Friday, February 06, 2009

ABBAS IN TURKEY FOR TALKS

Abbas in Turkey for Mideast talks: report Fri Feb 6, 3:01 pm ET

ANKARA (AFP) – Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas arrived Friday in Ankara for talks with Turkish leaders, the Anatolia news agency reported.Abbas went straight into a dinner with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of a meeting on Saturday with President Abdullah Gul and other officials, the report said.A Turkish officials said the talks would centre on all aspects of the Palestinian problem, including efforts to secure unity among Palestinian groups.Ankara has repeatedly stressed that ending hostilities between the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Abbas's West Bank-based Fatah movement is critical if the Palestinian desire for statehood is to be realised.Turkish officials have suggested that a Palestinian unity government comprised of non-partisan technocrats could be a first step in that direction.Turkey assumed an active diplomatic role during the recent war in Gaza, acting as a mediator between exiled Hamas leaders and Egyptian officials who sought a ceasefire deal.Erdogan strongly criticised Israel, a close ally of Turkey, during the 22-day offensive. Last week he stormed out from a heated debate on the issue at an international forum in Switzerland after clashing with Israeli President Shimon Peres.His attitude triggered criticism at home that Turkey, a NATO member, was acting as a supporter of Hamas, listed as a terrorist group by the West.Ankara has defended its policy, saying that it does not approve of Hamas violence, but peace cannot be achieved between Israel and the Palestinians by ignoring the Islamist movement, which has solid popular support.Predominantly Muslim non-Arab Turkey has been Israel's main regional ally since the two signed a military cooperation accord in 1996.But Ankara has also maintained close ties with the Palestinians, whose struggle for an independent state enjoys strong public support in Turkey.

Israeli police grill Olmert for 13th time Fri Feb 6, 8:44 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli police on Friday questioned outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the 13th time since allegations of graft emerged against him in May.He was questioned for three and a half hours at his official residence in Jerusalem, police said.Olmert has been questioned by police 12 times previously on several different alleged cases of corruption, suspicions that forced him to resign in September.The allegations all date back to the 13 years before he took office, when he was mayor of Jerusalem and during his term as trade and industry minister.Olmert, who insists he is innocent, resigned on September 21 but remains at the head of a caretaker government until after early general elections to be held on Tuesday.

A setback for Turkey as Mideast broker By Yigal Schleifer FEB 6,09

Istanbul, Turkey – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent outburst at the World Economic Forum, where he berated Israeli President Shimon Peres for Israel's attack on Gaza, has won him unprecedented popularity in the Arab world.Mr. Erdogan's tirade may help Turkey reconnect with the region after decades of being estranged. But it could also damage Turkey's aspirations to be a mediating power in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and its neighbors.The cost [of his actions] was possibly the loss of something that was starting, but that hadn't matured, and that was Turkey's emerging role in the Middle East, says Semih Idiz, a columnist who writes on foreign affairs for the Milliyet newspaper. Erdogan made his position very apparent, and it's hard to see how he will be an honest broker at this stage.Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to visit Turkey Friday, according to Turkish newspapers. Also this week Turkish President Abdullah Gul made a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia Thursday. One of the topics expected to be on the agenda was the recent war in Gaza, during which Mr. Erdogan's criticism of Israel was especially harsh – stronger than that of most Arab leaders. The prime minister accused Israel of committing crimes against humanity and said it should be barred from the United Nations for ignoring a Security Council resolution calling on the fighting to stop.At the Davos panel, which also included UN head Ban Ki Moon and Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, Erdogan responded angrily to Mr. Peres's defense of Israel's actions. When it is time to kill, you know how to kill well. I know well how you kill children on beaches, how you shoot them, Erdogan told the Israeli president, wagging his finger. Erdogan also accused Israel of violating the sixth of the Ten Commandments – Thou shalt not kill.The performance earned him plaudits at home and throughout the Middle East. In Gaza, thousands gathered the next day to honor Erdogan at a rally festooned with Turkish and Palestinian flags.

The cheers in what was once an Ottoman territory were an important indication that Turkey's effort to reconnect with the Arab world after years of being cut off, was bearing fruit.

Honest broker image takes a hit
Still, analysts warn that the mood on the street might not reflect that of the region's leaders.I think certainly, in the eyes of the Arab street, Erdogan is now very popular. But it doesn't improve his mediating role anywhere else but in Syria, says Henri Barkey, a Turkey expert at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University.Erdogan's rhetoric may have been especially costly, experts warn, in terms of Turkey's continuing role in working to bring Israel and Syria together. Playing on its good relations with both countries, Ankara facilitated a series of indirect talks between the two countries that it hoped would lead to direct peace negotiations.But those talks are unlikely to continue under the new Israeli government due to be formed after Feb. 10 elections because the figures involved in the talks will depart, says Alon Liel, a former Israeli diplomat in Turkey and chairman of the Israel-Syria Peace Society, a group working toward the resumption of talks between the two countries. From the Turkish side, the mechanism has not only collapsed but we have entered a situation in which I have a lot of doubt that an incoming Israeli government will look at Turkey as a reliable mediator, Mr. Liel says.We took a big hit on the Israeli and Turkish side of the triangle, but we now have an American aspect to this that we didn't have before. Everyone is waiting for a signal from Obama, he adds.Erdogan has said that part of his anger at Israel stems from the fact that he believes Turkey was close to getting Israel and Syria to enter direct negations and that the Gaza attack scuttled that. But many experts believe the indirect talks had already reached a plateau before the war in Gaza.The fundamental issues were not bridgeable by Turkey. For that, you need the United States, says Mr. Barkey.The issue is that the Turks expected to be sitting at the table once the Americans picked up the ball, that they had earned it. The question is, Have the Gaza events dealt Turkey out of this?

Turkey: needed to rehabilitate Syria
But some warn that cutting Turkey out of the peace process, particularly when it comes to Syria, would be a mistake. Joshua Landis, codirector of the Center for Middle East Studies at Oklahoma University and author of the Syria Comment blog, says that Ankara's improved relations with Damascus have helped attenuate the link between Syria and Iran. If Syria and the US were to start talking, Turkey could act as a handmaiden, Landis says. Turkey is going to help rehabilitate Syria. That is Erdogan's entire strategy: It's not that we are siding with Syria and Iran against Israel. It's that we are going to help Obama. We are the key to the Islamic world because we are the enlightened Muslims. We can be the crucial go-betweens, he says.

There's a lot of power to that argument.

Trying to undo rhetorical damage
For now, there appear to be some signs that Ankara is trying to step back from Erdogan's fiery rhetoric. Speaking to reporters after a recent cabinet meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said: We give special importance to our bilateral ties with Israel, and we want to preserve ties with that country.We are now looking towards the future. Turkey is not targeting Israel and the Israeli people, he said.

But some observers expressed concern that, ultimately, the substance of Turkey's message – that it should be seen as an important part of the equation in resolving the Middle East conflict – is being lost in the way it is being delivered. For the long run, the style and the rhetoric of Erdogan are unsustainable, says Soli Ozel, a professor of international relations at Istanbul's Bilgi University.

Hamas negotiators stopped with suitcases of cash By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer – Thu Feb 5, 3:09 pm ET

CAIRO – Hamas negotiators left Egypt without a long-term cease-fire with Israel on Thursday — but not before some members of the militant group's delegation were stopped at the Gaza border carrying millions in cash.The delegation walked away from the cease-fire talks because of disagreements over the blockage on Gaza and border security. Talks will continue at a later date.An Egyptian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the group initially refused to be searched by Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing. When the group relented, authorities found $7 million and 2 million euros ($2.5 million) in cash in their suitcases. Another security official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said $9 million and 2 million euros were found. The discrepancy could not be immediately explained.The money was later deposited in an account in Egypt by a Hamas member who stayed behind while the rest of the delegation was allowed to return to Gaza, the second security official said. He later returned to Gaza, the second official said.It was not clear what would happen to the money.There was no immediate comment from Hamas.The incident is a sensitive one for Egypt, particularly now, when Israel is demanding a halt to Hamas smuggling into Gaza as part of truce negotiations.Israel and Hamas do not talk directly, so Egypt has been mediating the talks on solidifying the shaky cease-fire that went into effect on Jan. 18, ending Israel's three-week offensive on Gaza.

Egypt had set Thursday as an expected date for reaching a long-term truce deal.

But a Hamas official, Mohammed Nasr, said Thursday that differences over opening the border crossings into Gaza were preventing the deal. Nasr was part of the negotiating team that left Cairo, but he is from the Syria arm of Hamas and not the group returning to Gaza.Hamas demands that any truce include the full opening of borders into Gaza, which Israel and Egypt have largely kept sealed since Hamas seized control of the territory from Palestinian rivals Fatah in 2007. Hamas also wants a role in administering the border crossings in recognition of its power in Gaza.Israel says it will not ease the blockade of the densely populated and impoverished coastal strip without international guarantees Hamas will be prevented from smuggling more weapons into Gaza. It does not want Hamas to have a role in controlling Gaza's border crossings.Nasr said smuggling would only stop if the borders were open.The main point revolves around us getting a clear and honest commitment to lift the blockade completely. We still didn't get that, Nasr told The Associated Press before leaving to Damascus. We have no agreement until we have an agreement on everything.He said his group is expecting answers from the Israelis on the border issue. His comments came as Israel's point man on the negotiations arrived in Egypt for talks.The deputy head of Hamas, Moussa Abu Marzouk, told the AP by telephone from Damascus that talks have failed so far because of what he called Israeli stubbornness and setting new conditions at each stage.He said Israel said it would open the crossings by 70 percent without giving Hamas details how this percentage would be defined.Hamas has smuggled money into Gaza before. In 2006, a senior Hamas official bragged about successfully carrying $42 million across the border. Arab banks have generally refused to transfer money to Gaza for fear of running afoul of the United States, which considers Hamas a terrorist organization. The money has helped keep afloat the Hamas government, which is generally shunned by foreign governments. Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, and Ashraf Sweilam in Rafah, Egypt, contributed to this report. (This version CORRECTS spelling of Moussa Abu Marzouk))

Israel still dealing with international fallout By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer – Thu Feb 5, 3:24 am ET

JERUSALEM – More than two weeks after halting its Gaza offensive, Israel is still dealing with the international fallout, including a very public spat with the leader of Turkey, a slew of war crimes allegations and broken ties with Venezuela, Bolivia and Qatar.It's not quite a major diplomatic crisis, but it is a serious public relations problem for the Jewish state, which once again finds itself on the defensive against an avalanche of accusations.Israel's defenders say the country was acting in self-defense and charge that no other country would be singled out for the kind of criticism that has been slung in its direction since the beginning of the Gaza offensive on Dec. 27.The Foreign Ministry says Israel's important relationships are unharmed and predicts the international mood will pass.The three-week offensive, aimed at halting years of rocket fire at Israeli towns from Gaza, killed some 1,300 Palestinians, at least half of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Thirteen Israelis were killed, including three civilians.Perhaps the most noteworthy outburst was Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spat with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, usually a refined get-together for the world's most powerful.You kill people, Erdogan snapped at Peres, shortly after Peres offered an impassioned defense of the Israeli operation and shortly before Erdogan stormed off the stage.Despite hurried attempts at damage control from both sides, the flap has further disrupted the close alliance between the two countries. The hordes of Israeli package tourists who vacation in Turkey are reportedly staying home.The Davos incident came as a Spanish judge decided to open a war crimes investigation into a 2002 incident in which an Israeli F-16 killed a top Hamas mastermind in Gaza along with 14 other people, including nine children. Though it dealt with an earlier incident, the timing was clearly linked to the current violence.Hugo Chavez's Venezuela expelled the Israeli ambassador at the height of the fighting and Israel expelled the Venezuelan envoy in response. Bolivia couldn't expel the Israeli ambassador because it doesn't have one, but followed Chavez's lead by announcing it was cutting off ties.

