Organised crime is the biggest earner in Italy – with a turnover of more £100 billion a year – according to a report by business chiefs.

Extortion and intimidation is used to extract millions from shopkeepers, restaurants, cinemas, construction companies and thousands of other businesses as the godfathers spread their criminal enterprises across the whole of the country.

As a result of the ongoing economic crisis the Mafia is also cashing in with its traditional money-raising means of loan sharking – charging extortionate interest rates to hard-pressed businesses who are unable to raise funds.

According to a report titled Criminality’s Grip On Business, the various Mafia groups across Italy make a profit of around £116 billion a year – a figure equivalent to seven per cent of the country’s GDP.

It is a massive amount of money leaving the economy and passing from businesses straight into the pockets of gangsters.

The report said that ‘every minute’ a business or commercial activity was directly affected by organised crime – with no part of the country escaping, and with a surge of activity in the capital Rome.

Marco Venturi, president of Confesercenti – an association of small- and medium-sized companies, and publisher of the report – described the Mafia as ‘the biggest bank in the country’ with liquid assets of more than £50 billion.

Mr Venturi added that, as a result of extortion and loan sharking, more than 190,000 businesses had been forced to shut in the past three years alone.

He explained that Rome was the prime city targeted by organised crime gangs, with the Sicilian Mafia, Naples Camorra, Calabrian N’drangheta and the Sacra Corona Unita from the Puglia region all having an active ‘financial interest’ in the capital city.

Only last year it was revealed that the N’drangheta were using several famous restaurants and wine bars along the famous Via Veneto in the centre of Rome for money laundering, as well as being targeted for extortion.

Loan sharking was also rampant in the Sicilian cities of Palermo and Catania – as well as Naples in the south and Reggio Calabria – with those who failed to meet repayments being subjected to violence and intimidation by mobsters.

ORGANISED CRIME IN ITALY … THE MAIN PLAYERS

Sicilian Mafia: Also known as the Cosa Nostra, the 19th century criminal syndicate has been made famous by Hollywood – and its name is now a generic term for any organised criminal network with similar structure, methods, and interests.

Camorra: A secret society from the region of Campania, it is one of the oldest and largest criminal organisations in Italy. Unlike the Mafia’s ‘Godfather’ pyramid structure, the Camorra clans act independently, making it more resilient when bosses are arrested or killed.

‘Ndrangheta: This 19th century syndicate from the Calabria region is considered to be one of the most powerful criminal organisations in the world – with a remarkable ability to migrate to other countries, including Argentina, the Netherlands and Australia.

Sacra Corona Unita: The youngest of the syndicates, set up in the 1970s, the SCU specialises in smuggling – from drugs and weapons to people. They charge other criminal organisations ‘landing rights’ to the Apulian coast in the south-east – a gateway to and from countries like Albania.

The report said extortionate money lending had become an easy and lucrative way to make money – compared to the more traditional means of drug running, arms smuggling, prostitution and gambling.

It added: ‘The classic neighbourhood or street loan shark is on the way out, giving way to organised loan sharking that is well connected with professional circles, and operates with the connivance of high-level professionals.

‘This is extortion with a clean face. Through their professions, they know the financial position of their victims perfectly.’

Mr Venturi said: ‘There are parts of the country that are controlled by organised crime, and the ongoing financial crisis – coupled with the lack of money – has made this problem even more dramatic. The government is tackling the issue but more attention is needed to stop the shadow of organised crime spreading further.’

Italy’s Interior Ministry has a special department dealing with extortion and loan sharking. Called the Anti-Racket Commission, it is headed by former police chief Giancarlo Trevisone.

Chief Trevisone said: ‘Our objective is to reconquer the territory that is in the hands of the Mafia.’

Source.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been threatened with military action by the US and its allies for the last eight years.

Iran has been involved in war games in the Persian Gulf. The US Navy is deployed. Iran’s naval exercises which commenced on December 24th were conducted in an area which is patrolled by the US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain.

Meanwhile, a new round of economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran has been unleashed, largely targeting Iran’s Central Bank, leading to a dramatic plunge of Iran’s currency.

Reacting to US threats, Iran declared that it would consider blocking the shipment of oil through the Strait of Hormuz:

 ”Roughly 40 percent of the world’s oil tanker shipments transit the strait daily, carrying 15.5 million barrels of Saudi, Iraqi, Iranian, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Qatari and United Arab Emirates crude oil, leading the United States Energy Information Administration to label the Strait of Hormuz “the world’s most important oil chokepoint.” (John C.K. Daly, War Imminent in Strait of Hormuz? $200 a Barrel Oil?Global Research, January 3, 2012)

The Globalization of War and the Demise of the American Republic

There is a symbiotic relationship between War and the Economic Crisis.

The planning of the Iran war is being carried out at the crossroads of a worldwide economic depression, which is conducive to widening social inequalities, mass unemployment and the impoverishment of large sectors of the world population.

Crushing social movements on the domestic front –including all forms of resistance to America’s military agenda and its neoliberal economic policies– is an integral part of the United States’ hegemonic role Worldwide.

Does Constitutional Government in the eyes of the Obama Administration constitute an encroachment to “The Globalization of War”?

History tells us that an Empire cannot be built on the political foundations of a Republic.

