新加坡‧人口增加‧土地有限‧徵用最大墳場建屋

（新加坡30日訊）新加坡人口增加，土地有限，連新加坡最大的墳墓—―咖啡山墳場也要用來建房子！

羅尼路的咖啡山墳場，已被市區重建局指定為住屋發展計劃用途地段。

據《海峽時報》報導，這塊地段佔地86公頃，目前市建局還沒對住屋發展計劃定下時限。

不過，當局已有計劃興建咖啡山地鐵站，但將一直到該地區有更多發展後才開放。

市建局發言人說︰“新加坡的土地稀少，有必要在長期的土地使用計劃上採取平衡的方式，並非常選擇性地保留地段。”

因此，市建局已將咖啡山墳場，連同實龍崗路上段已經挖掘完成的比達達利（Bidadari）墳場，指定為住屋發展計劃地段。

在新加坡，目前的烏節路義安城購物商場以及碧山和中駔魯組屋區，也曾是墳場所在地。

擁有200名會員的新加坡傳統文化協會，上週末出書和希望咖啡山墳場能加以保留。

會長陳有利說，如果將墳場進行重新發展用途，將是新加坡市區的“一大損失”。

咖啡山墳場有8萬個墓碑，包括19世紀富商王三龍和他妻子的巨大墳墓。

中國‧疑犯控殺人罪平民憤‧呼和浩特全城戒備

（中國‧呼和浩特30日訊）由於有傳言號召民眾趁今日蒙族歷史英雄紀念日，擴大示威規模，令當局大為緊張，全城戒備，今日加派警力在內蒙首府呼和浩特等城市執勤，除封校、封路、斷網，幾乎各地都有荷鎗實彈的武警五步一哨、十步一崗式把守，以防事態失控，市面氣氛肅殺。

市內氣氛特別緊張

【新潮】最新的美容資訊 最朝的服飾搭配 引領時尚風格！

據報導，所有在呼和浩特的大學、蒙古語學院和其它相關有蒙古族的學校，學生一律留在校園。學校裡面有警車或者武警的便衣車輛駐守，武警以一個排的兵力在各校門附近待命，他們不和學生直接接觸。

有目擊者說，學生企圖展開抗議，但被武警干預及強行驅散。但有關說法無法獲得證實。

有網民在微博和推特透露，市內氣氛特別緊張，有大批配備盾牌、警棍和頭盔的武警和防暴警察進駐呼和浩特市中心廣場戒備，公園也拉起警戒線，防止人群聚集。

另外，中國政府今日將一名漢族礦工控以在本月15日殺死一名蒙古族牧民的罪名，試圖平息內蒙民眾日益高漲的不滿情緒與憤怒。

內蒙古自治區人民檢察機關認為，疑犯孫樹寧無視國法，駕駛裝載機故意撞擊他人，致被害人死亡，應當以故意殺人罪追究其刑事責任。

100名旅日蒙古人示威

在蒙古牧民因阻止運煤車破壞草原被撞死的消息傳開後，引發連日示威，學生與群眾走上街頭，要求嚴懲兇手，並呼吁尊重牧民的權利和尊嚴。

另一方面，約100名旅居日本的蒙古人今日在中國駐東京大使館外示威，抗議中國在內蒙古侵犯人權，聲援被撞死的蒙古族牧民，並且高呼尊重牧民人權、保護大草原的口號。

日本‧福島核電廠降暴雨‧1號機組污水水位上升

（日本‧東京30日訊）日本東北部災區因“桑達”颱風影響降暴雨，東京電力公司週一稱，福島第一核電廠廠房和豎井內積聚的輻射性污水水位，因降雨上升。

日本氣象廳指，東北地區受低氣壓影響，廣泛地區週一至週二有暴風雨，特別是大地震海嘯災區可能會有山泥傾瀉和大浪。

福島核電廠附近從上週六起就斷斷續續降雨，1號機組廠房地下原本就有注入核反應堆的水發生泄漏，再加上雨水，導致積聚的污水水位星期日清晨7時起的24個小時內，上升了約20公分。

東電2職員甲狀腺含碘

由於週一夜間將有強降雨，東電已在廠房出入口處堆上沙袋以防止雨水流入其中。

另一方面，曾於核電廠內從事設備搶修工作的2名東電男性職員，被發現甲狀腺內有大量核輻射碘，較其他人多10倍，懷疑他們遭受的核輻射總量，可能已超過250毫希的上限。

富士電視台週一公佈的最新民意調查顯示，高達81%日本民眾不相信政府發佈的核危機消息，顯示政府的誠信已受質疑。

《日本經濟新聞》也公佈另一份民調指出，近四分之三民眾認為首相菅直人處理核災不力，希望更換首相；但也有近半數認為，菅直人應留下監督311浩劫的善後工作。

【熱點新聞：日本地震核災難】

When Faith In U.S. Dollars And U.S. Debt Is Dead The Game Is Over – And That Day Is Closer Than You May Think

A day is coming when the rest of the world will decide that it no longer has faith in U.S. dollars or in U.S. debt. When that day arrives, the game will be over. Traditionally, two of the biggest things that the U.S. economy has had going for it were the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasuries. The U.S. dollar has been the default reserve currency of the world for decades. All over the globe it was seen as a strong, stable currency that was desirable for international trade. U.S. government debt has long been considered the "safest debt" in the entire world. Whenever there was a major crisis, investors would flock to U.S. Treasuries because they were considered a rock. Sadly, all of this is now changing. Today the rest of the world is losing faith in the U.S. financial system. In fact, even the United Nations is now warning of the collapse of the dollar. But if the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasuries collapse, that will be an absolute nightmare for the U.S. economy. If the rest of the world does not want our dollars someday, then what are we going to give them in exchange for all of the oil and all of the cheap imported goods they send us? If the rest of the world does not want our debt someday, then how in the world are we going to be able to continue to consume far, far more wealth than we produce?

