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Date Posted: 19:54:07 11/11/07 Sun
Author: part 2
Subject: Re: November 11, 2007
In reply to: part 1 's message, "November 11, 2007" on 19:51:55 11/11/07 Sun

LEADING DEVELOPMENTS

Fourth U.S. City Calls on Congress for Homeowners and Bank
Protection Act

November 10, 2007 (LPAC)--On Nov. 8, the city of New Castle,
Pennsylvania became the fourth U.S. city in recent weeks to call
on Congress to pass the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act,
initiated by Lyndon LaRouche. The resolution, passed unanimously
by a vote of 5-0 states as follows:

WHEREAS Pennsylvania House Resolution 418 is a bipartisan
resolution introduced October 2, 2007 to the Pennsylvania House
of Representatives, which calls on the U.S. Congress to take
emergency action to protect homeowners and banks by enacting a
Homeowners and Banks Protection Act; and
WHEREAS said Act would establish a Federal agency to place
Federal and State chartered banks under protection, freezing all
existing home mortgages for a period of time, adjusting mortgage
values to fair prices, restructuring existing mortgages at
appropriate interest rates and writing off speculative debt
obligations of mortgage-backed securities, financial derivatives,
and other forms of financial pyramid schemes that have brought
the banking system to the point of bankruptcy; and
WHEREAS said Act would also declare a moratorium on all home
foreclosures for the duration of the transitional period,
allowing families to retain their homes and authorize governors
of several states to assume the administrative responsibilities
for implementing the program; and
WHEREAS said Act would benefit the Citizens of New Castle
and protect their assets during this period of financial unrest
that is leading to home foreclosures in record numbers; NOW,
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW
CASTLE, PENNSYLVANIA, that New Castle City Council and the
Administration urge our Federal officials to support the measures
suggested in Pennsylvania House Resolution 418.

The vote was certified on November 9.

Kucinich Writes Conyers Urging Consideration of Cheney
Impeachment Resolution

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich wrote a letter to House
Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers on Nov. 9, urging
Conyers' "timely consideration" of H. Res. 799, the privileged
resolution Kucinich introduced on the floor of the House on
Tuesday, Nov. 6, which was referred to Conyers' committee for
possible hearings.
According to sources closes to Rep. Kucinich and other
leading antiwar Congressmen from both parties, the letter was, in
part, motivated by a growing concern that the Bush-Cheney White
House already has military plans in place, to launch an attack on
Iran's nuclear program sites on a moment's notice. According to
one retired U.S. military source, the 8th Air Force, assigned to
the Strategic Command (STRATCOM), has prepared detailed attack
plans, that could be activated without even conferring with the
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). By the time Congress would be
informed of the decision, the attack would have already taken
place. According to one military source, the strikes against the
nuclear installations would be followed by a pause, waiting for
the Iranians to launch asymmetric retaliation. At that point, a
full-scale bombing campaign against Iran would be launched--and
any chances of Congressional opposition would have been quashed.
The sources emphasized that the only way to stop an attack
on Iran is to make it clear to Bush and Cheney that, if they
attack without Congressional authorization, impeachment
proceedings will begin immediately. Lyndon LaRouche took the
assessment one step further, demanding that Congress act now with
``preemptive impeachment of Dick Cheney.''

The text of the Rep. Kucinich letter follows:

November 9, 2007
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr.
Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Conyers

I am writing in support of H. Res. 799, the Articles of
Impeachment which were referred to the committee relative to the
Impeachment of the Vice President of the United States of
America.
Recent reports indicate that the Vice President is
attempting to shape the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran to
conform to his misperceptions about the threat Iran actually
poses. Much like his deceptive efforts in the lead up to the Iraq
war, the Vice President appears to be manipulating intelligence
to conform to his beliefs.
If the reports are true, they add additional weight to the
case for impeachment. I believe impeachment remains the only tool
Congress has to prevent a war in Iran. This information relates
directly to the Article III charges in the resolution. I urge
your timely consideration.

