NEWS SNIPPETS 31ST MAY 2012

RT News - Bilderberg 2012: Secretive summit kicks-off in Virginia 

Daily Mail - 'Machine gun nests and unprecedented security' for secretive Bilderberg meeting of captains of industry and government leaders

The Bilderberg Group, a collection of top captains of industry and western government leaders, is gathering for its annual meeting this weekend under unprecedented security. 
Reports from the Mariott Westfields Hotel in Chantilly, Virginia, indicate security officials have set up machine gun nests and are deploying satellite surveillance and other sophisticated monitoring equipment to keep guests safe. 
Conspiracy theorists say the closed-door, invitation-only gatherings of 150 of the most powerful people in North America and Western Europe are ground zero for the New World Order, the place where the influential collude to steer the course of human history. 
This year, 1,000 people are signed for an 'Occupy Bilderberg' protest, which is spurring the extra-tight security, according to right-wing journalist and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
As Guardian columnist Charlie Skelton puts it, Bilderberg isn't about the 1 percent -- it's the 0.001 percent. 
Among the attendees of recent meetings are: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, World Bank president Robert Zoellick, European Commission head José Manuel Barroso, Queen Sofia of Spain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. 
The steering committee members include Marcus Agius, the chairman of Barclays; Mario Monte, the Italian Prime Minister; Craig Mundie, the Chief Research Officer for Microsoft; Peter Thiel, one of the venture capitalists behind Facebook; Kenneth Clarke, the British Secretary of Justice; and Jorma Ollila, the chairman of Royal Dutch Shell
David Rockefeller is a key adviser. 
Conspiracy theorists are floating the notion that members will 'anoint' Florida Sen Marco Rubio to become vice president on Mitt Romney's Republican ticket this year.  
Bilderberg members say their meetings are simply gatherings of important people who come together to discuss the world's problems. 
The Greek debt crisis and instability in the Eurozone are top considerations this year. 
However, Mr Jones, a radio talk show host who runs a popular news website, reports that pressure from the occupy movement has organizers stepping up security. 
Guests who had made reservations at the posh hotel in suburban Washington, DC, are being refunded and refused access. 
One guest who was being kicked out of the hotel to make room for the Bilderberg conference claimed she saw machine gun nests being set up to guard against the protestors, Mr Jones claims. 
He also claims that security officials are using sophisticated surveillance technology to tap the phones of protestors. Skelton, of the Guardian, says he witnessed hotel security staffers using iPhones to record anyone they saw in the hotel in the run-up to the conference.
See Article

The Rock River Times - Protesters to confront Bilderberg Group meeting in Virginia
CHANTILLY, Va. — A secret meeting of approximately 100-150 elite politicians, financiers and industrialists known as the Bilderberg Group is taking place in Chantilly, Va., May 31-June 3 at the Marriot Washington Dulles Hotel. 
The group has met at luxury resorts around the world annually since 1954, taking its name after the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland, where they first met to “hatch their plan for world domination,” according to their detractors. 
Popular conspiracy author and activist Mark Dice will be leading a protest in front of the hotel for four straight days, along with hundreds of others who will be joining him to raise awareness of this little-known meeting. Dice is calling the protest “Bilderbergfest.”
For decades, the American mainstream media have largely ignored the conference, but in recent years, the blackout is lifting, largely because of pressure from Dice and his supporters “flooding newsrooms with tips” about the organization, urging news outlets to cover it. 
The Bilderberg Group, once written off as the figment of the imagination of conspiracy theorists, is a real meeting, although little media attention has been given to the organization. Bilderbergers claim their meeting is nothing more than a private discussion group, while others see them as secretly dividing up the world and coordinating global policy, something that should be done by Congress out in the open for public scrutiny. 
“Each year when the G20 and G8 forums take place, it’s top news around the world,” Dice said. “But every single year, the Bilderberg Group meets, and there is barely a mention. Obviously, there is an agreement between the Bilderberg Group and the mainstream media in America to maintain a near-complete blackout.”
Last year, the Drudge Report posted several links to European newspapers covering the event when it took place in Saint Moritz, Switzerland, but coverage on the mainstream television networks, newspapers and newsmagazines in the United States has been astonishingly nonexistent. 
“When you look at the independent journalists and bloggers who have photographed and videotaped the attendees at the Bilderberg Group, it’s quite shocking that the major news networks have never even touched the issue,” Dice said.
“How could this not be news?” Dice continued. “How is it that, year after year, 120 of the world’s most powerful men meet in secret for three days, and yet there isn’t a word of it mentioned in the American media?”
Dice recently obtained some of the group’s tax records, which include lists of donors who help fund the meetings and pay for the hotel and security. They operate under the business entity “American Friends of Bilderberg” as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt foundation. 
Documents show that in 2008, they received $645,000 in contributions, with money coming from Goldman Sachs, The Washington Post, Microsoft, Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and others. Dice has published the records from 2007 to 2010 on his website, www.markdice.com.
Dice is a conservative libertarian and the author of several books about conspiracies and secret societies, including The Illuminati: Facts and Fiction, which analyzes the various conspiracy theories surrounding elite secret societies and private organizations such as the Bilderberg Group, the Federal Reserve and Bohemian Grove. He has been featured in various conspiracy television shows, documentary films and is a frequent guest on conspiracy talk radio shows.  See Article

Global Research ca - Germany’s six-point plan for sweatshop Europe - by Peter Schwarz
It is now common practice to smash up wages and workers’ rights by initiating bankruptcy proceedings. The best known case is the American auto giant General Motors, which laid off 30,000 workers, slashed wages in half for new-hires, and cut retiree benefits. If the German government gets its way, this procedure will be applied to entire countries.
According to a report in the news magazine Der Spiegel, the chancellery in Berlin has drawn up a six-point plan for far-reaching “structural reforms” in Greece and other highly indebted European Union countries. The plan includes the sale of state enterprises, the gutting of employment protection rights, the promotion of a low-wage labor sector, the removal of constraints on businesses, and the establishment of special economic zones and privatization agencies modeled on the German Treuhand.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert has not confirmed the plan, but neither has he denied it. According to Der Spiegel, it will form the basis for negotiations at the European Union’s so-called “growth summit” in late June. Der Spiegel writes that Chancellor Angela Merkel will seize on the call for a growth policy by newly elected French President Francois Hollande, “applying the principle of judo fighters: employing the momentum of the opponent to mount one’s own attack.”
If Merkel gets her way, “growth” will be achieved entirely through the intensified exploitation of workers and not through any plan for economic revival or increased social expenditures. She assumes Hollande will be open to these proposals since the EU summit will take place after the June 17 French parliamentary elections and the new French president will no longer be constrained by voters’ opinions or his own campaign promises.
The German government is striving to impose levels of exploitation similar to those currently existing only in Eastern Europe and Asian cheap-labor havens such as China and Vietnam. Special economic zones have played a crucial role in the emergence of China as the world’s biggest sweatshop. These zones free companies from paying taxes or adhering to environmental regulations and labor standards, reducing workers to the status of impoverished industrial slaves.
The model for the privatization agencies recommended by the experts in the chancellor’s office is the Treuhand, which obliterated the industrial landscape of East Germany following the collapse of the Stalinist regime in 1989. Run by hand-picked confidants of big business and the banks and not answerable to any democratic bodies, the Treuhand decided the fate of millions. It sold off 8,500 companies with 45,000 facilities at fire-sale prices or simply shut them down. Only a small fraction of the original 4 million industrial jobs remained.
The six-point plan drawn up by the chancellery is incompatible with national sovereignty or democracy. The newspaper Tagesspiegel interviewed several German economic experts who were brutally frank in expressing their views on the future prospects for Greece.
See Article

Daily Express - NOW ONLY THE GERMANS STILL LIKE THE EU 
SUPPORT for the European Union has slumped across the continent after the eurozone crisis, an international poll revealed yesterday.
A survey by US public attitude experts showed growing opposition in Britain, France, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland and Greece to wider European integration and disillusionment with Brussels.
It found that 61 per cent of Britons and Italians, 63 per cent of the French and 70 per cent of Greeks were opposed to further integration.
Across the EU, support for Brussels had fallen in every country apart from Germany.
Researchers from the Pew Research Centre in Washington found that 54 per cent of Spaniards were doubtful about their country’s membership of the EU. The only country where enthusiasm for the EU was growing was Germany, which many critics claim is profiting from the debt crisis.
Sixty-five per cent of Germans were keen on membership of the EU, up two per cent since 2009.
But despite the negative attitudes towards Brussels, there was still little enthusiasm for scrapping the euro in eurozone countries.
Only 23 per cent of Greeks wanted a return to the drachma.
In the UK, 73 per cent of voters said being outside the euro was a good thing for the country.
Bruce Stokes, director of Pew’s global economic attitudes project, said: “The irony here is that people who have the euro still want to keep it.” 
The Pew Centre interviewed around 1,000 people in eight EU countries for the poll. See Article

