Feature: USA and Russia hold joint naval exercise Pacific Eagle 2007 in Amur Sea; yet another example of East-West convergence

The Pacific Eagle joint exercise consisting of US and Russian naval vessels is little more than public relations conducted in the name of diplomacy and does little to hide the fact that Russia is at the same time preparing for war against the USA and its naive allies in NATO/NORAD. On September 28 state-run Novosti reported:

Russia and U.S start joint naval exercise in the Amur Gulf
11:5528/ 09/ 2007

VLADIVOSTOK, September 28 (RIA Novosti) - The joint Russian-U.S. naval exercise Pacific Eagle 2007 started on Friday in the Amur Gulf, near Vladivostok, the Pacific Fleet press office announced.

The exercise will include mine-sweeping and anti-submarine operations, the mock interception of a vessel trespassing in territorial waters and a sea-rescue operation, said a spokesman.

The USS Lassen (DDG 82), an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer; and the USS Patriot (MCM 7), a minesweeper, will participate in the drill.

Russia is represented by the Admiral Panteleyev, an Udaloy-class destroyer, a BT-100 minesweeper, a GS-84 survey vessel, and a RB-326 towboat.

The exercise, which is to run until September 30, will be followed by a memorial ceremony in honor of the crews of two submarines - the Soviet L-19 and the American Wahoo - killed in WWII.

The naval exercise is the third meeting of American and Russian sailors this year.

NATO's Partnership for Peace program and Open Spirit exercises, which include Russia, and the US-Russian Torgau 2007 war game in Germany are other examples of East-West convergence that advance the Soviet deception of a benign "non"-communist Russia, compromises Western political, military, and intelligence leaders, and enables the Russians to inspect from close range Western military equipment and operations. In short, joint US-Russian military exercises are a tea party compared to the massive Sino-Soviet "Peace Mission" exercises held in August of 2005 and 2007.

The "collapse" of communism in Eastern Europe has been a marvellously successful ruse that has completedly blinded the North Atlantic Alliance, per KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn's warnings in New Lies for Old (1984). During a July 18, 2007 news briefing, NATO spokesentity James Appathurai offered the following responses to a journalist's questions on two issues, Russia's moratorium on the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and the various attempts by Russian strategic bombers to probe Western European airspace that month:

Q: National News Agency of Ukraine. James, two questions in fact. Have not(?) NATO noticed the... such a case with Russia bombers approaching to British air space and what was the NATO reaction on that?

APPATHURAI: Thank you. I have seen the same reports on the bombers but I have only seen reports I have not seen anything... I've only seen press reports, nothing official. I am not aware of any NATO involvement in this issue. I would suggest that you direct any further inquiries to the U.K. Ministry of Defence.

Q: On CFE then, where does this leave NATO at this stage? I mean, the Russian announcement, what's your take on it and would it make a difference to the way NATO views the situation on the Russian border, for example? Thank you.

APPATHURAI: First I don't think we should overdramatize this situation. I don't think we should overdramatize the effects on European security. It is an important treaty, we believe, because it sets limits on tanks, heavy artillery, combat aircraft and attack helicopters, so for that in terms of setting limits it's important, in terms of providing transparency it's important.

But I think we have to put it into a larger context in which NATO, NATO countries, and Russia are not enemies. We do not anticipate, and the Russians have been clear they do not intend to make major troop movements during this period of what they call suspension.

NATO's position follows that of the Kremlin's: Russia is no longer an enemy. So, why does NATO exist today? Neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin asked the same question recently when he exhorted the West to dispense with its "silly Atlantic solidarity."

USSR2 File: "Ex"-CPSU State Duma Deputy Speaker Baburin: Putin seeking presidency of Union State of Russia and Belarus after March 2008

For some months now there has been speculation among Kremlinologists as to President Vladimir Putin's plans after he steps down from that office in March 2008. Putin himself has alluded to the possibility that we will be involved in Russian politics behind the scenes after that date. In October 2006 the neo-Soviet tyrant declared: "Even having lost the powers and the levers of presidential power, and not tailoring the basic law according to my personal interests, I will manage to retain the most important thing that a person involved in politics must cherish — your trust. And using that, you and I will be able to exert influence on the life of our country and guarantee its development." USA Today reported: "Political analyst Olga Kryshtanovskaya said many of Putin's backers will remain in government after he leaves, ensuring that he will be able to affect policy in some form. 'Vladimir Putin will remain an important as well as influential figure ... because he will remain a member of this 'Politburo' which now is running the country,' she told Ekho Moskvy radio." Indeed.

Geopolitical analysts who study "post"-communist Russia according to the Golitsynian methodology will ask the question: "What new position has the collective leadership of the continuing Communist Party of the Soviet Union selected for Putin?" Communist-turned-nationalist deputy speaker of the State Duma Sergei Baburin (pictured above) suggests that the KGB dictator is angling for the presidency of the Union State of Russia and Belarus. Baburin was a member of the old CPSU between 1987 and 1991 and supported CPRF Chairman Gennady Zyuganov's presidential campaign in 1996. The Belarusian news source Naviny reports below:

Putin wants to head Union State, State Duma vice speaker says
September 5, 2007

Sergei Baburin, deputy speaker of the State Duma, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to become head of the Belarusian-Russian Union State. "Since I had serious meetings and serious talks on this matter with the Russian and Belarusian presidents I will dare to say that the ball is now in the Belarusian court as there are no political or organizational objections to this model, but the political decision has not yet been taken in Minsk," the deputy speaker of the Russian lower parliamentary house said in an interview with the Narodnoye Radio station on Monday. "I am talking about this for the first time because I am tired of waiting for the presidents to stop discussing this behind the scenes. If the presidents cannot cope with the matter, then the public should ask them."

Mr. Baburin said that the presidency over the Union State would help Mr. Putin to retain power following the next year's presidential vote when his second term in office was set to expire. He said that Mr. Putin had not yet used his potential in full.

Mr. Baburin went on to say that the Kremlin should cancel the coming parliamentary and presidential votes in Russia, hold a referendum on the Union State's Constitutional Act and vest Mr. Putin with powers of governing the Union State. He said that Alyaksandr Lukashenka could be vice president.

He added that the countries perhaps also should unite their parliaments into a single parliament of the Union State and only then, some time later, hold the Union State's parliamentary and presidential elections.

Pavel Lyohki, spokesman for the Belarusian leader, told BelaPAN that the statement was a personal opinion of the Russian MP.

"As a MP, Mr. Baburin may suggest and say everything what he may find appropriate," Mr. Lyohki said. "As far as I know, he is not the first who has talked about this. The state secretary of the Union State, Pavel Borodin, once suggested a similar thing."

He added that he was not aware of the opinion of either Mr. Lukashenka or his Russian counterpart about such a development.

Source: Naviny

The Union State of Russia and Belarus serves as a building block for the CPSU's next project, restoring the Soviet Union. Pavel Borodin, who faced charges of money laundering in Switzerland in 2001, has been Secretary General of the Union State since the previous year.

Meanwhile, yesterday former Soviet Tyrant Mikhail ("I'll Always Be a Communist") Gorbachev (now 76 years old) disingenuously warned Russians against re-embracing Stalinism: "We should remember those who suffered, because this [is] a lesson for all of us. We must squeeze Stalinism out of ourselves, not in single drops but by the glass or bucket. There are those saying Stalin's rule was the Golden Age, while (Nikita) Khrushchev's thaw was sheer utopia and (Leonid) Brezhnev's neo-Stalinism was the continuation of the Golden Age." While Gorby might have intended for Western analysts to understand this comment as a thinly veiled attack against Putinism, we have documented elsewhere of his unfailing support for the Russian president's policies. Gorby is pictured here at the Women's World Awards at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, October 14, 2006.

USA File: Yale's globalist Bush-Clinton dynasty controls White House since 1989, well-heeled GW supporters shifting allegiance to leftist Hillary

While we carefully avoid leftist/faux rightist New World Order conspiracymongering at this site, since this sort of propaganda follows the Kremlin line that "capitalism is evil," the Western capitalist elite are clearly interested in only expanding their own wealth and power at the expense of constitutional freedoms, economic prosperity for the middle class, and national sovereignty. Dirty deals with red regimes are business as usual for the internationalists, ever since American and European bankers sank their millions into the Bolshevik cause and assisted Leon Trotsky's return to Czarist Russia via steamship and sealed train across Imperial Germany. The Kissinger-Primakov "strategic vision group" that is secretly coordinating US-Russian bilateral relations is one aspect of that continuing elite-level manipulation of East-West convergence.

Since 1989 two powerful familes connected to that bastion of the Ivy League, Yale University, the Bushes and the Clintons, have controlled the White House, and covered the other's dirty laundry. George H.W. Bush is a Yale alumnus and member of that institution's senior secret society, Skull and Bones. Although his successor Bill Clinton does not belong to the "Brotherhood of Death," "Slick Willie" is also a Yale alumnus and left a body count from Little Rock to Fort Macy Park that warrants his inclusion in that nefarious crew. Clinton's successor and H.W.'s son G.W. is an alumnus of both Yale and Skull and Bones. Now G.W., with the tacit endorsement that we documented several days ago, appears to be handing the torch to Comrade Hillary Rodham Clinton, yet another Yale alumnus.

This conspiracy is not the product of hyperactive imaginations and hyperventilating tin foil hat wearers. Even Nancy Benac of the Associated Press has observed: "With Hillary Rodham Clinton hoping to tack another four or eight 'Clinton' years on to the Bush-Clinton-Bush presidential pattern that already has held sway for two decades, talk of Bush-Clinton fatigue is increasingly cropping up in the national political debate. The dominance of the two families in U.S. presidential politics is unprecedented." Pastor Chuck Baldwin makes the same observation below.

Pictured above and below: All in the families: The Bushes and the Clintons. With families like these, who needs enemies?

The Bush-Clinton Dynasty
by Chuck Baldwin
July 17, 2007

A news item appeared in the Financial Times last Friday that received little notice. However, the hidden story behind this report is much deeper and more complex. The FT report stated: "John Mack, Morgan Stanley's chief executive, is to invite senior staff to a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton on Monday [yesterday], in a pointed endorsement of the Democratic presidential hopeful from an important backer of President George W. Bush in 2004.

"Mrs. Clinton, a New York senator, is scheduled to appear at the fundraiser on the 41st floor of Morgan Stanley's headquarters in Times Square.

"The minimum donation for the event is $1000 per person but Mr. Mack urged those attending to give $4,600, the maximum for the 2008 presidential campaign.

"Mr. Mack surprised many on Wall Street in the spring when he said he and his wife, Christy, would support Mrs. Clinton's 2008 bid."

John Mack is not the first Bush supporter to jump on the Hillary bandwagon. Neither will he be the last.

That wealthy and influential supporters of G.W. Bush are now supporting Hillary Clinton only surprises those who have not been paying attention. For the rest of us, this is merely par for the course.

The Bushes and Clintons go way back. They have been fast friends for decades. Only a closely guarded media cover up has hidden this fact from the general public.

Pictured here: G.W. and Slick Willie. Political rivals? Not.

As you will recall, George H.W. Bush was President of the United States while William Jefferson Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. During this time, it was very common for the two families (along with G.W. Bush and Laura) to vacation together. This is well-known to those who are familiar with the two families.

Yet, the connection between the Bushes and Clintons is much deeper than simple friendship. They share a deep socio-political alliance as well.

Remember that it was President Bill Clinton who first proposed what came to be called the USA Patriot Act. Of course, he failed to convince a GOP Congress to approve the measure. However, G.W. Bush succeeded where Clinton failed. Remember, too, that it was President Bill Clinton who gave us NAFTA, something G.W. Bush has not only supported but expanded into the SPP and a burgeoning North American Community. Furthermore, both Bush and Clinton are major players in the push for amnesty for illegal aliens. And the list just goes on and on.

Face it folks: the Bushes and Clintons are political soul mates. Therefore, why should it be surprising that many Bush supporters are now working for the Hillary Clinton campaign?

To believe that the Bushes and Clintons are political and philosophical opponents is the height of absurdity. Both have the support and do the bidding of the international elite. Both families are imbedded in secret societies and globalist agendas. And mark my words, the Bushes will be working behind the scenes for a Hillary victory in 2008.

I will even be so bold as to say that the Bushes and Clintons are as close as America has gotten to a crime family dynasty. If you are brave at heart, do a little personal research into the connection between these two families and the CIA's infamous "extra curricular" C-130 flights to Central and South America originating in and out of Mena, Arkansas back in the '80's and early '90's.

Barack Obama needs to pray he doesn't get too close to the Democratic nomination. And the American people need to pray for a "Great Awakening," because another four or eight years of the Bush-Clinton dynasty might turn this once-great constitutional republic into just another banana republic.

Source: Chuck Baldwin Live

Latin America File: Neo-Sandinista Nicaragua makes good on promise of "unrestricted support" for Cuba: Ortega takes UN podium, blasts US embargo

Notwithstanding his pre-election self-portrayal as a "born again" revolutionary in good standing with the Catholic Church, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is in reality an unrepentant Marxist who immediately reforged political-military links with Moscow on the very day of his re-inauguration in January 2007. As we documented at the time former Russian Prime Minister and "ex"-CPSU member Sergei Stepashin attended that ceremony as President Vladimir Putin's personal envoy. In attendance too were the gloating leaders of Latin America's Red Axis, Comrades Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales.

In March we reported that the neo-Sandinista regime promised "unrestricted support" for the all-inclusive gulag paradise 90 miles south of Key West. Comandante Ortega is as good as his word--when it comes to the communist agenda, of course. During the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, according to Communist Party of Cuba organ Granma, Ortega took to the podium and lashed out at "global imperialist capitalism" and "The Empire" for its "brutal and inhumane" blockade of Cuba. Politicians who support openly communist regimes, like Cuba, are themselves communists.

Nicaragua supports Cuba in the face of U.S. attacks

NEW YORK, September 25 (PL).— President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua supported Cuba today after attacks by U.S. President George Bush at the United Nations and denounced the "brutal and inhumane" blockade imposed by Washington.

During his speech at the opening of the 62nd session of the UN General Assembly, the Sandinista leader indicated that Bush showed "a total lack of respect" in talking about Cuba while representing a system that had attempted to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro.

"They (Washington) have insisted on imposing the blockade against Cuba, while, for political and economic reasons, they have established links with other countries with which they supposedly disagree ideologically," he added.

At the beginning of his speech, the Nicaraguan leader recalled the victims of the economic, commercial and financial restrictions unilaterally imposed by the United States for more than 40 years.

Ortega likewise exposed the aggression in every shape and form suffered by the "heroic and noble Cuban people."

The Nicaraguan president also recalled during his comments the five Cuban men imprisoned in the United States since 1998 for opposing terrorism.

"I want to remember the five Cuban heroes imprisoned within the empire," the leader said in his speech during which he also castigated global imperialist capitalism and accused the U.S. government of representing the worst dictatorship in the history of humanity.

Source: Granma

MISSILE DAY ALERT: Russia to hold 308 "anti-terrorism" drills, cover for civil defense mobilization; Kremlin: We will destroy US space weapons

In light of this article from state-run Novosti, consider some dots: 1) More than 300 "anti-terrorism" drills will be carried out over the next three months. 2) Four drills will be held in each of Russia's 69 regions. 3) The drills will be held in "industrial, nuclear, health, and education facilities, places of public gathering, and at transport and energy facilities." 4) The announcement regarding these drills was made by the deputy head of the Russian Federation Federal Security Service (FSB/KGB). 5) The president/dictator of Russia is a die-hard Chekist/"ex"-communist. Russian strategic bombers are once again--after 15 years--on combat duty and probing Western airspace as of Vladimir Putin's August 17 announcement, issued in the presence of his allies in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Thinking outside of the box, the planned drills provide excellent cover for the national civilian mobilization that has thus far been implemented only on a piecemeal basis since Putin's ascent to power, but which is vital in advance of a strategic nuclear attack against the West. However, don't expect the shopping mall regimes to think outside of the box until after Missile Day. Have a nice day.

Russia to carry out 308 counter-terrorism drills this year
20:2427/ 09/ 2007

BAIKONUR, September 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's National Antiterrorist Committee will conduct 308 military exercises in the country by the end of this year, the head of the committee said Thursday.

"Each operational headquarters in Russian regions will hold two operational-tactical and two command-and-staff exercises," said Vladimir Bulavin, who is also deputy head of the Federal Security Service.

The exercises will be carried out on the sites of industrial, nuclear, health, and education facilities, places of public gathering, and at transport and energy facilities.

Special forces from Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus are currently engaged in joint counter-terrorism exercises at the Baikonur space center, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan. The exercises, being held for the seventh time, will be concluded on September 28.

Source: Novosti

The National Counterterrorism Committee mentioned above was organized in February 2006 by order of Putin and includes FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev, SVR Director Sergei Lebedev, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty views the new body with suspicion: "[T]he proposed new network -- regional counterterrorism commissions led by regional administration chiefs, territorial operative staffs led by territorial FSB heads -- bears considerable resemblance to the Soviet system, which had power in any given province concentrated in the hands of the local Communist Party secretary and the head of the regional KGB."

Our previous post on the joint Russian-Belarusian-Kazakh "anti-terrorist" drill underway at the Baikonur Cosmodrome can be viewed here.

The absorption of "post"-communist Eastern Europe into NATO, Washington's proposed missile defense deployments in Central Europe, its proposed US bases in the Balkans, its current war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its alleged plans to attack Iran provide Moscow with the pretext needed to launch a preemptive strike against the USA and its allies. The Kremlin has found yet another war drum to bang.

In October 2006, according to The Washington Post, US President George W. Bush "signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone 'hostile to U.S. interests.'" According to some analysts who monitor issues related to the militarization of space, like Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center: "The policy changes will reinforce international suspicions that the United States may seek to develop, test and deploy space weapons. The concerns are amplified by the administration's refusal to enter negotiations or even less formal discussions on the subject." Washington's alleged plans to establish space-based weapons platforms have raised the Kremlin's ire, as the article below reports.

Russia promises retaliation if weapons deployed in space
14:1727/ 09/ 2007

MOSCOW, September 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is ready to take appropriate measures if weapons are deployed in space, the commander of the Russian Space Forces said Thursday.

"Should any country deploy weapons in space, then the laws of armed warfare are such that retaliatory weapons are certain to appear," Col. Gen. Vladimir Popovkin said.

He said Russia and China have drafted an international declaration on the non-deployment of weapons in space and sent it to the UN.

"It is necessary to establish the rules of the game in space," he said, adding that the deployment of weapons in space could have unpredictable consequences, since such weapons are "very complex systems."

"A sizable war could break out," the commander said.

He said space must not be the sphere of interests of any one country.
"We do not want to fight in space, and we do not want to call the shots there either, but we will not permit any other country to do so," he said.

Popovkin also said that Russia has an integrated missile attack warning system, covering the country's entire territory.

Source: Novosti

In addition to state-run Novosti, Pravda, the organ of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union, opposes US plans to launch orbital weapons platforms:

Russia and China are determined to prohibit the deployment of offensive weapons in space. There is only one country in the world that has money and wish to launch missiles from space – the USA. It is an open secret that the USA will find ways to ignore all international agreements once the US administration has a goal that needs to be achieved. Many experts say that the George W. Bush’s administration prepares to launch defense programs in space.

USSR2 File: Kremlin's gold/foreign exchange reserves up, dollar down vis-a-vis ruble; US home foreclosures soar, PLA "zombies" take over 750,000 PCs

The neo-Soviet state continues to horde gold and foreign currency reserves in the event that a soft landing is needed following its preemptive military strike against the West. State-owned Kommersant Daily reports:

The gold/foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) grew to $422.5 billion as of September 21. The amount went up $1.6 billion, or 0.4 percent, vs. the previous indicator.

The gold/foreign exchange reserves in Russia stepped up $7.1 billion in the past three weeks and gained $8.7 billion (2.1 percent) during 20 working days. As a result, today’s amount is the absolute record in history of Russia and the Soviet Union.

So Russia has made another step towards the world leaders - China and Japan. China laid aside over $1.33 trillion; its reserves widened by $131 billion only in the second quarter. Japan has more than $914 billion in reserves. According to the 2008 Monetary and Credit Policy Guidelines promulgated by CBR, the gold/foreign exchange reserves of the country are estimated to add $114.9 billion in 2007.

Our last report on this subject was on September 20. It is no accident that the Moscow-Beijing Axis holds the largest volume of gold/foreign currency reserves. The Communist Bloc's "Unrestricted warfare" against the West requires innovation in economic warfare and the so-called "nuclear option" with respect to US treasuries. Meanwhile, the formerly "Almighty" US dollar slides against the haughty euro and the humble ruble. The same news source reports:

The U.S. dollar continues to suffer hefty losses vs. the ruble. The weighted average rate was 24.96 ruble/dollar in an hour and a half after the start of the special session, tomorrow settlement, i.e. the September 28 official rate could sink another 2 kopecks.

The U.S. dollar lost 6 kopecks on the next trading day, that is it depreciated 8 kopecks, or 0.3 percent, to Russian rubles during two days.The reason of dollar’s decline on MICEX could be the notable appreciation of euro on international stock exchanges. Nowadays, each euro costs roughly $1.4160, though the price was roughly $1.4125 on September 26. Of interest is that the U.S. currency depreciated on the MICEX unified trading session, when the sales weren’t significant in amount. As of 11:30 a.m., MSK, for instance, the commercial banks sold a bit more than $350 million.

U.S. dollar fell below the psychologically vital 25 rubles on September 24.

In the wake of the subprime mortgage meltdown in the USA, home foreclosures doubled last month versus August 2006. On September 18 the Toronto Star reported:

The number of home foreclosure filings reported in the U.S. last month more than doubled versus August 2006 and jumped 36 per cent from July, showing that many homeowners are increasingly unable to make timely payments on their mortgages amid a national housing slump.

A total of 243,947 foreclosure filings were reported in August, up 115 per cent from 113,300 in the same month a year ago, Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. said today.

There were 179,599 foreclosure filings reported in July.

In a not unrelated story, on September 17 the United Press International, citing a "former senior US information security official," reported that Chinese hackers have infected more than 750,000 personal computers in the USA with "zombies," or malicious software applications that unsuspecting users can download from email messages or websites. Zombies "infect computers at a very basic level, making them hard to find and root out, and they enable the hackers who wrote them to create large networks of 'slave' computers that can be used in massive, if unsophisticated, cyber attacks using a technique called Denial of Service, or DoS." The US Departments of Homeland Security and Energy conducted a mock cyberattack at the latter's Idaho labs in March 2007, after which researchers concluded that the US power grid remains vulnerable to hacking. In a September 26 story CNN quotes Applied Control Solutions employee Joe Weiss, who "hypothesizes that multiple, simultaneous cyber-attacks on key electric facilities could knock out power to a large geographic area for months, harming the nation's economy." If CNN knows this, then be assured that (government-employed) Russian and Chinese hackers do too.

With the crypto-Keynesian monetary policies of US Federal Reserve System Chairman Ben ("Bailout" aka "Helicopter Ben") Bernanke and a little cyberwarfare ala the People's Liberation Army, the next recession will be but a hop, skip, and a jump away.

Asia File: Myanmar's pro-Soviet military junta cracks down on monk-led protests, 9 killed in automatic weapons fire; first popular uprising since 1988

Published by Burmese exiles in Thailand, The Irrawaddy reports on today's massacre of civilians by Myanmar's pro-Soviet military junta. Story details: Security forces storm Buddhist monasteries. Hundreds of monks arrested. Hotel raided in search for video of crackdown. Japanese photojournalist died in confrontation between army and protesters. We last reported on the current uprising in Myanmar on Tuesday. Pictured here: Sandals abandoned by protesters in the streets of Yangon/Rangoon. The Myanmar army looks on.

Rangoon Under Siege
By The Irrawaddy September 27, 2007

Rangoon was covered with gunfire smoke on Thursday as security forces and armed military troops used an iron fist to disperse tens of thousands of demonstrators in the second day of the Burmese junta's crackdown on the largest democracy uprising in 20 years. State media reported Thursday evening that nine protesters were killed.

Witnesses in Rangoon believed that the death toll would be higher. Security forces attempted to disperse tens of thousands of people gathered near Sule Pagoda in Rangoon and South Okkalapa Township on Thursday afternoon, witnesses said. The report could not be independently confirmed. Scores of people were beaten by security forces.

Troops fired directly into protesting crowds, using automatic weapons on at least one occasion. Warning shots were also fired above the heads of protesters as an estimated 70,000 anti-government demonstrators braved the overpowering force of the troops and security forces.

Protesters were outraged at security forces following an overnight raid on at least three Buddhist monasteries. Soldiers reportedly beat up and arrested about 700 monks, who had spearheaded the largest challenge to the junta since a failed democracy uprising 19 years ago. One monk reportedly died.

The Japanese Embassy reported on Thursday evening that a Japanese photojournalist died in the gunfire. Pictures released on the Internet show the journalist lying on his back in the street with one hand raised up holding his camera. A soldier wearing flip flops is pointing his rifle at the journalist. A second photograph shows the journalist's face contorted and his arm now rests on the ground, apparently shot a second time at point blank range. The photojournalist was Kanji Nagai, 51, according to the Japanese video news agency APF News.

It is believed that security forces issued a 10-minute warning to the pro-democracy demonstrators to disperse from the area around Sule Pagodas or face "extreme action."

The gunfire came on the second day of a bloody crackdown that began on Wednesday when five monks died from gunfire or were beaten to death by security forces.

In other news, a number of foreign ambassadors are reportedly now in Naypyidawto discuss the junta's actions during the crackdown. Some Western governments are said to be considering pulling their embassies out of Burma to protest against the military government's actions.

A spokesman for the monks told the international media on Thursday they are demanding the junta lower fuel prices, release Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and begin a real dialogue with the democratic opposition leaders in the country. Similar demands have been made by many countries and organizations in the recent past.

Overnight, more monks were surrounded and attacked in at least three monasteries. One monk reportedly died and many were beaten. The hallways and rooms of one monastery were splattered with blood. An estimated 700 monks were taken away by security forces.

Thousands of protesters who were dispersed when soldiers fired into the demonstrators near the center of Rangoon on Thursday regathered and then walked to Tamwe Township in eastern Rangoon, a protester told The Irrawaddy. He said most of the protesters were determined to continue the demonstrations despite the danger. After troops fired on the crowd, about 100 people were arrested and taken away.

Later in the day, protesters reached Tamwe Township where they were again confronted by security forces who surrounded the protestors and fired into the crowd.

A short while later, bloggers and e-mail reports said that military vehicles were driving through the town firing randomly into peaceful crowds, apparently in an effort to spark terror throughout the city.

Soldiers also entered Traders Hotel situated in the heart of Rangoon near Sule pagoda on Thursday afternoon and searched it room by room, according to sources. It was thought the soldiers were searching for foreign journalists suspected of capturing video from a hotel room and reporting clandestinely on the crackdown to international media.

At least three monasteries were stormed under gunfire by troops and riot police early Thursday morning, reportedly killing one monk and injuring many others. Only monastery sick-bay patients were left alone as the monks were beaten, kicked and forced out of the monasteries and into waiting vehicles. It was not known where they were taken.

In South Okkalapa Township, one center of resistance in the 1988 popular uprising, tens of thousands of angry residents besieged security forces guarding New Kyar Yan monastery. The monastery was broken into by troops and riot police during the night and around 200 monks beaten and arrested.

“The troops are deploying themselves as if for action,” an eyewitness told The Irrawaddy.

An army truck broke down the main gate of Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery in the early hours of Thursday morning and warning shots were fired as the monks were rounded up, a local welfare worker told The Irrawaddy.

"The whole compound of the monastery is chaotic. Windows were smashed, bullet casings littered the ground, and blood stained the concrete floor," he said.

Five hundred monks were arrested after security forces broke forcibly into Mogaung monastery in Yankin Township, one eyewitness said.

Some who avoided arrest returned after daybreak, bleeding from wounds to their shaven heads. A few said they had got away by climbing into trees around the monastery.

Maggin monastery in western Rangoon, where HIV patients are cared for was also raided. Witnesses said that soldiers and riot police stormed in, beating up and hauling away four monks, including the abbot and four people caring for HIV patients. Burma’s monasteries are hotbeds of the pro-democracy movement. The current raids seem to be in an apparent attempt to prevent further demonstrations, which have been spearheaded by the Buddhist monks.

The security forces fired at protesters for the first time on Wednesday in street protests that have grown over the past month into the biggest demonstrations against Burma's military rulers since 1988.

Source: The Irrawaddy News Magazine

USSR2 File: Zyuganov denounces (fellow communist) Putin, United Russia: "President has more power than Pharaoh, Tsar, and old CPSU leader"

Earlier this week we reported on last Saturday's congress of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union. Russian reds are in an optimistic mood with respect to increasing their representation in the State Duma vis-a-vis the crypto-Stalinist United Russia party that supports ("ex"-communist) President Vladimir Putin. On that occasion, CPRF Chairman Zyuganov took off the gloves and came out swinging against the Putinist-Chekist-Gryzlovist-Surkovist regime which, per KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn's warnings, serves as a potemkin placeholder for the Not-So-Former Soviet Union's hidden masters, the continuing/restored CPSU.

We have documented how in 1990 during the 28th congress of the old CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev urged communists to create a multi-party system that would facilitate both the restructuring ("perestroika") of the Soviet political system and the deception of the West. We have documented the fact that "ex"-communists and "ex"-KGB/GRU types dominate the leadership of Russia's "non"-communist parties, including United Russia. There is no new "post"-communist political elite in Russia that is not in some way connected to the old Soviet regime. Now the CPRF/SU is accusing its creation United Russia of using the same strategy, namely, building fake parties to siphon off votes from the communists. Zyuganov stated this week that he expects his party to obtain as much as 35% of the popular vote, although one polling agency suggests 18%.

Pictured above: Chairman Zyuganov and old friend.

Communist Leader Calls Putin a Tsar and Pharoah
Issue #1309 (75), Tuesday, September 25, 2007
By Francesca Mereu
Staff Writer

OSKOVSKY, Moscow Region — Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov took aim at President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power at a party congress Saturday and ridiculed the chances of “artificial parties” to bleed votes away from his party.

Zyuganov told about 300 delegates gathered at the Scientific Methodological Center in the former state-farm town of Moskovsky, 20 kilometers south of Moscow, that Putin had gathered enormous power in his hands.

“[Putin] has more power today than the pharaoh in Egypt, the tsar and the Soviet Union’s general secretary had combined,” Zyuganov said.

With the latest polls suggesting that his party was headed for a better showing than in the last State Duma elections, in 2003, Zyuganov told delegates that the Kremlin-backed socialist party, A Just Russia, would not succeed in taking votes from the Communist Party, or KPRF.

“The difference between us and them is that we are a real party. Someone in the Kremlin wants us to get only 14 percent,” said Zyuganov, whose party’s 162,000 members make it the country’s second largest, after United Russia.

“Look at [A Just Russia]. What can it do for the country?” he said. “The party doesn’t offer even a hint of socialism. There is more socialism in capitalist France than in their program.”

A Levada Center poll conducted last week showed the Communists with the support of 18 percent of decided voters ahead of the Dec. 2 Duma vote, trailing only pro-Kremlin United Russia party, which had 55 percent.