Sincerely,
Dennis J. Kucinich

ECONOMICS

British Banks Lose 90 Billion in Nine Months

November 10, 2007 (LPAC)--More than 90 billion pounds was wiped
off the value of Britain's eight leading banks in the past nine
months, on fear that they are headed for big problems, according
to an analysis by the London {Times} on Nov. 9.
Topping the list are Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland
(RBS), which also suffers severe exposure to the toxic credit
markets. The rumors of a 10 billion pound write-off by Barclays
sent shares down by more than 9% at one point on Friday, Nov. 9.
*Barclays shares have fallen, since February 7, from 763p to
as low as 442p yesterday, a slide of 42%, and its market value,
has sunk from 53.4 billion pounds in February, to 32.3 billion
this month.
*RBS lost the most in terms of market value, its share price
tumbling from 691-1/2p in February to a low yesterday of
387-1/2p, knocking 29.4 billion pounds off its market
capitalization.
*HBOS, dominant in the U.K. mortgage market, have fallen in
value by 14.5 billion pounds since February.
*Bradford & Bingley--the mortgage lender--Alliance &
Leicester, and Lloyds TSB, have fallen by just over 10 billion
pounds in the past nine months.
*HSBC has lost almost 2% in market value.
*Northern Rock, the near bankrupt mortgage lender, worth 5.2
billion pounds at the start of the year, is now valued at just
620 million. [dea]

Bank of the South To Be Founded on December 9 in Argentina

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa announced in
Santiago today that the Bank of the South will be officially
founded on December 9 in Buenos Aires, not in Caracas as
originally planned.
"The founding had to be delayed for many reasons, but it has
now been agreed on by the region's Presidents that it be done on
that date," Correa explained. Since Argentina's new President
Sen. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will be inaugurated on Dec.
10, it makes sense to sign the founding document in Buenos Aires,
Correa said, and then attend the next day's ceremony, to which
all the heads of state have been invited.
The Bank of the South is conceived of as an alternative to
the IMF's usurious policies, and its major purpose will be to
finance large infrastructure projects, without any
conditionalities attached to its loans. The founding "will be an
enormous step forward for the integration of Latin America, and
above all for South America," Correa said, "to finance our own
development projects and not the remote-control ones such as
those imposed on us by the World Bank, which bankrupted us."
In separate remarks, Correa also reported that the
Presidents attending the Ibero-American heads of state summit in
Santiago had privately discussed repatriating reserves that are
now held in foreign banks, so they may be invested in the region.
Rather than Ecuador's reserves being invested in Miami, as in now
the case, Correa argued that they should be invested in
"refineries, dams" and other infrastructure projects. [crr]

Latest Developments in the Foreclosure Crisis

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--A brief survey of some of the latest news shows
that the foreclosure crisis continues to rage like an
out-of-control forest fire.
* The Arizona Republic reported, today, that the number of
foreclosures in the Phoenix area is up 566% over the same period
last year. There were 7,139 foreclosures through October,
compared to 1,072 last year. In the month of October, alone,
there were 1,396 foreclosures.
* The Columbus Dispatch reported, today, that Ohio has
served 11 mortage companies with subpoenas, seeking evidence of
violations of anti-trust, civil rights and consumer sales
practice laws, as part of the state's approach to dealing with
the foreclosure crisis.
* The real estate research firm Default Research reported
that foreclosures in Seattle are up 21% over last year, but
whistles past the graveyard because the foreclosure rate in
Seattle is much lower than elsewhere in the country. In fact,
Default Research's President Serdar Bankaci declares that "The
savvy investor knows that rental properties have become an
excellent investment in King County"!
* While things are going swimmingly in King County's
Seattle, Boise, Idaho's Fox12 TV reports that Idaho foreclosures
rose by 13% in the third quarter from the previous quarter,
making Idaho 17th in the nation in foreclosures.
* Bloomberg carries a story today that argues that all of
the big banks that are now reporting huge losses on
mortgage-related paper are paying the price for the $25 million
in lobbying that they spent on the 2005 bankruptcy reform.
Because fewer debtors can get their credit card debts liquidated
in bankruptcy, more are walking away from their mortgages,
instead. [cjo]

