare for combat,” reports Arirang.com. “U.S.-based Boxun News said Tuesday that the instruction was given in case the United States takes provocative action in the waters once the ruling is made.”

 

A U.S. aircraft carrier and fighter jets were already sent to the region in anticipation of the ruling, with the Chinese Navy also carrying out exercises near the disputed Paracel islands.

Last October, China said it was “not frightened” to fight a war with the U.S. following an incident where the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen violated the 12-nautical mile zone China claims around Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly archipelago.

Meanwhile, the relationship between the United States and Russia continues to go from bad to worse.  The installation of a missile defense system in Romania is just the latest incident that has the Russians absolutely steaming, and during a public appearance on June 17th Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to get western reporters to understand that the world is being pulled toward war…

“We know year by year what’s going to happen, and they know that we know. It’s only you that they tell tall tales to, and you buy it, and spread it to the citizens of your countries. You people in turn do not feel a sense of the impending danger – this is what worries me. How do you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction? While they pretend that nothing is going on. I don’t know how to get through to you anymore.

And of course the Russians have been feverishly updating and modernizing their military in preparation for a potential future conflict with the United States.  Just today we learned that the Russians are working to develop a hypersonic strategic bomber that is going to have the capability of striking targets with nuclear warheads from outer space.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration does not feel a similar sense of urgency.  The size of our strategic nuclear arsenal has declined by about 95 percent since the peak of the Cold War, and many of our installations are still actually using rotary phones and the kind of 8 inch floppy disks for computers that were widely used back in the 1970s.

But I don’t expect war with China or Russia to erupt by the end of 2016.  Of much more immediate concern is what is going on in the Middle East.  The situation in Syria continues to deteriorate, but it is Israel that could soon be the center of attention.

Back in March, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration wanted to revive the peace process in the Middle East before Obama left office, and that a UN Security Council resolution that would divide the land of Israel and set the parameters for a Palestinian state was still definitely on the table…

The White House is working on plans for reviving long-stalled Middle East negotiations before President Barack Obama leaves office, including a possible United Nations Security Council resolution that would outline steps toward a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians, according to senior U.S. officials.

And just this week, the Washington Post reported that there were renewed “rumblings” about just such a resolution…

Israel is facing a restive European Union, which is backing a French initiative that seeks to outline a future peace deal by year’s end that would probably include a call for the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the creation of a Palestinian state. There are also rumblings that the U.N. Security Council might again hear resolutions about the conflict.

For years, Barack Obama has stressed the need for a Palestinian state, and now that his second term is drawing to a close he certainly realizes that this is his last chance to take action at the United Nations.  If he is going to pull the trigger and support a UN resolution formally establishing a Palestinian state, it will almost certainly happen before the election in November.  So over the coming months we will be watching these developments very carefully.

And it is interesting to note that there is an organization called “Americans For Peace Now” that is collecting signatures and strongly urging Obama to support a UN resolution of this nature.  The following comes from their official website

Now is the time for real leadership that can revive and re-accredit the two-state solution as President Obama enters his final months in office. And he can do this – he can lay the groundwork for a two-state agreement in the future by supporting an Israeli-Palestinian two-state resolution in the United Nations Security Council.

 

Such a resolution would restore U.S. leadership in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. It would preserve the now-foundering two-state outcome. And it would be a gift to the next president, leaving her or him constructive options for consequential actions in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, in place of the ever-worsening, politically stalemated status quo there is today.

Sadly, a UN resolution that divides the land of Israel and that formally establishes a Palestinian state would not bring lasting peace.  Instead, it would be the biggest mistake of the Obama era, and it would set the stage for a major war between Israel and her neighbors.  This is something that I discussed during a recent televised appearance down at Morningside that you can watch right here

At the same time all of this is going on, the global economic crisis continues to escalate.  Even though U.S. financial markets are in great shape at the moment, the same cannot be said for much of the rest of the world.

Just look at the country that is hosting the Olympics this summer.  Brazil is mired in the worst economic downturn that it has seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and Rio de Janeiro’s governor has declared “a state of financial emergency“.

Next door, the Venezuelan economy has completely collapsed, and some people have become so desperate that they are actually hunting cats, dogs and pigeons for food.

Elsewhere, China is experiencing the worst economic downturn that they have seen in decades, the Japanese are still trying to find the end of their “lost decade”, and the banking crisis in Europe is getting worse with each passing month.

In quite a few articles recently, I have discussed the ongoing implosion of the biggest and most important bank in Germany.  But I am certainly not the only one warning about this.  In one of his recent articles, Simon Black also commented on the turmoil at “the most dangerous bank in Europe”…

Well-capitalized banks are supposed to have double-digit capital levels while making low risk investments.

 

Deutsche Bank, on the other hand, has a capital level of less that 3% (just like Lehman), and an incredibly risky asset base that boasts notional derivatives exposure of more than $70 trillion, roughly the size of world GDP.

But of course Deutsche Bank isn’t getting a lot of attention from the mainstream media right now because of the stunning meltdown of banks in Italy, Spain and Greece.  Here is more from Simon Black

Italian banks are sitting on over 360 billion euros in bad loans right now and are in desperate need of a massive bailout.

 

IMF calculations show that Italian banks’ capital levels are among the lowest in the world, just ahead of Bangladesh.

 

And this doesn’t even scratch the surface of problems in other banking jurisdictions.

 

Spanish banks have been scrambling to raise billions in capital to cover persistent losses that still haven’t healed from the last crisis.

 

In Greece, over 35% of all loans in the banking system are classified as “non-performing”.

Even though U.S. stocks are doing well for the moment, the truth is that trillions of dollars of stock market wealth has been lost globally since this time last year.  If you are not familiar with what has been going on around the rest of the planet, this may come as a surprise to you.  During my recent appearance at Morningside, I shared some very startling charts which show how dramatically global markets have shifted over the past 12 months.  You can view the segment in which I shared these charts right here

I would really like it if the rest of 2016 was as quiet and peaceful as the past couple of days have been.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe that is going to be the case at all.

The storm clouds are rising and the conditions for a “perfect storm” are brewing.  Sadly, most people are not going to understand what is happening until it is far too late.



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Why Everyone Is Wrong Regarding Radical Islam

ORIGINAL LINK
islam

(ANTIMEDIA) Following a string of recent, brutal terrorist attacks claimed to have been perpetrated by ISIS, the focus of corporate media will undoubtedly turn once again to the role radical Islam plays in terror — and ultimately, how the West should respond to such threats.

Though they claim to be polar opposites of each other, presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have both proposed the same response to terrorism: bomb the Middle East. Donald Trump went one step further, notoriously vowing to ban all Muslims from entering the country, though he recently backtracked, indicating his proposal would not include a blanket ban on all Muslims.