The rest of the world is watching the U.S. government run up record-setting budget deficits and they are watching the Federal Reserve print money like there is no tomorrow and they realize that the U.S. financial system is slowly imploding.

As mentioned above, now even the United Nations is warning that the U.S. dollar could collapse. The following is a brief excerpt from a recent news report put out by Reuters....

The United Nations warned on Wednesday of a possible crisis of confidence in, and even a “collapse” of, the U.S. dollar if its value against other currencies continued to decline.

In a mid-year review of the world economy, the UN economic division said such a development, stemming from the falling value of foreign dollar holdings, would imperil the global financial system.

But it is not just the United Nations that is concerned about the U.S. dollar.

On April 18th, Standard & Poor’s altered its outlook on U.S. government debt from "stable" to "negative" and warned that the U.S. could soon lose its prized AAA rating.

At one time, it would have been unthinkable for Standard & Poor's to do such a thing.

But today it is amazing that it has taken them so long to make such a move. U.S. government finances are falling apart.

When the credit rating of U.S. government debt starts declining, interest rates will go up. Just ask the government of Greece how painful that can be. Today, Greece is paying over 16 percent on 10 year bonds.

The following is what John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics recently had to say about why Standard & Poor's issued such a warning about U.S. government debt....

S&P is noting the U.S. government's long-range fiscal problems. Generally, you'll find that the accounting for unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other programs on a net-present-value (NPV) basis indicates total federal debt and obligations of about $75 trillion. That's 15 times the gross domestic product (GDP). The debt and obligations are increasing at a pace of about $5 trillion a year, which is neither sustainable nor containable. If the U.S. was a corporation on a parallel basis, it would be headed into bankruptcy rather quickly.

Look, the rest of the world is not stupid. They know that the U.S. government is hurtling towards financial disaster. The appetite among foreigners for U.S. government debt is decreasing rapidly.

In fact, according to Zero Hedge, foreigners are dumping U.S. debt at a very rapid pace right now.

In addition, the cost to insure U.S. debt has risen sharply in recent days.

Right now, the Federal Reserve has been buying up most new U.S. government debt with dollars that it has created out of thin air. This is a giant Ponzi scheme, and it is a major contributing factor to the decline of faith in the U.S. dollar.

The dollar has fallen by 17 percent compared to other major national currencies since 2009. What makes that fact even sadder is that all major currencies have been rapidly losing value compared to hard assets over that time period. The dollar is just sliding faster than almost all of the other global currencies that are constantly losing value as well.

Anyone with half a brain could have seen that this would be the end result of reckless government borrowing, but unfortunately our politicians have been ignoring this problem for decades.

Now a day or reckoning is fast approaching and it is going to be very painful.

The U.S. government has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world. Just consider a few shocking facts about this unprecedented debt....

*If the U.S. national debt (more than 14 trillion dollars) was reduced to a stack of 5 dollar bills, it would reach three quarters of the way to the moon.

*The U.S. government borrows about 168 million dollars every single hour.

*If Bill Gates gave every penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

*It is now being projected that by the year 2021, interest payments on the national debt will amount to $1.1 trillion dollars a year.

In a previous article on The American Dream, I detailed some more absolutely horrifying statistics about U.S. government debt....

#1 If you divide the national debt up equally among all U.S. households, each one owes a staggering $125,475.18.

#2 The federal government has borrowed 29,660 more dollars per household since Barack Obama signed the economic stimulus law two years ago.

#3 During Barack Obama's first two years in office, the U.S. government added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.

#4 In the new budget that the Obama administration has proposed, the U.S. government would spend 3.7 trillion dollars in 2012 and by 2021 the U.S. government would be spending a whopping 5.6 trillion dollars per year.

#5 The U.S. government currently has to borrow approximately 41 cents of every single dollar that it spends.

#6 The total compensation that the federal government workforce earned last year came to a grand total of approximately 447 billion dollars.

#7 The U.S. national debt is currently rising by well over 4 billion dollars every single day.

#8 The U.S. government is borrowing over 2 million more dollars every single minute.

#9 The U.S. national debt is over 14 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.

#10 Unfunded liabilities for entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare are estimated to be well over $100 trillion, and nobody in the U.S. government seems to have any idea how we are actually even going to come close to meeting all of those obligations.

#11 If you were alive when Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now. But this year alone the U.S. government is going to go about 1.6 trillion dollars more into debt.

#12 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.

So have our politicians learned anything from the mistakes of the past?

No.

The U.S. government continues to spend money on some of the most ridiculous things imaginable. For example, the Department of Health and Human Services has just announced a brand new $500 million program that will, among other things, seek to solve the problem of 5-year-old children that "can't sit still" in a kindergarten classroom.

Isn't it good to see the government investing our hard-earned tax dollars so wisely?

Of course if our kids weren't being constantly fed foods packed with sugar, high fructose corn syrup and aspartame we wouldn't have to spend 500 million dollars to deal with this problem.

When it comes to government waste, nobody seems to do it any better than the U.S. government.

Our politicians continue to assume that the rest of the world will always want our dollars and our debt, but that is simply not the case.

Over the past couple of years, global leader after global leader has publicly talked about the need for a new world reserve currency.

In fact, globalist institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank have been very busy discussing what the world is going to use as a global reserve currency after the death of the dollar.