Republicans Freak Out at Tax Increase on 50,000 of Their Richest
Friends

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--Yesterday, Republicans in the House of
Representatives got all hot and bothered that Democrats would
push through a bill that is lowering the expected tax bill for 23
million, but has the effect of raising taxes on about 50,000 of
the wealthier class. The bill, sponsored by House Ways and Means
Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) provides for a
temporary fix in the alternative minimum tax (AMT) and pays for
the $50 billion cost of lost taxes, by treating the fees that
hedge fund and private equity managers make as regular income,
taxing it at 35% instead of at the capital gains rate of 15%.
Democrats repeatedly told the House that that change will only
effect about 50,000 people, but collectively, those 50,000 make
$936 billion. That was enough to cause Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.),
the point-man in the Republican caucus for the hedge fund lobby,
to shriek that Rangel's bill "is nothing but a job killer." He
repeated the hedge fund mantra that the carried interest
provision will kill "mom-and-pop" investment partnerships that
create seven out of ten jobs in the country.
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) noted that recent economic
growth has disproportionately benefited the top 1% of income
brackets, including through loopholes in the tax code. "This bill
will take a step towards ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair
share by increasing taxes on private equity managers ... and on
multinational corporations who offshore their businesses for the
express purpose of tax avoidance." The bill passed by a nearly
party-line vote of 216 to 193. [cjo]

More and More Germans Don't Have the Income To Make a Living

Nov. 9 (LPAC) -- As the Creditreform association documents in its
latest survey on private household indebtedness, insolvencies are
up 50% in Germany, against the past year. All in all, 150,000 new
cases have been added to the list, mostly Hartz IV recipients who
cannot make a minimum living any longer, but also, increasingly,
homeowners, who, because they lost their job can no longer keep
up with their mortgage payments, nor even the regular household
expenses. The same trend goes for Germans who have become
dependent on one or more badly paid mini-jobs, to compensate for
a fulltime job they cannot get. As the Creditreform association
also said, 7.3 million Germans, that is almost 10%, have been
thrown into a situation which does not provide them the income
they need to make a living. The most recent consumer price
inflation is adding to the troubles of households. (rap)

Speculating with commodities, but not investing.

Nov. 9 (LPAC) -- An article in today's {Junge Welt} German daily
pointed out, that in addition to market speculation which has
tripled and doubled the prices of many industrial ores such as
copper and lead, over the past 1-2 years, the under-supply of
smelters is causing severe bottlenecks in the supply of processed
metals.
Indeed, experts had warned before, that the obsession of
"investors" with speculative money-making, has been at the
expense of sound investments in smelting capacity. The same goes
for mining technologies and the maintenance of mines. The
"market" has shown interest only in selling and buying, not even
caring whether the ores are actually there or not. In that light,
the ongoing talks about a super-merger between BHP Billiton and
Rio Tinto deserves attention. (rap)

Robert Rubin New Chair of Citigroup, Fingers Bush Economics in
Present Dollar Collapse

November 10, 2007 (LPAC)--Robert Rubin, one-time Treasury
Secretary under Bill Clinton, and the new chairman of battered
Citigroup, was interviewed on Nov. 10 by the {Financial Times},
where he made a few choice comments about the role of the Bush
Administration's policies in the present dollar collapse.
Indentified by the Times as the advocate of the "strong dollar,"
Rubin thinks the economic outlook for the U.S. would have been
better if Bush had followed Rubin's lead in keeping a balanced
budget, and cooperating with other countries. "You could have had
surpluses that affected the savings rate and would have helped
the trade balance. I think you would have had more confidence in
the policy framework and you would have had a better dollar," he
says--``regretfully,'' comments the Financial Times. (clc)

UNITED STATES

Bush in Virtual Realty: Is There a Mad Killer Loose on the
Streets of Baghdad?