In this regard, it should come as no surprise that the new Iran sanctions regime adopted by the US Congress became law on New Year’s Eve, December 31st, on the same day Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA 2012), which suspends civil liberties and allows for the “Indefinite Detention of Americans”. (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Inauguration of Police State USA 2012. Obama Signs the “National Defense Authorization Act “, Global Research,  January 1, 2012)

The Obama administration is intent upon crushing both social dissent as well as antiwar protest. The American Republic is incompatible with America’s “long war”. What is required is the instatement of a “democratic dictatorship”, a de facto military rule in civilian cloths.

Thousands of Troops to Israel

Advanced war preparations are ongoing. Barely mentioned by the Western media, although confirmed by Israeli press reports, the Pentagon is preparing to send several thousand US troops to Israel.

In the context of ongoing war preparations, these troops are slated to participate in joint US-Israeli military maneuvers in Spring 2012, described by the Jerusalem Post as “the largest-ever missile defense exercise in [Israel's] history.” (emphasis added)

Last week [11-18 December], Lt.-Gen. Frank Gorenc, commander of the US’s Third Air Force based in Germany, visited Israel to finalize plans for the upcoming drill, expected to see the deployment of several thousand American soldiers in Israel. (US commander visits Israel to finalize missile… Jerusalem Post December 21, 2011 emphasis added)

These war games involve the testing of Israel’s air defense system, which is now fully integrated into the US global missile detection system, following the installation (December 2008) of a new sophisticated X-band early warning radar system. (See www.defense.gov/news/, December 30, 2011, .See also Sen. Joseph Azzolina, Protecting Israel from Iran’s missiles, Bayshore News, December 26, 2008).

The US global missile detection system includes satellites, Aegis ships in the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea as well as land-based Patriot radars and interceptors. In the context of planning the US-Israel Spring war games:

“The US will also bring its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and shipbased Aegis ballistic missile defense systems to Israel to simulate the interception of missile salvos against Israel.

The American systems will work in conjunction with Israel’s missile defense systems – the Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome.

Gorenc came to Israel for talks with Brig.-Gen. Doron Gavish, commander of the Air Force’s Air Defense Division.

He toured one of the Iron Dome batteries in the South and the Israel Test Bed lab in Holon where the IAF holds its interception simulation exercises.

The IAF is planning to deploy a fourth battery of the Iron Dome counter-rocket system in the coming months and is mulling the possibility of stationing it in Haifa to protect oil refineries located there.

The Defense Ministry has allocated a budget to manufacture an additional three Iron Dome batteries by the end of 2012. IAF operational requirements call for the deployment of about a dozen batteries along Israel’s northern and southern borders.

The IAF is also moving forward with plans to deploy Rafael’s David’s Sling missile defense system, which is designed to defend against medium-range rockets and cruise missiles. Rafael recently completed a series of successful navigation and flight tests of the David’s Sling’s interceptor and plans to hold the first interception test by mid-2012. US commander visits Israel to finalize missile… Jerusalem Post December 21, 2011)

Integrated US-NATO-Israel Command Structures

Pursuant to these joint US-Israel games, there are indications that the US is also planning to increase the number of American troops stationed in Israel.

Moreover, these military exercises planned for next Spring are accompanied by a fundamental shift in US-NATO-Israel command structures.

What is now unfolding at Washington’s behest is an integration of US-Israel military command structures.

Washington is not a reluctant partner, as some observers have suggested, “with the Obama administration attempting to distance itself”  from an Israeli sponsored war on Iran. Quite the opposite!

Given the integration of Israel’s air defense system into that of the US, Israel cannot, under any circumstances, wage a war on Iran without the US.Moreover, since mid-2005, following the signing of a protacol between NATO and Tel Aviv, Israel has beocme a de facto member of the Atlantic Alliance.

The Pentagon calls the shots. The planned deployment of US troops in Israel is part and parcel of  a US sponsored war.

In the context of the Spring 2012 military drills, the United States military will establish Command Posts in Israel. In turn, Israel’s IDF will establish Command Posts at United States European Command headquarters (EUCOM), in Stuttgart, Germany. (Ibid).

The ultimate objective of these command posts is to establish “joint [US-Israeli] task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East”, (Ibid). In other words, these task forces will be involved in planning the deployment of troops and weapons systems directed against Iran, with Israel playing an important role as a launchpad for military action.

What these developments suggest is that the war on Iran –which has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon since 2003– will involve the direct participation of Israel under a unified US military command.

The people of Israel are the unspoken victims of  America’s global military agenda as well their own government’s war plans directed against Iran.

They are led to believe that Iran possesses nuclear weapons when in fact Israel possesses an advanced nuclear arsenal, which is directed against Iran.

The people of Israel as well as Western public opinion, more generally, are also led to believe that Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants “to Wipe Israel off the Map”, when in fact this statement was concocted by the Western media, as a means of demonizing the Iranian head of state as well as presenting Iran as a threat to the security of Israel:

“Across the world, a dangerous rumor has spread that could have catastrophic implications. According to legend, Iran’s President has threatened to destroy Israel, or, to quote the misquote, “Israel must be wiped off the map”. Contrary to popular belief, this statement was never made”

(See Arash Norouzi, Israel: “Wiped off The Map”. The Rumor of the Century, Fabricated by the US Media to Justify An All out War on Iran, Global Research, January 20, 2007)

Who wants to “wipe Israel off the Map”? Tehran or Washington? Ahmadinejad or Obama?

In actual fact, the Obama administration as well as the Netanyahu government indelibly constitute a threat to the people of Israel.

Tehran has since 2005 warned that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel as well as against US military facilities in the Persian Gulf, which would immediately lead us into a scenario of military escalation.

This war would engulf a region extending from the Mediterranean to the heartland of Central Asia. It would have devastating consequences, resulting in a massive loss of life.

