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Mysterious Group Buys Building Next to Ground Zero For Mosque Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Jim Hoft A mysterous Muslim group with unknown sponsors has purchased a building steps away from Ground Zero. Hudson New York reported: An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the WorldTrade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques. At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards...

SHANGHAI — China has overtaken the U.S. as the world's biggest market for automobiles, the first time any other country has bought more vehicles than the nation that produced Henry Ford, the Cadillac and the minivan. Now that the Chinese buy more cars and trucks than Americans, the shift could produce ripples for the environment, gas prices and even the kinds of cars automakers design. More than 12.7 million cars and trucks will be sold in China this year, up 44 percent from the previous year and surpassing the 10.3 million forecast in the U.S., according to J.D. Power and...

The visit to the U.S. of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will focus on important geo-political and economic issues. But this visit also should focus attention on the role India might play in an emerging global culture of freedom, helping both America and India. Friends of liberty should take note. Unenlightened legacy India seems an unlikely candidate to enhance the planet’s freedom. Its culture has been steeped in irrational religious beliefs, mostly unleavened by modern intellectual enlightenment. Religious violence between Hindus (80 percent of the population), Muslims (13 percent), and Sikhs (2 percent) goes back centuries. While tamped down, it...

An official announcement by the Obama administration disclosing the reality of extraterrestrial life is imminent. For several months, senior administration officials have been quietly deliberating behind closed doors how much to disclose to the world about extraterrestrial life. Dissatisfaction among powerful institutions such as the U.S. Navy over the decades-long secrecy policy has given a boost to efforts to disclose the reality of extraterrestrial life and technology. The impending disclosure announcement follows upon the secret implementation of a year long openness policy on UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Over the period February 12-14, 2008, the United Nations held closed doors discussions...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Senate committee on Tuesday launches three long days of hearings on a Democratic climate bill in a bid to further convince an international summit in December that Washington is serious about tackling global warming. The Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee will kick off Tuesday's hearing at 9:30 a.m. EDT with a panel of heavy-hitters from President Barack Obama's Cabinet: the secretaries of energy, transportation and interior and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Joining them will be the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. According to an EPA statement, the officials will focus...

American Life League 27 October 2009 CONTACT: Katie Walker540.659.4942| kwalker@all.org  Washington, DC (27 October 2009) – The Senate version of America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 may transform the nation’s largest abortion chain into a quasi-government entity for sex education. Section 1803, page 503, creates a National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Resource Center and states: The Secretary shall award a grant to a nationally recognized, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that meets the requirements described in clause (ii) to establish and operate a national teen pregnancy prevention resource center (in this subparagraph referred to as the ‘Resource Center’) to carry out the purpose...

Halloween just got scarier – much scarier. I'm not talking about a new Hollywood slasher film or a new line of grotesque costumes, but a possible political nightmare scenario in which the White House could be positioned to sell out U.S. sovereignty, shred the Constitution and leave you and yours to the whims of foreign powers. Flying deep under Washington's radar is an upcoming (December) global climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, under the guise of the "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change." Virtually nothing has been said about it from the White House. But then again, I'm sure...

US President Barack Obama on Friday hit out at naysayers he blamed for peddling "cynical" claims that global warming is a myth to derail a landmark climate change bill in Congress. Obama warned that the closer the Senate came to passing legislation which has already cleared the House of Representatives, the more opponents would resort to underhand tactics. "The naysayers, the folks who would pretend that this is not an issue, they are being marginalized," Obama warned in a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "But I think it's important to understand that the closer we get, the harder...

Note: The following text is a quote: Remarks by Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the 78th Interpol General Assembly SINGAPORE ~ Monday, October 12, 2009 In Bucharest, a little over a year ago, my predecessor U.S. Deputy Attorney General, Mark Filip, joined by the Romanian Prosecutor General, announced criminal charges in a case that was emblematic of the evolution of transnational organized crime. That case charged that a racketeering enterprise in Romania joined forces with other criminals around the world -- including street gangs in Los Angeles -- to use the Internet to defraud thousands of people and...

By Robert Spencer October 9, 2009 FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE thelastcrusade.org Does the United States Constitution protect the freedom of speech of American citizens, or does it not? In this era of globalization, the answer is becoming increasingly muddled. Thursday, an American citizen, Paul Williams, went on trial in Canada. He is charged with violating Canadian libel laws in charges he made in his book The Dunces of Doomsday about a jihad terror cell at McMaster University in Ontario. Likewise in Brazil, an American business writer, Joseph Sharkey, is on trial for what he wrote about Brazilian air-traffic controllers after he...

