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Gold Drops Most in 30 Years
by Stephen Lendman
It's getting hammered. In August 2011, it rose above $1,900 an ounce. It was an all-time high. At midday April 15, it was $1,364. It's a 28%+ decline.
Silver's also hit hard. In 2011, it exceeded $48 an ounce. It plunged to its midday April 15 $23.45 level. It's more than a 50% decline.
What's next for both metals remains to be seen. Volatility characterizes them. Major factors drive them.
Gold is a global thermometer. It reflects monetary, geopolitical and economic conditions. It's driven by supply and demand considerations.
It's the longstanding hedge against uncertainty. It's bought to do so against inflation, the declining value of fiat money, and disturbing global geopolitical conditions.
It has real value. It's the ultimate safe haven. It's been so for thousands of years. It's track record is unmatched. Views differ on what's happening now.
Final Push for a Canada-EU CETA and the Coming NAFTA-EU Free Trade Zone
By Dana Gabriel
Pressure is mounting on Canada to finish up a long-delayed trade deal with the EU. Despite outstanding issues that still must be settled, there is a final push to try and complete an agreement this summer. If both sides are able to secure a deal, it would lay the groundwork for the proposed U.S.-EU trade pact. There is the possibility that the U.S.-EU transatlantic trade talks could also include the other NAFTA partners and maybe even other countries. Mexico has already shown interest in joining and if Canada can’t put the final touches on their own agreement with the EU, they might also be part of the negotiations. This would facilitate plans for a coming NAFTA-EU free trade zone and the formation of a transatlantic economic union.
Hunger Striking for Liberation, Justice and Dignity
by Stephen Lendman
Samer Issawi's a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine activist. In April 2004, he was wrongfully arrested. He committed no crime.
He was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. In October 2011, he was released. He and over 1,000 other Palestinian political prisoners were freed. Israel did so in exchange for Gilad Shalit.
Harassment followed. Israel gave him no peace. He was arbitrarily detained numerous times. His sister Shireen said it was three or more times monthly. Each time he was harshly interrogated. He knew perhaps what was coming.
Venezuela: Post-Election Sour Grapes
by Stephen Lendman
Throughout his tenure, America's scoundrel media vilified Chavez relentlessly. They did so straightaway.
After his December 1998 election, New York Times Latin American correspondent Larry Roher, called him a "populist demagogue, an authoritarian….caudillo (strongman)." He lied saying so.
In death as in life, denunciation continued. Chavez was hemispheric villain number one. Independent leaders aren't tolerated. The threat of a good example concerns Washington and media scoundrels most. They go all-out against it.
Barack Obama – the 21st Century ‘Carpetbagger’ for the U.S. Power Elite
By Larry Pinkney
“Never be deceived that the rich will permit you to vote away their wealth.” –Lucy Parsons
“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.” –Albert Camus
The indefinite detention – NDAA signing, drone man Barack Obama is singularly the most insidious and hideous U.S. politician thus far in this 21st century. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – that he will not say or do in willing service to his corporate / military masters of the U.S power elite, at the horrible expense of everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people.
Barack Obama – the consummate political pimp, has taken the outrages against ordinary people by his predecessor George W. Bush, to a level unmatched in the history of this nation or of humankind as a whole. He has (without Congressional approval) militarily attacked sovereign nations in Africa and the ‘Middle East.’ He has shredded the U.S. Constitution with his draconian (NDAA) indefinite detention law and his obscene ‘Kill List.’ He is now, in 2013, in the process of dismantling Social Security for senior citizens, the disabled, the needy, and the future; after having already wiped out (in his first presidential term) the non-mandatory single payer universal health care option on behalf of his corporate pharmaceutical benefactors.
When the lady “not for turning”, turned
By Alan Hart
The news of the death of Britain’s Iron Lady, Baroness Thatcher, promoted me to recall my favourite story about her. In 1980, in the first of her three terms as prime minister, she said in a speech to her Conservative Party’s Conference: “You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning.” Because I was personally engaged with her at the time, I know that she performed her first U turn in her first 48 hours of being prime minister.
I had visited the exiled Shah of Iran and Queen Farah in Morocco. When I met with Farah she was alone and I could see she had been crying. I put a gentle arm around her shoulder and asked her what was wrong. (My relationship with Farah was very special because I had assisted her efforts to educate her husband about what was going wrong in Iran before the revolution). There was a handwritten letter on her desk. She picked it up. “This is not helpful,” she said.
