AMERICA: Second Massive Wave Of Mortgage Defaults
Brasscheck TV – Now the real “fun” begins. In a boxing match, a good referee will take a boxer out who’s been hit so hard, he’s staggering. Why?
The potential damage from follow up blows to someone already in a weakened state is exponentially higher than from the first one. Unfortunately for the credit market, there’s no referee to call a time out.
BRITAIN: Food Costs Soar As Big Freeze Deepens
Guardian UK – Britons have been warned to brace themselves for an increase in food prices as plunging temperatures leave farmers unable to harvest vegetables and hauliers struggle to distribute fresh produce.
MIDDLE EAST: Israeli General Denies Iran Is Nuclear Threat
Times Online – A general who was once in charge of Israel’s nuclear weapons has claimed that Iran is a “very, very, very long way from building a nuclear capability”.
TERRORISM: UK Paid Afghan Warlord $2m To Find Osama
BBC News – The UK paid $2m (£1.3m) for the services of an Afghan warlord in an operation against Osama Bin Laden in 2001, it has been alleged.
BBC Two’s Conspiracy Files heard claims from a US special forces commander that both the Americans and British paid substantial sums to Afghan warlords.
ENVIRONMENT: Inside China’s Secret Toxic Unobtainium Mine
Mail Online – Last week it was reported that China – which has a global monopoly on the production of rare-earth metals – is now threatening to cut off vital supplies to the West. A shortage would jeopardise the manufacturing and development of green technologies such as wind turbines and low-energy lightbulbs. RICHARD JONES is the first Western journalist to visit the rare-earth mines in Inner Mongolia to discover why China is unwilling to give up its precious elements…
ENVIRONMENT: Who will pay for Amazon’s ‘Chernobyl’?
The Independent – A film released this week in Britain recounts the 16-year battle by Ecuadorians for damages against Chevron for oil pollution.
It’s barely eight in the morning and already the dusty oil town of Lago Agrio, on the fringes of the Ecuadorian Amazon, is sweltering. Its name means “sour lake” in Spanish, after the hometown of Texan oil company Texaco – a fitting name for an area of once-pristine rainforest that has been decimated in the pursuit of oil. So severe is the environmental damage here that experts have called it an “Amazon Chernobyl”.
EUROPE: Britain Ruled By 26 Illegal Brussels Sprouts
Telegraph – The EU’s Commissioners are still occupying their posts illegally, says Christopher Booker. So we are not to have a new Government until February 26. Furthermore, until that time all but one member of that Government is occupying their position illegally.
Of course, I am here referring not to the silly little joustings between Messrs Brown and Cameron, as they fight for the right to run our provincial government here in Britain. Our real government, in that it now makes most of our laws, resides in Brussels, and on January 1, following the coming into force of the European Constitution (aka the Lisbon Treaty), we were due to get a new set of European Commissioners. But with the exception of its president, José Manuel Barroso, none of the appointees can take up their posts until hearings have been completed in the European Parliament.
HEALTH UK: Fury at Vaccine Scandal
HEALTH UK: Fury at Vaccine Scandal
Express – Hundreds of public sector workers who claim their lives have been wrecked by vaccines say the Government has abandoned them.
Up to 200 doctors, nurses, firefighters, prison officers, police officers, forensic scientists and binmen say they have developed serious physical and mental health problems after injections essential for their work over the past 10 years. All have given up their jobs and some are now 60 per cent disabled.
TERRORISM: UK Troops ‘Executed Iraqi Grandmother’
The Independent – Allegations that a 62-year-old Iraqi grandmother was tortured and executed by British soldiers after her family home was raided three years ago are being investigated by the Royal Military Police.
The Army’s involvement in the death and abuse of Sabiha Khudur Talib is one of the most serious charges to be made against Britain during its six-year occupation of southern Iraq.
EUROPE: Angry Iceland defies the world
Telegraph – Iceland’s president has blocked a Bill to pay Britain and Holland up to £3.4bn for Icesave depositors, acknowledging that popular feeling in the island nation is too strong to proceed without a referendum.
The move reopens a bitter dispute and greatly complicates Iceland’s loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund. It has already led to a fresh downgrade to BB+ by Fitch Ratings, which called the decision “a significant setback to Iceland’s efforts to restore normal financial relations with the rest of the world.”
