Iran pulls assets out of Europe banks

Iran has withdrawn a huge sum of its foreign exchange reserves from European banks and has deposited some of it into Asian banks.

“Based on a decision made by a government working group, Iran has switched to ‘genuine’ assets like gold and shares… We have decreased our foreign currency holdings in international banks,” said Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs, Mohsen Talaei.

“A portion of Iran’s foreign exchange reserves, however, was moved to Asian banks,” he added in his interview with Borna news agency published on Monday.

According to the official, Iran keeps only the minimum currency it needs for its accounts to remain open in Europe but manages its accounts in Asia in a way that will allow trade transactions to continue.

Iran has abandoned the dollar in oil trading in favor of the yen, citing the weakness of US currency for its decision.

Iran has been selling nearly 700,000 barrels of crude oil to Japan on a daily basis in yen since mid-2007, Talaei concluded.

The US has imposed sanctions against Iranian banks and continues to persuade countries to halt their business relations with Tehran.

While some are of the opinion that sanctions have crippled Iran’s economy, the refusal of financial institutions in Russia, China and Middle Eastern countries have proven such efforts futile.

Iran’s annual international trade has reportedly exceeded 65 billion dollars and some foreign banks that had frozen Iranian assets have released the country’s holdings.

MK/AA

Source

British Foreign Office’s attempted censorship

of

Craig Murray’s book “Murder in Samarkind”

A film version of this book is supposed to be imminent. Wonder if they’ve been told to wait until after the US elections?

Craig now offers a link to the Foreign Office document:

http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/murray/FCO_Comment.pdf

RUSSIA STANDS UP for NEW WORLD WITHOUT AMERICA

The XII World Economic Forum, which took place last week in St. Petersburg, will be remembered for its daring statements made by Russia’s top economic officials. The opening speech made by President Dmitry Medvedev produced a furore.

“Today Russia is a global player. Realizing our responsibility for the fate of the world, we would like to participate in the creation of new rules of the game not because of the notorious imperial ambition, but because of the fact that we have official opportunities and resources,” Medvedev said.

Medvedev’s statement is based on the extremely unfavorable situation in the world economy. According to Medvedev, the economic crisis, which may become the hardest crisis in history, shows that the system of global financial institutes in its current state does not correspond to present-day challenges. There is virtually no international organization where decisions could be developed and made. Global institutes managing international finances are incapable of showing influence on the strategies of financial market members.

Dmitry Medvedev did not hesitate to point out the major initiator of the unfortunate situation. He believes that the formal role of the United States of America in the global economic system does not comply with its real possibilities.

Russia’s president stressed out that Russia was doing everything to let the country avoid possible economic disasters and make it become one of the world’s economic leaders.

“Turning Moscow into a strong world financial center and turning the Russian ruble into one of the leading regional reserve currencies are the key constituents aimed to provide the competitive ability to the national financial system,” Dmitry Medvedev said.

Medvedev has made a timely statement of Russia’s aspiration to become the new economic and political center in the world. The economic isolation of the USA inevitably makes many countries look for new centers of gravity. The concept of building the new economy without America, but with the help of Russia’s growing influence, may seem to be quite alluring to many. The development of USA’s internal economic problems into the global crisis may lead to significant changes in the structure of the world economy. As a result, new centers of gravity may turn out to be successful.
Russia can indeed increase its influence in the world economy if the USA’s role declines due to the developing crisis. On the other hand, it is not clear how strong the crisis will be and how exactly it will affect the USA. Specialists say that there are no reasons for the US economic system to collapse. There is also no evidence to prove that the current crisis will become the hardest crisis in history and the fatal crisis for the USA. Quite on the contrary, analysts say that the economies of developed countries, the USA and the European Union first and foremost, will start to recover next year. In addition, they will be able to avoid the development of the inflation rate.

If these forecasts are true, the USA will obviously preserve its dominating position in the economy of the whole world. The developed and the developing world will be holding on to the US economy as long as it will be possible. It is an open secret that any global changes in the world economic system are accompanied by colossal damage caused to its members.

