Watchman Newsletter

Hugo Chavez Spearheads Raids as Food Prices Skyrocket

CNBC (Link) - Reuters (June 18, 2010)

Mountains of rotting food found at a government warehouse, soaring prices and soldiers raiding wholesalers accused of hoarding: Food supply is the latest battle in President Hugo Chavez’s socialist revolution.

Venezuelan army soldiers swept through the working class, pro-Chavez neighborhood of Catia in Caracas last week, seizing 120 tons of rice along with coffee and powdered milk that officials said was to be sold above regulated prices.

“The battle for food is a matter of national security,” said a red-shirted official from the Food Ministry, resting his arm on a pallet laden with bags of coffee.

It is also the latest issue to divide the Latin American country where Chavez has nationalized a wide swathe of the economy, he says to reverse years of exploitation of the poor.

Chavez supporters are grateful for a network of cheap state-run supermarkets and they say the raids will slow massive inflation.

Critics accuse him of steering the country toward a communist dictatorship and say he is destroying the private sector.

They point to 80,000 tons of rotting food found in warehouses belonging to the government as evidence the state is a poor and corrupt administrator.

Regulators close Nevada bank for 83rd failure in ’10

Yahoo! Finance (Link) - AP - Marcy Gordon (June 18, 2010)

Regulators on Friday shut down a Nevada bank, raising to 83 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Nevada Security Bank, based in Reno, with $480.3 million in assets and $479.8 million in deposits. Umpqua Bank, based in Roseburg, Ore., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the failed bank.

The failure of Nevada Security Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $80.9 million.

In addition, the FDIC and Umpqua Bank agreed to share losses on $368.2 million of Nevada Security Bank’s loans and other assets.

With 83 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures is more than double that of 2009, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 40 banks. The pace has accelerated as banks’ losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development.

The number of bank failures is expected to peak this year and be slightly higher than the 140 that fell in 2009. That was the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force, and only three succumbed in 2007.

Medvedev sees chance for new world order

Financial Times (Link) - Catherine Belton, Charles Clover and Courtney Weaver (June 18, 2010)

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said Moscow was bidding to help lead efforts to build a new world economic order after the old system collapsed in the global financial crisis.

Opening Russia’s annual economic forum in St Petersburg where hundreds of global chief executives have flocked, Mr Medvedev said the renewed interest in Russia this year was a sign of a changing world in which the institutions of the western-dominated world order had had their day amid thousands of corporate defaults and the threat of sovereign defaults.

“What had seemed untouchable has collapsed. The bubbles that created the illusion of flourishing economies have burst,” Mr Medvedev said. “For Russia this situation is a challenge and an opportunity. We are living in a unique time. And we should use it to build a modern, flourishing and strong Russia ... which will be a co-founder of the new world economic order and a full participant in the collective political leadership of the post-crisis world.”

EU may send naval mission towards Gaza: Ashton

Yahoo! News (Link) - AFP (June 16, 2010)

The EU may send a naval mission towards Gaza to help control the transit of goods if Israel lifts its blockade of the Palestian territory, the bloc’s foreign affairs chief said Wednesday.

Catherine Ashton said there may be a “maritime option for a CSDP (Common Defence and Security Defence Policy) mission,” adding however that such an option would be “more complex” than helping monitor land crossings into Gaza.

Israel has come under increased pressure to lift its blockade, which has been in place since 2007, after a commando raid on an aid flotilla bringing aid for the Gaza Strip last month left nine Turkish activists dead.

Israel’s security cabinet on Wednesday met to reportedly consider an international proposal for significantly easing its blockade on Gaza, but the closed-door meeting ended without any conclusion.

Nightmare vision for Europe as EU chief warns ‘democracy could disappear’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal

Daily Mail UK (Link) - Jason Groves (June 15, 2010)

Democracy could ‘collapse’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the debt crisis, the head of the European Commission has warned.

In an extraordinary briefing to trade union chiefs last week, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso set out an ‘apocalyptic’ vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe could fall victim to military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money.

The stark warning came as it emerged that EU chiefs have begun work on an emergency bailout package for Spain which is likely to run into hundreds of billions of pounds.

A £650 billion bailout for Greece has already been agreed.

John Monks, former head of the TUC, said he had been ‘shocked’ by the severity of the warning from Mr Barroso, who is a former prime minister of Portugal.

Lebanon Acting under Growing Syrian Influence

The Media Line (Link) (June 15, 2010)

Once Syria faced isolation over the assassination of former Lebanon Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. But today Syrian President Bashir Assad is hosting his Lebanese counterpart Michel Sleiman in Damascus to discuss strengthening ties and the growing influence of Turkey and Iran.

