Nuusflitse rakende eindtye en verwante sake

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Call of the wild: second incident of human cannibalism reported in the U.S. in a week
Posted on June 1, 2012


June 1. 2012 – EARTH - In yet another horrifying incident of human flesh-eating this week, a student in Maryland allegedly admitted to devouring his roommate’s brain and heart. Alexander Kinyua, a 21-year-old Morgan State University student, admitted to murdering his roommate Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie, who was reported missing last Friday, cops told the Baltimore Sun. Kinyua’s father called police late Tuesday night when Kinyua’s brother reportedly found human remains — a head and two hands — in a metal tin in the basement. The brother and father left the room for a short time, but when they came back, the body parts had been moved and Kinyua was washing out the tin, the paper reported. Officers searched the house and arrested Kinyua. The man allegedly confessed a shocking revelation: not only had he killed Agyei-Kodie by cutting him up with a knife and then dismembered him, he ingested parts of the victim’s brain and all of his heart. He then allegedly dropped most of the remains in a Dumpster behind a church in Joppatowne. It’s yet unclear what Kinyua’s motive may have been, but he was charged with first-degree murder on Wednesday. In another incident on May 20, he was charged with first-degree assault when he allegedly beat a fellow student randomly with a baseball bat and then fled into the woods. The gruesome case comes on the heels of a similar attack in Miami on Saturday, in which Rudy Eugene, 31, was killed by cops while in the process of chewing off most of a homeless man’s face. Ronald Poppo, 65, is alive, but the bizarre flesh-eating attack left doctors with a literal puzzle in how to put his face back together. -HP

Could this be an alarming new trend? The human race now turning inward on itself psychologically like a cancer? The incidents are not just confined to the U.S., last year a Pakastani court convicted two brothers of the gruesome crime of robbing graves and eating corpses in the city of Sargodha. The Times of India noted: “the brothers seemed to have taken up cannibalism as an act of revenge as their wives had left them after the death of their mother. However, the accused have confessed not only to these crimes but also to eating their own children.” -Times of India

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Pestilence watch: Is Chagas the new HIV/AIDs of the Americas?

Posted on June 1, 2012by The Extinction Protocol
June 1. 2012 – DISEASE – Chagas, a tropical disease spread by insects, is causing some fresh concern following an editorial—published earlier this week in a medical journal—that called it ‘the new AIDS of the Americas.” More than 8 million people have been infected by Chagas, most of them in Latin and Central America. But more than 300,000 live in the United States. The editorial, published by the Public Library of Science’s Neglected Tropical Diseases, said the spread of the disease is reminiscent of the early years of HIV. “There are a number of striking similarities between people living with Chagas disease and people living with HIV/AIDS,” the authors wrote, “particularly for those with HIV/AIDS who contracted the disease in the first two decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.” Both diseases disproportionately affect people living in poverty, both are chronic conditions requiring prolonged, expensive treatment, and as with patients in the first two decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, “most patients with Chagas disease do not have access to health care facilities.” Unlike HIV, Chagas is not a sexually-transmitted disease: it’s “caused by parasites transmitted to humans by blood-sucking insects,’ as the New York Times put it. “It likes to bite you on the face,” CNN reported. “It’s called the kissing bug. When it ingests your blood, it excretes the parasite at the same time. When you wake up and scratch the itch, the parasite moves into the wound and you’re infected.” -Yahoo

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skakel :