That is why Dmitry Medvedev’s statements at the XII World Economic forum in St. Petersburg can be described as offensive reconnaissance rather than guidelines to action. In any case, Medvedev’s statements testify to Russia’s obvious progress in international politics.

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/105467-0/

Israel’s confrontation with Iran may begin with an invasion of Gaza

It’s been a year since Hamas asserted its rightful role as the democratically elected government in the Gaza Strip after corrupt Fatah forces there had unsuccessfully tried to usurp Hamas’s governance of the Palestinian enclave. Hamas’s victory in the January 2006 elections was not recognised by Israel or the US, the two nations on our planet that scream loudest about the necessity of democracy in the region. Instead, they ensured that the corrupt Fatah organisation under Abbas took control of Palestinian affairs, a move that, while successful in the West Bank, was unsuccessful in the Gaza.

Ever since Hamas took control of the Gaza, the Israelis have hounded the Gazan Palestinians, in many cases, literally to death through bombing and denial of basic health access. Hundreds of men, women and children have died through indiscriminate IDF helicopter gunship and strike fighter aircraft attacks on the densely populated Gaza Strip. Tens of thousands more are suffering through the lack fuel and other supplies. Scores have died through not being allowed to leave the Gaza for proper medical treatment. Homes have been demolished and much of what little productive land remains that is able to provide food has been bulldozed bare by the Israelis. All this has been in an effort to dislodge Hamas from their position of governance. In short, the Gazan people are being collectively punished for having had the temerity to exercise their democratic rights voting in a government that the Israel and the US do not accept.

In an effort to stem and deter the Israeli attacks on the Gazan people and their government, Palestinian fighters have launched crude and largely ineffective rockets against Israel, acts that Israel simply uses as an excuse for even more attacks against the Gazan people.

During the past year the Israelis have threatened to launch a full-on invasion of the Gaza to oust Hamas from power using Hamas’s futile rocket attacks against Israel as the casus belli for such an invasion. Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister has on countless occasions threatened such action but, as yet, has not carried it out despite Hamas and other Palestinian fighters continuing to launch their rockets against Israel.

Israel has always sought to justify anything they do militarily by telling the world that they are merely acting in response to acts committed against them by their Arab enemies. They rarely strike openly without trying to find some excuse to justify their crimes, even if it is one that they have had to invent for the purpose.

As the USS Liberty Affair and the Lavon Affair demonstrated in the past, the Israelis are not above committing crimes themselves and then deflecting blame for those crimes onto others in order to get other nations to help their fight wars with them or, better still, for them. Nor are the Israelis above getting non-Israeli Diaspora Jews that support the Zionist dream to work toward those ends. Jewish-American neoconservatives whose loyalties to Israel are stronger than their loyalties to the US together with their non-Jewish supporters have orchestrated and manipulated US governmental affairs over the last eight years in such a way as to benefit Israel. As a direct result of 9/11, a crime that is now increasingly being questioned with regard to who the true perpetrators were, the US is launching an all out propaganda war against Islam. It also provided the casus belli for an attack against the peoples of Afghanistan where Israel says its enemies hide, and it also provided the casus belli for the invasion and destruction of Iraq, a country led by Saddam Hussein who financially supported the Palestinian cause but had nothing to do with 9/11.

Iran is now the only nation left that is powerful enough to stand in the way of the Zionist’s dream of a Greater Israel that includes the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the Shebaa Farms and south Lebanon up to the Litani River. Without Iran to supply and support Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas the Israeli Zionists believe that their dream of a Greater Israel can be realised.

All they need is an excuse, a casus belli, to attack Iran but it is something that they cannot do alone; they need the US to do it for them. Hamas in the Gaza may just be the fuse they need to ignite their final confrontation against Iran. By attacking Hamas, Israel knows that Hezbollah will likely come to their aid by launching rockets against northern Israel. This, as in the last war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, will be the excuse the Israelis need to launch an all-out attack against and an invasion of Lebanon. The first sign of any Iranian weapons being used by Hezbollah against the Israelis will be all that is needed to launch a deadly aerial bombardment campaign against Iran designed to force capitulation and regime change.

The on-again-off-again threatened attack against Hamas in the Gaza that could well spark a confrontation between Israel and Iran, drawing in the US, is being threatened again.