The government in Beirut is currently caught in a coalition paralysis, evident by its failure to take a stand on a UN Security Council vote to slap on more sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program. Lebanon currently holds a seat on the council but abstained from the vote due to bickering in Beirut.

Furthermore, Samir Geagea, a key member of Lebanon’s fragile coalition has just quit over the government’s refusal to discuss the disarmament of Hizbullah, an increasingly strong partner in the coalition and whose militia is considered more powerful than the Lebanon army. Unable to govern itself and under the tightening bear hug of Syria, Lebanon’s government appears ripe for more dictates from Damascus.

Our World: Hamas rises in the West

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Caroline Glick (June 15, 2010)

Since the navy’s May 31 takeover of the Turkish-Hamas flotilla, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his advisers have deliberated around the clock about how to contend with the US-led international stampede against Israel. But their ultimate decision to form an investigatory committee led by a retired Supreme Court justice and overseen by foreign observers indicates that they failed to recognize the nature of the international campaign facing us today.

Led by US President Barack Obama, the West has cast its lot with Hamas. It is not surprising that Obama is siding with Hamas. His close associates are leading members of the pro-Hamas Free Gaza outfit. Obama’s friends, former Weather Underground terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and William Ayres participated in a Free Gaza trip to Egypt in January. Their aim was to force the Egyptians to allow them into Gaza with 1,300 fellow Hamas supporters. Their mission was led by Code Pink leader and Obama fund-raiser Jodie Evans. Another leading member of Free Gaza is James Abourezk, a former US senator from South Dakota.

All of these people have open lines of communication not only to the Obama White House, but to Obama himself.

Obama has made his sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood clear several times since entering office. The Muslim Brotherhood’s progeny include Hamas, al-Qaida and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Last June, Obama infuriated the Egyptian government when he insisted on inviting leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to attend his speech at Al Azhar University in Cairo. His administration’s decision to deport Hamas deserter and Israeli counterterror operative Mosab Hassan Yousef to the Palestinian Authority where he will be killed is the latest sign of its support for radical Islam.

Next Hizbullah War May Be Over Israel’s Gas and Oil Fields

Israel National News (Link) - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu (June 15, 2010)

Hizbullah has laid claim to a huge oil and gas field that Israel discovered off its northeastern Mediterranean Coast -- and which Lebanon already has claimed as well.

The terrorist organization warned that it will not allow Israel to take possession of the offshore fields, which could make the Jewish State energy self-sufficient for the first time in history.

The As-Safir Lebanese newspaper told its readers that the gas field “was located between Israeli and Cypriot territorial waters and stretches toward the Lebanese coast.”Lebanese newspapers also reported that previous Israeli gas finds “were either taking place in areas stretching to Lebanese territorial waters or other spots far away from the Israeli coast.”

Hizbullah’s claims were stated by the party’s executive council chief Hashem Safieddine, who was quoted by the Tehran Times as saying it would not allow Israel to “loot” Lebanese gas resources.

Union chief, Barroso fear Europe ‘returning to 1930s’

EU Observer (Link) - Leigh Phillips (June 14, 2010)

The chief of Europe’s trade union chiefs, John Monks, has warned that the austerity packages being imposed across the bloc will send the continent “back to the 1930s.” He reported that European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso also fears member states will turn their back on democracy - but for the opposite reason.

“This is extremely dangerous. This is 1931, we’re heading back to the 1930s, with the Great Depression and we ended up with militarist dictatorship,” the general secretary of the European Trades Union Congress (ETUC) said in an interview with EUobserver. “I’m not saying we’re there yet, but it’s potentially very serious, not just economically, but politically as well.”

Mr Monks reported that Mr Barroso has similar concerns, but based on diametrically opposed reasoning. He said the commission chief believes the austerity packages will save Europe from returning to the darkest days of the last century rather than precipitating the fall.

“I had a discussion with Barroso last Friday about what can be done for Greece, Spain, Portugal and the rest and his message was blunt: ‘Look, if they do not carry out these austerity packages, these countries could virtually disappear in the way that we know them as democracies. They’ve got no choice, this is it’.”

I admit it: I was wrong to have supported Barack Obama

Telegraph UK (Link) - Daniel Hannan (June 14, 2010)

In three and a half years of blogging, this has been my single most unpopular post. There’s little point, I know, in reminding readers that my support for Barack Obama was qualified; that I simultaneously endorsed GOP Congressional candidates; that I never saw Obama as a messiah and, indeed, was repelled by the millenarian fervour of his supporters. Nor is there much purpose in rehearsing John McCain’s shortcomings. The fact remains that I backed the Democrat.

