Gwynne Dyer - Iran -- Here We Go Again?

Published on Thursday, November 10, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/10-0

by Gwynne Dyer

“We will not build two (nuclear) bombs in the face of (America’s) 20,000,” said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in response to an International Atomic Energy Agency report this week that accuses Iran of doing just that. He called Yukiya Amano, the head of the IAEA, a US puppet, saying: “This person does not publish a report about America and its allies' nuclear arsenals.”

Well, that’s true, actually. Amano will never publish a report about America’s nuclear weapons (only 5,133 of them now, actually). He hasn’t said anything about Israel’s, Britain’s and France’s weapons of mass destruction either. And his report is largely based on information fed to him by Western intelligence agencies.

But apart from that, Amano is as impartial and free from US influence as you would expect a career Japanese diplomat to be. Only cynical people will see any resemblance to Colin Powell’s performance at the United Nations in 2003, when the US defense secretary held up a test tube and assured us all that Iraq really was working on germ warfare.

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Kiley Kroh - We Have “Learned Nothing” from BP Disaster: Obama Opens More of Arctic to Offshore Drilling

By Kiley Kroh

NationofChange

http://www.nationofchange.org/we-have-learned-nothing-bp-disaster-obama-opens-more-arctic-offshore-drilling-1320855494

Yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the Obama Administration’s highly anticipated plan for proposed offshore oil and gas leases from 2012-2017.  It focuses on exploration in the Gulf of Mexico and giving oil companies the chance to bid on drilling rights in Arctic waters, including the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the Cook Inlet.

Because the plan targets areas with known potential for oil and gas development where exploration is currently active, the administration is ruling out drilling along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts — including an area near Virginia that had been slated for exploration prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The Arctic lease sales are scheduled late in the 5-year period to allow for further scientific study and data collection, and longer term planning for spill response preparedness and infrastructure. Deputy Secretary David Hayes also indicated that any expansion of Arctic exploration should account for the “Arctic’s unique environmental resources and the social, cultural, and subsistence needs of Native Alaskan communities.”

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Srdja Trifkovic - The End of the Berlusconi Era

By Srdja Trifkovic

Global Research, November 9, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27563

Silvio Berlusconi has been around for so long that it is hard to imagine Italian politics without him occupying the center stage. The end of his era is nigh, however, to the relief of his opponents as well as many of his erstwhile supporters. Berlusconi announced on Tuesday night that he would resign as Prime Minister as soon as the Chamber adopts a new financial stability law that will include an EU-imposed austerity package, probably within two weeks.

Only hours earlier Berlusconi had lost his parliamentary majority after Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League and his key coalition partner, called on him to resign. After meeting him for an hour on Tuesday, President Giorgio Napolitano said the Prime Minister had understood the implications of the vote and accepted the “urgent need” for the country to respond quickly to the demands from Brussels for legislative action in line with the European Commission diktat. The immediate challenge for his successors will be to put together a stable enough government—possibly led by non-party technocrats—able to apply sweeping EU-dictated austerity measures in a country that has had, on average, about one government a year since the Second World War.

The Italian political class is breathing a collective sigh of relief, but it seems clear that no domestic combinazioni could have forced Berlusconi to go so soon. Only weeks ago he seemed impregnable. The immediate cause of his pending departure is the pressure from Berlin and Paris to make Italy take a hefty dose of the bitter medicine already prescribed to Greece, and the loss of faith in Berlusconi’s ability to administer it. This is the first time a major European country, and a founding member of the Six at that, has had its domestic political arrangements so decisively impacted by the dominant EU powers.

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Robert Scheer - California Refuses to Accept Obama’s Banking Sellout

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/california_refuses_to_accept_obamas_banking_sellout_20111110/

Posted on Nov 10, 2011

By Robert Scheer

There is no three-strikes law for crooked bankers, not even a law for a fifth strike, as The New York Times reported in the case of Citigroup, cited last month in a $1 billion fraud case. Unlike the California third-striker I once wrote about whom a district attorney wanted banished forever to state prison for stealing a piece of pizza from the plate of a person dining outdoors, Citigroup executives get off with a fine and by offering a promise not to do it again, and again and again.