Hillary Clinton took the supposed moral high ground, calling Trump’s original suggestion racist and dismissing it as “bizarre”—despite the fact her own policy record shows a keen willingness to systematically kill Muslims with no remorse. In an apparent contradiction, when it comes to Islamic terror groups, Clinton has gone so far as to refuse to place deadly groups on the official U.S. terror list, even in the face of repeated CIA requests.

However, despite this political circus, Islamophobia has spread across the globe because of terrorist attacks—and the hateful ripple effect these traumatic attacks have generated.

In the small Pacific island nation of Samoa, for example, the National Council of Churches has called for a blanket ban on Islam. The calls have come in the midst of the prime minister’s plans to amend the nation’s constitution to make Christianity the official religion of the country. Approximately .03 percent of the country’s population identifies as Muslim; close to 100 percent of the country is Christian. Where does the extremist threat lie, exactly? This fear of Islam is echoed throughout the Pacific region.

But why?

One of the world’s most prestigious Samoan athletes, Sonny Bill Williams, is a devout Muslim. Would they ban him from their country, too? When Donald Trump said he would not allow Muslims into the United States, did he mean he would he also ban Akon, T-Pain, Lupe Fiasco, Shaquille O’Neal, Dave Chappelle, and Mike Tyson if they were migrating from a nation he deemed unworthy? Would he have banned Muhammad Ali?

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world—whether we like it or not. There are currently over one billion Muslims globally. If they were all suicide bombers, we would all be dead. It might be the case that one can interpret the Quran in a manner that leads to violent practices and holy war, yet most Muslims do not subscribe to this practice.

In all likelihood, radical Islam would not be the problem it is today without the devastating actions of NATO countries and powerful regional players in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.

Case in point:

Iraq has a long and dark history of being subject to interference from other nations—one nation in particular—and this interference has led Iraq to the chaos it finds itself in today. Even the recently published British Chilcot Report, which cost millions of pounds and took over seven years to complete, has acknowledged the deadly group known as ISIS rose to power following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. This is no surprise considering ISIS fighters were previously referred to as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a group that only took a stronghold in the country after the U.S.-U.K. invasion in 2003. It would, therefore, be impossible to understand the current situation in Iraq without understanding the history of its subjugation by external nations.

Who drew up the artificial boundaries of Iraq in the early 1900s, forcing diverse groups in a sectarian society to identify themselves under one nation? The British. Who supported Saddam Hussein’s initial rise to power? According to the New York Times, it was the CIA. Who supported Saddam Hussein in his war of aggression against neighbouring Iran while also secretly arming Iran to maximize the death toll? The United States. Who then gave Saddam Hussein the green light to invade Kuwait, turned their back on him almost immediately, destroyed the country’s infrastructure with advanced weaponry, and then immediately placed sanctions on the Iraqi regime, which in turn resulted in the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children? The United States.

Who then forcibly invaded again in 2003, overthrew the regime—despite the fact Dick Cheney offered sound reasons for not doing so in 1991—and completely disbanded the police and military, including over 500,000 former servicemen, some of whom now hold senior positions within ISIS ranks? The U.S.-U.K. establishment.

The current death toll in the deadly terror attack in Baghdad last Sunday was at least 300. If there is a nation in the world that can endure such a torturous history without turning into a hotbed of radical violence, it would be performing an amazing feat. Muslim nations are expected to be able to handle the level of intervention that Iraq has been subjected to and to remain entirely peaceful. Iraq has been nothing but decimated for decades, and this has resulted in the situation we see today. It is not as if the Viet Cong fought against the American invasion in Vietnam using songs, prayers, and non-violent protests; surely, there is a recurring dynamic between the extreme, violent behavior of terrorists and the military activities of foreign nations that ultimately incite it.

It should be noted that the perpetrator of the recent attack in Nice, France was not deemed to be religious and has no known links to radical Islam. Some reports suggest he yelled “Allahu akbar” while perpetrating the attack, but at the time of this article’s publication, they have not been widely substantiated. Regardless, religion alone cannot explain what is happening in the world today. As Osama bin Laden said himself:

“…according to Bush’s actions the equation won’t be solved until the swords fall on their heads…We renew our pledge to Allah, our promise to the nation, and our threat to the Americans and Jews that they shall remain restless, shall not feel at ease, and shall not dream of security until they take their hands off our nation and stop their aggression against us and their support for our enemies.”

What about Syria, Yemen, and Libya? What’s their excuse?

In Syria, the U.S. alone has contributed and allocated billions of U.S. dollars to the Syrian opposition with the intent of toppling the Assad regime. Since 2012, this support has been benefiting jihadists—and the political establishment has been well aware of this fact and its repercussions. Even the Free Syrian Army has been dominated by extremists for a long time now, yet Western countries have openly supported that group since the start of the Syrian war.

In 2015, the Obama administration launched a plan to train a small team of “moderate” rebels who would fight against ISIS, a program that cost approximately $580 million. The fighters were decimated in battle and handed most of their weaponry over to al-Qaeda. Following this debacle, Obama proposed increasing support even further; radical and fanatical extremist groups such as Jaish al-Islam and al-Sham have been allowed to participate in the Syrian negotiations. These groups openly work with al-Qaeda and have been documented carrying out atrocities. Apparently, gun control is one of Obama’s top priorities—unless, of course, you are a radical jihadist fighting in Syria.

Turkey is another group that has facilitated the growth of ISIS in more ways than one, including operating an illicit oil trade, providing medical support to fighters, and allowing an open border to smuggle fanatical jihadists into Syria. These fighters have referred to the Turkish border as “the gateway to Jihad.”

When Hillary Clinton supported rebels in Libya—the prosperous North African Nation with a high standard of living—in order to topple the Gaddafi regime in 2011, she was well aware that al-Qaeda and other radical jihadists made up the bulk of the opposition she was overtly supporting. This is according to her own emails. Following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has become a failed state trapped in a perpetual cycle of civil war. Radical violence has become the norm. Does Hillary Clinton care about the spread of radical Islam—or have her policies facilitated it?

One cannot talk about radical Islam without confronting these facts. It is also not appropriate to lay the blame on the United States, alone, for every single problem the world has, given that brutal regimes such as Saudi Arabia play a crucial role in spreading extremist ideologies and providing funding and weaponry.

The fact remains, however, that the U.S. and the U.K. have given Saudi Arabia unfaltering support despite their brutally unsafe policies—and have been providing assistance to the Saudi-led coalition as they bomb civilians in neighbouring Yemen to death. Yemen is the most impoverished nation in the region and is home to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the branch of al-Qaeda Washington has been deemed the most deadly—despite the fact Washington kills more civilians than AQAP does on a regular basis. Is Saudi Arabia bombing Yemen to decimate AQAP? No, they are intervening on the side of AQAP.

All of this is barely scratching the surface. However, if these factors were simply removed, how much of a problem would we be left with when talking about radical Islam? Why is it that Clinton and Trump both propose policies that have only ever exacerbated the problem?