The small Persian Gulf state of Qatar said it was freezing ties and closed Israel's representative office — a key Israeli foothold in the Arab world — while Qatar's fellow Arab League member Mauritania suspended relations but let the Israeli ambassador stay. Syria called off the indirect peace talks it was holding with Israel through Turkish mediators.Those incidents followed weeks of protests in European capitals and across the Muslim world.The United Nations has called for investigations of Israel's shelling of several of the organization's compounds in Gaza, several rights groups have suggested Israel might be guilty of violating the rules of war and a group of U.S. professors is trying to organize an academic boycott.The Palestinian Authority has now recognized the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a move aimed at paving the way for a war crimes investigation, though Israel has not ratified the treaty that established the court and thus cannot be prosecuted.On the other hand, Israel's most important ally, the U.S., gave its backing, with both the outgoing president and his successor stressing Israel's right to defend itself. Street protests aside, most world governments made do with only careful criticism.Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said Israel's key international alliances were unaffected and called the outpouring of anger a temporary phenomenon.We have come under some criticism from some countries more than from others, but basically everything can be handled within the normal framework of normal relations, he said.Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, a professor of international relations at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, called the current climate a crisis situation attributable largely to an international double standard. People are expecting from us to be more moral, more just, more nice in this kind of conflict and sometimes it's indeed very difficult, he said. He mentioned Russia's war in Chechnya and Turkey's war against Kurdish rebels as examples of conflicts that caused far higher civilian casualties but received less attention and criticism. Many Israelis were especially rankled by Erdogan's comments, both because Israelis generally regard Turkey as friendly and because of Turkey's own spotty human rights record. It's a shame to look at how this prime minister behaves. He doesn't mention what he does to the Kurds, the Turkish-born Bar-Siman-Tov said. The conflict between Turkey and Kurdish armed groups has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s, including thousands of civilians.

Israel has been in this position before, most recently after its 2006 war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. That war ended inconclusively, with some 1,000 Lebanese and 159 Israelis dead, and drew similar condemnations of Israel's tactics and weaponry. Then, as now, Israel responded that it was attacked by guerrillas hiding among civilians and had no choice. The criticism this time resembles that of 2006, said Jonathan Spyer, an expert on international affairs at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center near Tel Aviv. Israel receives vastly disproportionate attention worldwide even in normal times, he said, and in times of conflict it becomes accentuated.There has been a slight change in tone, he said, because this time, unlike in the Lebanon conflict, Israel is not seen to have failed. This time Israel is being portrayed as the nasty neighborhood bully, rather than as an incompetent, flailing monster,he said.

Five rockets found in south Lebanon: army Wed Feb 4, 2:22 pm ET

TYRE, Lebanon (AFP) – Lebanese soldiers and UN peacekeepers on Wednesday discovered five rockets in the south of the country five kilometres (three miles) from the Israeli border, the army and the UN said.The katyusha rockets were found by a joint patrol of the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeeping force, UNIFIL, in the Hamul valley inland from Naqura at the southern end of the country, an army spokesman told AFP.They were not ready for firing, the spokesman said, without saying whether the rockets were new or old.Confirming the discovery, UNIFIL spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane told AFP: There was also a launching pad and some electric wires.UNIFIL and Lebanese Armed Forces investigation teams are on the location and the investigation is ongoing, she said.On January 8, during the Jewish state's assault on the Gaza Strip, four rockets fired from Lebanon fell on the north of Israel, injuring two women.These isolated launches raised the prospect of a second front opening in the Gaza war and the Israeli army replied by firing several mortar rounds towards Lebanon.A week later several more rockets landed on northern Israel, without causing injuries.The Shiite Hezbollah movement, the Israeli army's opponent in a war in the summer of 2006, denied involvement in last month's rocket firing.

Israel and Hamas Prepare for the Next Gaza War Wed Feb 4, 12:45 pm ET

Children and the trauma of war BBC As Israel prepared to launch its assault in Gaza in late December, it braced for substantial casualties among its troops. Commanders warned their men of Hamas' suicide commandos, missiles that could smash tanks and knock helicopters out of the sky, and long-range rockets that could reach deep into Israel. Yet when the dust had settled, the Islamist militants' primary military achievement was to maintain its rocket fire into Israel throughout the 22-day conflict. Of the 10 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza, four were victims of friendly fire. The militants continue to fire rockets. On Tuesday a medium-range Grad missile struck the Israeli port city of Ashkelon in what may be Hamas' closing shot before an Egyptian-brokered truce finally takes effect. Hamas and its supporters have claimed victory as a result of simply being able to survive the fierce Israeli onslaught. As a result, Hamas says, Israel lost the political battle - its pummeling of Gaza and the heavy Palestinian death toll has offended many former supporters, leaving Hamas' political position strengthened. But in battle, Israel clearly held the upper hand. During the conflict, very few of Hamas' 15,000 fighters appeared, and neither did its feared arsenal of Iranian-supplied weapons. (See pictures of Gaza digging out.) Several senior Israeli officers provided TIME with a detailed account of the military campaign. There was never a single incident in which a unit of Hamas confronted our soldiers, one Israel Defense Forces (IDF) official says.We kept waiting for them to use sophisticated antitank and antiaircraft missiles against us, but they never did. The Israeli military reported only four attempts by suicide bombers instead of the dozens they had anticipated from Hamas' special kamikaze unit.

So what happened to Hamas? Israeli military officials offer a triumphalist explanation in which the Islamist militants simply wilted in the face of Israel's overwhelming firepower. By this reasoning, Israel had overinflated the Hamas threat. The militants are able to lob dozens of crude, badly aimed rockets into southern Israel, but that may be the limit of their abilities. And Israeli officials are congratulating themselves on their tactics. Hamas and [Lebanon's] Hizballah are worried that Israel has broken the DNA code of urban fighting, says reserve Brigadier General Shalom Harari, while cautioning that Hamas' military leaders are probably already at work planning ways to block the Israeli military's next assault if fighting in Gaza breaks out again, as it undoubtedly will. Not surprisingly, Hamas disputes the Israeli account. One Gaza commander in the Izzedin al-Qassam brigades, Hamas' fighting force, said the Islamists' plan had been to draw Israeli troops into the crowded urban neighborhoods of Gaza City, where the Israelis would lose the protection of helicopter gunships circling overhead. We were fighting a modern 21st-century army, and we're just a guerrilla resistance movement, he says. What did you expect - for us to stand in a field and wait for the Israelis to mow us down? Indeed, in the classic guerrilla playbook, the insurgent army avoids going toe-to-toe with a conventional force armed with vastly superior weapons, armor and air support. If he has a choice, the guerrilla seeks to survive to fight another day and allow his adversary's momentum to work against him in terms of the war's political impact. Israel halted its advance on the edges of Gaza City, calling a cease-fire on Jan. 18, and Hamas' guerrillas - if indeed they were waiting in ambush - went unchallenged. Still, Israeli war strategists are at a loss to explain why Hamas failed to use the antiaircraft missiles that Israeli intelligence was sure that Iran had provided. It's an enigma, one IDF officer says. The air over Gaza was thick with drones, helicopters and F-16s, and Hamas didn't fire a single missile at them. Two possible explanations: either Israeli intelligence was wrong and Hamas simply didn't have the weapons or the militants are saving them for the next round.

Israel may have confounded Hamas' plans to defend Gaza by entering the territory from three directions, avoiding the main roads which Hamas had mined and booby-trapped. Officers say Hamas and other Gaza militant groups had prepared a defensive wall using hundreds of explosives, mines and booby traps. But for the most part, the Israeli forces were able to go around it, cutting straight to the coastal road and moving down toward Gaza City before methodically dismantling Hamas' defenses. Once they had established positions inside Gaza during the first 48 hours of the ground assault, the Israelis launched forays against targets but largely kept to the edges of crowded refugee camps and neighborhoods where Hamas might be lurking. Each battalion commander, using a vision provided by a pilotless drone overhead, advanced his men slowly, working out what one officer described as micro-tactical solutions as they moved along. In house-to-house searches, soldiers avoided entering through doorways, which might have been booby-trapped. Some Israeli human rights organizations claim that soldiers used Palestinian detainees to clear houses. But typically the soldiers crashed through walls. Troops were ordered not to enter Hamas' tunnels; dogs and little robots were sent down instead. And, as one officer explains, everything suspicious was bombed. Civilians were urged beforehand to flee, but casualties swiftly mounted as the Israeli juggernaut rumbled through Gaza. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, nearly half of them civilians.

By the end of the conflict, Hamas was still firing rockets, but far fewer, and its rocketeers became easy targets. Less than a minute after Hamas fired a rocket, the Israelis were able pinpoint and destroy the launch site. As one senior Israeli officer says, Everyone is digesting the lessons of the Gaza war - us and them. And neither side expects last month's showdown in Gaza to be the last.

Israel's Netanyahu vows to topple Hamas Wed Feb 4, 11:40 am ET

HERZLIYA, Israel (AFP) – Benjamin Netanyahu, widely tipped to become Israel's prime minister after elections next week, vowed on Wednesday to topple the Hamas movement in Gaza, calling the Islamists an Iranian proxy.In the end of the day there will be no choice but to remove the Iranian threat in Gaza, Netanyahu told the annual Herzliya security conference north of Tel Aviv.There will be no escape from toppling the Hamas regime which is the Iranian proxy in the Gaza Strip, he said. This is the real threat we are facing.If I'm elected, the biggest, most important task of my government will be to fend off the Iranian threat in all aspects, he said. It will oblige us to work on all fronts, including harnessing the US administration to stop the threat.The 59-year-old former premier, whose Likud party is expected to have the most seats in the 120-member parliament after next Tuesday's vote, said the divided Palestinians were too weak for a peace deal.Palestinian society is deeply divided... They are not strong enough to accept minimal concessions for a peace deal and are not strong enough to fight terror, he said.The reality is very clear -- any territory we evacuate today will be taken over by Iran, he said, alluding to Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, which he opposed.Netanyahu vowed to form a unity government in the event that he wins the election.If elected, I intend to unite all central powers in the country in a national unity government, he said.I will turn to our natural allies, but that is not enough. We must unite the entire nation and I will turn to all Zionist parties because, in the face of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the social and economic challenges, we will have to stand together.

Qaeda's Zawahiri mocks Obama over Gaza Tue Feb 3, 4:57 pm ET

NICOSIA (AFP) – Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri mocked US President Barack Obama for his deep concern for Gaza and urged Muslims to rise up against enemy aggression, in an audiotape released on jihadist forums Tuesday.A speech entitled Sacrifices of Gaza and Plots was contained in a video produced by As-Sahab, Al-Qaeda's media arm, and made available by SITE Intelligence Group.Against the backdrop of a still image of Zawahiri, Arab leaders and dead Palestinian children, Zawahiri stressed that the Crusader-Zionist campaign of Western and Arab states and Israel will not be broken or deterred unless it suffers human and material losses.