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--White House spokeswomen Dana Perino said that
President Bush played "cutting edge virtual reality computer
games" with wounded Iraq veterans at a San Antonio, Texas
hospital, yesterday. AFP reports that Perino said that Bush
helped to "shoot the bad guys" in a virtual Baghdad neighborhood.
[ddp]

Film Review: ``Giuliani Time'' Exposes Rudy as Beastman

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--Kevin Keating's 2005 film, {Giuliani Time}
powerfully conveys the basic story outlined in Wayne Barrett's
earlier investigative biography, {Rudy!}. {Village Voice}
journalist Barrett himself is interviewed, along with former
Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins, Giuliani's own Police
Commissioner William Bratton, his own Education Commissioner Rudy
Crews, representatives of the neo-conservative Manhattan
Institute, the ACLU and advocates for the poor and for the
police.
{Giuliani Time} opens with the former mayor addressing the
2004 Republican National Convention, with his business partner
and former Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik at his side. Rudy
says that on September 11, 2001 amidst the carnage, he had turned
to Kerik and had said, ``Thank God George Bush is President.''
The opening credits come up with an evocation of Franklin
Roosevelt, New York Governor and then President, fighting the
poverty and despair of economic collapse, and promising citizens
new progressive measures when the war against Hitler will have
been won. Then Wayne Barrett comes on as narrator, describing the
late-1940s-1950s Brooklyn scene of Giuliani's childhood. We are
shown the bar where Rudy's father Harold and other family members
ran violent mafia rackets, and the guard towers and barbed wire
of Sing Sing prison, where Harold did time for armed robbery.
This disclosure of Rudy's mafia family background is the
movie's metaphoric underpinning. Barrett comes back on screen at
various points, emphasizing Giuliani's violence against the poor
and black people, his economic savagery and deliberate unleashing
of police thuggery, his soulless unconcern for suffering. As part
of the stunning and disquieting conclusion, Barrett shows that
Giuliani did not tell the truth of his family's gangsterism when
the FBI interviewed him about his personal background in the
screening for his entry to Justice Department posts.
The portrayal of Giuliani's ``workfare'' program is
outstanding. He boasts that he has cut a half million people off
the welfare rolls. What happened to them? Manhattan Institute
spokesman Myron Magnet tells us that there is {no} serious
poverty in the city or in America, that the people cut off have
found places in the underground economy. We see Giuliani publicly
professing this blunt Malthusianism. The Institute was Rudy's
programmatic guide, and the strange Dickensian-looking Magnet
speaks of the ``tycoons'' who sponsor the Institute, who believe
that the poor can themselves become tycoons! Poor immigrants have
done it before; we see archive photos of financiers such as
Warburgs. (The name ``Goldman Sachs'' and other financial
agencies come on screen as Institute sponsors. The usual rightist
foundations are also known to fund them.)
But the discarded citizens appear, and speak directly to us:
men put into years of forced labor, denied any actual employment
or training, taking the places of paid workers; the children, too
hungry to be in school because their family food stamps and home
relief are cancelled; the woman who has been denied the power to
read or write, pleading for a dignified place in society.
Footage of the frenzied New York Stock Exchange and its
chairman Dick Grasso, is accompanied by the information that we
are in the greatest speculative orgy ever. Ralph Nader comes on,
intoning that Giuliani is the ``oligarchs'" mayor, having turned
over the city to global plunderers.

