WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund’s new chief foresees “real nasty consequences” for the U.S. and global economies if the U.S. fails to raise its borrowing limit. Christine Lagarde, the first woman to head the lending institution, said in an interview broadcast Sunday that it would cause interest rates to rise and stock markets to fall. That would threaten an important IMF goal, which is preserving stability in the world economy, she said. The U.S. borrowing limit is $14.3 trillion. Obama administration officials say the U.S. would begin to default without an agreement by Aug. 2. “If you draw out the entire scenario of default, yes, of course, you have all of that – interest hikes, stock markets taking a huge hit and real nasty consequences, not just for the United States, but for the entire global economy, because the U.S. is such a big player and matters so much for other countries,” she said. Lagarde, who took over as managing director July 5, also addressed the fallout stemming from the sexual assault charges filed against her predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Strauss-Kahn resigned in May after he was accused of attacking a hotel maid in New York City. He has denied the charges. New York prosecutors have admitted in recent weeks that their case has weakened and that the accuser has lied about many aspects of her background. Lagarde, a former French finance minister, told ABC’s “This Week” that the scandal caused “a very strange chemistry of frustration, irritation, sometimes anger, sometimes very deep sadness” among the IMF’s 2,500 employees. Lagarde said she would be on her “best behavior all the time.” “When it comes to ethics and whatever I do, I always think to myself, would my mother approve of that,” she said. “And if she did not, then there’s something wrong.” President Barack Obama and congressional leaders from both parties planned to meet Sunday evening at the White House to resume negotiations on a debt deal. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Saturday that the talks should aim to reduce the deficit by about $2 trillion over 10 years. That’s about half the size of a more ambitious deal that Obama floated last week. Republicans are insisting on deep spending cuts as a condition of voting in favor of raising the debt ceiling. Obama and congressional Democrats are insisting that more tax revenue should be part of the mix. Lagarde did not address the European debt crisis or the IMF’s recent aid to Greece. On Friday, the IMF’s board approved a $4.2 billion loan to Greece, the latest installment of a bailout package intended to prevent the struggling nation from defaulting on its debt. The IMF has 187 member nations and lends money to countries with troubled finances.
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President plays mediator in debt talks to prevent government bills going unpaid, interest rates soaring and US stocks plummeting For the third day in a row, congressional leaders were locked in discussions at the White House over the looming budget crisis, with no resolution in sight amid increasingly entrenched political positions. Washington is well versed in the political theatre of budget crises, but the current head-bashing between Democratic and Republican leaders has entered a class of its own. Not only are the two main parties further apart in their thinking compared with the previous great meltdown that shut the federal government, in 1995, but the stakes are higher now than in living memory. Unless agreement can be reached on raising the debt ceiling from its current $14.3tn towards the end of this month – in time for legislators to prepare the paperwork before the 2 August deadline – then within days, even hours, the US government would be unable to pay its debts, interest rates would almost certainly soar, and US stocks would likely plummet as trust in the American system was undermined. Barack Obama is now engaged in near-permanent talks with congressional leaders, with all other concerns shunted aside. On Tuesday he called Democratic and Republican leaders to the White House to continue where they had broken off the day before, but both sides remain stubbornly resistant to compromise – a sign of the increasingly partisan nature of US politics. At a time when bridge-building between the parties is crucial, the Republican leadership chose to take the opposite path. Mitch McConnell, the party’s leader in the Senate, accused Obama of “deliberate deception” in the talks. John Boehner, the top Republican in the House of Representatives, told reporters that “the debt limit is [Obama's] problem”. At the weekend Boehner jettisoned the search for a big compromise deal, rejecting Obama’s proposal for a package that would reduce the federal deficit by $4tn over 10 years. The rejection left the Republican party – the supposed party of small government – in the surreal position of proposing a smaller reduction in the deficit, which they now want to see cut by just $2tn. At the heart of the Republican resistance is their refusal to contemplate tax increases, even those including removing tax loopholes on oil profits or private jets. The Democrats are also in a bind: many of their congressional members are unwilling to make concessions demanded by the right that would cut social programmes such as Medicare and Medicaid. “The Democratic party on average is further left, and the Republican party on average further right, than before,” said Ron Haskins, a former adviser to George Bush and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “So they are trying to cut a deal between folks who are more driven by their ideologies and principles.” Obama, who has been accused in the past by commentators of both left and right of failing to show leadership on the issue, is now energetically trying to carve out a middle ground despite the apparent lack of flexibility from his fellow politicians. As part of the $4tn package, he is asking Republicans to concede $1tn in increased taxes; from Democrats he is asking for cuts in social benefits such as Medicare, the programme of entitlements for older people. One proposal is to raise the age of the programme from 65 to 67, which has distressed the left of the Democratic party. Another is to lower the annual cost-of-living increases, which would see a gradual whittling away of retirement benefits. “I’m prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done, and I expect the other side should be willing to do the same thing if they mean what they say,” Obama said on Monday. There are two major influences on the budget process making a resolution more difficult. The first is the Tea Party movement, the nationwide branch of fiscally conservative activists exhorting Republicans to stand firm against higher taxes. The other is the 2012 elections, which are already focusing politicians’ minds, as is the fear that if they are seen to be weak and compromising they could be punished at the ballot box. Barack Obama US politics US economy United States Economics Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Yup, we’re beating them back : President Hamid Karzai’s half brother, the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan and a lightning rod for criticism of corruption in the government, was assassinated Tuesday by a close associate. His death leaves a dangerous power vacuum in the south just as the government has begun peace talks with insurgents ahead of a U.S. withdrawal. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of the Kandahar provincial council, was shot to death while receiving guests at his home in Kandahar, the capital of the province that was the birthplace of the Taliban movement and was the site of a recent U.S.-led offensive. Wali Karzai was shot by “a good friend” while receiving guests at his home in Kandahar, NBC News reported. Tooryalai Wesa, the provincial governor of Kandahar, identified the assassin as Sardar Mohammad and said he was a close, “trustworthy” person who had gone to Wali Karzai’s house to get him to sign some papers. As Karzai was signing the papers, the assassin “took out a pistol and shot him with two bullets — one in the forehead and one in the chest,” Wesa said. “Another patriot to the Afghan nation was martyred by the enemies of Afghanistan.” “My younger brother was martyred in his house today. This is the life of all Afghan people, I hope these miseries which every Afghan family faces will one day end,” President Karzai said at the start of a news conference with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy in Kabul. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message sent to NBC News’ Kabul office. Wali Karzai was the focus of corruption and drug trafficking charges which put the integrity of the entire Karzai administration in question , not to mention rumors that he was a CIA asset. It’s also a disconcerting example of the Taliban’s continued ability to shape the narrative in Afghanistan and follows on the heels of the breakout of Taliban prisoners from the Kandahar prison and the military offensive in Kandahar . Just last month, Harper’s published an article on the tenuous relationship between the Karzai brothers : Of course, the apparent push to make Ahmed Wali governor could just be part of some inscrutable game between the president, his brother, and the internationals. We may have to wait until the resolution of the country’s parliamentary crisis to find out, particularly since Wesa is said to have hopes of being part of Hamid Karzai’s next cabinet. But the prospect of Ahmed Wali becoming governor and the mild reaction the notion has provoked say something about vanishing pretensions on both sides, as the United States tries to forge a stable political order that can outlast its withdrawal.
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Roof Orientation – 07.11.2011 CJ Perrin- AROUND and AROUND Hotel One Careers COTHM Visit ChatterBoxZay says: Staesboro Thurs nd Fri for orientation and Savannah Sat and Sun to kick back w/ my mom! I think we goin to Paula Deans Sun! #Yummm !
Continue reading …Media Matters has put together a compilation of how Fox News creates a smear and uses all of their show hosts to perpetuate it. It’s a shining example of what they do not only to organizations like Media Matters, but to politicians, people, and other media outlets who might not agree with them. Rupert Murdoch may be in hot water in England right now, but watch this video and tell me that Roger Ailes hasn’t used the same tactics. Let’s hope Congress has the will to investigate. If not the House, then the Senate, at least.
Continue reading …Media Matters has put together a compilation of how Fox News creates a smear and uses all of their show hosts to perpetuate it. It’s a shining example of what they do not only to organizations like Media Matters, but to politicians, people, and other media outlets who might not agree with them. Rupert Murdoch may be in hot water in England right now, but watch this video and tell me that Roger Ailes hasn’t used the same tactics. Let’s hope Congress has the will to investigate. If not the House, then the Senate, at least.