Einstein famously said the definition of lunacy is attempting the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The only difference in results we can expect to see is a difference in the severity of the terror threat we are forced to face because of the disastrous policies our governments have pursued in the Middle East and Africa.


This article (Why Everyone Is Wrong Regarding Radical Islam) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons licence with attribution to Darius Shahtahmasebi and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.



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Friday, July 15, 2016

Erd-o-GONE!

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The Turkish dictator Erdogan (Recep Tayyip Erdo?an) has just been deposed by a military coup.

You have to know the history of the Turkish military to understand why this is a very good thing …

For many decades, the Turkish military insured that no Islamic fundamentalists could impose their will on Turkey.  Whenever anyone tried, they were deposed.

It is only recently that the military stood down, and Erdogan imposed an Islamic fundamentalist rule over Turkey, suspended free speech and journalism, and otherwise crushed democracy.

He also launched a major campaign to support ISIS in Syria, destabilizing the entire region in the process.

With today’s coup, the people of Turkey have a chance once again for secular and democratic rule.

So long as the military quickly transitions to elections, they will have done Turkey – and the world – a great service.



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Thursday, July 14, 2016

Jill Stein Just Promised to Pardon Snowden and Appoint Him to Her Cabinet If Elected

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(ANTIMEDIA) United States — Presumptive Green Party presidential nominee Dr. Jill Stein promises to grant NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden—whom many describe as a true American hero—not just a full pardon, but a promotion to the upper echelons of government should she win the White House.

“[Snowden] has done an incredible service to our country at great cost to himself for having to live away from his family, his friends, his job, his network, to basically live as an expatriate,” Stein asserted during a town hall live-streamed to supporters on her Facebook page, US Uncut reported.

“I would say not only bring Snowden back, but bring him into my administration as a member of the Cabinet,” she continued, “because we need people who are part of our national security administration who are really, very patriotic. If we’re really going to protect our American security, we also have to protect our Constitutional rights, and that includes our right to privacy.”

Stein said her pardons wouldn’t stop with Snowden, but would extend to others, including CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, who first revealed proof of U.S. government employment of waterboarding and other torture tactics, as well as Chelsea Manning.

Perhaps Stein’s pledge will come as a glimmer of hope to Manning, who has been forced to languish in prison for the duration of a 35-year sentence after leaking what came to be called the Afghan War Diary and Iraq War Logs—which included now-notorious footage of U.S. helicopter airmen deliberately gunning down journalists—to Wikileaks. Stating she was “glad to be alive” now, Manning’s continued struggle behind bars led to her attempted suicide last week.

Reddit co-founder and MIT student, Aaron Swartz, however, succeeded in killing himself in 2013, after being harassed and threatened with a 35-year sentence and $1 million in fines for leaking academic research to the public. Stein lamented Swartz would also have received a pardon under her presidency, explaining:

“[Swartz] was a proponent of free and liberated Internet and for sharing our resources on that internet, who was basically hounded into suicide by a very oppressive Department of Justice. So, he — in my mind — is another one of these heroes that we need to remember and be very thankful for.”

Remarking whistleblowers “have done a great service,” Stein described those who expose governmental—and other—wrongs as “people who’ve paid an incredible price for our rights of not only the freedom to communicate on the Internet, but also the freedom to guard our privacy.”

Stein—whose cutting-edge campaign platform includes the call to end wars, cut the U.S. military budget in half, stop police brutality, end mass incarceration, forego corporate trade agreements in favor of fair trade, label genetically-modified food, and much more—quickly became the favorite of Bernie Sanders supporters who felt betrayed by his endorsement of war hawk, Hillary Clinton.

In the 24 hours following that capitulation, Stein’s campaign saw an astonishing 1,000 percent swell in donations—receiving over $80,ooo since Tuesday.

“There’s been an explosion of Berners coming through in every portal of the campaign, and it’s really exciting,” Stein told US Uncut, employing the popular term for the Vermont senator’s supporters, in an interview. “There is so much courage out there to stand up to the marching orders handed down by the usual suspects.”

Last week, Stein invited Sanders to collaborate—going so far as to offer the Green Party ticket for the continuance of his campaign.

“I’ve invited Bernie to sit down and explore collaboration — everything is on the table,” she announced last week, prior to his endorsement of the Democratic establishment darling, Clinton. “If he saw that you can’t have a revolutionary campaign in a counter-revolutionary party, he’d be welcomed to the Green Party. He could lead the ticket and build a political movement.”

With her gracious offer ultimately rebuffed, Stein expressed disappointment and instead invited disillusioned Berners to consider voting for her. During the live-stream, Stein stated:

“I call on the tens of millions inspired by Bernie Sanders’ call for political revolution, the 60 percent of Americans who want a new major party, and the independents who outnumber both Democrats and Republicans who reject the self-defeating strategy of voting for the lesser evil and join our fight for the greater good.”


This article (Jill Stein Just Promised to Pardon Snowden and Appoint Him to Her Cabinet If Elected) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.



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French President Slams Goldman's Hire Of Former EU Chief Barroso As "Morally Unacceptable"

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Last Friday, we were impressed by Goldman's brazenness when the bank, whose alumni have populated virtually all prominent central banks, announced it had hired the former president of the EU Jose Manuel Barroso, as a non-executive chairman and advisor, in what was a clear move to lobby for even more clout within a Europe that is suddenly teetering on the edge of chaos, and where Goldman's proximity will come in very lucrative when the Eurozone finally tips over.

Needless to say, Barroso's decision to join Goldman was the peak of hyporcisy when one considers the following speech he had given just years earlier: "In the last three years, Member States - I should say taxpayers - have granted aid and provided guarantees of € 4.6 trillion to the financial sector. It is time for the financial sector to make a contribution back to society"

barroso%20gs.jpg

It appears that the Portuguese bureaucrat only had problem with the financial sector's taxpayer bailout if it was not his multi-million sallary that was the use of proceeds.

However, while outside criticism of Barroso's hypocrisy was is most certainly to be expected from outsiders, we were pleasantly surprised, and quite amused, when we saw that none other than French President Francois Hollande on Thursday became the most senior critic of former European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso's decision to take a job at the investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Hollande noted that Barroso was running the European Union's executive arm at the time of the U.S. subprime home-loans crisis, which has been blamed for the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.

He said Goldman Sachs was "one of the main institutions" involved in selling subprime debt, and also noted the U.S. bank's role helping Greece establish credibility about its finances in the early 2000s. Understandably he did not bring up ECB head Mario Draghi who at the time was at Goldman himself, and was actively selling swap to Athens to help it mask its debt.

Earlier this week the French government called on Barroso to walk away from the job and the European Ombudsman called for the EU to tighten rules on commissioners taking appointments on leaving office.

"It's not about Europe, it's about morality," said Hollande in his annual interview to mark Bastille day, France's national day.