The rest of the world is not sitting around waiting to see if the U.S. financial system is going to recover. They are already making plans for the demise of the dollar. They are increasingly using other currencies to trade with. They are becoming more hesitant to buy more of our debt. They are realizing that the days of U.S. dominance are coming to an end.

So what is that going to mean for us?

It is going to be a complete and total disaster.

Right now, we live far, far beyond our means. We borrow gigantic piles of money to make up the difference between what we produce and what we consume. We are absolutely dependent on the fact that the rest of the world will take our dollars in exchange for the things that we need.

The current situation is not sustainable.

It will come to an end.

When it does, our standard of living is going to feel like it has changed overnight.

BP Wants Thousands of Oil Spill Claims Tossed

NEW ORLEANS (CN) - A BP attorney told a federal judge Thursday that thousands of lawsuits for economic damages must be dismissed because they were filed before claimants tried to settle through BP's $20 billion Gulf Coast Claims Facility, administered by Kenneth Feinberg.
Oil spill defendants also claimed immunity from liability for the toxic dispersant Corexit, saying they simply made "decisions that should have been made by the United States government."
BP and other oil-spill defendants, including Nalco, which makes Corexit, told U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier that they are immune from liability because they were simply following orders that should have been handed down by the president of the United States under the National Environmental Emergencies Contingency Plan.
"The point we are trying to make, your honor, is that the claims the plaintiffs are making - that the dispersants are too dangerous, etc. - these were decisions that should have been made by the United States government," Mary Rose Alexander, attorney for Nalco, told Judge Barbier toward the hearing's end.
BP attorney Andrew Langan said the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) was set up to help claimants settle out of court. He said that one stipulation for filing an economic damages lawsuit against BP is that a claimant must have filed a claim with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) and been denied.
But now that the lawsuits have been filed, Barbier, who is presiding over the consolidated litigation, wondered how to address the issue of presentment to the GCCF.
"I could rule as a matter of law - which you have asked me to do - but I don't want to down the road have to deal with individual rulings on 100,000 claims," Barbier told Langan.
Earlier Thursday, Barbier said the number of lawsuits so far filed in the multi-district litigation "is probably something north of 120,000 - 130,000 cases."
Ninety-five thousand claimants have joined the litigation by filing short-form joinders that were created to allow plaintiffs to join the litigation without excessive paperwork.
The GCCF meanwhile has been criticized for requiring extensive documentation from claimants.
Gulf Coast lawmakers this past winter expressed frustration with the claims center, saying BP and Feinberg were intentionally stalling responses to claims to lure desperate claimants into accepting onetime quick payments, of $25,000 for businesses or $5,000 for individuals. The payments require a signed waiver stating the claimant won't litigate for more damages from BP or any of the other oil spill defendants.
"BP's position is that any people who have claims should decide this out of court," Langan said.
Langan said he knows that filing through the GCCF "is a huge inconvenience for the plaintiffs" and he understands the plaintiff steering committee wants to take the matters to court and "stick their stake in the ground," but he said OPA guidelines still apply.
The next issue addressed was whether people who have lost wages because of the federal drilling moratorium can file claims with BP.
"It is our position that 'but for causation' under OPA is not enough," Langan told the judge. Langan defined "but for causation" as that which arrives through a thought process like: "but for the oil spill I would still have a job."
"If 'but for causation' were the standard, there would be no end to OPA litigation," Langan said.
Barbier kept arguments moving, to stay within the 3 hours allotted for the hearing.
Next up, Jeffrey Breit from the plaintiff steering committee told the judge the language of the Oil Pollution Act should not be read as open to debate. Much argument surrounds how OPA interacts with state and maritime law.
Breit said that if something is not written in the act, then it isn't there. He said the act was intended as "an expansive statute" to help oil-spill victims, but the "defendant attorneys want to use OPA as a shield" against liability.
Plaintiff liaison counsel Steve Herman said the moratorium was a foreseeable consequence of the oil spill, and BP and the other defendants are obligated to pay for lost wages resulting from the moratorium.
Herman said "the moratorium was actually imposed by the environmental damages of the Macondo well" blowout.
"When you have an environmental catastrophe, you expect the government to step in," Herman said. He said it wasn't the moratorium that kept companies from drilling, but the response to the oil spill.
"Drilling in Idaho wasn't halted" in response to the spill, Herman said, only drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Barbier asked what Herman thought about BP's argument that thousands of claimants have joined the litigation without going first to the GCCF.
"If they're right about the law, how do you want to handle it?" Judge Barbier asked. "I'm sure you acknowledge that a large number of claims were filed without presentment."
Herman said it seemed a waste of resources to go through each claim individually to make sure it has been properly filed.
Barbier did not indicate when he would rule on the matter.
The next issue involved oil-spill response workers who have filed claims for health problems from exposure to oil and dispersant.
Mary Rose Alexander, representing Nalco, told the judge that using Corexit on the spill was the president's decision.
"Plaintiffs allege that the dispersants were too toxic, too dangerous, but the Clean Water Act gives this to the president to decide," Alexander said.
Corexit is banned in several countries including, the United Kingdom, for being highly toxic. Different forms of the dispersant were used in large amounts during the Exxon Valdez spill and were later blamed for liver and kidney failure, miscarriage and fetal death, rapid destruction of red blood cells leading to severe anemia, and other health problems.
BP continued to spray Corexit in May 2010 even after Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson told it to stop. When BP did not stop, Jackson told it to try to find a less toxic alternative.
Michael Lyle, an attorney for O'Brien's Response Management, which bought and supplied dispersant, laid boom and performed in situ burning, said the company was acting through the federal government under the command of Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, and therefore shared in the government's immunity from liability.
Lyle referred to a 2nd Circuit ruling on response workers that came after the World Trade Center bombings.
"The facts are remarkably similar" to the World Trade disaster, Lyle said.
"The 2nd Circuit said, 'We need contractors to come, we need them and we can't make them afraid of liability,'" Lyle said.
"Actually, it was more compelling in our case, because it was the federal government controlling the response," not the state, Lyle said.
Robin Greenwald of the plaintiff steering committee rebutted Lyle's argument, saying the difference between the World Trade Center bombings and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is that the bombings were acts of terrorism while the oil spill was caused by a company that subsequently took responsibility and coordinated its own response effort.
"The responders - all of them - worked for BP. They worked for the polluter. The World Trade disaster contractors had a relationship with the government. But without that relationship, how can the government tell the contractors what to do?" Greenwald asked.
The hearing addressed defendants' motions to dismiss pleading bundles B1, B2 and D1 in the consolidated oil spill litigation.
A monthly oil spill status conference took place before the hearing. The next status conference is scheduled for July 8 at 9:30 a.m.
(See the Thursday report on Bundles B1, B2 and D1, on this Courthouse News page, below.)

