Heartland Coin Gallery - Economic & Financial News Headlines

HEADLINE Economic, Financial & Global News...
every weekday, to keep you better informed.

Monday 07.02.2012

The $289 Trillion Problem
By: David Chapman - GoldSeek.com
Two hundred and eighty-nine trillion dollars. An unimaginable amount. That is the total of derivatives outstanding at the top five US bank holding companies as of March 31, 2012, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
The five holding companies are JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. They hold roughly 45% of all over-the-counter derivatives outstanding in the world, based on the $648 trillion total estimated by the Bank for International Settlements. Others estimate that the total global derivatives outstanding could be as large as $1.2 quadrillion, or $1,200 trillion.

Welcome to the Currency War, Part 2:
Massive Euro Devaluation
BY JOHN RUBINO - FinancialSense.com
As everyone knows by now, Greece, Spain and the rest of the PIIGS countries can't fix their economies because they can't devalue. If they were still using their old national fiatcurrencies, so goes the conventional wisdom, they could just mark them down by 30% and instantly see their exports surge and their deficits shrink. Et voilà, they'd once again be fully-functioning members of the global economy.
But the euro is beyond their control, leaving them with only austerity, which in this context is another word for Depression. Hence all the speculation over radical-but-suddenly-conceivable ideas like a Greek or Spanish exit, fiscal integration with Germany in charge, and eurobonds guaranteed by the eurozone as a whole.

Euro zone: the centralization battle
rages on-On the Edge with Max
In this edition of the show Max interviews Catherine Austin Fitts from Solari.com. She talks about the multiple debt plans; bailouts and funding facilities, attempting to hold the Euro zone together. Catherine Austin Fitts is the president of Solari, Inc., the publisher of The Solari Report, managing member of Solari Investment Advisory Services, LLC.

Government by the Banks, for the Banks:
The ESM Coup D'Etat in Europe
By Ellen Brown, Truthout | News Analysis
On Friday, June 29th, German Chancellor Angela Merkel acquiesced to changes to a permanent Eurozone bailout fund—"before the ink was dry," as critics complained. Besides easing the conditions under which bailouts would be given, the concessions included an agreement that funds intended for indebted governments could be funneled directly to stressed banks.
According to Gavin Hewitt, Europe editor for BBC News, the concessions mean that:
[T]he eurozone's bailout fund (backed by taxpayers' money) will be taking a stake in failed banks.
Risk has been increased. German taxpayers have increased their liabilities. In future a bank crash will no longer fall on the shoulders of national treasuries but on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a fund to which Germany contributes the most.

Merkel Concedes to the PIGS
and Accepts Bailout Agreement
Matthew Feeney - Reason.com
Angela Merkel has appeased other European leaders, and the markets, by agreeing to a plan that aims to tackle the eurozone crisis. The plan, backed by Italy, Spain, and France, allows for rescue funds to remain available for banks without constituent nations having to impose austerity measures. In Germany the press has spun the agreement as a defeat, with Merkel being portrayed as having conceding too much to Spain and Italy in particular.
The current bailout mechanism, the European Financial Stability Facility, will continue to provide relief until the introduction of the recently proposed European Stability Mechanism that will be launched next month. Under the new proposals not only will funds be available to banks regardless of the behavior of the countries they happen to be in, but the funds may now be used to by bonds.

Jim Rogers: Market Surge
from Eurozone Debt Crisis Deal Won't Last
BY DAVID ZEILER, Associate Editor, Money Morning
Stock markets around the world soared Friday in reaction to the morning's Eurozone debt crisis deal, but noted investor Jim Rogers wasn't impressed.
"This is no more than just another temporary stopgap to make the market feel good for a few hours, days or even weeks," Rogers, Chairman of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC. "Then everybody's going to wake up and say, "This doesn't solve the problem.'"
Meeting in Brussels, European leaders announced a plan early Friday that would provide struggling banks with money directly from the bloc's bailout fund.