It would precipitate humanity into a World War III scenario.

Source.

For the first time in nearly four-decades the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a “dire” travel alert for top officials, scientists and military officers travelling to the United States over fears the Obama regime is preparing to instigate a revolution for the purpose of their being able to hold on to power and complete the enslavement of the American people.

According to this report the “Occupy Wall Street” protests that began in New York City nearly a month ago have now spread to at least 25 other US cities and show no sign of abating any time soon.

The Ministry further warns that these protests in New York City began at a private park named Zuccotti which is owned by a company that received nearly $200 million from the Obama regime and brings into question just who is exactly financing this “peoples revolt,” which looks from the outside very similar to a class warfare-type action that began both the French and Russian revolutions.

Though Obama last week commented positively about these growing protests this Ministry report warns that one should not forget that he has received more money from Wall Street bankers than any other American politician over the past 20 years, including former President George W. Bush.

The “real reason” for the Obama’s regime backing of these protests, the Ministry warns, is their knowing that the entire Global Economic System is nearing an historic crash, and that IMF advisor Robert Shapiro warned last week was perhaps just 2-3 weeks away.

To fully comprehend the grave situation facing us today the Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, warned that our world is facing the worst financial crisis in history, and with the United States facing crushing numbers of jobless workers, along with the worst housing bust since the Great Depression, the American people are not being told how dire their situation is.

And to exactly how dire the situation is for these Americans one need only know that as of 1 January 2011 their Baby Boom Generation began to hit their retirement age that will see more than 10,000 of them being put onto the US government retirement and government medical roles every single day for the next 19 years at a cost even the whole world’s economy could not pay for.

In order to keep the United States from total outright collapse Obama has added more debt to America then all US Presidents combined from George Washington through George H.W. Bush to the crushing level of $4 billion a day being added onto the backs of the already debt crushed American people.

And so debt crushed have these American people become that fully 48.5% of them live in a household that receives some form of government benefits, one-third of them would not be able to pay their rent or mortgage payment if they lost their job, and half of them live on $505 or less per week.

Unlike their ancestors who lived through similar great global economic and social upheavals the American people of today have no idea that what is now occurring happens on “regular as clockwork” schedule of every 30-40 years, and has throughout all of recorded human history.

The last time a great global economic upheaval occurred was in 1971 when the US went off the gold standard (called the Nixon Shock) which plunged the United States and its Western allies into an over decade long period of stagnation that only ended after President Ronald Reagan began the largest peacetime buildup of military forces in all history and which nearly led to World War III with the then Soviet Empire.

Prior to the “Nixon Shock” was the 1944 Bretton Woods System enacted in the aftermath of the global economic upheaval of the Great Depression and World War II which cost an estimated 150 million lives world-wide.

Most important to know about these “once in a lifetime” global economic upheavals are that even if the ones in the past are forgotten about by the masses they are most certainly not by the elites who use their knowledge of the past in an attempt to control what the future will be.

To the “new” global economic system that was planned to replace the current one once it was destroyed is no secret as these elites have been planning this transition for decades and named it the New International Economic Order (NIEO).  However, since NIEO was first proposed in the 1970’s the nations of the world were unable to agree on how to implement it thus leading to the chaos we have today.

Interesting to note is that the ancient Jewish-Christian text called the Old Testament (or Torah) provided to humanity the only proven method to avoid the 30-50 cycle of repeated economic collapses and as stated in The Book of Deuteronomy chapter 15 verse 1, “At the end of every seventh year you must cancel the debts of everyone who owes you money.”

This biblical precept was codified in the United States upon its founding and enabled any American to have his debts absolved every seven years through a process known as bankruptcy, but which over the past 50 years has been corrupted from its original intent to keep these people from becoming “debt slaves” and has, instead, been portrayed to these idiots as being morally wrong by their political, banking and corporate overlords.

Because the United States has become a nation of idiots instead of freemen they are, likewise, completely blind to the monstrosity of the country they are helping to create wherein from the time they are born, to the time they are told to die, these people will live in an Orwellian World devoid of any meaning and subject to the most brutal methods of control ever designed by an elite class to control the masses.

From their President Obama now having the power to assassinate any citizen he so chooses, and the CIA warned could now be allowed to kill journalists, and the FBI about to deploy a nationwide facial recognition system in order to track those citizens with no ties to terror groups but who are warned pose a  “serious national security threat,” and the US Department of Homeland Security beginning testing of their “Pre-Crime Detection System” designed to jail those who have not committed a crime, but maybe will, one can, indeed, see the words George Orwell wrote in his seminal work 1984 coming alive into today’s America:

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.”

And though the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is warning its citizens about traveling to the United States perhaps the ones who should heed it the most are the people living there.

October 10, 2011 © EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com.

The starting gun for one of the biggest fire-sales in western history was fired as Greek officials began appointing advisers for the country’s ambitious privatisation drive.

“Our target is clear, and it is to generate €1.7bn from privatisations by the end of September and €5bn by the end of the year,” said the finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos.

After securing a second aid package to prop up an economy now dependent on international handouts to pay public wages and pensions, Athens has moved with record speed to divest itself of state assets ranging from prime real estate to loss-making companies.

By any measure it is a gargantuan task. At stake is Greece’s €350bn debt, which before the EU and IMF agreed to bailout the country again was predicted to peak at 172% of GDP next year.