Truth hurts, Lies kill. Real truth behind the phony wars by Dr. Dahlia w...

Germany Says They Will 'Shut Down' All Nuclear Plants By 2022 - 30/05/11

Watch this link ..... http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=15169

Marc Faber: Fed to Resume QE When U.S. Stocks Prices Fall

Watch this link ..... http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=15163

Mobius Says Financial Crisis ‘Around The Corner’

Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management’s emerging markets group, said another financial crisis is inevitable because the causes of the previous one haven’t been resolved.

“There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis,” Mobius said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo today in response to a question about price swings. “Are the derivatives regulated? No. Are you still getting growth in derivatives? Yes.”

The total value of derivatives in the world exceeds total global gross domestic product by a factor of 10, said Mobius, who oversees more than $50 billion. With that volume of bets in different directions, volatility and equity market crises will occur, he said.

The global financial crisis three years ago was caused in part by the proliferation of derivative products tied to U.S. home loans that ceased performing, triggering hundreds of billions of dollars in writedowns and leading to the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September 2008. The MSCI AC World Index of developed and emerging market stocks tumbled 46 percent between Lehman’s downfall and the market bottom on March 9, 2009.

“With every crisis comes great opportunity,” said Mobius. When markets are crashing, “that’s when we’re going to be able to invest and do a good job,” he said.

The freezing of global credit markets caused governments from Washington to Beijing to London to pump more than $3 trillion into the financial system to shore up the global economy. The MSCI AC World gauge surged 99 percent from its March 2009 low through May 27.

‘Too Big to Fail’

The largest U.S. banks have grown larger since the financial crisis, and the number of “too-big-to-fail” banks will increase by 40 percent over the next 15 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Separately, higher capital requirements and greater supervision should be imposed on institutions deemed “too important to fail” to reduce the chances of large-scale failures, staff at the International Monetary Fund warned in a report on May 27.

“Are the banks bigger than they were before? They’re bigger,” Mobius said. “Too big to fail.”

The money manager had earlier said at the same event that Africa has an “incredible” investment potential and that he has stakes in Nigerian banks.

“These banks are doing very well and are much better regulated than they were in the past,” Mobius said, without disclosing which lenders he holds.

Banks account for five of the eight stocks in the MSCI Nigeria (MXNI) Index. Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, the country’s No. 2 lender by market value, surged 31 percent in the six months through May 27, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Shares of Access Bank Nigeria Plc recorded the second-biggest decline on the gauge in the period, the data show.

Report: Military coup possible in Greece

The newspaper said the CIA report talks of a possible military coup if the situation becomes more serious and uncontrolled. Hürriyet photo

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency warned in a report that the tough austerity measures and the dire situation could escalate and even lead to a military coup, according to a report by Germany’s popular daily Bild.

According to he CIA report, ongoing street protests in crisis-hit Greece could turn into escalated violence and a rebellion and the Greek government could lose control, said Bild. The newspaper said the CIA report talks of a possible military coup if the situation becomes more serious and uncontrolled.

Greece is under immense pressure owing to public debt that has swollen to 340 billion euros. The EU, IMF and European Central Bank are pressing Greece to step up a privatization program and get all political parties to approve more austerity and reform measures that have sparked violent protests, but emergency talks called by the president on Friday failed to make any headway, AFP reported.

Opposition parties have mostly refused to support the government in its quest to cut spending by trimming an overblown civil service and the sweeping privatization drive announced this week has attracted even stronger protests.

Meanwhile, the Dutch finance minister said his country, Germany, Finland and other EU members won't give Greece any more bailout money, if the debt-laden country fails to adopt further austerity measures.

Jan Kees de Jager said Saturday that "it's vital that Greece will live up fully" to conditions set by the International Monetary Fund if it's to receive the next batch of a 110 billion euros ($155 billion) bailout loan deal it agreed to last year, the Associated Press reported.

Last year, as the financial crisis battered Greece, Bild went as far as to highlight a suggestion by a conservative politician that Athens sell off some of its many islands to help pay off its debts.

A bailout for Greece was put in place a year ago by the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, involving loans of 110 billion euros ($157 billion) over three years.

But there are now grave doubts whether Athens can meet its repayments and talk of a second bailout, or even a drastic debt restructuring, is rife.

China is adamant that the West “must respect” Pakistan's sovereignty.

The message was delivered during Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani's recent four-day visit to Beijing, which celebrated no less than six decades of strategic relations --involving, among other issues, nuclear collaboration and support over the ultra-sensitive Kashmir question.