Japanese radiation found in bluefin tuna off the coast of California


Posted on May 29, 2012



May 29, 2012 – CALIFORNIA - For the first time, scientists have detected radioactivity in fish that have migrated into California waters from the ocean off Japan, where radiation contaminated the sea after explosions tore through the Fukushima nuclear reactors last year. Radioactive cesium was detected in samples of highly prized Pacific bluefin tuna, but it is well below levels considered unsafe for humans, the scientists say. The evidence is “unequivocal” that the tuna – caught off San Diego a year ago – were contaminated with radiation from Japan’s nuclear disaster, the researchers said. Virtually all bluefin tuna on the market in the United States is either farmed or caught far from the Fukushima area, so American consumers should not be affected by radiation contamination in their fish, seafood distributors say. The migratory bluefin studied by the researchers were all caught by sport fishermen and were not headed for the market. Daniel J. Madigan, a marine ecologist at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove (Monterey County), Nicholas Fisher, a marine scientist internationally known as a specialist in radiation hazards at Stony Brook University on Long Island, and Zophia Baumann, a staff scientist in Fisher’s laboratory, reported their discovery Monday in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The finding was wholly unexpected, Madigan said. It came about when he was researching the migratory patterns of bluefin tuna as part of a broader study of Pacific fish migration. The young tuna, averaging about 13 pounds apiece, were found to be contaminated with two radioactive forms of the element cesium. Isotopes called cesium-134 and cesium-137 do not exist in nature but are produced only in nuclear explosions such as the weapons tests of the Cold War era. Before the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, low levels of the radioactive cesium-137 , which decays to harmlessness only over thousands of years, had been measured in Japanese waters, while the shorter-lived cesium-134 was undetectable, the scientists said. That difference, they said, was crucial in concluding that the radioactive contamination was linked to the Fukushima disaster. Increased concentrations of radioactivity contaminated nearly 60,000 square miles of the ocean off Japan after workers at Fukushima pumped thousands of tons of seawater over reactors last year to prevent a complete meltdown of the reactor cores. –SF Gate

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Israel fitting nuclear arms on subs: Report

2012-06-04 10:01





Berlin - Israel is arming submarines supplied and largely financed by Germany with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, influential German news weekly Der Spiegel reports in its issue to be published on Monday.

The magazine said in a cover story that Berlin had until now denied any knowledge that German submarines were being used as part of an Israeli atomic arsenal.

But former high-ranking officials of the German defence ministry told Der Spiegel that the government always assumed Israel was putting nuclear warheads on the Dolphin-class vessels.

The article, based on a months-long probe, cited files from the foreign ministry in Berlin indicating the West German state was aware of the practice as early as 1961.

In Israel, foreign ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor said only: "I can confirm that we have German submarines. It's no secret.

"As for the rest, I am not in a position to talk about their capacity," he said.

Explanation sought

Israel is the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed power.

Germany has already supplied Israel with three of the submarines in question, footing most of the bill, and another three are to be delivered by 2017 under a recently signed contract.

Meanwhile Israel is weighing whether to order three more, according to the report.

"The Germans can be proud to have ensured the existence of the state of Israel for several years to come," Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak was quoted by Der Spiegel as saying.

The opposition Social Democrat Party called Sunday on Chancellor Angela Merkel's government for an explanation.

"The federal government must provide information so that we know if the submarines delivered by Germany can be potentially equipped with nuclear warheads," party spokesperson Rolf Muetzenich told Der Spiegel.

Israeli concessions

Merkel's spokesperson Steffen Seibert said all submarines had been delivered unarmed.

"The federal government will not speculate on subsequent arming," he said.

The report said Germany hoped to see Israeli concessions on settlements on Palestinian land and approval for the completion of a sewage treatment plant in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the assistance.

Israel sees its existence under threat if its arch-foe Iran goes nuclear. Like the United States, it has refused to rule out bombing Iranian nuclear sites.

Germany, bearing the historical guilt of the Holocaust, is Israel's closest ally in Europe.

But it has sharply criticised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pro-settlement policies in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem as undermining peace efforts with the Palestinians.

Tensions between Germany and Israel flared in April when Nobel prize-winning German author Gunter Grass published an inflammatory poem warning that a nuclear-armed Israel "could wipe out the Iranian people [with a] first strike".



- AFP

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War, famine, strife, extinction: scientists warn planet approaching a ‘tipping point’ of an apocalyptic nature (skakel)