Continue reading …Obama ‘Repositioning’ as ‘Pragmatic Centrist’…But NYT Has Claimed for Years He Already Is
July 12, 2011 No CommentTuesday’s off-lead New York Times story by Jackie Calmes from Washington claims Obama is now grasping centrism as a weapon in the budget battle. So why has the Times been telling us he has always been a centrist? “ Obama Grasping Centrist Banner In Debt Impasse – Talks Remain Stalled – President Urges Biggest Deal Possible Despite G.O.P. Skepticism .” For the last three years we’ve been told by the Times and the rest of the media Obama was in fact a “pragmatic” centrist, unlike the conservative George W. Bush. Why would Obama have to “reposition” himself to ground he already occupied? President Obama made no apparent headway on Monday in his attempt to forge a crisis-averting budget deal, but he put on full display his effort to position himself as a pragmatic centrist willing to confront both parties and address intractable problems. At a news conference preceding the latest round of debt-reduction talks with Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders, Mr. Obama said he would not accept a temporary agreement to kick the problem down the road a few weeks or months. He said that he was willing to take the heat from his own party to move beyond entrenched ideological positions and that Republicans should do the same. And he continued to insist on “the biggest deal possible,” saying that now is the best opportunity for the nation to address its long-term fiscal challenges. Republicans dismissed his performance as political theater. But Mr. Obama’s remarks appeared to be aimed at independent voters as well as at Congressional leaders, and stood in contrast to the Republican focus on the party’s conservative base, both in the budget showdown and in presidential politics. Mr. Obama’s remarks were among the clearest expressions yet of a repositioning effort that has been under way since the midterm elections last November, when Republicans captured the House and made inroads in the Senate. Seeking to shed the image of big-government liberal that Republicans used effectively against him last year , he has made or offered policy compromises on an array of issues and cast himself in the role of the adult referee for both parties’ gamesmanship, or the parent of stubborn children. Notice the Times never admits Obama ever actually governed like a big-spending liberal with Obama-care and the enormous “stimulus” spending, merely that Republicans had successfully portrayed him that way. Back issues of the Times are littered with claims Obama was governing as a centrist or moderate: Reporter Jeff Zeleny on April 10 wrote a story under the online headline: “President Obama Adopts Centrist Approach.” Zeleny also considered Obama a “pragmatist” in December 2009: “He delivered a mix of realism and idealism…. he continued a pattern evident throughout his public career of favoring pragmatism over absolutes .” An April 19, 2009 story by David Herszenhorn and Jackie Calmes claimed: “In some of his earliest skirmishes, Mr. Obama eventually chose pragmatism over fisticuffs…. Pragmatism, [his aides] add, is an Obama hallmark, and among the changes he promised — and has delivered — is a break from his predecessor's often uncompromising style .” Here’s reporter Jodi Kantor on Obama the law professor , May 3, 2009: “Former students and colleagues describe Mr. Obama as a minimalist (skeptical of court-led efforts at social change) and a structuralist (interested in how the law metes out power in society). And more than anything else, he is a pragmatist who urged those around him to be more keenly attuned to the real-life impact of decisions.”
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WikiLeaks founder’s counsel claims in high court that Swedish judges were misled about sexual assault and rape allegations The European arrest warrant issued for the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is invalid, the high court was told on Tuesday, because of significant discrepancies between its allegations of sexual assault and rape and the testimonies of two women he allegedly had sex with. The warrant details four allegations of unlawful coercion, sexual molestation and rape, relating to encounters between Assange and two Swedish women while on a trip to Stockholm last August. But Ben Emmerson QC, for Assange, said the warrant was a misinterpretation of the evidence and it was “surprising and disturbing” that Swedish district judges who requested Assange’s extradition had been misled. Emmerson was opening the latest step in the Australian’s attempt to avoid being sent to Sweden for questioning and possible charges which Assange has said he fears could pave the way for him to be further extradited to the US. There he could face charges relating to the leak of hundreds of thousands of classified government documents through WikiLeaks. An earlier appeal failed and Assange has appointed a new legal team which is taking a more conciliatory approach. Emmerson told Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ousely that there was no evidence about there being a lack of consent in the encounters as appeared to be suggested in the wording of the arrest warrant. He said three of the allegations would not amount to criminal offences under English law. Emmerson said: “The senior district judge found that those factual allegations would establish dual criminality on the basis that lack of consent, and lack of reasonable belief in consent, may properly be inferred from the conduct described, particularly the references to ‘violence’ and a ‘design’ to ‘violate sexual integrity’. However, that description of conduct is not accurate. The arrest warrant misstates the conduct and is, by that reason alone, an invalid warrant.” Emmerson examined the witness testimonies of the encounters in graphic detail. Referring to evidence of an encounter on the night of 13 August given by a woman known as AA who was hosting Assange at her apartment, Emmerson