Gerald Celente - The Gary Null Show - June 27, 2012

Cooking the Books, Not the Big Macs, in Argentina & Greece
By: Adrian Ash and Robin Molinas - GoldSeek.com
BACK IN 2001, Argentina was hit by a crisis similar to Greece's today.
Imposing a strict currency peg of 1 Peso to 1 US Dollar meant the currency was over-valued. Or the state should have reined in its spending. Or the economy needed to be more productive. Or all three, depending on your view. But either way, the trade deficit widened as imports became cheaper than exports – especially after neighboring Brazil devalued its Real in 1998-99, adding more pressure to the currency peg, and leading the government to borrow huge amounts of money overseas, including $40 billion arranged by the International Monetary Fund in December 2000.

Massive Japanese Debt Monetization Is Coming,
Yen to be Devalued
BY CHRIS PUPLAVA - FinancialSense.com
You can only stretch a rubber band so far before it snaps back or is torn, so too is the case with government indebtedness. There eventually comes a point when the road ends and the can hits a brick wall. It appears that Japan is rapidly approaching that brick wall and there are two likely outcomes. One option is that the bond vigilantes revolt and yields on Japanese debt spike or the second option is a massive debt monetization by the Bank of Japan (BOJ). Given the massive amount of debt relative to the Japanese economy and associated interest payments on the debt, Japan can't afford a sharp rise in yields. Thus, it appears the BOJ is likely to step in and monetize the debt and the currency markets may be signaling this very outcome.
Japan's Debt Mountain Time Bomb is Here

Can The World Survive Washington's Hubris?
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigroberts.org
When President Reagan nominated me as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, he told me that we had to restore the US economy, to rescue it from stagflation, in order to bring the full weight of a powerful economy to bear on the Soviet leadership, in order to convince them to negotiate the end of the cold war. Reagan said that there was no reason to live any longer under the threat of nuclear war.
The Reagan administration achieved both goals, only to see these accomplishments discarded by successor administrations. It was Reagan's own vice president and successor, George Herbert Walker Bush, who first violated the Reagan-Gorbachev understandings by incorporating former constituent parts of the Soviet Empire into NATO and taking Western military bases to the Russian frontier.

Keiser Report: Barclays' Bad Bet (E308)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss 'big boys' and carding crimes, marmite pots and Olympic has-beens, wash trades and perfect games. In the second half of the show Max talks to former commodities analyst and blogger, Michael Krieger, about the meaning of the escalating and blatant financial crime wave.

Simon Johnson Rips Into Jamie Dimon's Conflicts of Interest
Pressure mounts on JP Morgan's CEO
to step down from the New York Federal Reserve.
By JOHN HUDSON - TheAtlantic.com
Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Simon Johnson ramped up his quest to oust JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon from the board of the New York Federal Reserve Saturday, taking his campaign to the political elite at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. Dimon's position on the boardhas come under fire in recent weeks, raising somewhat glaring conflict of interest issues given that the New York Fed is tasked with investigating the $2 billion in trading losses that occurred at Dimon's bank. Watch Johnson, an MIT professor, make his case:

Jamie Dimon, quit your New York Fed post: Simon Johnson
Simon Johnson, an economics professor and former International Monetary Fund counselor, says JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon should leave the New York Federal Reserve board if he wants the Fed to again become a bastion of stability. (June 29, 2012)

Obama Versus the Hedge Fund Industry
BY CLIF DROKE - FinancialSense.com
Most investors are aware that the 4-year cycle peak comes into play this year. What few realize is how both Washington and Wall Street are using this cycle as a fulcrum for gaining political as well as economic advantage. In this commentary we'll look at how the hedge fund industry is manipulating certain key markets for political ends as much as financial gain, and how even the president has been forced to respond. It will quickly become apparent how the puerile and self-serving actions of the top hedge fund managers serves to create friction for everyone concerned.

Community Banks take on Wall Street
as "Uncle Sam meets Mr. Market!"