Posted on June 6, 2012


June 6, 2012 – EARTH – Earth is rapidly headed toward a catastrophic breakdown if humans don’t get their act together, according to an international group of scientists. Writing Wednesday (June 6) in the journal Nature, the researchers warn that the world is headed toward a tipping point marked by extinctions and unpredictable changes on a scale not seen since the glaciers retreated 12,000 years ago. “There is a very high possibility that by the end of the century, the Earth is going to be a very different place,” study researcher Anthony Barnosky told LiveScience. Barnosky, a professor of integrative biology from the University of California, Berkeley, joined a group of 17 other scientists to warn that this new planet might not be a pleasant place to live. “You can envision these state changes as a fast period of adjustment where we get pushed through the eye of the needle,” Barnosky said. “As we’re going through the eye of the needle, that’s when we see political strife, economic strife, war and famine.” Barnosky and his colleagues reviewed research on climate change, ecology and Earth’s tipping points that break the camel’s back, so to speak. At certain thresholds, putting more pressure on the environment leads to a point of no return, Barnosky said. Suddenly, the planet responds in unpredictable ways, triggering major global transitions. The most recent example of one of these transitions is the end of the last glacial period. Within not much more than 3,000 years, the Earth went from being 30 percent covered in ice to its present, nearly ice-free condition. Most extinctions and ecological changes (goodbye, woolly mammoths) occurred in just 1,600 years. Earth’s biodiversity still has not recovered to what it was. Today, Barnosky said, humans are causing changes even faster than the natural ones that pushed back the glaciers — and the changes are bigger. Driven by a 35 percent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since the start of the Industrial Revolution, global temperatures are rising faster than they did back then, Barnosky said. Likewise, humans have completely transformed 43 percent of Earth’s land surface for cities and agriculture, compared with the 30 percent land surface transition that occurred at the end of the last glacial period. Meanwhile, the human population has exploded, putting ever more pressure on existing resources. -MSNBC

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10,000 fish die from unknown cause in Missouri’s Blue Springs Lake

Posted on June 8, 2012by The Extinction Protocol
June 8, 2012 – BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. – Missouri conservationists are trying to solve a mystery in an area lake. What started as a couple dozen dead carp turned into more than 10,000 in Blue Springs Lake. Conservationists took water samples and couldn’t figure out exactly what caused the deaths. Their samples have now gone onto a national lab for further analysis. Between 500 and 1,000 carp have been killed everyday. Jake Allman, a biologist with the Missouri Conservation, started noticing carp with lesions under their scales the last few weeks. “There’s a little bacterium on the fish, but not enough to really have caused this,” Allman said. “This feeding activity where they are brushing up against each other can actually spread whatever is making them sick.” If Allman had his way, this kill would only continue. “Their spawning activity disrupts spawning of other fish. They root around in the shallows and uproot aquatic vegetation which is beneficial to native fish,” Allman explained. But it seems the carp are now starting to recover. Lake officials are now keeping an eye on the E. coli levels in the water. They had to close a swimming area during Memorial Day Weekend because of a threat of E. Coli from of all the dead fish. –KSBH

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Hot rain falls on Saudi Arabia: highest temperature and humidity combo ever recorded in a rainfall

Posted on June 7, 2012by The Extinction Protocol


June 7, 2012 – SAUDI ARABIA - Pilgrims to the holy city of Mekkah (Mecca), Saudi Arabia must have been astonished on Tuesday afternoon, when the weather transformed from widespread dust with a temperature of 113°F (45°C) to a thunderstorm with rain. Remarkably, the air temperature during the thunderstorm was a sizzling 109°F (43°C), and the relative humidity a scant 18%. It is exceedingly rare to get rain when the temperature rises above 100°F, since those kind of temperatures usually require a high pressure system with sinking air that discourages rainfall. However, on June 4, a sea breeze formed along the shores of the Red Sea, and pushed inland 45 miles (71 km) to Mekkah by mid-afternoon. Moist air flowing eastwards from the Red Sea hit the boundary of the sea breeze and was forced upwards, creating rain-bearing thunderstorms. According to weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, this is the highest known temperature that rain has fallen at, anywhere in the world. He knows of one other case where rain occurred at 109°F (43°C): in Marrakech, Morocco on July 10, 2010. A thunderstorm that began at 5 pm local time brought rain at a remarkably low humidity of 14%, cooling the temperature down to 91°F within an hour. Thunderstorms often produce big drops of cold rain, since these raindrops form several thousand meters high in the atmosphere, where temperatures are much cooler than near the surface. Some drops even get their start as snow or ice particles, which melt on the way to the surface. Additional cooling of the drops occurs due to evaporation on the way down. However, in the case of the June 4, 2012 Mekkah storm, I think the rain was probably more like a hot shower. Thus, the thunderstorms’ raindrops would have been subjected to 100 seconds of some very hot air on the way to the surface, likely warming them above 100°F by the time they hit the ground. With the air temperature a sizzling 109°F (43°C) at the time of the June 4 thunderstorm in Mekkah, the raindrops could easily have been heated to a temperature of over 105°F (41°C) by the time they reached the surface! On Saturday, June 2, the temperature in Mekkah hit 51.4°C (124.5°F), a new record for the city, and just 1.1°F (0.6°C) below the all-time hottest temperature record for Saudi Arabia (125.6°F, or 52°C, recorded at Jeddah on June 22, 2010.) I expect that 20 – 40 years from now, we’ll begin seeing occasional cases where rain falls at a temperature above 117°F (47°C) in the desert regions of North Africa and the Middle East. –Wunderground

