15 Feb 2012

Members of UK Parliament Recommend Censoring Online Extremism


In a report published last week, members of the United Kingdom Parliament concluded that the Internet plays a major role in the radicalization of terrorists and called on the government to pressure Internet Service Providers in Britain and abroad to censor online speech. The Roots of Violent Radicalisation places the Internet ahead of prisons, universities, and religious establishments in propagating radical beliefs and ultimately recommends that the government “develop a code of practice for the removal of material which promotes violent extremism” binding ISPs. 
While the Terrorism Act 2006 authorizes British law enforcement agencies to order certain material to be removed from websites, lawmakers on the Home Affairs Committee stated that “service providers themselves should be more active in monitoring the material they host.” Their report raises serious concerns that political and religious speech will be suppressed.

'Greece sacrificed in name of dying EU'

Greek party leaders have sent written commitments to Brussels saying they will stick to the agreed austerity measures even after the general elections in April. There are still EU demands Athens failed to fulfill, which led to the cancellation of a key meeting of Eurozone finance ministers. Greece is still struggling to secure the second bailout from its international creditors, without which it's due to default next month. For more on that RT talks to MEP and leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage. Source

EU-ECB-IMF Troika Driving Greece Towards Violent Revolution. Farage

"Well Commissioner, you picked the right man. Puppet Papademos is in place and as Athens caught fire on Sunday night he rather took my breath away. He said, 'Violence and destruction have no place in a democratic country.'

What democratic country?


He's not even a democratically elected prime minister. He's been appointed by you guys. Greece is not run through democracy now, it is run through a Troika. Three foreign officials that fly into Athens airport and tell the Greeks what they can and cannot do.

FBI might shutdown the Internet on March 8???

Millions of computer users across the world could be blocked off from the Internet as early as March 8 if the FBI follows through with plans to yank a series of servers originally installed to combat corruption.
Last year, authorities in Estonia apprehended six men believed responsible for creating a malicious computer script called the DNSChanger Trojan. Once set loose on the Web, the worm corrupted computers in upwards of 100 countries, including an estimated 500,000 in America alone. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation later stepped up by replacing the rogue Trojan with servers of their own in an attempt to remediate the damage, but the fix was only temporary. Now the FBI is expected to end use of those replacement servers as early as next month and, at that point, the Internet for millions could essentially be over.
When functioning as its creators intended, the DNSChanger Trojan infected computers and redirected users hoping to surf to certain websites to malicious ones. Traditionally, DNS, or Domain Name System, servers translate alphabetical, traditional website URLs to their actual, numeric counterpart in order to guide users across the World Wide Web. Once infected by the DNSChanger Trojan, however, websites entered into Internet browsers were hijacked to malicious servers and, in turn, directed the user to an unintended, fraudulent site.
In coordination with the arrests in Estonia, the FBI shut down the malicious DNSChanger botnet network, and, additionally, replaced them with surrogate servers to correct the problem. Those servers, however, were installed "just long enough for companies and home users to remove DNSChanger malware from their machines," according to the court order that established them. That deadline is March 8, and those surrogate servers are expected to be retired then. At that point, computers still infected with the Trojan will be essentially unable to navigate the Internet.

Greek debt not sustainable with 70 pct haircut: S&P


Greece will likely fail to achieve sustainable debt levels if it only resorts to a 70 percent reduction in the value of bonds held by private creditors, Standard & Poor's warned on Wednesday, putting pressure on the ECB to also take losses.

Private-sector bond holders currently account for only a small part of Greece's creditors since most of the country's debt has migrated to the hands of the European Central Bank and other official institutions, S&P analyst Frank Gill said in a webcast with clients. Though pressure on the ECB to take losses on its holdings is rising, policymakers remain divided on what contribution the bank could make to the debt restructuring, two euro zone monetary policy sources said.

If Greece had negotiated losses of 50 percent to 70 percent with private creditors two years ago, then it would have been able to put its public debt in a "far more sustainable level," Gill argued. "But because only a small subcomponent of investors are actually taking the haircut and the official sector is not, or only partially, then the reduction... is probably not sufficient

Falklands Malvinas Argie-Bargie - CrossTalk

As the 30th anniversary of the Falklands/Malvinas war approaches, the UK and Argentina are making their cases. Is the UK trying to militarize the conflict? Or is it Kristina Kirchner who is determined to regain Argentina's control of the islands? Will their status change? How much do the British people care about the issue? How big of an issue is it for the Argentinians? And what about the inhabitants of the island themselves? CrossTalking with Larry Birns, Alex Gibson and Luke Coffey. Source

Iran cuts oil export to 6 European states ‎


In response to the latest sanctions imposed by the EU against Iran's energy and banking sectors, the Islamic Republic has cut oil exports to six European countries.

Iran on Wednesday cut oil exports to six European countries including the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Portugal.