The Times of India reconstructed the message as a stark warning that: “any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China.”

Chinese diplomacy dwells on too much sophistication for such a crude outburst; but even enveloped in red velvet, the message -- in view of the non-stop U.S. drone war over Pakistan's tribal areas, not to mention the “get Osama” raid in Abbottabad -- was indeed a bombshell.

Whatever the merit of charges that Islamabad helps some Taliban factions -- such as the Haqqani network in North Waziristan -- the Pakistani politico-security-military establishment has had enough of being treated by Washington as a mere satrapy, or worse, a bunch of punks.

Pakistani popular opinion, from urban centers to tribal areas, roundly abhors Washington's drone war. And even before the Navy SEALS raid to get Osama bin Laden the sordid Raymond Davis case was configured as the ultimate humiliation.

Davis, a CIA asset, shot two Pakistanis dead in broad daylight in Lahore; an American “extraction team” killed another one who was trying to save Davis from arrest; and then the CIA paid blood money to finally extract Davis out of the country. Sovereignty? What sovereignty?

Strategic ports

There's frantic spin in the U.S. especially among the right that Pakistan must be taught a lesson because it “harbors terrorists”. The mighty conceptual leap would be for these righteous, misinformed, armchair warriors to advocate teaching China a lesson.

Gwadar is an ultra-strategic deepwater port in the Arabian Sea, in Pakistani Balochistan, not far from the Iranian border and only 520 km away from the hyper-strategic Strait of Hormuz. Beijing financed close to 80 percent of the construction of the port via the China Harbor Engineering Company Group. The port is currently managed by Singapore. The lease will end soon -- and it will go to China.

Islamabad now wants the Chinese to build a naval base at Gwadar. That will be a monster geopolitical earthquake in a crucial node of “Pipelineistan” as well as the New Great Game in Eurasia.

Sleepy (for now) Gwadar has been building up for years as the key node of the IP (Iran-Pakistan) pipeline, which used to be the IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) or “peace” pipeline, before New Delhi got cold feet. For Washington, the prospect of a steel umbilical cord linking Iran and Pakistan has always been anathema.

What Washington wants -- and has wanted badly since the Bill Clinton years -- is the TAP (Trans-Afghan) pipeline, which then became TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India). Even millennial rocks in the Hindu Kush know TAP or TAPI will only be built when the war is over in Afghanistan, with the Taliban an inevitable part of the government.

In this ongoing, epic IP (or IPI) versus TAP (or TAPI) battle, what is never mentioned is that the winner after all may be... China.

New Delhi knows a pipeline crossing Afghanistan is, well, a pipe dream. But still it has not committed itself to IPI -- in part because of relentless Washington pressure, in part because it does not trust Pakistan.

China, on the other hand, has already proposed itself for an IP expansion. This means that starting at Gwadar, another pipeline would be built, by the Chinese of course, crossing Balochistan and then following the Karakoram highway northwards all the way to Xinjiang, China's Far West.

Those who have already traveled the spectacular, 1,400 km-long Karakoram highway from Kashgar in Xinjiang, Western China, via the Khunjerab pass to, of all places, Abbottabad in Pakistan, know it for what it is -- a graphic example of strategic Sino-Pak collaboration. Further on down the road, Beijing engineering will connect the Karakoram highway with a railway across Balochistan towards Gwadar.

Pakistanis involved with the development of Gwadar love to bill it as the new Dubai. Well, it might as well become Western Hong Kong.

No wonder Beijing's strategic analysts are tasting what could be the geopolitical equivalent of the finest shark-fin soup; the Chinese Navy positioned at the heart of the Arabian Sea, a stone's throw from the Persian Gulf; a great deal of its Middle East oil imports shipped to nearby Gwadar -- and then by pipeline or railway all the way to Kashgar; and the Chinese economy profiting from extra gas supplied by Iran and, in a near future, Qatar.

Keep on truckin'

It's not only China possibly winning a crucial “Pipelineistan” chapter plus an Arabian Sea base to add to its “string of pearls” network. In terms of its AfPak vulnerability, Washington may be contemplating a triple X defeat.

For obvious reasons the Pentagon cannot use Chinese or Iranian seaports to supply no less than 100,000 U.S. troops, 50,000 NATO troops and over 100,000 private contractors in Afghanistan -- legions of mercenaries included -- which dabble in over 400 military bases all across the country. Nearly 80 percent of this monstrous quantity of supplies transit through Pakistan. And that means, essentially, Karachi.

So one cannot imagine the “kinetic military action” (White House copyright) in AfPak without a non-stop serpent of trucks leaving Karachi and entering Pakistan via Torkham or Chaman every single day.

All the stuff Kabul -- and the immense Bagram Air Base close by -- needs goes through Torkham, at the end of the fabled Khyber Pass. All the stuff Kandahar needs goes through Chaman, in Pakistani Balochistan, not far from Quetta, where Mullah Omar theoretically lives when he's not being pronounced dead by the Pentagon.

The Pentagon of course could rely on alternative routes such as the interminable Northern Distribution Network (NDN) from Riga in Latvia to Termez in Uzbekistan, which connects via a bridge over the Oxus to Afghanistan. But NDN is not only long but also impractical; it does not allow too much cargo; and the Uzbeks forbid the transport of lethal weapons.

As for the Manas base in Kyrgyzstan, that's only for troops coming in and out, and for storage of jet fuel.

The bottom line is that Islamabad knows the Pentagon simply cannot conduct the AfPak war without the Karachi-Torkham (300 trucks/tankers a day) and Karachi-Chaman (200 trucks/tankers a day) routes delivering like clockwork.