"Legally, it's possible, but morally, it's about the person, it's morally unacceptable."

For once we find outselves in total agreement with the French socialist.

Then again, we eagerly await Barroso's reponse now that it has been revealed that Hollande himself has been quite generous with taxpayer funds himself, spending $11k per month in taxpayer funds on his own personal hairdresser as we reported yesterday. We assume that the retort of Goldman's latest hire to yet another glaring instance of French presidential hypocrisy by the man whose own banks were bailed out in the crisis, and who singlehandedly defined "shampoo socialism" will be sufficient comic - and scathing - that it will need no help from us.



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Wednesday, July 13, 2016

This Is What Wikileaks’ Julian Assange Fears Will Happen If He’s Handed Over to U.S. Government

ORIGINAL LINK
Julian Assange Racked

(MINTPRESS) MUNICH — Despite being trapped for the past four years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange still “stays strong” and makes plans for even more dramatic publications.

That’s the word from Sarah Harrison, the investigations editor for WikiLeaks who is perhaps best known as NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s ally when he fled from Hong Kong to Moscow, where he has lived on asylum since 2013. Harrison spoke with Zain Raza, senior editor at independent media collective acTVism Munich, in a June 11 interview about Assange and the government transparency website’s future plans.

“He stays very strong. He focuses on his work a lot, and with his type of personality and work ethic this keeps him very busy and keeps him going,” Harrison told Raza. “We have a lot of good publications coming up this year, so that definitely keeps him busy.”

Last month, Assange began his fifth year of confinement at the Ecuadorean Embassy, where he took refuge in 2012 out of fear of extradition to the United States. In the interview, Harrison explained the confinement puts Assange under considerable psychological strain:

“There are very difficult conditions that he is there under. For example, he basically is in one room within what is a very small embassy in the center of London. He has no outside space, he hasn’t been able to be in the sun for four years now. So, they are tough conditions, but he works through and he stays strong.”

Assange entered the embassy on June 19, 2012 under threat of extradition to Sweden for questioning over allegations of improper sexual behavior toward two women, but details of an ongoing U.S. investigation have emerged that suggest he could face decades in prison if he were subsequently sent from Sweden to the U.S. to face trial. The Swedish government only recently agreed to question Assange inside the embassy, and in February, a United Nations panel declared his confinement to be “arbitrary detention” and urged the United Kingdom and Sweden to release him immediately.

“Sadly, those countries are not actually following the United Nations judgement, but it is still a positive move forward in his case,” Harrison said in the acTVism interview.

Harrison also criticized British foreign secretary Philip Hammond’s reaction to the U.N. panel’s ruling. Hammond rejected the ruling, saying the panel’s conclusion was “flawed in law” and “ridiculous.”

“It is very sad to me, as a British citizen, that our MPs can stand there and say that the United Nations is ridiculous,” Harrison said. “To me, that is just sad and shows how much we have diverted from the rule of law in our supposed Western democracies.”

According to Harrison, open records requests have revealed that Assange and other WikiLeaks’ employees may face charges of conspiracy as well as charges stemming from violations of the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — the same controversial law which led to charges against the late activist Aaron Swartz.

“We’ve seen through the history of the United States, for example, with the Chelsea Manning case, that she was given 35 years in jail and was subjected to treatment that was akin to torture. And this is what Julian can expect if he ends up in the United States,” Harrison said.

In 2013, Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, was sentenced to serve 35 years in a military prison for leaking thousands of files to WikiLeaks, including diplomatic cables revealing the inner workings of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and “Collateral Murder,” a video that revealed the killing of Reuters employees by the U.S. Army. Manning recently attempted to take her own life after repeated struggles to secure her basic rights in the all-male military prison facility where she’s being held.

Harrison also rejected claims that WikiLeaks publications, especially leaked diplomatic cables, and the actions of whistleblowers like Snowden or Manning, had put the U.S. government or its employees at risk. She told Raza:

“[W]e were showing the U.S. government’s war crimes and their killing of hundreds of thousands of people, and yet they somehow managed a very successful propaganda attack where they turned this around and said we had blood on our hands. Now, when it came to Manning trial, they tried desperately to prove this in the court of law, and actually even the United States government were unable to actually let this argument stand up in court. It has been proven to be false in their own courts of law, and so, this is clearly just one example of where it is just propaganda attacks on us.”

She suggested Snowden’s actions, in particular, should be seen as legal:

“I think that it is clear to many people that the actions of Manning, Snowden, Assange, are actually to do with not only a higher ethic but actually within the rule of law, particularly when it comes to Edward Snowden and the U.S. Constitution — he has actually just been upholding that with his actions.”

Watch “Wikileaks: Exclusive Interview with Investigations Editor Sarah Harrison” from acTVism Munich:


This article (This Is What Wikileaks’ Julian Assange Fears Will Happen If He’s Handed Over to U.S. Government) by MintPress News Desk originally appeared on MintPressNews.com and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.



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CDC Executive Resigns After Being Caught Scheming With Coca-Cola

ORIGINAL LINK

We have two choices when it comes to food. We can either feed disease or we can fight it. Unfortunately, many of us are electing for the former, and our eating habits, ingrained from childhood, aren’t helping. Sugar continues to be named among the worst disease-promoting culprits, and yet from a young age, we crave (and are rewarded with) cookies, candy, soda, and so on.

The WHO published a sugar guideline in March 2015 that targeted sugary beverages as the primary cause for global childhood obesity, specifically in developing nations where the soda industry is currently pushing their efforts.

We are, in many ways, brainwashed to desire the things we do — especially food. From calculated advertisements to grocery story layouts, our sugar cravings are being programmed into us. We want sugar. We even feel like we need sugar. And we also put our trust in powerful organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to inform us of what is considered valuable for our health, what is working against it, and what we absolutely need to avoid for our safety. We try to be well-informed, but sometimes, if not often, it’s hard to know what’s valuable information, and who we can trust.

Reports reveal evidence that a CDC executive helped a Coca-Cola representative influence WHO officials to relax recommendations on sugar limits. Email correspondence between the two organizations was obtained by the nonprofit consumer education group U.S. Right to Know (USRTK):

The emails were between Dr. Barbara Bowman, director of the CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, and Alex Malaspina, a former Coca-Cola scientific and regulatory affairs leader and the founder of a food industry-funded group, International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI).

They allegedly show Bowman’s multiple attempts to aid Malaspina’s relationship with WHO leaders whose actions (think soda tax) were hurting the beverage industry.

As part of her job, Bowman must work to help prevent obesity, diabetes, and other health problems, but seemed more than willing to help the beverage industry sway the WHO.

Marion Nestle, Ph.D., professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, and author of the book Soda Politicsresponded to the CDC-Coke scandal by saying that the “fact that a high-level U.S. health official is communicating in this way with a beverage industry leader appears improper,” adding that the emails “suggest that ILSI, Coca-Cola and researchers funded by Coca-Cola have an ‘in’ with a prominent CDC official.”