The nationalist Liberal Democratic Party was running third at 11 percent, while A Just Russia was at 7 percent, the cutoff point for parties to make it into the Duma.

The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent. The percentage of undecided voters was not given.

Zyuganov said his party was attracting new supporters as voters became tired of unfulfilled promises from United Russia, “the party of the rich.”

The congress opened with a concert featuring musicians in Russian folk costumes. Stalin and the October Revolution were common themes in the music, which was played against a backdrop of ubiquitous red flags.

“Let’s vote for the KPRF, let’s pick the KPRF for the next Duma,” a tanned Zyuganov sang to the tune of the patriotic song “Proshchaniye Slavyanki” — the Slavic woman’s farewell.

The congress almost unanimously approved Zyuganov, Nobel laureate physicist Zhores Alfyorov and retired FSB colonel Nikolai Kharitonov, a deputy in the current Duma, to head up the party’s national election list.

“I represent Moscow, Alfyorov — St. Petersburg, and Kharitonov — the Far East,” Zyuganov said.

Zyuganov pointed out that neither Kharitonov, a former presidential candidate, nor Alfyorov was a party member.

One deputy leader, Ivan Melnikov, will head up the party list in Moscow, while another, Vladimir Kashin, will occupy the top spot for the Moscow region. Former cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya will head the party list for St. Petersburg.

Source: The St. Petersburg Times

Latin America File: Regional media cites Mexican intelligence: Chavez financing Popular Revolutionary Army; Zapatistas hail Epristas

The fact that Venezuela's neo-communist regime is financing the Popular Revolutionary Army in Mexico, with the intent of overthrowing the pro-Washington "neo-liberal" (capitalist) regime of President Felipe Calderon has yet to cause a blip in the English-language media of North America. Nevertheless, Spanish-language media sources, citing Mexican intelligence reports, have confirmed what we have been reporting for many months. The Epristas claim responsibility for bombing pipelines owned by state-run Pemex in July and earlier this month.

Venezuela's socialist dictatorship has in the last nine years become an integral component of Latin America's Red Axis--along with Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Brazil, Ecuador, and Argentina--and the Communist Bloc, overseen by the Moscow-Beijing Axis. We have reported on several occasions of the (not-so-coincidental?) presence of Gennady Zyuganov, chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union, in Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela in April 2007. According to the CPRF website, Chairman Zyuganov planned to meet Pretender President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador during the Mexican leg of his trip. The websites of the Communist Parties of Cuba and Venezuela reported that Comrade Gennady met with Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro in Havana and the leadership of the pro-Chavez PCV in Caracas. Chairman Zyuganov's Latin America tour occurred about three months before the EPR, after a decade-long hiatus, resumed its campaign of violence against Mexico City. In June Chavez visited Russia, where he met the neo-Soviet state's putative head, President Putin, and Zyuagnov who, along with the collective leadership of the CPRF/SU, governs "post"-communist Russia.

We have previously speculated that the acquisition of 100,000 Kalashnikov automatic rifles by Caracas from Moscow, as well as a contract to build a Kalashnikov assembly plant in Venezuela, could be a means by which Chavez supports the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, with which the Venezuelan is semi-clandestinely allied. In view of the revelations in the article below, it might be the case that some of these Russian-built weapons, with a little behind-the-scenes encouragement from President Putin and colleague Zyuganov, will also wind up in the hands of Mexico's Epristas. During the First Cold War (1945-1991) this was called "exporting revolution."

The source below was translated from the Peruvian website Correo. The original press report can be found at Rumbo de Mexico.

Group that blew up gas ducts in Mexico financed by Chavez:
Attacks against PEMEX attributed to Popular Revolutionary Army
September 11, 2007

The subversive group [known as the] Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), which claimed responsibility yesterday for the attacks against six gas pipelines of Mexican State Petroleum (PEMEX), is financed by the government of Hugo Chávez, according to a press report based on the Mexican intelligence service. "We assume responsibility for the explosions of the PEMEX pipelines in Veracruz and Tlaxcala that happened Monday with the intent of locating and liberating our companions Edmundo Kings Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cross Sanchez, who disappeared on May 25,” indicated an official notice of the EPR. That was the same reason used in July when the EPR vindicated the attacks to other gas pipelines of the company. The group threatened to continue the attacks until its demand is addressed and described President Felipe Calderón as a hypocrite, fascist and illegitimate.

Socialist endorsement

The EPR is financed by the government of Venezuela through the "Mexican Bolivarian Movement" (MMB), according to a report published by the daily Course of Mexico and based on reports from the intelligence agency of the Federal Government. The information was first published several weeks ago under the title “The Networks of Hugo Chávez in Mexico” and details how this and other subversive groups were formed and armed in 2001.

The EPR is reportedly the most important such group because it has received the most economic support, material, and of armament. In 2005 agents detected a secured container in the port of Veracruz that contained several hundreds of AK-47 guns, which were sent by means of “triangulation” through different countries and addresses that were in fact controlled by the EPR. Also, the entrance of armaments through the border with Guatemala was discovered. These weapons were then distributed between the cells of the EPR in Veracruz, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán, Hidalgo, State of Mexico and Federal District. In addition, that same year Lark Durán Oviedo, a well-known activist of the Continental Bolivarian Coordination, which is a cell of the MMB, was stopped in Canada by intelligence agents. In his suitcase they found documents of the EPR, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a manual of the Bolivarian Army, as well as documents pertaining to the operations of the guerrillas and instructions for the manufacture of homemade explosive devices.

The EPR made its public appearance in 1996 in the state of Guerrero, where at the present it maintains troops, and has extended its influence into Oaxaca and some municipalities of the state of Chiapas, where it operates with the EZLN, led by the Subcomandate Marcos.

Source: Correo

Meanwhile, the media-savvy Zapatistas have released a communique sympathizing with the EPR's pipeline bombings in July and on September 10.

Rebels support attackers of Mexican oil pipelines
Zapatistas say effort by the People's Revolutionary Army to free two imprisoned members is justified
By Lisa J. Adams
ASSOCIATED PRESSArticle Launched: 09/25/2007 03:04:11 AM PDT

MEXICO CITY -- A Mexican rebel group that waged a short-lived armed struggle against the government 13 years ago issued a declaration Monday in support of a Marxist group responsible for recent attacks on the country's oil and gas pipelines.

The Zapatista National Liberation Army did not explicitly condone the Sept. 10 and July 11 attacks, which temporarily cut the delivery of gas and oil and cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars.

But it said the demand of the so-called People's Revolutionary Army that the government release two of its imprisoned members "is not only legitimate, it is also a complaint against the dirty war being revived by that lover of military uniforms, (President) Felipe Calderon."

The statement was posted on the Zapatistas' Web site and sent to news media outlets in Mexico on Sunday. It could not be independently verified.

Calderon's office did not immediately issue a response.

The People's Revolutionary Army, or EPR, a secretive Marxist group that killed dozens of police and soldiers in the late 1990s, has claimed responsibility for two separate, multipronged attacks on pipelines operated by the state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.

The EPR, which has been largely inactive in recent years, also threatened to carry out additional attacks until authorities release two rebels they believe are in government custody.

The government has denied holding the men, and Attorney General Eduardo Medina has suggested that they may have fallen victim to internal divisions within the guerrilla movement.

The Zapatista National Liberation Army, known by its Spanish acronym EZLN, seized the main city of San Cristobal de las Casas and other Chiapas communities in the name of socialism and Indian rights on Jan. 1, 1994. A cease-fire ended fighting between rebels and government forces after a few days, and the two sides have since maintained an uneasy truce.

The Zapatistas are led by Subcomandante Marcos, a ski-masked man whom the government has identified as a former professor. Marcos, believed to still be holed up in the jungle, now advocates a quieter social revolution while issuing occasional missives harshly critical of Mexico's politicians and government policies.

In their statement Sunday, the Zapatistas emphasized their "civil and pacifist" methods, which have included the establishment of autonomous regional Indian governments.

The EPR and other revolutionary groups in Mexico "are organizations with which we have our differences in terms of formation, structure, method, analysis and history, but which we recognize and respect," the statement said.

The Zapatistas added that they would cancel a planned upcoming visit to Mexico's southern and central states -- not because of any threats from the EPR but because "the military government of Felipe Calderon could mount an attack and later try to blame it on the EPR."

Source: ContraCostaTimes.com

And thus the Bolivarian Revolution has insinuated its way, with no comment by the errant Bush Admin, almost to the poorly defended US-Mexican border.

Meanwhile, the US Congress has finally taken notice of the plans by the White House, in collaboration with counterparts in the Canadian and Mexican governments, to erect an EU-style North American regime, with no effective internal borders, on the foundation of NAFTA. On September 25 World Net Daily reported that "A House resolution urging President Bush 'not to go forward with the North American Union or the NAFTA Superhighway system' is – according to its sponsor Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., in an exclusive WND interview – 'also a message to both the executive branch and the legislative branch.'" The story continues:

As WND previously reported, on Jan. 22 Goode introduced H.C.R. 40, titled "Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System or enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada." The bill has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

The motivation for the proposed NAU, Rep. Goode insists, is greed at the expense of real sovereignty and real security: "The Virginia congressman said he believes the motivation behind the movement toward North American integration is the anticipated profits the large multinational corporations in each of the three countries expect to make from global trade, especially moving production to China."

Speaking of China, it is worth observing that Beijing front company Hutchison-Whampoa, which controls the Panama Canal, manages the port facilities at Veracruz, where--as the first article above notes--authorities in 2005 seized assault rifles destined for the Popular Revolutionary Army. The Hutchison-Whampoa website for its Veracruz operation informs us benignly: "Internacional de Contenedores Asociados de Veracruz (ICAVE) is located at the Port of Veracruz on the eastern coast of Mexico. ICAVE comprises 42 hectares of yard and a quay length of more than 500 metres. In addition to facilities for handling containers, bulk and general cargo, ICAVE is equipped with a container freight station, intermodal station, and empty container depot and repair facilities." This would not be the first time that Chinese companies have been involved in the shipment and/or storing of arms in the Western Hemisphere.

USSR2 File: Voice of Russia accuses USA of aspiring to "world domination"; Russia, Belarus hold "anti-terrorist" exercise at Baikonur Cosmodrome

The state-run media in Russia does not hesitate to portray the USA in a bad light, specifically as an obstacle to the establishment of a "multipolar" world order, meaning a federation of communist states dominated by the Moscow-Beijing Axis and encompassing, among other neo-/paleo-/crypto-communist blocs, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the European Union, the new Union of South American Nations. The Voice of Russia editorializes:

The ongoing UN General Assembly session in New York has shown that the world moves towards multipolar order.

The question of multipolarity has not been raised, of course. But the corner stone of addresses by many leaders who made speeches to the session has been the need for coordinating efforts by the international community to solve issues facing mankind.

For one, US President George W. Bush who has never made it secret the country’s claim for world domination urged the United Nations to support for liberating people from tyranny and violence. The topic of human rights and freedoms in world politics ran throughout his speech. The US President expressed dissatisfaction over the action by the authorities of Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Iran and Myanmar. At the same time he praised nations that have recently taken strides towards liberty, including Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and several African states. George W. Bush preferred not to broach the Iraq war that has provoked reprimands in the country and elsewhere in the world.

In another editorial, Voice of Russia warns of NATO expansionism as a "US plan" for "splitting" the world into groups of hostile countries. The Kremlin mouthpiece, moreover, resuscitates the old communist codeword for the destruction of the capitalist countries by convergence, "peaceful coexistence."

The continuation of NATO expansion is undoubtedly an alarming and dangerous idea that could split the world into groups of countries that oppose each other. As for Russia, it does not involve in any holy alliances. On the contrary, it considers the search for consent among various countries and civilizations as its task. Its foreign policy is based on the achieving balance in international affairs. This is based on peaceful coexistence, international law, collective security and political and diplomatic settlement to conflicts.

Meanwhile, the Communist Bloc prepares to "dethrone" the USA from its "hegemonic" role in the so-called "unipolar" "post"-Cold War era by preparing for war under the rubric of "anti-terrorist" exercises which, we can state without exaggeration, are a monthly occurence in the Not-So-Former Soviet Union. As we reported in August, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) are presently holding a drill at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Voice of Russia reports: "Antiterrorist exercises of the member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States are underway at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The special services of these countries prepare for repulsing an attack on vital facilities of the cosmodrome by terrorists, said deputy director of Russia’s Federal Security Service, General Vladimir Bulavin. According to General Bulavin, special forces work out methods for neutralizing terrorists and freeing hostages."

Pictured above: Proton Launch Vehicle, Site 200, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Photo taken in 2004.

Feature: Kissinger-Primakov "strategic vision group" to coordinate US-Russian relations in 2nd meeting, Bush falls for KGB dictator's false friendship

In April we reported that former US Secretary of State and alleged Soviet agent "Bor" Henry Kissinger and former KGB/SVR Director and Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov organized a secretive group to coordinate bilateral relations between the USA and the neo-Soviet state. In July this group, consisting in part of poweful US globalists, convened for the first time in a closed-door session at Russian President Vladimir Putin's private residence near Moscow. In our second report we speculated: "One is hard pressed to understand how a secretive working group moderated by an alleged Soviet agent and a former head of the KGB can promote the national security interests of the USA vis-a-vis the Not-So-Former Soviet Union. The success of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's long-range strategy for the conquest of the West, with or without war, is apparent."

Today state-run Voice of Russia reports that the Kissinger-Primakov "strategic vision group" will meet again in January 2008: "Next January should see the second meeting of a Russia-US strategic vision group, established last spring by the former Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov and the former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The former Russian Ambassador to the US Yuli Vorontsov told this to the Carnegie Endowment Wednesday at a Moscow conference on the 200th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries." Intriguingly, the report concludes: "Speakers called on leaders on both sides to tone down bilateral rhetoric ahead of elections in this country and the United States."

After 16 years of "playing dead," the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union is seeking open power during the December 2007 and March 2008 elections, while the communist-infiltrated US Democratic Party and its "Manchurian Candidate" Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton are seeking to oust the Republicans from the White House in November 2008. Meanwhile, a burgeoning global economic crisis presages the resurrection of Marxism and the Kremlin has resumed strategic bomber patrols 24/7 and is probing Western airspace under the guise of exercises.

As the Soviets and their treasonous allies in the West continue to manipulate White House policy behind the scenes, the West should not expect US President George W. Bush to take a forceful stand against the unfolding restoration of the Soviet Union. At the end of their first summit meeting in Slovenia in June 2001, Bush said of Putin: "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul. He's a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that's the beginning of a very constructive relationship." Indeed, Putin is "deeply committed" to his country, especially with respect to resurrecting the despotism of its Soviet legacy.

If crypto-Marxist Senator Clinton wins the presidential election, then Americans have even fewer reasons to believe that their government will defend them against Moscow's nuclear blackmail. President Bush, as we documented two days ago, has himself admitted that Comrade Hillary will probably take the Democratic nomination and put up a "tough race" for the Republican candidate. With this commendation are the Bushes reciprocating a favor for the Clintons? According to Terry Reed in Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA, which American geopolitical analyst Jeff Nyquist cites in The Origins of the Fourth World War, the criminal connections between the two dynasties extend back to the tangled web of deceit surrounding the Iran-Contra Scandal.

Asia File: Buddhist monks protest Myanmar's socialist military dictatorship, dissident Aung San Suu Kyi transferred from home to prison

Nearly 100,000 Burmese, including 30,000 Buddhist monks, marched through the streets of Myanmar's capital Rangoon today, in defiance of the country's 45-year-old, pro-Soviet socialist military dictatorship. The report below is published by The Irrawaddy News Magazine, the editors of which live in exile in neighboring Thailand.

Top Brass Reportedly Meets as Mass Protests Continue
By Saw Yan Naing
September 25, 2007

Mass demonstrations continued across Burma on Tuesday, as junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe was reported to have summoned military commanders to an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis.

Soldiers eye on protesting monks from behind barricades in Rangoon on September 25Following an eighth day of demonstrations in Rangoon, around a dozen trucks carrying armed troops and police were seen heading into the heart of the city, taking up positions around the City Hall.

About 30,000 monks and 70,000 members of the public marched through downtown Rangoon on Tuesday, ignoring warnings by the regime that legal action would be taken against demonstrators. Loudspeaker vehicles toured the streets broadcasting the warning, as crowds headed for the Shwedagon Pagoda for the start of a mass procession to the Sule Pagoda in the city center.

The demonstration passed off peacefully, although The Associated Press reported that five truckloads of troops were seen heading downtown after the procession had ended.

About 200 members of the opposition National League for Democracy took part in the demonstration, together with members of the All Burma Federation of Students’ Unions. The students waved the "fighting peacock” flag, a symbol of their struggle against the military regime.

The NLD issued a statement on Tuesday supporting the monks and calling for a start to a process of national reconciliation.

A joint statement issued on Tuesday by the Alliance of All Burma Buddhist Monks and the 88-Generation Students group urged the public to join monks in calling for national reconciliation, the release of all political prisoners and an improvement in the living standards of the people.
The monks and their supporters would not yield before threats of a military crackdown, the statement said.

A separate statement issued on Tuesday by the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament in Burma called for even greater pressure on the regime to establish democracy in the country. The statement urged younger people and students to throw their support behind the protest movement.

Monks and their supporters also continued their protests in other cities and towns across the country.

In Mandalay, Burma’s traditional center of Buddhism, about 10,000 monks marched through the city. Demonstrations were also held in Mon, Arakan and Kachin states.

The Alliance of All Burma Buddhist Monks said that more than 300,000 monks had turned out in nationwide protests on Monday—conflicting with a claim by the regime that only 2 percent of Burma’s 400,000 monks were taking part in the demonstrations.

Source: The Irrawaddy News Magazine

The same source reports that "Detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was moved to the notorious Insein prison from her Rangoon lakeside home at University Avenue." Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of the National League for Democracy, the leading force in Burma's government in exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which is based in the USA. Aung San Suu Kyi has live under house arrest on several occasions, most recently since 2000. We consider Aung San Suu Kyi to be a crypto-communist in view of the fact that her father General Aung San co-founded the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), which maintains a state of insurgency against the military junta, itself founded by "ex"-communists. The apple, an old axiom runs, rarely falls far from the tree. The Communist Party of Australia's website archives contain an article published by The Guardian in 2002 that notes this connection: "While today, Aung San Su Kyi plays down her family's radical past, Aung San was in fact the first general secretary of the CPB at its foundation congress in 1939. An uncle on her mother's side was a later general secretary of the CPB."

In our Red World profile of Myanmar (May 2006), moreover, we reported:

There is evidence to indicate that the NLD is a front for the CPB, although the NLD leadership has protested that such assertions are merely propaganda emanating from the military junta. First, Suu Kyi is the daughter of General Aung San who, as noted above, was the first General Secretary of the CPB. Second, Suu Kyi has admitted that some of her advisers are “former” members of the CPB. Third, the name and flag of the NLD are evocative of a communist front organization.

Although Moscow has found a reliable ally in Myanmar's military junta, if the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma eventually assumes power, then there is little reason to believe that the country will forsake the Communist Bloc.

Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russia, India kick off joint antiterrorism drill; New Delhi accounts for 40% of Moscow's arms exports

India already belongs to the informal "BRIC" alliance, which also consists of crypto-communist Russia, communist China, and communist Brazil. Moscow, moreover, is wooing New Delhi into the fold of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which embodies the Moscow-Beijing Axis, while Maoist guerrillas terrorize one third of Indian territory and communists hold the balance of power in the Indian parliament. State-run Novosti reports that "Russia's military cooperation with India goes back nearly half a century, and the Asian country accounts for about 40% of Russian arms exports." India is well and truly part of the Communist Bloc. "Anti-terrorism" drills are the rubric under which the communist states prepare for war against the West.

Russia, India to start active phase of joint antiterrorism drill
14:2816/ 09/ 2007

MOSCOW, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russian and Indian airborne troops will begin on Sunday the active phase of INDRA-2007 joint counter-terrorism exercises in northwest Russia's Pskov Region.

Colonel Alexander Cherednik, a spokesman for the Russian Airborne Troops, said the active phase, set to run until September 18, would start with an airborne assault.

Over 160 Indian Airborne Troops arrived in the Pskov Region on September 11 for the drills. Russia and India have held the exercises every two years since 2003. The last drills were held in the western deserts of India.

INDRA-2007, which will focus on the detection and elimination of armed terrorist groups, will end on September 20.

Russia's military cooperation with India goes back nearly half a century, and the Asian country accounts for about 40% of Russian arms exports.

Source: Novosti

Russian State-Run Media Acknowledges Existence of "BRIC" Alliance

A debate exists among scholars as to whether or not BRIC really exists. This alliance, however, is recognized in Russia's state-run media. On September 25 Interfax reported:

BRIC foreign ministers to meet in Moscow in spring - ministry

Sep 25 2007 11:46AM

MOSCOW. Sept 25 (Interfax) - The foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) will meet in Moscow in spring 2008, the Russian Foreign Ministry reports.

"The next ministerial meeting will be held in Moscow in spring 2008 at the invitation of the Russian side," a statement issued by the ministry on Tuesday reads.

On Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attended a ministerial meeting of the BRIC group on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session in New York.

"It was agreed to continue four-way contacts at various levels, including representatives of the four countries at international organizations, expanding the agenda of the debates and seeking ways to coordinate and interact on specific issues," the statement reads.

In an interview with state-run Itar-Tass, Prabhat Shukla, India's ambassador to Russia, reveals the depth and duration of the strategic partnership between the two countries, as well as India's interest in formally joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization:

QUESTION: Your appointment takes place on the eve of the year of Russia in India. What role will the Indian Embassy in Russia play in organizing events in this context? What could you say about the importance of the Year of Russia in India in 2008 and the Year of India in Russia in 2009? What events of the Year of Russia in India would you accentuate as the Ambassador?

ANSWER: I’d like to begin by saying that I am looking forward to returning to Russia. My family and I have had some memorable times in Moscow, and will be catching up with our old friends. I have always been drawn to Russian culture, ever since I first read “The Queen of Spades” as a child – which I have since also read in the original. I am glad that we will be holding a Year of Russia in India, and a Year of India in Russia. We have nearly finalized the list of events for the Year of Russia in India. President, ICCR Dr. Karan Singh will be visiting Moscow in early October to give final shape to the proposed plan of events in 2008 and discuss the programme for 2009.

When we had organized similar events between India and the Soviet Union in 1980s, these were very well received. At a people-to-people level, those days are fondly remembered. I am sure that the events panned for 2008 and 2009 will score similar successes.

Our Embassy in Moscow will actively participate and facilitate the celebrations. Of course, it will have more of a role to play during the Year of India in Russia. We are also planning a series of events to be organized by the Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural Centre in Moscow.

I would only add that it is important for both countries to make special efforts to reach out to the younger generation in the other country. And to incorporate in our projection a cultural idiom and message that will appeal to the youth.

Q: In July 2007, Moscow played host to the session of the strategic group which concerned itself with the development of Russian-Indian commercial and economic relations. What could you say about the group’s performance and plan? What should be done to promote bilateral trade and economic relations? What do you see as the main obstacle to their development and what should be done to overcome it? What should be considered a priority?

A: A Joint Study Group was formed in 2006. The main role of this JSG was to examine the feasibility of signing a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) between India and Russia and to increase bilateral trade turnover to US $ 10 billion by 2010. The JSG had its fourth and final meeting in Moscow in July 2007. The JSG has finalized its Report and has suggested a roadmap for achieving a significant increase in our bilateral trade turnover by diversifying and increasing trade in goods and services and through investment and economic cooperation. It has also suggested measures to arrest the decline in India’s exports to Russia. The JSG has recommended the setting up of a Joint Task Force to ensure implementation of the JSG Report. The JSG has done commendable work but finalization of the Report marks only the beginning of the strenuous efforts that will be needed on both sides. The business operators particularly business leaders in the two countries will have to play their role in this. As Ambassador, I shall make this my top priority.

Q: July 2007 marked 20 years since the adoption of a long-term program on Russian-Indian Cooperation in science and technology. What could you say about today’s status of this cooperation? What do you think about its subsequent stages? What directions of cooperation do you regard as the most promising ones?

A: I was part of the negotiations that led to the conclusion of the Integrated Long Term Programme (ILTP) twenty years ago. I am glad it has worked well over the years and is another manifestation of how our relations have stood the test of time. It is one of the most wide-ranging international scientific collaboration that India has with any other country. Joint research projects, seminars/workshops, exchange of scientific delegations and cooperation between scientific institutions of the two countries are the principal thrust areas of cooperation within ILTP. With the passage of time, the role of ILTP has increased and it has diversified into areas such as establishment of Centres of Excellence and has facilitated transfer of technology.

Q: Energy and military-technical cooperation are major components of our bilateral dialogue. What is your assessment of this cooperation? What do you think about its prospects?

A: Our investments in Sakhalin-I in Russia is one of our biggest investments in the energy sector abroad. We also have wide-ranging defence cooperation with Russia. Our partnership in the defence sector is more significant than just a buyer-seller relationship since it has progressed to joint development and production. Brahmos is a salient example of such cooperation. We are continuously striving to enhance cooperation in both these fields.

Q: Russia and India have been strategic partners for a long time. How do you interpret ‘strategic partnership’? What influence does it have on the situation in South Asia and beyond?

A: India has enjoyed a special relationship with Russia ever since the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and the USSR in April 1947. Our strategic partnership is based on mutual confidence and understanding and serves the long term national interests of both countries. There are convergences in the world views of the two countries and our multi-dimensional bilateral cooperation extends across a wide range of fields – political, trade and economy, science & technology, culture, education, defence, energy and high technology, including space.

Q: In the autumn of 2007, Russia, India and China will meet for another round of talks. What do you think about prospects of work in this format?

A: The mechanism of trilateral meetings is a manifestation of enhanced mutual understanding among the three countries. India-Russia-China trilateral cooperation is intended to promote international harmony and understanding and find common ground amidst divergent interests. The trilateral meetings provide a forum to exchange views on important international issues and also coordinate efforts to enhance economic cooperation and counter terrorism and narco-trafficking.

Q: Recently the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held a regular session in Bishkek. What could you say about the results of this session? What could India offer to make the SCO more effective in promoting regional cooperation and security?

A: High-level participation from SCO member, observer and guest countries in the Summit shows the growing importance and influence of SCO. We in India have observed with keen interest the growth in stature of the SCO in the last few years. We are confident about SCO’s future and see it as an organization which would promote peace and stability in our region, as well as greater economic cooperation and cultural exchanges amongst our countries.

Yes, BRIC really exists and constitutes yet one more bloc of socialistic countries opposed to the USA.

USSR2 File: Putin reveals new cabinet, nepotism reigns: Gref dismissed; FM Lavrov, PM Zubkov's DM son in law, husband-and-wife team remain

Nepotism is alive and well in "ex"-communist Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov's renovated cabinet and will only provide more ammunition for the open communists to hurl at the Putinist regime. The battle slogan of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union is "They have billions [of rubles], but millions [of supporters] are for us."During the September 22 party congress CPRF Chairman Gennady Zyuganov boasted: "Only the communists are able to form the government of people’s trust that will pursue left-centrist policy for the sake of majority of the nation.”

Meanwhile, Zubkov's son in law Anatoly Serdyukov will remain defense minister. President Vladimir Putin refused to accept Serdyukov's resignation, originally tendered to avoid the very charge of nepotism. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has been outspoken in his belligerence against US foreign policy with respect to Iran and missile defense in Central Europe, remains in the government in his present position. Two cabinet members are a husband-and-wife team: Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko was reappointed, while his wife Tatyana Golikova, formerly deputy finance minister, has been appointed health and social development minister.

President Putin announces new Russian Cabinet -1
22:33 24/ 09/ 2007

MOSCOW, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Monday Russia's new Cabinet, including new ministers of health, economics, and regional development.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has retained his post and is now also a deputy premier, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov have been re-appointed to their posts.

The government reshuffle comes 12 days after President Putin fired the government, and 10 days after his appointment of previously little-known financial regulator Viktor Zubkov as prime minister, in place of Mikhail Fradkov.

In the new Cabinet, First Deputy Prime Ministers Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov have retained their posts. Both are widely viewed as likely presidential contenders in the March 2008 elections.

Elvira Nabiullina has been promoted from first deputy economics minister to head of the ministry, replacing German Gref.

Dmitry Kozak, formerly special representative of the president in the Southern Federal District and perceived as a close Putin ally, has been appointed regional development minister, replacing Vladimir Yakolev.

Tatyana Golikova, formerly deputy finance minister, has been appointed health and social development minister, in place of Mikhail Zurabov. The new minister is the wife of re-appointed Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko.

Another family connection within the Cabinet - Serdyukov's marriage to the new prime minister's daughter - earlier prompted the defense minister to offer his resignation to the president, but Putin kept him at the post.

Two new committees have appeared within the government structure - a state committee for youth affairs, and a state fisheries committee. The president said certain functions of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade had been clarified.

Addressing the new government, President Putin said: "We should not only continue consistent work, but also actively push our strategic plans through. At the same time, there must be a methodical approach to clearly resolving the daily problems of Russian citizens."

Source: Novosti

In neighboring Ukraine, "ex"-Soviet apparatchik President Viktor Yushchenko and pro-Moscow "ex"-CPSU President Viktor Yanukovich are attempting to resolve their country's (fabricated) political crisis by holding an early parliamentary election on September 30. Yushchenko maintains that "high-level Ukrainian officials" in collaboration with Moscow were responsible for his poisoning in 2004, during the potemkin Orange Revolution, which repackaged the crypto-communist regime in Kiev. Taking a cue from their comrades in Moscow, who identify the post-Soviet oligarchs as the source of Russia's current woes, "ex"-CPSU speaker of the Ukrainian Supreme Council Alexander Moroz has "unveiled" a plot by that country's oligarchs (most of whom are probably "ex"-Komsomol like Yulia Tymoshenko) to thwart a leftist victory. The crypto-communist Party of Regions, which supports President Yanukovich, and its communist and socialist allies currently control the national government. Ukrainian reds are apparently making sure that "the people" vote for the right party/parties again.

USA File: Bush predicts Hillary will be Democratic nominee, Republican candidate will win after "tough race"; Clinton moneyman arrested

Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro and communitarian/"compassionate conservative" US President George Bush agree: Comrade Hillary (pictured here) will be the Democratic nominee. Two weeks ago Senator Clinton's Hong Kong moneyman and fugitive from the law Norman Hsu ("shoe") was arrested on a 15-year-old theft charge. The former First Lady has promised to give to charity US$23,000 in donations she received from Hsu for her presidential and senatorial campaigns, as well as her political action committee. Fox News reports below that White House press secretary Dana Perino denied speculation that Bush was publicizing Clinton's prospects in order to energize the Republican base against her candidacy. Indeed, considering his half-hearted opposition to the communist regimes in Moscow and Beijing, perhaps the president was trying to do just the opposite, namely, energize Comrade Hillary's candidacy.

Bush: Hillary Clinton Will Be Democratic Nominee
Monday , September 24, 2007

President Bush is predicting that Hillary Clinton will win the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, according to a new book, 'Evangelical President,' set for release on Monday and written by FOX News contributor Bill Sammon.

