timeline on WHO silence on ukraine H1N1 sequences..,

Recombinomics | "There are a lot of unknowns," he said. The crew of experts will collect samples from patients and send them to the WHO's influenza collaborating center in London for diagnosis. The WHO may have more information on Nov. 4, Hartl said.

The above comments were made on Oct 30. The WHO update of the next day indicated that H1N1 had already been confirmed in two labs in Kyviv and samples were being sent to a WHO collaborating center, Mill Hill. Since H1N1 had already been lab confirmed twice, and multiple reports of symptoms of fatal cases left little doubt that the patients had died from hemorrhagic pneumonia, the main unknown question was the sequence of the H1N1. Thus, it seemed likely that comments on sequences would be made on Nov 4.

In the Nov 3 update, WHO acknowledged that the samples had been received in Mill Hill and it seemed that data would soon be announced, baring sample degradation. When Mill Hill announce confirmation of H1N1 in 15 samples it seemed likely that sequence results would soon follow.

There was no announcement on Nov 4, but there was a press conference on Nov 5, indicating that analysis was still ongoing, but there were no "big mutations" and the virus was antiviral sensitive. Thus, at least the initial sequencing of all eight gene segments had been completed and an initial analysis had already been made.

If there were no obvious changes, it seems that an announcement would have been made last week. The number of cases was approaching 1 million (see map), and the number of fatalities had already exceeded 100, including six health care workers. The infections were spreading east toward Kyviv and neighboring countries had an excessive number of cases, and deaths were mounting in Belarus.

This morning a clinical description of 90 fatal cases again supported hemorrhagic pneumonia, which once again raised concern about genetic changes.

However, there has only been silence on the sequences and they have not been made public. These delays suggest significant changes have been found, and these changes are undergoing further analysis, such as receptor binding testing.

An update on the sequences is long overdue.

the sun slowly sets on the west's oil men

Telegraph | “Oh somewhere in the $60 to $90 range for the foreseeable” – that was the consensus for the oil price that most energy executives milling around at the Oil & Money conference in London gave this week.

That is until John B Hess, the man whose father founded the $120bn oil-exploring Hess Corporation 76 years ago, shook up the room with his apocalyptic outlook for the world’s galloping energy consumption.

The price of $140 per barrel oil was not an aberration. It was a warning,” he started. Some home truths from Mr Hess followed:

1 ) About 85pc of the world’s energy comes from hydrocarbons. Renewable energy does not have the scale, timeframe or economics to materially change this outcome.

2) Oil demand growth will be unrelenting, increasing 1m barrels per day each year. But non-OPEC production is in the process of, if not peaking, reaching a plateau. And 73 pc of the countries that produce oil have already peaked.

3) The role of the national oil companies [most OPEC nations] is critical. They need to invest more or allow others to partner with them. We do not have the luxury of time.

4) We will ultimately be at risk of supply rationing demand through skyrocketing prices that will threaten economic stability and prosperity. If we do not act now, we will have a devastating oil crisis in the next 5-to-10 years.

5) Emissions targets to limit global warming to no more than two degrees are unrealistic. To meet this target, global annual CO2 emissions would have to be reduced from today by more than 80pc by 2050. With world population growth and rising living standards, holding global CO2 emissions flat by 2050 would be a huge achievement
in itself.

So how far do we believe his doom and gloom? He is, after all, a man who sells oil for a living, with an interest in talking up the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. It depends how much faith you have in reduced demand for oil through energy efficiency and electric transport, but on balance, the dire warnings do not seem outlandish.

gore vidal - u.s. will have a dictatorship soon....,

Timesonline | Vidal originally became pro-Obama because he grew up in “a black city” (meaning Washington), as well as being impressed by Obama’s intelligence. “But he believes the generals. Even Bush knew the way to win a general was to give him another star. Obama believes the Republican Party is a party when in fact it’s a mindset, like Hitler Youth, based on hatred — religious hatred, racial hatred. When you foreigners hear the word ‘conservative’ you think of kindly old men hunting foxes. They’re not, they’re fascists.”

