Watchman Newsletter

Shalom says ‘Iranian government’ in Lebanon possible

YNet News (Link) - Attila Somfalvi (January 22, 2011)

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s decision to join forces with Hezbollah against Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri increases the risk that an “Iranian government” will be established in Lebanon, Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom (Likud) said Saturday.

Speaking at a cultural forum in Bat Yam, Shalom said, “This is not just about a terror organization which operates with Iran’s support and inspiration any more, but rather a real sovereign government.

“There is no doubt this is a dangerous development which forces us to follow (Lebanon) closely. We will be prepared for any future development,” he said.

On Friday Jumblatt threw his support behind Hezbollah, a major boost to the Shiite group that brought down the country’s Western-backed government last week.

He refused to say exactly how many lawmakers are with him, but his support is key for any candidate trying to form a government.

‘Gay lessons’ in maths, geography and science

The Telegraph UK (Link) - Jasper Copping (January 22, 2011)

Lesson plans have been drawn up for pupils as young as four, in a scheme funded with a £35,000 grant from an education quango, the Training and Development Agency for Schools.

The initiative will be officially launched next month at the start of “LGBT History Month” – an initiative to encourage teaching about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual issues.

The lesson plans, spread across the curriculum, will be offered to all schools, which can choose whether or not to make use of them.

But critics last night called the initiative a poor use of public money which could distract from the teaching of “core” subjects.

Russia, Turkey sign strategic cooperation protocol

People’s Daily Online (Link) - Xinhua (January 21, 2011)

Russia and Turkey signed here Thursday a strategic cooperation protocol in a bid to enhance their bilateral relations.

The protocol was signed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in Ciragan Palace, Istanbul.

However, the two sides did not reveal any detail of the strategic protocol.

Sergei Lavrov arrived in Istanbul on Wednesday for a two-day visit to participate in a meeting of a high-level cooperation council between Russia and Turkey.

Which Of The Currencies Of The World Is Going To Crash First?

Economic Collapse Blog (Link) (January 21, 2011)

Last year was an absolutely fascinating time for world currency markets.  The yen, the dollar and the euro all took their turns in the spotlight.  Each experienced wild swings at various times, but the overall theme that we saw was that faith in paper currencies is dying.  The biggest reason for this is the horrific sovereign debt crisis that has swept the globe.  The United States, Japan and a whole host of European nations are all drowning in debt.  The U.S. and Japan are both steamrolling toward insolvency, and several European nations would have already defaulted on their debts if they had not been bailed out.  So which of the major currencies of the world is going to crash first?  Will one (or more) of the big currencies fall before the end of 2011?  Once one major currency collapses will the rest start to fall like dominoes?  The truth is that the world has never seen a sovereign debt crisis of this magnitude in all of human history.  Almost the entire globe is drowning in a sea of red ink and it has brought us right to the brink of financial disaster.

So which of the currencies of the world is going to be the first to come crashing down?  Well, let’s take a quick look at the yen, the euro and the dollar....

Feds checking post-vaccine seizures in young kids

Yahoo! News (Link) - AP - Mike Stobbe (January 20, 2011)

Government officials are investigating an apparent increase in fever-related seizures in young children after they got a flu shot.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said there have been 36 confirmed reports of seizures this flu season in children ages 6 months through 2 years. The seizures occurred within one day after they were vaccinated with Fluzone, the only flu shot recommended in the United States for infants and very young children. Ten of the children were hospitalized, but all recovered.

The FDA said it is investigating to see if there is any connection between the vaccine and the seizures, or if something else caused the convulsions. The agency said recommendations for using the vaccine have not changed, nor has there been any change in flu vaccine guidance.

In the U.S., vaccination is recommended for everyone except infants under 6 months.

The vaccine’s manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur, issued a statement emphasizing that no clear link has been established between the flu shot and the seizures and that the cases may be coincidental.

Flotilla raid probe: IDF acted properly

YNet News (Link) - Aviel Magnezi (January 20, 2011)

Some eight months after the lethal IDF raid on the Turkish Marmara vessel, the Turkel Committee charged with probing the incident is set to submit the first part of its report.

The report’s first chapter, to be published Sunday, is expected to rule that IDF troops acted properly in taking over the Gaza-bound ship.

A source who is well familiar with the committee’s work said all its members, including the two foreign observers involved in the probe, agreed that Israel’s Navy commandoes did not violate international law, even after the operation aboard the Marmara encountered unexpected entanglements.