The socialist government says it aims to raise €50bn through the campaign by 2015. Enough, it is hoped, to not only make a dent in the debt but send a convincing message to the markets that have pummelled Athens since the onset of the crisis 18 months ago.

The prime minister, George Papandreou, has cancelled his summer holidays to accelerate the dismantling of a sector that his father Andreas – Greece’s fiery socialist premier in the 1980s – did much to foster.

International lenders have warned that if there no progress with privatisations they will withhold the next tranche of aid in September.

“In more ways than one Papandreou is paying for the sins of his father,” said Nikos Dimou, author of the bestselling book The Misfortune of Being Greek. “It was Andreas, after all, who did more than anyone else to run Greece into debt.”

The appearance of For Sale and For Rent signs on everything from former Olympic venues to island locales, casinos, marinas and airports, has been met with unexpected acceptance by Greeks long weaned on state largesse. A growing majority appears to agree it is the only way of arresting soaring unemployment by attracting foreign investment. Experts estimate Athens could own around €300bn worth of state property, almost as much as the total Greek debt.

“There has definitely been a shift in mood,” said Stefanos Manos, a former national economy minister in a centre-right government. “But that could easily change. It is very clear that the government is only doing this under great duress from [our] international creditors,” he said.

“With timetables being so pressing, I worry that the whole process is very ill-prepared. If it there is not enough transparency we may end up like Russia, where only a cast of oligarchs end up benefiting.”

With the privatisation drive now seen as crucial to reviving economic growth, the government has actively courted countries with big sovereign wealth funds to invest in Greece.

Last week Europe’s paymaster, Germany, signalled it was interested in snapping up assets in the energy and tourism sectors.

At home tycoons who control large sectors of the media have also started jockeying for position in what one commentator called the “beginning of a civil war” to buy stakes in state companies.

“It is going to be a minefield for the government,” said political analyst Giorgos Kyrtsos. “The troika [of lenders] are not well-versed in Greek reality. The programme is overly ambitious.”

After years of resisting privatisations, the breakneck speed at which Athens has agreed to conduct the sales – nearly one every 15 days – has raised fears that state jewels will be sold at rock-bottom prices.

“In a buyer’s market our biggest concern is that this entire process will only serve to benefit the forces of capitalism and do nothing to create development,” said Yiannis Panagopoulos, president of the Confederation of Greek Workers, the country’s biggest labour grouping.

“We will strongly oppose the sale of any sector in which the government has a strategic interest … there will be huge resistance if it tries to sell the electricity company, the water board, our post office or ports, sectors that are vital to developing this country.”

Source.

The markets are popping champagne. The traders are clapping and cheering. The media is awash with the phrase “the crisis is over”.

But for a default to be averted, a vote on the agreement reached today still needs to be voted on and approved.

Democratic and Republican leaders have conceded that while it’s possible it may get the OK from the Senate, its passage through Congress is by no means assured.

For example, the Tea Party firebrands of the GOP are viciously opposed to raising the debt ceiling under any circumstances, and they’re going to be some of the ones voting tomorrow.

Irrespective of the consequences, the more radical elements within the GOP feel a default necessary to force revolutionary spending cuts.

Another interesting twist is the Armed Services Committee who yesterday vowed to repel any attempt by Obama to slash over $900 billion from the defence budget over the next ten years.

They declared that they would “not let the greatest military the world has ever seen” go quietly into the night at the expense of political deal-making. Considering the strength and scope of the US military-industrial complex, this is a rather significant statement.

And then there’s the rogue Democrats who oppose any short-term deals being made. The knives are already coming out with many of them saying Obama has “surrendered” to the GOP.

Together, this all paints a very disturbing portrait of what has now turned into gunboat diplomacy.

So it begs the question: why are the media outlets parading the agreement as “the end of the debt crisis”. Moreover, how can they say that a default has been averted?

The reason that this announcement received blanket coverage worldwide was because the Asian markets opened today. Plain and simple.

If they hadn’t timed the announcement this it would have been a bloodbath when the bell rang at every stock exchange from Tokyo to Beijing.

But that’s in the past now.

What the mainstream media may have a difficult time explaining tomorrow if the deal is not passed through the Senate or Congress is how they got away with saying “crisis over” today.

Let’s be clear about this: yes, there has been an agreement of sorts, but that agreement must now receive safe passage through the US Senate and Congress.

So until it does, it’s no use popping the champagne bottles yet.

There may be a much bigger headache to awake to tomorrow than a hangover.

Source.

Global Economic Analysis – Courtesy of Google translate please consider They lifted 1.5 billion Thursday and Friday from banks

Only a few steps separating from Friday to yesterday’s mass panic! From early morning to counter the banks there is serious pressure for withdrawals of deposits, especially small amounts. The pressure on banks began last Wednesday, culminating in yesterday’s day.

It is significant that Thursday and Friday, banking sources estimate that rose around 1.5 billion euros in total! According to the same month in May estimated the outflow estimated at least 4 billion from 2 billion in April.

The majority of depositors rushed to withdraw for pensioners and small savers and amounts ranging from 2-3000 lifted until 10 -15 000 euros. Motivation in most cases it was the fear that led the country into bankruptcy, deposits frozen even temporarily left without cash, or even lose their savings.

Politicians do not seem to fully understand the risks posed by a widespread panic, not only for the stability of the banking system but for the economy and the country.

EU Requests Severe Bail-Out Conditions Including International Tax Collection

The Financial Times reports Greece set for severe bail-out conditions

European leaders are negotiating a deal that would lead to unprecedented outside intervention in the Greek economy, including international involvement in tax collection and privatisation of state assets, in exchange for new bail-out loans for Athens.