Daily Express - EX-MEDIA TYCOON EDDIE SHAH FACES CHILD RAPE CHARGE 
FORMER media tycoon Eddie Shah was last night charged with repeatedly raping a child.
He is suspected of being part of a sex abuse ring dating back to the early 1990s. 
Shah, from Chippenham, Wilts, was arrested along with a 52-year-old woman from Kent, who cannot be named, and Anthony Pallant, from West Malling in Kent.
Pallant 52, and Shah, 68, are accused of raping the girl over a period of two years with the woman aiding and abetting Shah. 
At the time of the alleged assaults, between 1993 and 1995, the victim was aged between 12 and 15 years old.
The three were released on bail to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court next Thursday.
Shah, who founded the Today newspaper in 1986 and later became a property developer, also faces two counts of gross indecency on a girl under 14 involving the same youngster. See Article

Daily Express - EU BEING RIPPED APART AS NATIONS TURN ON BRUSSELS, SAYS DAMNING REPORT
THE eurozone crisis is ripping Europe apart by exposing "sharp differences" in attitudes on the continent, says a damning report.
The current debt storm has "triggered a full-blown crisis of public confidence" as Europeans develop a more negative view of the EU.
The report states that "doubts about European integration have led many Europeans to second guess their own country’s EU membership."
The euro also came under fire as, in France and Italy, under a third believe that the single currency has had a positive impact on their economy.
In Germany, less than half were pleased with the creation of the eurozone.
But, surprisingly, a majority in all those eurozone nations asked want to keep the euro rather than return to their previous currencies.
The report revealed that in most areas, Germany stands alone from the rest of Europe in its support for the EU. See Article

Guardian Correspondent and Comedy Writer Charlie Skelton Talks About the Bilderberg Meetings

It's said the Bilderbergers are meeting tomorrow in America. Here is the first coverage on SKY tv:

Bilderberg Discussion on British TV (Part 1)

"Infowars.com journalist Patrick Henningsen and Guardian correspondent Charlie Skelton discuss the secretive Bilderberg Group on British TV with Edge Media's "On The Edge" show, airing on SKY Channel 200 Controversial TV." 

(UKIP Editor - So does anyone know why Chancellor George Osborne was at the Bilderberg Meeting last year?)

NEWS SNIPPETS WEDNESDAY 30TH MAY 2012

Behind the Green Mask - Rosa Koire (Includes references to EU legislation)

The Guardian - Christine Lagarde, scourge of tax evaders, pays no tax
IMF boss who caused international outrage when she suggested that Greeks should pay their taxes earns a tax-free salary.  Christine Lagarde, the IMF boss who caused international outrage after she suggested in an interview with the Guardian on Friday that beleaguered Greeks might do well to pay their taxes, pays no taxes, it has emerged.
As an official of an international institution, her salary of $467,940 (£298,675) a year plus $83,760 additional allowance a year is not subject to any taxes.
The former French finance minister took over as managing director of the IMF last year when she succeeded her disgraced compatriot Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was forced to resign after he faced charges – later dropped – of sexually attacking a New York hotel maid.
Lagarde, 56, receives a pay and benefits package worth more than American president Barack Obama earns from the United States government, and he pays taxes on it.
The same applies to nearly all United Nations employees – article 34 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations of 1961, which has been signed by 187 states, declares: "A diplomatic agent shall be exempt from all dues and taxes, personal or real, national, regional or municipal."
According to Lagarde's contract she is also entitled to a pay rise on 1 July every year during her five-year contract.
Base salaries range from $46,000 to $80,521. Senior salaries range between $95,394 and $123,033 but these are topped up with adjustments for the cost of living in different countries. A UN worker based in Geneva, for example, will see their base salary increased by 106%, in Bonn by 50.6%, Paris 62% and Peshawar 38.6%. Even in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, one of the poorest areas of the world, a UN employee's salary will be increased by 53.2%.
Other benefits include rent subsidies, dependency allowances for spouses and children, education grants for school-age children and travel and shipping expenses, as well as subsidised medical insurance.
For many years critics have complained that IMF, World Bank, and United Nations employees are able to live large at international taxpayers' expense.  See Article
See Original Story It's payback time: don't expect sympathy – Lagarde to Greeks

The Telegraph - Europe’s debtors must pawn their gold for Eurobond Redemption
Southern Europe’s debtor states must pledge their gold reserves and national treasure as collateral under a €2.3 trillion stabilisation plan gaining momentum in Germany. 
The German scheme -- known as the European Redemption Pact -- offers a form of "Eurobonds Lite" that can be squared with the German constitution and breaks the political logjam. It is a highly creative way out of the debt crisis, but is not a soft option for Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other states in trouble.
The plan is drafted by the German Council of Economic Experts and inspired by Alexander Hamilton’s Sinking Fund in the United States -- created in 1790 to clean up the morass of debts left by the Revolutionary War. Flourishing Virginia was comparable to Germany today.
Chancellor Angela Merkel shot down the proposals last November as "completely impossible", but Europe’s crisis has since festered, and her Christian Democrat party has since suffered crushing defeats in regional elections.
The Social Democrat opposition supports the idea. The Greens say they will block ratification of the EU Fiscal Compact in the German Bundesrat -- or upper house -- unless Mrs Merkel relents.
"The Redemption Pact cleverly combines the advantages of lower interest rates through joint European borrowing with a reduction of debt," says Green leader Jürgen Trittin. "Joint liability would be limited in both time and scale."  See Article

RT News - Keiser Report: Asymmetric Accounting (E294) 
(UKIP Editor - The second half of this film talks about 'Brown's Bottom' when Gordon Brown destroyed the UK's Gold reserve)

The Telegraph - Spanish data underscore dangerous economic slide
Spanish retail sales plunged a record 9.8pc last month underscoring a dangerous economic slide that could derail Madrid's efforts to shore-up its banks and struggling regions.  
Shoppers axed their spending in April compared to the same time last year, a drastically steeper decline than the 3.8pc drop in March and the 22nd monthly fall in a row. The Bank of Spain warned that economy will shrink again in the second quarter.
It came as Madrid, which has insisted it can cope without a bail-out, forged ahead with eleventh-hour reforms, as its stocks fell and its benchmark borrowing costs hit 6.5pc, with a fresh low against German bunds. The euro dropped to a near three-and-a-half year low against the pound.
Traders, meanwhile, targeted Spanish banks and Bankia in particular. The newly nationalised lender managed to shock markets again with the disclosure that its bosses shared a €22m pay-out despite needing a €19bn state rescue. Bankia's parent company restated its 2011 results to reflect a €3.3bn loss as opposed to a €41m profit.
Mariano Rajoy's government appeared to scrap plans to inject Bankia with government debt but analysts said botched nationalisation plans had already seriously damaged Spain. See Article

The Telegraph - Flame: world's most complex computer virus exposed
The world's most complex computer virus, possessing a range of complex espionage capabilities, including the ability to secretly record conversations, has been exposed. 
Middle Eastern states were targeted and Iran ordered an emergency review of official computer installations after the discovery of a new virus, known as Flame.
Experts said the massive malicious software was 20 times more powerful than other known cyber warfare programmes including the Stuxnet virus and could only have been created by a state.
It is the third cyber attack weapon targeting systems in the Middle East to be exposed in recent years.
Iran has alleged that the West and Israel are orchestrating a secret war of sabotage using yber warfare and targeted assassinations of its scientists as part of the dispute over its nuclear programme.
Stuxnet attacked Iran's nuclear programme in 2010, while a related programme, Duqu, named after the Star Wars villain, stole data. See Article

The Guardian - Julian Assange to find out extradition fate on Wednesday
WikiLeaks founder faces deportation to Sweden if supreme court rules European arrest warrant is valid.  The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, will discover on Wednesday whether he is to be deported to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault when the supreme court delivers its verdict on his appeal.
The seven-strong panel of justices is expected to focus on the narrow issue of whether or not the European arrest warrant (EAW) requesting the 40-year-old Australian's extradition, which has been issued by the Swedish prosecutor, is valid.
EU treaty provisions governing extradition specify that a warrant must be drawn up by "competent judicial authorities". Lawyers for Assange argue that a prosecutor is not a judge or a "judicial" official. The court's judgment, expected to be relatively short, will include an explanation of the reasons for the decision.
Clare Montgomery QC, for the Swedish authorities, had argued that the arrest warrant was valid because judicial authorities, at least in the preliminary stages of investigations where arrest is being sought, need not be independent and impartial.
If the supreme court blocks the Swedish extradition request it could throw the EAW system into turmoil and have significant implications for other extradition cases within Europe. See Article

The Guardian - Italy earthquake kills at least 15
Fifteen people die and buildings collapse as 5.8-magnitude quake hits northern Italy, scene of tremors nine days ago. Italy was searching through earthquake debris for the second time in nine days on Tuesday , after a 5.8-magnitude tremor shook the region of Emilia Romagna, killing at least 16 people and bringing down buildings damaged by a quake that hit the area on 20 May.
At least seven people were missing and 350 were left injured by the tremor, which centred on the town of Mirandola, 25 miles north-west of Bologna, and was felt as far away as Austria.
The Italian government said 8,000 people were left homeless, adding to the 6,000 already sleeping in tents and temporary accommodation after the first, 6.0-magnitude quake, which struck the same area in the early hours and killed seven.
The latest quake occurred at 9am when more factories were open – causing the higher death toll. See Article