Another notable Obama mis-step has been on healthcare reform. “He f***ed it up. I don’t know how because the country wanted it. We’ll never see it happen.” As for his wider vision: “Maybe he doesn’t have one, not to imply he is a fraud. He loves quoting Lincoln and there’s a great Lincoln quote from a letter he wrote to one of his generals in the South after the Civil War. ‘I am President of the United States. I have full overall power and never forget it, because I will exercise it’. That’s what Obama needs — a bit of Lincoln’s chill.” Has he met Obama? “No,” he says quietly, “I’ve had my time with presidents.” Vidal raises his fingers to signify a gun and mutters: “Bang bang.” He is referring to the possibility of Obama being assassinated. “Just a mysterious lone gunman lurking in the shadows of the capital,” he says in a wry, dreamy way.

Vidal now believes, as he did originally, Clinton would be the better president. “Hillary knows more about the world and what to do with the generals. History has proven when the girls get involved, they’re good at it. Elizabeth I knew Raleigh would be a good man to give a ship to.”The Republicans will win the next election, Vidal believes; though for him there is little difference between the parties. “Remember the coup d’etat of 2000 when the Supreme Court fixed the selection, not election, of the stupidest man in the country, Mr Bush.”

He observes presidential office-holders balefully. “The only one I knew well was Kennedy, but he didn’t impress me as a good president. It’s like asking, ‘What do I think of my brother?’ It’s complicated. I’d known him all my life and I liked him to the end, but he wrecked his chances with the Bay of Pigs and Suez crises, and because everyone was so keen to elect Bobby once Jack had gone, lies started to be told about him — that he was the greatest and the King of Camelot.”

Today religious mania has infected the political bloodstream and America has become corrosively isolationist, he says. “Ask an American what they know about Sweden and they’d say ‘They live well but they’re all alcoholics’. In fact a Scandinavian system could have benefited us many times over.” Instead, America has “no intellectual class” and is “rotting away at a funereal pace. We’ll have a military dictatorship fairly soon, on the basis that nobody else can hold everything together. Obama would have been better off focusing on educating the American people. His problem is being over-educated. He doesn’t realise how dim-witted and ignorant his audience is. Benjamin Franklin said that the system would fail because of the corruption of the people and that happened under Bush.”

Vidal adds menacingly: “Don’t ever make the mistake with people like me thinking we are looking for heroes. There aren’t any and if there were, they would be killed immediately. I’m never surprised by bad behaviour. I expect it.”

our perilous path to energy enslavement

Techworld | Saving the world is not just for movie plots anymore. All indications are that another major economic crisis is looming, and it will have more far-reaching and long-lasting effects than the recession we're just starting to climb out of now. The problem is oil, and unless it's solved, reforming healthcare and winning wars abroad won't be possible.

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to watch Andy Grove talk about saving the U.S., and I was once again taken with what made him a truly great CEO. It isn't that he is articulate or simply on message -- it's that he conveys a combination of intelligence and passion rarely found in any current leaders. It is also fascinating to see he can still make ex-Intel executives sweat at an Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) More about Intel alumni reunion, even though many of them now run their own companies.

Hidden in the messaging at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) last week was a goal to dramatically lower U.S. electricity bills and, in conjunction with Andy and the ex-Intel employees, save the country from becoming an energy slave to China by 2020. At the core of this is the view that the current Obama administration may be focused on the right things but in the wrong order.

For instance, if we don't fix the energy problem -- in short, our addiction to oil -- first, then other things -- like healthcare More about healthcare reform and the war on terror -- will fail.

Here is the problem in short form. China's need for oil is increasing at a near-vertical rate, and it should pass the U.S. in consumption is just a few years. Production isn't increasing much at all, which means there will be massive oil shortages.

The most credible projections I've seen place the shortage crisis at around 2013-15 (there is clear disagreement on the cause but the effect is consistent) and suggest that oil will veer upward of US$150 a barrel at that time. That would suggest gas prices exceeding $7 a gallon -- and going vertical after that.

there won't be any separate peace

Breton | Last week the Oil Drum featured an article about the very wealthy making preparations for whatever catastrophe the post-peak future has in stock. Many commentators have pointed out that mercenaries understand very quickly there is more money to be done by cutting their rich but helpless employers' throat than by defending them. The very fact than some people – including a few billionaires, apparently – believe a doomsday gated community is a viable response to peak energy tells a more about the preconceptions and fantasies which stand in the way of a successful adaptation to the changes peak oil heralds.