People involved in the talks said the package would also include incentives for private holders of Greek debt voluntarily to extend Athens’ repayment schedule, as well as another round of austerity measures.

Officials warned, however, that almost every element of the new package faced significant opposition from at least one of the governments and institutions involved in the current negotiations and a deal could still unravel.

In the latest setback, the Greek government failed on Friday to win cross-party agreement on the new austerity measures, which European Union lenders have insisted is a prerequisite to another bail-out.

Officials think Greece will be unable to return to the financial markets to raise money on its own in March – as originally planned in the current €110bn package – meaning that the IMF is now forbidden from distributing any additional cash. Without the IMF funds, eurozone governments would either be forced to fill the gap or Athens could default.

30,000 Protest in Greece

Courtesy of Google Translate More than 30,000 Greeks in Athens take center inspired by the protests of Spain

Some 30,000 people, police said, more as protesters have gone to the streets Sunday in Athens to protest the Greek political class. The demonstration has been called through social networks, as well as in Spain, and the participants cited the movement as a reference 15M.

“We’ve had enough. The politicians are laughing at us. If things continue like this, our future will be very hard,” said one of demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of the Greek Parliament in Syntagma Square, while his teammates chanted “Thieves, thieves!”.

This is the fifth day of protests in Syntagma Square and this time they have been joined by a Spanish group who wanted to express solidarity with the merger.

“People were outraged, but needed motivation to express themselves. The Spanish have given us that motivation,” said Argyrou Iphigenia, an insurance agent, told Reuters. “We’re not asleep. We are awake. The IMF must go. There are solutions without them,” he argued.

Is it any wonder people are yanking money out of Greek banks? How long before a bank freeze?

Mike “Mish” Shedlock

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Press TV – The Israeli Prime Minister has thanked Washington for approving new military aid to Tal Aviv at a time when Americans are protesting at the US government’s military spending.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that the move is further evidence of the close friendship between Israel and the US.

Congress passed a budget bill authorizing military aid to Israel this week, AFP reported.

The stipulation gives an additional USD 205 million in aid to Israel for the acquisition of four new batteries of the Iron Dome missile system.

Two batteries, each holding twenty missiles, were deployed last week during Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

Last week, thousands of peace, labor and community activists took to the streets of New York to voice concerns over the funding of wars abroad. They expressed their concern over the struggling US economy and reduction in social programs.

Since 2007 Washington has been giving Tel Aviv USD three-billion in aid every year. The money is spent almost entirely on purchasing American weapons as part of a ten-year agreement.

The US Congress Office for Technology Assessment says Israel, the largest recipient of US aid since World War II, has undeclared chemical weapons and an offensive biological warfare program.

Tel-Aviv’s nuclear program is described as an open secret. Israel is believed to be the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East with an arsenal bigger than that of Britain or France.

Spain’s salad growers are modern-day slaves, say charities
Investigation uncovers plight of migrant workers who live in appalling conditions and are paid half of legal minimum wage

guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 February 2011

The exploitation of tens of thousands of migrants used to grow salad vegetables for British supermarkets has been uncovered by a Guardian investigation into the €2bn-a-year (£1.6bn) hothouse industry in southern Spain.

Charities working with illegal workers during this year’s harvest claim the abuses meet the UN’s official definition of modern-day slavery, with some workers having their pay withheld for complaining. Conditions appear to have deteriorated further as the collapse of the Spanish property boom has driven thousands of migrants from construction to horticulture to look for work.

The Guardian’s findings include:

• Migrant workers from Africa living in shacks made of old boxes and plastic sheeting, without sanitation or access to drinking water.

• Wages that are routinely less than half the legal minimum wage.

• Workers without papers being told they will be reported to the police if they complain.

• Allegations of segregation enforced by police harassment when African workers stray outside the hothouse areas into tourist areas.

The situation of migrants working in the tomato, pepper, cucumber and courgette farms of Almeria is so desperate that the Red Cross has been handing out free food to thousands of them. Its local co-ordinator described conditions as “inhuman”. Anti-Slavery International said the Guardian’s evidence was “deeply disturbing”, and raised the “spectre of de facto state sanctioning of slavery in 21st century Europe”.

Mohammed’s story is typical of thousands of Africans working under the sweltering heat of plastic greenhouses.

He arrived illegally in southern Spain from Morocco in 2004 to work in the hothouses, having paid €1,000 to smugglers to bring him in a fishing boat. He said back then he could earn €30 for an eight-hour day. Now he’s lucky to get €20 a day.

The legal minimum wage for a day’s work is currently more than €44, but the economic crisis has created a newly enlarged surplus of migrants desperate for work, enabling farmers to slash wages.

Mohammed’s home is a shack in the hothouse area that runs into the tourist town of Roquetas de Mar on the Costa del Sol. It is crudely knocked together from the wooden pallets used to transport the crops and covered with a layer of old agricultural plastic. There is no drinking water or sanitation.

There are 100 or so shacks like this next to Mohammed’s. Jobs are sporadic, and come not with contracts but by the day or even by the hour. Sometimes, when he and his compatriots have been without work for weeks, there is no food, unless the Red Cross makes one of its food parcel deliveries. “We live like animals scavenging. No work, no money, no food,” he said.

Jawara came from Gambia in 2008 with 85 others who were packed like cargo on a small fishing boat. He felt lucky to have survived the trauma of the journey; some of those with him drowned or died on the boat. Released from detention after 40 days to go and find work, he now lives with 10 others from Sub-Saharan Africa in an abandoned farm building among the hothouses near the Almerian market town San Isidro.