Professor Yossi Shain, an international relations expert at Georgetown University and the head of Tel Aviv University’s diplomacy program, said that any professional observer would view the Turkel Committee as a serious, distinguished team. He added that the Irish and Canadian observers appointed by the committee further boosted its credibility.

However, despite this, Shain said he expects the world to treat the committee’s findings with suspicion.

Europe’s Muslim Lobby

Hudson New York (Link) - Soeren Kern (January 20, 2011)

Europeans often fantasize about America’s so-called Jewish lobby, which they claim has a chokehold over American finance, media and politics and is responsible for all manner of conspiratorial evil. But few Europeans like to talk about the growing influence of Europe’s Muslim lobby, a conglomeration of hundreds of Muslim political and religious organizations -- many of which are media-savvy mouthpieces for militant Islam that openly pursue anti-European, anti-Western and anti-Semitic agendas and often receive financial support from Islamic fundamentalist countries like Saudi Arabia.

In a Europe where Islam is the fastest-growing religion, and where the number of Muslims has tripled over the past 30 years, Europe’s Muslim lobby is becoming increasingly assertive and skilled at pressuring European policy-makers into implementing countless pro-Islamic policies, especially ones that institutionalize Islamic Sharia law. Muslim lobby groups are, in fact, transforming European society in ways unimaginable only a few years ago; critics say their ultimate goal is nothing less than the Islamification of Europe.

Welfare Tab for Children of Illegal Immigrants Estimated at $600M in L.A. County

Fox News (Link) (January 19, 2011)

Welfare benefits for the children of illegal immigrants cost America’s largest county more than $600 million last year, according to a local official keeping tabs on the cost.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich released new statistics this week showing social spending for those families in his county rose to $53 million in November, putting the county government on track to spend more than $600 million on related costs for the year -- up from $570 million in 2009.

Antonovich arrived at the estimate by factoring in the cost of food stamps and welfare-style benefits through a state program known as CalWORKS. Combined with public safety costs and health care costs, the official claimed the “total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers” was more than $1.6 billion in 2010.

“Not including the hundreds of millions of dollars for education,” he said in a statement.

Yellowstone Has Bulged as Magma Pocket Swells

National Geographic News (Link) - Brian Handwerk (January 19, 2011)

Yellowstone National Park’s supervolcano just took a deep “breath,” causing miles of ground to rise dramatically, scientists report.

The simmering volcano has produced major eruptions—each a thousand times more powerful than Mount St. Helens’s 1980 eruption—three times in the past 2.1 million years. Yellowstone’s caldera, which covers a 25- by 37-mile (40- by 60-kilometer) swath of Wyoming, is an ancient crater formed after the last big blast, some 640,000 years ago.

(See “When Yellowstone Explodes” in National Geographic magazine.)

Since then, about 30 smaller eruptions—including one as recent as 70,000 years ago—have filled the caldera with lava and ash, producing the relatively flat landscape we see today.

But beginning in 2004, scientists saw the ground above the caldera rise upward at rates as high as 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) a year. (Related: “Yellowstone Is Rising on Swollen ‘Supervolcano.’”)

The rate slowed between 2007 and 2010 to a centimeter a year or less. Still, since the start of the swelling, ground levels over the volcano have been raised by as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) in places.

Hezbollah said simulating Beirut coup as Saudi drops Lebanon mediation efforts

Haaretz (Link) (January 19, 2011)

Hezbollah militants spread across the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Tuesday in a reportedly simulated coup of the capital, in the wake of the political unrest that has engulfed the country since the guerilla movement exited the Lebanese coalition and caused the government to collapse.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has abandoned its own mediation efforts in Lebanon, saying the situation was “dangerous,” Al Arabiya television said on Wednesday, citing Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

Unarmed militants from the Iran- and Syria-backed militant organization took to the streets across various central sites across the capital, according to Lebanese media. The organization gave no advance notice of the simulation, the reports said.

Hezbollah supporters wearing black and clutching hand-held radios quietly gathered around Beirut, according to reports, an innocuous yet threatening display by the country’s most powerful armed force.