Mercenaries' dubious loyalty is, of course, the first obstacle to the building of reasonably enduring billionaires' lifeboats. Basing one's security on hired sword is one of history's most popular losing bet, even if on the short run it is not necessarily a stupid one. All rulers in history have faced the same conundrum : if you can't enforce your decisions, your power is basically worth nothing, on the other hand, if you give your enforcer too much power, he may well replace you. That's why rulers who didn't trust their own people, relied recruited their soldiers and advisors abroad or among despised minorities : because they won't have the connections to stage a coup.

Of course, on the long run it rarely works. Sooner or later, mercenaries entrench themselves within society, become a part of it and put themselves in position of kingmakers... at the very least.

the problem with federal reserve transparency

The Atlantic | Last week, the Federal Reserve lost a lawsuit. As a result, it is required to disclose the details of loans in some of its lending programs. Currently, this information is kept secret, and the Fed insists it must remain that way. As a result, the Fed is expected to appeal the case. It has already requested a delay on enforcement of the court order. After all, once the cat is out of the bag, it's not really possible to put it back in. I think the question at hand is a difficult one. I've got mixed feelings on which side is right.

First, what's the Fed's argument for keeping this information secret? Bloomberg explains the Fed's reasoning given to the judge, Loretta Preska:

Preska's Aug. 24 ruling rejected the Fed's argument that the records should remain private because they are trade secrets and would scare customers into pulling their deposits.

The trade secret argument seems a bit of a stretch. Are there really banks out there claiming that the secret to their success is getting loans from the Federal Reserve? That seems highly unlikely.

The other argument, however, is relevant and important. I see it as the crux of the Fed's case. Let's imagine your bank needed an emergency loan from the Federal Reserve. Currently, you'd never find out, since it's secret. But if the Fed ultimately loses the case, then imagine if its emergency loan balance listing by bank became published daily for public consumption. You could see your bank on there. That might, and probably should, cause some alarm to those banks' customers.

The Fed's argument is essentially that disclosing this information will cause bank panics. Ignorance is bliss. If people never find out about these loans, then assuming the bank pays it back, everything will turn out fine. Why scare the public for no reason?

open letter to the queen

Abundancy Partners | We live in tumultuous times. Many developed world citizens are losing their livelihoods. The effects on the world's poorest will, as ever, be dreadful. However we are surprised that the Academy has not addressed anything outside the narrow remit their letter covered. Far greater insecurities threaten the world's poorest due to our effects on the natural world.

The letter ignores the physical constraints which are central to this bubble and indeed most bubbles. It speaks of "the bigger picture" and of "individual risks being small" and "the system as a whole being vast", yet, for us has a limited horizon.

Our premise is that our current economic malaise is symptomatic of a far more serious systemic failure to acknowledge what Archbishop Rowan Williams has identified in saying "It has been said that 'the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment'. The earth itself is what ultimately controls economic activity because it is the source of the materials upon which economic activity works".

Energy underlies everything – Scylla and Charybdis of peak oil and climate change. The underlying cause of the current economic meltdown is a multi-generational debt-binge inextricably linked to a concomitant multi-generational energy-binge. The Academy's letter focuses on some "imbalances in the global economy". However, the key to addressing our current situation is to recognise the far more serious imbalances between our insatiable hunger for energy, its finite nature and the environmental pollution in its use.

Energy is the lifeblood of any economy. Our exponential debt-based money system is in turn based on exponentially increasing energy supplies. It is therefore clear that the supply of that energy deserves our very highest attention. That this attention doesn't appear in the Academy's analysis is deeply worrying.

The impending peaking of production of oil and other hydrocarbons, along with the resulting peak in food production and everything on which oil relies, is now widely accepted. Leading UK companies including Arup, Scottish and Southern Energy, Solarcentury and Virgin have warned that a peak in cheap, easily available oil production is likely to hit by 2013, posing a grave risk to the economy. On 2nd August 2009, the International Energy Association's Chief Economist, Dr Fatih Birol, warned of an oil crisis in 2010.

The letter refers to the "overheating economy" but gives no mention of the effect and cause of the overheating of planet Earth. Climate change is now recognised by the world's scientists, political and business leaders as the most serious threat to mankind and is described by Sir Nicholas Stern as "the greatest market failure of our times". On an almost daily basis we get increasingly urgent signals that unstoppable, runaway climate chaos is almost upon us.

grabbing goldman's golden goose?