The men sleep in the part that still has the semblance of a roof. They are crammed into three small rooms that are sour with the smell of dampness and stale food, the walls blackened by the camping stove they use to cook. The bathroom is the outbuilding next door, its roof long gone and its bricks reduced to rubble. The sitting room is a salvaged sofa leaning against broken walls. There is no sanitation here either and the men live in between the farm jobs they find on the tomato crop, charity handouts and Red Cross parcels.

Jawara came to San Isidroto to join his brother and had just three months of reunion with him before his brother died from kidney problems. Without papers, they had been too frightened to go to the doctor and they couldn’t afford medicines. His father died too while he has been away. Like many of those we interviewed Jawerea spoke of his shame at the conditions, the racism he encountered everywhere and how little they are now paid. He did not want to be filmed in case his family back home saw how he lived.

Sang, also from Gambia, considers himself relatively well off sharing an abandoned farmhouse with about 40 others from west Africa. A local farmer rents it to them illegally, as although it has a roof and electricity, it has no running water.

In addition to rent, the migrants must pay €600 a month to have a tanker deliver water to an old borehole in the yard. Sang, who has been supporting about 30 family members in Gambia with his wages, has also been reduced to working a few hours at a time on the salad harvest in the past year, as the recession hit.

Almeria used to be Spain’s poorest region but the boom in horticulture since the late 1980s has helped transform the area, which sits just behind the Costa del Sol. Although British holidaymakers rarely see it, less than a mile from the tourist hotels on the beach a vast industrial landscape of plastic hothouses has taken over 400 square km of the coastal plain.

The trade in vegetables grown in the region meets UK demand for all year-round fresh salad. It is worth €2bn a year to the Spanish economy, according to José Ángel Aznar, professor of applied economics at the university of Almeria. Nearly all the leading retailers across northern Europe, including British supermarkets, source salad crops from the region when their own season ends. They buy at auction from the co-operatives to which the farmers belong.

But the boom has only been possible thanks to migrants. The hothouses have needed a large supply of cheap labour that can be turned on and off at a moment’s notice. The work is irregular and arduous, and with temperatures reaching 40C-45C is unattractive to the local population. So it has sucked in thousands of illegal workers, first from Morocco, then from eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

Estimates of the total number working in the hothouses vary, but Juan Carlos Checa, researcher in social anthropology at the university, put the number of migrant workers in April 2010 at 80,000-90,000.

Spitou Mendy, who was himself an illegal migrant from Senegal until he gained his papers in an amnesty, now helps run Sindicato de Obreros del Campo (SOC), a small union for migrants. He thinks the numbers have swollen to more than 100,000 due to the recession.

The Spanish government allows those who can prove they have worked for more than three years to apply to become regularised and many have done so, but tens of thousands are still in Almeria illegally, making them easy to exploit. Conditions that were already appalling have deteriorated further in the past two years, according to Mendy.

Farmers argue that the supermarkets have squeezed their margins even harder during the downturn, while costs for fuel and fertiliser have gone up. They have no choice but to cut wages, which is the one element of their production costs they can control. Farmers trying to employ people legally and at the proper rate find it hard to compete or make a profit.

In Mendy’s eyes the conditions are slavery. “You don’t find the sons of Spain in the hothouses, only the blacks and people from former colonies,” he says. “The farmers only want an unqualified, malleable workforce, which costs absolutely nothing. Only one part of the business is benefiting from this. It’s the big agribusiness that wins. It’s the capitalists that win. And humanity is killed that way. This is slavery in Europe. At the door to Europe, there is slavery as if we were in the 16th century.”

Cherif, who used to be a teacher of French and German in Senegal but now supports two children on what he earns picking tomatoes a few days a month, has found farmers only too happy to take advantage of illegal workers. “You have to shut your mouth about the conditions. It’s very, very hot; there’s no water to drink and it’s back-breaking. They pay me only €20-€25 a day and I don’t feel free. The police watch me if I go to the wrong places.”

Like many we spoke to, Cherif had experience of farmers refusing to pay for work that had been done. “One farmer didn’t want to pay me and another African. He owed me €200. The other man had a fight with him and got his money but I didn’t want to fight. So I walked to his house every day for two months until he gave it to me, but even then he shortchanged me by €5.”

Tensions between migrants and local communities have been growing in recent months. SOC fears a repeat of the violence and rioting that occurred in 2000, in the horticultural town of El Ejido. Mendy explained that they had seen the warning signs in San Isidro last October when a farmer was murdered in his hothouse store and locals immediately pointed the finger at migrants. Thousands protested in the streets following his funeral, brandishing racist placards picturing Africans as black sheep and saying: “Immigrants: behave or get out”. It later transpired that the police were investigating the farmer’s links to organised crime.

Most of the time the two communities are completely segregated, however. The only black people seen in tourist areas are a few hawkers selling trinkets on the beaches, while Africans and Moroccans live hidden away in slums among the hothouses. They come into the agricultural towns at daybreak to queue by main roads for casual work, but are expected to melt away afterwards. Several of those we interviewed described being harassed by police if they strayed outside the hothouse areas at other times.

Sister Purification, or Puri, as she is known, is one of four Catholic nuns from the order of the Merciful Sisters of Charity who live in San Isidro. She recalled how the first black Africans had come to the town in 2002.