He called for Muslims to overthrow Arab regimes and said demonstrations, which he had previously recommended, were insufficient to face the tanks and planes of the enemy.Regarding Obama and his concern for loss of Palestinian civilian lives in Gaza, Zawahiri sardonically thanked the US leader.We received your deep concern accompanied with thousands of rockets and bullets, and tons of white phosphorus, mixed with the blood, body parts and tears of the Muslims in Gaza.But the deep concern of Obama did not hold for long, for during his inauguration speech, he did not mention one word about what happened in Gaza, as if nothing happened.

Arab FMs object to foreign interference Tue Feb 3, 2:50 pm ET

ABU DHABI (AFP) – The foreign ministers of eight Arab states meeting in the United Arab Emirates called on Tuesday for an end to non-Arab interference in regional affairs, their host said.We are working to get beyond a difficult phase and create an Arab consensus on stopping unwelcome and unconstructive interference in our affairs by non-Arab parties, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nayahan said, in an apparent allusion to Iran.Iran, a non-Arab Shiite Muslim player in a region dominated by Sunni Arabs, supports the Islamist movement Hamas in its political struggle with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and his Fatah movement.

That is seen as accentuating Arab divisions between a pro-Hamas camp, led by Syria and Qatar, and a pro-Fatah faction, led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.Sheikh Abdullah was speaking at the end of a closed-door meeting of ministers seeking to bridge the differences and generate more support for an Arab League proposal for peace with Israel.Participants reaffirmed their support for the Palestinian Authority of Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas and of the Palestine Liberation Organisation as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.Tunisian Foreign Minister Abdelwahab Abdallah said their objective was to confer on the best ways to overcome our differences and to contribute to Palestinian reconciliation.Those consultations will continue at a March 3 meeting of the Arab League council in Cairo, ahead of the 22-member organisation's annual summit in Doha later that month, he added.Palestinian foreign minister Ryad al-Maliki said: We want to go to the Doha summit in a positive spirit in order for that meeting to be a success. That is why we are working to clean up our relations and create the conditions for that success.

An Arab rapprochement would facilitate Egyptian efforts toward an inter-Palestinian reconciliation, he added.Attending the meeting, in addition to the UAE and Tunisia, were Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Representatives from Iraq and Kuwait had also been due to attend, but did not do so.

Palestinian rocket explodes in Israeli town: army Tue Feb 3, 2:23 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – A rocket fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip exploded early Tuesday in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon, the Israeli army announced.The blast caused damage but nobody was injured, a spokesman said.Public radio said it was the first rocket to hit Ashkelon since a truce came into effect on January 18 ending the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip during which more than 1,330 Palestinians were killed.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

US PROMISES PEACE BID

U.S. promises sustained Middle East peace bid By Sue Pleming FEB 3,09

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Following through on a pledge to make Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority, the Obama administration will send its Middle East envoy back to the region this month to try to revive stalled talks.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday that envoy George Mitchell, whose first trip came a week after Barack Obama took over the presidency, would return to the Middle East before the end of February.Clinton, with Mitchell at her side, said the United States was prepared to work with all of the parties to make progress toward Palestinian statehood.But she urged the militant group Hamas to meet oft-repeated conditions. They (Hamas) must renounce violence, they must recognize Israel, they must agree to abide by prior agreements, she said.Asked whether Clinton might have a new approach toward Hamas, State Department spokesman Robert Wood indicated no policy shift.I don't think there was any ambiguity there on what she said, said Wood.But Middle East expert Shibley Telhami said how to tackle Hamas was a key issue for the new team. Hamas, which the Bush administration isolated, rules Gaza while the West Bank is run by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement.The real choice is between whether they continue just to support President Abbas ... or whether they will actively pursue a policy that encourages Arab partners to bring about reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, said Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland.

PROMISES

In his presidential campaign Obama promised to focus on the Middle East right away. His predecessor, George W. Bush, who was engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, waited until his last year in office to make a major effort in the area.Clinton, whose husband President Bill Clinton worked until nearly his last day in office to get an elusive deal, promised a sustained effort from the new administration.This is the first of what will be an ongoing high level of engagement by Senator Mitchell on behalf of myself and the president, she said.The United States is committed to this path, and we are going to work as hard as we can over what period of time is required to try to help the parties make progress together, she added.Mitchell, who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland, returned on Monday from talks with Israelis and Palestinians in a bid to shore up a ceasefire in Gaza following Israel's three-week offensive launched in December.Mitchell said the situation was obviously complex and difficult but he was convinced that with patient diplomacy the United States could help achieve a long-term peace.There are no easy or risk-free courses of action, he told reporters. I plan to establish a regular and sustained presence in the region.Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled nearly monthly to Israel and the West Bank in her final year in office in a bid to get the two sides closer to reaching a deal.Mitchell said leaders in the region were anxious for Clinton to go at an appropriate time.British Foreign Secretary David Miliband met both Clinton and Mitchell at the State Department and said they had discussed, among other issues, how to ensure humanitarian aid could get through to Palestinians and international efforts to stop arms smuggling into Gaza. (We also looked at) keeping alive the critically important long-term vision of two states -- Israel and Palestine living side by side in security, which is so essential to regional stability, he added.(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and John Whitesides; editing by David Wiessler and Mohammad Zargham)

Israeli airstrikes respond to medium-range rocket By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer FEB 3,09

JERUSALEM – A medium-range rocket from Gaza exploded in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday, and witnesses said Israeli warplanes responded before nighftall with airstrikes on the tunnels used by the territory's militant Hamas rulers to smuggle in weapons and supplies.The latest fighting came as Hamas delegates met in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials trying to mediate a long-term truce with Israel.The Grad rocket from Gaza was the first of its kind to be fired at the city of 122,000 since informal cease-fires were declared separately by Israel and Hamas two weeks ago at the end of Israel's bruising three-week-long offensive. The rocket exploded in an open space in the middle of the city and no one was injured, police said.

The Grad is distinctive from the home-made projectiles more commonly used by Hamas and smaller militant groups, as it is manufactured abroad, has greater reach and carries a more powerful payload.Defense Minister Ehud Barak pledged that if Hamas held its fire Israel would do likewise, while violence would be met by violence.If there is quiet then there will be quiet, he told reporters during a tour of northern Israel's border with Lebanon. If it is necessary to deal another, even stronger, blow then at the right time and in the right way an additional and stronger blow will be dealt.Residents near the Gaza-Egypt border said they received telephone messages from the Israeli military ahead of the airstrikes warning them to leave their homes ahead the airstrike. Such warnings are becoming routine.The recorded messages, in Arabic, said people who work in tunnels, live near them or are giving logistical help to terrorists should evacuate the area immediately, residents said.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive on Dec. 27 to halt near-daily rocket fire from Gaza at Israel targets. Sporadic rocket and mortar fire from Gaza has continued, however, prompting tough warnings of reprisal from Israeli leaders.More than a dozen rockets and mortar shells slammed into Israel on Sunday. The following day Israel fired a missile at a car in the town of Rafah, killing a Palestinian militant, and bombed the nearby Gaza-Egypt border, seeking to destroy tunnels that Hamas uses to smuggle in weapons and supplies.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni pledged to keep hitting Hamas as long rockets continue to be fired at Israel, and she ruled out negotiations with Hamas.Terror must be fought with force and lots of force. Therefore we will strike Hamas, she said at a security conference Monday. If by ending the operation we have yet to achieve deterrence, we will continue until they get the message.Continued violence could work against Livni's government in the Feb. 10 general election and bolster hard-line opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seen as the front-runner.Ashkelon was hit by nearly 100 rockets during the Gaza fighting. Following Tuesday's rocket attack, a local parents' union called for classes to be called off. But city officials announced that school would be open as usual.Netanyahu later visited the site and pledged to force regime change in Gaza if he is elected.A government led by me will topple the Hamas government in Gaza and bring peace and security to the south (of Israel), his office quoted him as saying.

At negotiations in Cairo, Hamas' top demand is opening of Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt. The crossings have remained sealed to all but a trickle of supplies since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007 from its rivals in another Palestinian group.The Hamas delegation, which includes officials from its exiled leadership in Syria, also was to be briefed by the Egyptians about their separate meetings with the Israelis. Hamas and Israel do not negotiate directly. Israel does not want any deal that gives Hamas a role in controlling Gaza border crossings out of concern that that would permit continued weapons smuggling. Israelis feared the threat of a two-front war with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, which held its fire during the onslaught in Gaza. But the Israeli government believes Hezbollah is planning an attack against Israel, or Israelis abroad, to mark the Feb. 12 anniversary of the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in a car bombing the militia blames on Israel.The Israeli National Security Agency is warning all Israelis traveling abroad to be extra vigilant for fear of murder or kidnap attempts by Hezbollah agents.

Barak said Lebanon's government, which includes Hezbollah, could also face retaliation if Israel is attacked.Hezbollah is not just a terror organization running around the hills but also sits at the Cabinet table in Beirut, Barak said. Therefore the Lebanese government bears overall responsibility and any attempt to attack Israel will be met with a response.

France to rebuild bombed-out Gaza hospital FEB 3,09

PARIS (AFP) – France plans to rebuild a hospital in Gaza that was bombed by Israel last month, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Tuesday during his visit to Paris.France has approved a project to rebuild the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza and this is an extremely important humanitarian project, Abbas told reporters following a lunch meeting with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.We hope that it will be implemented as quickly as possible.Kouchner concurred that he had discussed urgent plans to rebuild the Al-Quds hospital and help other health centres in the Palestinian territory following Israel's 22-day offensive that left 1,330 dead.

The hospital in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City was hit on January 15 by an Israeli shell and caught fire, forcing hundreds of patients to flee on stretchers and in wheelchairs after dark.Kouchner reiterated calls for allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza through border crossings that France maintains are being sealed off by the Israeli military.France also supports efforts toward Palestinian reconciliation that would open the door to an agreement on forming a government of national unity, said Kouchner.Abbas has called for the formation of a reconciliation government between his Fatah movement and its Hamas rivals to pave the way for elections to restore Palestinian leadership.The president of the Palestinian Authority will travel to Strasbourg to address the European parliament on Wednesday before touring Britain, Turkey, Poland and Italy.

Hamas meets Egypt intelligence chief on Gaza truce by Samer al-Atrash Samer FEB 3,09

CAIRO (AFP) – The Islamist Hamas movement remained defiant on Tuesday in its demands of Israel for a longer-term truce in Gaza as renewed violence around the Palestinian territory overshadowed fresh talks with Egyptian mediators.Representatives of the movement that has controlled Gaza since seizing the territory in June 2007 met Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman -- Cairo's pointman on Palestinian and Israeli affairs -- hours after Gaza militants fired a rocket at an Israeli town.

