1.7m Syrian refugees face food crisis as UN funds dry up

More than 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt are facing a disastrous and hungry winter after a funding crisis forced the UN’s World Food Programme to suspend food vouchers to hundreds of thousands forced into exile by the conflict. Since the war began in March 2011, the WFP has brought food to millions of Syrians inside the country, and has used the voucher programme – which allows refugees to buy food in local shops – to inject about $800m (£500m) into the economies of those countries hosting them.

But after finding itself unable to secure the $64m it needs to support Syrian refugees in December, the WFP announced on Monday that it was halting the scheme. Severe funding shortfalls have already led the UN body to reduce rations within Syria, where it is trying to help 4.25 million people. Its executive director, Ertharin Cousin, issued a blunt and urgent appeal to donors, asking them to honour their commitments and warning that the suspension would have a devastating effect on the lives of more than 1.7 million people.

More at The Guardian

Ukrainian government refuses to remove troops from Crimea, prepares for war

In the wake of a March 16 referendum in which Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, Ukrainian leaders refused to cede any part of the peninsula, calling on their troops to prepare for war.

“Crimea was, is, and will be our territory,” said Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh in a statement delivered at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center on March 17. Former heavyweight boxing champion and leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Vitali Klitschko announced that Ukrainian troops would remain at their bases, even after March 21, the end of a peace treaty signed by the interior ministries of Ukraine and Russia. 

Kyiv Post

Russia Today anchor Abby Martin speaks out against Russian invasion of Crimea

At the very end of the 3/3/2014 episode of Russia Today's Breaking the Set, Abby Martin reads a monolog explaining her own personal position about Russia and the United States meddling with the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people. Censored by RT.

Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis

South Sudan faces economic disaster as cost of independence bites

One year after the euphoria of independence, South Sudan faces economic disaster that could reverse recent development gains after it shut down oil production in a dispute over pipeline fees with Sudan.

Preying on people's minds in Juba is the thought that the government is about to run out of money – shutting down vital services in an already impoverished country. A few months ago, some thought the government would run out of cash to pay teachers and health workers as early as August; now the prediction is September or the end of the year.

Khartoum is feeling the economic and political heat as well. Taking a leaf out of South Sudan's book, Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, is cutting the number of cabinet posts from 31 to 26. However, other austerity measures – a rise in transport costs and a doubling of fuel and food prices following cuts in subsidies – have provoked demonstrations and calls for Bashir to step down.

Analysts say the calamitous economic situation in both countries could force Juba and Khartoum – with prodding from outside, particularly the US and China – to cut a deal to start the oil flowing again.

"The fiscal picture in South Sudan is terrible, the socio-economic stress is harsh, there are protests in Sudan, there are border tensions," said Jason Mosley, an associate fellow at the Africa programme at Chatham House, the international affairs thinktank. "The economic picture is so bad it could push both sides towards some sort of compromise."

The Guardian

What credit crunch?

Goldman Sachs bankers in line for £1.5 BILLION pay and bonus pot (and that's just for London staff). With Britain in the grip of a recession, the announcement last night will only add to public fury over City payouts. The company, which is awarding its workers £8.2billion globally, has 5,300 staff based in Britain.

The news comes despite disappointing annual results from the investment bank. Goldman is expected to reveal profits fell to £1.95billion last year, from £5.5billion in 2010. This would make it its second lowest annual profit in almost ten years, reflecting the impact Europe's debt crisis is having on the Wall Street bank. The company's president, Gary Cohn, said the large payouts were necessary for staff retention. The total pot this year is £1.8billion less than the £10billion awarded for their efforts the previous year.

Mail Online

Euro Crisis, Neo-Liberalism and Undoing the Welfare State

German elite profited from the Euro Zone, now wants to use crisis to undo welfare state and privatize.

The Real News

The men who crashed the world

The first of a four-part investigation into a world of greed and recklessness that led to financial collapse.

In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne.

Al Jazeera English

Global market crisis manmade

Stephen Lendman, writer and radio host, says that the continuing plunge of markets worldwide was intentionally fabricated for the benefit of big Wall Street and European banks.

Press TV - Iran's television network, broadcasting in English round-the-clock. Based in Tehran.

America Is Not Broke

Speech delivered by Michael Moore at Wisconsin Capitol in Madison, March 5, 2011

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich. More on The Huffington Post

Teutonic Genie out of bottle

Max Keiser, financial analyst and host of RT's Keiser Report says Germany is ready to emerge as the world's new superpower.

MaxKeiser.com

"Cablegate" goes live

The Guardian: US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomacy crisis

"The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.

At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables - many of which are designated "secret" – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN's leadership.

These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistlebowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues."
Read more

The job of the media is not to protect power from embarrassment
The Guardian's Simon Jenkins writes: "Perhaps we can now see how catastrophe unfolds when there is time to avert it, rather than having to await a Chilcot report after the event. If that is not in the public's interest, I fail to see what is.

Clearly, it is for governments, not journalists, to protect public secrets. Were there some overriding national jeopardy in revealing them, greater restraint might be in order. There is no such overriding jeopardy, except from the policies themselves as revealed. Where it is doing the right thing, a great power should be robust against embarrassment."

Further coverage from The Guardian:
Diplomats ordered to spy on UN leaders
Saudis repeatedly urge attack on Iran
How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked
Siprnet: America's secret information database
Explore the US embassy cables database

Follow it all via WL Central An unofficial WikiLeaks information resource

Wikileaks ‘Hacked Ahead of Secret U.S. Document Release’

Belgium joins financial markets' hit list

Hold the moules et frites: Belgium has joined Portugal, Spain and Italy on the hit list of countries that may be heading for financial crisis.