Breaking his rule not to talk about presidential politics, Bush told Sammon, who writes for The Washington Examiner, that he thinks the New York senator will defeat Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries, but will fall to the Republican nominee.

“She's got a national presence and this is becoming a national primary,” Bush said. “And therefore the person with the national presence, who has got the ability to raise enough money to sustain an effort in a multiplicity of sites, has got a good chance to be nominated.

"I believe our candidate can beat her but it's going to be a tough race," the president said.

It has been difficult for Bush to remain silent about the 2008 president race, despite his promises not to be the "prognosticator in chief." He has been talking about the race and handicapping candidates during off-the-record chats with visitors to the White House.

After excerpts were released, the White House did not challenge Sammon's account.

"Frankly, it's difficult to not talk about the '08 election a lot," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "There's a lot of interest in it and it does have consequence."

She denied the notion that Bush was talking up Clinton's prospects in order to energize the Republican base against her candidacy.

"The bottom line is, it really doesn't matter what the president thinks about who will win the Democratic primary," Perino said. "There's going to be a showdown at the OK Corral and they'll figure out whose going to be the nominee and from there the president will campaign vigorously for the Republican candidate.

On the Republican side, Bush has expressed surprise that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani remains the front-runner despite his liberal positions on social and cultural issues normally critical to the party base, according to The Washington Post. It ran a story about Bush's recent off-the-record chat with television news anchors and Sunday show hosts.

Bush said Giuliani's popularity was a sign of how important the terrorism issue is to Republican voters, the newspaper said. It said Bush cautioned against ruling out Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., saying he had managed to revive his campaign after an implosion earlier this year.

Source: FoxNews.com

USSR2 File: CPRF holds congress, rolls out election strategy; reds optimistic: predict 35% of electorate will vote for party, claim 70,000 new members

On September 22, 2007 the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union held an extraordinary congress to roll out its strategy for December's State Duma election and March's presidential election. Russian reds were in an optimistic mood regarding their plans to return the Not-So-Former Soviet Union to the "socialist path of development." They also claimed 70,000 new members, especially youth. The following report was published at the CPRF website. Translation courtesy Babelfish with some refinements by your resident blogger. Note the presence at this congress of Agrarian Party leader and communist ally G.M. Kharitonov, representatives of the Russian Federation Justice Department and Central Election Commission, as well as delegates from the other republican parties of the restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation

Press Service, 22.09.2007
September 22, 10:00 am, XII (Extraordinary) Congress of the CPRF

The chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation G.A. Zyuganov opened the congress by reporting that 240 delegates had been selected to attend. At the moment of discovery, however, 234 delegates actually registered. Among those invited were veterans of the party, delegations from the other parties belonging to the Union of Communist Parties-Communist Party of the Soviet Union, party and youth activists, representatives of the diplomatic corp, the leaders of actuating and other elements of the authority of the number of the subjects of federation, Deputies of the State Duma and the members of Federation Council, and scientific and cultural workers.

Acknowledgement was made about the participation in the work of the congress of the representatives of the Russian Federation Justice Department, and also of the members of the Russian Federation Central Election Commission.

In the hall were invited the representatives of the student forces of the CPRF, active membership of the Komsomol, and young Communists who recently entered the party. The first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPRF Komsomol Y.V. Afonin read a report about the summary of the work of the student forces of the CPRF. The chairman of the CPRF CC G.A. Zyuganov entrusted to the most outstanding Komsomol members the medal of the CPRF CC in the honor of the 90th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

The large group of students, in the operating cycle in the construction crews made a decision about the entrance in the CPRF. [PT: The meaning of the previous sentence is not clear.] G.A. Zyuganov entrusted the party cards of the CPRF to the young reinforcements of the party.

G. A. Zyugamov noted that in recent years the CPRF recruited 70,000 people, a considerable proportion of them young people. Zyuganov then encouraged the young reinforcements of party.

The presidium of the congress invited non-party member G.M. Kharitonov, whose candidacy the day before was recommended by a plenum of the CPRF CC to the congress, to join in the composition of the "troika" of the pre-election list of the CPRF.

The congress honored the memory of members of the CPRF CC, first secretaries of the regional departments of the CPRF S.G. Revazova and B.F. Zubkova, who suddenly passed away on the eve of the congress.

Delegates voted for the following agenda of work.

1. About the pre-election program of the political party "Communist Party of the Russian Federation"

2. On the designation of political party "Communist Party of the Russian Federation" and its emblem, to be utilized in the election documents

3. On the advancement of the federal list of candidates to deputy into the State Duma of the federal meeting of the Russian Federation of the fifth convocation from the political party "Communist Party of the Russian Federation"

4. On the determination of the regional group of candidates to become deputies, to which will be related the electorate of the CPRF, which live beyond the limits of the Russian Federation

5. On the method of press for the documents of the CPRF

6. On the election funding for the political party "Communist Party of the Russian Federation" and of its regional departments

7. On the designation of the authorized representatives of political party" Communist Party of the Russian Federation "

8. On the designation of the authorized representatives of the political party "Communist Party of the Russian Federation" related to financial questions

9. On the designation of term TSIK RF with the right of consultative suffrage from the CPRF.

10. On the delegation of the authorities of the Party Congress to the presidium of the CPRF CC for the resolution of some questions connected with the participation of the political party "Communist Party of the Russian Federation" in the elections of Deputies of the fifth convocation of the State Duma and of the Federal Council of the Russian Federation.

Congress approached the consideration of agenda.

Source: CPRF Website

CPRF Determined to Take 35% of Vote in Duma Election, Rejects Merger with Just Russia (For Now), Might Form Alliance with Agrarian Party

On September 19 state-run Russia Today, citing "polls," reported that the CPRF can expect to secure at least 18% of the popular vote in the State Duma election, the seats of which are allocated on a proportional representative basis. The CPRF secured only 13 per cent of the popular vote in 2003. Three days later Russia Today reported that Gennady Zyuganov is gunning for up to 35% of the popular vote and intends to form a center-left bloc that would probably include Agrarian Party leader Vladimir Plotnikov, who expects to obtain 10% of the popular vote. The Agrarian Party, founded in 1993, is perceived as a rural ally of the communists. Although Sergei Mironov's Just Russia party is touted as a Putinist support entity, the party platform advocates "Socialism Version 3.o," according to the September 24 edition of state-owned Kommersant Daily, and might very well ally itself with the communists before or after the election. Last month English-language Russian news source Politruk revealed: "Just Russia's leader, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, stated recently that his party would be prepared to merge with the CPRF, and claimed that numerous ordinary CPRF members, and even some CPRF district branch leaders, are defecting to Just Russia." Mironov floated this idea to Zyuganov in May, but the red leader rejected the overture. Just Russia member Svetlana Goryacheva is a "former" communist.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's response to the communist campaign is noteworthy.

On the one hand, Putin, who is a "former" communist himself and past director of the KGB's successor agency, has praised the Soviet era and its accomplishments, resurrected its centralized political power, military, and symbolism; is secretly allied with the August 1991 coup leaders who foisted the deception upon the West that communism had "died" in Russia; and appointed an "ex"-CPSU apparatchik, Viktor Zubkov, as the new prime minister. Putin has lavised praise on Zubkov's career in the Soviet era. At the same time, Putin has admitted that CPRF Chairman Gennady Zyuganov, against whom he ran in 2000, is one of four or five "approved" contenders in the March 2008 presidential election. On the other hand, state-run Novosti reveals that Putin believes that the CPRF must evolve in tandem with the Duma's "leading force" United Russia if "social democracy" is to survive within the Russian context.

I would not like the [next] Russian president to be weak. It has become clear in the past three years that is ineffective in reality. I would like us to have Social Democrats that were politically active, ... not a fragment of the past in the form of KPRF [Communists], but a real responsible leftist movement, a leftist party with a social-democratic ideology. We should strengthen and develop a multi-party system. We have established a real basis for the country's development, a legislative base. We did so with support from the parliament's leading political force, United Russia.

Frontman Putin has performed his job well for the CPSU. He has created a managed democracy that features a "multi-party system," staffed almost entirely by "ex"-communists and "ex"-KGB types, per Mikhail Gorbachev's instructions at the 28th Party Congress, held in July 1990, and per KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn's warnings.

Latin America File: Ecuador's Correa visits Argentina, inks agreements, joins Chavez and Lula in Brazil; Angolan, Zimbabwean leaders in Havana

In America's "backyard" high-level power networking is transpiring among the paleo- and neo-communist regimes of Latin America and Africa. Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro's "mini me" Hugo Chavez and his "mini mini me" Rafael Correa (pictured here), have descended upon Brasilia to confer with Sao Paulo Forum mastermind, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. "Lula" continues to deceive the Bush Admin with his "moderate" image as a social democrat, even as the ruling Workers' Party, after maintaining a low profile for four years, prepares to advance Brazil's communist revolution to the next stage, allegedly with some extra narco-cash from fellow FSP cohorts in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Lula Welcomes Correa, Chavez

Brasilia, Sep 20 (Prensa Latina) Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva welcomes his counterparts from Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and Ecuador, Rafael Correa, Thursday in Manaus, capital of the northern state of Amazonas.

Chavez is expected to arrive about noon and will meet with Lula at the Imperial Hall of Hotel Tropical Manaus, where they will hold official talks on issues of bilateral interest.

South American integration, energy cooperation, and bilateral trade are the key topics in the agenda, it was revealed.

Lula will receive Correa at night, and the leaders will analyze the state of bilateral initiatives in infrastructure, trade, energy, and technical cooperation.

Source: Prensa Latina

Although neither Argentina nor Ecuador belong to the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the Havana-Caracas Axis has successfully wooed these countries into its orbit. At the same time Quito and Buenos Aires are diligently forging their own links. Pictured here: Correa and Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner.

Argentina, Ecuador for Cooperation

Buenos Aires, Sep 20 (Prensa Latina) Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner welcomes Thursday his Ecuadorian counterpart Rafael Correa in the Presidential Palace, to sign several cooperation accords.

Also on the list is to ink an inter-ministerial agreement on social inclusion, a memorandum of understanding on industrial complementation in the metal-mechanical area and a first protocol on a contract of cooperation and coordination in the agricultural and health sectors.

Also included is an agreement on public services, sports, mining and oil.

Correa's first official visit to this trans-Andean country ends today with a mass act in the venue of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association.

The president is expected to meet with Hebe de Bonafini, president of that organization, and other members of that movement that emerged 30 years ago.

Correa will travel from Buenos Aires to the city of Manaos, capital of the Amazon, where he will hold talks with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Source: Prensa Latina

Latin American "solidarity," which is a communist codeword for political-military-social-economic integration, proceeds apace under the watchful eye of the red dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela. High-level delegations from the four official member states of ALBA--Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua--are converging on Havana for the Second Meeting of that organization's Council of Ministers. Granma, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of Cuba, admits that ALBA is a counter-weight to the "neo-liberalism" of the Washington-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas. "Neo-liberalism" is a communist codeword for capitalism.

ALBA member countries examine reach of projects

HAVANA, September 21 (PL).— Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua are today evaluating the progress of the common programs contained within the integration project known as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), in the continuation of a meeting of ministers representing the mechanism.

During the meeting, they will also assess the development of negotiations for the ALBA Bank and attempt to continue advancing the process of institutionalizing the bloc and deciding the timetable for future meetings.

Foreign Ministers Felipe Pérez Roque (Cuba) and David Choquehuanca (Bolivia) took part in the inauguration of the second meeting of ALBA ministers yesterday.

Venezuela was represented by Deputy Foreign Minister Rodolfo Sanz and it is expected that Minister Nicolás Maduro will also join the meeting; while the Nicaraguan delegation is led by Nelson Artola, president of the Social Fund for Emergencies.

During the opening, Pérez Roque confirmed that the integration proposed by ALBA is the only road toward development in Latin America, understood as complementation based on cooperation and solidarity, and far removed from neoliberalism.

“We understand that no country on its own can confront the enormous challenges of the world today,” he added.

He specified that the cardinal principle of this project is widespread solidarity among the peoples of America, which has the final goal of transforming nations into societies that are more just, cultured and participative.

“We are convinced that the ALBA will not become a reality through mercantile and egotistic criteria, but through the widest and most profound practice of coordination and complementation,” he continued.

Likewise, he added that within this model, trade and investment are not ends in themselves but instruments to achieve fair development, at the same time proposing the active participation of the state as regulator and coordinator.

In support of the project, the diplomat affirmed that there have been indisputable developments in the social, economic and energy fields, and he also mentioned the 800,000-plus people throughout the region who have received sight operations within the Operation Miracle program.

ALBA is an integration mechanism based on solidarity that was proposed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in order to counteract the Free Trade Area of the Americas promoted by the United States.

Source: Granma

Meanwhile, the paleo-communist regimes in Angola--where Cuban troops and Soviet transport planes aided red revolutionaries during the 1970s--and Zimbabwe--which is drowning under a genocidal tyranny that presages the downfall of South Africa--have dutifully dispatched delegations to confer with the grumpy old Hillary-lovin' commie in Havana. Upon his arrival at the all-inclusive gulag paradise, Angolan President José Eduardo Dos Santos noted that "Cuban combatants" not only aided the Angolan revolution, but also the red insurgencies in Rhodesia and South-West Africa: “In Angola we stood shoulder to shoulder in the war against colonialism. Cuban combatants contributed to winning the independence of Zimbabwe and Namibia, ending the hated apartheid regime in South Africa and helping my country establish peace." Dos Santos is pictured above with CPC Politburo member José Ramón Machado Ventura.

“Friendship forged through blood and sacrifice,” says Angolan President José Eduardo Dos Santos, arriving to strengthen bilateral relations

September 21, 2007
By Maria Julia Mayoral and Arnaldo Musa

—Granma Daily—

ANGOLAN President José Eduardo Dos Santos arrived in Havana on Thursday with the motive of fostering the friendship and fraternity between the two countries which, he affirmed, has been forged through blood and sacrifice during the most difficult moments of the struggle for independence and sovereignty.

In a brief statement to the press, the country’s leader and president of the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) sent greetings to the Cuban people, recalling that many sacrificed their lives in Angola, and thanked Cuba for always standing beside the African nation.

“During the last few years,” he commented, “important changes have occurred in the world and Cuba as well as Angola are adapting to new conditions, hence the interest in investigating how we can cooperate to improve the lives of our respective peoples.”

The distinguished guest was received at José Martí Airport by José Ramón Machado Ventura, vice president of the Council of State and member of the Political Bureau. Also participating in the welcoming ceremony were other members of the Political Bureau, Army Corps General Leopoldo Cintra Frías, and Pedro Ross Leal, current ambassador to Angola.

Also present were Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque and Brigade General Rafael Moracén Limonta, vice president of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution.

A meeting of brothers

The insoluble bond of blood uniting Cuba and Angola was emphasized last night during a meeting of the distinguished guest with a group of internationalist fighters.

“In Angola we stood shoulder to shoulder in the war against colonialism,” recalled the leader, pointing out that Cuban combatants contributed to winning the independence of Zimbabwe and Namibia, ending the hated apartheid regime in South Africa and helping his country establish peace.

"Many of our comrades are not with us. They gave their lives so that our peoples could be free,” he said as he thanked Fidel for responding, during one of the most difficult moments for humanity, in the midst of the Cold War, to the call from President Agostinho Neto to defend Angolan independence.

Source: Granma

Zimbabwean Tyrant Robert Mugabe also dispatched his VP (pictured below) to check in with the communist regime in Havana. There Vice President Joyce Teurai Ropa Mujuru "praised the important role played by women on the island thanks to education and political will of the Cuban government and the Communist Party."

Zimbabwe VP Winds Up Visit to Cuba

Havana, Sept 13 (acn) "I have learned a lot about the resistance, commitment and unity of the Cuban people," said Zimbabwe's Vice President Joyce Teurai Ropa Mujuru on Wednesday at the end of a five-day official visit to the island.

Speaking to reporters before departing at the Jose Marti International airport in Havana, the visitor noted that she learned an important lesson on how perseverance and people's unity can lead to the fulfillment of any objectives.

Ropa Mujuru added that during her meeting with Cuban VP Esteban lazo, they exchanged opinions about the realities in her country and in Cuba and about the situation in Africa and Latin America in general.

She recalled that Zimbabwe has been under constant imperial pressures and that her people should learn from the Cuban nation, which has been suffering a US financial, trade and economic blockade for almost fifty years.

She also praised the important role played by women on the island thanks to education and political will of the Cuban government and the Communist Party.
During the last day of her visit, the VP visited the pharmaceutical laboratories of LABIOFAM and met with Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.

Source: Cuban News Agency

The Communist Bloc is alive and well as the shopping mall regimes of the West sleep their way to destruction.

Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russian Army to adopt modernized Tor-M2 air defense system in 2008, Buk-M3 to be deployed in 2009

Just in time for the neo-Soviet state's pre-emptive strategic nuclear strikes against North America and Western Europe and the re-invasion of Eastern Europe, the Russian Army, which is no longer abiding by the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, beefs up its air defense system.

Russia to boost Ground Forces air defense - commander
15:5921/ 09/ 2007

MOSCOW, September 21 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian army will adopt a modernized version of the Tor-M air defense system in 2008, the Ground Forces press service said Friday.

The Tor-M (NATO reporting name SA-15 Gauntlet) is a low to medium-altitude, short-range surface-to-air missile system designed for intercepting aircraft, cruise missiles, precision guided munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles and ballistic targets.

"More than 50% of air defense systems in service with the Ground Forces are outdated," the press service quoted Colonel General Nikolai Frolov, commander of the Ground Forces' air defense, as saying.

"In order to improve the situation, we have decided to modernize the existing systems," the general said at a command-post exercise at the Kapustin Yar testing ground in southern Russia.

He said the improved Tor-M2 version features significantly enhanced target acquisition capabilities and shorter minimum range - 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) - compared to its predecessor.

Frolov also announced plans to upgrade the Osa (NATO reporting name SA-8 Gecko), the most popular air defense system of the Ground Forces (about 400 units are in service), as well as the Tunguska missile-gun system, the Buk-M1 and the Strela-10 air defense missile systems.

He said the Buk-M3, a modernized version of the Buk-M1 system (NATO reporting name SA-11 Gadfly), will be deployed in 2009. It will feature advanced electronic components and could be regarded as a completely new system.

The Strela-10 air defense missile system (NATO reporting name SA-13 Gopher) will also be replaced in 2009 by an advanced version capable of operating in all weather conditions and at any time of day, the general said.

Source: Novosti

EU/USA Files: Qatari Investment Authority and Borse Dubai swipe 48% of London Stock Exchange, Borse Dubai also grabs 20% of Nasdaq; Bush shrugs

Canadians frequently complain about foreign, especially US, ownership of companies in the Great White North. One day Europeans and Americans will also wake up and discover that the Russians, Chinese, and Arabs have grabbed everything that isn't bolted down, and maybe a few things that were. The following stories relate how Qatari and Dubai investors have made off with the London Stock Exchange and the USA's National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations system (Nasdaq). Regarding the latter, globalist US President George W. Bush who, along with his predecessor Bill Clinton, has already sold the kitchen sink to the People's Republic of China, remarked nonchalantly: "We're going to take a good look at it, as to whether or not it has any national security implications involved in the transaction. I'm comfortable with the process to go forward." International capitalists and international communists, as we have documented before, love free trade.

LSE faces fresh bidding war
By Norma Cohen in London
Published: September 20 2007 09:11 Last updated: September 20 2007 21:29

Nearly 50 per cent of the London Stock Exchange is now in the hands of two rival Gulf states battling to be their region’s leader in the global consolidation of exchanges.

Qatar Investment Authority and Borse Dubai now own 48 per cent of the LSE following a complex series of deals in which ownership of Europe’s exchanges is being realigned.

Borse Dubai secured 28 per cent of the LSE as part of a wider deal with the US-based Nasdaq designed to settle their long-running battle for control of the Nordic exchanges and technology operator OMX. The Dubai group bought most of Nasdaq’s 31 per cent stake in the LSE for £14.40 a share in cash. In return, it will take a 19.9 per cent stake in the combined Nasdaq/OMX group and receive cash.

However, the move enraged the Qatar Investment Authority, which until Tuesday night believed it was close to clinching a deal to buy much of the LSE stake for itself.

It responded on Thursday by buying nearly 20 per cent of the LSE, sparking expectations of a bidding war for the exchange. LSE on Thursday welcomed the Qatari move because it sees QIA as a passive investor.

Meanwhile, the QIA also bought nearly 10 per cent of OMX, a move widely interpreted as a sign that it, too, will make a competing offer for the Stockholm-based group. It issued a statement calling on OMX shareholders to do nothing in response to Borse Dubai’s offer.

LSE shares soared on Thursday, closing £2.34 higher at £16.87.Qatar bought the stakes held by two hedge funds that had been instrumental in seeing off a hostile bid for the LSE by Nasdaq last year, believing the £12.43 price it offered was too low.

However, before official word of the deal was out, there were signs that it might face political opposition in the US. Charles Schumer, a US senator and chairman of Congress’s joint economic committee, said: “This deal raises serious questions . . . Those questions will include – should we allow foreign governments to take over our financial exchanges and how much control and influence should those foreign governments have?”George W. Bush, US president, said the proposed investment by state-controlled Borse Dubai in the US exchange would face a national security review.

The move by Nasdaq to clinch a toehold in Europe through an acquisition of OMX caps years of unsuccessful efforts to break into the region. It is believed that Nasdaq agreed to allow Borse Dubai to take the stake to head off an expensive bidding war with a rival whose pockets are deeper than its own.

“The way we see this transaction is a pure win win win,” said Bob Greifeld, chief executive. In addition to the tie-up in the Nordic region with an operator that is also a technology supplier to many exchanges, it offers Nasdaq a leg up in the Middle East.

He added that Nasdaq was eager to break into Europe because competitive barriers were easing, leaving scope for new entrants to secure business.

Source: Financial Times

Sheikdom shakedown: Dubai moves on Nasdaq
Arab ownership of U.S. stock exchange raises flag in Congress
Posted: September 20, 20074:14 p.m. Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi

In a complex set of transactions, Dubai is moving to acquire 19.9 percent of the Nasdaq in New York, placing the Arab government in an ownership position of the key U.S. stock exchange and raising concerns in Congress.

As a result of the transaction, Dubai also will acquire 28 percent of the London Stock Exchange, one of the oldest and largest in the world.

The transaction is being made through Borse Dubai, a holding company 100-percent owned by the government of the Emirate of Dubai and controlled by Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the head of the Dubai ruling family.

According to its website, Borse Dubai was created Aug. 6 as the holding company for Dubai Financial Market and Dubai International Financial Exchange in a move to consolidate the Dubai government's two stock exchanges "as well as current investments in other exchanges, expanding Dubai's position as a global capital market hub."

The announcement set off a firestorm of criticism in Washington, prompting President Bush to comment today in a news conference, "We're going to take a good look at it, as to whether or not it has any national security implications involved in the transaction. I'm comfortable with the process to go forward."

On July 26, Bush signed into law the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007, a law passed after last year's controversy over the effort by Dubai Ports World to acquire London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation, an international ports operating firm that would have given Dubai control of operations in up to 22 U.S. ports.

The Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 was passed to strengthen the examination requirements of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, a highly secretive bureaucratic panel constituted by the Treasury Department to pass verdict on the national security implications of foreign investments in the U.S.

In a letter today, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., urged Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson to conduct the Borse Dubai CFIUS review under the standards imposed by the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007, even though most of the requirements of the new law do not take effect until later this fall.

Schumer chairs the Joint Economic Committee, composed of 10 members each from the Senate and House of Representatives.

"Nasdaq is not just any exchange, but one of the world's largest," Schumer wrote Paulson. "With approximately 3,200 companies, it lists more companies and, on average, trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market."

Snip

Source: World Net Daily

Economic linkages between the neo-Soviet state and Dubai, which is one of the seven United Arab Emirates, are growing.

In March 2006 the Dubai Metals and Commodities Centre (DMCC) announced that it will establish a Dubai Russia Diamond Working Group with the intent of facilitating and enhancing cooperation between the Dubai and Russian diamond industries. The Russian side is represented by Alrosa and Smolensk Kristall, while Dubai is represented by DMCC. In December of the same year Dubai-based firm Limitless LLC announced that in partnership with Russian developer Coalco it would build the biggest real estate development in Russian history, to be called the Great Domodedovo project, outside Moscow. The new suburb will cost $11 billion, span 44,000 acres, and eventually include 150,000 residential and commercial units.

Meanwhile, "post"-communist Russia continues to seduce twenty-first-century Nepmen at the sixth annual International Investment Forum, which is underway in the future Olympic City of Sochi. This Black Sea city is also the location of President Vladimir Putin's holiday residence. State-run Russia Today reports that "10,000 delegates are expected to visit the forum this year. Twenty four foreign countries are represented, including the U.S., Germany, Austria, Turkey, Japan and China." Without deviating one iota from the decades-old communist script of luring Western investors into the black hole of Russia, "the President stressed the need of massive investment into Russia’ infrastructure, meaning the development of road networks, sea ports and other transport links. Also the President spoke about communications links. Mr Putin also spoke about the necessity to develop the Northern Caucasus region and the Baikal area, considering the lack of infrastructure in these areas at the moment."

Under the title "Course to liberalize economy remains unchanged," state-run Interfax reports that the Russian president addressed his Sochi suitors: "The main thing is that the vector of economic development, the economic policy remains unchanged and will remain in the future. We expected that private investors and investment will be playing an increasingly apparent and driving role in the large-scale modernization of the economy." This is pure communist doublespeak. The pseudo-capitalist New Economic Policy Version 1.0 lasted seven years, from 1921 to 1928. Its spinoff, Boris Yeltsin's NEP Version 2.0, began in 1991 and continues to this day even as the Kremlin nationalizes (communizes) industries left, right, and center in preparation for the red coup that will transpire when the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union determines that the circumstances are propitious.

USSR2 File: Kremlin continues to pad its gold and currency reserves portfolio as US dollar shudders

War clouds gather, the US dollar shudders, and Moscow expands its portfolio of gold and international currency reserves. State-run Interfax reports today: "Russia's international reserves grew $3.8 billion in the week to September 14 to a new record high of $420.9 billion, the Central Bank said. The previous record was $420.2 billion, achieved on August 10." On August 16 state-run Voice of Russia reported: "The Central Bank said Thursday that as of January 1, Russia’s gold and currency reserves had increased by 38.4 % and now stood at 420 billion dollars, which notably exceeded this year’s financial forecasts. For the moment, Russia is the world’s third biggest hard and currency holder after China and Japan." Our previous post on this Kremlin war prep can be found here.

Breaking News: Iranian Tyrant/Arch-Terrorist Ahmadinejad intends to visit "Ground Zero" despite NYPD rejection

Despite protestations from the New York Police Department, which has cited security concerns, Iranian Tyrant/Arch-Terrorist and Israel's Arch-Nemesis Mahmoud ("Iwannajihad") Ahmadinejad insists upon visiting Ground Zero during his working trip to the United Nations. I have two words for such a prospect: Great idea. May I suggest a few well-placed snipers? Even Comrade Hillary opposes (at least openly) the suggestion that Ahmadinejad should desecrate Manhattan's most sacred spot.

Iranian president intends to visit Ground Zero
Iranian mission says he'll go despite NYPD rejection

(New York - WABC, September 19, 2007) - Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad requested to visit Ground Zero during an upcoming trip to New York. That request was rejected Wednesday. But a source tells Eyewitness News that the decision may not stop him.

A law enforcement source says the Iranian mission to the United Nations has informed the Secret Service that the Iranian president intends to visit Ground Zero Monday at 10 a.m.

The source says regardless of the NYPD's rejection of the request for a Ground Zero tour, Iran's president and his entourage will be accompanied by a Secret Service protective detail, a detail provided to all heads of state when they visit the United States.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations made the initial request to the NYPD and the Secret Service, who will jointly oversee security during the president's two-day visit.

Ahmadinejad is scheduled to arrive September 24 to speak to the U.N. General Assembly, as the Security Council decides whether to increase sanctions against Iran for its uranium enrichment program.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the NYPD and Secret Service were in discussions with the Iranian mission about the logistics for the possible visit to the World Trade Center site.

"There has been some interest expressed in his visiting the area," Kelly said. "It's something that we are prepared to handle if in fact it does happen."

The request was rejected Wednesday afternoon in a meeting which included NYPD, Secret Service and Port Authority officials, who said the site is closed to visitors because of construction. They said requests for the Iranian president to visit the immediate area would also be opposed by the NYPD on security grounds.

Kelly said that Ahmadinejad had not indicated why he wants to visit the site of the terrorist attacks of September 11th.

Mayor Rudy Giuliani released the following statement on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

"Under no circumstances should the NYPD or any other American authority assist President Ahmadinejad in visiting Ground Zero. This is a man who has made threats against America and Israel, is harboring bin Laden's son and other al-Qaeda leaders, is shipping arms to Iraqi insurgents and is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons. Assisting Ahmadinejad in touring Ground Zero - hallowed ground for all Americans - is outrageous."

Senator Hillary Clinton released the following statement:

"It is unacceptable for Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who refuses to renounce and end his own country's support of terrorism, to visit the site of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil in our nation's history."

Source: ABCLocalGo.com

MISSILE DAY ALERT: Kremlin media: 2 Bear bombers buzzed Alaska and Canada's Arctic coasts today; 2nd pair, tagged by NATO jets, flew around Greenland

The particular flights reported below occured within the context of the Russian Air Force's pre-announced, ongoing exercises over three oceans, as well as its resumption of permanent strategic patrols as of this past August. US bombers, as far as I am aware, are not buzzing the Arctic coasts of Russia and Siberia. If they were, then we would hear strident reports of "US warmongering" in the Kremlin-run news outlets that dominate the neo-Soviet media. US bombers are not buzzing the Arctic coasts of Russia and Siberia simply because the USA is not preparing for war against Russia. Rather, the opposite is true. The Russian military brass insists that it is merely training new pilots after a 15-year lapse in strategic patrols. That may be so but, as we have documented, "post"-communist Russia still views the USA as its "key potential enemy."

Concurrent tactical aerial and ground operations in the Russian Far East, as reported below, involved more than 90 planes and helicopters simulating strikes against ground targets and providing air cover for troops.

Two Russian strategic bombers fly along Alaska, Canada coasts
20.09.2007, 18.06

MOSCOW, September 20 (Itar-Tass) - Two Russian Tu-95MS strategic bombers, within the scope of a long-range aviation drill, flew along the coasts of Alaska and Canada and returned to their home airfield via the North Pole on Thursday, Air Force spokesman Col Alexander Drobyshevsky told Itar-Tass.

"A pair of Tu-95MS planes flew along a large range along the coasts of Alaska and Canada and, returned home via the North Pole. The bombers were refueled in mid air by an Il-78 tanker aircraft. The average flight duration made up some 17 hours. The aircraft flew more than 13,000 kilometers," Drobyshevsky said.

"During refueling, each Tu-95MS took on board 30 tonnes of fuel, a record high amount since the Soviet era," the spokesman said.

"Another pair of Tu-95MS flew around Greenland into the air space over eastern Atlantic Ocean. The average duration of flight was some 12 hours," Drobyshevsksy said.

"Tu-95MS flights were made in accordance with air patrol plans. During the mission, the bombers were accompanied by NATO planes," according to the spokesman.