Hamas officials have said the group is ready to agree to a one-year truce with Israel, but they have not ruled out an 18-month truce proposed by Egyptian mediators.
A senior Hamas official based in Damascus said the delegation had told Suleiman that the group will not agree to an open-ended truce and said all crossings into Gaza must be completely opened.The delegation relayed the general outlines Hamas is willing to work within, Mohammed Nazzal told Qatar-based television news channel Al-Jazeera.The first line is that it agrees to a calm of limited duration, but does not accept an open-ended truce, he said, adding that Hamas will not make any commitments about arms smuggling into Gaza -- a key Israeli demand for an extended truce.

Nazzal also said that Israel must end its blockade of Gaza -- imposed after Hamas seized control of the territory in June 2007 -- in return for a truce.The problem is in the detail and implementation, not in the general outlines, Nazzal said.His comments marked no change from Hamas's consistent demands. A Hamas official had said before the delegation arrived on Monday that the Islamist movement was waiting for Israel's response.We have already responded to the Egyptian proposal and we expect we will hear something positive from the Egyptian side, Osama Hamdan, Hamas's representative in Lebanon, told AFP.Neither Hamas nor Egypt has released details of the Egyptian proposal but Palestinian Islamic Jihad official Jamil Yusef told the state-owned Cairo daily Al-Ahram last week that it linked the full opening of the crossings to the release of captured Israeli soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit.The deal would allow about 70 percent of (Gaza's) daily needs to pass through the Israeli border crossings, which would open fully after solving the issue of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Yusef, who was in Cairo for the truce talks, said.Israel has tied the end of the blockade with the release of Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid from Gaza in June 2006. Hamas says Shalit will be released only in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.Egypt has refused to permanently open its Rafah border crossing with Gaza in the absence of EU monitors and representatives of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.Egyptian media reported on Tuesday that the crossing, which Egypt opened during the war for aid and the evacuation of Palestinian wounded, will be closed from Thursday.Hamas and Israel both announced unilateral ceasefires on December 18, ending a devastating 22-day war that killed at least 1,330 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. The fragile calm has been tested by Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli air strikes.

Turkish PM vows to fight anti-Semitism By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer FEB 3,09

ISTANBUL – Turkey's leader said Tuesday that criticism of Israel's offensive in Gaza should not be regarded as anti-Semitism, even as his country's small Jewish community looked to police and lawmakers for protection.Last week, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly scolded Israeli President Shimon Peres over casualties among Palestinian civilians and walked off a stage during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Many Turks hailed him as a hero. But the Turkish government, which has been an important Israeli ally in the Muslim world, is campaigning hard to reassure its Jewish citizens that they are safe.There has been no anti-Semitism in the history of this country, Erdogan told ruling party lawmakers. As a minority, they're our citizens. Both their security and the right to observe their faith are under our guarantee.There are 23,000 Jews in the predominantly Muslim country of more than 70 million. Most live in Istanbul, and many have prominent roles in banking and education. Their ancestors arrived five centuries ago, and a recent comment by the prime minister that the Ottoman Empire welcomed Jews bothers some today who feel they are viewed as guests, not citizens.In a statement, the Jewish community welcomed statements by Erdogan and other Turkish officials that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated, and noted a decrease since the Jan. 18 Gaza cease-fire of what it called anti-Semitic manifestations during protests against Israel.

Numerous sensible and impartial journalists and intellectuals have accentuated that this is not a war of religions, said Musevi Cemaati, which means Jewish Community in Turkish. But the group, which has links to Turkey's rabbis, said at present there are unfortunately several TV programs with messages embedded with harshly anti-Semitic rhetoric.The group appeared to be referring to some current affairs programs and other news shows in which comments deemed to be anti-Jewish were made.It said it was in contact with Cabinet ministers and members of parliament, and was cooperating closely with police as it worked to ensure community premises and members are protected.Haberturk television reported that Mustafa Cagirici, the chief Islamic cleric in Istanbul, instructed clerics to avoid statements in weekly sermons on Friday that would disturb the Jewish community.In November 2003, Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida detonated bombs outside two synagogues in Istanbul, killing and injuring dozens. Since then, police have often been posted at Jewish centers.During the Gaza offensive, Turkish fury was mostly directed at Israel, but a few Turkish protesters held placards with anti-Semitic messages. Turkish media showed a photograph of three men in front of the office of a cultural association; they held a dog and a sign saying: Dogs are allowed, but Jews and Armenians aren't.Jewish community leaders say there have been several hundred anti-Semitic writings in Turkish media, and that prosecutors have failed to take legal action. Turkey bans acts that incite racial or religious hatred.Turkey acted as a mediator last year in peace efforts between Israel and Syria, and Erdogan said his country could still play such a role despite his criticism of Israel.Telling the truth is not an obstacle to be a mediator between two countries,Erdogan said.

Hamas prepared for 1-year truce, with open borders By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer – Tue Feb 3, 9:25 am ET

CAIRO – Hamas is ready to commit to a yearlong cease-fire with Israel in exchange for a full opening of Gaza's border crossings, the militant group's officials said Tuesday, ahead of a new round of talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo.Egypt is trying to forge a durable truce between Israel and Gaza's leaders, to replace the temporary and increasingly fragile cease-fire that ended Israel's three-week war on Hamas last month. But arrangements for border security remain a key obstacle.Israel says it won't ease a 20-month blockade of crowded, impoverished Gaza without international guarantees that Hamas will be prevented from smuggling weapons into Gaza. It does not want any deal that gives Hamas a role in controlling Gaza border crossings.So Egypt is also trying to restart reconciliation talks between Hamas and its main rival, U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Egypt has focused on getting Abbas' forces back to the Gaza crossings — perhaps with some form of symbolic Hamas presence — along with European monitors.But past attempts to broker a power-sharing deal among the Palestinians factions have failed.Prospects remain dim, with Hamas increasingly entrenched since its violent takeover of Gaza in June 2007. Abbas' government is now limited to the West Bank.Foreign ministers from nearly a dozen Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, met in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday to bolster Egypt's mediation mission.The meeting appeared aimed at showing support for Abbas and pushing Hamas to accept a truce with Israel and reconciliation with Abbas. Key Hamas ally Syria was not invited.Saudi Arabia has offered its own proposals to help Palestinian reconciliation efforts, said Nabil Amr, the Palestinian representative to Egypt. The essence of the Saudi ideas is to provide more support for the Egyptian initiative by involving Arabs in it, Amr told The Associated Press. He did not provide details.

Saudi involvement signaled a more assertive role for the regional powerhouse, which largely stayed on the sidelines during the Gaza crisis. On Monday, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal held surprise meetings in Cairo with Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.Abbas is now on a European tour seeking to ensure that he wins a role in any future Gaza deal. He wants support for a Palestinian unity government and a role in rebuilding impoverished Gaza. On Tuesday, Abbas was in Paris, meeting with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and the president of the lower house of France's parliament.Egypt is hoping to forge a truce deal between Israel and Hamas by Thursday, and a five-member Hamas delegation was in Cairo for talks with the country's chief mediator.Ahmed Abdel-Hadi, a Lebanon-based Hamas official, said the movement is ready to commit to a yearlong truce, with the possibility of extending it, in exchange for open borders.The coming hours are going to be sensitive, in order to bring out a draft of an agreement, regarding the calm and opening the borders of Gaza, Abdel-Hadi told Gaza's Al Quds Radio. There is an agreement in principle about a calm (cease-fire) for one year. But the movement could show flexibility regarding the time ... if there are guarantees and commitments to lift the sanctions and open the borders.Abdel-Hadi said Hamas rejects a gradual opening of the border crossings or linking a truce deal to a release of Israeli Sgt. Gilad Schalit, held by Hamas-allied militants in Gaza since June 2006. We are going to deal with all the issues as one package, because we are going to avoid the trap of gradual implementation, he said.Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said the movement is open to extending the cease-fire to 18 months.

Palestinian rocket explodes in Israeli town: army Tue Feb 3, 2:23 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – A rocket fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip exploded early Tuesday in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon, the Israeli army announced.The blast caused damage but nobody was injured, a spokesman said.Public radio said it was the first rocket to hit Ashkelon since a truce came into effect on January 18 ending the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip during which more than 1,330 Palestinians were killed.

Hamas leader thanks Iran for help in Gaza fight By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer – Mon Feb 2, 3:02 pm ET

TEHRAN, Iran – Hamas' top political leader thanked Iran Monday for its support during Israel's Gaza offensive, calling his movement's most powerful ally a partner in victory.Khaled Mashaal received a hero's welcome from hundreds of Iranians at Tehran University, where a crowd chanted: Hail to the soldier of holy war. On Sunday, he met the country's two top leaders, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Mashaal's visit to Tehran underlined his group's close ties with Iran. But the country's substantial financial backing for the Palestinian militant group could be strained in the coming months, as the Islamic Republic struggles with growing financial troubles exacerbated by the sharp drop in oil prices.Mashaal's visit was his first since Israel launched its three-week assault in late December, aimed at stopping years of Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel. The fighting killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians, Gaza officials say, along with 13 Israelis.A cease-fire went into effect two weeks ago but has since been tested by sporadic Palestinian shelling and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes. Hamas has claimed victory simply by surviving.Israel and the United States accuse Iran of supplying Hamas with weapons, including rockets. Tehran denies it, but says it does support Hamas financially — believed to be to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The funding has been vital for sustaining Hamas under the crippling blockade that Israel and Egypt have imposed on Gaza since Hamas took over the Palestinian territory by force in 2007.Mashaal, who heads the Hamas leadership-in-exile in Syria, said Iran played a big role in helping Hamas with money and moral support during Israel's assault.God made us victorious in Gaza, and we, the Hamas movement, came to say thank you to Iran, which stood with us, he said in a speech at Tehran University. You are our partners in the victory in Gaza, he added, addressing the Iranian people. He the specifically thanked Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.Thank you for all the financial, political and popular support which you have given to us. The Palestinian people will not forget.Israel, along with the U.S. and Europe, considers Hamas a terrorist group. But Iran sees Hamas as justifiable resistance to Israel and the rightful Palestinian government, since 2006 elections that Hamas won.

Iran and Hamas are ideologically different — Iran espouses a fundamentalist Shiite version of Islam, while Hamas adheres to an equally strict rival Sunni version. But the Palestinian militant group gives Tehran a key foothold on the doorstep of Israel and Arab allies of the United States.Iran has never revealed how much money it provides to Hamas, but the group has said it received hundreds of million dollars from the country over the past year.That's only a fraction of the billions Iran earns from oil exports, the main source of its foreign income. But the tumble in oil prices — from a record $147 in July to around $40 a barrel now — has slashed Iran's revenues.The government plans to cut many subsidies to fight a budget deficit of billions of dollars — which could fuel social disenchantment, already high over a domestic inflation rate of about 25 percent annually.Iran's generosity could falter when its annual $100 billion oil income falls to $35 billion due to falling oil prices, said Saeed Laylaz, a prominent Iranian political analyst.But he said Iran was unlikely to cut off the flow of cash completely, because Hamas and Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group — another close ally — are important for Iran's foreign policy toward the U.S.Iran's presidential elections in June and persistent international pressure over its disputed nuclear program could also force its leaders to focus more on matters at home.Separate from the government funding to Hamas, Iranians regularly donate money for the Palestinians to the Red Crescent or to charities — some of which may go through Hamas to Gazans. That money too could take a hit because of economic hardships. At a fundraiser Monday for Palestinian children orphaned during the offensive, housewife Mehraneh Abdi, 43, gave $20. She said she wanted to give more but can't since the cost of living has increased sharply in the past months in Iran.Down the street, teacher Minoo Rasai said the government shouldn't be giving so much either, noting that she has not received part of her salary for months. The government should pay our salary rather than paying people abroad, she sighed.