Why Big Business Owns Congress
By Zaid Jilani, Republic Report - Truth-Out.org
In a piece about populism and the Democratic Party in Politico, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown (OH) explained how Big Business has, through its ability to tap into an extraordinary amount of campaign contributions, independent expenditures, and other electoral interventions, been able to own Congress:
"They own the Republican Party, and they have too much influence in my party, I mean there's no question about that," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a true-blue populist up for reelection who has had $8.3 million spent against him already by third-party groups, most of them allies of business . "That's why wealth is so concentrated at the top. And that's all enforced now by this outside spending. Every member around here has had to have thought at times that, 'If I vote this way the wrath of God is coming down on me.'"

Keiser Report: Zombie Bank Apocalypse (E307)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, demand the big banks prove they are not dead by removing the life support systems, especially cufflinky Jamie Dimon's Too-Big-To-Fail bank. In the second half of the show Max talks to Professor Steve Keen about the wages being negatively related to the level of interest rates and debt.

Don't Expect the Obamacare Ruling to Calm the Markets
BY SHAH GILANI, Capital Waves Strategist, Money Morning
Even before the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare was handed down yesterday the markets were selling off hard.
They were tanking on news that the latest European summit was unlikely to be a game-changer, that U.S. gross domestic product was a paltry 1.9% in the first quarter, and a New York Times story that JPMorgan Chase's derivatives loss could top $9 billion.
Then came the long-awaited decision from the country's highest court on the divisive healthcare law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which unhinged markets further.
The Court's historic decision shook the markets for several reasons.
But the single overriding effect of the mixed-bag decision will be its impact on markets going forward.

Sources say Roberts switched vote in healthcare case
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
CBS News says it has confirmed that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts changed his vote in the court's landmark healthcare case.
Legal circles have been buzzing since Thursday with speculation that Roberts might have initially sided with the court's conservatives in a decision to strike down part of President Obama's healthcare law, but then changed his mind at the last minute.

John Roberts jokes about vacationing
on an 'impregnable island fortress'
By Justin Sink - TheHill.com
Chief Justice John Roberts joked Friday that he'll head to an "impregnable island fortress" now that the Supreme Court has wrapped up its session.
His remarks come a day after the he delivered the decisive vote to uphold President Obama's signature healthcare law. He was the swing vote in the case.
Roberts was appearing on a panel at a judicial conference in Pennsylvania on Friday, and Chief Judge David Sentelle of the D.C. District Court asked if he planned to head "to Disney World" now that the court had adjourned.

Justice Roberts' Switch
By Robert Reich, Truth-Out.org
Today a majority of the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare in recognition of its importance as a key initiative of the Obama administration. The big surprise, for many, was the vote by the Chief Justice of the Court, John Roberts, to join with the Court's four liberals.
Roberts' decision is not without precedent. Seventy-five years ago, another Justice Roberts – no relation to the current Chief Justice – made a similar switch. Justice Owen Roberts had voted with the Court's conservative majority in a host of 5-4 decisions invalidating New Deal legislation, but in March of 1937 he suddenly switched sides and began joining with the Court's four liberals. In popular lore, Roberts' switch saved the Court – not only from Franklin D. Roosevelt's threat to pack it with justices more amenable to the New Deal but, more importantly, from the public's increasing perception of the Court as a partisan, political branch of government.

Legal Gimmickry Rescues Obama
By: Peter Schiff - GoldSeek.com
Despite the celebrations among Democrats, yesterday a majority of Supreme Court justices ruled that the Constitution does not allow the government to force Americans to buy health insurance. However in providing the swing vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) Chief Justice John Roberts broke with the four other justices who shared that view by declaring that the methods chosen to get individuals to buy insurance were not penalties but taxes. He declared that the government wasn't legislating behavior, but simply taxing it. In reaching this tortured decision he erred by declaring the penalties to be taxes and then compounded the mistake by classifying them as "indirect taxes" that are not imposed on individuals. Apparently Roberts feels that these two wrongs will make a right. But his mistake will cost this country dearly.