said: “The appellant’s physical advances were initially welcomed but then it felt awkward since he was ‘rough and impatient’… they lay down in bed. AA was lying on her back and Assange was on top of her … AA felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom … she did not articulate this. Instead she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration … AA tried several times to reach for a condom which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and try to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. AA says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly.” But, Emmerson said, crucially there was no lack of consent sufficient for the unlawful coercion allegation, because “after a while Assange asked what AA was doing and why she was squeezing her legs together. AA told him that she wanted him to put a condom on before he entered her. Assange let go of AA’s arms and put on a condom which AA found.” Emmerson told the court the case did not hinge on whether Assange accepted this version of events and others relating to other incidents because there were no charges against him, but whether the arrest warrant in connection with them was valid on “strict and narrow” legal grounds. As if to illustrate the change of strategy by Assange’s new legal team, Emmerson said: “Nothing I say should be taken as denigrating the complainant, the genuineness of their feelings of regret, to trivialise their experience or to challenge whether they felt Assange’s conduct was disrespectful, discourteous, disturbing or even pushing at the boundaries of what they felt comfortable with.” Assange was in court with supporters including Vaughan Smith, the founder of the Frontline Club who is hosting his house arrest at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, and John Pilger, the veteran investigative journalist. Assange arrived at about 9.15am, saying nothing to questions as he moved at a snail’s pace through a tight scrum of photographers. He was asked if he was looking forward to his latest day in court and whether he would take the case to the supreme court if he lost over the next two days. He said nothing. By the court railings, small groups of protesters gathered, including one carrying a banner saying: “Free Assange! Free Manning! End the wars.” Julian Assange WikiLeaks Rape Sweden Europe Robert Booth guardian.co.uk
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Shakil Afridi, who helped track down Osama bin Laden using DNA samples, is being held by ISI in Pakistan Fears are growing for the safety of the Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA search for Osama bin Laden, as relations between Islamabad and Washington move closer towards breakdown. Pakistan threatened to pull its soldiers off its side of the border with Afghanistan on Tuesday in a tit-for-tat move after the US said it would hold back $800m (£500m) of military aid. The doctor who helped the CIA, Shakil Afridi, is being held by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency. The Guardian has revealed that Afridi had worked for the CIA in the weeks leading up to the raid on the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, northern Pakistan, in an attempt to collect DNA samples from those who lived in the house. The intelligence agency wanted to confirm suspicions that the al-Qaida leader and his family were hiding there. The detention of Afridi has introduced further tension to US-Pakistani ties, which had already been damaged by the killing of Bin Laden by US forces on 2 May. Washington is concerned that Pakistan is not hunting down the network that kept Bin Laden in Abbottabad for five years but is instead on a witch-hunt for those who helped the CIA track him down. The doctor, a senior government employee, was initially detained in Peshawar in the north-west but may have been transferred to custody in Islamabad. It is thought that he has not been formally charged, which is not unusual for someone being held by the ISI. The Pakistani authorities are holding him for working for a foreign intelligence agency, which carries harsh punishment, including the death penalty. The Guardian story was headline news in Pakistan on Tuesday but so far, government officials have offered no comment. The CIA was never sure that Bin Laden was hiding in the Abbottabad house, so the Pakistani doctor, who would have been paid handsomely for his work for the CIA, was hired to try to collect DNA samples from those in the house to see if they were Bin Laden family members. Afridi set up a fake vaccination programme to get access to the Bin Laden compound. In Abbottabad, an atmosphere of fear hangs over the town, with Pakistani intelligence agents having terrified the population into silence. Washington is to withhold $800m of military aid to Pakistan. Much of that money would have gone toward reimbursing Pakistan for the costs of keeping over 100,000 troops in the tribal area, guarding the porous border with Afghanistan, under a scheme known as Coalition Support Funds. “This is money we have already spent on this war,” Ahmad Mukhtar, Pakistan’s defence minister, said in an interview with Express 24/7, a Pakistani news channel. “The next step is that the government or armed forces will remove these soldiers from the border.” According to figures released by Congress, Washington has paid Pakistan $8.9bn in Coalition Support Funds since 2001. The money is meant to pay for the costs of maintaining the Pakistani troops in the tribal area. Pakistan’s armed forces are accused of allowing militants to sneak across the border, from safe havens in the tribal area, to carry out attacks in Afghanistan. However, Pakistan says it maintains 1,100 border checkpoints. If they were removed, Taliban would be able to pour across unhindered, a potential disaster for the coalition effort in Afghanistan. But Mukhtar’s comment are likely to be a warning shot, as pulling out those troops from the tribal area would create a sizeable security threat to Pakistan too. Pakistan Osama bin Laden Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Saeed Shah guardian.co.uk