ISTANBUL — The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the "privilege" of building a huge trade deficit. "Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country?s 'privilege' to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity," UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said.

The ninth chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt , has upended the traditional innovation model. Among his radical ideas to fire up the $183-billion conglomerate are putting India and China at the centre of a management model that talks of developing products in emerging markets and distributing them globally. In an e-mail interview with ET , Immelt discusses the idea and GE’s India plans. Excerpts: You are expected to make some announcements regarding investments and joint ventures in India. Can you give us some details? India represents one of the significant growth markets for GE globally and we...

<p>President will announce Friday morning a significant expansion of the consortium of countries that tackles global economic and climate change issues.</p> <p>In a surprising late-night twist on the eve of the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, FOX News has learned President Obama will announce Friday morning a significant expansion of the consortium of countries that tackles global economic and climate change issues.</p>

The embattled US dollar is expected to come under scrutiny at a summit of developing and industrialized nations following China-led calls to review its role as a reserve currency. The dollar issue is bound to surface at the two-day meeting in Pittsburgh as US President Barack Obama and other leaders of the Group of 20 economies debate a new framework for tackling the so called global "economic imbalances" blamed for fuelling the latest financial crisis. "Though not clear how the plan would be enforced, it would involve measures such as the US cutting its deficits and saving more, China reducing...

U.S. to push for new economic world order at G20 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will urge world leaders this week to launch a new push in November to rebalance the world economy, but there are doubts national governments will bow to external advice. A document outlining the U.S. position ahead of the September 24-25 Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh said exporters, which include China, Germany and Japan, should consume more, while debtors like the United States ought to boost savings. "The world will face anemic growth if adjustments in one part of the global economy are not...

In a radical report, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has said the system of currencies and capital rules which binds the world economy is not working properly, and was largely responsible for the financial and economic crises. -snip- "Replacing the dollar with an artificial currency would solve some of the problems related to the potential of countries running large deficits and would help stability," said Detlef Kotte, one of the report's authors. "But you will also need a system of managed exchange rates. Countries should keep real exchange rates [adjusted for inflation] stable. Central banks would have...

Vatican City, Jul 7, 2009 / 08:56 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI's highly anticipated social encyclical, titled “Love in Truth,” takes on the complex issue of what the global economy should look like. In his analysis, real development can be achieved by seeking to convert individual people, and not the economy, which is only an instrument. The global financial crisis places on display the “pernicious effects of sin,” the Holy Father said as he began the third chapter of his new encyclical. At the root of the current meltdown, the Pope explained that he finds three false convictions: that man...

Page 1 of 2 UNITED NATIONS, June 27 (KUNA) -- Amid US and European reservation, a High-Level UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development late Friday adopted by consensus a final outcome document containing a sweeping action plan to help mitigate the effect of the economic crisis on the developing countries. General Assembly President Father Miguel d'Escoto, who convened the conference, hailed the consensus as the "first step in a long process of putting the world on a new path towards solidarity, stability and sustainability." He was also gratified that the UN or...

What is the end result of globalization? A new era of international hypercompetition - and sky-high commodities prices - called "globality," says Harold [Hal] L. Sirkin, co-author of 2008's "Globality: Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything." Sirkin, senior partner of the Boston Consulting Group's Chicago office, has written about globality's impact on businesses and the markets for BusinessWeek, Harvard Business Review and the New York Times. He's also a frequent guest on CNBC, Fox Business News, MSNBC and CNN. HardAssetsInvestor.com Associate Editor Lara Crigger recently chatted with Sirkin about globality, including how it impacts commodities supply and demand, which...

NEW YORK — If the United States and every wealthy country in the world were to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to zero tomorrow and there were no change in the developing world, “the crisis would still overtake us,” said Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States, at a forum in New York City last week. Whether or not that is precisely true, the implication almost certainly is. Little progress can be made in addressing the global climate crisis, after all, unless common cause is found between rich countries, who created the problem in becoming so, and poorer...