Support for Obama healthcare law rises after ruling
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON | Sun Jul 1, 2012 3:14pm EDT
(Reuters) - Voter support for President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul has increased following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling upholding it, although majorities still oppose it, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday showed.
Among all registered voters, support for the law rose to 48 percent in the online survey conducted after Thursday's ruling, up from 43 percent before the court decision. Opposition slipped to 52 percent from 57 percent.

Sicko: Michael Moore Reacts
to Supreme Court's 'ObamaCare' Ruling

Despite high court ruling,
businesses still face uncertainty over healthcare law
By Peter Schroeder - TheHill.com
The Supreme Court put to rest one of the biggest questions in Washington Thursday, but uncertainty still looms large over businesses navigating a rocky economy.
The problem of uncertainty has been repeatedly cited as a reason the economy has failed to gain major speed, as businesses stay on the sidelines when it comes to further investments and hiring. When the nation's highest court narrowly upheld the president's signature legislative achievement, it finished up its work on one of the most contentious fights in Washington.

* * * * *

Supreme Court upholds ObamaCare
and Americans have lost the right to be left alone
National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)
When President Obama signed the Patients Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) into law in 2010, the National Federation of Independent Business decided that we had to take the fight to the Courts. We joined the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the healthcare law because, for months, we had heard from small business owners who were greatly concerned over the costs, the burdens and the impositions that the PPACA would bring. They believed it threatened their businesses, employees, families, and livelihoods. So we fought to the bitter end to keep their fears from playing out. Yet this case was about something bigger than health care policy, it was about preserving American liberty from the increasingly powerful hand of the federal government.
Today marks a sad day in the history of America. With this decision, Americans have lost the right to be left alone, which Justice William O. Douglas once called "the beginning of all freedom." It is painful to recognize that the liberties which our forefathers fought a revolution to secure have been lost. But it is clear that our original constitutional system has been thrown out, and we are left with only the democratic process to preserve our rights. That should be a sobering thought for anyone who values liberty.

Understanding the New Healthcare Law
National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)
The uncertainty and angst is justified, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a massive piece of legislation that will unfold over the next ten years. Its complex provisions have already proven to be difficult to interpret. However, one thing is already clear – as a small business owner you must be prepared to deal with a series of new tax and regulatory requirements.
We are committed to providing you with all the relevant information on healthcare reform (as it becomes available) and serve as a primary resource for understanding how the government's implementation of the new healthcare law will impact your business. We will be updating our overview materials and tools often, please check back frequently to access the timeliest information:

Supreme Court forces states
to make a big Medicaid decision
By Sarah Kliff - WashingtonPost.com
If anyone can claim the title of "most surprised" by Thursday's Supreme Court ruling — in which the justices upheld the health reform law — it might be Matt Salo.
He directs the National Association of Medicaid Directors in Washington. Salo had no inkling that the court would make the law's expansion of Medicaid to 17 million Americans an option, rather than a requirement.
"We did not see that coming," Salo said. "I did manage to put together a short little statement, but this is not an option we had prepared for at all."

12 Incredible Obamacare Quotes
That Show That Our Wretched Healthcare System
Is Headed Directly Into The Toilet
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
You might as well stick a fork in the U.S. healthcare system because it is finished. Even before Obamacare, Americans paid far more for healthcare than anyone else in the world. Now thanks to Obamacare we will be faced with much higher health insurance premiums, much higher taxes, much longer waits to see doctors and more government bureaucrats involved in our lives than ever before. As I have written about previously, the U.S. healthcare industry is a horrible mess, and now Obamacare is going to take the entire system directly into the toilet. All over America today, families are going broke because of outrageous health insurance costs and suffocating medical debt, doctors are going broke and leaving the profession because they can't make a living, and sick people are dying because they cannot get the care that they need. So what solution does Obama give us? A nearly 3,000 page monstrosity that will destroy what is left of our crumbling healthcare system and that will unleash 16,000 new IRS agents to hunt down the millions of Americans that do not currently have health insurance. For those that love Big Brother socialist totalitarianism, Obamacare is a dream come true. For the rest of us it is a total nightmare.