The Guardian - Gas rebranded as green energy by EU
Victory for gas lobby as aims of €80bn EU renewable energy programme altered to channel money to 'low-carbon' fossil fuel. Energy from gas power stations has been rebranded as a green, low-carbon source of power by a €80bn European Union programme, in a triumph of the deep-pocketed fossil fuel industry lobby over renewable forms of power.
In a secret document seen by the Guardian, a large slice of billions of euros of funds that are supposed to be devoted to research and development into renewables such as solar and wave power are likely to be diverted instead to subsidising the development of the well-established fossil fuel.
The news comes as a report from the respected International Energy Agency predicted a "golden age for gas" with global production of "unconventional" sources of gas (notably shale gas extracted by hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking') tripling by 2035. See Article

The Daily Express - INTEREST RATES ON HOLD FOR 5 YEARS
INTEREST rates will stay at a record low for five more years, according to experts on Britain’s money markets.
They predicted yesterday that the Bank of England will not raise the 0.5 per cent base rate until around 2017. 
A rise is now further away than at any time since the financial crisis began. The forecast throws an economic lifeline to millions of homeowners struggling to cope with soaring bills as the cost of living rises.
Lenders responded with the first cuts in home loan costs. Barclays and Virgin Money announced they would reduce some rates on fixed mortgage deals by 0.2 per cent. Other banks are expected to follow.
But the news will devastate millions of savers who have seen their assets eroded by inflation while getting little or no return on their investments. And the rates look set to stay low for years, according to Jonathan Samuels, chief executive of lender Dragonfly Property Finance. 
He said: “If there’s one saving grace in the current financial storm, it’s the fact that interest rates are so low. See Article

The Daily Express - KEN CLARKE: EU REFERENDUM IS SILLY
KENNETH Clarke faced a furious backlash last night after dismissing calls for a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union as “irrelevant and silly”.
In a provocative swipe at the Tory Right, the Justice Secretary and veteran europhile rubbished supporters of a nationwide poll on Britain’s links with Brussels as “a few extreme nationalists”. 
His astonishing outburst in a live radio rant was seen as an insult to more than 370,000 Daily Express readers who have backed this newspaper’s crusade for the UK to quit the EU.
Mr Clarke also admitted the Tories would lose a snap general election if one were held today and confessed to being surprised that the Coalition was not more unpopular than recent opinion polls suggest.
He spoke out amid growing expectations from Tory MPs that David Cameron will come out in favour of an EU referendum by the next election.
Interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Clarke dismissed claims that backing an EU referendum could help revive Tory fortunes. “It’s a complete non sequitur,” he said. “A referendum on our membership of the EU is an irrelevance.” He added: “It is the demand of a few Right-wing journalists and a few extreme nationalist politicians. I cannot think of anything sillier to do than to hold a referendum. 
“It would settle nothing with the more frenzied Eurosceptics, who keep believing that European bogies are under the bed.
“I think the nation is a bit Eurosceptic. The nation is extremely worried about present events, as well we might be. We all feel insecure, we’re hoping strong government will take us through, and some difficult measures are required.” 
Last night Mr Clarke repeated his claims, telling Channel 4 News: “To actually start going on about a referendum now is a useless. See Article

The Daily Express - 'QUIT BRUSSELS' SAY TORIES
MORE than two thirds of grassroots Tories want Britain to quit the European Union, an opinion poll revealed last night.
The survey found that 70 per cent of Conservative Party members are in favour of cutting all ties with Brussels.
In a stark message to the Prime Minister on the strength of Euroscepticism in his party, four out of five Tories want an EU referendum pledge in the next election manifesto. Nearly half want this to be an all in-or-out option.
The website ConservativeHome carried out the poll for Channel 4 News. See Article

The Daily Express - CRAZY PLAN TO SLAP TAX ON PRUDENT PENSIONERS
PRUDENT pensioners who have saved up a nest-egg for their old age should lose their bus passes, winter heating allowance and even be forced to pay more tax, it was claimed yesterday.
The money raised would help plug a funding gap for social care for Britain’s ageing population, a healthcare think-tank said.
The suggestion was condemned by pensioners’ leaders as “off the scale of unfairness”.
Without urgent reform of the social care system, the bill for looking after the elderly will rise from £14.6billion in 2010/11 to £23billion in 2025/26, the Nuffield Trust said.
Anita Charlesworth, its chief economist, said: “The social care system is looking increasingly unsustainable. The Government spends some £140billion a year on older people through the health, social care and welfare budgets.
“Would people support shifting some of the money that goes on health and on benefits for betteroff older people to fund a fairer, higher quality social care system?
Or should older people with wealth be asked to contribute more to the social care budget from higher taxes?”
Neil Duncan Jordan, of the National Pensioners’ Convention, said: “This is another example of pensioners paying for pensioners instead of society as whole paying for them. It is an idea off the scale of unfairness. It is totally inequitable.”  See Article

The Daily Mail - The day villagers blew wind turbines away: Victory for the little man as High Court rules in favour of preserving the landscape
Villagers scored a major victory over the wind farm and green lobby yesterday.
A High Court judge ruled their right to preserve their landscape was more important than the Government’s renewable energy targets.
Mrs Justice Lang said building four 350ft turbines would harm the character and appearance of a beauty spot on the edge of the Norfolk Broads. 
The proposal from Sea & Land Power and Energy had already been rejected by both council and government inspectors. 
In what will be seen as a landmark ruling, the judge agreed, saying lower carbon emissions did not take ‘primacy’ over the concerns of the people of Hemsby. 
Maria Ellis, a landscape gardener who petitioned against the turbines, said: ‘This has been hanging over us for ages because the company kept proposing it over and over again which just smacked of arrogance. See Article

The Daily Mail - A new special relationship: Cameron holds eight conversations with Blair on how to run the country
David Cameron has developed a ‘special relationship’ with Tony Blair, holding at least eight conversations with him on how to run the country.
Mr Blair visited Mr Cameron’s official country residence of Chequers last July – a meeting that has previously never been disclosed by Downing Street.
The pair have also had at least seven phone conversations since Mr Cameron took the keys to No10, a rate of around once every three months. Mr Cameron and Mr Blair had a phone chat as recently as February this year. 
They also spoke in January and have another call scheduled for September according to Downing Street sources. Officials have previously admitted Mr Blair has briefed Mr Cameron in his capacity as a Middle East envoy. But the full extent of their conversations has never before been revealed.
Well-placed sources admit their discussions stray far beyond foreign affairs and into how the Government should reform public services and the civil service. They have also discussed the euro crisis and the economy.
Mr Blair has also been advising Mr Cameron on how to cope with the rigours of the job as he undergoes the most testing time of his premiership. See Article

The Daily Mail - Calling someone fat could be made a hate crime
As playground taunts go, it must be the oldest in the book. But calling someone ‘fatty’ should be deemed a hate crime, MPs warn today.
The Government should consider putting ‘appearance-based discrimination’ on a legal par with race and sexual discrimination, a report by the all-party parliamentary group on body image suggests.
The Equalities Act 2010 makes it unlawful to harass, victimise or discriminate against anyone because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, age, or disability.  See Article

Paul Nuttall on Sunday Politics Show - EU in or Out

NEWS SNIPPETS 29TH MAY 2012

Daily Mail - Eating his words! Osborne reverses controversial 'pasty tax' as long as takeaway food is cooling
The hated ‘pasty tax’ is to be reversed, George Osborne is to announce.
The Chancellor will write to MPs on the Treasury select committee to reveal that as long as hot takeaway food is cooling naturally, it will not be subject to VAT, as planned.
It means pasties, and other hot snacks that are not served straight from the oven and are allowed to cool down in a glass cabinet will continue to be tax-free.
The Chancellor will also announce a retreat on another controversial measure in his badly received March Budget - a proposal to levy VAT at 20 per cent on static holiday caravans.
Instead, they will be subject to just five per cent VAT.
Both VAT rises prompted uproar among Tory MPs in the regions -- with particular anger in the South West at the pasty tax and in the North over the caravan levy. See Article

Daily Mail - Caught on camera: No 10 spin doctor haranguing BBC reporter to tone down coverage of links between Murdoch and Cameron
David Cameron’s top media adviser was caught on camera berating a BBC political correspondent over his ‘partial’ coverage of the scandal engulfing  Jeremy Hunt.
Craig Oliver was facing embarrassment last night after a video of his five-minute lecture to Norman Smith outside Number Ten was leaked. In it, he urges Mr Smith to report Vince Cable’s ‘bias’ against Rupert Murdoch.
Mr Oliver, who replaced Andy Coulson when he resigned over the phone hacking scandal last year, is a former BBC executive. See Article