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Brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai shot dead by security guard was seen as keystone of security in the south Ahmed Wali Karzai, the powerful half-brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has been killed by one of his security guards inside his house in Kandahar, raising the prospect of turmoil in a city widely seen as the key to the war in Afghanistan. The president confirmed the death at a press conference in Kabul intended to mark the visit of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to the capital. “Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed at about 11.30am,” General Abdul Razaq, Kandahar’s chief of border police, said. “He was killed by his bodyguard inside his house.” Officials said the assassin, named as Sardar Mohammed, reportedly Ahmed Wali Karzai’s chief of security, had been killed on the spot. “After Sardar Mohammed killed Ahmed Wali Karzai, other bodyguards shot Sardar Mohammed,” Colonel Mohammad Mohsen, of the Afghan national army 205 Atal (Hero) Corps in Kandahar, said. “The bodies have been taken to the [local] hospital. We expect some officials including President Karzai to come to Kandahar for his brother’s funeral.” Razaq said an investigation into the assassination was under way, but according to initial reports from Kandahar, Sardar entered his boss’s home and approached him with papers to sign, shooting him at close range with a pistol concealed under the papers. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assassination, saying it was one of their “biggest and most successful” operations. However, western officials said it was possible that he could have been killed as part of a settling of scores among tribal leaders or drug traffickers. Ahmed Wali Karzai had frequently been accused by western officials of being a regional kingpin and warlord in the opium trade. He also faced allegations of being on the CIA’s payroll. He rejected all the charges, claiming they were made by western forces to cover their own shortcomings. Ahmed Wali Karzai was a powerful figure in Afghan politics. He had been a member of the provincial council in Kandahar since 2005 and was its chief at the time of his death, although his family, tribal and business contacts gave him influence far beyond his official title. “He was the president of Kandahar,” said provincial elder Abdul Samat Zarih. “The governor, police chiefs and other officials all had to discuss things with him before they made a decision.” Zarih added that Ahmed Wali Karzai had many enemies, including the Taliban. “Maybe the Taliban killed him because he was close to the government. Maybe he didn’t obey or follow whatever the foreigners said to him. It’s a situation in which you can’t figure out what is going on,” he said. Ahmed Wali Karzai was also seen as a keystone of security in the south and his assassination will raise fears about a potential power and security vacuum in the insurgent-ridden region. President Karzai also valued him as a trusted liaison between the government in Kabul and the nation’s second-biggest city. “People are asking what tomorrow will bring,” said a senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Who is capable of replacing Ahmed Wali on the provincial council? As an intermediary between Kabul and Kandahar? Who is going to try and keep at bay the different rivalries bandaged over for the last few years? Who will fill the various holes occupied by AWK? These are all important questions.” He added his death was “first and foremost a setback for Afghanistan as a whole”. Other western officials predicted that although there would be “turbulence” in the short term, while a new power structure took shape in Kandahar, in the longer term the absence of Ahmed Wali Karzai as a power broker could provide an opportunity to strengthen legitimate local government. Ahmed Wali Karzai had been the target of previous assassination attempts. In 2009 four suicide bombers stormed the provincial council office in Kandahar, killing 13 people. Departing US commander General David Petraeus said the International Security Assistance Force had halted the Taliban’s momentum in key areas. However, the Taliban strategy of targeted assassinations in Kandahar province demonstrates its continued ability to strike Isaf and the Afghan government where it hurts. The Kandahar deputy governor, Abdul Latif Ashna, and provincial police chief, General Mohammad Mojayed, were killed in suicide attacks this year. The Taliban claimed responsibility for both deaths. The Isaf spokesman, Carsten Jacobson, agreed it was not yet certain the Taliban had carried out the attack. He denied the assassination was a setback for Isaf. “We must find out how he was killed,” Wahid Mujda, a former member of the Taliban turned analyst, said. “We don’t know whether it was carried out by a power rival or by the Taliban.” Mujda added the death would have an impact on the government and the progress being made in reconciliation talks with the Taliban. Karzai supported the peace process and had chalked up a few reintegration successes in the province. Haji Padsha, an elder of the Alikozai tribe in Kandahar province, said Karzai had been shot on his return from a meeting with foreigners at the former house of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the fugitive leader of the Afghan Taliban. Karzai had come under criticism in the past from Afghans for renting the property to international officials. It was reported in the New York Times in 2009 that he received rent from the CIA and American special operations forces for allowing them to occupy a large compound outside the city that is the former home of Mullah Mohammed Omar. The Kandahar Strike Force, a militia run by the CIA, also shares the compound. Hamid Karzai Afghanistan Julian Borger guardian.co.uk
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