Infinite Unknown

U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and top military commanders from four nations - Britain, France, Germany and Italy - flew into the Adirondack Regional Airport in Lake Clear this weekend aboard the jumbo jet that is used as Air Force 2 when the vice president is aboard. The group of powerful military leaders met in Lake Placid to discuss mutual security issues, including Afghanistan. Photo: Larry Miller

Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff and military leaders from several countries discuss Afghanistan and other issues.

LAKE PLACID - Some of the most powerful military commanders in the world met in Lake Placid over the weekend.

Speculation was rife after a C-32, the military equivalent to a Boeing 757 airliner, touched down Friday at the Adirondack Regional Airport in Lake Clear.

The 155-foot-long jumbo jet, which is used as Air Force 2 when the vice president is aboard, was emblazoned with “United States of America” on the side and parked on the eastern edge of the airport.

“I was contacted by the Department of Defense approximately a month ago, and they indicated they had some foreign dignitaries that they wanted to bring in through the airport,” said Ross Dubarry, the airport’s manager.

Following the landing, a motorcade led by State Police rushed Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and top military commanders from four nations - Britain, France, Germany and Italy - to a resort in Lake Placid.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Air Force, Defense Department, France, Germany, Government, Italy, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen, Military, NATO, Politics, U.K., U.S.

Major industrialised economies will suffer the worst slump since the 1930s, according to new research from Deutsche Bank.

Worst slump since Great Depression: Bud Fields and his family in their home during the Great Depression in Alabama, 1935. Photo: Corbis

The warning underlines the fact that policymakers have failed to prevent the financial crisis from turning into a full-blown economic slump. It comes as world leaders agreed to hold a summit in New York billed as the “Bretton Woods meeting for the 21st century”.

In its major assessment of the global economy’s health, Deutsche Bank also warned that Britain is even more vulnerable than the US or the euro area, as it predicted that the powerhouses of India and China would fail to support the wider global economy through the downturn.

The banks’ economists Thomas Mayer and Peter Hooper said: “We now expect a major recession for the world economy over the year ahead, with growth in the industrial countries falling to its lowest level since the Great Depression and global growth falling to 1.2pc, its lowest level since the severe downturn of the early 1980s.”

According to the International Monetary Fund, global growth of anything less than 3pc constitutes a world recession. The warning was echoed by Richard Berner of Morgan Stanley, who said: “A global recession is now under way, and risks are still pointed to the downside for commodity prices and earnings.”

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Tags: bailout, Canada, China, Depression, Deutsche Bank, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, France, George Bush, Germany, Government, IMF, India, Italy, Nicolas Sarkozy, Politics, Recession, Russia, U.K., U.N.

The official publication of the first intermediate results of the International Interphone Study from the International Research Centre on Cancer (CIRC) dependent on WHO confirms the increased tumors and cancer cases due to the use of mobile phone.

The Use Of Mobile Phone Is Carcinogenic: Here (PDF)

INTERPHONE Results latest update Oct. 08, 2008: Interphone Results Update (PDF)

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Tags: Australia, Brain, brain tumor, Canada, Cancer, Cell Phone, children, Denmark, Electrosmog, France, Germany, Health, Italy, Japan, Mobile Phone, Radiation, Science, Technology, Tumors, U.K., WHO

Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland and Austria have joined forces to launch the greatest bank bail-out in history, offering over €1.5 trillion in guarantees and fresh capital in a “shock and awe” blitz to halt the credit panic.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy Photo: PHILIPPE WOJAZER

The move - unveiled simultaneously in the six states to maximise the show of unity - throws the full weight of the eurozone behind global efforts to stem the crisis.

The move gave a tremendous boost to bourses across Europe, lifting the Euro Stoxx index by 9.53pc in the biggest one-day rally ever.

The pan-European plan - totalling over $2 trillion, or £1.17 trillion - completes the third leg of a dramatic restructuring of finance across the Western world. Sovereign states have now absorbed the brunt of the credit risk in half the global economy.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Austria, Beldium, BMW, Economy, EU, financial crisis, France, Germany, Government, Henry Paulson, Holland, IMF, Italy, Politics, Treasury

The UK stock market has suffered its worst one-day fall in history as the banking crisis intensified.

The FTSE-100 index of Britain’s biggest companies dropped by 391.06 points - its steepest ever fall - to end the day down 7.9 per cent.

The FTSE’s tumble was mirrored across Europe, as markets in France, Germany, Italy and Spain all recorded heavy falls.