Daily Express - HOW I EVADED SECURITY FARCE, BY BLAIR HECKLER
A PROTESTER told last night how he slipped unchallenged through a security cordon to dramatically confront former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
As the politician gave evidence to Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry into press standards, anti-war activist David Lawley Wakelin burst in and yelled: “This man is a war criminal.”
Three security guards grab­bed him and bundled him out of the hearing at London’s Royal Courts of Justice.
But last night, Mr Lawley Wakelin, 49, told the Daily Express just how easily he was able to disrupt the inquiry.
“Nobody challenged me at any point,” he said. “In fact I asked a couple of people the way and they pointed me in the right direction. They were security men in uniform. It was a farce. I couldn’t believe I was standing in front of Blair.”
He said he acted on the spur of the moment while taking part in a protest at the court.
“I walked through the front entrance where they have the security scanners,” said Mr Lawley Wakelin of Neasden, north London.
“I asked directions to Court 73. I did a bit of detective work and ended up going in through the back door. I reached the corridor next to the judge’s chambers. I was surprised I had got that far.
“To be honest, I was terrified. I went in to a bathroom and just stood there for five minutes. I decided I had come this far and I was going through with it.” Amid intense embarrassment, court officials were last night investigating how a high-level security operation around Mr Blair had failed.
Springing out from a curtain hanging behind Lord Justice Leveson, Mr Lawley Wakelin shouted: “This man should be arrested for war crimes.” He claimed Mr Blair had been “paid off” by investment bank JP Morgan for ordering the 2003 invasion of
Mr Blair sat impassively stroking his chin throughout the brief interruption but a clearly angry Lord Justice Leveson repeatedly tried to interrupt the intruder.
The judge apologised to Mr Blair and ordered an inquiry into how the protester entered the area, supposedly guarded by security-coded doors.
He said later: “I will be giving consideration to the steps that can be taken against this intruder. Efforts will be redoubled to ensure that incidents of this nature don’t recur.”
During the hearing, Mr Blair denied doing a deal with media tycoon Rupert Murdoch to try to get Labour favourable coverage in his newspapers.
Mr Blair said he had a “working relationship” with Mr Murdoch during his premiership but they became close friends only after he left office.
He said that some news­papers ran a “personal vendetta” against his wife ­Cherie during his time in Downing Street which went “too far”. See Article


The Telegraph - Greek promises of tax crackdowns fail to bite
When Christine Lagarde hit out at Greeks for not paying their taxes, Athens scholar Evi Malliarou agreed with the IMF chief's sentiment. 
Over the weekend Ms Lagarde told a newspaper she agreed that it was "payback time" for the many Greeks who see taxes as optional.
Ms Malliarou said: "Rich people have many tools to renegotiate their taxes while poor people have to pay in full. I paid the state all my taxes in full, not instalments, even though I have to deny myself other things."
Tax evasion is such an issue in Greece that successive finance ministers have declared crackdowns as a route out of the current crisis. See Article

Why People Are Turning Away From The Main News Groups and Turning To New Independent News Media

There is a brand new, brave, honest and taking no bulls..t breed of journalists who have hit the alternative broadcasting waves, creating their own New World Reporting Order for getting the ‘real’ news out to the population!  Yes both independent news reporters and some foreign news channels are now picking up speed so fast that the usual media groups are becoming very rattled indeed, as millions of people turn away from them.  

Are you fed up with the controlled main media coverage, both on the television and in the top selling newspapers/on line news?  Well it seems you are, and so am I!  I rarely switch on to the BBC now for the news, I might catch the weather or the first five minutes for the headlines, but usually, just like today, the BBC or SKY news omit anything to do with the EU powers over us or the UN and other big organisations taking over the rest of the world; the main media usually go for a stories like the Leveson phone hacking enquiry or how compost in Scotland has caused a few cases of Legionnaires disease, interesting and important in their own way, but hardly the main topics of this debt ridden and crumbling world we are living in.  It’s the same with the American news, Fox, CNN and the other outlets are losing ratings hand over fist, as people realise these mostly Murdoch controlled shows are giving out a diet of bias for the policies that the powers behind the throne, i.e. people like the Bilderberg group, want to brainwash the general public with. For example they feed us things like ‘which celebrity is on the red carpet at the latest awards show’ and how the West is doing the people in Arab countries a favour by occupying them, thus aiding them to gain democracy.  The very thing they leave out, however is how the West’s own democracy is becoming a thing of the past.  Oh! and don’t forget, they will also deny that the Bilderberg group are important at all, they even denied their existence before last year, but the independent journalists have fought and won to get the main media to acknowledge the Bilderberger’s existence! (The Bilderberg group are made up of the very top politicians including Henry Kissenger, the richest elitists like the Rothschild’s, and there are also the royals, Prince Charles and Queen Beatrice to name but a couple, who have been there; The Bilderbergs have been meeting in secret for many years. There is clear evidence now that they have been making the major political decisions for the whole planet.  However, these policies have never been credited to them, as their meetings are so secret that they are never documented for us mere mortals to see. In fact MEP Trevor Colman was talking at a UKIP meeting a year or two back when I asked him about the Bilderberg group. Trevor, who used to be a police officer, told the meeting that he had a story to tell about that.  Years ago he had been on duty outside where the Bilderbergers were meeting that year in the UK, and his colleague inside the building, who had been part of the security team, told him that the group had been discussing car manufacturing being transferred to Japan.  Trevor told us that shortly after that, car manufacturing did in fact start up in Japan in a big way and the rest is history.  Around 120 people usually attend the Bilderberg meeting each year, including some new people, many of whom are the rich internet tycoons whose organisations run social networking sites on the world wide web, so they are trying to get everything about ‘total control of the planet’ covered by the look of it. It’s rumoured that the next president of the United States is chosen at these meetings and no doubt the next Prime Minister of Britain. The next Bilderberg meeting is due in a few days time in the USA on May 31.   They may even pull the plug because of the attention that these meetings are now getting, exposure apparently, is the last thing they wanted. George Osborne attended last year’s meeting in an official capacity and he has never disclosed why he was there.)

So who are the new journalists, the rising stars that so many people are tuning into for an update of the news?  Well for a start there is RT News, a Russian news group who have really woken us up to what is going on politically, and they are a channel who hold no punches.  They have a broad content of shows, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert appear on the Keiser Report on RT and Max has blown open the whole fraudulent types of practices used by the big banks to bring economies down to their knees.  Max and Stacy make it understandable too, especially for people like me who had a job grasping the details of stocks and shares, hedge funds and insider trading etc, but I’m getting to be quite an expert thanks to them.  Max was the first to suggest ‘Occupy Wall Street’ as he, as a former broker himself, used his knowledge to pinpoint the corruption that is going on within Wall Street and even the City of London, thus people began the Occupy Wall Street movement, first in America, then worldwide.  Of course the main press still try to cover ‘Occupy’ as a band of unwashed hippies gathering in the streets just to be a nuisance to the rest of us decent hard working people. But the ‘new’ brave journalists are out on the streets and streaming live straight onto their websites.  They interview these very ordinary men and women who are demonstrating peacefully because they are worried about their future, their children’s future and the way their rights are being withdrawn by an ever restricting government regime.  RT has also given airtime to Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame, giving him a chat show where he has so far given some remarkable interviews with people whose stories are hardly ever mentioned on the main media outlets.

One journalist who will go far is my own personal choice for a hero special award (if there was such a thing!), he’s Luke Rudkowski. Luke’s little group of reporters go out there in the thick of it all, streaming live onto their website WeAreChange.org, attending all the demonstrations and rallies in the USA that the main media just ignore if they can.  They often capture unnecessary police violence (not all police act this way fortunately, there are mostly good police men and women and only a few bad ones!)  and Luke, and his team, have captured events on film as agent provocateurs sometimes join the demonstrators to cause trouble on purpose, posing as demonstrators for their own political ends.  Twenty-five year old Luke appears to have a much older and more knowledgeable head on his shoulders despite his age, as he confronts those polititicians face to face who would rather avoid awkward questions.  Luke and his team are awake to what is happening behind the scenes and they wade in like superheroes to the annoyance and total disbelief of the arrogant elitists, leaders and bankers, many of whom refuse to answer him if they can. 

Alex Jones is another ‘oh so brave’ journalist/presenter!  His radio show and internet site Infowars.com now has an audience of millions.  Alex who is a Christian, is passionate about his broadcasting, he often lashes out on air, shouting in anger at how our society is being turned upside down by what appears to be a facist takeover of our lives.  Alex often has the news before the rest of the media outlets (if they broadcast it at all), and his website is updated all the time with some horrifying and outrageous stories about how our freedoms are being eroded on a daily basis.  Alex isn’t afraid to put himself in danger either, he managed to attend a Bohemian Grove meeting a few years ago, without an invitation! (along with some Channel 4 journalists). Alex wanted to find out what goes on at this very secret event in America, where rituals are held by top politicians and people in authority as well as other well known characters.  You would think there would be a price on Alex’s head now, and I suppose there could be as he has exposed so much that is going on, but he has become so very high profile that a ‘sudden death by natural causes’ would probably bring mass attention and the uproar  for an investigation by his many fans; so really Alex may be protected by his own mega growing fame.  For all his shouting and ranting at the world in his gruff American voice, Alex comes across as a gentle family man who just wants to live in peace, and that’s what he wants for us too, so it’s easy to like him and admire what he doing for us 99%.  Alex has a great group of journalists on his show, including Paul Joseph Watson, who is based in the UK and Paul does some brilliant interviews.  