In the bars of Antwerp and the cafes of Bruges, the talk is less of Christmas markets and hot chocolate than of the rising cost of financing a national debt which has reached 100% of annual national income.

Like Ireland, struggling to fend off criticism of its austerity package, there are signs that international bond investors are starting to view Belgium as living on borrowed money and borrowed time.

To make matters worse, it has a broken political system and is without a government since April. International money market traders today pushed the cost of insuring Belgium's debts to record levels. The interest payments still fall short of those charged for Spain's government the Portuguese, but analysts said the gap was narrowing quickly.

"Belgium is having to pay a political risk premium, because it still doesn't have a government in place to make decisions over how to curb its spending and its debts, which is what the market wants to see," said one analyst.

More on The Guardian

The Coming Sell-Out to the American Super Rich

Mr. Obama seems to be campaigning for his own defeat! Thanks largely to the $13 trillion Wall Street bailout – while keeping the debt overhead in place for America’s “bottom 98%” – this happy 2% of the population now receives an estimated three quarters (~75%) of the returns to wealth (interest, dividends, rent and capital gains).

We are dealing with shameless demagogy. The financial End Time has arrived, but Mr. Obama’s happy-talk pretends that “two years” will get us through the current debt-induced depression. The Republican plan is to make more Congressional and Senate gains in 2012 as Mr. Obama’s former supporters “vote with their backsides” and stay home, as they did earlier this month. So “two years” means forever in politician-talk. Why vote for a politician who promises “change” but is merely an exclamation mark for the Bush-Cheney policies from Afghanistan and Iraq to Wall Street’s Democratic Leadership Council on the party’s right wing? One of its leaders, after all, was Mr. Obama’s Senate mentor, Joe Lieberman.

More on AlterNet

US veterans should voluntarily give up their disability benefits to help reduce the deficit

The Young Turks

Toronto turned into fortress for G8, G20 summits

Thousands of Canadian police threw a tight security net over eastern Ontario province Thursday as world leaders began arriving for key summits focused on economic recovery and development.

In one of the North American country's largest ever security operations, some 20,000 police have been deployed in the city of Toronto and the exclusive lakeside community of Huntsville, some 225 kilometers (140 miles) to the north.

Leaders from the Group of Eight leading economies will meet Friday in Huntsville, before joining up with other officials from the Group of 20 developed and emerging nations in Toronto on Saturday and Sunday.

In a huge operation, police combed Toronto's streets barricaded by wire fences and miles of concrete blocks, backed by overhead helicopters, with many schools and businesses closed, and the main Union Station partially shut down.

Local trains only were allowed to unload passengers, who arrived to find the platforms mostly deserted, and security personnel posted at every corner.

Protestors are planning days of demonstrations to focus attention on issues from the environment to the rights of indigenous peoples.

More on The Raw Story – CBC News

Also interesting: 2010 G8/G20 Summit: Upcoming Actions and Events on ActiveHistory.ca

Bilderberg 2010: How political and business leaders are going to save the world – in secret

Charlie Skelton says on his  Newsblog: I know this sounds peculiar, or at least it does to me, but this year's Bilderbloggings have quite commonly been met with outrage at the idea that we should submit Bilderberg to greater scrutiny. You hear people talk about the delegates at Bilderberg as their "leaders", and you see the delegates mythologised as the greatest and the best – whose benign Olympian machinations should progress untroubled by the interference of public and press. "Leaders" like the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, and the chairman of Kissinger Associates Inc.

I'm baffled to the point of punching tree trunks to witness the determination of some folk to throw themselves in front of these heads of corporations and presidents of banks and to wave their arms protectively, yelping: "Leave them alone! Let them strategise for the good of the world in peace! How could they possibly have a frank discussion with our politicians if we were privy to it? Stop this unseemly prying!" I mean, seriously. The day that Marcus Agius, chairman of Barclays, strategises for my good is the day he repays me the hundreds of pounds of bank charges he's been levying on me since my schooldays. The day that Peter Voser, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, sits around a table with the express concern of making the world a better, more beautiful place for all of us, is the day that my arse grows teeth and eats my hat.

Do this: Look at the list of participants and ask yourself one simple question: what's their bottom line?

Full story on Guardian.co.uk

Also see Bilderbergmeetings.org

Thai violence spreads after troops storm protest camp

Rioting and fires swept through Bangkok today after Thai troops stormed the fortified encampment of anti-government protesters, unleashing a wave of violence across the capital and other parts of the country.

At least five demonstrators and an Italian journalist were killed in the military operation, which provoked fierce resistance from the redshirts. Protesters set fire to buildings including the stock exchange and south-east Asia's second-biggest department store complex, and attacked newspaper offices and a television station.

Power was lost in the bustling Sukhumvit Road district, an area packed with tourists and wealthy residential complexes, hours after the army said the situation was under control

The Guardian – Video here

The Great American Bubble Machine

One of the Top Contributors to Obama’s election campaign was Goldman Sachs. OpenSecrets.org 

Bankers set for record bonuses on back of Goldman Sachs profits - Bankers at Goldman Sachs are on track for average pay packets of more than $770,000 (£475,000) this year after the investment bank astonished Wall Street and the City with barnstorming results yesterday.

Only days after Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, warned that very high City bonuses helped bankers to make reckless decisions that led to the credit crisis, big bonuses are back. Goldman, which employs 5,500 people in London, reported a spectacular recovery in profits to $3.4 billion in the three months to June and earmarked $6.65 billion for pay and bonuses.  Times Online

Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression. Rolling Stone (Further parts here)

David Icke "What is Money?"

Join the meeting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands by David Icke on September 19th 2009 and about ordering tickets from outside of The Netherlands, please follow the walkthrough on the ordering process!