Bloomberg | Never let it be said that the Justice Department can’t move quickly when it gets a hot tip about an alleged crime at a Wall Street bank. It does help, though, if the party doing the complaining is the bank itself, and not merely an aggrieved customer.

Another plus is if the bank tells the feds the security of the U.S. financial markets is at stake. This brings us to the strange tale of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Sergey Aleynikov.

Aleynikov, 39, is the former Goldman computer programmer who was arrested on theft charges July 3 as he stepped off a flight at Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey. That was two days after Goldman told the government he had stolen its secret, rapid-fire, stock- and commodities-trading software in early June during his last week as a Goldman employee. Prosecutors say Aleynikov uploaded the program code to an unidentified Web site server in Germany.

It wasn’t just Goldman that faced imminent harm if Aleynikov were to be released, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti told a federal magistrate judge at his July 4 bail hearing in New York. The 34-year-old prosecutor also dropped this bombshell: “The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways.”

How could somebody do this? The precise answer isn’t obvious -- we’re talking about a black-box trading system here. And Facciponti didn’t elaborate. You don’t need a Goldman Sachs doomsday machine to manipulate markets, of course. A false rumor expertly planted using an ordinary telephone often will do just fine. In any event, the judge rejected Facciponti’s argument that Aleynikov posed a danger to the community, and ruled he could go free on $750,000 bail. He was released July 6.

Market Manipulation

All this leaves us to wonder: Did Goldman really tell the government its high-speed, high-volume, algorithmic-trading program can be used to manipulate markets in unfair ways, as Facciponti said? And shouldn’t Goldman’s bosses be worried this revelation may cause lots of people to start hypothesizing aloud about whether Goldman itself might misuse this program?

Here’s some of what we do know. Aleynikov, a citizen of the U.S. and Russia, left his $400,000-a-year salary at Goldman for a chance to triple his pay at a start-up firm in Chicago co- founded by Misha Malyshev, a former Citadel Investment Group LLC trader. Malyshev, who oversaw high-frequency trading at Citadel, said his firm, Teza Technologies LLC, first learned about the alleged theft July 5 and suspended Aleynikov without pay.

new curbs on speculative oil trading?

NYTimes | Reacting to the violent swings in oil prices in recent months, federal regulators announced on Tuesday that they were considering new restrictions on “speculative” traders in markets for oil, natural gas and other energy products.

The move is a big departure from the hands-off approach to market regulation of the last two decades. It also highlights a broader shift toward tougher government oversight under President Obama.

Since Mr. Obama took office, the Justice Department has stepped up antitrust enforcement activities, abandoning many legal doctrines adopted by the Bush administration.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it would consider imposing volume limits on trading of energy futures by purely financial investors and that it already has adopted tougher information requirements aimed at identifying the role of hedge funds and traders who swap contracts outside of regulated exchanges like the New York Mercantile Exchange.

“My firm belief is that we must aggressively use all existing authorities to ensure market integrity,” said Gary Gensler, chairman of the commission, in a statement. He said regulators would also examine whether to impose federal “speculative limits” on futures contracts for energy products.

Much of Mr. Gensler’s announcement was focused on precise issues well within his agency’s authority, suggesting that he was serious about seeking changes. But his proposals could encounter fierce opposition from big banks and Wall Street firms, which are each big traders in the commodity markets and manage big investment funds focused on commodities. Oil prices hit a record high of $145 a barrel last summer, then plunged to $33 a barrel last December and have since bounced back to more than $60.

Much of the wild swings over the last year were caused by chaos in the global financial system, as banks and much of Wall Street came perilously close to collapse last September and the global economy fell into the most severe recession in decades.

But a growing number of critics have blamed those who are betting on the direction of energy prices for some of the extreme volatility.

“It is the regulatory authority’s business to make sure the markets work,” said Edward L. Morse, head of research at LCM Commodities, a brokerage in New York. “If there’s a lesson of that last few years, it’s that the markets haven’t been functioning as well as they should have been.”

global systemic crisis

LEAP | As anticipated by LEAP/E2020 as early as October 2008, on the eve of summer 2009, the question of the US and UK capacity to finance their unbridled public deficits has become the central question of international debates, thus paving the way for these two countries to default on their debt by the end of this summer.