The Times interviewed Paul Oquist, D’Escoto’s senior adviser for the conference, who sat beneath portraits of Fidel Castro of Cuba, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, among others. While meaningless United Nations hand-wringing over the North Korean nuclear weapons program garners the headlines, the world body is moving ahead with a global conference to lay the groundwork for world government financed by global taxes. The communist head of the U.N. General Assembly is leading the effort, but he is getting crucial support from "progressive" economists who advise the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party. The United Nations...

There he goes again, bashing Bangalore. Not for the first time, US President Barack Obama invoked India’s much-celebrated economic hotspot, which has become an all-encompassing metaphor to describe everything from job loss to globalization, to rally Americans for a protectionist cause. At a White House event on Monday to unveil tax reforms aimed at forcing American multinationals to pay corporate taxes -- and keep jobs -- at home, Obama lashed out at the current US system, saying it encouraged paying ''lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York.'' The...

Globalization and the New World Order by Michael D. O’Brien “Is this not the time for all to work together for a new constitutional organization of the human family, truly capable of ensuring peace and harmony between peoples, as well as their integral development? But let there be no misunderstanding. This does not mean writing the constitution of a global super-State.” — Pope John Paul II, Message for the World Day of Peace, 2003 “Fighting poverty requires attentive consideration of the complex phenomenon of globalization. ... The reference to globalization should also alert us to the spiritual and moral implications...

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.. – Shakespeare, As You Like It Remember all those “conspiracy theorists” who would continually remind (or attempt to remind) America that most of our government is comprised of and powered by the CFR (Council of Foreign Relations)? Remember how people laughed at these harbingers of doom as if they were crazy? Well, crazy no more. Here is a bit from its program, The International Institutions of Global Governance Program: The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has launched a comprehensive five-year program on international institutions and global governance....

A United Nations document on "climate change" that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body. Those and other results are blandly discussed in a discretely worded United Nations "information note" on potential consequences of the measures that industrialized countries will likely have to take to implement the...

Is the U.S. about to lose its status as the dominant global superpower? Will the dollar collapse? If so, what would become the new global reserve currency and what would replace U.S. hegemony in a new world order? ......So how would a new world order emerge? It seems that the global population would only be willing to accept the implementation of a new world order, in either form, in the event of a major global crisis, such as the complete economic collapse of the United States of America. ......Many experts believe that this is not only possible, but likely. According...

Over the past several months, a steady drumbeat in elite media circles has been pounding out a persistent theme: global crises have exposed the limits of national sovereignty and underscored the necessity for nations to embrace "global governance." A theme of climate change, economic meltdown, and terrorism as the new horsemen of the Apocalypse has been shouted and echoed in recent weeks by Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Strobe Talbott of the Brookings Institution, Gary Clyde Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and President Obama's National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, to name a...

Americans... still believe in an America, where anything's possible - they just don't think their leaders do. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential. I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody. CONTINUING TO FAIL OVER...AND OVER...AND OVER AGAIN! We reward people a lot for being rich, for being famous, for being cute, for being thin… one of the values I think we...

Barack Obama’s top economic adviser has urged world leaders to pump more public money into the economy in a co-ordinated effort to boost demand and lift the world out of recession.In an interview with the Financial Times, Lawrence Summers said the urgent need for a short-term increase in spending by governments temporarily overrode the longer-term goal of tackling the global imbalances many economists believe caused the financial crisis. The US administration had no choice but to take strong public action to “save the market system from its own excesses”, he said.His comments, ahead of next month’s crunch G20 summit in...

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- There's a $700 trillion elephant in the room and it's time we found out how much it really weighs on the economy. Derivative contracts total about three-quarters of a quadrillion dollars in "notional" amounts, according to the Bank for International Settlements. These contracts are tallied in notional values because no one really can say how much they are worth. But valuing them correctly is exactly what we should be doing because these comprise the viral disease that has infected the financial markets and the economies of the world. Try as we might to salvage the...

GORDON BROWN hopes to forge a partnership with President Barack Obama in Washington this week, to call for a “global new deal” to lift the world out of recession. As he prepares for his first White House visit since the president’s inauguration, the prime minister has hinted that he is ready to make further tax cuts to boost the UK economy. Brown will meet Obama on Tuesday and address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Aides say he has both to demonstrate to a sceptical British public that he commands the respect of the president, and to persuade the...