China’s Military Comes Into Its Own

Stratfor Global Intelligence (Link) - Rodger Baker (January 18, 2011)

Chinese President Hu Jintao is visiting the United States, perhaps his last state visit as president before China begins its generational leadership transition in 2012. Hu’s visit is being shaped by the ongoing China-U.S. economic dialogue, by concerns surrounding stability on the Korean Peninsula and by rising attention to Chinese defense activity in recent months. For example, China carried out the first reported test flight of its fifth-generation combat fighter prototype, dubbed the J-20, during U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ visit to China the previous week.

The development and test flight of China’s J-20 is not insignificant, but it is also by no means a game changer in the U.S.-China defense balance. More intriguingly, the test highlights how China’s military increasingly is making its interests heard.

World needs $100 trillion more credit, says World Economic Forum

The Telegraph UK (Link) - Emma Rowley (January 18, 2011)

The world’s expected economic growth will have to be supported by an extra $100 trillion (£63 trillion) in credit over the next decade, according to the World Economic Forum.

This doubling of existing credit levels could be achieved without increasing the risk of a major crisis, said the report from the WEF ahead of its high-profile annual meeting in Davos.

But researchers warned that leaders must be wary of new credit “hotspots,” where too much lending takes place, as the world emerges from a financial catastrophe blamed in large part “to the failure of the financial system to detect and constrain” these areas of unsustainable debt.

Turkish FM: Iran-Turkey ties of importance for regional stability

Islamic Republic News Agency (Link) (January 18, 2011)

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said relations between Iran and Turkey were of high importance in sustaining stability in the region.

He made the remark here Tuesday morning in a meeting with the Caretaker of the Iranian Foreign Ministry Ali-Akbar Salehi.

Salehi arrived in Ankara Monday night at a head of a political delegation.

In a brief conversation with reporters after the meeting, Davutoglu pointed out that Iran’s talks with the 5+1 would start in Istanbul on Thursday, January 20.

He further noted that Turkey has had close contacts with Iran for a long time, saying Tehran Declaration was compiled through close cooperation of Salehi and his colleagues.

“Suicide” Comet Storm Hits Sun—Bigger Sun-Kisser Coming?

National Geographic (Link) - Andrew Fazekas (January 17, 2011)

A recent storm of small comets that pelted the sun could herald the coming a much bigger icy visitor, astronomers say.

Since its launch in 1995, NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, orbiter has captured pictures of 2,000 comets as they’ve flown past the sun.

Most of these comets are so-called sungrazers, relatively tiny comets whose orbits bring them so near the sun that they are often vaporized within hours of discovery. (See a picture of a sungrazer spied in October.)

The sun-watching telescope usually picks up one sungrazer every few days. But between December 13 and 22, SOHO saw more than two dozen sungrazers appear and disintegrate.

Seeing “25 comets in just ten days, that’s unprecedented,” Karl Battams, of the United States Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. “It was crazy!”

According to Battams and colleagues, the comet swarm could be forerunner fragments from a much larger parent comet that may be headed along a similar path. And such a large icy body coming so near the sun would result in a spectacular sky show.

China’s Hu Jintao: Currency system is ‘product of past’

BBC News (Link) (January 17, 2011)

Chinese President Hu Jintao has said the international currency system dominated by the US dollar is a “product of the past.”

Mr Hu also said China was taking steps to replace it with the yuan, its own currency, but acknowledged that would be a “fairly long process.”

The remarks to two US newspapers come ahead of a state visit by the Chinese leader to Washington this week.

They reflect continuing tensions over currency issues between the two powers.

The remarks to the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal came in the form of written responses to questions. Mr Hu also reiterated criticism of a decision by the US Federal Reserve to inject $600bn into the economy, which some argue will weaken the dollar at the expense of other countries’ exports.

“The monetary policy of the United States has a major impact on global liquidity and capital flows and therefore, the liquidity of the US dollar should be kept at a reasonable and stable level,” President Hu said.

Next shock will be high food prices

The Sydney Morning Herald (Link) - Paul Sheehan (January 17, 2011)

You will pay for all this water. Unless you are insulated from the normal costs of living, you can expect sticker shock at some point this year, or next, when paying for the weekly food shopping. We’ve had oil shocks. Prepare for food shocks.

Ten years ago, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s composite world food price index stood at 92. For the month of December it was 215.

The most expensive year on record was 2008, when 60 million people slid into poverty because of higher food costs. There were food riots. Over the past three months, the trend in the FAO’s food price index was worse than 2008.