On Wall Street, the panic drove the Dow Jones Industrial Average down through the 10,000 level for the first time in four years. The Dow was off 4.6 per cent at 9580.68 by lunchtime in New York as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 5 per cent. The mild euphoria that greeted the passage of the $700bn bail-out of Wall Street on Friday evaporated as traders digested the more bad news from Europe.

A statement by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, to Parliament failed to calm nerves with the stock market taking a further dive as he spoke.

The Chancellor refused to outline firm plans to deal with the crisis - however, he confirmed the Government was working on a radical scheme which could be implemented in the coming weeks.

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Tags: Economy, Germany, Government, Italy, Politics, Spain, Stock Market, U.K., U.S., Wall Street

ROME: Alitalia might stop flying within a week if unions don’t change course and accept a rescue plan offered by Italian investors, Italy’s transport minister said Sunday.

The only hope for the survival of Italy’s bankrupt flagship airline is for union leaders to agree to the investors’ terms, and for the government to convince the investors to put the deal back on the table, Minister Altero Matteoli told Sky TG24 TV.

“Alitalia has only very few days left, surely less than a week,” unless a deal is made, he said.

The investors withdrew their offer to acquire some of Alitalia’s more potentially profitable assets after some unions, including pilots’ representatives, rebuffed the deal.

Other unions for Alitalia employees have accepted the plan, which calls for some 3,250 layoffs among the airline’s 20,000 workers, the elimination or reduction of loss-making routes and the sale of many aircraft.

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Tags: airlines, Economy, Government, Italy, Politics

Germany, the UK and Spain all face recessions this year, the European Commission forecast yesterday, dashing finally any remaining hopes that Europe would avoid a sharp economic downturn. France and Italy would fare little better, it said.

The steep downward revisions in growth forecasts by the European Union’s executive arm showed it had accepted that tumbling business and consumer confidence was hitting economic activity - even though the European economy had been “generally sound” prior to the credit crisis .

Joaquin Almunia, economics and monetary affairs commissioner, described the environment as “difficult and uncertain”. As well as financial turmoil and a near doubling of oil prices over the past year, significant housing market corrections in some countries were taking their toll, he said.

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Tags: Credit Crisis, credit crunch, ECB, Economy, EU, France, Inflation, Italy, Recession, Spain, Trichet, U.K.

By Paul Craig Roberts

Pervez Musharraf, the puppet installed by the US to rule Pakistan in the interest of US hegemony, resigned August 18 to avoid impeachment. Karl Rove and the Diebold electronic voting machines were unable to control the result of the last election in Pakistan, the result of which gave Pakistanis a bigger voice in their government than America’s.

It was obvious to anyone with any sense–which excludes the entire Bush Regime and almost all of the “foreign policy community”–that the illegal and gratuitous US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israel’s 2006 bombing of Lebanon civilians with US blessing, would result in the overthrow of America’s Pakistani puppet.

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Tags: Bush administration, England, France, George Bush, Georgia, Germany, Government, Israel, Italy, John Perkins, Mikhail Saakashvili, Military, Neoconservatives, New World Order, nuclear, nuclear war, Pakistan, Paul Craig Roberts, Pentagon, Politics, Russia, U.S., Vladimir Putin, War

As soldiers prepare to be deployed on Italian streets, a city mayor has been accused of Fascism after he passed an edict banning groups of more than three people congregating in parks and public gardens.

Critics have complained that the sight of gun-toting soldiers on Italian streets will have a negative effect Photo: AFP/GETTY

The anti-gathering laws were enacted as thousands of soldiers were due to take to the streets of Italian cities for the first time on Monday under a controversial move by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to fight crime.

Massimo Giordano, a member of Italy’s anti immigration Northern League party, defended the anti-gathering motion and claimed it would cut down on unruly behaviour.

However opposition councillors said it was “reminiscent of Benito Mussolini’s edict of the 1920’s which banned groups of five or more people”.

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Tags: Benito Mussolini, Fascism, Government, Italy, New World Order, Police State, Politics, Silvio Berlusconi

The U.S. would see this as an act of war, if someone would do it to them.
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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union has agreed to go beyond United Nations sanctions on Iran, instructing its financial institutions to exercise “restraint” on export credits and allowing its navies to inspect all Iran-bound cargoes, a senior diplomat said on Wednesday.

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Tags: China, EU, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Nuclear weapons, Russia, U.K., U.N., U.S., uranium, War