The detention centres in the Canaries that received migrants arriving illegally in boats from Africa were full. In order to process new arrivals, the Spanish authorities began flying those already there out to mainland airports to disperse them to areas where labour was needed. They hired a coach to take about 30 Africans from Madrid airport to the centre of San Isidro, where the driver was instructed to open the doors in Plaza Colonización, the main square, and simply release them. “That was the first time black people came here.

“The government gave them absolutely nothing; no money, no papers, nothing, just told them, off you go. No one here knew they were coming. The local authorities washed their hands of them. The people in the town didn’t want anything to do with them. We had no idea what to do,” Puri explained.

In the end, the nuns took the African men to a disused hothouse. Others began arriving and started building cardboard hovels under its dilapidated structure, until more than 300 people were living there in a makeshift slum without sanitation. “The conditions were terrible, horrible, not human,” Puri recalled.

As more and more people came, the nuns began to worry about health problems. They found TB, Aids and hepatitis among the migrants, but knew they couldn’t get proper medical help. They began taking those who were ill to abandoned farmhouses nearby to isolate them from the rest. “We didn’t have the means to provide more. The government was doing next to nothing.”

Then in September 2005 a huge fire broke out. Hundreds of Africans were driven out of the slum as the plastic burned. The fire brigade and police arrived, but once the fire was out they just left again and refused to help, according to Puri.

The nuns used their own small cars to begin distributing about 300 plus men, to places they knew migrants were already sheltering in the area – in old farm buildings and underground wells. But by 2am, there were still 120 men with nowhere to go and it was decided that they should sleep in the main square, with the nuns accompanying them for solidarity. “We were there three days. The town did nothing. The government did nothing. I was crying with rage, with impotence and with indignation,” says Puri.

Today the nuns run a feeding centre where they hand out food and clothes to migrants. They have more than 4,000 recipients registered on their computer in this one small agricultural community of 7,000 inhabitants alone.

“There have been five deaths of migrants in the last year here from traffic accidents at night,” Puri added. “About 18 months ago an African worker died in one of the hothouses – he had fallen into the water tank and couldn’t get out. There was no punishment for the farmer, no police questions,” Puri told us. “I am very conscious what we are doing is not a real solution. But they know that at least if they are sick or desperate, we are here to hold their hand.”

The conditions are not just confined to Almeria. As the olive harvest was about to begin just before last Christmas in the region of Jaén, thousands of migrants moved there desperately trying to find work. With no money and no shelter, most were being fed once a day at a centre run by the Red Cross. They were allowed to stay at the centre for three days but then had to leave. Most were sleeping rough. Those with papers could apply for a free bus pass at the Red Cross centre each morning to get themselves to the olive groves to tout for work.

The Red Cross in Jaen did not return our calls but its co-ordinator in Almeria, Francisco Vicente, said it estimates that there are between 15,000 and 20,000 homeless migrants in his province alone, of which some 5,000 live in abandoned houses and shacks without running water or electricity. “These are more ‘established’ communities, which the Red Cross can at least reach. But the others are spread throughout town, sleeping near bank cash machines, or just on the streets. This is not human,” he added.

Mendy told us there was a conspiracy of silence about the conditions. “Everyone knows this system exists, this is untamed neoliberalism. But people have closed their ears to it.”

Vincente agreed: “This is being hidden, people are not interested in making this public. I am not referring to only politicians. Sometimes it’s the society itself – the people – who don’t stand up,” he told us.

The Spanish government’s ministry of interior was asked for comment but failed to respond.

Anti-Slavery International’s director, Aidan McQuade, said: “The evidence obtained by the Guardian suggests we could be seeing the emergence of a new form of slavery, which is deeply disturbing.

“The fact that the Spanish authorities have moved irregular migrants to areas of the country where labour is needed and also where migrant workers are routinely paid half the legal minimum wage and threatened with deportation for complaining about their working conditions, establishes a prima facie case of official collusion in the trafficking of migrant workers to the agricultural farms of southern Spain.

“This raises the spectre of de facto state sanctioning of slavery in 21st century Europe.”

By Jerry White

January 07, 2010 “WSWS” — 6 January 2011 – The number of people in the US filing for bankruptcy rose by 9 percent last year to 1.53 million, as more working families fell victim to job losses, plunging home values and unforgiving creditors.

The figure was the highest since 2005 when changes in the bankruptcy laws making it more difficult and costly to file led to a sharp decline in the number of Americans seeking court protection. The recent spike in cases—despite the added costs and legal hurdles—is indicative of just how desperate large segments of the American population are despite the official claims of an economic recovery.

Over the last three years—as the economic recession and 2008 crash took hold—4 million consumers filed for bankruptcy, with last year’s numbers matching the record levels reached before 2005. While most filers earn less than $30,000 and lack a college degree, a growing percentage of families with incomes above $60,000 and college degrees are being forced into bankruptcy.

As tens of millions are finding it impossible to pay their bills, the corporations and banks are raking in record profits, top executives are pocketing huge payouts and the richest 2 percent of the population is celebrating the tax cut handed to them by Obama and the congressional Republicans.

Now, the debate in Washington is dominated by a drive to forge a bipartisan consensus to slash social spending, cut taxes and regulation on big business and reduce wages and benefits in order to make American corporations more competitive and profitable. This only underscores the class chasm between the corporate-political elite and the masses of working people who are facing a social catastrophe.

The growth in personal insolvency last year was seen in virtually every part of the country, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. The sharpest rise was in the Southwest and Southeast, with Nevada recording 15,000 filings per million, more than double the 6,600 filings per million recorded nationwide. The state has the nation’s highest unemployment rate and credit card and mortgage delinquency, and one in every 99 homes is in foreclosure, according to realtytrac.com.