McConnell: Covering 30 Million Uninsured Is 'Not The Issue'
By PEMA LEVY - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Sunday downplayed the need to find an alternate way to insure the 30 million Americans who will get coverage under the President Obama's health care law.
On Fox News Sunday, McConnell said Republicans want to repeal 'Obamacare' and implement "modest" reforms. Host Chris Wallace pressed him on how he would insure 30 million Americans that will get coverage under President Obama's reforms.

Boehner pushes repeal,
wants health law 'ripped out by its roots'
By Amie Parnes - TheHill.com
House Speaker John Boehner vowed on Sunday to repeal the Affordable Care Act, saying the law, which the Supreme Court ruled as being constitutional this week, should be "ripped out by its roots."
"This has to be ripped out but its roots," Boehner said in an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation." "This is government taking over the entire health industry. The American people do not want to go down this path. It has to be ripped out and we need to start over one step at a time.

Keystone XL pipeline expansion
driven by oil-rich tar sands in Alberta
By Steven Mufson - WashingtonPost.com
FORT McMURRAY, Alberta — Repairman Shawn Flett stood 30 feet above the ground on the deck of a truck the size of a house. He had just waved it gingerly into the repair shop as if guiding an airplane into a hangar.
This is a beast of a machine, with 14-foot tires and weighing in at more than a million pounds. The truck burns 50 gallons of diesel an hour as it rumbles with 400-ton loads across the giant open-pit mines that have transformed a swath of Alberta's vast northern forest into unsightly but lucrative sources of oil.

US and the New World Order - from 2003
The Empire Dialogues (Excerpt, Niall Ferguson)

Stockton, California new paradigm for struggling cities
By Hilary Russ
NEW YORK | Sun Jul 1, 2012 8:04am EDT
(Reuters) - Stockton, California, the largest city in the United States to ever file for bankruptcy, could create a new template for struggling cities and potentially lift the stigma that scars municipalities if they seek court protection from creditors.
If Stockton, which filed for Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy on June 28, can reach consensus with its creditors and craft a plan to exit bankruptcy quickly others may follow suit, legal experts said.

17 Reasons To Be EXTREMELY Concerned
About The Second Half Of 2012
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
What is the second half of 2012 going to bring? Are things going to get even worse than they are right now? Unfortunately, that appears more likely with each passing day. I will admit that I am extremely concerned about the second half of 2012. Historically, a financial crisis is much more likely to begin in the fall than during any other season of the year. Just think about it. The stock market crash of 1929 happened in the fall. "Black Monday" happened on October 19th, 1987. The financial crisis of 2008 started in the fall. There just seems to be something about the fall that brings out the worst in the financial markets. But of course there is not a stock market crash every year. So are there specific reasons why we should be extremely concerned about what is coming this year? Yes, there are. The ingredients for a "perfect storm" are slowly coming together, and in the months ahead we could very well see the next wave of the economic collapse strike. Sadly, we have never even come close to recovering from the last recession, and this next crisis might end up being even more painful than the last one.

Steve Quayle "Fukushima,
Forest Fires and the Loss of Normalcy"

Mormons quit church in mass resignation ceremony
By Jennifer Dobner
SALT LAKE CITY | Sat Jun 30, 2012 9:45pm EDT
(Reuters) - A group of about 150 Mormons quit their church in a mass resignation ceremony in Salt Lake City on Saturday in a rare display of defiance ending decades of disagreement for some over issues ranging from polygamy to gay marriage.
Participants from Utah, Arizona, Idaho and elsewhere gathered in a public park to sign a "Declaration of Independence from Mormonism."
"This feels awesome," said Alison Lucas, from West Jordan, Utah, who took part in the rally amid soaring temperatures. "I don't know if I would have had the courage except in a group."