I was wrong. Not that Obama is without his good points, obviously. His commitment to school choice is unfeigned. His foreign policy has been a jolly sight cheaper than McCain’s would have been. The election of a mixed-race president who opposed the Iraq war has made the USA slightly more popular.

None of these advantages, however, can make up for the single most important fact of Obama’s presidency, namely that the federal government is 30 per cent larger than it was two years ago.

This is not entirely Obama’s fault, of course. The credit crunch occurred during the dying days of the Bush administration, and it was the 43rd president who began the baleful policy of bail-outs and pork-barrel stimulus packages. But it was Obama who massively extended that policy against united Republican opposition. It was he who chose, in defiance of public opinion, to establish a state-run healthcare system. It was he who presumed to tell private sector employees what they could earn, he who adopted the asinine cap-and-trade rules, and he who re-federalised social security, thereby reversing the single most beneficial reform of the Clinton years.

These errors are not random. They amount to a comprehensive strategy of Europeanisation: Euro-carbon taxes, Euro-disarmament, Euro-healthcare, Euro-welfare, Euro-spending levels, Euro-tax levels and, inevitably, Euro-unemployment levels. Any American reader who wants to know where Obamification will lead should spend a week with me in the European Parliament. I’m working in your future and, believe me, you won’t like it.

Netanyahu warns: Dark days ahead

YNet News (Link) - Attila Somfalvi (June 14, 2010)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted rough waters ahead for Israel on Monday. “Be prepared for difficult days,” he told a Likud faction meeting, in which he also announced the establishment of an inquiry committee to probe the IDF flotilla raid.

“Dark forces from the Middle Ages are raging against us. I have received calls from concerned officials in the Balkans and Eastern Europe who are very worried about these developments.”

Earlier, at the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu told ministers to expect “surprises,” even from Israel’s allies. However he said the committee would work in favor of Israel, and not against it.

“This committee strengthens our ability to fight in the international political arena. If we had done nothing, I assume we would have had worse problems in the world. There is a certain price we are paying, but under the present circumstances it is our best move,” he said.

“The flotilla to Gaza was not a one-time thing. We find ourselves in the midst of a difficult and continuous battle against the State of Israel. The flood of hate is being led by Israel’s enemies all over the world,” Netanyahu added.

‘Flotilla Martyrs’ claim responsibility for Hebron shooting attack

YNet News (Link) - Ali Waked (June 14, 2010)

Terror groups avenging flotilla deaths? A group by the name of “The Freedom Flotilla’s Martyrs” claimed responsibility for Monday’s Hebron shooting attack, in which Command Sergeant Major Yehoshua (Shuki) Sofer was killed, and three other police officers were injured.

The group, which is unknown, issued a statement saying the attack was pat of a series of steps it plans to take in response to what it called “the Israeli crime” of the deadly raid on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

“Our mujahedeen group in south Hebron ambushed an Israeli police car near Beit Hagai at 7:15 am and opened heavy fire at it from close range,” the statement said.

The statement went on to say, “Our fighters managed to withdraw from the scene peacefully. Our response will continue, we will not forsake our weapons as long as the Zionist military is in our lands, and we will not acknowledge any ceasefire.”

Barack Obama requests $50 billion in emergency funding from Congress

Telegraph UK (Link) - Alex Spillius (June 13, 2010)

Barack Obama has sought to shore up the US economy with a request for $50 billion (£34 billion) in emergency funding from Congress to save the jobs of “hundreds of thousands” of teachers, firemen and policemen.

He said the aid, which also included measures to help small businesses, was essential to ensure that the country did not “slide backwards just as our recovery is taking hold.”

“It is essential that we continue to explore additional measures to spur job creation and build momentum toward recovery, even as we establish a path to long-term fiscal discipline,” Mr Obama wrote in a letter sent to party leaders in Congress.

Pointing out that 84,000 public sector jobs had been lost so far this year, he said keeping people employed in the short term would cost less than their unemployment.

The demand to inject further government spending into the economy puts America on the opposite course to its major trading partners in the developed world. Britain, Germany, Japan, France and Italy have all announced cuts after boosting spending to counter the recession in recent years.

Mr Obama is also likely to encounter stiff domestic opposition. Republicans immediately criticised the president for seeking to spend more money when the national debt has risen to £9.6 trillion.