"The crews of Tu-22M3 planes, along with the scheduled flights, flew patrol missions over the Black Sea, with the average flight time of 5 hours. Another two pairs of Tju-22M3 planes practiced bombing at the Nagotai range in the Irkutsk region. Tu-95 MS, Tu-22M3 and Il-78 made more than 15 flights today," he noted.

"The flights by long-range aviation were made according to international rules of the use of air space, over neutral waters, without violating the borders of other states," Drobyshevsky said.

The long-range aviation exercise began on September 18 and will run through September 21.

Russia resumed patrolling by long-range aviation in remote areas after a 15-year pause, per decision by the supreme commander-in-chief, President Vladimir Putin.

Russian long-range aircraft have flown to the air space of remote areas several times in the past two months.

In mid-July, four Tu-95MS bombers flew through the air space near Great Britain.

Their flight provoked numerous comments in British media outlets, because it coincided with the diplomatic row over the expulsion of four British diplomats.

In early August, two Russian strategic bombers flew to the U.S. base Guam in the Pacific Ocean.

As a rule, the flights by Russian long-range aviation are accompanied by NATO fighter jets which are watching the Russian bombers.

Earlier on Thursday, Drobyshevsky said more than 90 planes and helicopters were involved in a tactical exercise of the far eastern Air Force and Air Defense formation.

"The far eastern Air Force and Air Defense formation has detailed more than 90 Su-24, Su-25, Su-27, and Mi-8 helicopters to the drill. Pilots will be flying in the area of airfields and along routes, drill missions to deliver strikes at ground targets and the tactics of providing air cover for troops," Drobyshevsky said.

The exercise is led by commander of the far eastern Air Force and Air Defense formation Lt-Gen Valery Ivanov.

The strategic supersonic bomber Tu-160 /Blackjack by NATO's classification/ is intended for destroying emery targets in remote areas. Its range is up to 13,000 kilometers. Armaments: 12 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

Tu-160, with a crew of four, can carry up to 40 tonnes of bombs, and has a take-off mass of 275 tonnes and a flight altitude of 16 kilometers.

Tu-95 MS /Bear by NATO classification/ is a strategic all-weather bomber, armed with bombs and high-precision air-to-ground cruise missiles with a range of more than 3,000 kilometers, which can carry nuclear warheads.

The mainline long-range missile-carrying bomber Tu-22M3 /Backfire by NATO classification/ with variable geometry wing has a range of up to 7,000 kilometers. It can carry three X-22 air-to-ground cruise missiles against seaborne or ground targets.

The Il-78 tanker is a modification of the Il-76 plane. It can carry 35 tonnes of fuel with mid-air refueling rate at 2,000 liters per minute.

Source: ITAR-TASS

Meanwhile, Russia's rubber-stamp parliament, the State Duma, has obediently ratified President Vladimir Putin's suspension of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, which requires Russia to park its tanks east of the Ural Mountains. The way is now legally open to justify the neo-Soviet state's re-invasion of Eastern and, possibly, Western Europe. State-owned Kommersant Daily quotes United Russia deputy Konstantin Kosachev, who heads the Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee, as saying: “The Treaty is hopelessly out of date." Liberal Democratic deputy and former Vladimir Zhirinovsky bodyguard Sergei Abeltsev concurred: "The CFE Treaty is one of the family of treaties that Gorbachev concluded in haste, when the country was on its knees already." Following the murder of FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko Abeltsev lashed out with the following diatribe (reproduced in this blogsite's right column): "The deserved punishment reached the traitor. I am sure his terrible death will be a warning to all the traitors that in Russia treason is not to be forgiven. I would recommend to citizen Berezovsky to avoid any food at the commemorative feast for Litvinenko."

Communism with Canadian Characteristics: "Loonie," bouyed by robust domestic oil and gas sector, at par with weak US dollar, first time in 30 years

When the dollar moves toward parity, a certain category of tourist will not come to Canada or will spend less when they're here. We should be presenting a different image of Canada. We're not just a land of moose, mountains, and maple syrup.
-- Chris Jones, Tourism Industry Association of Canada; September 19, 2007

With respect to the parity between the US and Canadian dollars, all I can say is "Well, hoooray!" I was nine years old when both currencies were last at par and Pierre ("Just Watch Me") Trudeau was prime minister. Now, start prepping for a knock-out punch from the Communist Bloc and its Islamo-Marxist proxies. This development might excite some Canadian nationalists, but in the long term it portends at least five things: a weak tourism industry, which relies heavily on American visitors; a dislocated resource-based export industry, which relies heavily on the USA, Canada's biggest trading partner; economic recession in the USA, which will at some point bounce back over the 49th parallel; inflation, and more inflation. Better horde your Ameros!

For those ignorant of Canadian currency, the dollar coin features a loon on one side, hence, "loonie." The two dollar coin is, you guessed it, a "toonie." It's all worthless fiat currency, however, since Canada abandoned the gold standard in 1929.

Loonie nearing parity: reaches 99.99 cents US
Updated Thu. Sep. 20 2007 9:49 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

The Canadian dollar nearly achieved parity with the U.S. greenback Thursday morning. It topped a 30-year high, rising to 99.99 cents U.S., before dropping back to 99.75 cents.

The loonie, which has been gaining ground on its American counterpart in recent years, rose sharply Tuesday -- its highest closing price since January 1977 -- after the U.S. Federal Reserve cut U.S. interest rates more than expected. The Canadian dollar was last at the US$1 mark on November 25th, 1976.

The strong loonie is partially due to a weak U.S. dollar. It has dipped to a record low againt the Euro and could keep falling. That could mean that the Canadian dollar may equal or potentially top the U.S. dollar sometime today.

The Canadian currency has been helped by increased prices in the energy sector. Crude oil prices have hit new highs and are selling about US$80 a barrel.

The loonie lost some ground against the U.S. dollar yesterday, closing at 98.5 cents U.S., down 0.14 of a cent. The temporary dip came after a Statistics Canada report made it less likely that the Bank of Canada would increase interest rates.

Economists say that likely concerned currency speculators because a potential rate hike would have made investing in the Canadian dollar more profitable. But now that the U.S. Fed has dropped interest rates more than expected, the greenback has fallen slightly for similar reasons. That's helped currencies around the world, including the loonie.

Source: CTV.ca

The Financial Times reports today that the US dollar plunged to a record low vis-a-vis the euro, checking in at $1.4035 against the dollar. David Woo at Barclays Capital prognosticated: “This increases the risk of a disorderly adjustment of global imbalances in which the dollar is likely to perform very poorly. With euro/dollar now having broken above $1.40, the market is likely to price in this risk through higher volatility.”

Meanwhile, the Bank of England--following the socialist path of government intervention with some silent arm-twisting from Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour government and taking a cue from the US Federal Reserve System and the European Central Bank--is propping up the British banking system with a cash injection. British mortgage lenders, in particular, have been hit by a one-two-punch in the subprime gut. On September 20, the International Herald Tribune reported:

The Bank of England has abruptly reversed its policy of refusing to ease lending standards, offering to inject cash into British money markets amid criticism that it had not done enough to stem a credit squeeze that has undercut one of the largest European economies.

The action Wednesday came a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve lightened credit conditions with an aggressive half-point cut in interest rates, a move that buoyed global stock markets but also fanned concern that the United States might still face a notable slowdown.

Before assuming the post of prime minister in June, Brown was for 10 years Tony Blair's Chancellor of the Exchequer, a cabinet position that oversees financial and economic matters. In 1997 the BOE supposedly acquired an independent monetary policy, which includes setting interest rates. Today BOE Governor Mervyn King denied that political pressure was applied to his organization to pump cash into the "system." "The way in which the bank would have preferred to do it on this occasion is to have acted covertly as lender of last resort," King explained to the government's Treasury Committee yesterday. Citing King, however, Reuters reports: "But the advice from meetings with the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury was that this was not possible." "Advice in politics"=political pressure.

In the September 20 edition of Pravda the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union continues to monitor the health of capitalism in the USA. Under the title "US economy to go from bad to worse in nearest future," the reds gloat: "The dollar sank to a record low against the euro on speculation Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will tell a congressional hearing that the U.S. housing slump threatens to slow economic growth."

Breaking News: Saudi Arabia follows Kuwait, prepares to break dollar peg, Middle East stampede out of US currency looming

Moscow has already wooed Riyadh into its orbit. If the Communist Bloc can maintain itself economically, in large part through Russia's exploitation of natural resources and China's theft of the US manufacturing base, then the disappearance of the hollowed-out US economy will not seriously disrupt communist plans for global domination. Last year CNN commentator Lou Dobbs rightly lamented that the Bush "administration and U.S. multinational corporations have lost sight of the national interest."

The fault lies entirely with the U.S. government, our lack of strategy and our failed policies. This administration and U.S. multinational corporations have lost sight of the national interest. This administration and the Republican-led Congress have permitted the dismantling of America's manufacturing base and created a dependency on China for our clothing, computers, consumer electronics and a host of other products that is greater than our dependency on foreign oil.

Pictured above: Neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin visits Saudi King/Tyrant Abdullah in February 2007. This was the first-ever visit of a Russian leader to the Arabian kingdom.

Fears of dollar collapse as Saudis take fright
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor
Last Updated: 7:29pm BST 19/09/2007

Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time, signalling that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle East.

"This is a very dangerous situation for the dollar," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas.
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"Saudi Arabia has $800bn (£400bn) in their future generation fund, and the entire region has $3,500bn under management. They face an inflationary threat and do not want to import an interest rate policy set for the recessionary conditions in the United States," he said.

The Saudi central bank said today that it would take "appropriate measures" to halt huge capital inflows into the country, but analysts say this policy is unsustainable and will inevitably lead to the collapse of the dollar peg.

As a close ally of the US, Riyadh has so far tried to stick to the peg, but the link is now destabilising its own economy.

The Fed's dramatic half point cut to 4.75pc yesterday has already caused a plunge in the world dollar index to a fifteen year low, touching with weakest level ever against the mighty euro at just under $1.40.

There is now a growing danger that global investors will start to shun the US bond markets. The latest US government data on foreign holdings released this week show a collapse in purchases of US bonds from $97bn to just $19bn in July, with outright net sales of US Treasuries.

The danger is that this could now accelerate as the yield gap between the United States and the rest of the world narrows rapidly, leaving America starved of foreign capital flows needed to cover its current account deficit -- expected to reach $850bn this year, or 6.5pc of GDP.

Mr Redeker said foreign investors have been gradually pulling out of the long-term US debt markets, leaving the dollar dependent on short-term funding. Foreigners have funded 25pc to 30pc of America's credit and short-term paper markets over the last two years.

"They were willing to provide the money when rates were paying nicely, but why bear the risk in these dramatically changed circumstances? We think that a fall in dollar to $1.50 against the euro is not out of the question at all by the first quarter of 2008," he said.

"This is nothing like the situation in 1998 when the crisis was in Asia, but the US was booming. This time the US itself is the problem," he said.

Mr Redeker said the biggest danger for the dollar is that falling US rates will at some point trigger a reversal yen "carry trade", causing massive flows from the US back to Japan.

Jim Rogers, the commodity king and former partner of George Soros, said the Federal Reserve was playing with fire by cutting rates so aggressively at a time when the dollar was already under pressure.

The risk is that flight from US bonds could push up the long-term yields that form the base price of credit for most mortgages, the driving the property market into even deeper crisis.

"If Ben Bernanke starts running those printing presses even faster than he's already doing, we are going to have a serious recession. The dollar's going to collapse, the bond market's going to collapse. There's going to be a lot of problems," he said.

The Federal Reserve, however, clearly calculates the risk of a sudden downturn is now so great that the it outweighs dangers of a dollar slide.

Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan said this week that house prices may fall by "double digits" as the subprime crisis bites harder, prompting households to cut back sharply on spending.

For Saudi Arabia, the dollar peg has clearly become a liability. Inflation has risen to 4pc and the M3 broad money supply is surging at 22pc.

The pressures are even worse in other parts of the Gulf. The United Arab Emirates now faces inflation of 9.3pc, a 20-year high. In Qatar it has reached 13pc.

Kuwait became the first of the oil sheikhdoms to break its dollar peg in May, a move that has begun to rein in rampant money supply growth.

Source: The Telegraph

USSR2 File: Moscow beats war drum against Washington, still "worried" about US missile defense in Central Europe, bases in Balkans, Iran attack

The Kremlin-run media is again expressing its "fears" over America's "aggressive" posture in Central Europe (with respect to proposed missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic), the Balkans (with respect to proposed US bases in Bulgaria and Romania), and the Middle East (with respect to Iran's "alleged" nuclear weapons program). In spite of Moscow's heated rhetoric, the astute student of geopolitical affairs will note that Washington's intentions are merely "proposals" and no attack against Iran has materialized. The mere thought that the USA might be moving into its turf in Central Europe and the Middle East is enough to provoke the neo-Soviet leadership into a frenzy of fulminations.

State-run Interfax reports the Russian Defense Ministry is "seriously concerned" about the proposed location of US bases in Bulgaria and Romania, both of which, as we have documented, are still controlled by "ex"-communists operating through potemkin socialist or social democratic parties. The same applies to Poland and the Czech Republic.

The Russian Defense Ministry is seriously concerned by the proposed location of U.S. bases in Bulgaria and Romania, Maj. Gen. Vladimir Nikishin, a representative of the Defense Ministry's Main International Military Cooperation Department, said on Wednesday.

"The location of NATO bases in Bulgaria and Romania actually means that the Alliance is creating bases for building up it forces in Eastern Europe, which is at variance with the adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty," Nikishin told the parliamentary hearings on the issues of suspension of the CFE Treaty by Russia.

Still, Moscow has already used NATO expansionism as a pretext for dropping out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty in May.

On September 17 Putin's wife Lyudmila Putina visited Sofia to inaugurate the eleventh congress of the International Association of Russian Language and Literature Teachers. There she was met by Bulgaria's "ex"-communist President Georgi Parvanov. Putin himself will visit Bulgaria in January. A Bulgarian professor was recently interviewed about the relationship between the Russian and Bulgarian leadership.

With what kind of expectation do you think Mrs. Putina will come to Bulgaria?

She will come with all her friendliness and an open mind. There is a wonderful friendship between Russia's presidential couple and Bulgaria's first couple.

Indeed. Red birds of a feather flock together. The proposal to establish a US base in Bulgaria will go nowhere, just as the Czech government has shelved plans to host US missile defense installations on its territory. However, the damage has been done. The Kremlin can now portray the White House as its worst enemy with "justification."

State-run Novosti reports that, notwithstanding attempts to "placate" the Americans with access to Russia's Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan, Army General Yuri Baluyevsky, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, continues to huff and puff about US missile defense. "The missile defense system that is being deployed in Europe is clearly aimed against Russia. I am ready to prove that with facts and figures," Baluyevsky warned. "If we accept American logic, Iran will produce missiles within the next five or seven years, but what will the radar stations be doing there in the meantime? What will their functions be? The answer is obvious: [the U.S.] is only interested in Russia's capability."

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov whined about Washington's hard-line stance against Moscow's long-time nuclear client in Tehran: "Numerous reports on the possible implementation of military action against Iran are causing concern." The presense at this very moment of Russia's strategic bomber fleet over three oceans is no doubt perceived as one answer to a US-dominated unipolar world. In a former era, that domination was called "US imperialism."

USSR2 File: Zyuganov meets Putin in Sochi, Kremlin-run Russia Today touts communists' prospects in December Duma election as "bright"

A pattern of Kremlin-backed endorsements for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union appears to be developing following the Russian Public Opinion Research Center's September 3 press release revealing that 52% of Russian voters want a "leftist" president" to replace Vladimir Putin: "Every second respondent (52%) thinks the next President of our country should rather be a "left-wing" politician, i.e. to favour social justice and take care of all the less privileged social classes and groups." Among supporters of the four major parties represented in the State Duma--United Russia, Just (or Fair) Russia, Liberal Democrats and, of course, the CPRF/SU--there is a strong preference for a left-wing president:

The preference that the next President should belong to the "left" wing is especially clear among the supporters of the Communist Party, KPRF (84% against 4%) and "Fair Russia" (71% against 9%); it is less clearly stated among the voters of "Unified Russia" (44% of the supporters of the "Left" and 25% of "Market" supporters). Among the voters of LDPR there is approximately the same number of those in favour of the left and the right position (39% and 34%).

While it is very possible that the communists might steal seats from the crypto-Stalinist United Russia party and significantly increase their representation in the State Duma, we believe that the CPRF/SU has a better shot of taking the Russian presidency. In the wake of these government-sponsored poll results, the CPRF/SU was quick to present its chairman Gennady Zyuganov as the only viable left-wing candidate for the March 2008 election. Suggesting the government's pro-communist trend, state-run Russia Today reports today:

Election prospects bright for Russian Reds
September 19, 2007, 19:15

President Vladimir Putin has met the leader of Russia's Communist party, Gennady Zyuganov, to discuss preparations for the Parliamentary election in December.

Mr. Zyuganov says the party has prepared a package of laws to submit to the State Duma and informed its members on the work it's doing.

Polls suggest around 18% of voters currently would support the Communist party in December’s election.

Mr. Zyuganov said its list of candidates will be confirmed on Saturday.

President Putin is holding sessions with representatives of all major political parties ahead of the election.

State-run ITAR-TASS relates in further detail what can only be described as a very cordial meeting between Comrades Zyuganov and Putin (pictured above) at the latter's holiday residence in Sochi, on the Black Sea. The Russian president's final reply to the communist leader suggests the existence of a well-established collusion between Moscow's "non"-communist government and the CPRF/SU. “This is a very timely meeting," gushed Comrade Putin, "and I think it will be mutually useful." Indeed.

Putin meets Zyuganov to discuss parliamentary elections
19.09.2007, 17.41

BOCHAROV RUCHEI, Sochi, September 19 (Itar-Tass) -- President Vladimir Putin met with Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov at his Black Sea residence of Boxcharov Ruchei in Sochi on Wednesday as part of consultations with the heads of Duma factions.

Putin and Zyuganov discussed the upcoming parliamentary elections and the Communist Party’s position in them.

“This meeting continues a series of consultations with the leaders of Duma factions ahead of the parliamentary elections,” Putin said, opening the meeting.

“I am glad to see you and hope we will talk about all aspects of the upcoming events,” the president said.

Zyuganov thanked Putin for the meeting. “You have chosen a good place for the meeting, and we have brought good weather. … We have good opportunities to discuss all topics in detail, especially with the elections coming,” he said.

“Over the past two months we have reported to our voters, held party conferences and a meeting in the North Caucasus with our activists,” Zyuganov said.

“We have also held two congresses” in Novosibirsk and Oryol, and “ congress of work collectives’ representative in Saransk”, he said.

Putin asked him about the upcoming congress of the party. “We have formed platforms, voters’ wishes and a package of laws, including for the future Duma. The congress will be held on Saturday. In accordance with the law, we have to approve the list by secret ballot,” Zyuganov said.

“This is a very timely meeting and I think it will be mutually useful,” he added.

At Once Upon a Time in the West we will continue to monitor any positive spin imparted to the communists by Russia's state-run media during the current election season since this could very well presage a red coup in Moscow, as we have warned in past months. In December 2006 we posted the comments of Stalinists at the Soviet Belarus Internet forum, in which a multi-stage plot for seizing power from United Russia under a democratically elected communist president was detailed. Such a drama could conceivably be carried out under a presidency controlled by Zyuganov or his on-again, off-again ally Oleg Shenin. Both men founded the CPRF in 1990, when it was known as the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, and are committed to the restoration of the Soviet Union.

Stage Two of this hypothetical plot consists of "consolidating loyal Soviet support." This stage might be underway at this time since Putin's hand-picked ally, "ex"-communist Viktor Zubkov, has assumed the prime ministership, possibly with the intent of performing some behind-the-scene manuever that will assist the CPRF/SU.

While the country and the West are trying to figure out where the revolutionaries went, the President and his inner circle will quietly: a. Replace the Defense Minister and top echelons of the officers' corps with loyal Soviet military men. b. Replace the head of the FSB (former KGB) and top ranking officers with loyal Soviets. c. Replace the heads and top ranking officers of local militias (police departments) with Communists. d. Dismiss the regional governors and replace them with loyal Partymen. e. Put Communists in key positions in the state controlled television and radio sector. f. Target the most influential oligarchs and their "security" forces.

Intriguingly, Zubkov's son-in-law Anatoliy Serdyukov, citing concerns over perceived nepotism, has tendered his resignation as Defense Minister. This development might very well provide the communists, operating through Party man Putin, with the entrance needed to insert a "loyal Soviet military man" into that office, even before the March 2008 election.

Stage Three consists of the "Second Bolshevik Revolution":

Without ANY warning or fanfare, on a pre-arranged date the President will: a. Declare Martial Law. b. Simultaneously arrest the entire Duma (Parliament), the heads of all political parties, the former top ranking officers of the military and FSB, and the targeted oligarchs and their gangs. c. Any resistance is met with immediate summary execution. d. Any street demonstrations result in the immediate summary executions of ALL persons arrested after the declaration of Martial Law. This MUST be communicated to the public LOUD and CLEAR! e. In Moscow and St. Petersburg (Leningrad) the barricading and defense of key government buildings, railways, airports, communications centers, etc. f. That evening on prime time television the President will announce the reformation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics while television viewers watch the RED FLAG with HAMMER & SICKLE raised above the Kremlin.

This is a plausible scenario and consistent with the history of communism in Russia and elsewhere, such as Czechoslovakia.

USSR2 File: Putinist youth group Nashi to form "election patrols," "help" Moscow police, with unstated objective of intimidating opponents

As Russia enters the final leg of its election season expect more red-scripted drama, including pitched street battles between the Putinist youth groups like Nashi, who label all opponents as "fascists," and the communist youth groups and their allies, who also label all opponents as "fascists." Nostalgia for the days of Soviet Russia pervades the Putinist camp, just as it does the leftist forces, led by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union. The Nashi website, for example, utilizes the Internet country code for the "defunct" Soviet Union in its address. In December 2006 The Age took note of Nashi's neo-Komsomol ambience: "The movement's rhetoric is profoundly anti-Western and Nashi apes many elements of the Komsomol, the Communist Party's youth league."

Do not be surprised when, after the CPRF/SU determines that the moment has arrived to openly seize power, Nashi and its sister organizations like Young Russia and Young Guard are absorbed into the communist youth sections. In reality, the Putinist youth groups play the role of fascist bogeyman, while Russia's hidden communist masters play the role of national savior. As we constantly stress here, everyone's on the Red Team in Russia.

The article below should remind the sleepwalking denizens of the West that anti-Americanism is rampant in neo-Soviet officialdom: "Russian officials denounced the 2004 Ukrainian uprising, which prevented the Moscow-backed candidate from coming to power, as a US plot to undermine Russian influence in the former Soviet Union." Nashi leader Vasily Yakemenko, moreover, "has said the United States and Western powers want to steal Siberia from Russia." Yakemenko, who is pictured above, was 20 years old when the Soviet Union was dismantled per the CPSU's long-range strategy and very probably received his initial indoctrination through the original Komsomol. In July the Financial Times reported that "Mr Yakemenko plays down suggestions that Nashi is being groomed above all to mass in Moscow to counter opposition attempts to foment revolution after the coming elections."

Pro-Putin youth group to start election patrols
Wednesday, 19 September 2007

Russia's pro-Kremlin youth have vowed to begin vigilante type patrols on the streets of Russian cities to preserve order during upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.

The Nashi movement, which says its aim is to support President Vladimir Putin against Russia's enemies at home and abroad, will start the Soviet-style patrols ahead of parliamentary elections set for December 2.

"We understand that our country must live through difficult months – December is approaching," Nashi said in a statement on its www.nashi.su Web site.

"But we are convinced that our professionalism and training will guarantee citizens calm and order on the streets of our cities," Nashi said.

The group came to prominence last year when it hounded the British ambassador for months after he attended an anti-Kremlin conference.

During Soviet times, specially organised people's patrols would scan the streets for people who they suspected were breaking the law.

Nashi denies it is funded by the Kremlin, but its members meet Putin at least once a year and senior advisors – such as deputy Chief-of-Staff Vladislav Surkov – patronise the group's annual youth camp.

Opponents say Nashi was created to head off any chance of Ukrainian-style mass protests in the run up to the March 2008 presidential vote, when a successor to Putin will be elected.

Russian officials denounced the 2004 Ukrainian uprising, which prevented the Moscow-backed candidate from coming to power, as a US plot to undermine Russian influence in the former Soviet Union.

Nashi says Putin has provoked the wrath of traitors abroad and at home who are plotting to undermine his attempt to build a great Russia.

The group puts much emphasis on flag waving and playing Russia's national anthem while leader Vasily Yakemenko has said the United States and Western powers want to steal Siberia from Russia.

It has singled out former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who has become an opposition leader since being sacked by Putin in 2004, for particular scorn. Nashi brands him as a foreign funded traitor who is mentally ill.

Nashi, which means "ours" in Russian, said police officers had explained to activists how to keep order during mass meetings. It was unclear what legal sanction the Nashi activists would have.

"The activists. . . are preparing for the December events and will provide security," Nashi said, adding that its activists would "help the Moscow police control the situation."

Source: Stuff.Co.Nz

EU File: Brussels' Socialist mayor orders riot police to attack Flemish activists peacefully protesting Islamization of Europe on 911 anniversary

The European Union is nothing other than Mikhail Gorbachev's "new European Soviet," awaiting only the full revival of the Soviet Union under Gennady Zyuganov and Oleg Shenin, as we have demonstrated in previous posts. The report below concerning Belgians who oppose the Islamization and communization of their country comes from LifeSiteNews.com, which has summarized a number of original dispatches produced by the anti-EU Brussels Journal. The response of Vladimir Palko of the Slovak Christian-Democrat Party, who sent a letter of protest to the Belgian ambassador in Slovakia, is particularly telling:

Until today, I thought that something like this is possible only in Lukashenko's Belarus, in today's Europe. Moreover, I do not understand why it is forbidden in Brussels to demonstrate against Islamization of Europe. Islamization of Europe is a serious problem. We can have various opinions and disagree about solutions needed, but it is highly important to freely discuss about them.

I hope that in future we will not hear about such events anymore and that European Union where we live together will be area of liberty, not a soft-tyranny.

On February 23, 2006 the Brussels Journal published an interview by Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who is running for the Russian presidency next year. In that interview Bukovsky discloses:

In 1992 I had unprecedented access to Politburo and Central Committee secret documents which have been classified, and still are even now, for 30 years. These documents show very clearly that the whole idea of turning the European common market into a federal state was agreed between the left-wing parties of Europe and Moscow as a joint project which Gorbachev in 1988-89 called our "common European home."

Former Soviet Tyrant Mikhail Gorbachev has repeatedly endorsed President Vladimir Putin's oscillating foreign policy of threats (strategic bomber probes) coupled with incentives (secure natural gas flows) with respect to Europe and so we can only conclude that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's "common European home" has become a reality. Protecting that common European home for the communists is the Islamic guard dog. Resisting that common European home are isolated pockets of conservatives, nationalists, and secessionists. Adopting the role of landlord, the mayor of Brussels is apparently prepared to evict "non-compliant" tenants.

Police Brutality Videotaped at Belgian 9/11 Peaceful Demonstration Against "Islamization of Europe"
Pro-life, pro-family politicians of Flemish independence party especially targeted
By John-Henry Westen

BRUSSELS, September 12, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A September 11 demonstration against the "Islamization of Europe", where protesters planned a moment of silence to commemorate the 9/11 tragedy in the United States, was banned by the Socialist mayor of Brussels Freddy Thielemans claiming he feared "chaos and security threats". Despite the ban, over 200 Belgians went ahead with a peaceful demonstration and joining them were the several prominent pro-life politicians.

What then transpired is something reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. Brussels Journal reporter Paul Belien who was at the scene describes the police brutality not only with words but with photos and video.

"Riot police units from Liege in Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium, maltreated the demonstrators, many of them from Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, in an excessively violent way," reports Belien.

On video police are seen brutalizing several politicians from the Vlaams Belang party and members of the European Parliament. Vlaams Belang (VB) is currently the second most important party in Flanders and one of the largest parties in the country.

VB supports natural marriage and family life through tax reform and opposes same-sex marriage and adoption by homosexual partners. VB also opposes abortion, except in cases of rape or for medical threats to a mother's life, and supports relaxation of the country's strict adoption laws. VB also proposes Flemish independence and in that respect is similar to Canada's Bloc Quebecois, a large national party which proposes secession of Quebec.

Belien describes the scenes shown in the video: "The grey-haired man whom we see being attacked by the police first is Luk Van Nieuwenhuysen, the Vice-President of the Flemish Parliament. Shortly afterwards we see the police maltreating Frank Vanhecke, a member of the European Parliament and the party leader of the Vlaams Belang. We see how he is handcuffed and pushed into a police bus. Afterwards we also see the police "taking care" of Filip Dewinter, the VB group leader in the Flemish Parliament."

See the video here.

Note how Dewinter's hand is beaten with a baton at the end of the video. The demonstrators were kept in cells for seven hours and released.

In this photo Vanhecke is seen held by police officers while one of them pinches his scrotum. "As they did so they shouted abuse such as "Sale Flamingant" (Dirty Flemish-secessionist)," reports Belien.

Flemish television reporter Goedele Devroy told a colleague that she was amazed by the brutality of the police against the peaceful demonstrators "who just stood there." She added: "This is strange because, when I rang the police this morning, they said that they would tolerate the demonstration if the demonstrators would not use violence and if they just remained put and would not try to march."

An Italian MEP and a French MEP were also arrested. The Italian government has complained to the Belgian government about the arrest of Mario Borghezio, an Italian member of the European Parliament, protesting against the violation of his parliamentary immunity by the Belgians.

Belgian authorities have also heard a complaint from prominent Slovak politician Vladimir Palko. Palko, of the Slovak Christian-Democrat Party KDH, has written Alain Cools, ambassador of Belgium in Slovakia and publicly protested against the illegitimate use of force against peaceful demonstrators in Brussels.

In his open letter, Palko wrote: "Until today, I thought that something like this is possible only in Lukashenko's Belarus, in today's Europe. Moreover, I do not understand why it is forbidden in Brussels to demonstrate against islamization of Europe. Islamization of Europe is a serious problem. We can have various opinions and disagree about solutions needed, but it is highly important to freely discuss about them."

Concluding his letter, Palko wrote: "I hope that in future we will not hear about such events anymore and that European Union where we live together will be area of liberty, not a soft-tyranny."

Source: LifeSiteNews.net

USA/USSR2 Files: Fed appeases Wall Street, cuts rates by 50 basis points; Putin to West: Drop your "silly Atlantic solidarity"

Today Ben ("Bailout") Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve System, has appeased banks and investors by dropping The Fed's funds rate by 50 basis points. The Fed's directors soothed: "Economic growth was moderate during the first half of the year, but the tightening of credit conditions has the potential to intensify the housing correction and to restrain economic growth more generally."