As the Times reported when Citigroup agreed to settle SEC charges last month: “Citigroup’s main brokerage subsidiary, its predecessors or its parent company agreed to not violate the very same antifraud statue in July 2010. And in May 2006. Also as far back as March 2005 and April 2000.”

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Dean Baker - Bankers Crush Greek Democracy

November 09, 2011

by DEAN BAKER

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/09/bankers-crush-greek-democracy/

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou touched off a firestorm last week when he proposed putting the austerity package designed by the “troika” (the I.M.F, the European Central Bank and the European Union) up for a popular vote. The idea that the Greek people might directly be able to decide their future terrified leaders across Europe and around the world. Financial markets panicked, sending stocks plummeting and bond yields soaring.

However, by the end of the week things were back under control. The leaders of France and Germany apparently laid down the law to Papandreou and he backed off plans for the referendum. While the government is in the process of collapsing in Greece, the world can now rest assured that the Greek people will not have an opportunity to vote on their future.

This is unfortunate since it means that Greece’s future will likely be decided by politicians who may not have the interests of the Greek people foremost in their minds. By their own projections, the austerity package designed by the troika promises a decade of austerity, with high unemployment, falling real wages and sharp reductions in public services and pensions. And, their projections have consistently proven to be overly optimistic.

If given the opportunity would the Greek people endorse this sort of austerity package? The answer obviously depends on the alternative.

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National Inflation Association - ECB Preparing Italy Bailout, Massive Inflation Coming

National Inflation Association

Italy's 10 year bond yields rose above 7% on Wednesday and economists from around the world are now proclaiming that these interest rates are unsustainable with Italy's national debt now 120% of its GDP. NIA believes the ECB is currently working on their largest bailout in history where they will commit to purchasing over €1 trillion of Italian bonds and bonds of other eurozone countries that are at risk of becoming insolvent. Despite the signals currently being given by the ECB, they will not allow Italy to fail because it will cause a Great Depression throughout the European Union, which will lead to the destruction of the eurozone.

Economists today fail to realize that 10 year bond yields of 7% are normal for not just Italy, but the rest of the eurozone and the United States. If it wasn't for the ECB holding their benchmark interest rate at artificially low levels for over a decade, Italy and other eurozone countries wouldn't have the high levels of debt they do today and they would be able to withstand yields of 7% or higher. The ECB is entirely at fault for the European Debt Crisis and they are about to follow in the footsteps of the Federal Reserve by abandoning their objective of maintaining price stability and keeping inflation low.

German 10 year bond yields declined again today to 1.72% and the spread between Germany and Italy is at a new record of 553 basis points. Germany is benefiting from safe haven buying from investors selling Italian bonds and buying German bonds, but investors will soon realize that German bonds are no better than Italian bonds and the world will dump all Euro denominated bonds.

Bond investors currently expect very little inflation in the eurozone, as seen by Germany's low bond yields. The sole reason for the large spread between German and Italian bonds is Italy's greater risk of default. However, a default by Italy would lead to the failure of Germany's largest banks. Germany knows this but they don't want to raise inflation expectations by making the world think that the ECB will be monetizing Italy's debt. Therefore, Germany is now telling Italy to request aid from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) if needed.

Unfortunately, the EFSF doesn't have the financial resources to rescue a country the size of Italy. Last week, the EFSF had to cancel a €3 billion auction of 10 year bonds due to a lack of investor interest. On Monday, the EFSF finally had the bond sale, but was met with subdued interest that barely covered the €3 billion in bonds being offered. So far the EFSF has only raised a total of €13 billion through bond sales, but has received €440 billion in guarantees from eurozone countries. If Italy becomes a recipient of EFSF funding, the EFSF will lose one of their largest contributors.