At this stage of the global systemic crisis’ process of development, contrary to the dominant political and media stance today, the LEAP/E2020 team does not foresee any economic upsurge after summer 2009 (nor in the following 12 months) (1). On the contrary, because the origins of the crisis remain unaddressed, we estimate that the summer 2009 will be marked by the converging of three very destructive « rogue waves » (2), illustrating the aggravation of the crisis and entailing major upheaval by September/October 2009. As always since this crisis started, each region of the world will be affected neither at the same moment, nor in the same way (3). However, according to our researchers, all of them will be concerned by a significant deterioration in their situation by the end of summer 2009 (4).

This evolution is likely to catch large numbers of economic and financial players on the wrong foot who decided to believe in today’s mainstream media operation of “euphorisation”.

flu prompts shutdowns in mexico, texas

NYTime | The swine flu continues to spread slowly but surely, with 114 confirmed cases in 12 states on Thursday, up from 91 in 10 states on Wednesday. Many more states have suspected cases, and 11 countries have been affected so far.

But little else seems sure about the disease, including how bad it will turn out to be and even its name, now officially influenza A(H1N1), according to the World Health Organization.

“This is a rapidly evolving situation,” said Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It is a situation filled with uncertainty.”

Dr. Besser praised a decision by the W.H.O. on Wednesday to raise the global alert level to Phase 5, one step below a pandemic. He said the move would not affect the United States, which is already taking measures against the outbreak, but would alert other countries to get pandemic plans in order. On Thursday, officials of the health organization said Phase 5, which means a pandemic is highly likely, was still the appropriate level.

In this country, hundreds of schools have closed, including Fort Worth’s entire school district of about 80,000 students. Texas has 26 confirmed cases.

On Thursday, the White House disclosed that a member of the Obama administration delegation that traveled to Mexico in mid-April probably contracted the disease. The man had flu symptoms when he returned to Washington, and spread the illness to his wife and son, but he and his family have recovered and he is back at work. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said the man did not work closely with the president and never posed any risk to him.

In Canada, the confirmation of 15 additional cases on Thursday brought the total number of cases there to 34.

Mexico now has 312 confirmed cases and 12 confirmed fatalities. More than 2,500 cases are suspected, and at least 150 people are believed to have died of the disease.

from phase 4 to phase 5

WaPo | The World Health Organization took the unprecedented step yesterday of warning that the world is probably on the verge of a pandemic, as new cases of swine flu mounted, the first death was reported in the United States and the dangerous virus appeared to arrive just outside the nation's capital.

The WHO's action came after the agency convened an unusual "global virtual science meeting" involving several hundred experts and officials to help assess the situation. The agency raised the alert from "phase 4" to "phase 5" two days after elevating it for the first time because the never-before-seen virus was spreading in Mexico.

Saying influenza viruses are "notorious for their rapid mutation and their unpredictable behavior," WHO Director General Margaret Chan told reporters: "This is an opportunity for global solidarity as we look for responses and solutions that benefit all countries, all of humanity. After all, it really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic."

The new alert level could prompt a variety of measures, including more intensive efforts to identify cases and stricter measures to prevent the illness's spread, such as discouraging or banning public gatherings.

With the virus now clearly being transmitted person-to-person in the United States, WHO officials said the outbreak appeared to be on a trajectory toward the highest alert level -- "phase 6" -- which is marked by sustained transmission in at least two regions of the world. That would mark the beginning of a pandemic -- a global spread of the virus.

"It's clear the virus is spreading, and we don't see any evidence of this slowing down at this point," said Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's interim assistant director general for health security and environment.

While there is a chance that the epidemic could stop on its own, officials said that such an outcome is impossible to predict and that governments around the world should plan for the worst.

"There may be a possibility that the virus will die out and stop, and that would be the best for us. But it can turn the other way. So the important point for us is to continue to maintain our vigilance and track its movement," Chan said. "Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world."

flu on the ground in mexico...,

BBC News | I'm a specialist doctor in respiratory diseases and intensive care at the Mexican National Institute of Health. There is a severe emergency over the swine flu here. More and more patients are being admitted to the intensive care unit. Despite the heroic efforts of all staff (doctors, nurses, specialists, etc) patients continue to inevitably die. The truth is that anti-viral treatments and vaccines are not expected to have any effect, even at high doses. It is a great fear among the staff. The infection risk is very high among the doctors and health staff.