Monday, February 02, 2009

EUROPE ANTISEMITISM CONDEMNED

European Anti-Semitic Backlash Condemned Mon Feb 2, 1:48 pm ET

WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (OneWorld.net) - A recent wave of attacks on Jewish people in Europe has been condemned by a human rights monitor, which identified some of the violence as an apparent backlash against the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza. In its annual survey of hate crimes in Europe and North America, published in mid-2008 (before the recent attacks in Gaza), human rights watchdog Human Rights First (HRF) noted that anti-Semitism has been on the rise for several years. The dramatic rise of anti-Semitic violence since 2000 has been in part attributed to anti-Jewish sentiment triggered by the Second Palestinian Intifada. Antipathy toward Israeli policies sometimes translated into racist hostility toward all Jews, regardless of their political views or nationality, said HRF. However, since 2005, this pattern has to some extent changed, with month-by-month patterns of anti-Semitic violence leveling off, with more uniform rates that show little correlation with events involving Israel and the Middle East. Nonetheless, the survey noted, anti-Semitic violence increased in much of Europe and North America in 2007 while levels of violence motivated by anti-Jewish prejudice remained historically high in some countries. The Israel Defense Forces began aerial bombardments on Gaza December 27, 2008, with the stated aim of suppressing Hamas rocket fire against Israel, and launched a ground offensive eight days later, explained international watchdog Human Rights Watch, citing reports of heavy civilian casualties and alleged laws of war violations. After 22 days of war and over 1,000 casualties, Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, reported the New York Times on Jan. 18. Hamas initially rejected the ceasefire and shot at Israeli troops in northern Gaza, drawing return fire, and fired rockets into southern Israel, triggering an Israeli air strike in response, reported BBC News. Hamas then declared a one-week ceasefire, demanding that Israel withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip, but there have since been clashes between the Israeli military and Hamas militants. OneWorld.net's Gaza Crisis Alert provides news from groups on the ground in Gaza and links to organizations providing emergency relief to civilians.

Saudi cabinet says Palestinian unity is only way forward Mon Feb 2, 1:45 pm ET

RIYADH (AFP) – Unity is the only way through which the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people can be achieved, the Saudi cabinet said in a statement on Monday after its weekly meeting.The best resistance is one which unites the Palestinian people and guarantees its legitimate rights by using legal, political, civil and economic means against the policies of Israel and its allies, the statement said.It slammed the policy of polarisation which is emerging in the Middle East around inter-Palestinian disagreements.This policy should be rejected, the cabinet said, while urging caution towards regional and foreign ambitions dressed up as support for Arab and Islamic causes.Splits among Arab countries burst into the open at a summit in Kuwait last month, when leaders divided into a pro-western camp, lead by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and a radical group including Syria and Qatar and supported by Iran, a Shiite country which is seeking to extend its influence in the largely-Sunni Gulf region.The Saudi cabinet called on the Palestinian factions to look for what unites them and brings them together and for what links their beliefs, the only way to achieve the aspirations of their people.Divergences between the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and the Hamas group which rules in Gaza have been exacerbated by calls by exiled Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal for the formation a new political movement to replace the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, currently headed by Abbas.

Sarkozy meets US Mideast envoy Mitchell Mon Feb 2, 9:21 am ET

PARIS (AFP) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy met US Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Monday, as the American completed his first regional drive to revive peace talks.Sarkozy, who with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak helped broker a Gaza ceasefire last month, was to hold talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas later in the day.President Barack Obama's envoy ended his Middle East tour Sunday after meetings in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.Sarkzoy was also to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani of Qatar, whose country brokered a peace accord between Lebanon's rival factions in May last year.The French president has sought to carve out a greater role for Europe in the search for peace in the Middle East after the 22-day Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that left 1,330 dead.Mitchell, who was to have a working lunch with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, was on a tour as a fragile ceasefire holds in Gaza.Egypt and other regional powers are seeking to firm up the ceasefire. One Palestinian was killed on Monday in an Israeli air strike on militants who had fired mortars on southern Israel.The 75-year-old former US senator on Friday said in Israel that Washington was committed to actively and aggressively seeking lasting peace in the Middle East but warned there would be further setbacks.Before arriving in Riyadh, Mitchell met Jordan's King Abdullah II in Amman who urged Washington to resume its efforts to clinch a two-state settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.French officials said they planned to sound out Mitchell on the new administration's plan to bring the Gaza crisis to an end and revive Israeli-Arab peace talks.The envoy, who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland in 1998, travels later Monday to London to brief the British government on his first round of meetings.Abbas meanwhile will meet with National Assembly speaker Bernard Accoyer on Tuesday and with Kouchner before travelling to Strasbourg to address the European parliament on Wednesday.The president of the Palestinian Authority will travel to Britain, Turkey, Poland and Italy later this week to discuss reconstruction efforts in Gaza following the Israeli offensive.Abbas decided to cancel a visit to the Czech Republic, which currently holds the European Union presidency, to allow for more time to be spent in Cairo for truce talks.

Pro-Palestinian groups call boycott on Israel Sun Feb 1, 1:59 pm ET

BELEM, Brazil (AFP) – Pro-Palestinian groups meeting at the World Social Forum that ended Sunday launched a call for a worldwide boycott of Israel and a day of action on March 30.This is not intended to be an anti-Semitic action. It's a call against the apartheid that Israel is practising, said one of the organizers, Yuri Haas, an Israeli Jew.The campaign was decided by several groups headed by the Palestine National Committee.At the six-day forum in Belem, Brazil, t-shirts declaring I am Palestinian and Palestinian scarves were a common sight as participants showed their solidarity with the Palestinians following the conflict in the Gaza Strip.Israel killed more than 1,300 and wounded 5,000 Palestinians in 23 days in Gaza, Haas said.

The pro-Palestinian groups also launched a campaign to try to block a free-trade agreement between Israel and the Mercosur trading bloc comprising (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela).We only need one president not to sign it for it to be scrapped, Haas affirmed.

Israel says Hezbollah planning murder or abduction bid Sun Feb 1, 1:57 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's counter-terrorism bureau on Sunday warned that Hezbollah is planning to abduct or kill Israeli officials ahead of the anniversary of the assassination of the Lebanese militia's senior leader.Hezbollah is apparently prepared for carrying out a severe attack against an Israeli target, including abroad, the bureau said in a statement, warning specifically of assassination or kidnapping attempts.Such an attack is a threat against any Israeli, especially senior officials, it said.The bureau reiterated its travel warnings for Israelis, calling on tourists and businessmen to take special precaution in hotels, restaurants and recreational spots abroad.The anti-terror bureau has issued a number or warnings that Hezbollah was seeking to target or abduct Israelis abroad following the assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus in February 2008.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday vowed to avenge Mughniyeh's killing, which he blamed on Israel, although the Jewish state has denied any involvement in the incident.The Israelis live in fear of our revenge, Nasrallah said in a rare news conference via video link. The decision to respond to the killing is still on. We decide the time and place.In 2000, Hezbollah snatched Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum after luring him to the United Arab Emirates. He was released in January 2004 as part of a prisoner exchange deal with the militia.

After Davos row, Livni urges Turkey to respect Israel Sun Feb 1, 2:40 am ET

JERUSALEM, (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Sunday called on Ankara to show respect for Israel after Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan stormed off the stage in Davos over a heated debate on Gaza.We enjoy important strategic relations with Turkey, which is why I expect Turkey to show respect vis-a-vis Israel despite the demonstrations on the street and the very hard images aired about Gaza, Livni told public radio.Livni, whose centrist Kadima party is trailing in opinion polls ahead of a general election on February 10, said it was possible to repair the damage with Turkey, one of the few Muslim nations to have relations with the Jewish state.It is possible to fix everything, we have to talk, put things on the table, keep our common interests as well as our differences in mind, she said.Hamas as well as Iran constitute a problem for all the countries in the region, she said, criticising Turkey for being the first country to agree to receive a delegation from the Islamists after they swept parliamentary polls in January 2006.Erdogan on Thursday stormed out of a debate on the Gaza war at the World Economic Forum in Davos after a clash with Israeli President Shimon Peres, saying Israel committed barbarian acts in the Hamas-ruled territory.Predominantly Muslim non-Arab Turkey has been Israel's main regional ally since 1996 when the two signed a military cooperation agreement, much to the ire of Arab countries and Iran.

Gazan rockets hit Israel, no damage: police Sun Feb 1, 1:22 am ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – At least two rockets fired by Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip struck southern Israel on Sunday, causing no damage or casualties, police said.There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the salvo from armed factions in Gaza, which is still reeling from a 22-day Israeli offensive billed as punishing Islamist Hamas for such cross-border attacks.Since a January 18 truce took hold, there has been sporadic rocket fire. Israel has mostly responded with air strikes.(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Netanyahu aims for unity government in Israel poll Sat Jan 31, 5:20 pm

JERUSALEM (AFP) – The leader of Israel's right-wing Likud party said on Saturday he will aim to form a government of the broadest possible unity if his party wins the February 10 general election.I will act to form a unity government that is as wide as possible, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to viewers' questions on the private Channel 2 television.My greatest mistake when I was prime minister was not doing everything to enlarge my government to the maximum, added Netanyahu who was premier from 1996 to 1999.He said he hoped to lead a government of national unity that also included the centre-left Labour party and centrist Kadima, which would enable his administration not to be taken hostage by the extreme right.

Labour is led by current Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Kadima by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.Polls show Netanyahu in a strong position to become prime minister again, projecting that a right-wing bloc led by Likud would take 65 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, Israel's parliament.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

GET TO KNOW THE FEDERAL RESERVE

WORLD GOVERNMENT

DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

DANIEL 12:4,1
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

REVELATION 13:1-3,7,8,12,16-18
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

REVELATION 17:3,7,9-10,12,18
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

THE BEGGINING OF THE EUROPEAN UNION - VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw1F2sxt2kI&eurl=http://israndjer.blogspot.com/&feature=player_embedded

The Real Face of the European Union - VIDEO
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2699800300274168460&hl=en

2000 YEARS A HISTORY OF EUROPE - VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kegXDSUi8c&eurl=http://israndjer.blogspot.com/&feature=player_embedded

POLTICAL BOARDERS OF EUROPE TO 2006 - VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq0KNfS_M44&eurl=http://israndjer.blogspot.com/&feature=player_embedded

EMPIRES OF THE WORLD - VIDEO (THE EU TO BE THE 7TH AND FINAL WORLD EMPIRE BEFORE JESUS RULES FROM JERUSALEM FOREVER.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tRnlUGEv2E&eurl=http://israndjer.blogspot.com/&feature=player_embedded

WORLD TRADE BLOCS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3077524.stm
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2006-02/2006-02-07-voa22.cfm
http://books.google.com/books?id=1GNwBYHpy3cC&dq=world+trading+blocs/video&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&sa=X&oi
=book_result&resnum=13&ct=result#PPP1,M1
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1462&categoryid=ADE8AF04-F27F-F0C6
-6CF6C41335F06527&fuseaction=topics.events_item_topics&event_id=73069
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10553544&pnum=0

Africa delays moves towards federal government By Daniel Wallis and Barry Moody – Sun Feb 1, 2:36 pm ET

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – African leaders on Sunday again delayed concrete moves toward creating a United States of Africa, despite a long campaign by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.Gaddafi and other supporters like Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade, have been calling for years for an accelerated process toward a union government, saying it is the only way to meet the challenges of globalization, fighting poverty and resolving conflicts without Western interference.But they are opposed by other nations, headed by economic powerhouse South Africa, who see such an idea as a distant and impractical prospect.Gaddafi's proposal dominated a sometimes heated African Union (AU) summit in Ghana in 2007, but no deal was reached.