There is also an Infowars.Ireland too, which gives a different perspective about the EU and Ireland’s relationship with them, as well as bringing us worldwide news, it’s worth a look at, they are doing a grand job!!!  

You Tube, though for how much longer I don’t know, is a good place to start if you want to know much of what is happening in the world.  Some of the films are being 'pulled'  for ‘copyright’ reasons they say.  However, I would assume it’s the governments who are trying to put the’internet genie’ back into the bottle, as they realise that people are now seeing too much of how they organise events that were previously so easy to keep secret from the world.  Maybe they had let us have the internet in the beginning so they could spin their own political agendas, but it has brought a revolution to the world population, it has empowered and awoken millions of people who now communicate with each other and swap their views and opinions on every topic under the sun.  How else would we have known that the EU were never just an organisation for trade, but had planned to become a Super State right from the beginning, if  not for the internet and all those people who suddenly had a platform to tell the truth.  Can the powers that be take this away again? well they can try to censor it, but it’s the one thing that people would not want to lose, and any government trying this will suffer the consequences of millions of aggrieved people fighting back; the Anonymous group for one, a leaderless worldwide bunch of people who bring government internet sites down at the drop of a hat, whilst appearing to have IT specialists with knowledge far beyond the people the governments themselves seem to employ for their security. So freedom of the internet won’t be an easy thing to stop, but I would assume they will keep trying, which in a way is bad news for them and their already failing relationship with the public. The more they try, the more it proves that  they have secrets about our future that we would find unsavoury; and I’m not talking about security secrets because of the risk of terrorism being exposed, I’m talking about the EU’s final plans to destroy Britain and other EU countries as individual nations.  

So if you are fed up with the BBC news, SKY news, Fox News, CNN, Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sun, The Mirror, The Independent, the Financial Times etc etc. just tune into some fresh stuff, open your mind and wake up to what is going on in the real world!  Here are some handy links below.  Oh and don’t forget to check if the Bilderberg meeting is mentioned in the main media outlets, if it is they will talk about it through gritted teeth, frightened for their jobs…………. 

Janet Clarke

http://rt.com/

http://www.infowars.com/

http://info-wars.org/ (infowars Ireland)

http://www.youtube.com/ 

http://wearechange.org/ 

http://maxkeiser.com/

NEWS SNIPPETS MONDAY 28TH MAY 2012

Daily Mail - We won't shut the door on migrants fleeing eurozone, says Clegg as he hits out at 'apocalyptic' warnings
Nick Clegg yesterday denied that Britain is planning to ‘pull up the drawbridge’ to prevent an influx of foreign workers from crisis-hit eurozone nations.
The Deputy Prime Minister hit out at ‘apocalyptic’ warnings that Britain could be hit by a wave of immigrants from Greece and other struggling countries if the euro crisis deepens.
His intervention came after Theresa May disclosed contingency planning was under way to deal with a potential influx of would-be immigrants.
Reports said the Home Secretary was considering using emergency powers to bypass European single market rules and effectively seal the border.
There are fears that Greece in particular could leave the euro and go bankrupt, causing millions of Greeks to lose their jobs and look for work abroad.
But Mr Clegg claimed yesterday she had only been talking about ‘keeping an eye on migration patterns’.
‘I really do think some of the breathless talk in the media about “Do we pull up the drawbridge to stop hordes of people migrating across Europe?” is both far-fetched, somewhat apocalyptic in tone and deeply unhelpful,’ he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. 
‘We are not there yet,’ he added. 
Mr Clegg warned last week that allowing Greece to leave the euro could unleash ‘unpredictable, irrevocable damage’ to the entire European economy. See Article

Daily Mail - Sinister truth about Google spies: Web giant deliberately stole information but executives 'covered it up' for years
Google is facing an inquiry into claims that it deliberately harvested information from millions of UK home computers.
The Information Commissioner data protection watchdog is expected to examine the work of the internet giant’s Street View cars. 
They downloaded emails, text messages, photographs and documents from wi-fi networks as they photographed virtually every British road.
It is two years since Google first admitted stealing fragments of personal data, but claimed it was a ‘mistake’. 
Now the full scale of its activities has emerged amid accusations of a cover-up after US regulators found a senior manager was warned as early as 2007 that the information was being captured as its cars trawled the country but did nothing.
Around one in four home networks in the UK is thought to be unsecured – lacking password protection – allowing personal data to be collected. Technology websites and bloggers have suggested that Google harvested the information simply because it was able to do so and would later work out a way to use it to make money.
The slow reaction of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to deal with the data theft is in direct contrast to the vigorous efforts of watchdogs in Germany, France and even the Czech Republic.
The fact that the Government was at the same time courting executives at Google opens up uncomfortable questions about its relationship with the company. See Article

Daily Mail - How the Mail revealed the Conservative Party's closeness to the internet giant
Government ministers have met executives from Google an average of once a month since the General Election.
Official figures revealed by the Daily Mail this month showed that David Cameron had met the American company’s representatives three times, Chancellor George Osborne four times – and Culture Minister Ed Vaizey had racked up seven meetings.
The total of 23 such ministerial meetings since June 2010 is clear evidence that Google has the Government’s ear. But the closeness goes further still. See Article

Daily Mail - Police block hundreds of protesters during demo at site growing experimental GM wheat crop
Police turned away hundreds of protesters yesterday at the site of a genetically modified crop experiment.
Officers prevented the activists from entering the field of chemically altered wheat, which they had planned to pull out of the ground. 
Two men were arrested during the demonstration, which had been arranged to ‘decontaminate’ land being used by scientists trying to produce GM wheat that deters pests. The trial’s opponents claim the crops could contaminate the surrounding environment, as the experiment is being carried out in the open air.
St Albans City and District Council applied to the Home Office for greater police powers in anticipation of the protest, and an order banning activists from Rothamsted Research’s site in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, was issued on Friday. 
Those operating under the name ‘Take The Flour Back’ said 400 members sat in front of officers guarding the wheat field and sang protest songs for half an hour before gathering in nearby Rothamsted Park. See Article

Daily Mail - Cameron is being blown away by Murdoch links, says David Mellor as Clegg's cosy ties with mogul's fixer emerge
David Cameron’s credibility has been ‘blown away’ by his Government’s cosy relationship with Rupert Murdoch, a former Tory Cabinet minister warned yesterday.
David Mellor said the Prime Minister had shown poor judgment in appointing Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to preside over Mr Murdoch’s controversial £8billion bid for BSkyB.
He warned it was inevitable that Mr Hunt would have to resign. See Article

Daily Mail - Blair facing Leveson quiz today over claims he did commercial favours for political support
Tony Blair will be grilled today over whether he did commercial favours for Rupert Murdoch in return for political support from his newspapers.
The former prime minister is due to face a full day of interrogation at the Leveson Inquiry over his courting of the billionaire media mogul.
Questioning is expected to focus on claims that he ‘cut a deal’ with Mr Murdoch in return for support from the Sun newspaper at the 1997 election.
He is also likely to be asked about his decision to act as godfather to Mr Murdoch’s daughter Grace.
In 1995 Mr Blair flew to Hayman Island, in Australia, to speak at a News Corporation conference. 
The decision was widely seen as an attempt to curry favour with the media mogul, whose newspapers had given Labour years of hostile coverage.
By the time of the 1997 election the Sun, which had subjected Neil Kinnock to brutal coverage at the previous election, had switched to become an enthusiastic cheerleader for New Labour. 
As part of the courtship, Mr Blair wrote an article for the Sun in 1997 entitled ‘Why I love the pound’, despite later pressing for Britain to join the euro. See Article

Daily Express - EU FORCE NEW RISE IN PRICE OF PETROL
ANGER erupted last night over a new “green” fuel drive by the European Union that could slap 4p a litre on petrol and diesel.
Hard-pressed motorists would pay the price of a draconian new quota on the amount of fuel from environmentally friendly sources to be sold in the UK.
Under a Brussels directive, one in every 10 litres of fuel sold would be made up of sustainable alternative biofuels rather than fossil fuel by the end of the decade.
It is feared that this will have a significant impact on petrol and diesel costs when world oil prices are already rising relentlessly.
Critics last night urged David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne to stand up to Brussels. 
Peter Carroll, of the FairFuel UK campaign, said: “Many of our supporters have the environment at heart but the priority has to be to keep the cost of petrol down because that is what the economy needs.”
Robert Oxley, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “This is just another example of how Brussels is out of touch with the priorities of ordinary taxpayers.” See Article