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Ari Berman - Why the Koch Brothers and ALEC Don’t Want You to Vote

By Ari Berman

NationofChange

http://www.nationofchange.org/why-koch-brothers-and-alec-don-t-want-you-vote-1320850888

Today residents of Mississippi will decide whether voters must produce a government-issued ID in order to cast a ballot and voters in Maine will choose whether to keep or overturn a new law banning election day voter registration, which had previously been on the books since 1973.

These votes occur amidst the backdrop of an unprecedented, Republican-led war on voting. Since the 2010 election, at least a dozen states controlled by Republicans have approved new obstacles to voting—mandating government-issued IDs, curtailing early voting, restricting voter registration, disenfranchising ex-felons. Five million voters could be negatively impacted by the new laws, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which found that “these new restrictions fall most heavily on young, minority and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities”—in other words, those most likely to vote for Democrats.

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Bernie Sanders - Veil of Secrecy at the Fed Lifted, Time for Change

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Veil-of-Secrecy-at-the-Fed-by-Bernie-Sanders-111109-24.html

November 9, 2011 By Bernie Sanders Given the growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement and given the concerns of millions of Americans about Wall Street, we now have a unique opportunity to make significant changes to one of the most powerful and secretive agencies of the federal government. One thing is abundantly clear: Americans deserve a Federal Reserve that works for them, not just the CEOs on Wall Street. As a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street, the American people have experienced the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans, through no fault of their own, have lost their jobs, homes, life savings, and ability to send their kids to college. Small businesses have been unable to get the credit they need to expand their businesses, and credit is still extremely tight. Wages as a share of national income are now at the lowest level since the Great Depression, and the number of Americans living in poverty is at an all-time high.

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GM Freeze - Insects Developing Resistance to GM Bt Crops

GM Freeze, 10 Nov 2011
http://www.gmfreeze.org/news-releases/171/

GM Freeze today published a review of insect resistance to Bt toxins in GM maize and Bt cotton crops around the world. It shows how, contrary to promises from GM companies, pesticide use is increasing to keep up with insects in GM crops. [1]

Scientists have confirmed five incidents of insects evolving resistance to Bt toxins in the field to date: Bt cotton in India (2010) and US (2008), moth pests in maize in Puerto Rico (2007) and South Africa (2007) and a beetle pest in maize in the US (2011).

Reasons for resistance developing are:

*Failure to provide adequate non-GM refuges in GM crops to ensure non-resistant adult insects can survive to breed with resistant ones so that the resistance gene does not become dominant. Refuges are required by US laws that are widely flouted.

*Levels of Bt toxin in the crops too low to deliver lethal doses to pests. Sub-lethal doses mean resistance can develop as pests survive, mate and pass on the resistance gene. If the number of resistant individuals is high they can multiply quite rapidly and become dominant.

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Progressive Radio Host Bhavani Jaroff, Wednesdays @ 5pm(EDT) - Balsamic Glazed Tofu Recipes

Balsamic Glazed Tofu with Red Wine Sauce

Chef Bhavani 11/10/11

6 servings Dinner Meal

Ingredients

1 cake, Organic Extra Firm Tofu

2 Tbs. nutritional yeast

1 ½ t. dried thyme

½ t. salt

¼ t. pepper

3 t. olive oil

2 tbs. Balsamic Vinegar

2 tbs. honey

Sauce

1 Spanish onion, peeled and chopped

4 cloves garlic

1 pt cherry tomatoes

3 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar

1 cup red wine

1 cup mushrooms, sliced

1 t. salt

Fresh ground pepper

2 Tbs chopped parsley

Directions

Make a mixture of the thyme, salt and pepper and nutritional yeast. Sprinkle on tofu cutlets and sauté cutlets in olive oil. Make a reduction of the 2 Tbs Balsamic and honey and brush on sautéed cutlets. Meanwhile, make a sauce of the onions, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, red wine, Vinegar, S & P, Cook for 10 minutes. Pour over tofu cutlets and cook in oven for 10 more minutes.