She goes on:

The official appears to be interested in helping these groups organize opposition to ‘eat less sugar’ and ‘disclose industry funding’ recommendations.

The invitation to dinner suggests a cozy relationship… This appearance of conflict of interest is precisely why policies for engagement with industry are needed for federal officials.

Nestle’s book discusses how the soda industry is very much aware of the devastating connection between soda consumption, obesity, and obesity-related diseases, and once the truth comes out, they will no longer be of value.

For many years now, health advocates have warned people about the connection between sugary drinks and obesity, and the message has slowly but surely started to take hold. People are beginning to come to terms with the detriments of soda, with U.S. soda sales having dropped 25 percent since 1998.

According to USRTK:

Alex Malaspina, was able to ask for and receive regular input and guidance from a top official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on how to address actions by the World Health Organization that were hurting the food and beverage industry.

The emails . . . reveal that . . . Bowman … tried to help Malaspina find inroads to influence WHO officials to back off anti-sugar talk.

Bowman suggested people and groups for Malaspina to talk to, and solicited his comments on some CDC summaries of reports, the emails show.

Bowman chose to step down immediately in response to the exposed emails, announcing her departure from the agency two days after it was revealed she was providing guidance to a leading Coca-Cola advocate on how to influence world health authorities on how to get sugary beverages to slip through the health cracks.

Her boss, Ursula Bauer, Ph.D., confirmed Bowman’s correspondence with Coca-Cola, stating that the “perception that some readers may take from the article [revealing Bowman’s dealings with Malaspina] is not ideal,” and that the situation “serves as an important reminder of the old adage that if we don’t want to see it on the front pages of the newspaper then we shouldn’t do it.”

Are we living in a world where we are constantly being lied to about what is good for us, and what is bad for us? That question seems like a no-brainer in today’s society, especially given this recent news, which exposes the sickening amount of power behind the corporate and federal regulatory agency revolving door allegiances.

Public servants must be mindful to expose what’s best for the public, not be swayed by what their former bosses and acquaintances say and want.

The soda industry is struggling to keep its head above water, and so it only makes sense that scandals continues to surface. But how willing are they to allow their consumers to contract diseases and die by pushing backdoor dealings to make a buck? Only time will tell.



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21st Century Cures or Corruption?

ORIGINAL LINK

By Dr. Mercola

Last year, a shocking piece of legislation was introduced in the U.S. Congress called the 21st Century Cures Act.1

Proponents of the bill claimed it would deliver faster, easier drug and medical product approvals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which would translate into improved medical care and access to valuable treatments for sick and dying Americans.

Industry and political backers of the bill didn't talk publicly about the fact that the sweeping legislation also covered "biological products," which means vaccines that are government licensed, recommended and mandated for all Americans to use.

There are many reasons to be wary of this kind of federal legislation and, according to a public opinion poll2,3 by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and STAT, most Americans distrust it.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans oppose changing safety and effectiveness standards to allow for fast-tracking of drugs; half of respondents object to regulatory changes to accelerate approvals of new medical devices.

Yet despite a lot of criticism from concerned citizens, the bill sailed through the House of Representatives last summer.

In July 2015, the bill was referred to the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where it stalled amid arguments about funding and after consumer groups, including the National Vaccine Information Center, voiced strong opposition to the gutting of already low FDA licensing standards.4,5

This year, Senators supporting passage of the 21st Century Cures Act cut the legislation up into seven smaller bills with hopes it will be easier to quietly move those smaller bills through Congress without publicity and accomplish the original goals of the 21st Century Cures Act:

Summary of the 21st Century Cures Act

The entire 21st Century Cures House bill came in at a hefty 400 pages, but if you want to get an overview of the long term goals of pharmaceutical and medical trade lobbyists partnering with federal health agencies, you can read through a 102-page Congressional Research Service summary of it.6,7

Once you're done, you'll probably agree that the only real beneficiaries here are the drug companies and federal health agencies, as this legislation intends to fast-track drug and vaccine approvals, cut corners on pre-licensure testing, severely restrict informed consent protections in scientific research on humans, and give billions of dollars to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop more drugs and vaccines in partnership with pharmaceutical companies.

In short, the legislation would continue to push the one-size-fits-all type of medical care focused on expensive (and now poorly tested) drugs and vaccines that has contributed to the U.S.' abysmal health ratings.

It will give large amounts of money to NIH to fund experimental drug and vaccine research, while simultaneously relaxing FDA oversight — a move that will hardly result in safer medicine. It's also a clear danger to natural health, and as noted by Barbara Loe Fisher last year, the bill poses a particular threat to vaccine safety.8

As passed by the House last July, this federal legislation9 intends to establish a new fund within the U.S. Treasury in the amount of $1.86 billion per year through 2020, for a total of $9.3 billion. The monies will go to the NIH to develop new drugs and vaccines.

This is in addition to funding from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Of the $1.86 billion per annum, $1.75 billion would go to NIH Biomedical Research and $110 million for Cures Development.

Focus areas are: precision medicine (treatments based on genetic makeup of the patient and/or disease), infectious diseases, antibiotics and biomarkers (markers that gauge the biological response to a drug, supposedly eliminating the need to wait for the results from a full-fledged patient trial). No mention is made of research relating to natural health or prevention.

Patient Safety Seemingly Abandoned Altogether

Harm to patients is at an all-time high in our country, with preventable medical errors and drug side effects being the third leading cause of death in the U.S.

Yet, the legislative goals of the 21st Century Cures Act that Senators this year cut up into smaller bills apparently for the purpose of sliding them through Congress before the public knows what has happened, contains numerous provisions that can only worsen the situation.

As noted by Fisher, "there are so many breathtaking ways the 21st Century Cures Act will endanger the public health that it is hard to know where to begin." For starters, the bill increases "regulatory flexibility" by the FDA in reviewing and approving drugs, biologics and medical devices. Specifically, it:

Increases the ability of pharmaceutical companies and device makers to have a greater voice in the regulatory process and to streamline ways for FDA to approve their products.

Lowers FDA licensing standards for drugs, medical devices and biological products, the latter of which includes vaccines, which means companies will be able to forgo large case-controlled clinical trials to evaluate safety and effectiveness.

In lieu of large-scale clinical trials, drug companies would be allowed to use biomarkers and other endpoint measures to prove the vaccine's effectiveness. But what about safety?

Public Trust in FDA at Historic Low

It's interesting to note that all of this is happening at a time when public trust in the FDA is already at a historic low. According to a 2014 paper10 in JAMA Internal Medicine, 37 percent of respondents in an online poll agreed the FDA is "intentionally suppressing natural cures for cancer because of drug company pressure."