After Nevada, Georgia and Tennessee had the highest filing rates, each with more than 10,000 filings per million, according to the report. The states with the highest year-to-year increase were Hawaii (22 percent), California (19 percent), Utah (19 percent) and Arizona (18 percent).

Families are being driven into bankruptcy after a spouse has lost a job or had their working hours cut, or a small business has gone under, according to local news reports. Mortgage payments and other bills became too much to handle, with families receiving 15 to 18 calls a day from creditors before they filed for court protection.

Tracy Compo of Tucson, Arizona told the Las Vegas Review-Journal troubles began three years ago when her husband could no longer get overtime at work. Efforts to get the bank to modify their loan failed and they were forced into foreclosure on their home. They tried to raise income by selling off possessions—jewelry, clothes and anything else to pay the bills—but credit card debt continued to mount, and in December they filed for bankruptcy in hopes of getting a new start.

“It’s very depressing,” Compo, a 32-year-old mother of three, told the Review-Journal, “It’s degrading—like you’ve lost all sense of control. I hate it. I’m embarrassed by it.”

In Nevada, bankruptcy lawyers said business showed no signs of slowing, with one attorney saying he increased his staff by a third just to handle the demand. “It’s as busy as it was last year, and it is going to get even busier,” Anthony DeLuca told the Las Vegas newspaper.

In South Florida personal bankruptcy filings rose by a staggering 40 percent, the Sun-Sentinel reported, with the number of cases in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties rising from 24,681 in 2009 to 34,579 in 2010. Local reports attribute the sharp rise to the pace of home foreclosures, joblessness in the state—where the unemployment rate is 12 percent—and a wave of business closures.

David Langley, a bankruptcy lawyer in Plantation, told the Sun-Sentinel that many of his cases involved clients who were in construction, real estate or related businesses and professions. “There is a ripple effect—the little restaurant that was near the construction site or near some real estate firm” ended up having to file for bankruptcy. Often, he said, he filed both personal bankruptcy and business bankruptcy for the owner.

Medical expenses are one of the biggest causes of personal bankruptcy, with a Harvard University study carried out before the economic downturn attributing 62 percent of all filings to health care debts. The study noted that 78 percent of those filing bankruptcy had medical insurance.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, family health insurance premiums more than doubled between 1999 and 2009, far outpacing workers’ earnings and overall inflation, as employers increasing dumped the costs of medical care on their workforces.

The sharp increase in long-term joblessness—the most dire since the Great Depression—has worsened the situation. More and more families are forced to rely on credit cards to pay for food, utilities and other basic necessities, in addition to picking up the cost of their health insurance.

Increasingly those who still have a job are facing wage cuts and being forced into part-time and temporary positions. In the past, home equity loans—based on the rising value of their homes—could be gotten to offset the decline in income. These are no longer an option as homeowners owe far more than the dwindling value of their homes. The tightening of consumer credit has also pushed people over the edge, after they borrowed in an effort to prevent bankruptcy.

The crisis is affecting every demographic group. A 2010 study from the University of Michigan Law School, “The Rise in Elder Bankruptcy Filings,” found that those 65 and older are the fastest-growing segment of the US population seeking bankruptcy protection, owing a median $22,562 to credit card companies. “The findings are both striking and ominous,” says John Pottow, author of the study. “While multiple factors, such as health problems and medical debts, contribute to elders’ financial distress, the dominant force appears to be overwhelming burdens related to credit cards.”

While the Obama administration has handed the Wall Street bankers trillions and the wealthy a massive tax cut, it has done nothing to provide relief to those losing their homes, income and life savings. A report last month by the Congressional Oversight Committee noted that the Treasury Department’s Home Affordable Modification Program has produced negligible results. Only half a million mortgage holders got help to save their homes, at least temporarily, since the program began in March 2009. During that period nearly 4 million households received foreclosure notices with the Federal Reserve expecting another 4.25 million over the next two years.

The political establishment—dominated as it is by the representatives of the corporate and financial elite—is oblivious to the social catastrophe facing working people. Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, who received large donations from the credit card industry, was one of the most fervent Democratic supporters of the reactionary 2005 legislation, which made it more difficult for working class and middle-class families to escape their debt burdens, while awarding as much as $1 billion a year to creditors, mostly banks and credit card issuers.

Signing the bipartisan bill into law—just a few short years before both parties gave Wall Street the largest handout in history—President Bush declared, “America is a nation of personal responsibility, where people are expected to meet their obligations. If someone does not pay his or her debts, the rest of society ends up paying them.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The Federal Reserve made $9 trillion in overnight loans to major banks and Wall Street firms during the financial crisis, according to newly revealed data released Wednesday.

The loans were made through a special loan program set up by the Fed in the wake of the Bear Stearns collapse in March 2008 to keep the nation’s bond markets trading normally.

The amount of cash being pumped out to the financial giants was not previously disclosed. All the loans were backed by collateral and all were paid back with a very low interest rate to the Fed — an annual rate of between 0.5% to 3.5%.

Still, the total amount was a surprise, even to some who had followed the Fed’s rescue efforts closely.

“That’s a real number, even for the Fed,” said FusionIQ’s Barry Ritholtz, author of the book “Bailout Nation.” While the fact that the markets were in trouble was already well known, he said the amount of help they needed is still surprising.

“It makes it very clear this was a very serious, very unusual situation,” he said.

Source.