Daily Express - TORY CHIEF WARSI URGED TO QUIT
SENIOR Tory Baroness Warsi was urged to resign last night following allegations over her expenses.
The party co-chairman is accused of claiming House of Lords allowance of £165.50 a night for free accommodation.
Lady Warsi, 41, insists she made “appropriate payment” for nights at a house in Acton, west London, occupied by Tory official Naweed Khan.
But yesterday the property’s owner denied receiving income from either. 
Dr Wafik Moustafa said: “She had her own key so I didn’t have a check on when she comes, when she goes, because that was her place in London. 
“Rent has never been discussed and I’ve never received money or asked for money from Baroness Warsi.”
The Tory peer, now a Cabinet Office minister, claimed over £12,000 in overnight subsistence in 2008 in her first six months in the Lords.
An ex-chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Sir Alistair Graham, said she should stand down during an investigation, and added: “But, of course, that is a matter for the Prime Minister.” See Article

Daily Express - JOBLESS TO WORK 30 HOURS A WEEK OR LOSE BENEFITS 
THOUSANDS of jobless benefits claimants will be forced to do unpaid community work in a new blitz on the workshy, ministers are to announce.
Whitehall sources revealed that a programme aimed at giving long-term unemployed a spell of compulsory work is to be “significantly extended”.
Employment Minister Chris Grayling is behind the scheme to strip the Jobseeker’s Allowance from those who refuse to work for 30 hours a week.
One Whitehall source said: “It may not be a solution for everyone, but Job Centre Plus staff should be able to make an assessment about which claimants would benefit. 
“This is part of a broad welfare-to-work agenda to cut benefits dependency and make work pay.”
Jobseekers on the scheme would carry out tasks such as trimming hedgerows and painting schools.
Those thought to be abusing the system by taking benefits while making no real effort to find jobs will be targeted and their attendance will be closely monitored. See Article

Infowars.com - Drudge Runs Poll on Bilderberg 2012 
Worldwide Bilderberg recognition is gaining steam as Drudge Report runs a poll questioning people’s feelings on the subject. See Article and results

Watts Up With That? -I Blame The Australian Carbon Tax for Price Increases
You likely didn’t realize that the First Rule for the Carbon Tax Club is … nobody talks about the Carbon Tax Club.
And not only that … it could cost the poor Aussies big bucks if they say what I just said about the Carbon Tax Club.
Gotta love totalitarianism in the service of national eco-themed suicide …
From Miranda Devine’s blog at the Australian Telegraph (emphasis mine):
THE whitewash begins. Now that the carbon tax has passed through federal parliament, the government’s clean-up brigade is getting into the swing by trying to erase any dissent against the jobs-destroying legislation.
On cue comes the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which this week issued warnings to businesses that they will face whopping fines of up to $1.1m if they blame the carbon tax for price rises.
It says it has been “directed by the Australian government to undertake a compliance and enforcement role in relation to claims made about the impact of a carbon price.”
Businesses are not even allowed to throw special carbon tax sales promotions before the tax arrives on July 1.
“Beat the Carbon Tax – Buy Now” or “Buy now before the carbon tax bites” are sales pitches that are verboten. Or at least, as the ACCC puts it, “you should be very cautious about making these types of claims”.
There will be 23 carbon cops roaming the streets doing snap audits of businesses that “choose to link your price increases to a carbon price”.
Instead, the ACCC suggests you tell customers you’ve raised prices because “the overall cost of running (your) business has increased”.
So if some Australian business prints up this post, and tapes it to his window … he can be fined up to one megabuck. A million dollar crime.
Eco-terrorism at its finest, where Australia now has criminalized free speech … carbon. A word to conjure with, the name that cannot be spoken. See Article

The Telegraph - The Coalition could break up before May 2015, says Vince Cable
The Coalition is likely to break up before the next general election in May 2015 so both parties can create separate identities, Vince Cable said last night.
The Business Secretary suggested that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will go their separate ways at some point before the election. This would give both sides time and space to draw up their own manifestos.
However the comments raise the prospect of the Lib Dems abandoning Government after four years, possibly after the party's conference in September 2014, leaving a paralysed Tory administration locked in place.
The Fixed Term Parliament Act which passed into law in September 2011 says that elections are held every five years. This would mean that the next election is scheduled to be held in May 2015.
However Mr Cable said that it was likely the Coalition partners would go their separate ways before then. See Article

The Telegraph - Irate Greeks vilify IMF chief on Facebook after she brands them tax dodgers
Christine Lagarde has been forced to express her sympathy for the Greek people after receiving 10,000 messages on Facebook, many of them obscene. 
The head of the International Monetary Fund has been forced to express her sympathy for the Greek people after politicians and irate locals vilified her for saying the country was a nation of tax dodgers.
After being bombarded on her Facebook page with 10,000 messages, many of them obscene, Christine Lagarde took to the social networking site to say she was “very sympathetic to the Greek people and the challenges they are facing”.
Despite the emergence this afternoon of a new Facebook page titled “Greeks are against Lagarde”, she reiterated that everyone should pay their taxes.
Greek politicians were similarly engraged, with socialist party leader Evangelos Venizelos claiming she had “insulted the Greek people”.
The backlash came as Greece’s former prime minister warned the country could run out of the money by the end of June if bailout funds are withdrawn after next month’s election. See Article

the Guardian - Irish dodge debts through UK 'bankruptcy tourism'
Bankrupt clients from Ireland have used a Leicester solicitor and UK courts to wipe out more than €1bn debts taken out in the republic. A solicitor in Leicester has helped Irish clients escape more than €1bn (£798m) of debt by taking advantage of a booming trade in "bankruptcy tourism".
Data seen by the Guardian reveal Steve Thatcher, who runs the new advisory service www.irishbankruptcyuk.com boasts at least 55 clients in the process of clearing some €1.2bn by using UK courts to wipe out loans taken out in the republic. One property speculator wrote off €150m during a 35-second court appearance.
While bankrupts in the UK face only one year in financial purdah, in Ireland it is 12 years – despite promises of reform from the Dublin government.
Such is the stigma still associated with bankruptcy in Ireland that "Michael" and "Mary" are unwilling to give their real names after they used the UK courts to write off nearly €320,000 of negative equity and other debts. They fear that in Ireland they could be blacklisted from jobs if potential employers knew they were bankrupts. See Article

NEWS SNIPPETS SUNDAY 27TH MAY 2012

Don't jump over the cliff on your own, there's no need to do it 

The Guardian - Richard Branson: coalition has failed to invest in businesses
In a dramatic call for a rethink on the economy, the ex-Tory favourite claims rhetoric has not been matched by real action. 
Richard Branson, whose support for Tory economic plans was enthusiastically trumpeted by George Osborne in the runup to the last general election, has dramatically turned on the coalition for failing to promote growth.
Britain's most famous business tycoon said ministers' rhetoric on reinvigorating the economy had not been matched by action. He demanded that the government show more support for small and medium businesses which were "the engines of any healthy economy".
In an outspoken intervention, the founder and chairman of the Virgin Group called for a renewed focus from ministers on bringing unemployment down and promoting the country's entrepreneurial spirit.
Branson told the Observer: "To get that growth, we need to get behind the small and medium-sized businesses that are the engines of any healthy economy. They need investment and finance, and that comes from the big banks. The politicians talk of encouraging lending; we need action to match that rhetoric."  See Article

The Guardian - Baroness Warsi admits not declaring rental income
Tory party co-chairman says she takes 'full responsibility' for omitting to declare income on property in north London.  Baroness Warsi, the Conservative party co-chairman, has admitted not fully declaring income she received from the rental of a flat she owns in north-west London.
The Cabinet Office minister failed to declare the income on the property in Wembley in the register of interests for members of the House of Lords.
The Tory peer bought the property in 2007 but moved closer to parliament when she became a minister in 2010, after which she began letting the flat.
She said she took "full responsibility" for the omission, which she put down to an "oversight".
Baroness Warsi had reported the letting of her flat in the register of ministers' interests and it had also been declared to the Cabinet Office along with HM Revenue and Customs.
But she failed to include it on the register of lords' interests when the rent received exceeded the £500 threshold at which peers are required to declare sources of income. See Article

The Guardian - Census objector granted leave to challenge Census Act
Granting of judicial review comes days after campaigners see Crown Prosecution Service drop their cases. The government's prosecution of census objectors is in jeopardy after a Birmingham man was granted a judicial review to challenge the legality of the act that makes it an offence not to complete the 10-yearly survey.
Privacy campaigner Nigel Simons, who did not fill out the census, argues that section 8 of the 1920 Census Act conflicts with his right to privacy guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.
The granting of a judicial review comes days after two census objectors saw their prosecutions unexpectedly dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service. One of them, John Marjoram, who is mayor of the Cotswolds town of Stroud, said he thought the CPS had dropped his case rather than face the prospect of having the issues around privacy aired in a public trial.
"Given the pervasive culture of citizen surveillance and the erosion of individual liberties pursued by recent governments, it is no surprise to me that the CPS preferred to keep these issues under wraps." he said.
The judicial review at the high court next month will be an embarrassment for the Office of National Statistics, the government body that runs the census, and the CPS. To date, the CPS has prosecuted 252 people for failing to complete the census.
Of those, 198 have been given fines of up to £1,000, while 55 have filled out the form. Should the judicial review be successful, those convictions could be appealed.
Objections over the 2011 census focus on three issues: the perceived intrusiveness of some questions, the lack of safeguards to protect data gathered for the census, and the role of the UK subsidiary of the US defence contractor Lockheed Martin in processing census data. See Article