Some have even suggested the 21st Century Cures Act is the beginning of the end for the FDA, and that the agency will eventually be eliminated altogether. As noted by ProPublica:11

"The legislation has its roots in a longstanding push by conservative groups to liberate drug and device development from red tape. 'Now, I don't want to get your hopes up, but Phase Three, maybe we'll take out FDA,' said Newt Gingrich during the Republican Revolution of 1994, when he also called the agency the nation's 'leading job killer.'

More recently, the deregulatory crusade against the FDA has been led by conservative think tanks such as the Goldwater Institute and Manhattan Institute, which launched its 'Project FDA' to reform the agency so that it provides a 'more predictable, transparent, and efficient pathway' for new medications and devices."

Enter 'Good Enough Science'

When assessing the safety and effectiveness of a drug or vaccine, the FDA would even be allowed to accept such flimsy evidence as Bayesian statistical analyses — a novel data analysis method based on probabilities and "best guesses" — and clinical experience, including anecdotal evidence!12

"It's interesting that clinical experience and anecdotal evidence will constitute 'good science' for the purpose of demonstrating a vaccine is safe before its licensed, while clinical experience and anecdotal evidence have never been enough to demonstrate that a vaccine is unsafe after its licensed," Fisher says.

Political scientist Daniel Carpenter, Ph.D. who specializes in the FDA, calls the legislation "the 19th Century Fraud Act," saying, "This is a part of the bill that threatens to take us back more than a century."13 Even the FDA commissioner Dr. Robert Califf has stated that unless the legislation is "carefully crafted, [it] could pose significant risks for FDA and American patients. Innovative therapies are not helpful to patients if they don't work, or worse, cause harm."14

Disturbingly, the legislation would also allow clinical testing of experimental drugs on people without first obtaining their informed consent, provided "the proposed clinical testing poses no more than minimal risk." It's unclear what constitutes "minimal risk," and who would have the right to make such a determination. This seems like a monumental step backwards, considering the legal protections put in place across the world to prevent covert medical experimentation on humans.

The legislation also outlines provisions related to the delivery of health care, including interoperability of electronic health information technology, and includes a number of proposed Medicare and Medicaid changes to offset costs. Oddly, it also calls for a drawdown in the nation's strategic petroleum reserve, presumably to help pay for it all.

Lowering Licensing Standards Is a Really Bad Idea

The 21st Century Cures Act legislation now embodied in seven separate Senate bills seeks to bring more medicines to people with rare disorders for which few treatments are available. But by tying together funds for increased research and loosened regulatory controls across the board, the risks will be carried by ALL people.

If you have a debilitating and lethal disease, you may be willing to take risks you'd never take under normal circumstances. If this law takes effect, medicine will be increasingly risky for everyone. As noted by STAT:

"There is no question that more research funding is necessary and that finding legitimate ways to get medicines to patients faster is crucial. But Congress ought to separate the debate over research funding from the rest of the legislation. Loosening regulatory standards would only create problems for which real cures will be needed."

This is particularly true for vaccines, which are given to healthy infants, young children and adults. Moreover, once a vaccine is licensed by the FDA and recommended for all children by the CDC, it often is mandated by state health officials for school attendance, and that's true whether the vaccine is fast-tracked or not.

The risks to public health, however, are FAR greater with a fast-tracked vaccine and there are literally hundreds of experimental vaccines in the pipeline, including vaccines for HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, genital herpes, syphilis, norovirus and tuberculosis, just to name a few.

"The 21st Century Cures Act is being sold as a way for the FDA to quickly license experimental pharmaceutical products for people suffering with rare or life threatening diseases, whether or not those products have been adequately tested.

However, greasing the FDA's licensure skids to make experimental drugs available for the sick and dying who voluntarily choose to use them is one thing, while greasing the skids to bum rush experimental vaccines to licensure that government will legally require healthy children and adults to buy and use is quite another," Fisher says.

Ignoring the Basics Can Have Serious Consequences

While precision medicine with its focus on genetic makeup is a goal worthy of research, the Cures Act legislation completely ignores far more basic differences between individuals, such as age and sex. As noted by The Washington Post:15

"Throughout the 20th century, most medical research was conducted on relatively young, healthy men. In recent years, researchers have realized that treatments often affect women and older patients differently than men or younger patients.

These differences can affect safety and effectiveness ... [T]he 21st Century Cures Act is based on the assumption that there will be more cures if drugs and devices are studied more quickly by testing them on fewer patients — in some cases, on just a handful.

Unfortunately, such studies would be too small to allow safety and effectiveness findings to be broken down for subgroups such as men, women, young adults and seniors. This embrace of smaller, more preliminary studies could drastically lower scientific standards. When fewer people are studied, it is more likely that a drug will seem safe and effective even if it has dangerous side effects for many patients — who may not have been included in those small studies.

Worse, the bill specifies that after studying only small groups of patients, drug manufacturers could sell a new treatment to anyone, even if the patient was not among the types studied. In fact, hospitals would be paid extra to make it financially feasible to prescribe more expensive new drugs to Medicare patients, even if the drugs were never studied on patients older than 65 ..."

The 21st Century Cures Act legislation actually undermines other recent laws calling for more stringent research into drug effects based on age and sex differences. Three years ago, a law was passed directing the FDA to make sure all age groups and both sexes are included in testing to ascertain safety and efficacy. Just last year, the General Accountability Office also concluded the NIH needs to make analysis of sex differences a priority.16

Fast-tracking, which requires only minimal testing, has other pitfalls as well. Like vaccines, the bill would allow antibiotics to be fast-tracked based on limited data from test tubes and animal studies.17 This makes no sense at all, as research shows these kinds of tests don't always translate into safety and effectiveness in humans.

Considering the fact we're facing a proverbial avalanche of antibiotic-resistant disease, issuing ineffective antibiotics is foolhardy in the extreme. It may simply add fuel to the fire of drug resistance, while simultaneously failing to help patients.

Members of Congress Spend Most of Their Time Raising Funds for Reelection

Americans have not only lost trust in the FDA. A mere 14 percent of Americans think Congress is doing a good job. CBS' 60 Minutes recently aired a segment discussing the inordinate amount of time Congress spends raising money for their own elections and the party — about 30 hours a week! — and Florida Republican David Jolly's call to quit "dialing for dollars" and get down to real business. According to 60 Minutes:

"Nearly every day, they spend hours on the phone asking supporters and even total strangers for campaign donations — hours spent away from the jobs they were elected to do. The pressure on candidates to raise money has ratcheted up since the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010. That allowed unlimited spending by corporations, unions and individuals in elections.

So our attention was caught by a proposal from a Republican congressman that would stop members of Congress from dialing for dollars ... Rep. David Jolly: 'You have six months until the election. Break that down to having to raise $2 million in the next six months. And your job, new member of Congress, is to raise $18,000 a day. Your first responsibility is to make sure you hit $18,000 a day.'"