One week ago the AFP news agency noted the correlation between the financial and money markets and the The Fed's policies: "The euro flirted with a new record high against the dollar Tuesday as speculation increased about a Federal Reserve rate cut to help get credit flowing and stave off a US economic downturn." The same story quotes Derek Halpenny, London-based senior currency economist at the Bank of Tokyo, who stated on September 11: "The dollar remains undermined by the increasing prospect of monetary easing by the Federal Reserve as it attempts to forestall the US economy from slipping into recession." In an article titled "Almighty US dollar turns into 'American peso'" the Philippine Star explains:

Since 2001 the dollar has lost more than half its value against the euro. It now costs nearly $1.40 to buy one euro. And it isn’t just the euro that seems to be growing stronger against the US dollar. It has declined against many other major world currencies, and even including minor ones like our peso, reflecting the dollar’s loss of purchasing power.

Fed Shocks Street, Cuts Rates by 50 Basis Points
By Joseph Hargett (jhargett@sir-inc.com)
9/18/2007 2:42 PM ET

The market wanted a rate cut, and Bennie and the Fed delivered. Today, the Federal Open Market Committee cut its key overnight lending rate for the first time in more than 4 years, dropping the Fed funds rate by 50 basis points from 5.25% to 4.75%. The decision by the Fed was unanimous, with the members stating that "Today's action is intended to forestall some of the adverse effects on the broader economy that might otherwise arise from the disruption in financial markets and to promote moderate growth over time." The Fed also said core inflation has improved "modestly" but that some risks remain.

Furthermore, in an effort to address the building credit crunch, the Federal Reserve also reduced its discount rate to 5.25% from 5.75%.

The initial reaction on Wall Street was broadly jubilant, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA - 13,644.9) surging more than 240 points higher shortly following the announcement. Other indices were also broadly higher, with the S&P 500 Index (SPX - 1,509.30) up more than 32 points, and the Nasdaq Composite (COMP - 2,636.5) up more than 50 points shortly after the report.

At the New York Stock Exchange, volume exceeded 623 million shares, with advancers outpacing decliners by more than 2-to-1. Over at the Nasdaq, more than 897 million shares had changed hands, and advancers outpaced decliners by about 3-to-1.

Addressing the recent economic turmoil, highlighted by a recent, and unexpected decline in August non-farm payrolls, the Fed had this to say: "Economic growth was moderate during the first half of the year, but the tightening of credit conditions has the potential to intensify the housing correction and to restrain economic growth more generally."

Checking in on the rest of the market, October crude added to today's gains following the FOMC announcement, and was last seen higher by 91 cents at $81.48 per barrel. Elsewhere, December gold climbed to $730.50 an ounce in electronic trading after closing the session down 10 cents at $723.70 an ounce.

Finally, the U.S. dollar dropped against its foreign counterparts, as the euro rose to $1.3953.

Source: SchaeffersResearch.com

On the other side of the Atlantic the Bank of England is assuring depositors that mortgage lenders like Northern Rock, Alliance & Leicester, and Bradford & Bingley are solvent, notwithstanding the fact that investors are dumping stocks in all three companies. Bloomberg.com quotes James Crocker, who works for Merchant Securities in London, as saying: "There remains plenty of uncertainty as to how the credit squeeze will work its way through the U.K. banking system. In terms of equity exposure, we remain highly selective in the sector at present.''

While the world economy trembles on the verge of recession, we have been monitoring the remilitarization of Russia under President Vladimir Putin. Sean Osbourne, military affairs analyst at Northeast Intelligence Network, is also tracking the activities of Russia's air and strategic rocket forces. He writes:

Drowned out in the media by tales of O.J. [Simpson] and Brittney [Spears], it is probably news to the majority of Americans that as you are reading this, Russian strategic bombers are conducting a series of long-range training flights, complete with aerial refueling, simulating a full-fledged nuclear cruise missile strike on the Continental United States. These exercises, conducted in a time when world tensions continue to mount, are scheduled to continue through September 21st.

On September 15, speaking to a group of international journalists at his holiday residence in Sochi, on the Black Sea, Putin expressed his contempt for the North Atlantic Alliance:

The West must drop its silly Atlantic solidarity if it wants improved relations with Russia. We will participate in any debate with our partners, but, if they want us to do something, they must be specific. If they want us to resolve Kosovo, let’s talk Kosovo. If they are worried about nuclear programmes in Iran, let’s talk about Iran, rather than talking about democracy in Russia.

Is Moscow's rationale vis-a-vis Washington: "Kick'em while they're down?"

USSR2 File: PM Zubkov's cabinet to be finalized Friday, 1st appointee a 25-year KGB/FSB veteran; accused Litvinenko killer runs for Duma

State-run Russia Today, which now serves millions of New York and New Jersey digital cable subscribers via Time Warner, reports that the new "ex"-communist Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, a Putin appointee, will finalize his cabinet by Friday. In a related development, Zubkov's son-in-law Anatoliy Serdyukov, who has been Defense Minister since February, has filed a request for dismissal in order to preempt any potential charges of nepotism.

Preliminary list of cabinet to be finalised by Friday: Russian Prime Minister
September 18, 2007, 21:38

Russia's Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov has met with the President in Sochi to discuss the new cabinet. This was the first time the two have met since Mr Zubkov was appointed to the post last Friday.

The cabinet under Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov was dismissed on September 12, after Mr Fradkov asked the President to dismiss him from the post.

All members of the government remain in their positions until the formation of a new cabinet.

Mr Zubkov has put together a preliminary list of candidates, which President Putin has now to review. According to the Russian constitution the list has to be finalised seven days after the appointment of a new prime minister, while the cabinet has to be formed within 30 days.

“The preliminary list of the cabinet will be finalised within a timeframe prescribed by law - within seven days following my appointment. I have handed over to the President my proposals on the formation of the new cabinet. We had a conversation and the President is now studying the document,” Viktor Zubkov stated. So far the names in the list are unknown.

Meanwhile, the Russian acting Defence Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, who is the new Prime Minister’s close relative, has filed a request for dismissal from his post. The President has now to consider the request.

“I had a conversation with the acting Defense Minister. You know he is my close relative. I have talked to him today and due to being my close relative he submitted his resignation to the President,” Mr Zubkov explained.

Although the new Zubkov cabinet has yet to be revealed, Kremlinologists who wisely subscribe to the Golitsynian methodology of analyzing Russian politics will not be surprised that PM Zubkov has appointed an "ex"-KGB/FSB officer to lead his secretariat. State-run Regnum News Agency reports: "New Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov chose his former deputy at the Russian Financial Monitoring Service Yuri Chikhanchin as head of his secretariat, informs press office of the Russian government." Regnum then provides Chikhanchin's bio:

Yuri Chikhanchin has been Deputy Head of the Russian Financial Monitoring Service since July 2004. He was born on June 17, 1951, graduated from Siberian Technological University in 1974. From 1978 to 1994, he served at the security services (KGB and FSB). In 1994-200o, he was head of the East-Siberian Regional Directorate of the Russian Federal Service for Currency and Exports Control in Krasnoyarsk; in 2000-2002, he was head of the Department for Currency Control at the Russian Finance Ministry; since January 2002 – first deputy chair of the Committee for Financial Monitoring.

The crypto-communist orientation of the dominant United Russia party is exposed in the enthusiastic endorsement that its leadership has bestowed upon the "ex"-communist PM, who has been entrusted with "Putin's Plan" for managing the country. First Deputy Chair of the State Duma and one of United Russia's top ideologists Oleg Morozov described Zuvkov's nomination as "flawless."

Meanwhile "ex"-FSB agent/businessman Andrei Lugovoi, despite being wanted in Britain in connection with the murder of former colleague Alexander Litvinenko, is running for a seat in the State Duma under the banner of alleged KGB agent Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. Lugovoi's sudden interest in politics is suspect. Russia Today observes that if Lugovoi wins a parliamentary seat, then he will enjoy immunity from any legal proceedings for at least four years, although Russian prosecutors insist that the British government has no case against Lugovoi. According to Reuters, moreover, Lugovoi has indicated that he has aspirations that lead to the Kremlin. "Like any other citizen of the Russian Federation," he stated in an interview yesterday, "I would like to be president." It wouldn't be the first time that a KGB murderer ruled Russia, to wit the present administration.

Latin America File: Chavez: Global financial "earthquake" imminent, USA at fault; state-run PDVSA to convert dollars; Caracas, Moscow expand links

In the wake of the subprime mortgage meltdown--which began last year in the USA, became a rollercoaster this past summer, and has now spread to Britain, where police recently dispersed panicky clients of mortgage giant Northern Rock--last month's global stock crash, and ongoing market jitters, the communist vultures are circling. Their prey: global capitalism.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union, which is seeking to oust its crypto-Stalinist creature United Russia from the State Duma in December, has described Russia as being a "financial hostage of the USA." State-owned Kommersant Daily does not hesitate to connect US market woes to the lack of liquidity among Russian banks:

The US mortgage crisis that started in February has made itself known among Russian banks. Due to the unfavorable conditions on the international markets, banks faced significantly limited opportunities to get financing abroad and by September these opportunities had almost disappeared. The main question – how to compensate for the absence of liquidity – has yet to be answered. If an answer isn’t found soon the rate of stock growth in the banking sector will shrink to at least half its current size.

Venezuelan Tyrant in Training Hugo Chavez, whom CPRF chairman Gennady Zyuganov described as a "reliable friend" earlier this year when the "Bolivarian revolutionary" visited Moscow, has likewise pinned the blame for the latest belch in global capitalism on "irresponsible" US economic policy. The answer to the world's economic and social plight, of course, is "twenty-first-century socialism" with the usual velvet fist. As Comrade Hugo moves ahead full throttle in communizing Venezuela, he has not disguised the fact that the state's security apparatus will be employed to suppress "counter-revolutionaries." On September 13 Pedro Carreño, Minister of the People’s Power for Internal Affairs and Justice, threatened:

Both the Armed Forces and State’s authority forces are ready to solve any kind of violence that could happen in the country. We have done an exhaustive inspection about opposing sectors actions, which is divided between those calling to vote against the constitutional reform and other sectors announcing that they will prevent, by any mean, the constitutional reform approval; therefore, we establish the violence as a hypothesis.

Carreño, it would appear, has assumed the directorship of Venezuela's version of the Cheka, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Corruption. President Vladimir Putin's hero Felix Dzerzhinsky would approve. Pictured above: Chavez during this past Sunday's Alo Presidente TV program. (May we suggest a sequel to Comrade Hugo's TV spot? How about: Adios Presidente!)

Financial Earthquake on the Spot, Warns Chavez

Havana, September 17 (acn) Speaking on his popular Alo Presidente radio and TV program on Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez talked about taking measures to protect the country from a possible "global financial earthquake" which, he believes, could come as the result of "irresponsible" US economic policy.

Chavez referred to the mortgage crisis in the US and quoted reports from prestigious economists including Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, to warn that the world could be at the doorstep of a major catastrophe, published Granma news daily.

Chavez said the mortgage crisis in the US "could lead to a [...] global fiasco and widespread misery, hunger and severe unrest. The US government is to blame," he noted.

"We aren't only talking about the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, the attempted coup in Venezuela, or other threats against the world, now it's the economic situation," added Chavez.

The Bush administration "has had to inject $300 US billion into the private banks this month to avoid a collapse of the dollar and the world economy [...] And they talk about investment security and have the gall to call us high risk countries and that governments shouldn't intervene in economics."

"The dollar is going down, they don't see that it isn't supported by reality," said Chavez, arguing that the US has been printing money without backing, "because its [annual] fiscal deficit is the biggest in history, and of all countries totally some $500 billion US."

Source: Cuban News Agency

Clearly fearing the collapse of the US dollar, Bloomberg.com reports, Chavez has instructed state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA to reduce risk by converting its investment accounts from dollars to euros and Asian currencies. "The decision may help weaken the dollar as the Federal Reserve prepares to lower interest rates this week," confirmed Philip Wee, an economist at DBS Bank Ltd. in Singapore.

Even former chairman of the US Federal Reserve System Alan Greenspan (1987-2006), who otherwise holds to objectivism, adopts the leftist "No Blood for Oil" line in his new book Age of Turbulence. According to the Communist Party of Cuba's Prensa Latina, Greenspan "strongly criticizes the governing Republican Party, and points out the White House"s concerns were other than the voiced pretext of alleged weapons of mass destruction, with military operations aimed at controlling hydrocarbon reserves." Furthermore, "The economic expert also slams the economic management of President George W. Bush, who, he says, has made considerable mistakes in monetary policy." It is worth noting that the Fifth Plank of the Communist Manifesto (1848) calls for the establishment of a central bank in every country: "Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly." This goal has in fact been achieved worldwide, including in the USA with "The Fed."

Meanwhile, the neo-Soviet state under Comrade Czar Putin has moved quickly to consolidate economic and political linkages with its latest conquest and strategic partner in Latin America, Venezuela. Following Comrade Hugo's June visit to Moscow, Venezuela’s Vice-President Jorge Rodriguez has now made a similar journey to ink various protocols that will facilitate the exploitation of the Orinoco River oil belt by Lukoil and Petroleos de Venezuela.

Venezuela vice-president to discuss joint projects with Russia.
18.09.2007, 05.02

MOSCOW, September 18 (Itar-Tass) -- Venezuela’s Vice-President Jorge Rodriguez will begin his working visit to Russia on Tuesday to promote economic cooperation and joint energy projects.

Rodriguez, who together with Russian acting Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov co-chairs the bilateral high-level intergovernmental commission, will participate in the work of the Business council, which is expected to focus, in particular, on cooperation between Russia’s LUKOIL oil major and Petroleos de Venezuela in developing the Junin-3 field in the Orinoco River oil belt.

Venezuela Industry Federation President Miguel Perez Abad, who together with LUKOIL’s Vice-President Andrei Kuzyaev co-chairs the Russia-Venezuela Council of entrepreneurs, said the Moscow meeting will focus on joint projects and investments into the fuel and energy complex, petrochemical industry, industrial and civilian construction, infrastructure development, agro-industrial complex, telecommunications and tourism.

The Junin-3 field is expected to be one of the major topics, as in summer President Hugo Chavez said state-run Petroleos de Venezuela will sign a contract with LUKOIL by the end of the year.

LUKOIL said “the contract has been finalized and is waiting to be signed”. It calls for a joint venture to develop the major oil field. At present LUKOIL and Petroleos de Venezuela are jointly assessing the reserves at Junin-3. Preliminary estimates show the Orinoco oil belt has a total of 235 billion barrels of heavy and super heavy crude oil.

Source: ITAR-TASS

Moscow has awarded to Caracas a franchise for assembling Kamaz trucks in Venezuela. Russian and Venezuelan companies will also be involved in the joint construction of electric stations, an alumina factory, and assorted scientific and technological projects. During a news conference held today Russia's Acting Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov revealed that 70 percent of Russia’s exports to Venezuela were high tech. The article below notes too that Latin America's Red Axis intends to build the much bally-hooed trans-South American natural gas pipeline with "Russian assistance." That Russian assistance will no doubt arrive with Russian technicians, consultants, and spies.

Venezuela to build auto factory together with KamAz
18.09.2007, 14.56

MOSCOW, September 18 (Itar-Tass) - Venezuela plans building on its territory an auto factory together with Russia’s KamAz, Venezuelan Vice President Jorge Rodriguez Gomez told a news conference on Tuesday.

“We do not want to buy KamAz trucks in Russia, but we would like to build a factory to produce them on our territory jointly with the Russian company,” he said.

Gomez also said the Venezuelan side usually insisted during signing contracts with Russian companies on the transfer of technology.

“The Russian side always welcomed this,” he said. Gomez added that a factory for manufacture of Kalashnikov submachine-guns was being established in Venezulela.

As for attracting Russian companies to other Venezuelan projects, Gomez said his country would build a trans-American gas pipeline to America’s south with Russia’s assistance.

Russian Acting Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov is turn said Russian and Venezuelan companies had several interesting projects, including the joint construction of electric stations, an alumina factory, a truck and tractor joint venture, and scientific and technological cooperation.

Besides, “there are very many interesting projects connected with natural resources extraction (on the territory of Venezuela), in which Russian companies LUKOIL and Zarubezhneftegaz will take part.”

Zhukov said the two countries were considering joint projects in the areas of transport, railways, the construction of the underground in Venezuela and of pipelines.

Speaking of cooperation difficulties, Zhukov cited anti-dumping taxes. He expressed the hope that this problem “can be resolved during the work of joint commissions”.

He stressed that Russia and Venezuela had established good interaction at the level of governments and businesses.

“Our aim is to provide a possibility (to businesses to learn) about the high potential that the two countries have. There are very many joint projects, and I hope that they will be implemented in a nearest time,” Zhukov said.

Accorrding to the Federal Customs Service, Russia’s trade with Venezuela has increased sevenfold relative to the past year, to 517 million dollars.

Russia’s exports have grown 18 times, to 457 million dollars.

Most of the exports (80 percent) to Venezuela were were aircraft, nitrogen and potassium fertilizers.

Russia’s imports from Venzuela were mostly machines, equipment and alumina.

Russia’s positive trade balance with Venezuela last year was 396 million dollars.

Zhukov said 70 percent of Russia’s exports to Venezuela were high technology.

Source: ITAR-TASS

Feature: Communist Manifesto's 10th plank: Free public education: Canadian reds promote state "education," sodomy; Chavez nationalizes private schools

Communists and sodomites who have jumped onto communism's "People's Alternative" bandwagon are committed to the social transformation of Western civilization along lines that will not only overthrow capitalism but also politically "de-privilege" its foundation, the God-ordained family of husband-wife-offspring. They are convinced of the absolute righteousness of their cause and pursue their overlapping agendas with cult-like fervor. On January 10, 1963 the "45 Goals of Communism" were entered into the US Congressional Record (Appendix, pp. A34-A35). Goal No. 26 stated: "Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as 'normal, natural, healthy.'" Using the public school system and Hollyweird especially, the Left has accomplished this goal with tremendous success.

Pictured above: Venezuelan students participate in a class at a "Bolivarian" school in Caracas, January 17, 2007.

The Communist Party of Canada (CPC), along with sympathizers in the Liberal Party of Canada and New Democratic Party, are committed to the communization and "sodomization" of Canada. The CPC declares:

The key to progress lies in building broad coalitions toward a genuine People's Alternative to the neoliberal agenda, based on unity between labour and the popular movements of youth and students, women, seniors, environmentalists, peace activists, the LGBT community, farmers, aboriginal people, immigrants, and many others. (Under "Issues" at the CPC website see article "Celebrate LGBT Pride, Demand Full Equality!" for this proof of communism's support for the "gay" agenda.)

The ruling Conservative Party of Canada has made tentative moves to reverse nearly 30 years of disastrous Liberal social and legal policy that has enshrined the communist concepts of social justice and hate (thought) crimes, articulated as a "defense of human rights," in Canadian jurisprudence. Nothing has changed since 1848, when the Tenth Plank of the Communist Manifesto first called for "free education for all children in public schools."

Communist Party Leader Will Attend Egale Debate
September 1st, 2007
Calls on John Tory to Abandon Discriminatory Religious School Funding, Support Universal Public Education and Equality Rights

Toronto – Responding to questions from reporters, Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) leader Liz Rowley said she would be “delighted to attend the September 9th debate” sponsored by EGALE.

“The Communist Party endorses EGALE’s demands to protect equal marriage rights, the right to adoption, gender rights, the right to attend safe schools, and our 10 plus candidates in Windsor, Hamilton, Sudbury, St. Catharines, Ottawa, Brampton, Guelph and Toronto will work closely with EGALE now and after the election, in the fight to secure and expand equality rights in Ontario and federally,” said Rowley.

Liz Rowley, a former East York (Toronto) School Trustee, took aim at the Tories’ plan to fund religious schools, creating conditions for a reactionary backlash against equality rights, while continuing the “create a crisis” policy of the Harris Tories.

“We’ll fight to stop John Tory and the Conservatives from dismantling the public education system and fostering religious and social division and discrimination, with their policy of publicly funding religious and private schools in Ontario. This impoverished model of fragmentation and balkanization has already been implemented, rejected and rescinded in Newfoundland and Quebec. Today there is only one publicly funded system in both provinces. We should follow their lead and do the same in Ontario.

“Ontario needs one universal, secular, quality system of public education, open to all regardless of religious affiliation, national origin, colour, or sexual orientation. And it should be well-funded, with a new funding formula based on student need, so that schools can be made safe and meet the needs of all students, including gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered students and their families. Educating for equality is a key responsibility of our schools, as a new generation of citizens develops and grows.

“Mr. Tory’s election policy flies in the face of public opinion, and is a dangerous omen for the future. Promising to fund religious schools is nothing more than a sectarian grab for votes, at the expense of universal quality public education and universal civil, social and equality rights,” said Rowley.

“Ontario can’t afford another Tory counter-revolution”, she said, adding, “nor a Liberal one either. Premier McGuinty indicated support for private and religious school funding ‘down the road’, in 2003.

“EGALE’s debate is very timely and important, and they deserve broad public support and appreciation for doing this,” she said.

Source: Block the Right

Social revolutionaries despise private, religious, and home-based education since these institutions safely sequester a sizeable minority of children (and future adults) away from their indoctrination. The totalitarian bent of the sodomite lobby is evident in the following report from LifeSite.net:

The Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario said they were concerned the provincial ministry of education wasn't "exerting more control" over the curriculum used by private religious schools. Unless a school wants to grant students government-recognized Secondary School Diplomas, Ontario private schools are free to use their preferred curriculum. Even schools that do grant the government diplomas may teach any additional material they choose, so long as the required curriculum is covered.

Homeschooling is simply a variant of private schooling. Having stated our opposition to social revolution, we likewise oppose state-funded religious education. The state has no mandate--at least according to the Holy Bible, which formed the basis of Western law for centuries--to educate children. State-run, state-financed education in the West has propagated communism across several generations. It is no doubt for this reason that Venezuelan Tyrant-in-Training Hugo Chavez is threatening to "nationalize" his country's private schools. Comrade Hugo's reference to a "national education plan" would be music in the ears of America's public school teacher's union, the National Eduation Association.

Chavez Obliges Private Schools to Teach Socialism (Update1)
By Matthew Walter

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, after nationalizing the oil and telecommunications industries this year, said private schools that fail to teach a "socialist'' curriculum will be taken over by the state.

Schools will have until 2010 to implement the new lesson plans, which will include new textbooks that focus more on the country's indigenous history than its European conquest, Chavez said today at a ceremony to inaugurate the school year.

"We can't allow private schools to do whatever they want,'' Chavez said in comments broadcast by state television from the city of El Tigre. "The state has to intervene. They should be subordinate to the constitution and the national education plan.''

Teachers and academics may see the measure as an attempt to politicize the classroom, speeding up a brain drain that has been underway for years as educated, skilled workers move abroad to escape Chavez's "Bolivarian'' revolution, said Ercilia Vasquez, director of the school of education at the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Caracas.

"This ideology is very strong,'' she said in a phone interview. "We're going through a process where a lot of people are looking for other alternatives outside the country. This could accelerate it.''

New Curriculum

Private schools, which are already subject to price controls, will also be shut down if they are run like for-profit businesses, Chavez said.

The government will finish developing the new curriculum during the current school year, selecting text books that provide a more "multicultural, pluralistic'' worldview, Chavez said.

"They used to teach us to admire the conquistadors,'' he said.

The president is campaigning ahead of a national referendum expected in December on his proposal to rewrite the country's constitution to eliminate presidential term limits and redefine certain types of private property, among other measures designed to solidify the country's transformation into a socialist state.

Venezuela, the fourth-biggest supplier of crude oil to the U.S., will use oil income to finance news schools. Chavez said that this year 7.4 percent of the budget will go toward education spending, up from around 3 percent when he first took office.

Source: Bloomberg.com

Event Convergence Alert: Russian strategic bombers to conduct "training flights" Sept. 18-21; 3rd Al Qaeda video in 10 days urges attacks

NOTE: At Once Upon a Time in West we use two news categories to speculate that the world might be weeks, days, or possibly hours away from a nuclear war or major terrorist attack. MISSILE DAY ALERT is our highest alert and is frequently attached to the ongoing and well-publicized activities of the Russian Air and Strategic Rocket Forces, particularly as they suggest mobilization and penetration of Western airspace. Our new category Event Convergence Alert takes second place in terms of urgency. We are not privy to the inner workings of the Kremlin and, thus, we can only make informed guesses based on open-source information.

Pictured above: Russia's supersonic Tu-160 Blackjack bomber. Royal Air Force jets chased two such aircraft away from the northern coast of Scotland on September 14, in the latest of a series of similiar incidents this year by Russian bombers on the periphery of NATO and NORAD airspace. The US Air Force's Air Combat Command was scheduled to standdown on the same day for a nuclear munitions transfer procedural review. In spite of the concerns for continental security expressed by some bloggers, such as yours truly, journalist Jerome Corsi related on September 15 that the standdown was completed without any unusual incidents.

Event Convergence Alert

On September 4 or 5, 2001 Russian fighter jets threatened to shoot down a US Navy P-3 surveillance plane in the North Pacific Ocean. The Washington Times reports:

Russian warplanes threatened patrolling U.S. Navy P-3 aircraft over the Pacific Ocean last week as the American planes monitored a military exercise in the region, The Washington Times has learned. At one point during the aerial harassment, a MiG-31 interceptor pilot flew his jet within 50 feet of a P-3 maritime patrol and reconnaissance plane. The incident was similar to a Chinese aerial intercept that resulted in a collision earlier this year. One alarming sign of the Russian intercept was a radio message sent by one MiG-31 pilot to his base stating his fire-control radar had "locked on" to the U.S. surveillance plane, U.S. intelligence officials said. A radar "lock" is a pilot's final step before firing a guided missile. "It was a threatening action," said one official.

Five days later, during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the USA, the neo-Soviet state was "coincidentally" holding pre-announced strategic bomber exercises over the Arctic, North Pacific, and North Atlantic Oceans. The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) reports that "the main task was reportedly to penetrate air defense of NATO and North America (NORAD)."

Maneuvers to simulate defense against a large-scale airspace attack began on September 10. According to Chief of the Air Force Anatoli Kornukov, they were intended to cover the whole Arctic, as well as northern parts of the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, including, specifically, the vicinity of Norway, Iceland, the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. The main task was reportedly to penetrate air defense of NATO and North America (NORAD). As part of the exercise, long-range bombers were moved to auxiliary bases in Anadyr, Tiksi, and Vorkuta. A new element of these maneuvers was, according to newspaper reports, training for the use of long-range ALCMs outside the reach of NORAD (since Russia has had long-range nuclear ALCMs since the 1980s, apparently these reports meant conventional ALCMs, which began to appear in Russian Armed Forces only in the late 1990s). The only real launches planned in these regions involved short-range missiles launched from Tu-22M3 over Kamchatka Peninsula in a simulated attack against an aircraft carrier group.

Immediately following the attacks, the White House contacted the Kremlin and insisted that the Russians cancel their air force's "exercises." The Washington Post reports: "U.S. officials also sent a message to the Russians, who were planning a military exercise not far from Alaska, urging them to rethink their plans." At the link above NTI relates a similar post-attack scenario:

The plan was abruptly changed immediately after news of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC on September 11, 2001 reached Moscow. To avoid possible complications and misperceptions, the [Russian] Air Force terminated all “practical activities” planned for the ongoing maneuvers following a request from the United States. This included a termination of flights not only toward U.S. territory, but also “around the corner” toward Norway and Iceland. Launches of short-range ALCMs from five Tu-22M3 bombers (three belonging to the Naval Air Command and two from the Air Force) over Kamchatka against seaborne targets were still conducted, but only within Russian territorial waters. Also, both heavy and medium bombers practiced missile launches at an internal Russian test range near the Caspian sea.

On Monday, September 17, 2007 state-run Novosti has announced that Russian strategic bombers which, in any case, have resumed permanent patrols per President Vladimir Putin's August 17 announcement, will again be conducting maneuvers between the 18th and 21st of this month.

Russian strategic bombers to conduct exercises this week
14:3117/ 09/ 2007

MOSCOW, September 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russian strategic bombers will conduct a series of long-range training flights, with aerial refueling during the exercises, scheduled for September 18-21, an Air Force spokesman said Monday.

"During the exercise on September 18-21, Russian strategic bombers Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22M3, and Il-78 aerial tankers will conduct long-duration daytime and night flights with mid-air refueling," Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky said.

Major-General Pavel Androsov, the commander of the Russian Air Force's strategic aviation, will supervise the exercise.

Moscow announced in mid-August that routine flights by strategic bombers had been resumed, and would continue on a permanent basis, with patrol areas including commercial shipping and economic production zones.

According to various sources, the Russian Air Force currently deploys 141 Tu-22M3 bombers, 40 Tu-95MS bombers, and 14 Tu-160 planes.

Source: Novosti

An accompanying news blurb at the same link explains that beginning on Tuesday more than 50 "Tu-160 Blackjacks, Tu-95MS Bears and Tu-22M3 Backfires would fly above the Arctic and Pacific oceans and the Black and Caspian seas." Thanks for the heads up, Ivan!

It should be pointed out again that Novosti has adopted the position of the International Left, as represented by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, and Faux Right, as represented by conspiracymonger Alex Jones, in charging that the Bush Admin is plotting to once again stage terrorist attacks on US soil. Referring to Paul Craig Roberts, Novosti on July 20, 2007 propagandized: "A former Reagan official has issued a public warning that the Bush administration is preparing to orchestrate a staged terrorist attack in the United States, transform the country into a dictatorship and launch a war with Iran within a year." Pravda, the official organ of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union, citing Novosti, re-published the same lies on September 11, 2007. No one in the White House, as far as we know, has endeavored to refute these lies of neo-Soviet officialdom. Clearly, US President George W. Bush, his advisors and, for that matter, most members of the US Congress are either oblivious to the Kremlin's blatant anti-Americanism or lack the courage to oppose Moscow's machinations.

Following an original denial, Kremlin proxy and Islamo-Marxist terrorist Osama bin Laden admitted that his organization Al Qaeda orchestrated the 911 attacks. On November 11, 2001 The Telegraph released excerpts of a transcript of a "previously undisclosed video which has been circulating for 14 days among his supporters":

The Twin Towers were legitimate targets, they were supporting US economic power. These events were great by all measurement. What was destroyed were not only the towers, but the towers of morale in that country.

The hijackers were blessed by Allah to destroy America's economic and military landmarks.

If avenging the killing of our people is terrorism then history should be a witness that we are terrorists. Yes, we kill their innocents and this is legal religiously and logically.

The towers were supposed to be filled with supporters of the economical powers of the United States who are abusing the world. Those who talk about civilians should change their stand and reconsider their position. We are treating them like they treated us.

There are two types of terror, good and bad. What we are practising is good terror. We will not stop killing them and whoever supports them.

Bush and Blair don't understand anything but the power of force. Every time they kill us, we kill them, so the balance of terror can be achieved. It is the duty of every Muslim to fight. Killing Jews is top priority.

On December 13, 2001 the US Department of Defense also published a transcript of a video of OBL speaking to an assembly of supporters, possibly in Qandahar, Afghanistan. The DOD speculates that the meeting occured in mid-November and is possibly the same video cited by The Telegraph, above.

The brothers, who conducted the operation, all they knew was that they have a martyrdom operation and we asked each of them to go to America but they didn’t know anything about the operation, not even one letter. But they were trained and we did not reveal the operation to them until they are there and just before they boarded the planes.

(...inaudible...) then he said: Those who were trained to fly didn’t know the others. One group of people did not know the other group.