So if you break the balls of the Islamabad establishment to a tipping point and Taliban networks will have a free hand at attacking U.S./NATO convoys to Kingdom Come. Compare it with Beijing acknowledging Pakistan's “contribution and sacrifices in the war against terrorism”.

On message

Beijing actively helped Islamabad's nuclear weapons program. Next August, China will launch a satellite into orbit for Pakistan. Roughly 75 percent of Pakistan's weapons are made in China. Soon 260 Chinese fighter jets will become the core of the Pakistani Air Force.

Even before Beijing delivered the message that Pakistan's sovereignty shouldn't be messed about, the Pakistani military had already delivered their own message.

It concerned that most photographed rotor of the stealth Black Hawk helicopter that crashed beside Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. The Pakistanis threatened they would let the Chinese tinker with it -- and that would certainly yield some ace reverse engineering.

It didn't happen. But still they didn't get the message in a Washington whose leeway over Islamabad is a strategic rent that goes basically to Pakistan's military. If the U.S. congress would cut it -- threats abound -- there's no question Beijing would be delighted to make up the difference.

Washington may still have a sterling opportunity to get the message next month, when the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meets in Astana, Kazakhstan. There's a strong possibility that Pakistan may be enthroned as a full member, upgraded from its current status of observer.

This means, in practice, Pakistan as a member of the still embryonic Asian answer to NATO. An attack on any NATO member is an attack on them all, according to its charter. The same would apply to the SCO. Ladies and gentlemen, draw your conclusions -- and start dancing to the sound of the Sino-Pak shuffle.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times . His latest book is Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com

(Source: Al Jazeera)

Photo: Gwadar is Pakistan's first deep water port; constructed with Chinese investment it will play a crucial role in moving Middle East oil to energy hungry China for decades to come. (EPA photo)

China tightens grip on Inner Mongolia before planned protest

HOHHOT (Reuters) – Security forces sealed off parts of the capital of China's vast northern region of Inner Mongolia on Sunday to prevent residents from staging a planned mass protest after the hit-and-run death of a herder sparked six days of protests by ethnic Mongolians.

Hundreds of paramilitary policemen and police in riot gear, armed with shields, batons and helmets, patrolled Hohhot's Xinhua Square, next to the Inner Mongolia radio and television station, after calls spread online for a protest on Monday.

Police also surrounded Ruyi Square, in front of the local government building, but elsewhere in the city appeared bustling as normal.

Chinese authorities sealed off parts of the northern region of Inner Mongolia, a resource-rich region strategically located on the borders of Russia and Mongolia, on Friday in what residents described as martial law.

In a rare sign of defiance, hundreds of China's Mongolians, who make up less than 20 percent of the roughly 24 million population of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, have taken to the streets in other parts of the province despite tighter security.

They were angered by the death this month of a Mongolian herder, Mergen, after being struck by a coal truck. The government announced the arrest of two Han Chinese for homicide, but that failed to stem public anger.

But the resentment goes much deeper. Inner Mongolia, which covers more than a tenth of China's land mass, is supposed to offer a high degree of self-rule, but Mongolians say the Han Chinese majority run the show and have been the main beneficiaries of economic development.

China's Mongolians rarely take to the streets, unlike Tibetans or Xinjiang's Uighurs, making the latest protests highly unusual.

The New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre said Mongolians were planning further protests over the next few days, including in Hohhot, less than an hour's flight from Beijing.

Some schools in Hohhot said authorities had stepped up security.

"The school has told us to keep an eye for any illegal gathering these days as June 4 is coming," one man in a high school in Hohhot told Reuters, referring to the armed crackdown on pro-democracy protesters on June 4, 1989, in Beijing.

"Security is tight, there are many policemen in the streets," he added. He declined to give his name.

A worker at a university in Hohhot said three entrances had been sealed off and there was a heavy police presence. He declined to comment on the reason. Telephone calls to the Hohhot government and its propaganda department went unanswered.

In the first response from the ruling Party to the demonstrations, Inner Mongolia's Communist Party chief Hu Chunhua told students and teachers on Friday he was representing the government to seek their views on the situation and said "public anger has been immense," state media reported.

"Please be assured, teachers and students, that the suspects ... will be punished severely and quickly, so that the ... rights of victims and their families can be resolutely safeguarded," the Inner Mongolian Daily cited Hu as saying.

But Hu's reassurances are unlikely to bring lasting calm, said Enghebatu Togochog of the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre.

"The conflict between the Chinese authorities' attempts to exploit the natural resources and the disrespect of the Mongolians' way of life will not be easily resolved, unless the Chinese government changes its policy," he said.

(Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee and Huang Yan, Writing by Sui-Lee Wee,; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Housing Apocalypse Tomorrow – 675,000 homes in foreclosure have made no payment in over two years. The never ending pipeline of troubled real estate.

There will be no sustainable housing recovery until the shadow inventory is cleared out. As of April with the latest data close to 6.4 million loans are delinquent or in foreclosure. This is a massive number of homes. What is downright disturbing of the 2.2 million homes in foreclosure you have 675,000 homes (31 percent of the pool) that have not made a payment in over two years. That is right, two full years. Apparently one-third of the bank’s strategy in dealing with foreclosures is simply to ignore missed payments. Glad it took them giant bailouts and four years to figure that one out. The housing crisis strategy is really a banking-centric one and that is why nothing has really been resolved since the crisis started. Banks are dictating the movement going forward so the idea of keeping prices inflated is simply one to protect banking interests. Since the market has very little desire for inflated real estate, banks just slip it under the rug for another day. Keep in mind that many Americans are seeing lower wages so lower home prices are actually good for their bottom line since it eats away less of their hard earned income. Plus, one-third own their home outright and another 30 percent rent. So this idea of keeping home prices high just for the sake of keeping them high is a ploy that comes out of the suspension of mark-to-market logic. Do people finally get that home prices have to fall to reflect local area incomes?

