Greece on Friday unleashed a fierce attack on its European Union partners, accusing them of creating a “psychology of looming collapse” a day after they pledged support for the country’s crisis-hit government.

George Papandreou, Greek prime minister, said that, in the eurozone’s first big test, Greece had become “a laboratory animal in the battle between Europe and the markets”.

In a televised address to his cabinet, he criticised EU members for sending “mixed messages about our country . . . that have created a psychology of looming collapse which could be self-fulfilling”.

Mr Papandreou blamed the European Commission for failing to crack down on the previous conservative government’s “criminal record” in falsifying statistics. “This has undermined the responsibility of the European institutions with international markets,” he said.

Read more: Financial Times.

• Police arrested a few hundred people, including journalists bur refuses to made their name public. As a result their relatives do not know who is arrested and where they are. Apparently lawyers also do not have access to many of the arrested people, and they have not been given the right to one phone-call.
• An update on today from Chisinau: “No protests today.  However, there have been lots arrests, principally of young people.  Police are going to homes, asking for student lists at university. Procedures are apparently not respected – no arrest warrants, no special treatment for juveniles, not clear if distinctions are made between protestors and spectators.  Families and lawyers do not have access to people who’ve been arrested.  They are told by the police that no such person is in custody.  Even the ombudsman has been denied access.
• Many of the principal members of civil society have drafted a declaration, to be published today.  It contains the following elements: Information on the situation on the ground; Asks authorities to keep within the law, to respect freedom of movement and others rights, and refrain from inflammatory acts; Makes public a partial list of people who’ve been arrested.
• Moldovan Ombudsman suspects police is torturing arrested children.

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• there are allegations about the involvement in the protests of a Romanian right-wing organisation called Noua Dreapta. It is unclear though if they were involved in violent actions were not.
• a new video from yesterday’s protests. At some point the crowd apparently identifies and expels a provocator. On minute 5:50 you can also see a number of unknown persons wearing civilian clothes believed to be provocators. They are behind the police cordons. The previous days a number of policemen in civilian clothes have arrested or beaten peaceful demonstrators (here is one video).
• Natalia Morari - a journalist formerly expelled from Russia for writing about high-level corruption in the Russian government, was arrested in Chisinau.
• a new photograph showing police collusion with provocators installing an EU flag on a public building.
• Unimedia.md - a website covering the protests - was attacked by hackers.  Unimedia posted online an IP showing that some of the cyber attacks came from the Moldovan intelligence service 
• Cable TV networks took off air Romanian TV channels, which have covered extensively the protests. The Moldovan public TV channel Moldova 1 shows almost exclusively the government’s side of the story.
• The most exhaustive video of the violences is here - on Publictv.md. 1.5 hours of police vs protesters actions. It gives a very good impression of what was happening. Watch especially for minutes 49-54 and on.
• as historic perspective, in 2003 Voronin was U.S.' “democrat” when he stuck it to Russia over the breakaway region of Transnistria, refusing to sign on to the Russian settlement plan. When Voronin later mended fences with Russia the long knives came out for him. In the words of one observer of the region, this current revolt is against the communists (Voronin) who were yesterday the democrats against the communists in Transnistria.

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GORDON BROWN’S carefully laid plans for a G20 deal on worldwide tax cuts have been scuppered by an eve-of-summit ambush by European leaders.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, last night led the assault on the prime minister’s “global new deal” for a $2 trillion-plus fiscal stimulus to end the recession.

“I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money,” she said.

The rest of the article.

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Protesters throw stones at police in the Greek city of Thessaloniki

So the latest four-day episode in Athens and other Greek cities comes as no great surprise. The Greeks are a feisty people. This is meant as a compliment - broadly speaking - just in case any Greek readers should take it the wrong way. Hitler was so impressed by Greek bravery that he accorded Greek soldiers full military honours, almost the sole example among captive nations in the East - or at least professed to do so at first.

That said, these riots are roughly what eurosceptics expected to see, at some point, at the periphery of the euro-zone as the slow-burn effects (excuse the pun) of Europe's monetary union begin to corrode the democratic legitimacy of governments

Entire article at The Telegraph
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http://www.upi.com/Top_Ne...

BAGHDAD, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- A total of 13 countries with troops currently stationed in Iraq will soon remove those soldiers from the war-torn country, a military official says.

Brig. Gen. Nicolas Matern, Multi-National Corps Iraq deputy commander, said with a U.N. mandate that offered the countries authorization to operate in Iraq set to expire at year's end, coalition forces are set to be significantly depleted, The Times of London reported Saturday.

Matern said the mandate expires on Dec. 31 and 13 countries including Japan and South Korea will be removing their Iraq forces in preparation for that date.

"We are going to say farewell to 13 different nations in the space of two and a half weeks," Matern, whose group supervises all coalition partners of the U.S. military, said.

Matern said the loss of the 13 countries follows similar troop withdrawals by other former coalition members.

"We started off with 35 countries but it has steadily been going down ... As from December it is going to go all the way down," he said.

The military official told The Times that the only remaining U.S. allies in Iraq after the mandate's expiration will be Australia, Britain, El Salvador, Estonia and Romania.