(...inaudible...) (Someone in the crowd asks UBL to tell the Shaykh about the dream of ((Abu-Da’ud)).

We were at a camp of one of the brother’s guards in Qandahar. This brother belonged to the majority of the group. He came close and told me that he saw, in a dream, a tall building in America, and in the same dream he saw Mukhtar teaching them how to play karate. At that point, I was worried that maybe the secret would be revealed if everyone starts seeing it in their dream. So I closed the subject. I told him if he sees another dream, not to tell anybody, because people will be upset with him. (Another person’s voice can be heard recounting his dream about two planes hitting a big building).

They were overjoyed when the first plane hit the building, so I said to them: be patient.

The difference between the first and the second plane hitting the towers was twenty minutes. And the difference between the first plane and the plane that hit the Pentagon was one hour.

Since September 7, 2007 OBL has released three videos. The first video was an extended anti-capitalist rant that attributed the Iraq war to multinational corporations in league with President Bush. The third video, released today, exhorts Al Qaeda cells to "take Islamist terrorism to Western countries."

Al-Qaeda urges terror in West in third 9/11 video
Video calls on Islamists to take terrorism to Western countries to create climate of fear.
First Published 2007-09-17, Last Updated 2007-09-17 12:14:48

DUBAI - Al-Qaeda called on Islamists to sow terror in the West to create a climate of fear, in a third video marking the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States which was posted on the Internet on Monday.

Called "reasons and motives for the attacks on New York and Washington," the video features a montage of images of the burning World Trade Centre towers and scenes from Islamist training camps.

"We must take Islamist terrorism to Western countries so that it becomes a normal part of life like natural disasters," a voiceover says.

"In that way, we will have acts of mass extermination in which people will feel that their affluence also brings death... and we will have created a balance of deterrence between us and them," the unidentified voice adds.

The new video also includes clips from old voice recordings of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, as well as a short video clip of Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, also known as Sheikh Said, the group's commander in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda already released a videotape and an audiotape featuring bin Laden earlier this month to mark the sixth anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

A third release had been trailed by Al-Qaeda's media arm, As-Sahab. In the event the new video was issued in the name of Al-Tanzem, prompting suggestions the network has launched a new media arm.

Source: Middle East Online

Notwithstanding the International Left's attempt to portray OBL as a "CIA asset" throughout the 1980s, we do not hesitate to characterize the Saudi terrorist as a "Kremlin proxy" since his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri, in particular, possesses all of the hallmarks of an agent of the Russian Federal Security Service. "Given Zawahiri’s travels to Russia and China, given the full context of Russia’s double game in Chechnya," wrote American geopolitical analyst Jeff Nyquist in 2002, "we ought to entertain the possibility that China and Russia secretly supported the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11." We hold to the position that Russia's air force was airborne on September 11, 2001 for one of two reasons: 1) Moscow wanted to cover itself in case President Bush and his advisors decided that the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington DC were the prelude to a strategic nuclear attack, or 2) the 911 attacks were indeed the prelude to a strategic nuclear attack that was cancelled due to some operational failure on the part of the hijackers (such as the crash of United Airlines Flight 93, which might have been heading for the White House or the Capitol Building).

Russian bombers will again be airborne over three oceans this week and Moscow's ally OBL has released three videos in the last 10 days. Got preps?

Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russian IL-76 military transport intrudes into Finnish airspace in latest of several such incidents

The airspace violation reported below occured on Friday, the same day in which Royal Air Force fighter jets chased two Russian Blackjack bombers away from the northern coast of Scotland.

IL-76 of Russian Air Force Intrudes Finland’s Airspace
September 15, 2007

Finland’s Defense Ministry said that IL-76 military-cargo airplane of Russia’s Air Force “apparently” intruded Finland’s airspace on Friday, September 14, and that the intrusion was 4.5 kilometers deep, reported Finland’s STT news agency.

According to Finland, the incident happened around 10:35 a.m. near the city of Porvoo. Finnish frontier services now check the fact of the alleged trespassing of airspace borders.

Finland also claims that Russian airplanes following that route had already intruded Finland’s mid-air before, in August 2005 and April 2006.

In response, Russian Air Force Commander’s Assistant Alexander Drobyshevsky said to Interfax news agency that a special commission was created in the Air Force’s Chief Command, which will “investigate the flight preparation and the flight itself”.

Drobyshevsky explained that the IL-76 was carrying out a regular flight from Chkalovsk airport of Kaliningrad to an airport in Tver Region, using the onboard navigation means. The official added that air traffic control services supervise all flights in the area in question.

Source: Kommersant Daily

Violations of Finnish and Baltic/NATO Airspace by Russian Aircraft

The intrusion of Russian military aircraft, in this case an IL-76 transport, into Finnish airspace and the Baltic theater of NATO airspace is not uncommon. In most such cases, the Russian Air Force is either flying into or out of the Kaliningrad enclave. Some incidents might be accidental, others might be calculated probes of NATO fighter jet response times.

1) On April 16, 1992 Estonian authorities stated that several groups of Russian military planes had repeatedly crossed the Russian-Estonian border and flew along the coastline toward Narva.

2) In November 1992, the Latvian Foreign Ministry insisted that the Russian Air Force was systematically violating Latvian airspace. According to Latvian information, between October 1 and November 2 of that year, Russian aviation had violated Latvian airspace 88 times.

3) On July 27, 1994 a Russian Il-76 transport entered Lithuanian airspace without permission and ignored a prohibition from the regional flight control center.

4) In mid-June 1999, during training in Kaliningrad Region, a group of Russian Mi-24 fighter helicopters entered Polish airspace. The Polish Foreign and Defense Ministries issued a strongly worded statement on the incident. The Russians apologized.

5) On November 19, 2004 a Russian An-72 illegally entered the airspace of Estonia near the island of Vaindloo for one minute. Later the same day, a Russian An-26 military plane entered Estonian airspace, again for one minute. On November 22, the Estonian Foreign Ministry submitted an official complaint to Russia.

6) On April 23, 2005 a Russian Air Force An-26 again violated Estonian airspace for one minute. According to Estonian information, the plane was bound for Kaliningrad and entered Estonia by more than a nautical mile. The Russian Air Force denied the accusations.

7) On August 5, 2005 a Russian Navy Tu-134 flying from St. Petersburg to Kaliningrad violated Finnish airspace due to pilot error and penetrated its territory by more than one kilometer. Finland insisted upon an explanation of the incident from Russia. On August 10, Russian authorities apologized.

8) In September 2005 an Su-27 fighter jet crashed in Lithuania and, after insisting that the incident was a Kremlin provocation, Vilnius returned the pilot to Moscow several weeks later.

Breaking News: Putin relieves Russian Navy chief of command, promotes St. Petersburg clan; defense minister son-in-law of new "ex"-red prime minister

The Putinist regime, we suspect, is reshuffling its cards in preparation for war with the West and, following the Golitsynian methodology of analyzing Kremlin politics, an openly communist government in Moscow. President Vladimir Putin sacked Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov on September 12 and the following day refused to extend the tenure of navy chief Admiral Vladimir Masorin. Pictured here: Russian Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, formerly commander of Russia's Northern Fleet, promoted today to chief of the Russian Navy.

Putin Fires Russian Navy Commander
Last Update: 11:27 am, September 14, 2007

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin has fired the commander of Russia's navy, taking to at least four the number of top brass dismissed since he appointed a new defense minister, media in Russia reported on Friday.

The Moscow Times, an English-language daily, said Admiral Vladimir Masorin may have angered the Kremlin by accepting a U.S. award in August without advance permission.

The paper said Masorin had not followed the established practice of asking Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov before accepting the Legion of Merit at a ceremony in Washington.

Defence ministry and Kremlin spokesmen refused to comment on the reports, saying they had not yet seen a decree ordering Masorin's departure.

A Defence Ministry spokesman played down any suggestion of a connection between the U.S. award and Masorin's reported departure, saying other top military had accepted similar honors in the past.

Masorin had reached the age of 60, at which military officers are required to tender their resignation. However, Putin can extend their contracts until they are 65 -- something he declined to do with Masorin.

Russia's navy will now be run by Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, the commander of Russia's Northern Fleet.

In February, Putin promoted Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, a close ally viewed as a potential presidential successor, to the post of first deputy prime minister and named Serdyukov, a little-known tax official from St Petersburg, to head the ministry.

At least three other top officers, including Air Force commander Vladimir Mikhailov, the head of the Defense Ministry's International Cooperation Department Anatoly Mazurkevich and the head of department in charge of armaments Alexei Moskovsky, have lost their jobs since Serdyukov's appointment.

Kommersant daily suggested that Serdyukov was clearing the ministry of officers loyal to Ivanov, a former KGB agent.

Serdyukov is the son-in-law of Viktor Zubkov, a former head of a financial watchdog whom Putin named on Wednesday as his new prime minister.

Kommersant suggested that armed forces chief of staff Yuri Baluyevsky could be next in line for sacking.

Source: Fox6.com

Putin's standard operating procedure has for the most part been to promote his political allies and fellow Chekists from St. Petersburg. This includes Russia's new prime minister, "ex"-CPSU Viktor Zubkov, and Zubkov's son-in-law Anatoliy Serdyukov (pictured here with a hammer and sickle that someone forgot to remove following the "collapse" of communism), who took over the role of defense minister in February after Putin promoted Sergei Ivanov to the post of first deputy prime minister.

Both Zubkov and Serdyukov previously held posts in state financial management. On November 5, 2001 Zubkov left the Federal Tax Ministry and was appointed First Deputy Finance Minister of Russia and Chairman of the ministry's Financial Monitoring Committee. Zubkov was tasked with combating money laundering, a specialization of the Red Mafiya, itself consisting of "ex"-communists and "ex"-KGB/Soviet Army/Spetsnaz types. On March 16, 2004, after the dissolution of Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov's cabinet, the Financial Monitoring Committee was repackaged as the Federal Financial Monitoring Service. Zubkov retained his position throughout Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov's first and second governments.

From 2000 to 2001 Serdyukov served as a Deputy Chief of the St. Petersburg Directorate of the Federal Tax Ministry and from 2001 to 2004 he served as Directorate Chief, succeeding his father-in-law. The article above observes that, thus far, under Serdyukov's short watch as DM three top military officers have lost their jobs, including Air Force commander Vladimir Mikhailov; Anatoly Mazurkevich, chief of the Defense Ministry's International Cooperation Department; and Alexei Moskovsky, chief of the department in charge of armaments.

MISSILE DAY ALERT: Norwegian, UK fighters intercept 2 Russian bombers yet again; Blackjacks retreat after Scotland pass; US Air Force ACC stands down

I made a decision to restore flights of Russian strategic bombers on a permanent basis, and at 00:00 today, August 17, 14 strategic bombers, support aircraft and aerial tankers were deployed. Combat duty has begun, involving 20 aircraft. Air patrol areas will include zones of commercial shipping and economic activity. As of today, combat patrolling will be on a permanent basis. It has a strategic character. Unfortunately, not everyone followed our example. Other states' long-distance strategic patrol flights have created certain problems for national security. We act on the assumption that our partners will treat with understanding the resumption of strategic air flights. Our pilots have been grounded for too long.
-- Vladimir Putin, Russian Federation President, statement delivered during Peace Mission 2007 exercise, Chelyabinsk, South Urals; quoted in Novosti, August 17, 2007

The report below notes that "Even in the weeks before his [Putin's] statement, Britain and Norway had to scramble jets to intercept Russian planes near their airspace. Russian bombers had also been making increasingly frequent flights near US territory." Last week Russian military jets buzzed Iceland, as well as the United Kingdom and Norway. Coincidentally or not, today the US Air Force's Air Combat Command stands down for a "procedural review" related to loading nuclear munitions.

Pictured above: The presence of the supersonic Tupolev Tu-160 "Blackjack" near NATO airspace should remind the benighted inhabitants of the West that Russia's bomber technology is not restricted to the "lumbering" 1950s-era Tupolev Tu-95 "Bear" bomber.

British jets intercept Russian bombers
Sep 14 07:14 AM US/Eastern

Norwegian and British fighter jets were scrambled to intercept Russian bombers over the north Atlantic, the latest in a series of such incidents, Norway's military command said Friday.

Two Russian Tupolev-160 bombers or "Blackjacks" were detected by the NATO allies flying along the Norwegian coast before passing by northern Scotland, a military spokesman told AFP.

"We dispatched two F-16s from Bodoe airbase (in the north of Norway) to identify them," Lieutenant-Colonel Jon Inge Oegland said, adding that Britain had also sent aircraft.

"It conforms with the declarations of (Russian) president (Vladmir) Putin and we are expecting more such flights in the future.

"It was nothing dramatic but we are of course keeping a close eye on things," Oegland said.

Putin announced the resumption of long-range flights in international air space while he attended military exercises on August 17.

Even in the weeks before his statement, Britain and Norway had to scramble jets to intercept Russian planes near their airspace. Russian bombers had also been making increasingly frequent flights near US territory.

Such flights were standard during the Cold War standoff with the United States and its western European allies, but were abandoned in 1992 amid financial difficulties that followed the Soviet collapse.

Russia's head of strategic aviation General Pavel Androsov has said the aircraft will not carry nuclear weapons and that the main aim of the flights was to improve training for pilots.

But the flights come against a background of increasing tension between Russia and some Western powers. Observers also see it as a sign of renewed Russian self-confidence on the international stage.

Russia has objected strongly to US plans to place anti-missile defence facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland, countries that were ruled from Moscow during the Cold War but are now members of NATO.

Earlier this month, Russian and Chinese special forces held a joint counter-terrorism exercise dubbed "Friendship 2007" in Moscow, underlining the two neighbours' growing security ties.

Source: Breitbart.com

Meanwhile, state-run Novosti reports, the Russian Air Force has resumed Su-24 tactical bomber flights in the country's Far East after patrols were suspended following an August crash due to "technical failure."

EU File: Global financial crisis spreads to UK, bank run hits mortgage lender Northern Rock, shares plunge 32%; Bank of England soothes homeowners

The subprime mortgage implosion has generated ripple effects in the United Kingdom. British communists, like their American counterparts, will no doubt gloat over the "evil" effects of capitalism. Indeed, using familiar red rhetoric, the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) observes:

As if these troubles of imperialism were not enough, chickens are coming home to roost in the credit market. For a long time, moneylenders could make high profits by lending to people with bad credit records, or with only marginal ability to repay. In the US, this has now collapsed as a result of the further impoverishment of the impoverished and a fall in US house prices, which has lowered profits and driven investors away from the credit market. This has led to mortgage lenders being unable to deliver loans that they have promised, not just to house buyers, but also to takeover bidders for major companies. Since such takeovers are often a means of rescuing businesses that would otherwise become insolvent, this crisis is bound to lead to thousands of workers losing their jobs because of their employers’ failure to thrive.

The crisis has already led to stock market falls not just in the US but also in the UK and Europe, where it will decrease the value of investments held by every kind of financial institution, be it mortgage lenders, pension funds or investments. The chaos affecting the US economy threatens to spread to Europe in the weeks ahead.

The answer to the West's credit woes, as the reader might surmise, is the "inevitable" proletarian revolution:

Throughout all this, it is the duty of communists to remind all proletarians who will be affected by the putrefaction of imperialism that the solution lies in their own hands. The fatal weaknesses of imperialism are clear for all to see, but it will not fall without a life-and-death struggle. Working-class people must be encouraged by the anti-imperialist victories that are daily being achieved by the resistance forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere to realise that there is no way that a class-conscious proletariat united in its determination to overthrow imperialism could possibly be defeated.

The fact that "proletarian revolution" led to the deaths of 100 million people in the twentieth century, according to the leftist academics who wrote The Black Book of Communism, is a mere footnote of history to these British communists.

We have already documented the response of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union to the ongoing global financial crisis. Advocating the restoration of Russia onto the "socialist path of development," the CPRF/SU considers the country to be a "financial hostage of the USA."

Northern Rock shares plunge 32%
Last Updated: Friday, 14 September 2007, 14:49 GMT 15:49 UK

Shares in one of the UK's largest mortgage lenders, Northern Rock, have fallen 32% after it had to ask the Bank of England for emergency funding.

But experts say it does not mean Northern Rock, which has £113bn in assets, is in danger of going bust.

The bank has struggled to raise money to finance its lending ever since money markets seized up over the summer.

Other bank shares fell, with those in Alliance & Leicester, HBOS and Barclays down by 8%, 5% and 4% respectively.

House builders were also hit, Barratt Developments' shares falling 8%, while the London stockmarket's benchmark index, the FTSE 100, at one point dropped more than 2.2% before recovering during the afternoon.

Northern Rock said that its profits for 2007 would be hit, but that it remained solvent.

Unlike most banks, which get their money from customers making deposits into savings accounts, Northern Rock is built around its mortgage business.

It raises most of the money which it provides for mortgages by borrowing from banks and other financial institutions.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Chancellor Alistair Darling said: "The problem here is there is a lot of money in the system but they are reluctant to lend it to each other at the moment."

Queues at branches

Mr Darling said that "in order to create a stable banking system, the Bank [of England] steps in and it makes facilities available to the Northern Rock."

"Northern Rock can draw on them when it requires, but it means it can carry on trading, people can use their accounts in the normal way, they carry on making their mortgage payments in the usual way, Northern Rock will be able to carry on its business."

Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers' Association, said that anybody who was "either a saver with Northern Rock or has got a mortgage... can be absolutely confident that they have got their money with or they have borrowed from a very sound financial institution."

Despite the reassurances, there have been reports that long lines of customers have formed outside several Northern Rock branches around the UK.

Several customers showed BBC reporters slips that suggest some did withdraw sums of £100,000 and more.

Dozens of Northern Rock customers have contacted the BBC to complain that the bank's website was inaccessible, while all the bank's phone lines were jammed.

Emergency reserve untouched

The emergency lending facility to Northern Rock was agreed by Mr Darling, on advice from Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England.

Northern Rock chief executive Adam Applegarth said that it had not yet borrowed any of the "unlimited" funds available.

He urged customers to remain calm, and stressed that it was "business as normal".

However he indicated that it may, in future, be more expensive worldwide for institutions to borrow money, and that in turn could mean that mortgages generally become more expensive.

'Lender of last resort'

The decision for the Bank of England to become the "lender of last resort" is extremely rare - and also comes after consultation with the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

It is an unlimited facility, with interest rated at a "penal rate" of more than 1% above Bank base rate.

To obtain the money, the Northern Rock will have to deposit some of its customers' mortgages as collateral, which are regarded by the Bank of England as sound.

On the assumption that the current conditions remain until the end of 2007, there will clearly be an impact on Northern Rock's 2007 asset growth and, therefore, on profits Northern Rock statement

In a statement, Northern Rock said it had "agreed with the Bank of England that it can raise such amounts of liquidity as may be necessary by either borrowing on a secured basis from the Bank of England or entering into repurchase facilities with the Bank of England".

"On the assumption that the current conditions remain until the end of 2007, there will clearly be an impact on Northern Rock's 2007 asset growth and, therefore, on profits."

An FSA statement said Northern Rock "exceeds its regulatory capital requirement and has a good quality loan book".

Source: BBC News

USSR2 File: State Duma rubber-stamps president's nominee for PM, "ex"-communist Zubkov; Putin leaves door open to red victory in March 2008

Updated September 15, 2007

Russia's new Prime Minister, "ex"-communist Viktor Zubkov, disavows any intention of joining one of the various potemkin political parties that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) founded, beginning in 1989 with alleged KGB agent Vladimir Zhirinovsky'sLiberal Democratic Party. Both President Vladimir Putin and his putative rival, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, have praised Zubkov's career. “They sent him to the worst collective farm which was on the verge of collapse," Putin related, "and he made it the best in the Soviet Union." Putin, by contrast, has also endorsed the possibility that Zubkov might run for the presidency, while acknowledging that "there were at least four other strong candidates, and that the campaign would not be a foregone conclusion." In doing so, Comrade Czar Putin is leaving the door open for a communist victory in March 2008 because one of those other candidates is Zyuganov himself.

The communists' reaction to the new PM is telling. In an effort to tarnish the crypto-Stalinist United Russia, which along with other Putinist parties has dominated the State Duma since 2003, the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union (CPRF/SU) characterizes the Zubkov appointment as "a commando operation [rather] than a democratic appointment." CPRF Chairman Zyuganov's reference below to the State Duma as a "puppet legislature," moreover, is disingenuous to the core, since all legislation in the neo-Soviet state must be subservient to the CPSU's long-range strategy of restructuring ("perestroika") and deception in the domestic and international arenas.

We have been unable to determine whether outgoing PM Mikhail Fradkov is an "ex"-communist, but he is Jewish, which is a liability in the neo-Soviet state, just as it was in the old Soviet Union. With the Zubkov nomination, however, Russia's hidden communist masters have successfully foisted on the country and the world another obedient cadre who, through his "commitment to Kremlin policies" as stated in the story below, can facilitate the downfall of the "Washington-backed fascist-capitalist" Putinist regime and pave the way for the CPRF/SU to openly re-assume control of Russia's political structures.

Please see our September 12/13 analysis of the Zubkov appointment from a Golitsynian perspective. We have also updated the list of prime ministers in our Red World entry for the Russian Federation. Most, if not all, of Russia's "post"-communist PMs have been members of the "old" CPSU or Komsomol. Pictured above: Zubkov. Pictured below: Comrades Viktor and Gennady.

Viktor Zubkov becomes Russia's new prime minister
17:41 14/ 09/ 2007

MOSCOW, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - President Vladimir Putin signed a decree Friday appointing Viktor Zubkov prime minister after the lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly to back his candidacy, the Kremlin press office said.

Zubkov, 65, chief fiscal monitor for the last six years, was nominated for the job on Wednesday when Putin dismissed the government and prime minister, three months before parliamentary elections. Soon after his nomination, Zubkov announced his intention to run for the presidency in March 2008, when Putin's term is set to expire.

Speaking in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday, Putin confirmed that the new premier could run for the presidency, but said there were at least four other strong candidates, and that the campaign would not be a foregone conclusion.

The president's nomination of the relatively-unknown candidate came as a surprise, following widely-circulated rumors that Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, Putin's close ally seen as his likely successor, would assume the post.

Zubkov, Putin's deputy in the St. Petersburg mayor's office in the 1990s, has also maintained close personal ties with the president.

Viktor Zubkov won the solid backing of the State Duma dominated by the Kremlin-backed United Russia party, which had pledged its support ahead of the vote, along with A Just Russia and the Liberal Democrats, led by ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

In the Duma, 381 lawmakers backed the presidential nominee, 47 voted against, and eight MPs abstained. The candidate needed 200 votes to be elected to the post.

Commitment to Kremlin policies

In his brief speech to lawmakers before the vote in the legislature, Zubkov pledged his commitment to policies pursued by President Putin, highlighting economic growth, the revival of the defense sector and agriculture, and welfare and corruption as chief government priorities, and urging greater individual responsibility.

"The priorities for my job will be the strategic guidelines and action plan outlined in the president's address to parliament - sustainable economic and social development by streamlining government activities and raising officials' personal responsibility," he said.

Zubkov pledged changes to the government, above all to the Health and Social Development Ministry, which has recently been plagued by a series of corruption scandals.

"What could ruin Russia is non-professionalism and corruption, which penetrates our society," he told the State Duma.

Speaking on corruption, a crusade waged by Putin during his tenure, Zubkov told MPs that new legislation was required. "We must pass a law on corruption, as we have discussed this at length, but have not reached a clear definition of what it is."

Zubkov said a body to fight corruption, similar to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service he co-founded and headed, should also be set up. He pledged proper controls over federal funds allocated to the defense sector and state-controlled aircraft- and shipbuilding corporations.

The new premier also urged for more efficient use of natural resources, which make up Russia's main exports, to ensure higher revenues.

Parliament's reaction to Putin's nominee

All parliamentary factions except the Communists and the nationalist Homeland bloc voiced their complete support for the candidate after four-hour consultations on Thursday.

The outspoken Vladimir Zhirinovsky hailed Zubkov as an efficient professional, and reiterated that his team "will be Russia's best government in 30 years."

A Homeland-Patriots of Russia faction member announced the bloc would abstain from the vote, saying it had nothing personally against the candidate, but that his actual political position was entirely unknown.

The Communists praised the professional record of the new premier, who began his career as a metal worker, and led a state farm in Soviet times, but criticized his unquestioning loyalty to the Kremlin.

Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov earlier said the rapid dismissal of the government and prime minister and the new nomination looked more like "a commando operation than a democratic appointment."

A Communist faction member motioned to postpone the vote, saying it was too hasty and could portray the lower house as a "puppet legislature."

Source: Novosti

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has scored a propaganda coup with millions of American television viewers. As of August 30 the state-run TV platform Russia Today has become available to New York and New Jersey digital cable customers via Time Warner Cable's Channel 135. Will the Kremlin dictate terms of surrender and nuclear blackmail through this new electronic conduit? Details on Lou Dobbs Tonight.

USA File: Huntsville, Alabama "revitalizes" fallout shelters, trains EMRs in radiological safety, briefs congressman

There is little good news these days, as the world trembles on the edge of war, but the report below is encouraging. Still, state and local governments and private citizens in the USA are way behind the Russians in civil defense, as we detailed yesterday. Practical information about surviving nuclear war/"emergencies" can be found at KI4U.com, Ready America, and Public Safety Canada. Huntsville, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, is home to the US Army's Redstone Arsenal and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Huntsville EMA officials to brief congressman on nuclear fallout preparedness
Posted by Staff reports
September 06, 2007 12:10 PM

Two Huntsville emergency management officials will brief a member of Congress Tuesday on the city's preparedness for nuclear fallout, according to a news release from the city.

John "Rusty" Russell, director of Huntsville/Madison County Emergency Management Agency, and Kirk Paradise, emergency plans coordinator for the EMA, will meet with U.S. Rep. Charles Dent, R-Pennsylvania. Dent, a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, requested the meeting.

The briefing will highlight Huntsville's revitalization of its fallout shelter system, the training of responders on radiological safety, its use of radiological monitoring and detection equipment, including using government vehicles equipped with detection devices.

Paradise recently presented details of the community's fallout shelter revitalization at a national symposium and had articles published in several trade journals focused on homeland security, nuclear/radiological situations and the revitalization of the fallout shelter program.

Source: The Huntsville Times

Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russia tests "world's largest" conventional bomb; 2nd deployment of new Topol-M ICBM; military satellite launched

The neo-Soviet state continues to prepare for war against the West, even while Muscovites are reduced to boiling water to bathe during the sweltering days of summer. The New York Times relates: "Buildings in Moscow usually receive hot water from a series of plants throughout the city, not from basement boilers, as in the United States. By summer, the plants and the network of pipelines that transport hot water need maintenance. Off goes the hot water. And in homes across the city, out come the pots and sponges and grumbling." As usual, in Russia there's money for bombs, but not baths (unless you belong to the political elite, which consists almost entirely of "ex"-communists and "ex"-KGB types).

Following the Kremlin's September 11 test of an vacuum bomb, touted by state-run Novosti as the "world's most powerful" and other sources as the "father of all bombs," retired US Air Force Lt. General McInerney, who chairs the Iran Policy Committee, disputed this claim: "The US has a new massive ordnance penetrator that's 30,000 pounds, that really penetrates ... Ahmadinejad has nothing in Iran that we can't penetrate. The new Russian bomb was not a 'penetrator.'"

Russia tests world's most powerful vacuum bomb
21:55 11/ 09/ 2007
MOSCOW, September 11

(RIA Novosti) - Russia has tested a thermobaric bomb that is the most powerful in the world, a top military official said Tuesday.

Known as a vacuum bomb, it uses a fuel-air explosive and can create overpressures equal to an atomic bomb, said Alexander Rukshin, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

"It is environmentally friendly, compared to a nuclear bomb, and it will enable us to ensure national security and at the same time stand up to international terrorism in any part of the globe and in any situation," he said.

He stressed that the bomb does not violate any of the international agreements that Russia has signed.

Source: Novosti

Commenting on the vacuum bomb test, Alexander Rukshin, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, declared: "It is environmentally friendly, compared to a nuclear bomb, and it will enable us to ensure national security and at the same time stand up to international terrorism in any part of the globe and in any situation." Question: Under what conditions would a state actor like Russia ever need to employ a fuel-air explosive against stateless "international terrorists?" Answer: It wouldn't. Fuel-air bombs are employed against other state actors.

Russia to deploy more new ballistic missiles - IFAX
By Reuters
Saturday, September 1, 04:35 PM
By Amie Ferris-Rotman

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will carry out a second deployment of new intercontinental ballistic missiles in December as part of President Vladimir Putin's programme to modernise nuclear defences, local media reported on Saturday.

The deployments come at a time of strained relations between Russia and NATO over U.S. plans for a missile defence shield in eastern Europe. Moscow argues this would threaten its security while Washington insists it is designed only to defend against attack by what it sees as 'rogue nations', such as Iran.

The Topol-M mobile missile, part of a new generation of weapon the Kremlin says will assure Russia's security for the next 20-30 years, will be deployed in the city of Teikovo about 240 Km northeast of Moscow.

The first echelon was deployed in December 2006, when Putin climbed aboard a missile launcher on Russian television to show off the country's new programme. No details have been given for the number of missiles.

"We are absolutely confident this division will be put on combat duty in December," Russian news agency Interfax quoted the commander of Russia's rocket forces Nikolai Solovtsov as saying.

The 22-metre Topol-M is an intercontinental ballistic missile carrying a single warhead. It was first developed during the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was later upgraded. It can be launched either from silos or from mobile launchers which can be camouflaged and hidden in forests.

POST-SOVIET DECLINE

Along with the multiple-warhead RS-24, to be deployed in the next few years, it will form the backbone of Russia's nuclear armoury and help bolster armed forces eroded over years of post-Soviet decline.

The rebuilding of Moscow's military also reflects a more assertive diplomatic approach, both towards the West and the states of its former, Cold War sphere of influence.

Russian officials have said a U.S. decision to withdraw from the Soviet-era Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and create its European-based shield has sped the development and introduction of the RS-24.

The United States insists the shield is necessary to guard against missiles which could fire nuclear, chemical or biological warheads in its direction.

Russia's military chief recently told the Czech Republic they were making a "big mistake" by hosting the shield.

Source: YahooNewsIndia.com

The article above notes that the "Rebuilding of Moscow's military also reflects a more assertive diplomatic approach, both towards the West and the states of its former, Cold War sphere of influence." Assertive indeed.

Flush with cash, the Putinist regime launches yet another military satellite, as the article below reports.

Russia launches new military satellite
Sep 11 2007, 21:13

MOSCOW (AP) A Russian booster rocket launched a new military satellite Sept. 11, officials said.

The Kosmos-3M rocket carrying a Kosmos-series military satellite blasted off successfully from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia, said Vitaly Vyatkin, a spokesman for the Russian Space Forces.

He would not reveal any details of the satellite, which was to enter a designated orbit later Sept. 11.

Source: Kyiv Post

Event Convergence Alert: Bush extends state of national emergency, initially declared on September 14, 2001, for 1 more year; ACC standdown

The continuation of the state of national emergency in the USA will continue for one more year, effective September 14, 2007. The Air Combat Command standdown, reported here, will occur on this date too. Pictured here: President George W. Bush, Mrs. Laura Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Mrs. Lynne Cheney bow their heads for a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House, September 11, 2007, in memory of those whose lives were lost six years before.