The previous AU summit in Egypt last July produced a skeleton agreement and the first day of the current meeting in Ethiopia was devoted to the union proposal.
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete told a news conference on Sunday night the meeting had agreed only to change the name of the current AU Commission into an authority, rejecting a proposal by the body itself to transform it immediately into a union government.Kikwete, the current AU chairman, said this would infringe the sovereignty of the AU's 53 states.In principle, we said the ultimate is a United States of Africa, Kikwete added, insisting the authority would have a bigger mandate, bigger budget and bigger capacities than the existing commission.But he was vague on how its powers would expand.Gaddafi has previously berated African leaders for delaying on his unity proposal, but asked about the often fiery Libyan leader's reaction, Kikwete said: He was very supportive.The Tanzanian president said the Addis summit would agree by its close on Wednesday on the new authority's structures but it would not be launched until the next summit in July. He said this would move the continent closer to a union government.

NEW AUTHORITY

The new authority would have a president and vice president, and current AU commissioner positions would be transformed into the secretaries of areas of shared competence including poverty reduction, infrastructure, disease epidemics, peace and security and transnational crime and terrorism.AU Commission chairman Jean Ping said recently that views on the speed of integration varied from nine to 35 years, but the continent needed to speak with a united voice to be heard in international negotiations on trade and other issues including climate change.One east African delegate, who asked not to be named, said earlier that the summit felt obliged to discuss Gaddafi's pet project because of the large sums of money he has poured into parts of the continent.It is important to him, so they will discuss it. But the challenges of making it work, obviously, are vast, he said.The official theme of this week's summit at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa is boosting infrastructure, which experts say is essential if Africa is to weather the global financial crisis.

But conflict and crisis in Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are expected, as usual at AU summits, to overshadow the official agenda.
(Additional reporting by Barry Malone; Editing by Charles Dick)

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board Official Site
http://www.federalreserve.gov/

The Federal Open Market Committee
http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomc.htm

The Beige Book
http://www.federalreserve.gov/fomc/BeigeBook/2005/

Federal Reserve Policy, Inflation, & Inflation Targeting A Report by the U.S. Congressional Joint Economic Committee
http://www.house.gov/jec/fed.htm

SECRETS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE&eurl=http://israndjer.blogspot.com/&feature=player_embedded

THE FEDERAL RESERVE - VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWKlz2Z4Nlo&eurl=http://israndjer.blogspot.com/&feature=player_embedded

OBAMA TRILATERAL COMMISSION END GAME
http://www.infowars.com/obama-trilateral-commission-endgame/

What is the Federal Reserve and what does it do? FEB 1,09

Periodically, I hear about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates or lowering interest rates. But what is the Federal Reserve? Is it a governmental body or a private one? Does it just set interest rates or does do other things? The Federal Reserve is considered an independent central bank. It is independent since its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or Congress. The Federal Reserve System was created by Congress in 1913 to provide for the establishment of Federal reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes.

While the Federal Reserve is an independent institution, it is still accountable to Congress. The Constitution gives Congress the power to coin money and set its value. Congress delegated this power to the Federal Reserve in the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, but still maintains oversight authority. Under the Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978, the Federal Reserve must submit a report on the economy to Congress by February 20 and July 20 of each year. Alan Greenspan, the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, is called to testify on the report before Senate and House Committees. The Federal Reserve System is made up of a Board of Governors and twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the country. There are seven members that sit on the Board of Governors. Each member must be nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. Members are appointed to serve 14-year nonrenewable terms. The President also nominates members of the Board to serve as Chair and Vice Chair for four-year renewable terms. These appointments must also be confirmed by the Senate. The most important policy making body of the Federal Reserve System is the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). It is composed of the seven Governors, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and four other Reserve Bank presidents that serve on a rotating basis. The FOMC can effect monetary policy through the use of three tools: Open market operations--the buying and selling of U.S. government securities.
Altering reserve requirements--the amount of funds that commercial banks must hold in reserve against deposits.

Adjusting the discount rate--the interest rate charged to commercial banks.
These tools can be used to tighten or expand the money supply. For example, if the FOMC wanted to control inflation, it could restrict the nation's money supply by selling government securities and raising the amount of money that banks need to set aside for reserve requirements. Both of these actions would take money out of circulation. In theory, a smaller supply of money would lead to less spending which would lead to lower prices. The FOMC can also raise interest rates to help control inflation. By making money more expensive to borrow, consumers would be more likely to save money rather than spend it. This could also lead to lower prices. The FOMC meets eight times during the year to consider economic developments and to vote on policy. In the past 12 months, Federal Reserve officials have raised interest rates six times. During the FMC's last meeting on May 16, the committee voted to raise short-term interest rates by half of a percentage point to 6.5%, the highest level since 1991. This was done in an effort to slow the pace of the U.S. economy and keep inflation at a low, manageable level. Since the FOMC meeting in May, many observers have speculated about the Federal Reserve's likely actions when it next meets on June 27-28. One good indicator of the Fed's likely actions is the Beige Book it releases two weeks before each of its policy meetings. The Beige Book is a survey of economic conditions across the country and is used as a reference for Fed officials when considering monetary policies, such as interest rate hikes. The Federal Reserve is primarily concerned about inflation and many speculate that higher inflation may lead to another increase in interest rates.

The Fed's latest report was released June 14 and showed a leveling off of the Consumer Price Index (a broad measure of the prices of goods in the economy) for the month of May. However, the report also showed that long-term inflation, measured over a 12-month period, was up from last year. Furthermore, many expect that rising gasoline costs will contribute to a higher Consumer Price Index for the month of June. Most indications point to a boost in interest rates when the Fed convenes later this month. Contributing Author: Prof. Shad Satterthwaite, The University of Oklahoma.

The Federal Reserve is a Private Financial Institution
Text of court ruling and analysis Global Research, April 2, 2008
http://www.save-a-patriot.org/files/view/frcourt.html


Court Rules Federal Reserve is Privately Owned
Case Reveals Fed's Status as a Private Institution
------------------------------------------------------
Below are excerpts from a court case proving the Federal Reserve system's status. As you will see, the court ruled that the Federal Reserve Banks are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations, and there is not sufficient federal government control over detailed physical performance and day to day operation of the Federal Reserve Bank for it to be considered a federal agency:

Lewis v. United States, 680 F.2d 1239 (1982)John L. Lewis, Plaintiff/Appellant,v.
United States of America, Defendant/Appellee. No. 80-5905 United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.Submitted March 2, 1982.Decided April 19, 1982.As Amended June 24, 1982.

Plaintiff, who was injured by vehicle owned and operated by a federal reserve bank, brought action alleging jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The United States District Court for the Central District of California, David W. Williams, J., dismissed holding that federal reserve bank was not a federal agency within meaning of Act and that the court therefore lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. Appeal was taken. The Court of Appeals, Poole, Circuit Judge, held that federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of the Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations.

Affirmed.

1. United States
There are no sharp criteria for determining whether an entity is a federal agency within meaning of the Federal Tort Claims Act, but critical factor is existence of federal government control over detailed physical performance and day to day operation of an entity. . . .

2. United States
Federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of a Federal Tort Claims Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations in light of fact that direct supervision and control of each bank is exercised by board of directors, federal reserve banks, though heavily regulated, are locally controlled by their member banks, banks are listed neither as wholly owned government corporations nor as mixed ownership corporations; federal reserve banks receive no appropriated funds from Congress and the banks are empowered to sue and be sued in their own names. . . .

3. United States
Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, federal liability is narrowly based on traditional agency principles and does not necessarily lie when a tortfeasor simply works for an entity, like the Reserve Bank, which performs important activities for the government. . . .

4. Taxation
The Reserve Banks are deemed to be federal instrumentalities for purposes of immunity from state taxation.

5. States Taxation
Tests for determining whether an entity is federal instrumentality for purposes of protection from state or local action or taxation, is very broad: whether entity performs important governmental function.
--------------
Lafayette L. Blair, Compton, Cal., for plaintiff/appellant.

James R. Sullivan, Asst. U.S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., argued, for defendant/appellee; Andrea Sheridan Ordin, U.S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., on brief.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

Before Poole and Boochever, Circuit Judges, and Soloman, District Judge. (The Honorable Gus J. Solomon, Senior District Judge for the District of Oregon, sitting by designation)

Poole, Circuit Judge:

On July 27, 1979, appellant John Lewis was injured by a vehicle owned and operated by the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Lewis brought this action in district court alleging jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Clains Act (the Act), 28 U.S.C. Sect. 1346(b). The United States moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court dismissed, holding that the Federal Reserve Bank is not a federal agency within the meaning of the Act and that the court therefore lacked subject matter jurisdiction. We affirm.

In enacting the Federal Tort Claims Act, Congress provided a limited waiver of the sovereign immunity of the United States for certain torts of federal employees. . . . Specifically, the Act creates liability for injuries caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of an employee of any federal agency acting within the scope of his office or employment. . . . Federal agency is defined as:
the executive departments, the military departments, independent establishments of the United States, and corporations acting primarily as instrumentalities of the United States, but does not include any contractors with the United States.

28 U.S.C. Sect. 2671. The liability of the United States for the negligence of a Federal Reserve Bank employee depends, therefore, on whether the Bank is a federal agency under Sect. 2671.

[1,2] There are no sharp criteria for determining whether an entity is a federal agency within the meaning of the Act, but the critical factor is the existence of federal government control over the detailed physical performance and day to day operation of that entity. . . . Other factors courts have considered include whether the entity is an independent corporation . . ., whether the government is involved in the entity's finances. . . ., and whether the mission of the entity furthers the policy of the United States, . . . Examining the organization and function of the Federal Reserve Banks, and applying the relevant factors, we conclude that the Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities for purpose of the FTCA, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations.