The Guardian - How EU farming policies led to a collapse in Europe's bird population
They have entranced generations with the beauty of their songs and glimpses of their plumage. But today the sound of the linnet and the vision of a turtle dove are becoming increasingly rare experiences for visitors to the European countryside.
Indeed, according to a new survey, the chances of encountering any one of the 36 species of farmland birds in Europe – species that also include the lapwing, the skylark and the meadow pipit – are now stunningly low. Devastating declines in their numbers have seen overall populations drop from 600 million to 300 million between 1980 and 2009, the study has discovered.
This dramatic decline represents a 50% reduction and is blamed on major changes in farming policies enforced by the EU over the last 30 years.
In order to boost food production across Europe, the wholesale ripping up of hedgerows, draining of wetlands and ploughing over of meadows has robbed farmland birds of their homes and food. Numbers of linnets, turtle doves and lapwings have crashed as a result.
The survey, carried out by the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme, also found that Britain has been one of the nations worst affected by losses to its farmland bird populations. For example, in Europe the population of grey partridges has dropped from 13.4  million to 2.4 million, a loss of 82%. In the UK, that loss was 91%. See Article

The Telegraph - Lloyd's of London preparing for euro collapse
The chief executive of the multi-billion pound Lloyd's of London has publicly admitted that the world's leading insurance market is prepared for a collapse in the single currency and has reduced its exposure "as much as possible" to the crisis-ridden continent. 
Richard Ward said the London market had put in place a contingency plan to switch euro underwriting to multi-currency settlement if Greece abandoned the euro.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph he also revealed that Lloyd's could have to take writedowns on its £58.9bn investment portfolio if the eurozone collapses.
Europe accounts for 18pc of Lloyd's £23.5bn of gross written premiums, mostly in France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The market also has a fledgling operation in Poland.
Lloyd's move comes as a major Franco-German provider of credit insurance for eurozone trade, Euler Hermes, said it was considering reducing cover for trade with Greece because of the risk the country might leave the eurozone.
When a company goes bust, it is often sparked by withdrawal of credit insurance for suppliers wanting to trade with it. See Article

Daily Mail - Whispers against Osborne cause Cabinet division between Chancellor and the Prime Minister
Mr Osborne has had a series of embarrassing rebuffs in Cabinet meetings since series of Budget blunders. The rock-solid political alliance between David Cameron and George Osborne has been hit by a sudden fall in the Chancellor’s standing in the Cabinet, it was claimed last night.
Senior Government sources say Mr Osborne has had a series of embarrassing rebuffs in Cabinet meetings since Budget blunders over the reduction of the 50p top rate of income tax, the ‘granny tax’, ‘pasty tax’ and other issues.
It has led to some of Mr Osborne’s supporters suggesting he may have to relinquish his ambition of succeeding Mr Cameron as party leader. See Article

Daily Mail - CONTEMPTUOUS: BBC hires manager who lives in US to move staff between London offices... one year after Commons blasts corporation for the same thing 
The BBC has been accused of 'breathtaking arrogance' after it hired a manager who lives in the United States to oversee the movement of staff four miles across London.
Guy Bradshaw, who lives more than 4,000 miles away in Kentucky, has been handed a key role in the relocation of BBC journalists and producers to the new Broadcasting House.
He was hired despite the fact MPs savaged the BBC in an official report last year for giving him a senior role in the Corporation's controversial move to Salford.
In a withering attack last May, the powerful Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee said the BBC had opened itself to 'self-inflicted and predictable ridicule' by sanctioning the extraordinary arrangement. Such decisions cannot simply be dismissed as inconsequential gaffes.
They lower the esteem of the BBC, its senior management and the BBC Trust in the eyes of the ­public and its own staff.'
The committee called on Trust chairman Lord Patten 'to ensure the BBC is seen always to lead by example in the future'. MPs now plan to raise the matter with BBC director-general Mark Thompson.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal Mr Bradshaw has been transferred to another senior role at the Corporation while still living in the United States.
He is a project manager responsible for organising the relocation of more than 5,000 people, as well as technical and broadcasting equipment, from Television Centre at Shepherd's Bush, and from Bush House in The Aldwych, to the BBC's £1 billion new London headquarters in Portland Place.
Last week, however, Mr Bradshaw was seen strolling in the sunshine through the Kentucky town of Midway, where he lives with his wife and daughter. See Article

Press tv - Blair at UK media ethics inquiry
Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair is to appear before a long-running inquiry into British media and press ethics next week to answer questions about his links with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
Blair met with Murdoch 38 times during the time he led the Labour Party from 1994 until 2006. Moreover, ahead of the general election on 1 May 1997, Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper The Sun shifted its allegiance from the Conservative Party to the Labour Party.
Moreover, in July 2006 Blair was in Pebble beach, California, where Murdoch’s New York-based News Corporation conference was located. About two weeks later, Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s ‘rogue’ reporter, who was blamed for the phone hacking practices, was arrested.
In an interview with the Huffington Post UK, Martin Moore of the Media Standards Trust said the relationship between Blair and Murdoch was certainly more complicated than a simple deal because Blair’s policies benefited Murdoch’s media empire and in return his newspapers supported the Labour government.
“It would be terribly interesting to understand a bit more about the relationship…Whatever deal or no deal there was, if there was a perception that people in the government were very close to News International that's going to have a trickledown effect,” said Moore. See Article

Internet Freedom - Iceland: Strives to Be Info Freedom Haven

Iceland: Strives to Be Info Freedom Haven

NEWS SNIPPETS 26TH MAY 2012

Infowars - Bilderberg 2012: Dark Cabal Meet to Plot Final End Game

Press tv - UK Uncut to celebrate resistance to govt. cuts
UK Uncut, a protest group highlighting alternatives to the British government’s spending cuts, has organized eleven separate demonstrations across Britain today on May 26, aiming to highlight opposition to the Coalition's policies.
Anti-cuts campaigners will target the "architects of austerity" this weekend by blocking roads and holding street parties as part of a campaign to "celebrate" resistance to the UK government’s austerity measures.
"We plan to block roads and hold street parties that, instead of celebrating the jubilee, will celebrate public services and a future decided by the people, not big business and a cabinet of millionaires," the UK Uncut group said in a statement.
In addition to holding demonstrations in London, Manchester and Nottingham, hundreds of protestors including public sector workers, musicians and comedians, are also expected to target the Sheffield constituency office of the UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
Moreover, gathering at four meeting points in central London, the anti-cuts activists will criticize the Tory-led government’s handling of the National Health Service (NHS) and welfare system.
"David Cameron has called on the country to celebrate the Jubilee with the 'mother of all our parties', while at the same time his government is cutting our welfare, our NHS, our rights, dismantling our future,” said UK Uncut supporter Hannah Waters.
"Our street parties will bring the message home that these cuts are a political choice, a choice that is theirs, not ours, and we reject it."
UK Uncut started in October 2010 in a move to attack Vodafone for its refusal to pay £6bn tax while paying a £6bn dividend to its shareholders.  See Article


Daily Mail - Merkel to unveil 'East German-style' rescue plan to solve Greece problem and save the single currency
A secret East German-style rescue package is being cooked up by Germany as the eurozone's 'engine-room' desperately bids to save the single currency.
German chancellor Angela Merkel is preparing a six-point plan that aims to revive Greece in the same way East Germany was developed after the fall of Communism.
Der Spiegel reports that it will see ailing countries transformed through privatisations, soft investment rules and the relaxation of employment laws. See Article

Daily Mail - How Saint Bob became (in his own words) a  'private equity whore' by launching £125m fund
He made his name raising charity aid for Africa. So how can Bob Geldof justify spearheading a fund that could make him massive profits from the continent? 
Bob Geldof at a business awards ceremony. He was at a Super Return International Investment conference recently asking for mega-bucks to invest in Africa
As its name would imply, the annual Super Return International investment conference is not the sort of event where little old ladies seek advice on what to do with their life savings. 
Instead, the invitation-only jamboree sees billionaire big beasts and corporate raiders of global finance descend on Berlin in their private jets in search of one thing — mega-bucks.
At its latest meeting a few weeks ago, the keynote speaker cut a distinctly out-of-place figure.
Although Bob Geldof may have looked typically unkempt as he loped on stage, within minutes he had the super-rich audience eating out of the palm of his hand.
And for once, the ex-Boomtown Rats frontman’s message was not an impassioned — and expletive-strewn — plea for the well-heeled contingent to offer up some of their millions to help Africa’s poor. 
Instead, this was Geldof in his new incarnation, as chairman of a £125 million private equity firm, seeking to make large profits for its rich clients by investing in — of all places — Africa.
Certainly, he appears to have taken to the role like a duck to water. 
During another speech to potential investors, Geldof began in typically blunt fashion: ‘My name is Bob. I’m a PE [private equity] whore and I’m looking for £25 million.’  See Article