Notice: Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Certain Terrorist Attacks
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 12, 2007

Consistent with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency I declared on September 14, 2001, in Proclamation 7463, with respect to the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, New York, New York, the Pentagon, and aboard United Airlines flight 93, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States.

Because the terrorist threat continues, the national emergency declared on September 14, 2001, last extended on September 5, 2006, and the powers and authorities adopted to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond September 14, 2007. Therefore, I am continuing in effect for an additional year the national emergency I declared on September 14, 2001, with respect to the terrorist threat.

This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.

GEORGE W. BUSH

# # #

Source: White House

USSR2 File: PM Fradkov resigns, Putin dissolves government, nominates "surprise" candidate "ex"-CPSU Zubkov for post; Zyuganov feigns disapproval

In response to Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov's resignation today, President Vladimir Putin stated: "The country is nearing parliamentary elections to be followed by presidential elections... We all need to think together about building the power and governing structure so that they can better meet the needs of the pre-election period, and prepare the country for the time after parliamentary and presidential elections in March 2008." Commenting on his own resignation, Fradkov admitted that Putin was following a "long-term plan": “It's clear the future Cabinet will continue to focus on the economy - that was implicit in the President's decision to dismiss the government. It was part of a long-term plan by the President. I'm taking this calmly, the situation is stable and our further actions will ensure that stability."

Pictured above: Former Russian PM Fradkov is Jewish. Taking into account the rampant anti-Semitism in Russia, it is possible that Fradkov's ethnicity was or is a hindrance to the continuation of his career in the neo-Soviet state. The last cabinet shake up in Moscow occured in May 2004.

Although Moscow-based analysts long suspected that Sergei Ivanov or Dmitry Medvedev, both first deputy prime ministers, would emerge as the president's potential successor in the March 2008 election, Putin's nominee to replace Fradkov, Viktor Zubkov, might very well assume that role. Zubkov, like Putin himself, is "ex"-CPSU. According to the Russian website Anticompromat: "Putin entered the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at Leningrad State University [in the early 1970s] and remained a member of the CPSU until its prohibition in August 1991." Zubkov's impeccable communist credentials can be found in this bio published by the state-run Chinese media. Excerpts follow:

1982-1985 - general director of the state-run farming association Pervomaiskoye in the Leningrad Region
1985-1986 - chief of the executive authority in the city of Priozersk
1986-1987 - first secretary of the Communist Party Committee in the city of Priozersk
1987-1989 - deputy chief of the agriculture and food industry department at the Leningrad Region Communist Party Committee
1989-1991 - first deputy chief of the Leningrad Region Executive Authority

Following his nomination Zubkov met with the ostensibly "non"-communist leaders of the various State Duma factions. State-run Russia Today reports that Boris Gryzlov ("ex"-Komsomol, United Russia), Sergei Mironov (ex-Soviet Army, Just Russia), and Vladimir Zhirinovsky (alleged KGB agent, Liberal Democratic Party) support Zubkov. The clueless Western MSM, moreover, is characterizing Putin's nomination of Zubkov as a "surprise" and "curious." According to the Golitsynian thesis, though, there is no mystery in this collusion: Everyone's on the Red Team in Russia. United Russia, for example, is described in the Western MSM as representing the Russian "Right." However, in October 2003 the Carnegie Moscow Center observed:

A grandiose concert marking the 85th anniversary of the Communist Youth League (Komsomol), full of fanfare and reminiscent of Soviet times, was held at the Kremlin. The celebration included welcoming remarks from President Putin and the speakers of both houses of parliament. A day before the concert, the United Russia party hung a giant banner congratulating the Komsomol across the street from the State Duma.

It is difficult to imagine that President Putin and his lapdog party United Russia would congratulate the youth section of the CPSU on its 85th anniversary if the Putinist-Chekist-Gryzlovist-Surkovist regime was truly non- or anti-communist. Just Russia leader Mironov, furthermore, although frequently portrayed as being pro-Putin and hence "anti"-communist, in May 2007 proposed a merger with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov rejected the proposal.

Among the Duma faction leaders Zubkov also met Zyuganov (pictured above). Feigning disapproval of his fellow red for collaborating with Putin, Chairman Zyuganov declared: "Mr. Zubkov had an impressive CV from his Soviet period, ranging from heading a major enterprise to becoming first deputy head of the Leningrad Region's Council. However, as far as his background in the market or modern period is concerned, it’s more often than not linked with the work of Putin, Kudrin, Gref and all this company, who have been steering a course which is destructive for Russia."

Nevertheless, we expect Comrade Czar Putin's new cabinet, with obedient Comrade Zubkov at the helm, to facilitate Gennady Zyuganov's ascent to the presidency of Russia, with "man in the shadows" Oleg Shenin assuming some sort of grey eminence function. This is probably the "long-term plan" to which Fradkov refered. Shenin's presidential candidacy has been eclipsed by Zyuganov's. However, both men are Stalinists and committed to the restoration of the Soviet Union.

Putin nominates financial monitor Zubkov for PM post -2
19:5612/ 09/ 2007

MOSCOW, September 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin nominated Wednesday the head of the country's financial regulator, Viktor Zubkov, for the post of prime minister.

The lower house of parliament could vote in the new premier on Friday, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov said, adding that on Thursday, all Duma factions will have the opportunity to meet Zubkov. Later First Deputy Speaker Lyubov Sliska confirmed the Duma will consider the candidacy Friday.

Zubkov heads the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, and comes as an unexpected candidate following widely-circulated rumors that First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov would take the post.

The president dismissed Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov earlier Wednesday, following a request from the premier, and asked him to stay on as acting head of government until the State Duma votes in a new candidate.

First Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Oleg Morozov said the new premier could later run for president. "It would be logical if the prime minister became a presidential candidate," he said, adding that other scenarios should not be ruled out.

Acting Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said Wednesday he has no doubts parliament will approve the head of the country's financial regulator as the new premier. He also said he was sure the new government will continue the course led by the dismissed government.

Zubkov was born September 15, 1941 in the village of Arbat in the Sverdlovsk Region in the Urals. After graduating as an agricultural economist, he was in charge of state-run farms in the St. Petersburg area. In 1985-1991 he was a member of the city administration in Priozyorsk, in the Leningrad Region.

In 1992-1993, Zubkov was deputy chairman of the St. Petersburg City Hall's external relations committee. In 1993-1999 he was a senior official in the tax service, holding a number of different posts. In 1999-2001 was deputy tax minister, then first deputy finance minister, and then finally appointed head of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service.

The respected business daily Vedomosti had cited a source close to the Kremlin as saying First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov would be appointed as the new premier. The paper commented Wednesday that Ivanov, like Putin a former KGB officer from St. Petersburg, had been seen with the president far more often than another potential candidate, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Source: Novosti

Feature: Kremlin incrementally restores Soviet-era civil defense, mandatory school-age military training, under rubric of "anti-terrorist" drills

Pictured here: Neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin ("ex"-CPSU) serves tea to his Minister of Civil Defense, Emergency Situations and Disasters, Sergei Shoigu ("ex"-CPSU, United Russia) at the Por-Bazhyn Fortress on Tere-Khol Lake, in Siberia's Tuva region. Putin and his entourage were at this time hosting Prince Albert II of Monaco on an August fishing trip. Russia's "Tough Guy" president posed for several "spontaneous" chest-bearing pictures that created a stir throughout the country and beyond.

In 2005 Shoigu, who hails from Tuva, was touted by one Russia-based analyst as Putin's possible successor. Russia's civil defense minister is married to the niece of the wife of Oleg Shenin, August 1991 coup mastermind and chair of the restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a fact that establishes a personal bridge between the "ex"-communist Russian president and the CPSU, which governs "post"-communist Russia from behind the scenes.

Russia's National Crisis Management Unified System Manages the Transition of Civil Defense from Peace to War

CD. At one time this abbreviation would have triggered in the minds of baby boomers, in both the USA and Canada, thoughts of atomic war. Indeed, during the coldest days of the Cold War the sudden mobilization of the Soviet population into underground shelters would have tipped off the White House and the Pentagon that the Soviet leadership was probably preparing for a sneak nuclear attack against the West. Now, to the children and grandchildren of the baby boomers, sometimes known as baby busters/Generation X (born between 1964 and 1976) and echo boomers/Generation Y (born between 1977 and 1994, or 2001 depending upon the demographer), CD refers to a compact disk. (Your resident blogger falls into the Gen X category.)

Taking advantage of Western myopia and no doubt reflecting on the massive casualties of the Great Patriotic War with Nazi Germany, the communist leadership of the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation, has always invested more financial and material resources into civil defense than its past and current adversary, the USA. In a 1961 article Time reports that the Russians, unlike the Americans, implemented their comprehensive CD program with little advertisement:

With broad sarcasm, Pravda Columnist S. Vishnevsky dismissed the budding U.S. atom-bomb shelter program. "If we could only open the eyes of those moles." he wrote recently, "they would surely see that there is no sense in hiding underground. But moles are unseeing creatures and moles of bourgeois origin suffer from class blindness." The sneer was less than convincing, for the writer must have known what most of the U.S. does not: the Soviet Union has been at work for more than a decade on a shelter program of its own, spending an estimated $500 million a year (current U.S. figure: $16,500,000) on civil defense training courses for 22 million Soviet citizens, equipping bomb shelters for more than 30% of the population.

Russian preoccupation with civil defense is nothing like the current U.S. wave of concern about shelters. Unlike the U.S., the Soviet Union started its civil defense program long ago, has proceeded routinely without public debate or fanfare. No new shelter construction is seen; there are few civil defense posters and no air-raid drills in the largest cities.

Beginning in the Second World War, Soviet leadership viewed CD as a crucial element of strategic defense. In 1941, before the German invasion, the Soviet government relocated its defense industries from European Russia to Siberia, east of the Ural Mountains. In the late 1940s, after the Cold War began, antiaircraft units were attached to Soviet factories to defend them against US strategic bombers. In the early 1970s the chief of CD became a deputy minister of defense. CD officers were attached to union republic, oblast, raion, and municipal governments, as well as to large industrial and agricultural enterprises. They supervised CD work, organization, and training, and devised and implemented plans for the wartime relocation of important defense industries and the evacuation of workers to alternative sites. They supervised the construction of blast shelters and other installations that could withstand nuclear strikes.

After a nuclear exchange, presumably with the USA, CD personnel would reestablish core military production by providing decontamination and first aid services, clearing collapsed structures, and restoring power supplies, transportation, and communications. In peacetime they trained in scenarios involving fires, rescue operations, and natural disaster relief, a procedure that continues today under CD chief Shoigu.

In 1989, GlobalSecurity.org reports, Soviet civil defense employed 150,000 personnel who maintained a network of of 1,500 underground shelters that could protect 175,000 top Communist Party and government officials.

With the ascent of career Chekist Vladimir Putin to the Russian Federation presidency, the Kremlin has embarked on a steady, incremental rearmament of the Russian military and revitalization of the nation's CD program that have barely registered in the minds of inhabitants of the Western shopping mall regimes. Although the West let its guard down when the Soviet Union "folded" on Christmas Day 1991, Russia continues to prepare for the Fourth World War, as we have amply documented at this site.

In December 1999, shortly after he was appointed acting president by the outgoing Boris Yeltsin, Putin ordered the resurrection of compulsory military training for all male students, beginning in September of the following year. Among other drills, every boy aged between 15 and 16 in "post"-communist Russia will acquire a detailed understanding of how to load and fire a Kalashnikov automatic rifle, learn army tactics, march in unison across a training field, and grasp the the historical significance and current capabilities of the Russian army. Military training for schoolchildren was outlawed at the end of 1991, in one of Yeltsin's first reform measures that allegedly de-communized Russia.

"This represents a step backwards to a militarised Soviet state. These training classes will have almost no practical use but they are hugely significant from a psychological point of view," human rights activist Sergei Kovalyov warned in 2000. "It is a clear attempt to manipulate the mood of society and just one of many instances of the increasing militarisation of society under Putin."

In July 2005 the upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, formally approved Putin's bill and restored basic military training as a mandatory subject in schools.

Although the MSM rarely publishes information concerning current civil defense activity in Russia, Western-based analysts should not naively assume that these no longer exist. In July 2003, for example, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that Russia, in the face of a possible showdown between Washington and Pyongyang on the Korean Peninsula, was implementing "several precautionary measures to cope with any possible military conflict in the region, including a conflict involving the use of nuclear weapons." According to this article, a spokesman for the Ministry of Civil Defense, Emergency Situations and Disasters (MCHS) confirmed "that ordinary civil-defense precautions against nuclear radiation are being implemented in the Far East." Under the guise of a new Korean conflict the Kremlin, of course, can also prepare to cope with a US retaliatory strike.

Following the Beslan school massacre in September 2004, which we have elsewhere shown to be a Kremlin provocation to reconsolidate power away from Russia's elected regional governors and back to Moscow, the national capital's municipal government is requiring all schoolchildren within its jurisdiction to wear military-style "dog tag" identification and carry special passports. These measure are being implemented in the name of "anti-terrorist" security. Yuri Popov, head of the Moscow city assembly's security and legislation committee, affirmed at the time that these identification tags were already under production. "Before the New Year most schools will have these passports," a senior Moscow city official told BBC News Online. More than 330 schoolchildren, teachers, and parents, the BBC reports, died when the hostage-taking situation in North Ossetia ended in a bloodbath. Tellingly, Mr. Popov added: "These measures can be introduced under the city's programme for civil defence. We asked teachers, school governors, and they conducted surveys. Most were in favour." "Unarmed" guards will also patrol Moscow's schools and alert police if suspicious activity is observed. Moscow has about 1,500 schools and 3,000 kindergartens.

During this period, Igor Ivanov, secretary of the Russian Security Council until July 9, 2007, was asked if the Kremlin would implement a color-coded terrorism alert system as utilized by the US Department of Homeland Security. Ivanov expressed uncertainty about this particular scheme, but then suggested, rather disingenuously, that Russian civil defense was in some disarray. "The most important thing is that everyone -- from the top officials down to the bottom -- understands what to do. Unfortunately, recent events have shown that we do not have this, that this mechanism is not developed. We are not prepared. Traditionally, [our] citizens know civil defense well." Referring to Soviet and post-Soviet school lessons that instructed children how to assemble AK-47s, don a gas mask, and provide first aid to nuclear war victims, Ivanov added: "Those scenarios were connected with concrete military threats ... now the threats have changed. The goal should be to work out a system of steps in which everyone, from the highest boss to the lowest person, would know what to do in any situation. Unfortunately, the latest events have shown that we don't have it."

With typical communist doublespeak, Ivanov has nevertheless articulated the Soviet communist line: "We are not at war with the USA, but we are at war with the USA. We shall employ some pro-Moscow Chechens to create an Islamic terrorist bogeyman in Russia and characterize our stealthy, incremental military preparations against the USA as anti-terrorist exercises."

The website of the Ministry of Civil Defense, Emergency Situations and Disasters reveals that during a June 2007 meeting in St. Petersburg government officials discussed President Putin's decision to establish a National Crisis Management Unified System. Although the scenario presented was that of a wild fire, which is a real threat in a heavily forested country like Russia, this system would also "manage the transition of civil defence from peace to war." Furthermore, the MCHS "has been producing a special video designed to teach people the rules of behaviour in extreme situations, as well as electronic posters with information on current emergencies." Russia's CD system has trained or will train about 40,000 managers each year, as well as 38 million workers and 15 million students and schoolchildren. This particular press release refers to protocols of cooperation between Moscow and Minsk, which are united through the Union State of Russia and Belarus, on practical issues related to civil defense.

The MCHS website also reveals that Russia's 69 regional governments have signed protocols with the central government in order "to maintain and improve the unified system for the prevention and elimination of emergency situations." This "would create a single [civil defense] management force throughout the regions of the Russian Federation."

Meanwhile, now that Russian bombers are again officially on overseas patrols 24/7, the US Department of Homeland Security is asking citizens: Got duct tape?

Feature: 911 + 6

When a man's ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
-- Proverbs 16:7

Middle East File: CNN sources: IAF with "ground components" destroyed Iranian arms bound for Hezbollah via Syria, Israelis pleased with results

The Israelis have admitted nothing concerning this alleged operation that wiped out "Iranian targets" in northeastern Syria. Iranian operatives are known to be active in US-occupied Iraq so it is very likely that Iranian arms are transiting Iraq and Syria en route to Hezbollah, which occupies southern Lebanon. The CNN report that the Jerusalem Post cites reveals: "Sources in the U.S. government and military confirmed to CNN's Barbara Starr that the airstrike did happen, and that they are happy to have Israel carry the message to both Syria and Iran that they can get in and out and strike when necessary."

Pictured here: Map produced by Syria's Ba'athist regime of alleged IAF operation.

'IAF and ground troops attacked Iranian targets in Syria'
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST
Sep. 11, 2007

Israel's alleged incursion into Syrian skies last week included a strike on what was likely to have been Iranian arms transferred to the country, CNN reported on Tuesday afternoon. According to the news network, a ground operation was also part of the overall foray. Neither Jerusalem nor Damascus has confirmed the report.

CNN claimed that the operation, largely aerial but also had comprised of ground components, left "a great hole in the desert." Although CNN did not cite a specific source, the network gave credence to "US government officials." The report said the IAF targets were likely to be weaponry delivered by Syria which was intended for the use of Hizbullah.

Keeping with its policy of not commenting on the alleged flyover of Syrian territory, senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office refused to comment on the CNN report.

Further, the report said the US was pleased with the alleged sortie, which it said, sent a "clear message" to the region.

Earlier Tuesday, a planned visit by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al Moallem to Saudi Arabia has been cancelled, Israel Radio reported.

Syrian sources told the Hizbullah owned TV station Al Manar that "a visit was never planned, and therefore its cancellation makes no sense."

Reportedly, the Syrian foreign minister was expected to give King Abdullah in Jeddah a missive from the Syrian president.

It was unclear whether Moallem was invited by Saudi Arabia and the invitation was withdrawn, or whether Syria initiated a meeting with the Persian Gulf state.

On Sunday, Moallem visited Turkey where he presented "evidence" of the alleged IAF foray; the planned visit to Riyadh - flatly denied by Damascus - could have been planned for a similar purpose.

Saudi Arabian-Syrian relations cooled off since the Second Lebanon War, when the Saudis condemned Hizbullah, backed by Syria, for hijacking IDF soldiers - the event that led Israel to retaliate.

Herb Keinon contributed to this report.

Source: Jerusalem Post

Gray Terror File: Kremlin proxy Osama drops Islamist mask, reveals red core in latest video rant; terrorists in Europe racing against 9/15 deadline

Washington Post blogger William Arkin analyzes the transcript from Kremlin proxy Osama bin Laden's latest video rant and concludes that the Islamic terrorist is actually a communist. Instead of vilifying Jews and Christians, for example, OBL denounces capitalism, alludes to the subprime mortgage meltdown in the USA, endorses the United Nations' administration of Iraq, promotes (along with Mikhail Gorbachev) the Kyoto Protocol, praises (along with Hugo Chavez) US academic Noam Chomsky and, just to obscure the fact that he is a Marxist, takes a pot shot at Leonid Brezhnev's adventurism in Afghanistan and urges Americans to embrace Islam. Arkin concludes: "Bin Laden's new message seems directed towards the Islamic, African and Asian middle and lower classes ripe, at least he thinks, to see corporate interests and globalization as the source of all evil in the world." Arkin is right on the money (pun intended). Binny's script writer in the new GRU headquarters is apparently no longer following the CPSU's 16-year-old "communism is dead" line.

Commenting on Osama's "conversion" to communism from Islam, the Counterterrorism Blog refers to the bearded terrorist mastermind as "Bin Trotsky." This astute observation is not too far off the Marx! Excerpts follow:

"Since the 11th, many of America's policies have come under the influence of the Mujahideen, and that is by the grace of Allah, the Most High. And as a result, the people discovered the truth about it, its reputation worsened, its prestige was broken globally and it was bled dry economically, even if our interests overlap with the interests of the major corporations and also with those of the neoconservatives, despite the differing intentions."

"And for your information media, during the first years of the war, lost its credibility and manifested itself as a tool of the colonialist empires, and its condition has often been worse than the condition of the media of the dictatorial regimes which march in the caravan of the single leader."

"So these are some of the results of the freedom about whose spreading he is talking to you. And then the backtracking of Bush on his insistence on not giving the United Nations expanded jurisdiction in Iraq is an implicit admission of his loss and defeat there. "

The genocide of peoples and their holocausts took place at your hands: only a few specimens of Red Indians were spared, and just a few days ago, the Japanese observed the 62nd anniversary of the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by your nuclear weapons."

"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up for the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation."

"And so Kennedy was killed, and al-Qaida wasn’t present at that time, but rather, those corporations were the primary beneficiary from his killing.

"This war was entirely unnecessary, as testified to by your own reports. And among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war, but the leader of Texas doesn't like those who give advice. The entire world came out in unprecedented demonstrations to warn against waging the war and describe its true nature in eloquent terms like "no to spilling red blood for black oil," yet he paid them no heed.

Those with real power and influence are those with the most capital. And since the democratic system permits major corporations to back candidates, be they presidential or congressional, there shouldn't be any cause for astonishment - and there isn't any- in the Democrats' failure to stop the war. And you're the ones who have the saying which goes, "Money talks."

It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations."

In fact, the life of all of mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations, yet despite that, the representative of these corporations in the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord, with the knowledge that the statistic speaks of the death and displacement of the millions of human beings because of that, especially in Africa.

This is why I tell you: as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings, and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system."

"If you were to ponder it well, you would find that in the end, it is a system harsher and fiercer than your systems in the Middle Ages. The capitalist system seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the major corporations under the label of "globalization" in order to protect democracy."

"And Iraq and Afghanistan and their tragedies; and the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes; and the abject poverty and tragic hunger in Africa: all of this is but one side of the grim face of this global system."

"And it will also achieve your desire to stop the war as a consequence, because as soon as the warmongering owners of the major corporations realize that you have lost confidence in your democratic system and begun to search for an alternative, and that this alternative is Islam, they will run after you to please you and achieve what you want to steer you away from Islam. So your true compliance with Islam will deprive them of the opportunity to defraud the peoples and take their money under numerous pretexts, like arms deals and so on. "

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the Islamic Jihad Union cell that was busted in Germany (pictured above) "had orders" to attack its target, the US military base at Ramstein, by Saturday, September 15, four days after "911 plus 6," which does not bode well for potential WMD attacks on US soil.

Latin America File: Cuba praises Guatemala's leftist presidential contender; Colom leads vote, 2nd round slated for Nov.; 50 dead in election violence

In today's election Guatemala's leftist presidential candidate, businessman-turned-socialist Alvaro Colom, boasts a slight lead over the rightist contender, Otto Molina. A run off ballot is slated for November 4. Granma, the organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, reports, no doubt with some smugness, that Colom has a favorable impression of the all-inclusive island gulag and is a reliable proponent of Latin American integration, which is a communist codeword for regional government under the domination of the Havana-Caracas Axis: "The presidential candidate for the National Unity of Hope Party (UNE) confirmed that if he is elected, he will maintain cooperation programs between the two countries [Cuba and Guatemala]. In terms of relations with Latin America he stated that Central America and Mexico, as a bloc, should promote and strengthen links with South America." Chalk another notch for the Sao Paulo Forum.

Candidates will face a runoff in Guatemala election
Last Updated: Monday, September 10, 2007 1:57 PM ET

The two top candidates in Guatemala's election will go head-to-head in a runoff vote this fall, according to preliminary election results released Monday.

With 96 per cent of voting stations reporting, Alvaro Colom had 28 per cent of the vote, compared to Otto Perez with 24.

Because neither candidate looked set to take 50 per cent of the overall vote, a runoff between the two will likely be held Nov. 4.

Nobel laureate and Mayan activist Rigoberta Menchu, the first Mayan woman ever to run for president in Guatemala, trailed in sixth place with just three per cent of the vote.

Colom, a businessman and three-time presidential contender with the centre-left National Unity Hope party, has been campaigning on a promise to alleviate the high level of poverty that has gripped Guatemala.

Perez, a former general from the conservative Patriot party, has vowed to crack down on crime in a country considered to be Central America's most violent.

About 50 candidates, party activists and their family members were killed during what became a bloody election campaign. Sunday's vote took place under the guard of more than 34,000 police and soldiers.

Voters also chose 158 national legislators and 332 mayors. At least half of the country's six million registered voters cast their ballots, according to Guatemala's Electoral Tribunal.

Source: CBC News

USA File: Top investment strategist: 1,600-point plunge in Dow over next 60 days; long-term recession "brewing"; Russian "capitalism" dead

Just in time for communists worldwide to "cash in": recession. There is no "market correction," crow the reds. Capitalism is fatally flawed. Ben Bernanke and George Bush cannot prop up the tottering edifice of the Imperial Dollar. Top investment strategist Michael Metz is predicting a 1,600 plunge in the Dow over the next 60 days, only "confirming" the direst admonitions of the Red International.

1,600-Point Market Plunge Is Forecast
BY DAN DORFMAN
September 10, 2007

Perennial disappointments are part of everyday Wall Street life. But a particularly large one could be in the offing, Oppenheimer & Co.'s veteran chief investment strategist, Michael Metz, told me over the weekend.

Mr. Metz is predicting a blockbuster 1,600-point plunge in the Dow over the next two months, reflecting his view that a long-term recession is brewing.

Following Friday's announcement of the August shortfall in job numbers — which sent the Dow skidding nearly 250 points — "there is now a 90% chance we could go into a recession, not for just a few months, but into a long-lasting recession," Mr. Metz says.

The chief reason is his expectation that consumer spending will turn sour and be weak for at least the next two years. He views the August employment numbers — a loss of 4,000 jobs versus an expected gain of about 100,000 new jobs — as a real shocker that indicates, he believes, that the economy will continue to weaken.

Adding to the prospects of a recession, he says, is further deterioration in housing, plummeting consumer confidence, and an increasingly volatile market environment.Not surprisingly, Mr. Metz sees hurricane weather ahead for stocks. "We've seen the high of the Dow range [14,000] and we're now in the midst of a sharp decline down," he says. His outlook: a possible drop in the Dow of as much as 1,600 points from Friday's close of 13,133.38, to 11,500–12,000 over the next two months.

Major catalysts for this projected decline, he says, will be substantial withdrawals of funds from hedge funds, which he views as a big overhang for the market over the next several weeks, and a flurry of reductions in analysts' earnings estimates, which he notes have been much too aggressive.

Helping to fuel Friday's big loss was the market's failure to stage a rally soon after Labor Day, when the Wall Street crowd was back on the job full time. The general expectation was that the Dow, hovering at the time in the high 12,000s, would soon streak to 15,000, posting a spirited post-Labor Day rebound in stock prices from the 9.4% thrashing the S&P 500 experienced between mid-July and mid-August.

The reason for the optimism was the decision by the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, to cut the discount rate and by President Bush to don his fireman's hat and come to the rescue of battered investors and beleaguered homeowners by addressing the widespread liquidity and mortgage worries.

Looming as well in the background was another big market plus — the strong likelihood of an imminent cut in interest rates. Many pros felt it was a virtual certainty that the current Fed funds rate of 5.25% would be reduced by 25 basis points, or maybe even 50 basis points, at the September 18 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, a move designed to alleviate credit concerns further.

As a result, the general thinking around Labor Day was reasonably buoyant, with many pros surmising that once investors came to realize that the credit, housing, and subprime crises were no longer crises or at least were solidly contained, it would be up and away again for stock prices.

Sounds good, but the market never did follow this cheerful investment script. Instead, it weakened in the face of further deterioration in housing, plummeting consumer confidence, and a crummy August employment report.

Given his glum economic outlook, Mr. Metz tells me: "I would be very cautious and very selective in any new stock purchases; this is a good time to raise cash."

The New York economy could be in for tough going, he says, given his belief that real estate and key financial areas, notably investment banking and insurance, have peaked. "I think commercial real estate is the next shoe to drop," he says. He also expects the city's tax revenues to come in lower than expected over the next year or so.Is there anything he would recommend to clients? Mr. Metz is gung ho on gold, energy, and top American companies with big overseas operations that can capitalize on the falling dollar.

"Gold [which recently jumped to a 16-month high of more than $700 an ounce] is the real thing this time," Mr. Metz says. Based on the skidding greenback, which he attributes to a growing overseas belief that the Fed has thrown in the towel in its battle against inflation, he tells me he expects gold to top $1,000 over the next six months. His top gold suggestions are an exchange-traded fund, StreetTracks Gold Trust, and Barrick Gold Corp., the world's largest gold producer.

As for energy, he opts for exploration and production companies with big holdings in politically safe countries. His favorites are ConocoPhillips and Chevron. "I don't know how high oil is going, but I don't see it going lower, and oil stocks are not reflecting the current $76-a-barrel price tag," he says.

His top picks with large overseas operations: IBM, Johnson & Johnson, and Procter & Gamble.Meanwhile, Mr. Metz's bottom line seems clear: Watch out. That missing rally could turn into a rut.

Source: New York Sun

Meanwhile, after more than 15 years of treasonous Western Nepman capitalism, which jumpstarted--yet again--that colossal financial black hole known as the Soviet command economy, the Kremlin is diligently re-nationalizing (re-communizing) the Russian economy. State-owned Kommersant Daily observes: "Nationalization has been the most notable process in the Russian economy for more than four years and it is not too early to ask about intermediary results." The Putinist regime's "Acquisitions and Mergers Directorate" is ambitious: "Today, the number of large nationalized businesses and banks is approaching twenty. That many more are on the horizon. Pending court decisions may take Russneft (the most notable assets of which are oil producer Varyeganneft and Varyeganneftekhim), Bashneft and Bashneftekhim. Atomenergoprom is being formed to united civil assets in atomic energy under state control."

Two motivations, according to the same article, are guiding President Vladimir Putin's nationalization program: "The first is an underlying idea that high state participation in the economy is good. The second is that consolidation will save the world. If there is a problem in some branch of industry, it is obviously because there are too many parties involved in it. The proposed solution is to concentrate resources in the main areas, unite the small with the large and eliminate duplication and unnecessary competition." Boris Yeltsin's New Economic Policy Version 2.0, as well as Boris himself, have been swept up into the dustbin of history just in time for Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov to (openly) assume the Russian presidency and gloat over the latest economic disaster in that "warmongering, imperialist bastion of capitalism/fascism," the USA.

Asia File: Russia inks billion dollar arms deal with Indonesia; Putin attends APEC summit; communist deceit over free trade, Kyoto Protocol

Indonesia almost fell before an incipient communist revolution in 1965, resulting in a decades-long military dictatorship and the annihilation of Indonesian communism. At the time the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) was the third largest such party in the world, after the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China. As of 2004 former PKI members were blacklisted from numerous occupations including government jobs.

Neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin visited Indonesia on September 6 in order to consolidate Russia's influence in Southeast Asia's most populous and geopolitically important nation. The new billion-dollar arms package between Moscow and Jakarta is designed, as the story below reports, to "reduce Indonesia's dependence on US weaponry" and, no doubt, eliminate US influence in that part of the world altogether. "The leader's tour is seen by analysts as part of a Kremlin strategy of expanding diplomatic influence in Asia and the Middle East," the article concludes. Indeed.