Adobe: No Flash for You, Android 4.1
By Scott Gilbertson - WebMonkey.com
The bells tolling the death of Adobe Flash got a bit louder this week.
To go along with the arrival of Google's new Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" update, Adobe has announced that itwill not be developing a certified version of Flash for Android 4.1. Worse for Flash fans, Adobe says it will soon be pulling Flash Player from the Google Play Store.
The move shouldn't be a huge surprise. Adobe already announced last year that it would cease development of its mobile Flash Player. Still, if you were hoping Google might give Flash a bit of a reprieve by including support in the latest version of Android, well, we've got bad news for you.

Is The Olympics The Next 9/11?
Whistleblower Speaks Out!
Alex talks with Lee Hazeldean, a pseudonym for an undercover journalist who has blown the lid off the police state security arrangements put in place for the 2012 Olympics in London.

TruNews interviews 'Lee Hazledean' (alias to protect identity)
by Rick Wiles (audio format)
Guest: British investigative reporter Lee Hazeldean (pseudonym)
Topic: Possible evacuation of London during Olympic Games.

Salafi leader: Brotherhood agrees Sharia,
not principles, to be legislative source
Egypt Independent
Prominent Salafi leader and preacher Yasser Borhamy has said that the Muslim Brotherhood has agreed with the Salafi vision to have a constitution that cites Sharia as the main source for the legislation, rather than the principles of Sharia.
Article II of 1971 Constitution, which is copied into the current Constitutional Declaration, reads "Islam is the religion of the state. Arabic is its official language, and principles of Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia) are the main source of legislation." A 1979 amendment had replaced "a main source" with "the main source."

Iraqi women face court-ordered virginity tests
AFP - EgyptIndependent.com
BAGHDAD — Iraqi women face court-ordered virginity tests that often show they were virgins until marriage but shame them nonetheless, doctors at an institute that carries out the tests and a lawyer told AFP.
Remaining a virgin until marriage can be an issue of life or death for women in the Middle East, where those who are seen as having dishonored the family by having premarital sex are sometimes killed by male relatives.

Iran threatens Israel; new EU sanctions take force
By Yeganeh Torbati
DUBAI | Sun Jul 1, 2012 2:58pm EDT
(Reuters) - Iran announced missile tests on Sunday and threatened to wipe Israel "off the face of the earth" if the Jewish state attacked it, brandishing some of its starkest threats on the day Europe began enforcing an oil embargo and harsh new sanctions.
The European sanctions - including a ban on imports of Iranian oil by EU states and measures that make it difficult for other countries to trade with Iran - were enacted earlier this year but mainly came into effect on July 1.

Iran says country will 'confront' new EU oil sanctions
FOXNews.com
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran said Sunday that it has "plans" to deal with a new EU embargo on the country's oil sector and enough hard currency to meet its import needs.
The remarks by central bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani carried by the semiofficial Mehr news agency are the first reaction from a senior Iranian official on the day that the sanctions, meant to pressure Tehran over its controversial nuclear program, are to go into effect.

Hillary's spin...
Clinton Says Sanctions Pushing Iran Toward Negotiations
By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan - Bloomberg.com
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran will face increasing pressure from economic sanctions aimed at its disputed nuclear program.
"The pressure track is our primary focus now, and we believe that the economic sanctions are bringing Iran to the table," Clinton said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio in Geneva on June 30. "They are going to continue to increase and cause economic difficulties for them."
Sanctions advocates in the Obama administration and U.S. lawmakers have been weighing ways to tighten American sanctions. Proposals under discussion include expanding the restrictions to cover all Iranian financial institutions and trading companies, sanctioning money-changers and alternative payment systems, and banning trade and investment in all of Iran's energy sector.