Daily Mail - UK winemaker's anger after French champagne tries to pass itself off as BRITISH with Union Jack wrapper
A British winemaker has accused the French of trying to pass off their wine as British by wrapping it in a Union Jack.
Bob Lindo has written to Home Secretary Theresa May to vent his anger over the scam to trick foreigners into buying a ‘British’ souvenir when they come to watch the Olympics or Queen’s Jubilee celebrations.
Mr Lindo, who owns the Camel Valley vineyard at Wadebridge, Cornwall, forced the World Duty Free shop at Gatwick Airport to remove a sign heralding French champagne as the ‘Best of British’ following an incident on Tuesday night.
The Lanson champagne bottles were wrapped in Union flags which Bob says is ‘unacceptable’.
In his letter to May, who is one of his customers, Bob wrote: 'I had to insist on the Best of British sign being removed from the Lanson display stand in the duty free shop at Gatwick airport. They removed the sign after I refused to leave until they did. See Article

Daily Express - BRITAIN'S RIGHT ROYAL PARTY 
PARTY-MAD Britons are set to spend more than £1billion on a summer of celebrations that could pull the country out of recession.
It will all kick off with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee as millions head to the shops to stock up on food, drink and decorations for the 10,000 street parties being held next weekend.
Retail experts estimate we will fork out about £823million, nearly double the amount spent during last year’s Royal Wedding. And with the London Olympics to follow, the party will not end there. Millions will flock to pubs and parties to watch the Games and the Euro 2012 football tournament on TV, while tourists coming to London will bring in an estimated £77million.
Jubilee party shopping will start in earnest today as people prepare for the weekend festivities.
More than 20 million people are set to celebrate the royal anniversary, spending £40 each on provisions, research by Moneysupermarket.com found.
Nearly half of women said they would be attending a Jubilee party this year, as will four in 10 men. See Article

Daily Express - DELIVERY IS FIRST CLASS...
ROYAL Mail has beaten its own delivery targets. 
In the best results for two years, 93.4 per cent of first class mail got to its destination the next working day in the first three months of this year – above the 93 per cent promised. 
Carlisle and Halifax had a 95 per cent success rate. 
With second class post, 98.9 per cent was on time, within three days of postage, or early. The firm had aimed for 98.5 per cent. 
Royal Mail’s Mark Higson said 107 out of 118 postcodes beat targets and paid tribute to the staff’s high performance during modernisation. See Article

Daily Express - £2.5M 'CON BY LLOYDS FRAUD BOSS'
THE former head of fraud and security at Lloyds Bank has been charged with swindling it out of nearly £2.5million.
Jessica Harper, 50, is accused of stealing the cash while working for the group’s digital banking section.
Harper, of Croydon, south London, was charged after Scotland Yard detectives seized allegedly false invoices.
She will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday accused of fraud by abuse of position between 2008 and 2011.
Andrew Penhale, of the Crown Prosecution Service central fraud group, said he had authorised Scotland Yard to charge her. 
The amount involved was £2,463,750.88.
He added: “This decision to prosecute was taken in accordance with the code for Crown prosecutors. 
“We have determined that there is a realistic prospect of conviction and a prosecution is in the public interest.”  See Article

Daily Express - DISGRACED PEER IS BANNED FROM WORKING AS A LAWYER
EXPENSES cheat peer Lord Taylor was yesterday banned from practising as a barrister. 
The disgraced life peer, 59, lost his plea to be allowed to remain a member of the profession and the Bar Council after it ruled his criminal behaviour had brought the organisation into disrepute.
Lord Taylor was appearing before a disciplinary hearing of the Bar Standards Board. 
Judge Nicholas Riddell, on the Board, said: “This was a serious criminal offence, not simply an error of judgement.”
The Conservative Party’s first black peer, the son of Jamaican immigrants, was jailed for 12 months last May after swindling the taxpayer out of £11,277 in false claims for travel and overnight subsistence.
Lord Taylor had registered a house in Oxford as his main residence to claim expenses for travel to London and overnight stays there. But he lived in west London and claimed expenses there too. See Article

The Telegraph - Theresa May: we'll stop migrants if euro collapses
The Government is drawing up plans for emergency immigration controls to curb an influx of Greeks and other European Union residents if the euro collapses, the Home Secretary discloses today. 
In an interview in The Daily Telegraph, Theresa May says “work is ongoing” to restrict European immigration in the event of a financial collapse.
People from throughout the EU, with the exception of new member countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, are able to work anywhere in the single market.
However, there are growing concerns that if Greece was forced to leave the euro, it would effectively go bankrupt and millions could lose their jobs and consider looking for work abroad.
The crisis could spread quickly to other vulnerable countries such as Spain, Ireland and Portugal, although Britain is regarded as a safe haven because it is outside the single currency.
Details of the contingency plan emerged as the euro crisis deepened further yesterday. See Article

The Telegraph - Leveson Inquiry: Jeremy Hunt 'briefed David Cameron on BSkyB takeover bid in private memo’
David Cameron was privately briefed by Jeremy Hunt on the News Corporation takeover bid for BSkyB despite publicly insisting that he absented himself from the deal, documents have disclosed. 
The Culture Secretary sent a private memo to the Prime Minister on March 17 2011 advising him to talk to Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, about the £8billion deal.
The memorandum, disclosed as part of evidence released by the Leveson Inquiry, showed the Tories were trying to avoid a row over Mr Hunt’s decision not to refer the deal to the Competition Commission.
The document may undermine the Prime Minister’s assurances to Parliament that he had “specifically asked to be taken out of any of the information” about the takeover. See Article

The Telegraph - Fracking is not the answer to energy crisis, UK Minister admits, as he orders shale gas survey
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem Energy Minister, has hit out at his Tory colleagues for suggesting that fracking for shale gas will solve Britain’s fuel crisis. 
Shale gas has been a “game changer” in the US, where it has caused gas prices to plummet and is already providing more than a third of current gas consumption.
But on an island like the UK reserves are much smaller and more difficult to access.
Mr Davey accused those on the right of the Tory party of making out the UK could rely on shale gas in order to undermine investment in alternatives such as offshore wind.
“The right wing of tory party are trying to make out shale gas is the answer but I’m afraid the evidence does not bear it out,” he said.
However he did make clear that shale gas could still be useful to the UK, providing up to 10 per cent of energy needs, and is expected to give fracking the go-ahead in the next few weeks following a consultation which has just ended. See Article

The Guardian - It's payback time: don't expect sympathy – Lagarde to Greeks
Take responsibility and stop trying to avoid taxes, International Monetary Fund chief tells Athens.  The International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up the pressure on crisis-hit Greece after its managing director, Christine Lagarde, said she has more sympathy for children deprived of decent schooling in sub-Saharan Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Athens.
In an uncompromising interview with the Guardian, Lagarde insists it is payback time for Greece and makes it clear that the IMF has no intention of softening the terms of the country's austerity package.
Using some of the bluntest language of the two-and-a-half-year debt crisis, she says Greek parents have to take responsibility if their children are being affected by spending cuts. "Parents have to pay their tax," she says.
Greece, which has seen its economy shrink by a fifth since the recession began, has been told to cut wages, pensions and public spending in return for financial help from the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank.
Asked whether she is able to block out of her mind the mothers unable to get access to midwives or patients unable to obtain life-saving drugs, Lagarde replies: "I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens." See Article

The Guardian - Bonn climate talks end in discord and disappointment
The latest round of international climate change talks finished on Friday in discord and disappointment, with some participants concerned that important progress made last year was being unpicked.
At the talks, countries were supposed to set out a workplan on negotiations that should result in a new global climate treaty, to be drafted by the end of 2015 and to come into force in 2020. But participants told the Guardian they were downbeat, disappointed and frustrated that the decision to work on a new treaty – reached after marathon late-running talks last December in Durban – was being questioned.
China and India, both rapidly growing economies with an increasing share of global emissions, have tried to delay talks on such a treaty. Instead of a workplan for the next three years to achieve the objective of a new pact, governments have only managed to draw up a partial agenda. "It's incredibly frustrating to have achieved so little," said one developed country participant. "We're stepping backwards, not forwards." See Article

Infowars.com - US poverty rate for women and children hits 17-year record high
The US Census Bureau’s annual report reveals that the poverty rate among American woman and children reached a 17-year record high in 2010, standing at 14.5 percent.
The new report indicates that, women’s poverty rate in the United States stands at 14.5 percent which means that over 17 million people live in poverty.
According to the report, a minimum number of over 15 million American children live below the poverty line — the highest in roughly a decade — while the extreme poverty level stands at 6.3 percent.
The report added that a total of one million American children have been added to the US poor population in a one-year period from 2009 to 2010 alone.
Analysts consider the deteriorating economy and the financial stagnancy the US is facing, as one of the main reasons of the sharp increase in the number of street children to 1.6 million, showing a 33-percent boost compared to 2007. See Article