Daniel Hannan at CPAC 2012

Say NO to ACTA

Can you imagine your Internet Service Provider policing everything you do online?
Can you imagine generic drugs that could save lives being banned?
Can you imagine seeds that could feed 1000's being controlled and withheld in the name of patents?

This will become reality with ACTA
.

ACTA is the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
Disguised as a Trade Agreement, ACTA goes much, much further than that.

For the past 3 years, ACTA has been negotiated in secret by 39 countries.
But the negotiators are not democratically elected representatives. They don't represent us, but they are deciding laws behind our backs.

Eagle vs Dragon: 'US, China rivalry leads to new arms race'

Chinese Vice President Shi Jin-ping has met with US President Barack Obama in Washington in an effort to smooth out their differences. Tension between the two nations have escalated recently with the US criticizing China's currency policies and Washington bolstering its military presence in the Asia Pacific.

For more, on US-China relations, RT talks to Paul Craig Roberts, who served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan Administration. Source

The Greek Experiment

Michael Hudson: Greek crisis used to find out how far finance can drive down wages and privatise Source

Open Fraud And Corruption Against Ron Paul in Maine - Reality Check

Infographic: Visualizing The True Cost Of War


Tyler Durden's picture
While we have shown some quite fascinating infographics (here and here) from the folks at Demonocracy, this one may be the most informative. Because while everyone knows by now that if the global "bailout" to preserve the insolvent ponzi were to be paid in crisp, physical $100 bills, the amount of money required would fill countless skyscrapers, and only pales compared to the the amount of money needed to fund the insolvent welfare state which at last check was at over a quarter of a quadrillion, it is another less appreciated aspect of the daily US spending routine that is arguably just as big an offender when it comes to endless wanton spending: the cost of war
Below we present just that, in a series of simple, easy to understand charts that even Nobel peace prize winners should grasp.
The true cost of war:

The Rise of Extreme Nationalism in Europe and East vs West + Are Breast Implants the new Hemline Indicators for Social Mood?


The two biggest economies sat down to the table amidst an ongoing trade rift today. China's Vice President Xi Jinping is in Washington meet with with Barack Obama at the white house. As they do the diplomatic dance, we've recently heard tough talk towards china from both obama, as well as other republican presidential hopefuls -- we'll separate campaign rhetoric from reality. We speak with professor Ann Lee from Demos and ask her what the outcome of US-China relations will be not just one or two years from now, but further down the line. Are concerns about a trade war or a currency war just par for the course? Should we be worried about an actual war?

Two million dead Americans set to vote

Don’t be surprised if your polling place looks surprisingly dead this year.
A new study reveals that the US voter registration system is riddled with inaccuracies, including erroneous records that reveal that nearly 2 million deceased Americans are able to cast a ballot.
“Inaccurate, costly and inefficient” is how the DC-based Pew Research Center describes the American voter registration system. In a report published by the group this week, they highlight a bevy of barely-believable factoids identified in their findings, including — among other items — that 1.8 million deceased Americans are still listed as active voters. Elsewhere in their report, Pew reveals that the voter registration information for around 24 million Americans — or one of every eight — is in some form or another “significantly inaccurate.” Around a quarter of the United States’ eligible voters are also not even registered.

Tombstone Austerity with Max Keiser & Alex Jones

Alex also talks with former Wall Street stock broker and broadcaster and film-maker Max Keiser about the state of the global economy and other related topics. Parts 2 & 3>>

Western Democracy Is A Facade - Paul Craig Roberts

The United States government and its NATO puppets have been killing Muslim men, women and children for a decade in the name of bringing them democracy. But is the West itself a democracy?
Skeptics point out that President George W. Bush was put in office by the Supreme Court and that a number of other elections have been decided by electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail. Others note that elected officials represent the special interests that fund their campaigns and not the voters. The bailout of the banks arranged by Bush’s Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs chairman, Henry Paulson, and Washington’s failure to indict any banksters for the fraud that contributed to the financial crisis, are evidence in support of the view that the US government represents money and not the voters.

Recent events in Greece and Italy have created more skepticism of the West’s claim to be democratic. Two elected European prime ministers, George Papandreou of Greece and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, were forced to resign over the sovereign debt issue. Not even Berlusconi, a billionaire who continues to lead the largest Italian political party, could stand up to the pressure brought by private bankers and unelected European Union officials. 

Papandreou lasted only 10 days after announcing on October 31, 2011, that he would let the Greek voters decide in a referendum whether or not to accept the austerity being imposed on the Greek people from the outside. Austerity is the price charged by the EU for lending the Greek government the money to pay to the banks. In other words, the question was austerity or default. However, the question was decided without the participation of the Greek people.

Romney and Gingrich Do Who's on First

Newt Gingrich wonders, "who's on first?"