There is a sense of chaos in the other hospitals and we do not know what to do. Staff are starting to leave and many are opting to retire or apply for holidays. The truth is that mortality is even higher than what is being reported by the authorities, at least in the hospital where I work it. It is killing three to four patients daily, and it has been going on for more than three weeks. It is a shame and there is great fear here. Increasingly younger patients aged 20 to 30 years are dying before our helpless eyes and there is great sadness among health professionals here. Antonio Chavez, Mexico City

missouri documents withdrawn

A couple weeks ago, I posted a link to a KCStar article about official law enforcement documents detailing The Modern Militia Movement. This is an update on the status of those documents.

ALIPAC | A national scandal emerged in Missouri, after their MIAC Fusion Center issued an eight page document which made many false claims. The documents attempted to politicize police and cast suspicion on millions of Americans. The 'Missouri Documents', as they came to be called, listed over 32 characteristics police should watch for as signs or links to domestic terrorists, which could threaten police officers, court officials, and infrastructure targets.

Police were instructed to look for Americans who were concerned about unemployment, taxes, illegal immigration, gangs, border security, abortion, high costs of living, gun restrictions, FEMA, the IRS, The Federal Reserve, and the North American Union/SPP/North American Community. The 'Missouri Documents' also said potential domestic terrorists might like gun shows, short wave radios, combat movies, movies with white male heroes, Tom Clancey Novels, and Presidential Candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin!

The Southern Poverty Law Center was cited as a research source for the 'Missouri Documents'. Furthermore, the attempt of these documents to cast suspicion of violent and life threatening behavior on millions of Americans who are concerned about these issues is consistent with the regularly released political materials of both the SPLC and ADL.

Since the SPLC was listed as a source in the MIAC Missouri Documents, ALIPAC sent a letter of inquiry to the Missouri Governor Jay Nixon on March 20, 2009 asking for more specific sourcing information.

"When many of us read these Missouri Documents we felt that the false connections, pseudo research, and political attacks found in these documents could have been penned by the SPLC and ADL," said William Gheen of ALIPAC. "We were shocked to see credible law enforcement agencies disseminating the same kind of over the top political propaganda distributed by these groups."

Colonel James F. Keathley, Superintendent of the Missouri State Highway Patrol issued a letter of response to ALIPAC and other sources on March 25-26, which states that the Missouri militia documents are being withdrawn, more oversight will be applied to future releases, the Missouri Documents do not meet the high quality standards expected from the MIAC, and that "certain subsets of Missourians will not be singled out inappropriately in these reports for particular associations".

FOX Radio Network is reporting that Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder (R-MO) has asked that Missouri Public Safety Director John Britt be placed on administrative leave. The report also says Kinder has issued a public apology to Presidential candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin.

ALIPAC would like to advise all media sources, law enforcement officers and agencies, that the ADL and SPLC are political organizations, with stated political goals and agendas which are contrary to the candidates, political parties, and millions of Americans besmirched by the MIAC documents.

While both the ADL and SPLC actively market themselves and seek roles as advisers to law enforcement and the media, both groups regularly engage in political tactics like those observed in the now withdrawn Missouri Documents. Materials from one or both organizations contributed to this scandal.

"In the past, these groups have served a helpful role in America by providing information about racist and potentially violent groups like the KKK and Neo Nazis," said William Gheen. "Unfortunately, their mission has drifted into political efforts to paint almost any American or group who opposes their broader political agendas as being associated with racist or potentially violent groups just like what we saw in these scandalous MIAC documents in Missouri."

ALIPAC hopes that future scandals can be avoided by issuing this advisory and promoting awareness of the faulty information distributed to police and media in America by the Anti Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center to prevent future scandals of this nature.

mexico fighting cartel and itself

NYTimes | The war analogy is not a stretch for parts of Mexico. Soldiers, more than 40,000 of them, are confronting heavily armed paramilitary groups on city streets. The military-grade weapons being used, antitank rockets and armor-piercing munitions, for example, are the same ones found on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The country’s challenge, though, may be tougher than that of a conventional war. The enemy is more nebulous and the battlefield is everywhere — in border towns like Tijuana, regional capitals like Culiacán and in the metropolis of Mexico City, where Mr. Calderón gathers with his national security staff every morning in his wooded compound ringed by soldiers to strategize and count the previous day’s dead. The presidential protective detail got a thorough review after one of its members was found to have received money from a cartel.

The brutality and brazenness — the fact that drug assassins are chopping off heads, dissolving bodies in acid and posting notes on mutilated corpses taunting the authorities — has prompted more and more second guessing of Mr. Calderón’s approach.