Anger rises in Germany as the economy falls. Trade unions and globalization-critical protesters are planning demonstrations in Berlin and Frankfurt under the banner: "We're not paying for your crisis." Alexis Passadakis, 31, an activist from the group Attac, tells SPIEGEL what's wrong with the system. SPIEGEL: What do you mean with your battle cry, "We're not paying for your crisis"? Don't you want to pay taxes anymore? Passadakis: We believe that the cost of the economic crisis should be footed by those who profited most from globalization. SPIEGEL: As a leading exporter, Germany too has profited. Passadakis: No, the majority...

New York, NY (AHN) - The consumer cost of rice, a staple for much of the world, could fall this year thanks to a bumper harvest in 2008, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported on Wednesday. The U.N. food agency also cautioned that the negative impact of the global economic downturn and the resulting loss of jobs and income could outweigh the benefits of lower prices for the poorest consumers. Last year's rapid increases in the price of rice and other cereals played a major role in the food crisis, characterized by high fuel and fertilizer prices...

It was a typical globalization-era war that pitted tradition against profits. A large cheese factory wanted to change the Camembert recipe and began a dirty fight against small producers. This time, though, tradition emerged victorious. When Luc Morelon was still convinced that this was a winnable war, he was willing to give interviews in his office on the 30th floor of the Montparnasse Tower, with its view of the Eiffel Tower and of a deceptively peaceful-looking sea of shimmering Parisian rooftops in the morning mist. "snip" he was no longer available for further attacks by the "self-proclaimed custodians of tradition,"...

The FINANCIAL -- According to RIA Novosti, Russian-Iranian trade turnover rose to $3.7 billion last year, Russia's deputy foreign minister said on February 20."We are delighted that trade turnover between our countries reached $3.7 billion last year. This is a significant figure, and one which is expected to be higher this year," Alexei Borodavkin said following scheduled talks between Russian and Iranian foreign ministry officials in the Iranian capital of Tehran.   He said MOSCOW and Tehran considered the development of bilateral economic relations a means to overcome the economic and financial problems that the countries were facing.   Borodavkin...

The FINANCIAL -- What have been the economic consequences of the 2004 and 2007 EU enlargements for the ‘new’ member states? In parallel to the publication of the European Commission’s report on the recent EU enlargements, EUROCHAMBRES asked national Chambers of Commerce from newly acquired Member States to evaluate how their inclusion in the EU impacted on their economic situation and performance. "Respondents believe that the main economic benefits of EU accession have been a higher degree of macroeconomic stability, an easier access to larger markets (including capital markets) and very positive trade ad investment flows, including Foreign Direct Investment. ...

What is the world coming to? Pat Dollard reports the Russian leader warned the US against adopting socialism because it doesn't work: Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”. “In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us...

BEIJING, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Increased borrowing by the United States to fund its massive stimulus package could cause the depreciation of U.S. dollar-denominated assets, Chinese economists have told Xinhua.     Being the largest holder of U.S. Treasury securities, China had reason to be concerned about that possible depreciation, the economists said.     The 787 billion U.S. dollar stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is designed to jolt the ailing U.S. economy by providing government spending and tax cuts for both individuals and businesses. U.S. President Barack Obama signed it into law Tuesday.     "To rescue the ailing U.S. economy by...

LONDON (MarketWatch) - Several of Europe's top banks skidded on Tuesday as investors fretted that exposure to their once-fast growing Eastern neighbours will prove to be a thorn in the side of many lenders.The sell-off was sparked by a report from Moody's Investors Services, which said it's concerned about Western European banks that are supporting subsidiaries in Eastern Europe against a rapidly deteriorating global macroeconomic backdrop. "Deteriorating financial strength of East European subsidiaries has a negative spillover effect on their West European parents. Maintaining a robust risk-return profile during a downturn in the untested and still more volatile East European...

As goods pile up in wharves from Bangkok to Shanghai, and workers are laid off in record numbers, people in East Asia are beginning to realize they aren't only experiencing an economic downturn but living through the end of an era. For over 40 years now, the cutting edge of the region's economy has been export-oriented industrialization (EOI). Taiwan and Korea first adopted this strategy of growth in the mid-1960s, with Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee coaxing his country's entrepreneurs to export by, among other measures, cutting off electricity to their factories if they refused to comply. The success of Korea...

When globalisation goes into reverse By Gideon Rachman Published: February 2 2009 19:10 | Last updated: February 2 2009 19:10 There are rock festivals and book festivals – and then there is the annual globalisation festival, otherwise known as the World Economic Forum in Davos. For the past decade, the Davos meeting has brought together big business, high finance and top politics to promote and celebrate the integration of the global economy. Whatever their business rivalries or political differences, the Davos delegates all agreed that the road to peace and prosperity lay through more international trade and investment – globalisation,...