Jolly has quit making fundraising calls — a move that might cost him his position, but it's a risk he's willing to take. He's also introduced a bill called the "Stop Act," which would ban all federal elected officials from soliciting donations directly. It's a good start, but truly, we need comprehensive reform.

Corporate donations play a huge role in the kinds of legislation brought forth, and it's hard to look at the 21st Century Cures Act legislation as anything but another gift to the big political spenders — the pharmaceutical industry that has developed a public-private business partnership with federal health agencies — at the direction of Congress!

And it was Congress that bailed out the vaccine manufacturers in 1986 by shielding them from product liability for injuries and deaths caused by government licensed, recommended and mandated vaccines.18 Congressman Rick Nolan (D-Minnesota), who is co-sponsoring the Stop Act, agrees that the influx of corporate money has had a dramatically negative influence on Congress.

Anonymous Congressman Writes Tell-All Book

The 86 percent of Americans who have lost faith in Congress will likely not be shocked by "The Confessions of Congressman X," a brand new tell-all book written by an anonymous Democrat. He too reveals that his main job as Congressman is to raise money for reelection, leaving no time to actually read any of the bills he votes on. (Apparently, it also leaves precious little time to write, as the book is a mere 84 pages.) According to The Daily Mail:19

"The anonymous spleen-venter has had a lot to say about his constituents, however. Robert Atkinson, a former chief of staff and press secretary for two congressional Democrats, took notes on a series of informal talks with him — whoever he is — and is now publishing them with his permission.

'Voters claim they want substance and detailed position papers, but what they really crave are cutesy cat videos, celebrity gossip, top 10 lists, reality TV shows, tabloid tripe, and the next f***ing Twitter message,' the congressman gripes in the book ...

'Fundraising is so time-consuming I seldom read any bills I vote on,' the anonymous legislator admits. 'I don't even know how they'll be implemented or what they'll cost. My staff gives me a last-minute briefing before I go to the floor and tells me whether to vote yea or nay. How bad is that?'

And on controversial bills, he says, 'I sometimes vote 'yes' on a motion and 'no' on an amendment so I can claim I'm on either side of an issue. It's the old shell game: if you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em' ... 'Our party used to be a strong advocate for the working class,' he says. 'We still pretend to be, but we aren't. Large corporations and public unions grease the palms of those who have the power to determine legislative winners and losers' ...

'Most of my colleagues are dishonest career politicians who revel in the power and special-interest money that's lavished upon them,' Atkinson recorded his mystery collaborator saying. 'My main job is to keep my job, to get reelected. It takes precedence over everything.'"

Long-Term Public Health Sacrificed for Short-Term Goals

Our political process is in shambles, and the fact that corporations are running the show has become increasingly self-evident. The 21st Century Cures Act legislation is just one of the latest clues. For an excellent summary of the many shortfalls of this bill, see this previous Health Affairs' article.20

If made into law, it will make newly approved drugs and medical devices LESS safe and likely LESS effective, while further increasing costs in a country that already has the highest medical expenditures on the planet while lagging far behind other industrialized nations when it comes to health statistics.

Modern medicine is the third leading killer of Americans, and we need increased patient safety, not more fast-tracked drugs and vaccines with limited safety and effectiveness testing. Recent research shows many of the drugs approved by the FDA are already tainted by massive corruption, allowing worthless and/or dangerous drugs on the market.

We need stronger drug licensing requirements, not more lax ones. As noted by Health Affairs, "many of the provisions appear to be favorable to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, while not providing benefits to patients." This just isn't right.

If you agree, I urge you to contact your senators and share your views on this bill. You can also find your senators' contact information by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

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Tuesday, July 12, 2016

US Refused To Prosecute HSBC Over Fears Of "Global Financial Disaster"

ORIGINAL LINK

What had previously only been hinted by the likes of former US attorney general Eric Holder who infamous said some banks are "too big to prosecute" shortly before resigning, became fact when a US Congressional report found that US officials refused to prosecute HSBC for money laundering in 2012 because of concerns within the DOJ that it would cause a "global financial disaster."  The report also revealed that UK officials, including Chancellor George Osborne, added to pressure by warning the US it could lead to market turmoil. The report alleges the UK "hampered" the probe of the most systemically important UK bank, and "influenced" the outcome.

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As BBC reminds us, some four years ago HSBC was accused of letting drug cartels use US banks to launder funds. The bank, which has its headquarters in London, paid a $1.92bn settlement but did not face criminal charges; likewise all top officials at HSBC avoided any charges.

According to the report "George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the UK's chief financial minister, intervened in the HSBC matter by sending a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke... to express the UK's concerns regarding US enforcement actions against British banks." The letter said that prosecuting HSBC could have "very serious implications for financial and economic stability, particularly in Europe and Asia".

In other words, the US liasion who prevented justice at the time was not so much Eric Holder, who was merely doing as instructed, as the then-Fed chairman and resident helicopter money expert, Ben Shalom Bernanke.

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said a series of factors were considered when deciding how to resolve a case, including whether there may be "adverse consequences for innocent third parties, such as employees, customers, investors, pension holders and the public". The report also accuses former US Attorney General Eric Holder of misleading Congress about the decision.

The report says Holder ignored the recommendations of more junior staff to prosecute HSBC because of the bank's "systemic importance" to the financial markets.

"Rather than lacking adequate evidence to prove HSBC's criminal conduct, internal Treasury documents show that DOJ [Department of Justice] leadership declined to pursue [the] recommendation to prosecute HSBC because senior DOJ leaders were concerned that prosecuting the bank 'could result in a global financial disaster'," the report said. Instead, the Department of Justice and HSBC reached the settlement, which some politicians criticised for being too lenient.

Testifying before Congress in 2013, Holder infamously said the size of some financial institutions can make it difficult to bring criminal charges. He later tried to clarify those remarks telling Congress: "If we find a bank or a financial institution that has done something wrong, if we can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, those cases will be brought."

That too was a lie.  Congress's report deemed these comments to be misleading in light of emails from Treasury Department staff that recommended criminal charges.

Eric Holder is now writing a book, due out in 2018. We doubt this episode will be featured in it.

The 2012 settlement with HSBC detailed how the bank violated US sanctions by conducting business for customers in Iran, Libya, Sudan, Burma and Cuba.

HSBC accounts were also used by the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico and Norte del Valle cartel in Colombia to launder $881m. The settlement allowed the bank to avoid pleading guilty to any wrongdoing.

If HSBC had been proven guilty of criminal action, it could have lost its banking charter in the US.

As BBC concludes, both HSBC and US regulators declined to comment on the report. The UK Treasury has not commented either. They would both rather comment on the economic recovery by pointing out the stock market being at all time highs.



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How Monsanto invaded, occupied and now CONTROLS government regulators

ORIGINAL LINK
Bedfellows-EPA-Monsanto.jpg (NaturalNews) If you've ever wondered why corporations seem to hold so much sway over our government, look no further than who's making all the decisions in Washington – and more importantly, where many of these people worked before being handed comfy, high-level positions at...