“Calderón took a stick and whacked the beehive,” Javier Valdez, a Sinaloa journalist who covers the drug trade, said in an oft-heard critique of Mexico’s drug war.

The Mexican president is faulted for starting a head-on assault on the heavily armed cartels without first gathering intelligence on them, without first preparing a trustworthy police force to take them on, without preparing the country for how rough it would turn out to be.

He is taken to task for not aggressively pursuing the politicians collaborating with the cartels. He is criticized for failing to put a significant dent in the drug profits that fuel the cartels’ operations.

An effort is under way to change laws to make it easier to seize businesses that are linked to traffickers, but it has been bogged down by fierce political infighting. “We keep hearing we’re going to win,” Víctor Hugo Círigo Vásquez, the speaker of the Mexico City Assembly, said to a reporter recently. “That’s what the U.S. president said in Vietnam.”

There are calls for a completely new approach. One of Mr. Calderón’s predecessors, Mr. Zedillo, recently joined two other former heads of state from Latin America in pushing for a complete rethinking of the drug war, including the legalization of marijuana, which is considered the top revenue generator for Mexican drug cartels.

Mexico is nowhere near such a transformative step as legalizing drugs, which would cut drug profits but also might cause use to soar. Still, there are initiatives on the horizon.

Three years ago, the Mexican Congress passed a plan to decriminalize the possession of small quantities of cocaine and other drugs, but Vicente Fox, then the president, killed the bill after American officials raised an alarm. Mr. Calderón made a similar proposal last fall, albeit lowering the amounts still further, and this time American officials did not utter a peep.

efforts against cartels lacking?

Washington Post | "We are not winning the battle," Goddard told members of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and drugs. Lawmakers joined Goddard in calling for a stronger federal response, including heightened efforts to stanch the illicit stream of thousands of American guns and billions of dollars in cash annually flowing southward across the border.

"Mexican drug cartels . . . pose a direct threat to Americans," said Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the subcommittee chairman, noting that they now operate in at least 230 U.S. cities, up from about 50 in 2006.

But their joint alarm over the rising drug-related violence in northern Mexico -- where more than 1,000 people have been slain since the beginning of the year -- was not shared by officials at the hearing from the three principal agencies responsible for helping the Mexican government: the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security.

Anthony P. Placido, the DEA's top intelligence official, said his agency believes that Mexican President Felipe Calderón is still "making important strides" against the cartels. The recently increasing violence mostly reflects the criminal networks' "desperate effort to resist," he said.

"The violence we see is actually a signpost of success," Placido said.

A darker picture was presented by Denise Dresser, a Princeton-educated professor of political science in Mexico City, who warned that recent U.S. assistance in fighting drug trafficking has had only mixed success. Cocaine traffickers now spend more than twice the attorney general's budget just for bribes; 450,000 citizens are involved in the drug trade; and more than 2,000 weapons a day are smuggled south to fuel the battle between cartels and against the Mexican government, she said.

"Mexico is becoming a country where lawlessness prevails, where more people died in drug-related violence last year than those killed in Iraq, where the government has been infiltrated by the mafias and cartels it has vowed to combat," Dresser said. "Although many believe that Obama's greatest foreign policy challenges lie in Pakistan or Iran or the Middle East, they may in fact be found in the immediate neighborhood."

mexico will cause the collapse of america...,

EU Götterdämmerung

UK Telegraph | Failure to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown. The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point. If mishandled by the world policy establishment, this debacle is big enough to shatter the fragile banking systems of Western Europe and set off round two of our financial Götterdämmerung.

Austria's finance minister Josef Pröll made frantic efforts last week to put together a €150bn rescue for the ex-Soviet bloc. Well he might. His banks have lent €230bn to the region, equal to 70pc of Austria's GDP.

"A failure rate of 10pc would lead to the collapse of the Austrian financial sector," reported Der Standard in Vienna. Unfortunately, that is about to happen.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says bad debts will top 10pc and may reach 20pc. The Vienna press said Bank Austria and its Italian owner Unicredit face a "monetary Stalingrad" in the East.

Mr Pröll tried to drum up support for his rescue package from EU finance ministers in Brussels last week. The idea was scotched by Germany's Peer Steinbrück. Not our problem, he said. We'll see about that.