The world should make no mistake about what is happening. Hamas and their hold on the Gaza are being used by the Israelis to provide the launch pad for their final confrontation with Iran.

http://lataan.blogspot.com/2008/06/its-all-matter-of-timing-for-israels.html

Canada’s growing support for Israel

Ron Csillag

For many Canadian Jews, the country’s prime minister has been more than just a breath of fresh air when it comes to support for Israel. They wonder whether Stephen Harper may be too good to be true.

TORONTO (JTA) — For many Canadian Jews, the country’s prime minister has been more than just a breath of fresh air when it comes to support for Israel. They wonder whether Stephen Harper may be too good to be true.

Elected with a minority Conservative government in January 2006, Harper has left an unmistakable record of solidly and unapologetically pro-Israel moves and statements, mostly to the delight of the country’s 370,000 Jews.

For example, at Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations marking Israel’s 60th birthday earlier this month, the 7,000 audience members thundered their approval when Harper declared Canada’s “unshakable support” for the Jewish state before adding, “Our government believes that those who threaten Israel also threaten Canada.”

For many Jewish observers, the warm words are a far cry from the tepid and sometimes hostile attitude of the Liberal Party, which governed Canada longer than any party and all but took the Jewish vote for granted.

Indeed, Canadian Jews have tended to vote Liberal. One informal study showed that during the 1970s, the years of Pierre Trudeau, they voted for the Liberals at a rate 20 percent higher than the national average.

The last survey of Jewish views, in 1987, found that among rabbis, Jewish academics and community leaders in Montreal and Toronto, 41 percent called themselves Liberals, 21 percent Conservatives and 15 percent aligned with the left-wing New Democratic Party.

For Rochelle Wilner, a former president of the right-leaning B’nai Brith Canada, the Conservative Tories’ pro-Israel stance has been refreshing.

“You have no idea,” she sighs, adding that the talk on the Jewish street “is definitely in support of Harper, his principles and policies.”

Wilner is running as a Conservative for a Toronto-area seat in Parliament in the next election, which is widely expected later this year or in early 2009. Currently there are no Jewish members in the Parliament in the governing party — a first since 1980.

At the United Nations, Harper’s government has continued a trend that began in the late stages of the previous Liberal government.

The Canada-Israel Committee reports that in the past three years, there have been 13 “constructive vote changes” — including shifts from a “yes” or “no” to abstentions — on issues related to Palestine and Israel.

In March, Canada provided the lone dissenting vote when the 47-seat U.N. Human Rights Council voted overwhelmingly to condemn Israel for its armed incursions into the Gaza Strip.

In substance, Canada’s Middle East policy has not changed under the Conservatives. It still recognizes Israel’s “right to assure its own security,” and calls for the “creation of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestinian state as part of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement.”

But like his fellow evangelical Protestants, Harper seems to be a genuine fan of Israel and Canadian Jewry. His championing of Israel “is personal and philosophical,” the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s Larry Zolf noted in a recent online column.

“He admires Israel’s toughness and military elan,” Zolf wrote.

As Wilner sees it, Harper’s support for Israel is a result of his living “by a code of ethics and principles. “

“He has a moral compass and he’s guided by that; I honestly think it’s that simple,” she said. “There’s nothing hidden. Often he has said he supports Israel because it’s the morally right thing to do.”

Even so, many opine that Harper and his Tories have left Canada open to accusations that its much-vaunted neutrality is gone.

“That Canadian attempt at even-handedness has utterly disappeared under Stephen Harper, who lavishly celebrated Israel’s 60th anniversary with promises of Canada’s ‘unshakeable’ support while utterly ignoring the fact that this is also an anniversary — although a very different one — for the Palestinians,” left-wing columnist Linda McQuaig wrote recently in the Toronto Star.

Harper’s seeming shift was most evident at the outset of Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon, when the prime minister said he supported Israel’s “right to defend itself” and described its military campaign in Lebanon as “measured.”

At a huge rally for Israel in Toronto that summer, well-known Jewish film producer Robert Lantos received a thunderous ovation when he thanked Harper for his government’s “principled support” and said he was doffing his “lifelong federal Liberal hat.”