- Crime, and Terror -
Mayor Giuliani brought in William Bratton as Police
Commissioner in 1994. Bratton implemented a crackdown on
``quality of life'' offenses such as subway fare-beating,
graffiti and panhandling. The homeless were incarcerated, while
housing was cut. The FBI reported a drop in serious crime during
the 1990s, all over the U.S.A., but Giuliani boasted that he
personally had crushed crime in New York by his tough policing
policies. Bratton tells us that Rudy has merely promoted race war
by directing police to attack black people. When the media
celebrated Bratton as the victor of crime, Rudy fired him, and
brought in first Howard Safir, then Bernie Kerik, as police
chiefs for Rudy's war on the underclass.
We see Rudy Giuliani, running for mayor against incumbent
David Dinkins by leading a racist police riot.
Former Mayor Ed Koch focuses on Rudy's constant pandering to
white racism, calling him a combination of {Pinochet and
Caligula}. The title term, ``Giuliani time,'' is a phrase
supposedly popular with New York police, meaning the era when
brutality buys a decrease in crime.
Rudy Crews, whom Giuliani brought in as schools chief
because he was black and might get away with cutbacks, refused to
go along with the Giuliani-Manhattan Institute vouchers program.
On screen, Crews passionately defends the children Giuliani was
destroying with his diversion of funds to private schools.
In the end, Giuliani falls apart. He announces he has
prostate cancer, that he is having an affair, that he is leaving
his wife, and that he is dropping out of the 2000 U.S. Senate
race against then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. There have been
mass demonstrations against Giuliani''s brutality, his approval
of police murders. Even the police have turned against him,
because his austerity has squeezed their wages. He is finished as
a public figure.
Then -- the terror attacks on the World Trade Center turn
him into a worldwide media sensation, a hero puffed by Bush and
David Letterman alike. Rudy is reborn to ``fight terrorism.''
Watching this 2005 film now, when Presidential candidate Giuliani
is again facing Hillary Clinton among others, we are left with
the chilling thought that he would do to the world what he did to
New York. [ahc]
{Giuliani Time}, 110 minutes long, is available in its
entirety on the Internet, at the url:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=
giuliani+time&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv

Intelligence Analyst Revolt Holding Up Iran NIE

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--Dick Cheney's attempts to get a cooked National
Intelligence Estimate that justifies a military attack on Iran
have, so far, been thwarted by an unknown number of CIA analysts
who refuse to go along. According to national security columnist
Gareth Porter, in two separate but related columns, one in the
{Asia Times} and the other appearing on the {Huffington Post},
Cheney has been trying for more than a year to get dissenting
views purged from a draft NIE that was prepared in 2006, so he
can take it to President Bush and argue for another war. Porter
suggests that the fight over the NIE was a factor in the firing
of John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence in early
2007. Negroponte had angered neo-cons in the administration when
he told the press in April 2006 that it would still be "a number
of years off" before Iran would be "likely to have enough fissile
material" to build a bomb.
Cheney also wanted the NIE to support the policy of
attacking Iran over its alleged role in supplying weapons used to
kill American soldiers in Iraq, but the draft didn't do that. So,
Cheney cranked up the propaganda machine using the U.S. military
command in Iraq (an obvious reference to Brig. Gen. Kevin
Bergner, who became Cheney's propaganda mouthpiece in Baghdad
after having served on the NSC under Iran-Contra criminal Elliott
Abrams) even though intelligence available to the military showed
that the armor-piercing bombs causing so many U.S. casualties
were being made in machine shops in Iraq. Porter reports that a
majority of analysts are now willing to go along with Cheney's
view but "some intelligecne analysts on Iran are reportedly still
refusing to say that there is conrete evidence to support the
official line that the Iranian regime is exporting EFP's
(explosively formed projectiles) to Iraq," and they are insisting
that their dissenting views are included in the NIE. [cjo]