Israeli Massacre of Deir Yassin
By Dr. Elias Akleh
The state of Israel was established and is sustained on the continuous perpetration of genocides, destruction of whole towns, land theft, home demolition, ethnic cleansing, and terror against Palestinians. The massacre of the Palestinian small town of Deir Yassin in 9th of April 1948; 65 years ago of this week, is just one typical massacre story that details Zionist Jewish Israeli savagery prescribed in their holy book, the Talmud.
Palestine at the time was under the British occupation (Mandate) that ended on 15th of May 1948. Until that time there was no Israeli government or Israeli army, rather Zionist Jewish militia groups financed and armed by World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency. The largest was the Haganah; a secret Jewish terrorist group armed and trained by officers from the British army. The Haganah, later, formed the backbone of the present Israeli army. Within the Haganah there was an elite striking force called the Palmach, who specialized in assassination, terror and demolition. There were also two other smaller underground terrorist groups; Itzel or Irgun founded by Se’ev Jabotinsky the head of the Jewish Zionist Organization, and Lehi or Stern founded by the Zionist terrorist Abraham Stern.
A Progressive’s View: Obama Doesn’t Much Care About the Public’s Welfare
Eric Zuesse
Barack Obama has proven, throughout his Presidency, that he cares little about the public’s welfare.
For example, Allen Frances noted, on April 12th, that Obama’s new federal budget devotes $235 million to creating a program hiring expensive mental health professionals to go into our schools so as to identify children who are likely to do crazy Adam-Lanza-type things, even though all scientific studies show that such a goal isn’t even nearly possible to achieve, given the present too-crude state of our current scientific knowledge of the actual precursors of such crazy behaviors as Lanza’s Newtown shootings. Clearly, Obama is proposing that $235 million waste in order to appeal to the NRA, which claims that guns aren’t the problem in such shootings, and that crazy people who need to be quarantined in advance are the problem – no matter that it simply cannot be done. In other words, Obama is attempting here to appeal to ignorant extremist right-wing gun-lovers, and he’s even proposing to use our tax-dollars for his futile political appeal to the far-right. He thereby signals that he accepts the NRA’s framing of the problem of these homicidal gun-outbursts. He not only weakens his own case, he uses our taxpayer money to do it. This is the type of “leader” he is: he confuses the public on important issues, by pandering to false conservative premises, and he thereby encourages the general public to accept those false premises, even while he also proposes some policies (such as reasonable gun-controls) that are based upon opposite (and scientifically sound) premises. So, even when he talks liberalism, he actually encourages conservatism, at a deeper level: the level of underlying assumptions.
Chavismo Wins
by Stephen Lendman
Venezuela's spirit of democracy lives. Celebratory fireworks followed Maduro's win. They were more subdued than last October. Chavez won then by 11 points.
Sunday's results were much closer than expected. Polls had Maduro way ahead. With 99.2% of the vote counted, his victory margin was 1.6%.
He'll be inaugurated on April 19. His term runs six years. He'll serve until January 2019. More on that below.
After his 2006 reelection, Chavez told supporters: "Today we gave another lesson in dignity to the imperialists. It is another defeat for the empire of Mr. Danger."
"Another defeat for the devil. We will never be a colony of the US again."
New York Times v. North Korea
by Stephen Lendman
The Times is America's unofficial ministry of information and propaganda. Daily managed news misinformation is featured.
Articles, commentaries and editorials are brazenly one-sided. Readers are systematically lied to. Fiction substitutes for facts. Information is carefully filtered. Dissent is marginalized.
When America goes to war or plans one, Times editors, correspondents and contributors march in lockstep. Independent leaders are denigrated. Democrats are called despots.
Rule of law principles don't matter. Democratic values are ignored. Imperial wars are called liberating ones. Mass murder, destruction and human misery go unreported. What's most important isn't explained.
Wealth, power and privilege alone matter. Wrong over right is endorsed. Patriotism means supporting what demands condemnation. America uber alles matters most.
The Times features hostile North Korean coverage. It's done so for decades. It's biased and irresponsible. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were vilified. So is Kim Jong Un. An April 13 report called him "young and defiant."
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