Henry Kissinger made headlines on January 5 by proclaiming Barack Obama to be the architect of a “New World Order.” He told CNBC that “His task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It’s a great opportunity, it isn’t just a crisis.” But even more important than this eye-opening statement was where Kissinger made it―the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Kissinger, a former Secretary of State, was alongside Stephen Orlins, president of the U.S. National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and two Chinese officials,...

Editor's note: A recent story in the Wall Street Journal profiled former Soviet KGB agent Igor Panarin's prediction that the United States will soon collapse. Vitaliy Katsenelson, who emigrated to the U.S. from Russia 17 years ago, offers a response.DENVER, Colo. (MarketWatch) -- Dear Mr. Ex-KGB: Desperate times call for desperate measures. No kidding. I understand why you took the collapse of the Soviet Union model added some wishful thinking and applied it to the United States. See Wall Street Journal article. The Great U.S. of A is not the Soviet Union, this analogy doesn't work on this country. The...

The collapse of financial globalization … Posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 By bsetser The last six months — if not the last year — logged what felt like a decade’s worth of financial news. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that swings that normally would attract an enormous amount of attention have gone almost unnoticed. Like the near-total collapse of private capital flows. Both private capital inflows to the US and private capital outflows from the US have fallen sharply. They have gone from a peak of around 15% of US GDP to around zero in a remarkably short period...

BEIJING, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The world has undergone remarkable changes this year, but international security situation on the whole remained stable with "peace" and "development" prevailing as the themes of the times. In 2008, the world has continued moving toward multi-polarization, resulting in a distinctive shift of international forces. Globalization is developing in depth and regional cooperation is gathering momentum. The world has been confronted with one hotspot issue after another and non-traditional threats are increasing. The world economic growth took a turn for the worse due to the outbreak of the global financial crisis. WORLD MULTI-POLARIZATION STRENGTHENED In...

One hundred years ago, there was a financial panic in the United States. There were runs on the banks as depositors rushed to take out their money before they ran out of currency. The stock market dropped to half its peak 1906 average. The financial crisis began in New York City, home of most of the financial “trust” companies. The panic induced Congress to create the Federal Reserve System (the “Fed”) in 1913 to prevent any more such financial crises. But the Fed failed to prevent the even worse bank failures of the Great Depression. The main cause of the...

Consumers and companies will continue to find it difficult to access credit for the next one to two years, the boss of Barclays bank has said. Credit remains available to households and businesses but the amount available is shrinking, John Varley told the BBC. He said he did not expect banks to start to increase their lending again until 2010 at the earliest. In an interview for BBC1's Panorama, Mr Varley also said the banking industry should say sorry for the crisis. The programme, which looks at how Britain's banks went to the brink of collapse in October and what...

INTRODUCTION The natural born citizen requirement in Article II of the United States Constitution has been called the “stupidest provision” in the Constitution,1 “undecidedly unAmerican,”2 “blatantly discriminatory,”3 and the “Constitution’s worst provision.”4 ... snip The natural born citizen clause of the United States Constitution should be repealed for numerous reasons. Limiting presidential eligibility to natural born citizens discriminates against naturalized citizens, is out-dated and undemocratic, and incorrectly assumes that birthplace is a proxy for loyalty. The increased globalization of the world continues to make each of these reasons more persuasive...the natural born citizen clause has increasingly become out of place...

By 2025, the accelerating pace of globalization and the emergence of new powers will produce a world order vastly different from the system in place for most of the post-World War II era, according to a projection by the federal government's top intelligence analysts. The projection, prepared by the National Intelligence Council of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, was made public by the ODNI today. The ODNI report, "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" projects a still-preeminent U.S. joined by fast developing powers, notably India and China, atop a multipolar international system. The world of the near...

"With grim economic news coming from many directions, it's easy to get discouraged about our ability to repair the damage of years of failed economic policies. And yet, there are pragmatic solutions to our biggest challenges, including ways to restore health care and retirement security, to create family-supporting jobs, and to reestablish a leadership role in the global economy. Collaborating with some of the nation's top progressive thinkers, EPI researchers have been exploring and refining solutions for the better part of two years. Now, just in time for national debates on economic direction, EPI has compiled the best of these...