Senator Chuck Hagel Blasts Clinton, Giuliani on Iran Hard Line

November 10, 2007 (LPAC)--Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) accused
Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton (D) and Rudy Giuliani (R)
of being "recklessly irresponsible" for taking a hard line on
talks with Iran, and for slamming candidate Barack Obama for
encouraging such talks between the U.S. and Iran. The harsh
critcism came on a Bloomberg TV interview to be aired the evening
of Nov. 10 on the "Political Capital" show.
Hagel is one of an increasing number of alarmed lawmakers
and policymakers trying to head off a looming threat of war with
Iran. "We're over here sounding war calls. That's a very
dangerous thing because it leads you into a cul-de-sac of war if
you're not careful," he said.
Hagel apparently also took on Dick Cheney in the interview,
comparing his recent comments on Iran to those provocative
comments he used against Iraq prior to that disastrous war.
Of course, the only real chance to head off the looming
preemptive war against Iran is to stage a preemptive impeachment
of Vice President Cheney to gum up the war works before ignition
can occur. (clc)

The Actual Costs of the Iraq War: Measured in Dollars Wasted and
Lives Ruined

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--A report issued on Nov. 8 by Physicians for
Social Responsibility reminds us that the total costs of the Iraq
War are not measured solely in the dollars appropriated by
Congress. Among some of the costs noted by PSR:
* The number of U.S. servicemembers killed is approaching
4,000, and the total number wounded, injured or medically ill
exceeds 60,000. The percentage of injured requiring amputations
is the highest seen since the U.S. Civil War. Care for the Iraq
and Afghanistan veterans could exceed $660 billion.
* It is expected that up to 30% of all veterans returning
from Iraq will meet the criteria for serious mental health
disorders. So far, 1.5 million people have served in Iraq. For
many, symptoms of PTSD only begin to appear after many years or
after multiple deployments.
* The long-term effects of the war trauma also likely means
high rates of social problems among Iraq veterans, including
unemployment, divorce, family violence, behavior problems in
children and incarceration. Rates of interpersonal violence among
both active duty and veteran populations are up to three times
greater than in civilian populations.
The report concludes that "If these costs were truly and
widely understoof, nations might be much more reluctant to use
war as a means to settle social conflict." PSR plans to address
the devastating costs of the war on the civilian poplation of
Iraq in a future report. [cjo]

IBERO-AMERICA

President Kirchner: Ibero-America's Model Needs "Strong
Industrial Roots," not "the Invisible Hand"

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--In his Nov. 9 speech before the 17th
Ibero-American heads-of-state summit in Santiago, Chile,
Argentine President Nestor Kirchner took off from the remarks of
his Ecuadorian colleague Rafael Correa, to discuss his view of
Ibero-America's common mission today. The Argentine President
also used his speech to bid a moving farewell to his
Ibero-American colleagues, as he will be leaving office on
December 10.
The free-market model, the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith,
brought only misery to Argentina and Ibero-America in the 1990s,
he said, where "wealth was transferred to the most concentrated
sectors of the economy.... We destroyed our entire productive
structure, all our industry ... we were driven to the brink."
Today, he said, poverty isn't a matter of "efficiency" or
"inefficiency" as the neo-liberal model asserts. "The question
here is, what is the model? Ibero-America needs a model based on
income distribution ... an industrial model that coexists with
production and agriculture, but a model with {strong industrial
roots}."
It is the task of the Ibero-American Summit to consolidate
this way of thinking, Kirchner said. "Because the IMF's
policies--and I repeat, I hope the Fund and other international
agencies change--was what guided us, and told its good pupils
what they had to do ... and even today, they're still trying to
tell us what to do." The model that nations adopt will determine
whether they achieve social cohesion, or national dissolution, he
stressed. We can be pluralistic, but our model must have
"content" and "principles," so that Ibero-America can consolidate
an "alternative proposal," not the uniform and arbitrary one that
international lending agencies imposed on the region, and that
subjugated its people.
"It is very important that we work to deepen common
policies," the Argentine President said. "But, let us dare to
speak of building the model {that the region needs}. Let's start
creating the teams, and generating the necessary debate, because
if we are able to articulate a {joint model} ... without losing
each country's individuality, we will be giving real force and
real encouragement to social cohesion, to the cohesion of the
region, and most importantly, to Latin America's cohesion."
And looking to the future, President Kirchner said, also
means "looking out for your brother, and making sure that he's
also doing well, in a context of total and absolute solidarity.
That is social cohesion, and the political cohesion we must
achieve in the region." Always many steps forward, but never one
step back, Kirchner concluded, "because we know what happened to
us" in the 1990s heyday of neo-liberalism, and that will never
again be an option. [crr]

President Correa: "It's Time to Kick the Modern-Day Money
Changers out of Latin America's Temples!"