Pictured above: Russian President Putin and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono sign military pact in Jakarta. Yudhoyono visited Moscow in December 2006.

Indonesia, Russia sign arms pact as Putin visits
by Nabiha Shahab
Thu Sep 6, 9:38 AM ET

Indonesia and Russia inked a billion-dollar arms deal Thursday during a visit by President Vladimir Putin that will see the world's fourth most populous nation snare a range of Moscow-financed hardware.

Under the agreement, Russia is providing a line of credit for Jakarta to use to buy its helicopters, tanks and submarines.

The deal was among a slew of agreements, including on energy, mining and counter-terrorism, sealed during Putin's stop in Indonesia, the first by a Russian or Soviet leader in nearly five decades.

The Russian president, accompanied by a large delegation of energy, banking and weapons industry representatives, met with his Indonesian counterpart Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for bilateral talks.

Yudhoyono told a press conference that the two nations' defence cooperation "will be improved in order to modernise our arms and military equipment for the navy, air force and army with a one-billion-dollar credit scheme."

The arms agreement follows Indonesia's signing of a deal to buy six Sukhoi-30 fighter planes at a Moscow airshow last month and is seen as a move to help it reduce its dependence on US weaponry.

Military relations between Jakarta and Washington have been improving after a long period in which they were suspended because of the Indonesian military's human rights record, but Jakarta has been pursuing a broader military strategy.

Defence minister Juwono Sudharsono, asked why Russian hardware was chosen, said that a deal with Moscow was less "politically complex" than with other nations. He noted that the British had acted to stop their equipment being used by the Indonesian military during the now resolved separatist conflict in Aceh.

Kusnanto Anggoro, a political and military affairs analyst with the Centre for Strategic International Studies said the deal was "a concrete move in diversifying our sources for military equipment."

About a third of the overall amount would go on equipping the Sukhoi planes and the remainder would go towards buying 22 helicopters, 20 amphibious tanks and two submarines, he said.

Yudhoyono also said the leaders wanted to see two-way trade boosted from almost 700 million dollars in 2006 to a billion dollars, while Russia would make a four billion dollar investment in the mining sector here.

He was referring to a deal between Indonesia's state nickel miner Antam and Russia's Rusal, who were to agree on setting up a joint venture that will manage a bauxite mining project in West Kalimantan on Borneo island.

Other deals on the table included an agreement between Indonesian state energy firm Pertamina and Russia's Lukoil for a 1.5-billion-dollar investment in deep water oil-and-gas exploration projects.

Putin said he was "glad to say that we are very happy and satisfied with the result of this visit."

The leader later addressed the Indonesia-Russia business forum and said that Russia was "ready to help" with Indonesia's controversial plan to build a nuclear reactor on earthquake-prone Java by 2016.

Putin was to attend a banquet before flying to Sydney for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. He is then due to fly to the United Arab Emirates.

The leader's tour is seen by analysts as part of a Kremlin strategy of expanding diplomatic influence in Asia and the Middle East.

Putin's visit reciprocates a trip to Russia by Yudhoyono in December 2006.

Reportedly accompanying Putin was the chairman of Lukoil, Vagit Alekperov, billionaire investor Vladimir Yevtushenkov, the head of the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, and other business leaders.

Source: YahooNews.com

Communist Deceit at the Sydney APEC Summit, "Free Trade," and the Kyoto Protocol Farce

Following his Jakarta junket, Putin sojourned to Sydney, where he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, this time without his puppetmaster, Communist Party of the Russian Federation/Soviet Union leader Gennady Zyuganov. In November 2006 Chairman Zyuganov discreetly accompanied Putin to Hanoi for the last APEC summit, a fact nowhere reported, as far as we can determine, except at the CPRF website and here at Once Upon a Time in the West.

Discussions among national leaders in Sydney were wide-ranging and addressed topics such as a free trade zone in the Pacific Rim, a proposal supported by President Putin. As we have documented before, free trade is a communist concept that erodes national sovereignty, exacerbates class warfare across interational borders, and has economically subjugated the West to the Communist Bloc, particularly China. Karl Marx advocated free trade in the mid-nineteenth century:

But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade ("On the Question of Free Trade," speech delivered to Democratic Association of Brussels, January 9, 1848).

Putin, according to state-run Novosti, affirmed that "setting up a free trade zone in the Asia-Pacific Region is a long-term goal for which Russia and other forum members must work together." He then confidentally predicted that "After Russia joins the WTO, it will be able to engage more fully in these efforts." Western politicians and business leaders who advocate free trade and common markets, wittingly or not, are advancing communism's goal of regional and world government.

With respect to industrial emissions, Novosti reports that the leaders of three APEC countries, China, Russia, and the USA, agreed to "non-binding goals" on "improving energy efficiency" and "increasing forest cover in the region." While summit host Australian Prime Minister John Howard hailed the deal as a success, environmental agitators predictably dismissed the targets as "vague and inadequate," and a "mere sidetrack" to the Kyoto Protocol. Both communist superpowers Russia and China have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1997).

Former Soviet Tyrant Mikhail Gorbachev, operating through one of his propaganda fronts, Green Cross International, was a prime mover behind the Kyoto Protocol. Speaking at the Earth Dialogues conference in Brisbane in 2006, he urged the USA and Austrlia to join the rest of the world in ratifying the protocol. "I believe, given there is a deficit of energy and the power situation in the world is very difficult, that nuclear power stations may be needed, but only as a lesser evil, and only in extreme need should such stations be built," Gorbachev warned, refering to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Gorbachev and Putin are united in their deceptive support for the Kyoto Protocol. Indeed, the former has repeatedly praised the latter's policies, including the dismissal of Putin's cabinet in 2004: "I think [Putin's] decision was logical and correct because he is letting the electorate know exactly who [he] is going to work with before the presidential elections on March 14."

In view of the Kremlin's disingenuous position on Kyoto, Andrei Illarionov, Putin's former economic advisor, described the protocol in Pravda as an "economic Auschwitz for Russia" and then elaborated: "Kyoto protocol punishes those countries which are developing fastest. Ratifying this protocol would transform Russia into an economic dwarf or baby whereas at present it is just beginning to grow into adulthood." Illarionov, who has denounced Putin's government as "totalitarian," explained:

[R]ussia will only be able to meet the requirements of the Kyoto protocol if its annual economic growth does not exceed 4%. If the Russian economy grows at 6-8% the level of pollution will already exceed the levels specified in the protocol by 2009-2012. Also, the protocol is like a government plan as it stipulates the need for a large bureaucratic body to establish annual limits on carbon gas emissions not only for the country as a whole but for individual companies.

It is very unlikely, therefore, that Moscow will abide by Kyoto's stipulations in its drive to revitalize the stagnant Soviet industrial base, but will predictably support any bilateral or multilateral initiative that retards economic growth in the USA and its allies. Indeed, the day before the latest APEC summit, Putin and Prime Minister Howard signed a bilateral nuclear cooperation deal under which Australia will supply Russia with $1 billion worth of uranium, presumably to power the Kremlin's nuclear generators and arm its cruise missiles. As usual, the communists want a level playing field at the expense of the capitalist countries.

Meanwhile, on the APEC summit sidelines Putin privately confered with strategic partner and fellow communist Chinese Tyrant Hu Jintao. "We have achieved a peak in Russian-Chinese relations in recent times. There is no doubt that Russia's policy toward China will remain unchanged over the coming years," Putin gushed. The fabricated "Sino-Soviet split" of the First Cold War era has been replaced, per KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn's 20-year-old warning, with the Moscow-Beijing Axis' "one clenched fist."

Breaking News: Four or more pipelines in Mexico's Veracruz state blown, 1000s evacuated; Pemex: Sabotage responsible

Today's terrorist incident in the eastern Mexican province of Veracruz is separate from the apparently accidental explosion of a dynamite-filled truck in northern Mexico, which occured several hours later. The Cuban/Venezuelan-backed Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), which claimed responsibility for similar pipeline bombings in July, might have orchestrated the latest sabotage too. Along with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and Pretender President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the formerly dormant EPR has vowed to oust the lawful President of Mexico Felipe Calderon.

Commenting on today's attacks on state-run Pemex facilities, Stratfor states: "If the EPR was behind these latest attacks, it could indicate that a more sophisticated cell is operating within the leftist peasant group. With Mexican security services tied down by the effort to stem cartel violence, the perpetrators of these bombings could go undetected for some time." While Mexico's FSB/KGB-infiltrated drug cartels destabilize the porous US-Mexican border, EPR's "more sophisticated cell" can look to the Havana-Caracas Axis for sufficient but discreet support.

Explosions Strike Mexico Gas Pipelines
By MIGUEL HERNANDEZThe Associated Press
Monday, September 10, 2007; 11:55 AM

VERACRUZ, Mexico -- Six explosions believed to be the work of saboteurs ripped apart natural gas pipelines for Mexico's state oil monopoly early Monday, sparking fires and prompting authorities to evacuate thousands of people and shut down two highways.

The blasts reverberated for miles. No direct injuries were reported, though civil defense agencies reported that two women in their 70s who lived nearby died of heart attacks shortly afterward.

The six blasts, which occurred on at least four pipelines, happened about 2 a.m. in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, the Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said in a statement. The company immediately shut down the lines affected as well as an extra line in the area as a precaution.

Flames from the fires could be seen up to six miles away, said Pedro Jimenez, a resident who was packing his family into a truck to leave. "You could see the fields of crops lit up."

Dozens of families lined roadways to evacuate to local shelters.

Pemex said domestic gas and gasoline service would not be affected.

At four sections of the pipelines, fires broke out, while at two others leaking gas prompted fears of explosions and forced civil protection authorities to evacuate several communities including Ciudad Cardel and Antigua, said state Civil Protection Deputy Director Ranulfo Marquez.

The explosions also prompted authorities to close two main highways.

"We still have a gas leak in the area of Ciudad Cardel," Marquez said. "There is still a risk."

Authorities also were checking to see if any gas had leaked into the Chiquito River, near the city of Nogales, Nogales Mayor Marcelo Aguilar said.

Starting Sunday evening, residents reported smelling gas from the pipelines.

The explosions could be felt up to 12 miles away, Marquez said.

A small, left-wing guerrilla group known as the People's Revolutionary Army, or EPR, claimed to have attacked a major Pemex gas pipeline in July, forcing at least a dozen major companies, including Honda Motor Co., Kellogg Co. and The Hershey Co., to suspend or scale back operations.

The July explosions affected sections of a major pipeline extending from central Mexico City to Guadalajara in western Mexico.

Those attacks sent the Mexican government scrambling to increase security at "strategic installations" across Mexico. It was not clear what security measures were in place at the pipelines that exploded Monday.

Mexico is a major oil producer and exporter, with oil and related taxes accounting for over a third of the federal government's revenue. The U.S. imported 12.7 million cubic feet of natural gas from Mexico in 2006, about 0.3 percent of total imports that year.

Natural gas futures rose 5.5 cents to $5.56 per 1,000 cubic feet in late morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange after initially rising more than 20 cents on news of the explosions. Mexico's stocks opened lower amid the reports of sabotage.

Source: WashingtonPost.com

Middle East File: IAF allegedly tested route over Syria for possible Iran attack, evaded Russian-built air defense; Moscow, Cairo, Arab League condemn

On Thursday we reported that Syria might have been engaged in a pre-war provocation by claiming that one or more Israeli fighter jets entered its airspace and "dropped munitions." Citing Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, the New York Post reports that Israeli war jets might indeed have been transiting northern Syria in a test attack against Iran. This is an equally credible and justifiable option, in our assessment, regardless of the sources quoted. Pictured here: Israeli Air Force jet takes off during Second Lebanon War, 2006.

Israeli Jets Run Iran Attack Drill
NY Post September 08, 2007

JERUSALEM - Israeli warplanes may have been testing air routes for a possible attack against Iran when they were fired on by Syrian forces, experts said yesterday.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency Thursday quoted a military official as saying that Israeli jets broke the sound barrier flying over northern Syria earlier in the day, then "dropped munitions" onto deserted areas after being shot at by Syria's air defenses.

Israel's air force may have been testing an air path to Iran, in case it decides to carry out an attack against that country's nuclear facilities, analysts said.

The corridor of northern Syria over which the aircraft allegedly flew is the closest straight line from the Mediterranean Sea, where Israel has easy access, to Iran.

Israel says it prefers to let the international community confront Iran's nuclear ambitions, but a lone Israeli attack is not out of the question.

"Of course Israel wants to let the Americans do that," said Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

"But if we are left alone, the Israeli army is preparing to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat - if the political level allows it to - and this could have been a part of that."

Source: Military.com

For the most part, Israel's traditional enemies are condemning what they define as a "Zionist provocation." In an interview with the Italian media, Haaretz.com reports today, Syrian Vice President Farouk Shara warned: "Leaders and senior military officials are considering a series of responses. The results won't take long to come." Syria is refering to the alleged incursion into its airspace as a "joint US-Israeli operation" due to Washington's silence on the issue.

An Egyptian Foreign Ministry statement read as follows: "These violations add only tension to the region at a time when all parties should work on pacifying the situation, not making it worse."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesentity Mohammad Ali Hosseini declared: "The aims of that... provocative move by the Zionist regime was to shift its domestic crisis into areas other than Palestine, spreading insecurity in the region and covering up its failure in the 33-day war against Lebanon."

The Arab League General Secretary Amr Moussa insisted that: " These unacceptable maneuvers reveal negative Israeli intentions toward current discussions to achieve peace in the Middle East."

Last, but definitely not least, Russia, which is allied with Israel's regional enemies, pontificated: "Violation of air space and territorial integrity of a sovereign state is unacceptable under international law. Reports about that caused an extreme concern in Moscow. We hope Israel will avoid such incidents in the future."

Meanwhile, on September 7 Debkafile reported that Israeli Air and Air Defense Forces were placed on alert after Damascus claimed Israeli war jets penetrated Syrian air space the previous day. The same source adds: "Leaves have also been canceled at IDF bases as Israel braces for a possible Syrian reaction to the incident in the coming hours." In a separate story Debkafile reports that "military experts conclude from the way Damascus described the episode Wednesday, Sept. 6, that the Pantsyr-S1E missiles, purchased from Russia to repel air assailants, failed to down the Israeli jets accused of penetrating northern Syrian airspace from the Mediterranean the night before." This could be encouraging news if the apparent failure of Syria's Russian-built Pantsyr-S1E air defense system also applies to the more advanced S-400 Triumf system that was placed on combat duty around Moscow on August 6. However, this is not likely, since Moscow probably offloads her second-rate military hardware on third-tier allies.

MISSILE DAY ALERT: Russian war jets fly near Iceland without notification, second time in a month; similar activity last reported in 1999

Russian Air Force activity near Norway and Britain has spiked this year, especially following President Vladimir Putin's August 17 announcement that Moscow's strategic bombers were resuming permanent patrols in the face of NATO "expansionism" and the USA's "aggressive" posture over proposed missile defense deployments in Central Europe. Putin's high-profile announcement occured during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's "Peace Mission" 2007 "anti-terrorist" exercise in the South Urals.

The article below, published by China's state-run media, notes that there has been virtually no Russian military activity near Iceland since the end of the (First) Cold War. The last reported incident (pictured above) occured on June 25, 1999, when two US Air Force F-15 fighter jets scrambled from NATO's Keflavik air base in Iceland to intercept a pair of Tu-95 Bear bombers. This was the first time in "five or six years" that Russian strategic bombers came within striking distance of the USA. It should be noted, too, that Iceland is closer to North America than Norway and Britain.

Russian jets fly near Iceland without notification
www.chinaview.cn 2007-09-08 04:10:06

STOCKHOLM, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Eight Russian military jets with the ability to carry far-reaching bombs, flew off Iceland's south-southwestern coast Thursday without notifying Icelandic authorities, said reports reaching here from Reykjavik on Friday.

"I will ask the Russian ambassador in Reykjavik for an explanation," Gretar Mar Sigurdsson, director of Iceland's Foreign Ministry, told newspaper Frettabladid.

"What worries us most is that by not notifying us of their presence, the jets could jeopardize general aviation safety," he said.

This is the second time in a month that Russian military jets were spotted near Iceland. Russian jets have hardly been spotted near Iceland since the Cold War ended.

"For now it is just a question of communication and trying to find a solution that does not put anyone in danger," Sigurdsson said, adding the jets did not fly anywhere near the Icelandic airspace, keeping a distance of at least 120 nautical miles.

Source: Xinhuanet.com

USA File: Langley Air Force Base, along with entire Air Combat Command, to stand down on Friday, September 14 for safety review

As we reported on September 5, the US Air Force's Air Combat Command has ordered a command-wide stand down on Friday, September 14 in order to conduct a a procedures and protocol review. Langley Air Force Base in Virginia is the headquarters of Air Combat Command which, according to the ACC website, is tasked with being "the primary force provider of combat airpower to America's warfighting commands." Langley AFB hosts the 1st Fighter Wing, which consists of the 27th Fighter Squadron (F-22A), 71st Fighter Squadron (F-15C/D), and 94th Fighter Squadron (F-22A). That the combat aircraft stationed at Langley should be grounded during this "safety check," therefore, is not surprising.

The base's temporary closure next week is related to the August 29 incident in which a US Air Force B-52 bomber "accidentally" transported six armed nuclear cruise missiles across CONUS. In response, the responsible munitions squadron commander was relieved of his duties and the crews involved with the "mistaken" load were temporarily decertified for handling munitions. Even if such safety checks are not that uncommon, the rationale for publizicing them to the whole world, when Russian bombers are probing Western airspace and electronic chatter bespeaks of a WMD attack during "911 plus 6," is not only mystifying but disturbing. Is someone waving a sign over the USA that says "Attack me?"

Langley jets grounded next week for safety review
September 8, 2007
WAVY-TV

HAMPTON, Va. (AP) -- Langley Air Force Base will ground its jets next week.

The Air Force says the service's Air Combat Command has ordered all jet fighters and bombers to remain grounded so airmen can review safety procedures and protocol.

Langley is home to three fighter squadrons, which fly the F-15 Eagle and F-22A Raptor.

Officials say the stand down next Friday was prompted by an August incident where a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown across several states.

The advanced nuclear cruise missiles loaded on the B-52 were scheduled to be decommissioned and were flying from North Dakota to Louisiana.

Officials say the warheads are designed so they don't accidentally detonate. To accidentally load them onto the bomber meant that safety protocols were ignored.

Source: MSNBC.com

Event Convergence Alert: Russian bombers airborne, new Osama video to be released on "911 plus 6"; Hillary's Hong Kong moneyman

Astute observers of the global geopolitical situation should note that there is a similar alignment of political, military, and economic factors with those that preceded the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Only now the situation is even more seriously stacked against the national security of the USA and its allies, like Israel.

The following are only an executive summary of relevant factors.

1) Kremlin proxy Osama bin Laden will address Americans in a new video on the sixth anniversary of 911

2) Electronic "chatter" and foiled Islamic terrorist plots in Europe indicate that another attack might take place in New York City on or around "911 plus six"

3) The US economy is trembling on the brink of recession following the subprime mortgage implosion and global stock crash

4) Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, possibly with Barack Obama as a vice-presidential running mate, is preparing to steal the White House from the Republicans with the dubious endorsement of Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro and the covert financial support of the People's Republic of China, via "shady Hong Kong megadonor" Yuan Yuen Hsu (pictured above with Hillary)

5) A Kremlin-run polling agency has announced that Russians want a "leftist" president to replace Vladimir Putin and touted Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov as the only viable candidate

6) The Russian Air Force, after a 15-year hiatus, has resumed permanent strategic bomber patrols, has frequently probed NATO and NORAD airspace this year, and, as on September 11, 2001, is currently conducting "exercises" over the Arctic Ocean

7) This year Chinese military hackers have infiltrated the computer networks of the Pentagon and US State Department, the German government, and this past week the British Parliament and Foreign Office; China is allied with Russia, Iran and Syria (see below)

8) Yesterday, in what might be a provocation on Syria's part, Damascus accused Israel of invading its airspace and dropping ordnance; Syria is allied with Iran, Russia and China; both Russia and Iran have condemned Israel for allegedly perpetrating this "Zionist provocation"

On the basis of this event convergence, we believe that there is a high likelihood of an WMD attack on the USA next week, perhaps more so than on any other anniversary of 911. Another such attack would also seriously cripple any opportunity for the Republican Party to re-take the White House in November 2008 since the well-organized forces of the International Left perceive the Bush Admin as having incited Islamic terrorists through its "War on Terror." This is a potential development that would greatly please America's enemies (listed above).

China File: US economist: Beijing is "quietly" dumping US Treasury bonds; central banks cut $32 billion in last 2 weeks; Paulson visits PRC

In August a think tank in the People's Republic of China threatened to "nuke" the US economy by dumping its $900 billion in holdings of US Treasuries and agency bonds. While Beijing's "nuclear option" of dollar sales has not yet materialized, a "stealth option" might be underway to tip the USA, which has already been shaken by the home loan industry collapse, into full-blown recession. On August 31 President George W. Bush announced that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) will implement a new program called "FHA Secure." Under this scheme homeowners with good credit history, but who cannot afford their current mortgage payments, can refinance their homes into FHA-insured mortgages. The White House's response to the subprime implosion, however, is too little, too late, and predicated on a blind utopianism that ignores the Communist Bloc's decades-old goal of ruining the US economy and creating the conditions for red revolution.

Pictured above: US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson meets Chinese Tyrant Hu Jintao in Beijing, August 1, 2007. Following the meeting Paulson stated that Chinese officialdom assured him that the communists are committed to "currency flexibility and financial reforms," but offered no specific plans that would allay US congressional anger over China's huge trade surplus. The only way to address that "huge trade surplus" is for American consumers to boycott cheap, shoddy, and dangerous Chinese goods. Don't expect dot.gov to offer such a solution.

Is China quietly dumping US Treasuries?
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 12:25am BST 06/09/2007

A sharp drop in foreign holdings of US Treasury bonds over the last five weeks has raised concerns that China is quietly withdrawing its funds from the United States, leaving the dollar increasingly vulnerable.

Data released by the New York Federal Reserve shows that foreign central banks have cut their stash of US Treasuries by $48bn since late July, with falls of $32bn in the last two weeks alone.

"This comes as a big surprise and it is definitely worrying," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas.

"We won't know if China is behind this until the Treasury releases its TIC data in November, but what it does show is that world central banks are in a hurry to get out of the US. They don't seem to be switching into other currencies, so it is possible they are moving into gold instead. Gold is now gaining momentum across all currencies and has broken through resistance at 500 euros," he said.

While the greenback has been resilient over recent weeks - even regaining something of a 'safe-haven' role as banks scrambled to buy the currency to cover dollar debts - most experts believe that America's $850bn current account deficit will eventually cause the dollar to resume its relentless slide.

David Powell, an economist at IDEAglobal in New York, pointed the finger at Beijing as the main suspect in the sudden bond flight this summer.

In a client note entitled "Has China started to dump US Treasuries?", he said the sales appear to coincide with early moves by Beijing to launch its new $300bn sovereign wealth fund.

The scheme is part of the government's plan to diversify it $1,340bn reserves from bonds (mostly in the US) to a broader portfolio of investments and a better yield.

If so, the switch comes at a very delicate time, just as tempers flair on both sides of the Pacific over China's policy of holding down yuan by currency intervention. A bill in Congress calls for punitive tariff sanctions of 27.5pc against Chinese imports, and there has been a growing outcry over contaminated pet food and lead-tainted toys.

Two top advisers to the Chinese government gave strong hints in August that Beijing should use its estimated $900bn holdings of US Treasuries and agency bonds as a "bargaining chip", words taken as an implicit threat to trigger as US bond crash if provoked.

The Chinese government has since put out an official statement clarifying that it has no intention in taking such an irresponsible step, which would in any case backfire by devaluing China's remaining holding.

Mr Powell said the switch out of Treasuires was a purely commercial decision. "If if turns out that the Chinese are behind this, it is merely an attempt to increase returns on investment. It has nothing to do with settling protectionist scores," he said.

Any evidence that China was pulling out would risk setting off an unstoppable stampede, which is why such a policy would never be announced. It holds the world's biggest pool of resrves, followed by Japan.

Robin Bhar, a metals analyst at UBS, said there was little evidence yet that Asian central banks were switching heavily into gold. Most of the recent buying of gold has been on the COMEX futures markets, the playground of hedge funds.

Central banks tend to buy their bullion in London at the AM and PM fixings, leaving a footprint that is visible to experts. They seem to have been largely absent from the market so far.

Source: The Telegraph

Gray Terror File: US counterterrorism officials: Islamic Internet forum promises "special gift" for Manhattan on sixth anniversary of 911

Terrorist chatter, "dry runs," numerous and mysterious oil refinery explosions, and foiled bomb plots--such as the one that Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) recently plotted in Germany--have been commonplace since 911, but this story is newsworthy in view of Russia's renewed militarism and ongoing military "exercises," and tensions between Israel on the one hand and Iran and Syria on the other. The IJU is an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Pictured here: US military base in Ramstein, Germany that was allegedly the target of IJU.

Counterterrorism Officials Analyzing Islamic Web Post Warning of 'Special Gift'
Thursday, September 06, 2007

DEVELOPING STORY: Federal counterterrorism officials are analyzing a posting on an Islamic forum Web site that warns of "a special gift" to be given on the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11, FOX News has learned.

The warning was posted Sept. 2 on a site frequented by radical groups and said in part that "there will be a special gift coming on the day of the blessed invasion of Manhattan."

Federal officials told FOX News they are trying to determine if it might be a specific warning or just part of broad chatter that has been heard during the last few months.

Postings talking about "gifts" have been seen before in the days leading up to the anniversary of Sept. 11.

This story will be updated.

Source: FoxNews.com

Breaking News: Damascus: Israeli warplane entered Syrian airspace, "dropped ammunition"; response promised; IDF refuses comment

The incident reported here could very well be a provocation on the part of fascist-communist Syria to foment war with Israel. Nazi Germany fabricated a similar crisis with Poland on August 31, 1939 by accusing Polish soldiers of seizing the Gleiwitz radio station, located on German territory, thus "justifying" the German invasion. Pictured here: Syrian dictator President Bashar al-Assad visits ally neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin in Moscow, December 20, 2006.

Damascus: We fired on IAF warplane that violated Syrian airspace, dropped ammo
Last update - 16:04 06/09/2007
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies

The Syrian army said Thursday that its air defenses fired on an Israel Air Force warplane that entered Syria airspace and "dropped ammunition," the country's official news agency reported.

The Israel Defense Forces had no immediate comment, saying it would look into the report.

"We have no knowledge of anything like this. We will get back to you," an IDF spokeswoman said by telephone from Tel Aviv.

Syrian air defenses fired at the incoming plane, which crossed into Syria after midnight local time, the agency said.

The Syrian Army spokesman, quoted by the official Syrian Arab News Agency, did not say how the military fired on the aircraft or where the incident happened, other than saying it occurred at midnight Wednesday night.

"We warn the Israeli enemy government against this flagrant aggressive act, and retain the right to respond in an appropriate way," the spokesman said.

"The Israeli enemy aircraft infiltrated into the Arab Syrian territory through the northern border, coming from the Mediterranean heading toward the eastern region, breaking the sound barrier," the Syrian spokesman said.

"Air defense units confronted them and forced them to leave after they dropped some ammunition in deserted areas without causing any human or material damage."

Al-Arabiya television reported that the air strike occured in north-eastern Syria, close to the border with Turkey.

A Syrian analyst told Hebzollah's Al-Manar television that the plane was likely dumping ammunition in order to maneuver, and was not carrying out a bombing raid.

The reported incident comes after months of growing tensions along the frontier and concerns that the escalation could result in war. Over the summer, Israeli and Syrian officials have repeatedly made announcements that they had no interest in hostilities.

Security official said late last month, however, that the IDF had decided that war with Syria is unlikely and was reducing its troop presence in the Golan Heights after months of cross-border tension.

The Israeli officials said recently that Syria's military had also reduced its war readiness, but offered no details as the exact steps taken by the Syrians are classified. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge the information to the press.

In an interview Sunday night with Haaretz, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he saw no reason for any forthcoming military conflict between Israel and Syria.

Source: Haaretz.com

Syrian Minister: We are seriously considering our response to IAF airspace violation
Last update - 20:46 06/09/2007
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent, and Agencies

Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said Thursday that Damascus is giving serious consideration to its response to a reported incident overnight Wednesday, in which the Syrian military fired on an Israel Air Force warplane that had violated its airspace and "dropped munitions."

"Syria reserves the right to determine the quality, type, and nature of our response to the Israeli attack," he told Al-Jazeera television. "The Syrian leadership is seriously considering its response."

Bilal, however, refused to indicate whether the reaction would be on the military or diplomatic level. He would not give any more details about the incident, but said it proved Israel's policies are based on hostility.

"Israel in fact does not want peace," said Bilal. "It cannot survive without aggression, treachery and military messages."

He said recent U.S. aid of $30 billion over 10 years to Israel encouraged its government to such arrogance that it delivered the morning message.

On Thursday evening, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported that the Iranian ambassador in Damascus told Syria's security officials that Iran would provide "any kind of assistance" necessary should a conflict arise.

Syrian commentator: Syria will not be drawn into a stand-off

Syrian commentator Faiz a-Sayeg told Hezbollah-owned TV station Al Manar that Israel is trying out invasion paths into Syria.

He said that the IAF warplane was trying to evade Syrian radars, and that it had to drop ammunition to dodge anti-aircraft missiles. He said that Damascus will consider its response if the incident happens again.

"Syria will not be drawn into an inconsequential stand-off in this unfavorable time and place," A-Sayeg told Al Manar. He added that Israel knows well that "today's Syria is very different from yesterday's Syria," especially after the Second Lebanon War. He advised Israeli leaders to reconsider their policy after the last war.

Source: Haaretz.com

MISSILE DAY ALERT: NATO fighter jets intercept eight Russian bombers near British, Norwegian airspace; Bears retreat

The incidents reported below featured eight Russian Bear bombers and occured this morning. The first article notes: "There is a suggestion that Russia could be testing the West's air detection systems and response times." Um, yeah. Last month's exercise by the Russian Air Force, as reported in the second article, featured 11 bombers.

Keep watching for mass mobilization of civil defense in Russia. That country is already facing a demographic crisis. I'm not entirely convinced that Moscow's re-emerging communist leadership is willing to sacrifice too many of its citizen-slaves.

Pictured above: Pictured here: Royal Air Force Tornado F3 fighter escorts Russian "F" Tu-142 "Bear" bomber away from Royal Navy exercise near Outer Hebrides, week of April 30, 2007.

Tornados scrambled to intercept Russian jets
By Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 1:16pm BST 06/09/2007

Four RAF Tornados this morning intercepted eight Russian aircraft as they neared British airspace.

The Russian planes - Tu-95 Bear bombers - turned back before they entered UK-controlled territory, the Ministry of Defence said.

The F3 Tornados were scrambled in the early hours of this morning from RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire and RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.

It has not yet been revealed how close the Russian planes got to British airspace, or where exactly the interception took place.

The incident is the second time in weeks that RAF fighters