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TIME magazine stupidly blames anti-vaccine immigration detention center workers for measles outbreak, ignoring infected migrants spreading disease

ORIGINAL LINK
Immigrants-Immigration-Fence-Barb-Wire.j (NaturalNews) TIME magazine, along with several other mainstream media sources, is blaming a recent measles outbreak in Arizona on unvaccinated workers at an immigration detention center located near Phoenix, but is the story accurate?The mainstream press version of the story...


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Monday, July 11, 2016

Those That Wanted To Get Prepared Have Already Gotten Prepared By Now

ORIGINAL LINK

No Excuses Road Sign - Public DomainIs the time for warning people to prepare for what is ahead coming to an end?  For years, bold men and women all over America have been sounding the alarm and warning people to get prepared physically, financially, mentally, emotionally and spiritually for the great storm that is rapidly approaching.  Personally, I have written more than 2,500 articles on my primary two websites combined, and so nobody can accuse me of not blowing the trumpet.  It has gotten to the point that sometimes I am even tired of listening to myself warn the people.  But now we are shifting into a new phase.

The other day I was reflecting on some of the things that I have been hearing lately.  Sales of emergency food and supplies are way down across the entire industry.  Many organizations and websites that have been instrumental in sounding the alarm for a long time are really struggling right now.  On my websites, traffic has hit a bit of a plateau after experiencing a tremendous surge late last year.  Overall, “prepping” was very hot just a few years ago, and at one time it was estimated that there were approximately three million “preppers” in the United States.  But these days there seems to be a tremendous amount of apathy out there.

As I reflected on all of this, I came to one inescapable conclusion.

Those that wanted to get prepared have already gotten prepared by now, and those that did not want to get prepared are not likely to do so any time soon.

I personally know a lot of people that are very, very prepared and have been for a long time.  Yes, there is still a small minority of people out there that only recently woke up and started prepping, but overall most of the preparation that people wanted to do has already been completed.  And for those that have not done anything to prepare, you could argue with them until the moon turns to cheese and they still won’t take any action.

At this point the die has been cast.  Most of those that felt that they should prepare have already prepared.  Most of those that felt that they should repent have already repented.  Most of those that felt that they should warn America have already sounded the alarm.

So now all that is left is to wait for the shaking to begin.

In looking back at what has transpired over the last several years, I think that it would be appropriate to say something about the failure of the church in America.

You see, if the churches of America were doing their job, all of the “watchmen” out there would not even be needed.  Our voices would simply be lost in a chorus of thousands upon thousands of pastors, teachers, ministers and evangelists boldly warning people about what is coming to this nation.

But instead, there is just deafening silence coming from most of the mainstream churches.

The sad thing is that many, many church leaders understand very clearly what is coming, but they have purposely chosen not to warn the people.  Some time ago, George Barna conducted a study that looked into why our churches are not addressing the key issues of the day, and what he discovered was absolutely astounding

“‘What we’re finding is that when we ask them about all the key issues of the day, [90 percent of them are] telling us, ‘Yes, the Bible speaks to every one of these issues,” he explained. “Then we ask them: ‘Well, are you teaching your people what the Bible says about those issues?’ and the numbers drop…to less than 10 percent of pastors who say they will speak to it.”

Most churches in America don’t want to talk about the hard things, because they desperately want to make people feel comfortable.  They want to entertain people and make them happy so that they will come back week after week and drop their money into the offering plate.

When it comes to defining success as a church, Barna found that there were five primary factors that were important to the majority of pastors, and none of them had anything to do with repentance and salvation through Jesus Christ…

“There are five factors that the vast majority of pastors turn to,” he outlined. “Attendance, giving, number of programs, number of staff, and square footage.”

Sadly, most Christians in America actually prefer these lukewarm churches, and the Apostle Paul warned that these times were coming nearly 2000 years ago.  The following is what 2 Timothy 4:3-4 says in the Modern English Version

3 For the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine, but they will gather to themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, having itching ears, 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn to myths.

You may not want to hear this, but the majority of churches in America have already gone apostate, and that is the truth.

We are slowly but surely losing an entire generation of Americans, and yet our dead and dying churches just continue to slumber.  I shared the following numbers in a previous article, but they bear repeating.  The following comes directly out of a Pew Research Center report

Millennials – especially the youngest Millennials, who have entered adulthood since the first Landscape Study was conducted – are far less religious than their elders. For example, only 27% of Millennials say they attend religious services on a weekly basis, compared with 51% of adults in the Silent generation. Four-in-ten of the youngest Millennials say they pray every day, compared with six-in-ten Baby Boomers and two-thirds of members of the Silent generation. Only about half of Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty, compared with seven-in-ten Americans in the Silent and Baby Boom cohorts. And only about four-in-ten Millennials say religion is very important in their lives, compared with more than half in the older generational cohorts.

Those numbers are absolutely horrifying.  Yes, there are still a few really good churches scattered across the country.  But overall, the church in America is in really sorry shape, and the numbers don’t lie.  Christianity is in rapid decline in the United States, and somebody better wake up and start doing something about it.

Over the years, I can’t tell you how many dead churches that I have sat in.  That is why it is so refreshing when I actually find one where the gospel is preached and where people truly love one another.  I have had the privilege of sharing my message in such a church in recent months, and I wish that there were a lot more of them out there.

Unfortunately, most ministers in America are really busy doing things other than what they should be doing.  For instance, have you ever heard of “clergy response teams”?  If you can believe it, the government has actually recruited ministers to help the population accept martial law when it is declared someday.  The following comes from KSLA News

Could martial law ever become a reality in America?  Some fear any nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil might trigger just that.  KSLA News 12 has discovered that the clergy would help the government with potentially their biggest problem: Us.

Can you believe that?

Here is more from the report…

Such clergy response teams would walk a tight-rope during martial law between the demands of the government on the one side, versus the wishes of the public on the other.  “In a lot of cases, these clergy would already be known in the neighborhoods in which they’re helping to diffuse that situation,” assured Sandy Davis.  He serves as the director of the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

For the clergy team, one of the biggest tools that they will have in helping calm the public down or to obey the law is the bible itself, specifically Romans 13.  Dr. Tuberville elaborated, “because the government’s established by the Lord, you know.  And, that’s what we believe in the Christian faith.  That’s what’s stated in the scripture.”

I don’t know about you, but I found that article to be extremely chilling.

But this is the state of things in America today.  We have a dead church that is stuffed to the gills with dead ministers, and the people are not being told the truth about the great shaking that is coming to America.

And when the great shaking comes, there will be multitudes of these dead churches and ministries that will go under and never rise again.

Meanwhile, God will be raising up a Remnant, and that Remnant is going to shake the world.

So what do you think about all of this?

Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…



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