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--This was the message that Ecuador's President
Rafael Correa delivered to the Third Ibero-American Civic and
Business Conference on the topic of social cohesion and economic
growth, which occurred on the sidelines of the 17th
Ibero-American heads of state summit that took place in Santiago,
Chile Nov. 8-10.
As in his speech to the summit itself, Correa scathingly
denounced the predatory looting practices that free-market
ideologues--the "self-anointed businessmen" he called
them--applied in Ecuador and in Ibero-America in the 1990s,
leaving destruction in their wake. These financier interests
tried to drive a wedge between business sectors and
Ibero-America's progressive governments, Correa said, to make
businessmen think that their interests were not also those of the
nation and its people.
But now, he underscored, "it's time for the real
businessmen... those who bet on the nation and its future, to
throw the modern-day money-changers out of Latin America's
temples." Real patriotic businessmen don't prosper, nor do they
even venture into countries that are "good pupils of the IMF, or
who are dependent on the much ballyhooed `country risk rate'
which measures nothing more than a country's ability, or
willingness, to pay its foreign debt," the Ecuadorian leader
argued.
As he told the heads of state summit, neo-liberalism had
made "egotism" and "competition" values which defined a way of
life, "producing an income distribution so unfair that
Ibero-America had countries as poor as some in Africa, and others
as rich as Switzerland." Ibero-America "shall never find social
cohesion as long as we are subjected to the entellechy of the
market, where the poor are considered only to be `collateral
damage.'... We can only speak of social cohesion, when we
consecrate the rights of the majority." [crr]


WESTERN EUROPE & CIS

The Cyber School for Killers

Nov. 10 (LPAC) -- Under this headline, today's London {Times}
reports the following: "A group of young people who idolized the
Columbine High School killers may have shared information on the
internet... The YouTube killer who shot dead eight members of his
school in Finland before turning his gun on himself had internet
contacts with an American teenager who was planning a shooting
spree in a high school in Philadelphia, it was claimed yesterday.
"The disclosure could turn upside down previous assumptions
about the dynamics of school massacres. Until now, teenage
killers were regarded as depressed loners whose imagination had
been stoked by aggressive computer games. Now it seems that
information may have been shared by potential killers over the
internet: a virtual community of young people who idolize the
1999 Columbine High School murders.
"`It's highly probable that there was some form of contact
between Pekka-Eric Auvinen and Dillon Cossey,' a spokesman for
the cyber crime department of Helsinki police said. Dillon
Cossey, 14, was arrested last month on suspicion of planning to
storm his old school, Plymouth Whitemarsh. Police acting on a
tipoff found a 9mm semi-automatic rifle, handmade grenades, a .22
pistol and a .22 single-shot rifle at his home. Less than two
weeks later Auvinen, already a member of a shooting club, was
buying his first gun -- a .22 pistol -- and expressing interest
in a 9mm semi-automatic. Police do not believe this to have been
a coincidence. The two youths are thought to have made contact
over two MySpace groups, `RIP Eric and Dylan' -- a reference to
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 schoolmates at
Columbine and 'Natural Selection.'"
The exposure of this Internet "community" of Columbine fanatics
should also cause a deeper look at Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia
Tech student who killed 32 classmates and himself on April 16,
2007, and wounded dozens of others. Cho had been fascinated with
the 1999 Columbine massacre since he was in 8th grade, reported
an official report commissioned by the Virginia governor. The
hard drive on Cho's computer was never found after the massacre,
and therefore the full extent of his involvement in Internet and
video game violence has not been determined. (rap, mjs)