The state of distress in U.S. housing

First, it is probably useful to get a sense of the entire potential shadow inventory out in the market:

Source: Calculated Risk

According to CR we have the following:

-2.24 million loans less than 90 days delinquent.
-1.96 million loans 90+ days delinquent.
-2.18 million loans in foreclosure process.

-For a total of 6.39 million loans delinquent or in foreclosure in April.

That is a large number of homes. Now keep in mind many foreclosures are now starting to make their way onto the MLS since banks are actually taking full possession of the homes (although the reality that 675,000 people have not made a single payment in two years tells you where things stand). Think about the above data; you have roughly 600,000 to 800,000 as current REOs (all the way through the foreclosure process) but you also have 675,000+ people in foreclosure who haven’t made a payment in two years:

I’ve seen some pundits argue that many of these loans will cure. We know for a hardcore fact that if you are behind on your payments for two years it is likely that your home is going to move from the shadow inventory into the REO pipeline. This also doesn’t examine the fact that we have close to 2.2 million homes in foreclosure. How many have made no payment in one year? Keep in mind we are only looking at the foreclosure category so far. So the entire U.S. banking system is being overwhelmed with 600,000 to 800,000 active REOs yet we have that many in foreclosure without two years of payments. Here is a good estimate of REO data in the U.S.

Source: Tom Lawler via Calcualted Risk

The above doesn’t cover the entire universe of REOs but does a good job. I went ahead and took a quick look at active foreclosures in the state of California and found the following:

Depending on what data source you look at California has roughly 80,000 to 89,000 homes that are REOs and ready for sale. That still leaves another 600,000 to 700,000 REOs across the country that need to be sold. You also have to wonder of the 675,000 foreclosures with two years of missed payments how many are in massively overpriced bubble states like California or New York? Well I can tell you that California currently has 157,000 homes in the foreclosure process that have yet to go REO. The bottom line is you have a massive pipeline of distressed properties waiting to make their entrance on the MLS stage.

And the foreclosures will work through the system like a rabbit filtering through a python. We have another 4.2 million homes delinquent where the foreclosure process hasn’t even started (1.96 million of the loans 90+ days late). Don’t fool yourself because many of these will end up as REOs at some point (could be years down the road given the absurd timeline we are experiencing). It can’t be stated enough that keeping the process slow and providing banks with trillions of dollars of bailout money is simply a method of clogging the financial pipes so the FIRE economy can figure out what other sector to gut and inflate into a bubble. In the end it is the taxpayer that will foot the bill unless something radical changes.

I wanted to draw the current distress universe to show how little of the shadow inventory is being shown to the public:

The bars are drawn to scale to show actual magnitude relative to other buckets. The only homes the public is viewing are those in the purple box above. But look at what we have coming down the pipeline. Things don’t seem to be changing so it is looking more and more likely that we will witness a Japan like real estate market with zombie banks walking the Earth in search of easy capital brains.

It is extremely troubling that we have so much money being lobbed at the banks with such horrible results. But what do you expect? Someone was going to pay for this decade long orgy in real estate. As it turns out it is the prudent public and middle class. The people living rent free are simply the other side of the coin to the morally bankrupt financial sector. We have to go back to watching archived films to remember a time when banking and finance actually carried a positive connotation.

I’m curious to know how many people are living in million dollar homes rent free. We’ve seen homes in foreclosure in Beverly Hills so it is certainly happening and readers have sent over confirmation of this in their own neighborhoods. Talk about a giant mess. The New York Times had an interesting graph showing how long it would take to move 872,000 foreclosures:

Source: New York Times

It would take roughly 40 months to clear the current foreclosure inventory (aka the tiny purple rectangle in our earlier chart). And more will be coming into the pipeline but banks are trying to make their speculative gains in other bubbles to soften the blow here. After all, they wouldn’t want to spoil the trillions in loot they have stolen from Americans.

THEY WARNED US! MAYBE NOW YOU WILL LISTEN

Top bosses’ pay ‘soars by a third’

The chief executives of FTSE 100 companies received remuneration packages averaging 3.5 million pounds last year

The heads of the UK’s biggest firms saw their pay soar by nearly a third during 2010 – but the value of their companies rose by only 9%, research indicated.

The chief executives of FTSE 100 groups received remuneration packages averaging £3.5 million last year, 32% more than they were paid in 2009, according to consultancy firm MM&K and electronic voting agency Manifest.

But the FTSE 100 increased in value by just 9% during the same period, suggesting a weakening in the link between chief executives’ pay and their performance.

The groups said remuneration committees appeared to be struggling to maintain their independence from chief executives, and were adopting increasingly expensive, short-term reward strategies.

It added that the heads of FTSE 100 firms had seen their pay packets quadruple during the past 12 years, despite the fact that share prices have not risen during the same period.

The report warned many firms were shifting away from long-term incentives to annual bonuses, mirroring the approach that caused problems in the banking sector. It added most strategies now involved the use of long-term incentive plans, which measured performance over three years, compared with a seven-to-10-year horizon a decade ago.

The research found that larger companies tended to have complex schemes with multiple reward thresholds, but under these chief executives typically enjoyed rewards for “even the most basic levels of performance”, regardless of whether they produced “exceptional outcomes” for the company or not.