Stephen Jen, currency chief at Morgan Stanley, said Eastern Europe has borrowed $1.7 trillion abroad, much on short-term maturities. It must repay – or roll over – $400bn this year, equal to a third of the region's GDP. Good luck. The credit window has slammed shut.

Not even Russia can easily cover the $500bn dollar debts of its oligarchs while oil remains near $33 a barrel. The budget is based on Urals crude at $95. Russia has bled 36pc of its foreign reserves since August defending the ruble.

"This is the largest run on a currency in history," said Mr Jen.

In Poland, 60pc of mortgages are in Swiss francs. The zloty has just halved against the franc. Hungary, the Balkans, the Baltics, and Ukraine are all suffering variants of this story. As an act of collective folly – by lenders and borrowers – it matches America's sub-prime debacle. There is a crucial difference, however. European banks are on the hook for both. US banks are not.

Almost all East bloc debts are owed to West Europe, especially Austrian, Swedish, Greek, Italian, and Belgian banks. En plus, Europeans account for an astonishing 74pc of the entire $4.9 trillion portfolio of loans to emerging markets.

They are five times more exposed to this latest bust than American or Japanese banks, and they are 50pc more leveraged (IMF data).

Spain is up to its neck in Latin America, which has belatedly joined the slump (Mexico's car output fell 51pc in January, and Brazil lost 650,000 jobs in one month). Britain and Switzerland are up to their necks in Asia.

Whether it takes months, or just weeks, the world is going to discover that Europe's financial system is sunk, and that there is no EU Federal Reserve yet ready to act as a lender of last resort or to flood the markets with emergency stimulus.

american bankster....,

Baseline Scenario | When you cut through the technical details and the marketing distractions, sorting out the US banking fiasco comes down to one, and only one, question. How tough are you willing to be on the people who control the country’s large banks?

One option is to be gentle with them and adopt only ideas that they pre-approve. This route involves complicated schemes to purchase, lend against, or otherwise “wash” toxic assets out of the banks using taxpayer subsidies. This will be expensive (for the taxpayer), messy politically, and - most likely - will not work, in the sense of restoring the banking system to something close to its normal mode of functioning; check with Hank Paulson for details.

Alternatively, you can be tough and take steps towards really assessing which banks are insolvent when you use market prices to value their assets. These banks can be taken over in a scaled-up FDIC-type procedure (no golden parachutes!), and controlling stakes in fully recapitalized banks can be sold off immediately to new private owners. The new private owners can handle, under proper anti-trust supervision, the break up the banks. This approach will be cheaper for the taxpayer (but nothing is free at this stage), easier to explain to the electorate and their representatives, and it will work - this is in fact the standard prescription because it always works. But it will not make powerful bankers happy.

So which way is the Obama Administration heading? We honestly don’t yet know; the signals are mixed.

Fist tap to rembom for the Simon Johnson interview and baseline scenario.

islamicate bomb

LATimes | Reporting from Washington — Little more than a year after U.S. spy agencies concluded that Iran had halted work on a nuclear weapon, the Obama administration has made it clear that it believes there is no question that Tehran is seeking the bomb.

In his news conference this week, President Obama went so far as to describe Iran's "development of a nuclear weapon" before correcting himself to refer to its "pursuit" of weapons capability.

Obama's nominee to serve as CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, left little doubt about his view last week when he testified on Capitol Hill. "From all the information I've seen," Panetta said, "I think there is no question that they are seeking that capability."

The language reflects the extent to which senior U.S. officials now discount a National Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007 that was instrumental in derailing U.S. and European efforts to pressure Iran to shut down its nuclear program.

As the administration moves toward talks with Iran, Obama appears to be sending a signal that the United States will not be drawn into a debate over Iran's intent.

"When you're talking about negotiations in Iran, it is dangerous to appear weak or naive," said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear weapons expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-proliferation organization based in Washington.

Cirincione said the unequivocal language also worked to Obama's political advantage. "It guards against criticism from the right that the administration is underestimating Iran," he said.

Iran has long maintained that it aims to generate electricity, not build bombs, with nuclear power. But Western intelligence officials and nuclear experts increasingly view those claims as implausible.

U.S. officials said that although no new evidence had surfaced to undercut the findings of the 2007 estimate, there was growing consensus that it provided a misleading picture and that the country was poised to reach crucial bomb-making milestones this year.