Chevenement Blasts New "Simplified" European Lisbon Treaty

PARIS, Nov. 10, 2007 (Nouvelle Solidarite) -- In a Le Monde
column (Nov. 8), former French Defense Minister Jean-Pierre
Chevenement, honorary president of the Mouvement Republicain et
Citoyen (MRC) party, blasted the new, 256-page "simplified"
European "mini-treaty" to be signed at Lisbon on Dec. 13.
Chevenement goes after the treaty in terms parallel to those of
Solidarite et Progres president Jacques Cheminade in his Oct. 29
statement, and points to the most hairy military implications of
the treaty.
For example Article 17bis states: "Before undertaking any
action on the international scene, each member state will consult
the others ones among the European Council..." Chevenement writes
that "everybody understands that if these provisions had been
applicable in 2003, France, being unable to oppose both the
U.S.A. and the EU, with which a majority of members are aligned,
could not have dissociated itself from the Iraq invasion, and
tomorrow would be unable to avoid preemptive military strikes on
Iran, ... if the U.S. should decide to do so." In respect to
Article 27, which restates that for those EU members that are
part of NATO, it remains the "framework of their defense policy,"
about which Chevenement correctly observes that the treaty brings
to an end any form of independent European defense. (kav)

Berezovsky Pal To Run for President of Georgia

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--Badru Patarkatsishvili, partner of Russian
ex-tycoon Boris Berezovsky, announced today that he would be the
opposition candidate against incumbent President Mikheil
Saakashvili in Georgia's next election, scheduled for January
2008. "Mr. Saakashvili's regime has completely discredited itself
in the eyes of the Georgian people who will never again entrust
it its destiny," said Patarkatsishvili in an emailed statement.
Opposition leaders, who met with government representatives on
Nov. 10 to resume negotiations in the political crisis wracking
Georgia, denied, however, that they have picked a candidate.
"It's the first I've heard of this," one opposition leader told
Reuters. Patarkatsishvili has also been accused, by the
Prosecutor General's office of running a coup plot against
Saakashvili, and that office is seeking to question him. [cjo]

SOUTHWEST ASIA

Talks on Possible Israel-Syria Conference in Moscow Underway

Nov. 10 (EIRNS)--The Saudi newspaper {Al Watan} quotes
Palestinian officials as saying that an international peace
conference on the advancement of relations between Israel and
Syria will likely be held next year in Moscow. According to the
report, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had promoted the
initiative during his recent meetings with U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice.
{Al-Watan}, as reported in today's Israeli online news
service Ynet, quoted Palestinian officials as saying that Abbas
tried to convince Rice of the need to advance peace between
Israel and Syria, through a conference similar in its format to
the Middle East peace meeting to be held at Annapolis, Md., later
this month. The sources said Abbas had also stressed the
importance of Syria's participation in the Annapolis conference.
He reportedly sent his representative to update Syria on the
developments. [dea]

U.S. Releases Nine Iranians in Iraq

Nov. 10 (LPAC)--On Nov. 9 the U.S. military command in Iraq
released nine Iranians from its custody, some of whom had been
held since 2004, and two of five diplomats who had been arrested
in Irbil last January 11. The other three Iranian diplomats
arrested in Irbil (immediately after Bush announced the "surge"
policy) is still being demanded by Iran.
Iraqi officials praised the release. "Reducing this tension
between Americans and Iranians is for the benefit of Iraq," Ali
al-Adeeb, a Shi'ite legislator from Prime Minister Nouri Al
Maliki's Dawa Party told the Washington Post. "Definitely this
will help." But a statement released by Multi-National
Forces-Iraq, (i.e., U.S. occupation forces) simply said that the
nine had been determined to be no longer security risks or were
of no further intelligence value.
Washington intelligence sources said that the U.S. release
of these Iranian prisoners is a good faith step that is connected
to continuing the diplomatic track of U.S.-Iranian talks about
Iran. [cjo,mjs]

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