Around 74% of FTSE 100 companies now have deferred bonus plans, as do 52% of firms in the FTSE 250, but the report found that most of these schemes had been introduced at the same time that bonus levels were increased, meaning that in many cases, executives’ earnings had been “considerably enhanced” over the long term.

Sarah Wilson, co-author of the report, said: “Shareholders are increasingly looking for more aggressive strategic target setting. There is a level of frustration that remuneration committees are developing a tin ear and don’t see high levels of voting dissent as something to be concerned about.

“Remuneration committee chairmen need to reach out to their key investors directly rather than assuming that box-ticking compliance with trade association guidance is going to see them home and dry.”

Read more: http://www.shropshirestar.com/business/city-news/2011/05/30/top-bosses-pay-soars-by-a-third/#ixzz1Nrmh6nbC

Inflation 2011: Honey – They Shrunk Our Paychecks

The Economic Collapse

Do you ever have the feeling that there are holes in your pockets? These days our money seems to slip through our hands faster than ever.

The Federal Reserve keeps telling us that the rate of inflation in 2011 is "close to zero", and this is causing confusion for many Americans because they are making just as much money as they did in previous years but it doesn't seem to go nearly as far. So what in the world is going on out there?

Well, sadly, the truth is that we really don't even know what the government considers "inflation" to be anymore. The way that the U.S. government calculates inflation has changed an astounding 24 times since 1978.

You see, it is always politically beneficial to have a low inflation rate, so recent administrations have been changing the formula constantly in an attempt to look good. But these days most Americans know something is up. All they have to do is stop at a gas station, go shopping for food or open up their bills. The reality is that inflation in 2011 is about as bad as we saw back in the 1970s, it is just that the government is much less honest about it now.

Many years ago Kenny Rogers released a song that contained the following lyrics....

You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em
Know when to walk away and know when to run
You never count your money when you’re sitting at the table
There’ll be time for counting when the dealer’s done

Well, the U.S. middle class has been dealt a losing hand, but in the game of life you just can't fold.

Over the past 3 decades, the average household income for the bottom 80 percent of Americans has been remarkably flat. In fact, over the past several years we have actually seen median household income decline several times. If you do not know about how the U.S. middle class is being ripped to shreds, just read this article. Without a doubt, America is getting poorer.

Well, not the top 1 percent, but the vast majority of the rest of us sure are.

Meanwhile, prices have started to rise with a vengeance.

According to an article in the Daily Mail, a Memorial Day cookout will cost you 29 percent more this year than it did last year.

That doesn't sound good.

Will it be 29 percent more expensive again next year?

Perhaps some of us will just have to stop having Memorial Day cookouts because we can't afford them anymore.

Read Full Article

GREECE: There Are New Emergency Bailout Talks That Could Spell The End Of National Sovereignty

Image: Poulopoulos Ioannis, Flickr

Original post: Big news on the Greece front: In order for the country to get future bailout money, the country will have to give up some sovereignty.

Specifically, according to a bombshell FT report, outside authorities will take over various functions related to tax collection (a big time problem in Athens) and privatizations.

None of this is certain yet. It's just what's on the table, and no doubt politicians in the country will flip out.

But every attempt to cut the deficit has failed so far, and the powers that be in Europe (EU, ECB, IMF) are adamantly opposed to any kind of debt restructuring that would trigger a credit event, and imperil European banks.

Meanwhile, there were already huge protests in Athens on Sunday. Things are moving fast.

Meanwhile, for a look at what does happen if Greece defaults, see John Mauldin on the subject.

Update: Reuters has more details of fresh, emergency talks happening right now. A new package could be worth 65 billion from the EU and the IMF.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/greek-bailout-will-require-loss-of-sovereignty-2011-5#ixzz1NrmE2lfq

Fears over fluoride plans

Ministers have triggered a major health row by unveiling plans to allow fluoride to be added to all drinking water in England and Wales.

Water companies will be forced to add fluoride if local health authorities order it, despite controversy over the long-term effects on health, the Government confirmed.

The authorities will have to demonstrate that the local population broadly supports such a move, which is designed to reduce dental decay.

But campaigners said they feared fluoridation would be given the green light in many parts of the country after minimal public consultation.

The policy will infuriate environmentalists and consumer groups.

Some believe fluoridation has links to cancer, Down's syndrome, infant mortality and bone damage.

Up to half of those drinking fluoridated water also suffer 'dental fluorosis' - a mottling of the teeth thought to be caused by its effects.

However, studies have shown conclusively that fluoride - similar to an ingredient in many toothpastes - cuts the amount of tooth decay in children by strengthening the enamel in growing teeth.

About one in ten people in Britain drink fluoridated water, with some water companies adding it and others refusing to.

Amendments to the Water Bill will shift responsibility for deciding to treat water away from the companies to regional strategic health authorities.

Campaigners said they would be much more likely to agree to add fluoride.

Public health minister Melanie Johnson told MPs that schemes would go ahead only after wide-ranging consultations 'and the majority of the population have indicated that they are in favour'.

She said large chunks of the country - 'roughly from Hartlepool down to Essex' - had naturally-occurring fluoride in the water.

Another five million people in areas such as Birmingham had fluoridated supplies.

The NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination found no evidence of a negative effect on health with fluoridation.

But Jane Jones, campaign director of the National Pure Water Association, said: ' Fluoridation is indiscriminate mass medication.

' People have an absolute right to determine for themselves what they will and will not put into their bodies. This right is denied when medicine is added to the public drinking water supply.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-187013/Fears-fluoride-plans.html#ixzz1NrjeUxFh

Rense & Tim Flanagin - Radiation In Your Home And Your Body

The Stage Is Set For a Nuclear False Flag