Lantos was soon joined in the Tory fold by other high-profile Jewish Liberals, including Gerry Schwartz , the president of the Onex Corp., and his wife, Heather Reisman, the CEO of Indigo Books & Music.

In January, Canada provided Israel another boost when Ottawa announced it would boycott the follow-up to the 2001 anti-racism conference in South Africa. The Harper government assailed the Durban parley as a “gong show” and “a circus of intolerance” directed mainly at Israel.

The follow-up conference will take place in Geneva in April 2009.

But what do all these positions mean on the political battlefield?

“There’s been some shift” toward the Conservatives among Jews, “but it’s not as big as most people think,” says longtime Liberal pollster Martin Goldfarb. “Israel is not the only issue facing Jews. They are not a one-issue people.”

Indeed, while mainstream Canadian Jews tend to be very supportive of — and hawkish on — Israel, on domestic matters such as social policy, immigration, justice and anti-racism programs, they tend to be far more liberal, Goldfarb said.

Thus, many Jews in Canada, Goldfarb included, find themselves torn between the Conservatives’ support for Israel and the rest of their agenda.

“I like what Mr. Harper is doing with respect to his Middle East policy, but I am not yet prepared to vote for the Conservatives” because of a series of other issues that affect the middle class and lower middle class, he said.

As examples, Goldfarb cited tax policies, post-secondary education, crumbling cities, and health and child care.

McGill University sociologist Morton Weinfeld, Canada’s pre-eminent watcher of Jewish trends, agrees.

“Those Jews who see the security of Israel at the heart of their political agenda might tend to be more supportive of the Conservatives,” he said, noting that the trend is mirrored among the slight increase in support for Republicans among U.S. Jews, who still vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

“If the security of Israel is your No. 1 defining concern, then you’re less torn,” Weinfeld said. “But if it’s a concern along with other domestic concerns and you are a progressive supporter of Israel, then you are more torn.”

Apart from anecdotal evidence that many Jews “have been struck by the clarity of the Conservative government’s position on Israel,” Weinfeld says there is no hard data to show a large-scale rightward Jewish shift.

http://jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/print/20080528canada05272008.html

British MI6 ‘wants to control EU political institutions’

MOSCOW, June 9 (RIA Novosti) – British intelligence is making attempts to establish control over EU political institutions by means of a series of accusations that allege widespread Russian spying, a high-ranking Russian security official said on Monday.

An article titled ‘Can the EU defend itself?’ published in the prominent business weekly The Economist on May 29 said: “Russian spying in Brussels and Strasbourg…is far better financed, better aimed and better coordinated than ever before.”

It said the efforts of Russia’s elite foreign-intelligence services were now supplemented by the Federal Security Service (FSB), which used to deal solely with internal issues, and involved not only intelligence officers, but also journalists, consultants, and even students.

Commenting on the article, a Russian security expert, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “It is not a coincidence that the article was released almost immediately after EU foreign ministers had approved a mandate for talks on a deal to replace the current Partnership and Cooperation treaty on May 26.”

The negotiations on the new partnership pact are expected to be launched at a Russia-EU summit in Khanty-Mansiisk, Western Siberia, on June 26-27. The old agreement expired in December 2007 and was extended for a further year.

The expert said that after Russia had resolved its disputes with Poland over meat exports and Lithuania over energy supplies, London decided to fuel paranoia and fear of Russia with “Cold-War type spy stories.”

“The British are not happy with the fact that Russia maintains a constructive dialogue with the main European capitals, including Paris, Berlin and Rome,” he said.

In his opinion, London has long been trying to strengthen its positions in the European Union by placing British officials in key posts in the EU’s political structures, while opposing the main mechanisms of European integration, including common currency, free travel and a draft European constitution.

He said London was pursuing its own political agenda and was attempting “to impose on European officials a system of loyalty checks and constant surveillance in the best traditions of the Cold War” to protect its regional interests and promote far-reaching ambitions.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080609/109661433.html

WARNING PROPAGANDA!!!

The Economist

Can the EU defend itself?

http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/europeview/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11443152