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James Slack of Daily Mail writes:

CCTV cameras which can 'predict' if a crime is about to take place are being introduced on Britain's streets.

The cameras can alert operators to suspicious behaviour, such as loitering and unusually slow walking. Anyone spotted could then have to explain their behaviour to a police officer.

The system has been run successfully in several U.S. cities, including New York. Government departments here are said to be interested in putting it to wider use.

Tory Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: 'We will look at this carefully… but there is no argument for CCTV that invades your privacy without being effective in the fight against crime.'

Britain is the most 'spied on' nation in the EU - some say the world - the results being the highest crime and drug rates recorded. Proposals are, therefore, a total waste of taxpayers money and a gross infringement on privacy and freedom for all law abiding citizens.

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The New York Times opened a profile of Klaus, 67, this week with a quote from a 1980s communist secret agent's report, claiming he behaves like a "rejected genius", and asserts there is "palpable fear" he will "embarrass" the EU.

But the real fear driving climate alarmists wild is that a more rational approach to the fundamentalist religion of global warming may be in the ascendancy - whether in the parliamentary offices of the world's largest trading bloc or in the living rooms of Blacktown.

As the global financial crisis takes hold, perhaps people are starting to wonder whether the so-called precautionary principle, which would have us accept enormous new taxes in the guise of an emissions trading scheme and curtail economic growth, is justified, based on what we actually know about climate.

One of Australia's leading enviro-sceptics, the geologist and University of Adelaide professor Ian Plimer, 62, says he has noticed audiences becoming more receptive to his message that climate change has always occurred and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

In a speech at the American Club in Sydney on Monday night for Quadrant magazine, titled Human-Induced Climate Change - A Lot Of Hot Air, Plimer debunked climate-change myths.

"Climates always change," he said. Our climate has changed in cycles over millions of years, as the orbit of the planet wobbles and our distance from the sun changes, for instance, or as the sun itself produces variable amounts of radiation. "All of this affects climate. It is impossible to stop climate change. Climates have always changed and they always will."

To understand the chaotic nature of climate change, we need to consider all the inputs - cosmic radiation, sun, clouds and so on, he said.

There was much more but essentially Plimer's message is that the idea humans cause climate change has become a fundamentalist religion which is corrupting science. It is embedded with a fear of nature and embraced principally by city people who have lost touch with nature.
[...]
Plimer says creationists and climate alarmists are quite similar in that "we're dealing with dogma and people who, when challenged, become quite vicious and irrational".

Read the entire article.

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GENEVA (AP) - Dr. Daniele Zullino keeps glass bottles full of white powder in a safe in a locked room of his office.

Patients show up each day to receive their treatment in small doses handed through a small window.

Then they gather around a table to shoot up, part of a pioneering Swiss program to curb drug abuse by providing addicts a clean, safe place to take heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory.

The program has been criticized by the United States and the U.N.narcotics board, which said it would fuel drug abuse. But governmentsas far away as Australia are beginning or considering their ownprograms modeled on the system, which is credited with reducing crimeand improving the health and daily lives of addicts.

Swiss voters are expected to make the system permanent Sunday in a referendum prompted by a challenge from conservatives.

The heroin program has won wide support within Switzerland since it wasbegun 14 years ago to eliminate scenes of large groups of drug usersshooting up openly in parks that marred Swiss cities in the 1980s and1990s.

"The aim is that the patients learn howto function in society," he said, adding that after two to three yearsin the program, one-third of the patients start abstinence-programs andone-third change to methadone treatment.

"Thanks to thispolicy we don't have open drug scenes anymore," said AndreasKaesermann, a spokesman for the Social Democrat Party, part of thecoalition government.

Health insurance pays for the bulk ofthe program, which costs 26 million Swiss francs ($22 million) a year.All residents in Switzerland are required to have health insurance,with the government paying insurance premiums for those who cannotafford it.

"It's wrong that the health insurance pays forthis," said Alain Hauert, spokesman for the right-wing Swiss People'sParty. He said the state should invest more money into prevention andlaw enforcement.

Crimes committed by heroin addicts have dropped 60 percent since the program began in 1994, according to the Federal Office of Public Health says.

And, Zullino said, patients reduce consumption of other narcotics oncethey start the heroin program and suffer less from psychiatricdisorders.

But, he added, "the idea has never been to liberalize heroin. It's considered a medicine and used as such."

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Libertarian Minded Czech Republic President Taking Over as Leader of EU! When every corner of the world seems to smell like socialism and despair out of nowhere comes a beacon of hope:

http://www.nytimes.com/20...

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in REYKJAVIK

THOUSANDS of Icelanders have demonstrated in Reykjavik to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Geir Haarde and Central Bank governor David Oddsson, for failing to stop the country's financial meltdown.
It was the latest in a series of protests in the capital since October's banking collapse crippled the island's economy. At least five people were injured and Hordur Torfason, a well-known singer in Iceland and the main organiser of the protests, said the protests would continue until the government stepped down.