Each Federal Reserve Bank is a separate corporation owned by commercial banks in its region. The stockholding commercial banks elect two thirds of each Bank's nine member board of directors. The remaining three directors are appointed by the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board regulates the Reserve Banks, but direct supervision and control of each Bank is exercised by its board of directors. 12 U.S.C. Sect. 301. The directors enact by-laws regulating the manner of conducting general Bank business, 12 U.S.C. Sect. 341, and appoint officers to implement and supervise daily Bank activities. These activites include collecting and clearing checks, making advances to private and commercial entities, holding reserves for member banks, discounting the notes of member banks, and buying and selling securities on the open market. See 12 U.S.C. Sub-Sect. 341-361. Each Bank is statutorily empowered to conduct these activites without day to day direction from the federal government. Thus, for example, the interest rates on advances to member banks, individuals, partnerships, and corporations are set by each Reserve Bank and their decisions regarding the purchase and sale of securities are likewise independently made. It is evident from the legislative history of the Federal Reserve Act that Congress did not intend to give the federal government direction over the daily operation of the Reserve Banks: It is proposed that the Government shall retain sufficient power over the reserve banks to enable it to exercise a direct authority when necessary to do so, but that it shall in no way attempt to carry on through its own mechanism the routine operations and banking which require detailed knowledge of local and individual credit and which determine the funds of the community in any given instance. In other words, the reserve-bank plan retains to the Government power over the exercise of the broader banking functions, while it leaves to individuals and privately owned institutions the actual direction of
routine.

H.R. Report No. 69 Cong. 1st Sess. 18-19 (1913).

The fact that the Federal Reserve Board regulates the Reserve Banks does not make them federal agencies under the Act. In United States v. Orleans, 425 U.S. 807, 96 S.Ct. 1971, 48 L.Ed.2d 390 (1976), the Supreme Court held that a community action agency was not a federal agency or instrumentality for purposes of the Act, even though the agency was organized under federal regulations and heavily funded by the federal government. Because the agency's day to day operation was not supervised by the federal government, but by local officials, the Court refused to extend federal tort liability for the negligence of the agency's employees. Similarly, the Federal Reserve Banks, though heavily regulated, are locally controlled by their member banks. Unlike typical federal agencies, each bank is empowered to hire and fire employees at will. Bank employees do not participate in the Civil Service Retirement System. They are covered by worker's compensation insurance, purchased by the Bank, rather than the Federal Employees Compensation Act. Employees travelling on Bank business are not subject to federal travel regulations and do not receive government employee discounts on lodging and services.

The Banks are listed neither as wholly owned government corporations under 31 U.S.C. Sect. 846 nor as mixed ownership corporations under 31 U.S.C. Sect. 856, a factor considered is Pearl v. United States, 230 F.2d 243 (10th Cir. 1956), which held that the Civil Air Patrol is not a federal agency under the Act. Closely resembling the status of the Federal Reserve Bank, the Civil Air Patrol is a non-profit, federally chartered corporation organized to serve the public welfare. But because Congress' control over the Civil Air Patrol is limited and the corporation is not designated as a wholly owned or mixed ownership government corporation under 31 U.S.C. Sub-Sect. 846 and 856, the court concluded that the corporation is a non-governmental, independent entity, not covered under the Act.

Additionally, Reserve Banks, as privately owned entities, receive no appropriated funds from Congress. . . .

Finally, the Banks are empowered to sue and be sued in their own name. 12 U.S.C. Sect. 341. They carry their own liability insurance and typically process and handle their own claims. In the past, the Banks have defended against tort claims directly, through private counsel, not government attorneys . . ., and they have never been required to settle tort claims under the administrative procedure of 28 U.S.C. Sect. 2672. The waiver of sovereign immunity contained in the Act would therefore appear to be inapposite to the Banks who have not historically claimed or received general immunity from judicial process.

[3] The Reserve Banks have properly been held to be federal instrumentalities for some purposes. In United States v. Hollingshead, 672 F.2d 751 (9th Cir. 1982), this court held that a Federal Reserve Bank employee who was responsible for recommending expenditure of federal funds was a public official under the Federal Bribery Statute. That statute broadly defines public official to include any person acting for or on behalf of the Government. . . . The test for determining status as a public official turns on whether there is substantial federal involvement in the defendant's activities. United States v. Hollingshead, 672 F.2d at 754. In contrast, under the FTCA, federal liability is narrowly based on traditional agency principles and does not necessarily lie when the tortfeasor simply works for an entity, like the Reserve Banks, which perform important activities for the government.

[4, 5] The Reserve Banks are deemed to be federal instrumentalities for purposes of immunity from state taxation. . . . The test for determining whether an entity is a federal instrumentality for purposes of protection from state or local action or taxation, however, is very broad: whether the entity performs an important governmental function. . . . The Reserve Banks, which further the nation's fiscal policy, clearly perform an important governmental function.

Performance of an important governmental function, however, is but a single factor and not determinative in tort claims actions. . . . State taxation has traditionally been viewed as a greater obstacle to an entity's ability to perform federal functions than exposure to judicial process; therefore tax immunity is liberally applied. . . . Federal tort liability, however, is based on traditional agency principles and thus depends upon the principal's ability to control the actions of his agent, and not simply upon whether the entity performs an important governmental function. . . .

Brinks Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 466 F.Supp. 116 (D.D.C.1979), held that a Federal Reserve Bank is a federal instrumentality for purposes of the Service Contract Act, 41 U.S.C. Sect. 351. Citing Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the court applied the important governmental function test and concluded that the term Federal Government in the Service Contract Act must be liberally construed to effectuate the Act's humanitarian purpose of providing minimum wage and fringe benefit protection to individuals performing contracts with the federal government. Id. 288 Mich. at 120, 284 N.W.2d 667.

Such a liberal construction of the term federal agency for purposes of the Act is unwarranted. Unlike in Brinks, plaintiffs are not without a forum in which to seek a remedy, for they may bring an appropriate state tort claim directly against the Bank; and if successful, their prospects of recovery are bright since the institutions are both highly solvent and amply insured. For these reasons we hold that the Reserve Banks are not federal agencies for purposes of the Federal Tort Claims Act and we affirm the judgement of the district court.

AFFIRMED.
----------------
It is clear from this that in some circumstances, the Federal Reserve Bank can be considered a government instrumentality, but cannot be considered a federal agency, because the term carries with it the assumption that the federal government has direct oversight over what the Fed does. Of course it does not, because most people who know about this subject know that the Fed is politically independent.The only area where one might disagree with the judge's decision is where he states that the Fed furthers the federal government's fiscal policy, and therefore performs an important governmental function. While we would like to think that the federal government and the Fed work cooperatively with each other, and they may on occasion, the Fed is by no means required to do so. One example is where Rep. Wright Patman, Chairman of the House Banking Committee, said in the Congressional Record back in the '60s, that depending on the temperament of the Fed's Chairman, sometimes the Fed worked with the government's fiscal policy, and other times either went in the complete opposite direction, or threatens to do so in order to influence policy.

The common claim that the Fed is accountable to the government, because it is required to report to Congress on its activities annually, is incorrect. The reports to Congress mean little unless what the Chairman reports can be verified by complete records. From its founding to this day, the Fed has never undergone a complete independent audit. Congress time after time has requested that the Fed voluntarily submit to a complete audit, and every time, it refuses. Those in the know about the Fed, realize that it does keep certain records secret. The soon-to-be-former Chairman of the House Banking Committee, Henry Gonzales, has spoken on record repeatedly about how the Fed at one point says it does not have certain requested records, and then it is found through investigation that it in fact does have those records, or at least used to. It would appear that the Fed Chairman can say anything he wants to to Congress, and they'll have to accept what he says, because verification of what he says is not always possible.

RON PAUL VIDEO - TALKS ABOUT THE FEDERAL RESERVE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnsfZwwswZE&eurl=http://israndjer.blogspot.com/&feature=player_embedded

WORLD AFFAIRS We Need a Bank Of the World - The financial crisis is global, and only an international central bank can deal with it.By Jeffrey E. Garten | NEWSWEEK Published Oct 25, 2008 From the magazine issue dated Nov 3, 2008 From the Editors (2) Nobel Laureates on Fixing the Economy How Green Technology Can Spark Economic Growth

If George W. Bush's upcoming global summit on how to fix the world's broken financial system—an event proposed by several European presidents and prime ministers—is to be a serious effort, the leaders should begin laying the groundwork for establishing a global central bank.The idea of such an institution would have been a political nonstarter before the current debacle. The crises of the last several decades—the Latin American debt meltdown in the early 1980s, the stock-market crash in 1987, the savings and loan collapse of the early 1990s, the Asian financial blowup of the late.1990s, the Internet-stock collapse earlier in this decade—did not involve the extent of global linkages among financial institutions or the mind-boggling consequences of complex securities that we are seeing today. In none of these previous blowups did the global credit system shut down, as it did in recent weeks; in none did governments in both the industrialized and developing world intervene so massively, coming close to nationalizing the entire global banking system.And in none was it so clear that there is no effective governing authority at the center of global finance. There was a time when the U.S. Federal Reserve played this role, as the prime financial institution of the world's most powerful economy, overseeing the one global currency. But with the growth of capital markets, the rise of currencies like the euro and the emergence of powerful players such as China, the shift of wealth to Asia and the Persian Gulf and, of course, the deep-seated problems in the American economy itself, the Fed no longer has the capability to lead singlehandedly.

After World War II, the IMF was designed to be a central financial institution, too. But over the decades it has had less and less influence on the rich industrialized nations. Its credibility with Asia and Latin America has also waned. It is still involved in bailouts for countries such as Iceland and Pakistan, but its once central role in protecting global stability is clearly over. And most important, its political legitimacy is deeply flawed, because its management structure reflects the 1950s, with Belgium having more voting power than China.In the future, a global central bank is needed to oversee the rudderless global financial system. There are a number of critical functions it could perform.It could be the lead regulator of big global financial institutions, such as Citigroup or Deutsche Bank, whose activities spill across borders. It could monitor risks that are building in the global market and create an early-warning system that alerts banks and national regulators that trouble is coming, and pushes them to modify their policies.It could act as a bankruptcy court when big global banks that operate in multiple countries need to be restructured. It could oversee not just the big commercial banks, such as Mitsubishi UFJ, but also the alternative financial system that has developed in recent years, consisting of hedge funds, private-equity groups and sovereign wealth funds—all of which are now substantially unregulated.A new institution could have influence over key exchange rates, and might lead a new monetary conference to realign the dollar and the yuan, for example, for one of its first missions would be to deal with the great financial imbalances that hang like a sword over the world economy.

A global central bank would not eliminate the need for the Federal Reserve or other national central banks, which will still have frontline responsibility for sound regulatory policies and monetary stability in their respective countries. But it would have heavy influence over them when it comes to following policies that are compatible with global growth and financial stability. For example, it would work with key countries to better coordinate national stimulus programs when the world enters a recession, as is happening now, so that the cumulative impact of the various national efforts do not so dramatically overshoot that they plant the seeds for a crisis of global inflation. This is a big threat as government spending everywhere goes into overdrive.The IMF could continue to exist, but its board would have to be restructured, its bailout role for smaller nations carefully defined, and its directions—including the severity of the conditions it imposes on borrowers—would have to come from the new central bank.To give it legitimacy, a global central bank would have to be governed in light of political realities. That means that its board would include not only the top financial officials of the United States, the U.K., the euro zone and Japan, but also China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa and perhaps a few others.If a global central bank had existed before today's financial crisis, it could have sounded a shrill warning about irresponsible financial transactions much earlier; and if it had been set up with the enforcement teeth it deserves, it would have had the clout to demand, perhaps as early as 2005, that banks and other financial institutions start building reserves when times were booming, rather than allow them to maintain lower reserves precisely because profits were soaring. It would have seen that financial institutions were accumulating debt that was 30 times their capital and imposed—or caused national central banks to impose—more sober leverage ratios.A global central bank worth its salt would have reined in not just commercial banks but also loosely-regulated investment banks, because all such institutions would have been obligated to adhere to the global banks' regulatory standards or else be blacklisted in global markets. It would have intervened to deal with Lehman Brothers and AIG, both with truly global reach, and thereby put the burden not just on American taxpayers but also taxpayers of other countries who used these institutions' services.Had it existed, a global central bank would have acted without the air of panic that has been exhibited by national central banks and finance ministries in this meltdown. Ideally, it would have gathered its governing board well in advance of a financial blowup to execute a coordinated rescue and global-stimulus plan, part of what should be its ongoing role of preparing for crises.