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Southern hemisphere rattled by wave of moderate seismic earthquakes


June 7, 2012 – SOUTH AMERICA - A strong 5.8 (6.2 EMSC) magnitude earthquake shook Maule, Chile but there were no reports of damage, the Andean neighbors’ national emergency offices said. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck 102 km (63 miles) from Maule and 282 km (175 miles) from Santiago, Chile. The earthquake was followed by a 4.7 magnitude earthquake in Coquimbo, Chile. A third earthquake, a 6.0 magnitude quake struck southern Peru with an epicenter 119 km (74 miles) WNW (298°) from Arequipa, Peru and 648 km (402 miles) SE (131°) from Lima, Peru. The earthquake in Peru struck at a depth of 99.7 km (62.0 miles). Seismic tension has been building along the Nazca tectonic plate bordering South America over the last few days. Similarly, Fiji was hit by a deep 5.9 magnitude earthquake and Tonga was rattled by a 5.1 quake. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage in Chile, according to a spokeswoman for Chile’s state emergency office (ONEMI). –The Extinction Protocol

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China faces serious epidemic of drug-resistant TB

Posted on June 7, 2012by The Extinction Protocol
June 7, 2012 – BEIJING - China faces a “serious epidemic” of drug-resistant tuberculosis according to the first-ever nationwide estimate of the size of the problem there, said a U.S. published study on Wednesday. “In 2007, one third of the patients with new cases of tuberculosis and one half of the patients with previously treated tuberculosis had drug-resistant disease,” said the study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Even more, the prevalence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB in new cases (5.7 percent) was nearly twice the global average, said the study. Using World Health Organization figures as a basis for comparison, “China has the highest annual number of cases of MDR tuberculosis in the world — a quarter of the cases worldwide,” it added. “China has a serious epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis.” The data came from a survey of more than 4,600 Chinese people who were recently diagnosed or treated for TB. Patients for the study were treated at local TB clinics, not hospitals, and the survey was conducted by the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory (NTRL) of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control. According to an accompanying editorial by Johns Hopkins University infectious disease specialist Richard Chaisson, the growth of drug-resistant TB presents an “enormous challenge.” Even more concerning was the finding that most of the 110,000 drug-resistant cases were in people newly diagnosed with the disease, suggesting that the virulent bacteria are being transmitted from person to person and not developing solely as a result of a person prematurely stopping treatment. “MDR tuberculosis is linked to inadequate treatment in both the public health system and the hospital system, especially tuberculosis hospitals; however, primary transmission accounts for most cases,” said the study. In China, over one million new tuberculosis infections occur each year — a large chunk of the estimated nine million new cases worldwide annually. Known formally as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB spreads through the air when infected people cough up bacteria. TB kills about 1.5 million people worldwide each year. –Terra Daily

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Middle East powder keg: concerns mount over the spark that could engulf the region in a nightmare scenario


Posted on June 12, 2012


June 12, 2012 – JORDAN – The U.S. donated to Jordan 35 personal radiation detectors valued altogether at nearly $106,000 (Dh389,020) on Sunday. An embassy statement said it will curb nuclear proliferation and illicit trafficking of nuclear and radioactive materials. Meanwhile, Israel’s deputy chief of the general staff has warned Syria has the “biggest chemical weapons arsenal in the world,” which it could use to threaten the Jewish state. “Syria has built up the biggest chemical weapons arsenal in the world and has missiles and rockets capable of reaching any part of Israeli territory,” Major General Yair Naveh said in remarks delivered Sunday night and carried on Israeli military radio on Monday. Naveh pointed to the deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters being waged by President Bashar Al Assad and his forces, saying it was proof that Syria would show no restraint in any attack on Israel. “The Syrians who treat their people that way will do the same to us if they have the opportunity,” he said. Israel has been raising the alarm for months over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, with the head of the army’s northern command warning they could end up in the hands of Hezbollah. Israeli military analysts say Syria has spent the past 40 years producing sarin and nerve gas, as well as mustard gas, which can be used in missiles. And earlier this month, chief of staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz told MPs that the unrest in Syria was affecting stability on the strategic Golan Heights plateau, half of which is held by Syria while the other half is occupied by Israel. “In the Golan Heights, there is an instability developing that is on the rise, as a result of events in Syria, including in the zone adjacent to the border,” Gantz told the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and defense. “The incidents have not reached the level of terror activity, but could get there,” he said in remarks quoted by a spokesman. Israel is still technically at war with Syria, but the armistice line that separates the neighbours has been largely quiet in recent years, leading some observers to suggest that Al Assad’s fall could be bad for the Jewish state. –Gulf News

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‘Eurozone breakup will be more disastrous than 2008 economic crisis’ warns chief economist

Posted on June 11, 2012by The Extinction Protocol
June 11 2012 – ECONOMY - Chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu has warned that if the Eurozone breaks up finally, it will be more disastrous than the 2008 global financial crisis triggered by the fall of the Wall Street banks, from which the global economy is yet to recover. “If Europe does slip into a crisis, it is going to be a very difficult time. There is no escaping from that. Though we (government and the Reserve Bank) have a team that is working on different scenarios, to see how we will react, it will be a lie to say that we have the strength to weather that. It will hit us in the face,” Basu told an Exim Bank organized here over the weekend. Stating that a deeper European crisis was not impossible, he said there would be a jolt and it could spin Europe into a big crisis. “It is going to be a difficult one or two years for the world for sure.” However, he said on the positive side, “Thankfully, Europe is no longer our biggest export destination, to the Middle East we probably export more today.” But he warned that the impact on us will be indirect. “Europe being a major driver of growth and if it slows down, even if we don’t get a direct hit, the US is going to get hit immediately; China is going to get hit immediately. So the impact on us will come to us through our trading partners.” Citing how the Lehman fall engulfed the whole world in 2008, Basu said, the 2008 crisis made it clear it is not just from the goods directly being sold, but the crisis in the financing sector that the world got engulfed. Explaining the rationale for his fear on the global front, he said the problem will arise in 2014, when the LTRO (long term refinancing operations of the European Central Bank or ECB) payback comes in December 2014 and February 2015, when as much USD 1.3 trillion need to be paid by 800 banks to the ECB. This will sap the entire banking system, he warned. However, Basu expressed hope that by 2015, the world economy, especially the emerging economies, will be better off by that time, saying “the emerging economies are in a position to build strength (during this interval) so when we come out of this tunnel, we will be at the top of it. We will come out on top of growth drivers by 2015.” The over two-year old Eurozone crisis, triggered by the sovereign debt crisis of Greece, is yet to be resolved and more and more countries are looking for bailout. The latest to join the bailout club is Spain. –Money Control

Market rally on Spanish bank bailout fizzles: Financial market euphoria over a European bailout for Spain’s debt-stricken banks faded quickly on Monday as investors sounded the alarm over its impact on public debt and bondholders, and eyed the next risks in the euro zone’s debt crisis. EU and German officials said Spain faces supervision by international lenders after the deal to lend Madrid up to 100 billion euros ($125 billion), contradicting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy who insisted the cash came without such strings. European stocks leapt to a four-week high, with investors scooping up battered financial shares. But Spanish and Italian bond yields rose sharply as doubts set in about the impact and terms of the deal, designed to avert a run on Spanish banks. Cyprus, which is deeply exposed to Greece, strongly hinted on Monday that it may apply for an international bailout before the end of this month, both for its banks and for the state. It would be the fifth member of the 17-nation euro area to require assistance since the debt crisis erupted in Greece in late 2009. The European Commission’s top economic official, Olli Rehn, told Reuters in an interview that the pre-emptive action to support Spain “is critical for calming down market turbulence in Europe and (ensuring) the proper functioning of the financial system in Spain.” –Reuters

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Die groot euro "meltdown" is op ons almal se voordeure, en almal gaan dit voel.

Greeks pull $1 billion out of banks and stock up on food prior to destiny-shifting election




June 13, 2012 – ATHENS - Greeks pulled their cash out of the banks and stocked up with food ahead of a cliffhanger election on Sunday that many fear will result in the country being forced out of the euro. Bankers said up to 800 million euros ($1 billion) were leaving major banks daily and retailers said some of the money was being used to buy pasta and canned goods, as fears of returning to the drachma were fanned by rumors that a radical leftist leader may win the election. The last published opinion polls showed the conservative New Democracy party, which backs the 130 billion euro ($160 billion) bailout that is keeping Greece afloat, running neck and neck with the leftist Syriza party, which wants to cancel the rescue deal. As the election approaches, publishing polls is now legally banned and in the ensuing information vacuum, party officials have been leaking contradictory “secret polls.” On Tuesday, one rumor making the rounds was that Syriza was leading by a wide margin. “This is nonsense,” one reputable Greek pollster said on condition of anonymity. “Our polls show the picture has not changed much since the last polls were published. Parties may be leaking these numbers on purpose to boost their standing.” The pollster said there was some consolidation, with voters turning to New Democracy and Syriza from smaller parties but the pool of undecided voters remained unusually large so close to the election and the result was impossible to predict. Both parties say they want Greece to remain in the single currency but Syriza has pledged to scrap the bailout agreement signed in March which has imposed some of the toughest austerity measures seen in Europe in decades. The European Union and International Monetary Fund have warned that Greece, which has only enough cash to last for a few weeks, must stick to the conditions of the bailout deal or risk seeing funds cut off. -CNBC

Greek banks hemorrhaging: As Bloomberg’s Marcus Bensasson reports, citing Kathimerini, the Greek banking system has continued to hemorrhage deposits this month, amid uncertainty over the outcome of elections on June 17. “Many people are putting money in shares of mutual funds denominated in dollars because of the bureaucratic difficulty of taking money out of Greece, or are keeping cash at home, the newspaper said.” How much? “Deposits are leaving the banking system at a rate of 100 million to 500 million euros ($125 million to $625 million) a day, Kathimerini said, without specifying over how long a period that rate of outflow has continued.” Considering that the Greece banking system has about €170 billion in total deposits, this is roughly 0.3% of the entire deposit base fleeing each day – those who understand the nuances of fractional reserve banking get why this could be an issue. Putting this in the US context, which has over $8 trillion in various forms of deposits; this would be equivalents to about $25 billion getting withdrawn every day. –Zero Hedge

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Eurozone critical mass: How it could all go down this summer with Italy and Finland exiting and banks in flames
Posted on June 13, 2012


June 13, 2012 – EUROPE - Here’s how the Eurozone crisis might come to a head over the summer: a “Spanic,” followed by a “Quitaly,” followed by a “Fixit.” A fresh panic in Spain might be followed by rising demands for Italy to quit if it doesn’t get the same terms its fellow Mediterranean country has been offered, followed by a Finnish departure from the euro that might finally bring the whole saga to a climax. It would be a rough ride — and you wouldn’t want to be holding many assets other than dollars or gold or possibly Swiss francs while it was playing itself out. But at least it might bring a resolution to the crisis. Almost a quarter of the euro’s 17 members have now needed outside help, and Cyprus will probably join the list soon. It is hardly a great record for a monetary experiment, which, let us remember, was meant to bring greater stability — not less. So how could this play out over the summer. Here’s how the sequence might work: First, the Spanic (for a panic in Spain). We’ve just seen one rescue package for the troubled Spanish banks. But who says 100 billion euros is enough? This is a country that is sliding into deep recession, and where the government is cutting spending fast — which is only going to deepen the recession. The economy is forecast to contract by 1.7% this year, and the actual outcome could be much worse. During a recession, businesses go broke, unemployment rises, and loans don’t get repaid because people don’t have any money. None of that is good for the banking system. Imagine how that is going to feel to the Italians. The Spanish get to borrow money at half what it costs them — and this at a time when very high borrowing cost are pushing your country into the fifth recession since the nation joined the single currency. Worse, Italy has to stump up around 22% of the Spanish rescue — borrowing money at 6% to give to its neighbors at 3%. That isn’t going to go down well. Finally a Fixit (for a Finnish exit). The crisis will finally come to a head when one country decides to get out. Finland is the most likely. Why? Because it is a small nation with a strong economy. It is easy to head for the door. Finland would be better off on the first day, just as Estonia was when it decided to leave the ill-fated ruble zone created after the collapse of the old Soviet Union. It doesn’t particularly have to worry about the impact on the European Union, in the way that Germany would if it opted out. If a country such as that leaves, it is effectively game over, but no one can really say that of a tiny place such as Finland. And it has a strong anti-euro political grouping; the True Finns scored well in the last election and may well improve their position in the polls. Finland is already demanding collateral for its portion of the Spanish loan. That could well turn into a deal-breaker — no collateral, so we’re out of here. Once one country leaves, it is much easier for the next to leave, in much the same way as it is easier to be the second person to leave a really bad party than the first. –Market Watch

European Banks will be wiped out: Few large eurozone banks would be left standing and the banking sector could face a €370bn (£298bn) loss if the euro crisis results in the single currency bloc breaking apart, according to one of the first indepth analyses of what might happen if the eurozone disintegrates. The analysis by Credit Suisse estimates that up to 58% of the value of Europe’s banks could be wiped out by the departure of the “peripheral” countries – Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain – from the eurozone. Even if the single currency remains intact some €1.3tn of credit could be sucked out of the system as banks retrench to their home markets, unwinding years of financial integration, the Credit Suisse analysis warns his represents as much as 10% of the credit in the financial system. “We find that a Greek exit could be manageable … but in a peripheral exit, few of the large listed eurozone banks would be left standing,” the Credit Suisse report said. The banking sector could need capital injections of as much as €470bn if the three scenarios considered by the Credit Suisse analysts – a Greek exit, an exit of the periphery countries and a situation where banks retrench domestically – happen at once. The UK’s banks will not escape unscathed, although they are better insulated than those in the eurozone. In the event that the peripheral countries leave the eurozone, Barclays faces losses of €37bn and bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland some €26bn. If only Greece were to leave the single currency, the Credit Suisse analysts calculate that losses for Europe’s banks would be limited to some 5% of the stock market value of banks across the eurozone with French banks and investment banks being hit hardest. Credit Agricole would be worst effected by a Greek exit. The Credit Suisse analysts insist they are not expecting the euro area to break up – or for Greece to leave – but they believe it is likely there will be a dramatic reduction in cross-border business – leading to less loans for businesses and individuals. The International Monetary Fund has estimated that some €2tn of credit could be lost through a eurozone break up and the Credit Suisse analysts point out they have only analysed the impact on banks they research. –Guardian

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Storm of the century: Europe talks about limiting ATM withdrawals as crisis threatens to unravel eurozone

Posted on June 12, 2012by The Extinction Protocol
June 12, 2012 – EUROPE – European finance officials have discussed limiting the size of withdrawals from ATM machines, imposing border checks and introducing euro zone capital controls as a worst-case scenario should Athens decide to leave the euro. EU officials said the ideas are part of a range of contingency plans. They emphasized that the discussions were merely about being prepared for any eventuality rather than planning for something they expect to happen. But with increased political uncertainty in Greece following the inconclusive election on May 6th and ahead of a second election on June 17th, there is now an increased need to have contingencies in place, the EU sources said. The European Commission said today it was helping with legal advice in discussions of contingency scenarios regarding Greece by the Eurogroup working group. “I’ve not said that I’m not aware of any discussions, I’ve said I’m not aware about any plans, which is a slight difference,” Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly told a regular news briefing, when asked about Commission involvement in discussions about the contingencies were Greece to leave the euro. “What I said also is that some people are working on scenarios. We are providing information about EU law, as the guardian of the treaty,” he said. The discussions have taken place in conference calls over the past six weeks, as concerns have grown that a radical-left coalition, Syriza, may win the second election, increasing the risk that Greece could renege on its EU-IMF bailout and therefore move closer to abandoning the currency. No decisions have been taken on the calls, but members of the Eurogroup working group, which consists of euro zone deputy finance ministers and heads of treasury departments, have discussed the options in some detail, the sources said. Belgium’s finance minister, Steve Vanackere, said at the end of May that it was a function of each euro zone state to be prepared for problems. These discussions have been in that vein, with the specific aim of limiting a bank run or capital flight. As well as limiting cash withdrawals and imposing capital controls, they have discussed the possibility of suspending the Schengen agreement, which allows for visa-free travel among 26 countries, including most of the European Union. ‘Contingency planning is underway for a scenario under which Greece leaves,” one of the sources, who has beeninvolved in the conference calls, said. “Limited cash withdrawals from ATMs and limited movement of capital have been considered and analysed.” Another source confirmed the discussions, including that the suspension of Schengen was among the options raised. “These are not political discussions, these are discussions among finance experts who need to be prepared for any eventuality,” the second source said. “It is sensible planning, that is all, planning for the worst-case scenario.” –Irish Times

Spanish bank deal will fall apart in a month: Only this one may not even succeed in buying time – I give it less than a month before some such other piece of bad news comes along to fire the crisis anew. Like all the others, the latest fix seems to create as many problems as it solves. The euphoria in markets at Spain’s rescue lasted all of a few hours; having bounded away at the opening, they ended broadly flat. But please don’t call it a bail-out. It may walk, talk and look like a bail-out, but to the Spanish premier, Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s handout is completely different to the three rescues we’ve already seen, even though at €100bn (£81bn)– or some 10pc of Spanish GDP – it’s quite a bit larger than that of Ireland and Portugal. No doubt mindful of the fact that every political leader who has agreed on a bailout to date has been defenestrated soon afterwards, Mr. Rajoy has attempted to snatch victory from the jaws of humiliation by proclaiming the €100bn of aid an unparalleled triumph. To Mr. Rajoy, however, the Spanish aid is no more than “the opening of a line of credit for our financial system,” which because Spain has been such an exemplary to others in accepting austerity without complaint, has been offered more or less unconditionally. I suspect Mr. Rajoy is in for a bit of a shock once he sees the fine print, but for him, the important thing is getting it across to his electorate that Spain is not being bailed out. Honour has to be seen to be maintained. Unfortunately, the reality is altogether different. This is not a direct line of credit to the Spanish banking system, but a sovereign loan which expands the national debt by getting on for 20pc. The fact that all of it is going to be used to prop up the banking sector is no more than cosmetic for an underlying truth – that it is Spanish taxpayers who are left with the liability. Spain is being forced to borrow from Europe to bailout its banks because markets won’t provide the money directly to Spain. –Telegraph

Banks downgraded, yields rise: And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worst for Spain; it just did. Spain’s benchmark borrowing rate hit its highest level Tuesday since the country adopted the euro currency, after ratings agency Fitch downgraded 18 banks on Tuesday and investors continued to find more questions than answers in the country’s decision to seek help for its ailing bank sector by tapping a €100 billion ($125 billion) eurozone bailout fund. The yield on Spain’s 10-year bond yield rose to hit 6.81 percent in afternoon trading, according to data provider FactSet, while stocks seesawed and were down slightly just before markets closed. –US News WR

[Johnny]

Financial Crisis: Urgent



1Thessalonians 5:5,6Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

Commentary
If I wrote about the melting down of European economy without including all the following articles, you might find it hard to believe. The reason for this would be there is NOTHING in the main news about this. If you dig like I do, it is clear to see what is happening. The collapse is accelerating as the nations and banks are now falling like dominoes!

The Greeks vote this weekend for a government, and if the Communists win, it is the immediate end of the Euro as they stated Greece will not follow the austerity agreements with the Germans. If this happens the European Union will start to unhinge! Italy and Spain are now in the same position as the Greeks along with Ireland. What you are witnessing is a historic event as the European Union that was put together after WW2 is now disintegrating before your eyes! Social unrest and war are in the air. The US media is silent about this. With the articles that I posted, I hope you see how serious this situation really is.

Financial Crisis in “real time” – U.S. media silent 06/13/12 The American public is being lulled to sleep by the media. You will only find the truth on information sources like this blog. The Left wants this kept quiet so they can spring a financial trap on the public! They can panic the public into their controlled system.

“12 June 2012: Steve Quayle broke the news in real time during our special Sunday Edition of The Hagmann & Hagmann Report: Italy’s oldest and 4th largest bank, Bank Network Investments, or BNI, ran out of money and declared a “bank holiday.” Now I will ask our readers and listeners to try to find information about this significant event in the major media in the United States. Go ahead, we’ll wait.”
The LORD is showing us what is coming soon to the world economy. He will probably connect the final collapse to bullying Israel to divide the land. On its economic deathbed, the EU will still attempt to pressure Israel over God’s covenant land. They will do this to their doom, which is now very soon!

In America is is very apparent that the LORD will tie the collapse of the US economy to bullying Israel or promoting the homosexual agenda or maybe both. The time of reckoning is drawing very close. Both the Europeans and Americans have really challenged the LORD over His everlasting covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob along with the sanctity of marriage.

On several occasions, I have warned to seek the LORD about what to do with the impending judgments. He will not judge without His church first being warned. He will warn but do His people have the spiritual ears to hear what the Spirit is saying unto the churches?

Amos 3:7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.