Violence-scarred Tunisia announces new government

The Washington Post (Link) - AP - Bouazza Ben Bouazza & Elaine Ganley (January 17, 2011)

Tunisia took a step toward democracy and reconciliation Monday, promising to free political prisoners and opening its government to opposition forces long shut out of power - but the old guard held onto the key posts, angering protesters.

Demonstrators carrying signs reading “GET OUT!” demanded that the former ruling party be banished altogether - a sign more troubles lie ahead for the new unity government as security forces struggle to contain violent reprisals, shootings and looting three days after the country’s longtime president fled under pressure from the streets.

“We’re afraid that the president has left, but the powers-that-be remain,” said Hylel Belhassen, a 51-year-old insurance salesman. Even before the new government was announced Monday, security forces fired tear gas to repel demonstrators who see the change of power as Tunisia’s first real chance at democracy.

New Debt Crisis Striking RIGHT NOW!

Money And Markets (Link) - Martin D. Weiss Ph.D. (January 17, 2011)

Martin here with an urgent update on the new debt crisis we’ve been warning you about so persistently day after day — the collapse of the tax-free bond market.

This crisis is no longer something you hear about strictly from us and a handful of others; it has now burst into the headlines with the sweeping force of a giant tsunami.

This crisis is no longer just a forecast. It’s happening right now — and it’s accelerating.

And even if you’ve never owned muni bonds in your life, their demise is absolutely not something you can ignore. Here’s why …

‘Explosive’ Food Prices the Biggest Risk: Analyst

CNBC (Link) - Patrick Allen (January 17, 2011)

Overheating emerging markets, in China in particular, pose the biggest threat to the market and political situation in 2011 according to Philippe Gijsels, head of research at BNP Paribas Fortis Global Markets.

“These economies are clearly overheating and governments are putting measures in place to slow them down to fight inflationary pressure. More than anything else, food inflation is a problem,” Gijsels told CNBC.com.

“In countries were 70 percent to 80 percent and sometimes more of a family’s budget goes to food, explosive price rises risk to destabilize these societies. Remember the old saying: ‘hunger starves civilizations,’” he added.

“We believe that some of these governments will be quite aggressive in their inflation fight. And we do not even want to think about the consequences if this year were to have a disappointing monsoon,” Gijsels said.

He is worried that everyone is so bullish on China’s ability to engineer a soft landing.

Ahmadinejad, Medvedev agree to boost ties: report

Breitbart (Link) - AFP  (January 17, 2011)

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev agreed to boost ties between their countries, in a a telephone conversation, state media reported on Monday.

The call came after Russia snubbed Iran’s invitation to visit two atomic sites in the Islamic republic that were thrown open to a group of foreign diplomats on Saturday and Sunday.

Iran and Russia must always be “friends and colleagues,” state television quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Medvedev. “The Islamic republic of Iran welcomes an increase of ties in all areas between the two countries.”

Its website said Medvedev echoed the Iranian hardliner’s views.

‘Israel tested Stuxnet virus on Dimona plant’

The Jerusalem Post (Link) (January 16, 2011)

Israel tested the Stuxnet virus in Dimona, according to a Sunday report by The New York Times.

Israel reportedly has centrifuges that are identical to those at the Iranian nuclear site in Natanz, which were used to test the Stuxnet computer worm.

In 2008, the Times reported, German company Siemens cooperated with the Idaho National Laboratory, allowing it to identify problems in the comany’s computer controllers, which are used in Iranian nuclear plants. The laboratory is part of the American Energy Department, which is responsible for nuclear weapons in the US.

The vulnerabilities identified in 2008 were used the following year by Stuxnet.

MK Katz Declares Jewish Victory in Struggle for Judea, Samaria

Israel National News (Link) - Gil Ronen (January 16, 2011)

The Jewish population in Judea and Samaria has reached 327,712, according to statistics that have been painstakingly and independently collected by the office of MK Ya’akov Katz (Ketzaleh), Chairman of the National Union. This number is in addition to the approximate 300,000 Jews who live in the parts of Jerusalem that were under temporary Jordanian occupation for 19 years after the Arab nations’ joint invasion in 1948 and are now Jewish.

Execution of the plans that call for driving out Jews from parts of Judea and Samaria would involve evicting at least 128,000 Jews - 16 times the number evicted in the 2005 Gaza “Disengagement Plan.” This number is relevant under the assumption that the larger “settlement blocs” would remain under Israeli control under any agreement.