It would be hard to overestimate the political pushback that any official proposal for a global central bank would draw from various constituencies, most especially within the United States. Among their many charges, critics will protest the establishment of world government. But we have a World Trade Organization with legally binding powers over trade disputes. We have a World Health Organization for communicable disease with the ability to quarantine entire countries. And a World Court functions today that has considerable legal and moral clout.No one should want too much globally centralized oversight. But the world's gathering misery shows that too little leadership from the center can be equally dangerous. The November summit itself won't solve anything, but if it gave instructions to finance ministers and central bankers to explore what a new central bank could do, with a deadline to come back with concrete ideas shortly after a new U.S. president is inaugurated, it will have made real progress on one of the great problems of our times.Garten is the Juan Trippe Professor of international trade and finance at the Yale School of Management.2008

WORLDS CENTRAL BANK - STORY
http://www.winterspeak.com/2008/10/worlds-central-bank.html

Enlightened Economics
http://enlightenedeconomics.wordpress.com/2008/03/12/out-of-the-ashes-a-global-central-bank/

Our financial overseers will create a world central bank in the next few years. Growing higher consciousness in the world will enable it to become a reality. This bank will have a mandate to monitor, regulate, and maintain global currency, credit, and debt issuance. It will ensure that growth of these activities roughly matches global economic output. It will come about as the chaos and inadequacies engendered in our present monetary system become evident to everyone and a world central bank seen as the best solution.Individuals and groups in financial markets everywhere, lacking inner fulfillment, have demonstrated inordinate greed resulting in reckless financial games and gambling – are bringing the financial system to its knees.Such mismanagement in the financial system, I believe, will require the new world central bank to disallow banks everywhere from continuing in unfettered debt creation and speculative excesses. In search of ever higher returns, banks created overly lax lending standards, highly leveraged loans, obscure financial entities bearing major financial risks unconsolidated in their financial statements, and generally ran down the quality of their assets and reserves to unsafe levels.

Shadow banking system larger than conventional banking
All the while an even bigger, massively leveraged, totally unregulated, thinly capitalized, shadow-banking system was allowed to balloon by bank regulators. And it is now in the process of imploding! Bill Gross, managing director of PIMCO, the world’s largest bond fund, said this recently about the shadow banking system: Our modern shadow banking system craftily dodges the reserve requirements of traditional institutions and promotes a chain letter, pyramid scheme of leverage, based in many cases on no reserve cushion whatsoever.Due to the enormous growth of irresponsible central bank and banking activities globally, plus the vast, mushrooming credit creation of the shadow banking system – the world’s money supply is expanding out-of-control.

Unprecedented money supply growth creates inflation as bad as 1970s
Globally we see that, China [is] registering an 18% plus growth in money, India 22.4% a year growth, Singapore 14%, Britain up by 12.3%, Western Europe 11.5%, Australia 16%, Canada 13%, and Saudi Arabia 22%! So says The Mogambo Guru, Richard Daughty. These are broad money supply figures. John Williams of www.shadowstats.com shows the US broad measure of money supply, as of early February 2008, increasing at annual rate of 16.8%. (The US Federal Reserve stopped publishing this measure in March 2006 claiming it costs too much to produce. Many economists suspect that they just wanted to hide the ramping-up of the US money supply.)Even Marketwatch’s chief economist, Irwin Kellner, is concerned about US money supply growth. He said recently, that, The rate of growth for highly liquid funds which the St. Louis Fed calls MZM [i.e. physical money, checking and money market accounts, etc.]… soared by an annual rate of 22.7% between December 24, 2007 and February 18 of this year. He adds, it has created a whole lot of inflation.The link between an expanding money supply and inflation is firmly established. As the Bank of England’s Governor, Mervyn King quoting a highly respected study, said, that Over the 30 year horizon 1968-98, the correlation coefficient between the growth rates of both narrow and broad money, on the one hand, and inflation, on the other, was 0.99. Thus in the words of Milton Friedman, the recently deceased Nobel Economics prize winner, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.

In the US, consumer price inflation using the politically biased, understated, consumer price index (CPI-U) is in January 2008 up 4.3% from a year earlier. But using the CPI methodology as of 1980, it is almost hyperinflationary at close to 12%! Inflation in China is now running at 8.7%, while in the EU and the UK, though more moderate at 3.4% and 3.1% respectively, it is picking-up significantly and well above their respective central bank targets.The foregoing suggests that the present global monetary and financial system is reaching a state of extraordinary instability. The danger is the possibility of rapidly growing, unstoppable inflation culminating in a hyperinflationary episode such as is now occurring in Zimbabwe. Or, a threat of a deflationary bust similar to the Great Depression.

Higher consciousness the only real answer
The only real answer to such economic threats is higher global consciousness. This, I am convinced, will gain traction. (See my post, The Missing Ingredient In Economics — Consciousness!). In future years, this higher consciousness will, amongst other things, first manifest itself by allowing our financial overseers to see the need for, and create, a world central bank. In ages past central banks utilized gold to help create monetary order. A new world central bank might well find a role for gold again, but in an updated, modern form. I will write about this in another post.

Obama: Trilateral Commission Endgame Patrick Wood January 29, 2009
NewsWithViews.com


Editor’s note: For clarity, members of the Trilateral Commission appear in bold type.

As previously noted in Pawns of the Global Elite,
http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/u.s._elections/obama_and
_mccain:_pawns_of_the_global_elite?_2008080597/
Barack Obama was groomed for the presidency by key members of the Trilateral Commission. Most notably, it was Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973, who was Obama’s principal foreign policy advisor.The Obama presidency is a disingenuous fraud. He was elected by promising to bring change, yet from the start change was never envisioned. He was carefully groomed and financed by the Trilateral Commission and their friends. The pre-election attention is reminiscent of Brzezinski’s tutoring of Jimmy Carter prior to Carter’s landslide election in 1976.For anyone who doubts the Commission’s continuing influence on Obama, consider that he has already appointed no less than nine members of the Commission to top-level and key positions in his Administration.

According to official Trilateral Commission membership lists, there are only 87 members from the United States (the other 337 members are from other regions). Thus, in less than two weeks since his inauguration, Obama’s appointments encompass more than 10% of Commission’s entire U.S. membership.Is this a mere coincidence or is it a continuation of dominance over the Executive Branch since 1976? (For important background, read The Trilateral Commission: Usurping Sovereignty.)
http://www.augustreview.com/issues/globalization/the_trilateral_
commission:_usurping_sovereignty_2007080373/

1- Secretary of Treasury, Tim Geithner
2- Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice
3- National Security Advisor, Thomas Donilon
4- Chairman, Economic Recovery Committee, Paul Volker
5- Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair 6- Assistant Secretary of State, Asia & Pacific, Kurt M. Campbell
7- Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg
8- State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Haass
9- State Department, Special Envoy, Dennis Ross
10- State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Holbrooke

There are many other incidental links to the Trilateral 12- 12- Commission, for instance, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is married to Commission member William Jefferson Clinton. Geithner’s informal group of advisors include E. Gerald Corrigan, Paul Volker, Alan Greenspan and Peter G. Peterson, among others. His first job after college was with Henry Kissinger at Kissinger Associates. Brent Scowcroft has been an unofficial advisor to Obama and was mentor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Robert Zoelick is currently president of the World Bank

Laurence Summers, White House Economic Advisor, was mentored by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin during the Clinton administration.There are many other such links, but these are enough for you to get the idea of what’s going on here.

Analyze the positions

Notice that five of the Trilateral appointees involve the State Department, where foreign policy is created and implemented. Hillary Clinton is certainly in line with these policies because her husband, Bill Clinton, is also a member. What is more important than economic recovery? Paul Volker is the answer. What is more important than national intelligence? Thomas Donilon and Adm. Dennis Blair hold the two top positions.What is more important than the Treasury and the saving of our financial system? Timothy Geithner says he has the answers. This leaves Susan Rice, Ambassador to the United Nations. The U.N. is the chosen instrument for ultimate global governance. Rice will help to subvert the U.S. into the U.N. umbrella of vassal states.

Conflict of interest

Since 1973, the Commission has met regularly in plenary sessions to discuss policy position papers developed by its members. Policies are debated in order to achieve consensuses. Respective members return to their own countries to implement policies consistent with those consensuses.The original stated purpose of the Trilateral Commission was to create a New International Economic Order. Its current statement has morphed into fostering a closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system. (See The Trilateral Commission web site)
http://www.trilateral.org/about.htm

U.S. Trilateral members implement policies determined by a majority of non-Americans that most often work against the best interests of the country.How, you say? Since the administration of Jimmy Carter, Trilaterals held these massively influential positions:

1. Six out of eight World Bank presidents, including the current appointee, Robert Zoelick
2. Eight out of ten U.S. Trade Representatives
3. President and/or Vice-President of every elected administration
4. Seven out of twelve Secretaries of State
5. Nine out of twelve Secretaries of Defense
6. Is this sinking in? Are you grasping the enormity of it?

Endgame is at hand

For the Trilateral crowd, the game is about over. The recent reemergence of original members Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and Paul Volker serves to reinforce the conclusion that the New International Economic Order is near.The Trilateral Commission and its members have engineered the global economic, trade and financial system that is currently in a state of total chaos.

Does that mean that they have lost? Hardly.

As I recently wrote in Chorus call for New World Order, they are using the crisis to destroy what remains of national sovereignty, so that a New World Order can finally and permanently be put into place.
http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/trilateral_commission/
chorus_call_for_new_world_order_20090108109/

Conclusion

The Obama presidency is a disingenuous fraud. He was elected by promising to bring change, yet from the start change was never envisioned. He was carefully groomed and financed by the Trilateral Commission and their friends.In short, Obama is merely the continuation of disastrous, non-American policies that have brought economic ruin upon us and the rest of the world. The Obama experience rivals that of Jimmy Carter, whose campaign slogan was I will never lie to you.When the Democrat base finally realizes that it has been conned again (Bill Clinton and Al Gore were members), perhaps it will unleash a real political revolution that will oust Trilateral politicians, operatives and policies from the shores of our country.If the reader is a Democrat, be aware that many Republicans and conservatives are still licking their wounds after finally realizing that George Bush and Dick Cheney worked the same con on them for a disastrous eight years of the same policies!

Research related articles:

2008 Trilateral Commission Attendee List
http://www.infowars.com/2008-trilateral-commission-attendee-list/

Odds-on: Who will Obama tap for Secretary of State?
http://www.infowars.com/gambling-house-placing-bets-on-obamas-secretary-of-state/