As crowds gathered in the drizzle before the Althing, the Icelandic parliament, on Saturday, Mr Torfason said: "They don't have our trust and they are no longer legitimate."

The value of the Icelandic krona has been cut in half since January.

Four Nordic countries, as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have pledged to lend the country a combined $4.6 billion to help revive its deflated economy. The loan would be the first by the IMF to a Western nation since 1976.

One young man climbed on to the balcony of the Althing building, where the president appears upon inauguration and on Iceland's national day, and hung a banner reading: "Iceland for Sale: $2,100,000,000" – the amount of the loan the country is getting from the IMF.

A separate group of 200-300 people gathered in front of the city's main police station, throwing eggs and demanding the release of a young protester being held there.

Police in riot gear used pepper spray to drive back an attempt to free the protester during which several windows at the police station were shattered. The pro-tester was later released after his fine was paid.

As daylight began to wane, demonstrators drifted away into the nearby coffee shops. Here, as currency tumbles, the price of a cup of coffee has shot up by about one-third since before the crisis struck.

The demonstrators accuse the government – elected last year – of not doing enough to regulate the banking industry and have called for early elections.

Iceland's next election is not required until 2011.

Opposition parties tabled a no-confidence motion in the government on Friday over its handling of the crisis, but the motion carries little chance of toppling the ruling coalition which has a solid parliamentary majority.

Gudrun Jonsdottir, a 36-year-old office worker, said: "I've just had enough of this whole thing. I don't trust the government, I don't trust the banks, I don't trust the political parties, and I don't trust the IMF.

"We had a good country and they ruined it."

BACKGROUND____

ICELAND'S three biggest banks – Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir – collapsed under the weight of billions of dollars of debts accumulated in an aggressive overseas expansion, shattering the country's currency. Iceland's government seized control of all three institutions in early October.

This week, the North Atlantic island nation, which has a population of only 320,000, secured a package of more than US$10 billion (about £6.7 billion) in loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and several European countries to help it rebuild its shattered financial system.

Despite the intervention, however, Iceland still faces a sharp economic slowdown and surging job losses while at least one-third of Icelanders are also at risk of losing their homes and life savings.

Geir Haarde, the Icelandic prime minister, has promised that the government will use the IMF money to bring back a flexible interest rate scheme and rewrite financial laws, particularly legislation relating to insolvency.

Iceland was the first country to ask the IMF for help as the turmoil in the credit markets in October hit home.

The UK government used anti-terrorism legislation to freeze money deposited by UK savers in Icelandic banks in order to ensure that their money was protected.

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After crashing Iceland, interesting activity of the bankers in Eastern Europe:

Romania's currency was under hard fire and the RON plunged, luckily the Central Romanian Bank had the means, presence of spirit to discover the speculators and stop them:
"It is for the first time that the governor of the National Bank of Romania speaks openly about a speculative attack on the currency market. He did not reveal who was behind the attacks but suspicion hovers around thee big international banks that do not have branches in Romania."
"The Financial Institutions that started the attack are amongst the ones that have received financial aid from the Occidental governments to be able to face the crisis."
http://www.standard.ro/articol_64320/...

Rumors have surfaced about the foreign speculators: US investment funds JP Morgan-Chase, UK bank RBS, Unicredit.

Hungary, Ukraine currencies crashed and now are in debt (slaves) to the IMF:
http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/econom... IMF said Turkey was likely to join the queue for bail-outs very soon.
Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said over the weekend that his country would not "darken its future by bowing to the wishes of the IMF"

Romanian prime minister had a first reaction to the foreign financial terrorist attack:
I don't think is normal that foreign banks, saved (bailed-out) with public funds, engage in speculative operations to profit on the back of the Romanian tax payer."
"It is not moral what's happening. Of course Capitalism in essence is not moral ..."
"Romania should bring this to the attention of the European Union ..."

And in the Meantime IMF is starting more rumors about countries economies with the clear goal of destabilizing them. Using the crashed currencies and economies as excuse it has plans to "PRINT IT's OWN MONEY"

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• Eurozone officially in recession
• Hedge funds will be decimated by the global financial meltdown warns George Soros
• Retail sales fell by 2.8 percent last month
• Oh boy, Bernanke Says Central Bankers Ready for More Actions
• Freddie Mac posts record loss, needs $13.8 billion more

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Curious to see how this pans out:

According to an AP report, "EU leaders are set to call on the Nov. 15 summit to agree immediately on five principles: submit ratings agencies to more surveillance; align accounting standards; close loopholes; set banking codes of conduct to reduce excessive risk-taking; and ask the International Monetary Fund to suggest ways of calming the turmoil."
[...]

EU leaders like France's President Nicholas Sarkozy and Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown have seized the initiative in setting the agenda for the November 15 summit, which some are informally referring to as "Bretton Woods II." The EU will be calling for an agreement to overhaul the global financial system within 100 days, with a second international summit to be held in March.

Additional proposals that may be implied by the aformentioned five agenda items might include: creating a world central bank; creating an international reserve currency to replace the ailing U.S. dollar; and levying fees or taxes on international financial transactions.

Read all about it: Associated Press article, or this commentary
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