June 27 2012 Floor Speech on Syria
Congressman Ron Paul speaks about the latest events in Syria and warns against intervention

Turkey Scrambles F-16s On Syria Border
As US Intelligence Says Syrian Story
Was Correct All Along
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Last week's false flag story of baseless Middle Eastern provocation refuses to go away. Even after, in a shocking turn of events, US intelligence confirmed this weekend that Syria's version of events surrounding the downed Turkish F-4 jet story was the right one all along, pulling the media narrative rug right from under Hillary Clinton's provocative feet (and making others wonder just which country is the only one that stands to benefit of NATO does pull Article 4 or 5 and does invade Syria on now invalidated and false premises), today we read that Turkey continues to try to escalate. From the BBC: "Turkey has scrambled six F-16 fighters jets near its border with Syria after Syrian helicopters came close to the border, the country's army says. A total of six jets were sent to the area in response to three such incidents on Sunday, although there was no border violation, the Reuters news agency quoted the statement saying. On Friday, Turkey said it had begun deploying rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns along the border in response to the downing of its F-4 Phantom jet." Of course, without an actual confirmed provocation, such as the one Turkey itself pulled against Syria, it is left with the same media rhetoric that continues to expose just one side of the Syrian story - the Western media spun one. "Turkey has strongly criticised Syria's response to the 16-month anti-government uprising, which has seen more than 30,000 Syrian refugees enter Turkey." Fair enough, we do however wonder what Syria would say about Turkey's treatment of Kurdish minorities. Finally, confirmation that just as we first suggested two weeks, this whole incident has been nothing but a provocation stage test to get NATO involved without any of the facts being on the table, comes from no other source than US military intelligence.

Russian Rocket Downed Turkish Plane, Say Sources
The Turkish jet shot out of the sky by Syrian fire was almost certainly hit by a rocket provided by the Russians—who might have pressed the button as well, reports Owen Matthews.
By Owen Matthews - TheDailyBeast.com
A Turkish plane downed by Syrian fire over the Mediterranean 10 days ago was almost certainly hit by a Russian-supplied rocket fired by Russian-trained technicians, diplomatic sources in Ankara and London told The Daily Beast on Sunday. The Turkish Air Force F-4E Phantom II disappeared from radar screens at 11:58 a.m. June 22. Syria's Foreign Ministry later admitted that its forces had downed the plane after it violated Syrian airspace.
"The evidence indicates that [the Turkish plane] was hit by a Russian-made Pantsir," a Western diplomat with knowledge of the ongoing NATO investigation into the shooting told The Daily Beast. Russia supplied Syria with 36 mobile Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile launchers in 2007 at a cost of $900 million. "At a range of 13 nautical miles, it's the only kit the Syrians have with the range, response time, and accuracy" to have downed the American-made F-4, the diplomat said.

Syrian Opposition Rejects UN Transition Plan
Syrian opposition groups on Sunday rejected a U.N.-brokered peace plan for a political transition in Syria, calling it ambiguous and a waste of time and vowing not to negotiate with President Bashar Assad or members of his "murderous" regime. (July 1)

Updated report... ?
World Powers Agree On Set Of Guidelines For Syria Transition
By Jennifer M. Freedman, Scott Rose and Indira A.R. Lakshmanan - Bloomberg.com
World powers agreed on a new plan for a Syrian transition government that did not contain a call on President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
Foreign ministers of the five permanent UN Security Council members -- China, France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S. -- as well as Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait, the European Union, the Arab League and Iraq ended talks today in Geneva without indicating agreement on as-Assad's future as the Middle Eastern country's head of state.

World Leaders Agree on Syria Transition Plan
World leaders work towards a transition plan for Syria at the Geneva summit. Still no plan on whether Assad will play a role in the transition process.

Will Geneva Talks Help Solve Syrian Crisis?
Nine countries are meeting in Geneva to discuss U.N. envoy Kofi Annan's new proposal for a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -