European bureaucrats take a haircut after budgetary negotiations

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | FEBRUARY 11, 2013

European officials are preparing to apply extreme cuts to their budgets beginning next year. The budget negotiations held last week resulted in a reduction in administrative costs, slightly more than the latest estimates, although lower than what had been proposed by British Prime Minister, David Cameron.

Budgetary cuts only include a cut of 2,500 million euros compared to the initial scenario envisaged by the European Commission. This reflects the lack of agreement among members and the realization that cutting any further would have left the EU with even more unhappy bureaucrats. The 2.5 billion cut is peanuts when compared to the 1 billion euros.

The Commission is upset with the prominence acquired by the cuts during the debate and warns that it will be difficult to take on more responsibilities and welcome new countries in the EU family.

What European negotiators had no trouble agreeing on was on the maintenance of the 61.629 million euros budget dedicated to the administration of the European institutions, which represent an advance of nearly 8% over the current budget framework.

Much of that budget is used to pay fat retirement packages to European bureaucrats which is the reason why the Commission will begin to implement its own austerity plan, which has been taken by European leaders and agreed with Parliament.

Those supposed austerity measures will represent a 5% cut in public employment until 2017, representing 2,500 jobs lost through that will not be replaced. In addition, staff working 40 hours a week, will retire at age 65 — now can do it at 63 — and the so called solidarity tax will grow to 6% of the workers’ salaries.

In addition, the lowest wages and the highest among the administrative staff will fall between 20% and 45%. And there will be more possibilities of temporary contracts. Finally, annual travel will be restricted.

With the wave of austerity sweeping across Europe, these measures still leave Europe’s 55,000 public employees well above average, with  salaries ranging from 2,000 to 16,000 per month –. The comparison is less favorable if the riches in Europe are taken into consideration, who will obviously not seek work in Brussels.

But that will not be enough to accommodate the numbers agreed. So the Commission explores other hypotheses. One of them is to lower the bill of translation, which absorbs 15% of the EU administrative expenditure. It also proposes to reduce (or eliminate) the maintenance of national experts who travel to the EU capital, so that each country pays for their own. None of this measures will make any significant changes to the European budget, though. They are simply petty decisions made in an attempt to show willingness to cut, but not much as needed or on the matters that really need to be slashed.

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Assad warns about attack on Syria

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | NOVEMBER 12, 2012

Syrian President Bashar Assad, has expressed opposition to foreign intervention in the Syrian conflict and warned that such intervention would have “global implications”.

The Syrian president spoke in an interview to Russian TV channel RT, where he added that Syria is “the last bastion of secularism, stability and coexistence in the region.” Therefore, he said, foreign intervention would have “ripple effects” that will affect all countries, “from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the rest of the world.”

“So I do not think that the West will choose this path. Yet, if this were to happen, no one can predict what will happen next,” he added.

The interview was done during a time when Syria is being destabilize from abroad with Turkey serving as a launch pad for attacks conducted by the opposition. The United States and NATO have been leading efforts to arm and finance groups in Syria, as well as bring in Al-Qaeda fighters to Syria, who have tried to take over large regions of the country. The fighting between revels backed up by the West and government forces has lasted almost 20 months. Despite this, the president did not hesitate to say: “I’m not a puppet of the West. I’m Syrian, and I live and die in Syria.”

Meanwhile, last week the Syrian opposition held a a meeting in Qatar to find common ground and work together as a stronger bloc. As we reported last week, the Doha meeting was meant to elect a new guild integrated by 40 representatives, many of which have been picked by the United States. This new body of Syrian opposition leaders is meat to become the new Syrian government once Assad falls. At least that is the plan being drawn by the opposition and its western supporters.

The meeting at Doha also sought to create harmony between opposition groups, who had been at odds in the last few weeks. The main reason was that the Syrian National Council, created in exile, did not want to abandon its dominant position against activists from Syria. This position was negotiated after the mediation of Qatari personnel.

The results of the meeting haven’t been clearly put forward by the new opposition bloc. Apparently two women were accepted into the group after criticism by the exclusive presence of male members. Circles of activists said that Islamic radicals are also part of the opposition group. The conference included members from the Al Nusra Front, a militia with close ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

Moreover, the British Prime Minister David Cameron is considering arming the Syrian rebels, said Downing Street officials.

Arming the opposition in Syria is not an option currently being considered by the European Union (EU). In theory the EU only provides logistical support for humanitarian purposes. Of course, we all know what humanitarian intervention means as it is defined by the West.

British Prime Minister David Cameron visited a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan last Wednesday to see first hand what the British taxpayer pounds are doing in the region. We now know that London has officially opened diplomatic contacts with Syrian opposition groups.

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The Year Bilderberg was Exposed Worldwide

Detractors of the secretive roundtable group saw one of their biggest wishes come true in St. Moritz, Switzerland

by Alex Newman
The New American
June 13, 2011

The amount of publicity garnered by the secretive Bilderberg conference this year in St. Moritz, Switzerland, far surpassed the coverage afforded to past gatherings of the elite cabal, with major media outlets and international news wires finally reporting on the yearly event after refusing to do so for over five decades. Protests, the alternative media, and anti-Bilderberg politicians played an important role in spreading the news.

Bilderberg, named after the Dutch hotel where members first met in 1954, brings together some of the most influential figures on Earth. More than 120 top-level officials in government, banking, media, finance, business, think-tanks, armed forces, and even European royalty attend the confab every year.

Among the confirmed 2011 European and Canadian attendees were the British Chancellor of the Exchequer (“in his official capacity,” according to the Treasury), the President of the European Central Bank, the head of Canada’s central bank, the queens of the Netherlands and Spain, the Crown Prince of Norway, a representative of the unimaginably vast Rothschild banking empire, finance ministers, heads of state, and many more.

A reporter on the scene for the U.K. Guardian said there were also individuals in attendance who were not on the official list — a regular occurrence discovered almost every year. Among them were German Chancellor Angela Merkel, NATO Secretary-General Anders Rasmussen, and Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain. Microsoft founder and multi-billionaire Bill Gates was reportedly spotted as well.

A handful of non-Westerners also attended, including Turkish business moguls and members of the political class in Turkey. A senior representative of the brutal Communist dictatorship ruling mainland China was there as well. So was a Russian oligarch.

More than two dozen prominent members of the American elite attended, too. An especially interesting cadre at the 2011 event included some of the masters of the internet world: The co-founder of Facebook; the executive chairman of Google; the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn; the founder and CEO of Amazon.com; the commander of the American military’s “cyber command” (or USCYBERCOM); Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer; and others.

Representatives of the non-digital American elite were out in force as well. Among them were former Ghaddafi adviser and Bush-era neo-con extraordinaire Richard Perle; billionaire David Rockefeller, who openly boasted in his autobiography of conspiring to erect a global political and economic system; Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary and current co-chairman of the immensely powerful, world-government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations; the vice-chairman of Citigroup; TV personality Charlie Rose; former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who frequently and publicly calls for what he refers to as a “New World Order”; the president of the World Bank; and others.

Top officials in the Obama administration were also there including — quite ironically — the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) Keith Alexander were also on the official list, as were former Federal Reserve and military chiefs. Not on the public list but spotted at the conference, according to unconfirmed reports from correspondents in St. Moritz, was Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

By any objective standard, a meeting of over 120 of the world’s most powerful individuals would seem to be extraordinarily newsworthy. But until recently, the confab rarely attracted even a passing mention in the establishment press. The eerie silence fueled deep suspicion and innumerable theories about what the group may be plotting in secret. This year, however, was different,  at least in terms of media coverage.

In a story picked up by numerous large-circulation U.S. newspapers including the Washington Post, for example, the Associated Press wire service described the June 9-12 event as a “secretive gathering of senior government officials and business executives … that some liken to a shadow world government.” CNBC, Forbes, Fox News, the Baltimore Sun, Time magazine and others also ran stories about Bilderberg.

In China, the media were buzzing with news of the conference, too. One Chinese-language report by the French wire service AFP referred to the group as the “mysterious world shadow government” in a headline, according to Google Translate. Chinese media behemoth United Daily News ran a similar headline for another Bilderberg article.

European and Russian news outlets offered unprecedented levels of coverage as well, with the Guardian newspaper and the TV network Russia Today both sending correspondents to the scene. Several alternative-media outlets including the American Free Press and InfoWars sent reporters, too. And the Swiss press in particular has been overflowing with reports on Bilderberg for over a week.

Analysts speculated that the so-called “mainstream media” establishment — which is rapidly losing its market share as news consumers increasingly turn to alternative sources — was essentially forced to cover the conference in an attempt to salvage what remains of its credibility. But despite the increased attention, in one segment of the establishment press, news of the event was conspicuously missing.

Among the confirmed 2011 Bilderberg attendees were representatives of more than a few major media firms: the editor-in-chief and two correspondents of the Economist magazine; the chief international correspondent of Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper; the editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat, Scandinavia’s largest daily subscription publication; a political columnist for the Dutch paper NRC Handelsblad; the CEO of Portuguese media giant Impresa; and more. None of those “news” outlets had covered the Bilderberg conference by press time on June 12.

There was, however, at least one notable exception. The CEO and publisher of Standard Medien AG, an Austrian media conglomerate, was also among those present at the Bilderberg summit. And one of his firm’s online portals, derstandard.at, reported the fact that Austria’s head of government, Federal Chancellor Werner Faymann, was in attendance.

A rival political party was apparently upset about the nation‘s Chancellor attending the meeting, even demanding an “intelligence” report about the conference from Faymann upon his return. So, not covering the growing scandal might have been raised serious questions about the integrity of Standard Medien among Austrian news consumers.

But even with the burgeoning Bilderberg coverage, critics still complained that the amount of media surrounding the conference was insufficient — especially considering the magnitude of the news. Other analysts noted that much of the “mainstream” coverage focused on downplaying the significance of the event or attempting to demonize critics.

But progress is certainly being made. While it would be impossible to calculate exactly how many people around the globe learned of Bilderberg’s existence over the past week, it’s safe to assume the number is in the millions — possibly tens or even hundreds of millions.

In recent years, authors, researchers, and the so-called “alternative media” have increasingly been spreading information and news about the cabal through the Internet. And not even including the new-found press coverage, the online exposure appears to have dramatically increased awareness about the confab.

Hundreds of protesters and critics from all across the political spectrum descended on St. Moritz to lambaste the elite attendees. They held up anti-Bilderberg signs and blasted their opposition through bull horns around the perimeter of the luxury Suvretta House hotel throughout the whole four-day gathering.

On the first day of the conference, along with a bogus “bomb” scare, a giant wall of curtains was erected around the edge of the Bilderberg compound. Presumably it was designed to keep protesters from looking in and conference attendees from being forced to see the growing crowd outside.

But at one point, angry protesters did get a chance to shout at some heavily guarded members of the elite in a face-to-face confrontation. During a “nature walk” outside the hotel, one activist even had a brief exchange with Thomas Enders, the CEO of Airbus. “We are just making our agendas,” Enders responded to a question about what was being discussed behind closed doors with politicians. “I don’t have to tell you, and you don’t need to know,” he arrogantly explained with a smile on his face.

Several lower-ranking members of the political class made a fuss about the event as well. Italian member of the European Parliament Mario Borghezio, for example, attempted to force his way into the conference on the first day. He was reportedly detained and roughed up by police, prompting the Italian embassy in Switzerland to demand answers.

Prominent Swiss politicians were furious about the gathering, too. Center-right Parliamentarian Dominique Baettig of the nation’s largest political party, for example, asked prosecutors to consider arresting attendees such as former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for war crimes, suggesting that Swiss officials at the event should be charged with treason. Baettig, too, tried unsuccessfully to barge in on the conference in what the Guardian‘s Charlie Skelton called a “historic moment.”

Some Bilderberg opponents have also suggested arresting U.S. attendees, citing the Logan Act. That law prohibits Americans from negotiating policy with foreign officials.

Regular Bilderberg attendee and former International Monetary Fund (IMF) boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn, another socialist, was recently arrested in New York on unrelated sex charges. But calls to prosecute various Bilderbergers for a wide range of criminal offenses are only growing louder.

Critics of the confab are, of course, routinely derided as conspiracy “theorists” or worse by establishment apologists. The government-funded BBC recently ran a vicious smear piece against people suspicious of Bilderberg, trying to link opposition to secret meetings of global policy makers with anti-Semitism and other unsavory associations.

But leaks and public statements by attendees over the years — reported on by the BBC, ironically — reveal that the cabal was instrumental in more than a few world-changing occurrences. The continental super-state known as the European Union and the failing regional “euro” currency, for example, are just a few of the developments in recent decades attributed to Bilderberg.

Anecdotal evidence also suggests the group plays an important part in the seemingly unexplainable rise to power of national leaders. Bill Clinton, for example, attended the conference in 1991 as a virtually unknown state governor. The following year he became President. Then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was reportedly there in 2008. British Prime Minster David Cameron and former PM Tony Blair both went to Bilderberg before rising to the top as well. So did a multitude of global power brokers too long to list.

Due to the tight secrecy, speculation about what may have been on the 2011 agenda is, as always, running rampant. But a press release posted on the relatively new “official” Bilderberg website cited by the AP and others offered some generalities about the topics of discussion: the euro, challenges for the EU, social networking, “security issues,” the Middle East, “demographic challenges,” China, and more. In 2007, “The New World Order” was the top item on the agenda.

“What is unique about Bilderberg as a forum is the broad cross-section of leading citizens that are assembled for nearly three days of informal and off-the-record discussion,” the group’s public statement notes, claiming that the “privacy of the meetings … has no purpose other than to allow  participants to speak their minds openly and freely.” Critics of the shadowy cabal, however, still aren’t buying it.

La Censura no Silencia la Verdad

Muchas veces, jactarse de ser un comunicador de la verdad es un riesgo porque ante el menor error, la credibilidad es cuestionada. Sin embargo, cuando el comunicador de la verdad es un movimiento popular compuesto por ciudadanos conscientes e individuos -no un individuo o grupo-, no solo es más fácil ser parte de este movimiento, sino también comprobar si lo que se dice es verdad o no.

La Máscara ha caído. El Engaño fue revelado.

La censura reciente del documental The Obama Deception (El Engaño Obama) despertó el gigante dormido que es el movimiento patriota. Google ha adquirido un compromiso muy grande por el restablecimiento de El Engaño Obama, después que el documental fue sacada misteriosamente censurado junto con otras películas y documentales. No sólo es la primera vez que la mega-corporación ha restaurado un vídeo político de tal naturaleza en Youtube, sino que la restauración se produjo después de que ciudadanos de todo el mundo mostraron su fuerza al convertir la censura del documental en el asunto mas investigado en Google.

Con búsquedas como “Obama Deception Censurado” alcanzando el número 1, quedó claro que el pueblo no estaba contento con la censura. Inicialmente, Obama Deception era el término más buscado en Google Trends, pero fue colocado en posiciones inferiores a pesar de un alto volumen de búsquedas.

Fue tan inmensa la respuesta de los usuarios que dio lugar al debido restablecimiento del documental. El hecho que El Engaño Obama volvió a ser el centro de atención una vez más, permitió a cientos de miles de personas alrededor del mundo inyectar una dosis alta de verdad a la Internet. La censura sólo permitió que el vídeo se convirtiera en un tema aún más viral. La censura, simplemente no funciona, y sólo crea una reacción completamente contraria a lo que las corporaciones o instituciones gubernamentales que emite la censura quieren. El rugido del movimiento por la verdad no puede ser silenciada, y sólo se hace más fuerte con cada batalla intelectual contra la tiranía.

Este no es el primer incidente de la censura en Internet

La censura en Internet ha sido muy frecuente en los últimos años. Sitios como Infowars.com y Prison Planet.com fueron bloqueados por filtros de todo el mundo. Más allá de la censura de sitios Web individuales que promueven las manifestaciones pacíficas y la resistencia a la tiranía, el Proyecto de Ley de Seguridad Cibernética da a Obama -en Estados Unidos-, David Cameron -en Inglaterra- y otros gobernantes en diversos países el control total del Internet hasta el punto de tener la habilidad de desactivar el servicio a nivel local, regional, nacional e internacional. Esta ley de seguridad cibertnética fue aprobada con el pretexto de mantener el Internet seguro para todos los usuarios, pero en realidad es un movimiento ilegal para concentrar el poder que el Complejo Militar Industrial tiene sobre los medios de comunicación alternativos.

El Internet ha sido un vasallo de la verdad y la información por años, y los políticos corruptos están comenzando a expresar su oposición a su uso libre. Jay Rockefeller, de la familia Rockefeller, declaró que el Internet nunca debería haber existido. La familia Rockefeller tiene profundos vínculos con la ideología eugenésica, y ayudó a fundar IBM con su propia fortuna.

Jay Rockefeller se ha enfrentado a We Are Change, -un grupo que trata de descubrir la verdad sobre los ataques terroristas del 11 de Septiembre y otros temas-, acerca de su posición sobre la censura en Internet y sus vínculos con la eugenesia. En lugar de proporcionar una respuesta, Jay Rockefeller comienza a correr cada vez que se le cuestiona. Un miembro le preguntó sobre el famoso grupo Bilderberg, y Rockefeller dijo que no es parte de la discusión. Este es el hombre que se atreve a decir si podemos o no tener un Internet sin censura.

Técnicas de Censura despierta a más gente

El Internet es el medio de elección para la mayoría de las personas para mostrar su trabajo, leer las noticias, o mantenerse en contacto con los amigos. Cuando se enteran de que el Internet está siendo asaltado por políticas de censura, esto los hace despertar. Si el vídeo de una persona es objeto de censura, el siguiente video censurado puede ser el suyo. La posibilidad misma de la libertad de expresión es lo que necesita ser protegido. La libertad de expresión sólo puede ser protegida como una nación, mediante la protección de la libertad de expresión de cada hombre y mujer. En el otro lado de las cosas, fue comprobado que en Gran Bretaña las empresas de telecomunicaciones archivan cada llamada telefónica, correo electrónico y búsqueda en la web y esta información es después dada a empresas ligadas al Complejo Militar Industrial.

Muchas personas están plenamente conscientes de lo que está pasando

La censura del documental The Obama Deception es un testimonio de la capacidad de la gente. Millones de personas están al tanto de lo que está pasando, y ellos tienen el poder intelectual para crear un cambio por medios pacíficos. Completamente dominando las tendencias mundiales en Google Trends es más que una manera en que el pueblo ha mostrado su músculo. El Engaño Obama ha sido visto millones de veces, con el video censurado después de recibir más de 6,6 millones de visitas, y seguirá siendo visto por millones de personas (siempre que el Internet continúe existiendo como ahora). Seguir promoviendo El Engaño Obama (The Obama Deception) y otros documentales como este, ayudará a continuar flexionando el músculo del movimiento por la verdad.

David Cameron: No More Power to Brussels

Times Online

David Cameron gave a blunt warning to Angela Merkel today that he would veto any attempt to reopen the Lisbon treaty to give the EU more power over national budgets.

Standing alongside the German Chancellor, Mr Cameron insisted that he wanted to see a strong single European currency but pledged to block moves to prop it up that involved a transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels.

The Prime Minister held robust and cordial talks with Mrs Merkel in Berlin where they also disagreed over hedge-fund regulation and Mr Cameron refused to reconsider his decision to pull the Conservatives out of the main centre-Right group in Europe.

The two leaders put on a relaxed show for the cameras, with Mrs Merkel’s mood buoyed by securing a “yes” vote in the German Parliament for the eurozone’s 750 billion euro bailout fund, to which Berlin will contribute up to €147 billion in loan guarantees.

But the convivial atmosphere could not mask their differences, with Germany leading calls at a finance ministers’ meeting in Brussels today for EU treaty changes to help restore confidence in the euro by introducing new sanctions and powers of co-ordination.

“There is no question of agreeing to a treaty that transfers power from Westminster to Brussels. That is set out 100 per cent clearly in the coalition agreement,” Mr Cameron said.

“Britain obviously is not in the euro and Britain is not going to be in the euro, and so Britain would not be agreeing to any agreement or treaty that drew us further into supporting the euro area.”

The Prime Minister added: “It goes without saying that any treaty, even one that just applied to the euro area, needs unanimous agreement of all 27 EU states including the UK, which of course has a veto. I think these are very important points to understand.”

His remarks left open the possibility that the 16 eurozone countries could introduce greater control from Brussels that applied just to them.

Mrs Merkel suggested that she had not given up on her desire to re-open the Lisbon treaty but played down its significance today. “There are certain ideas that Germany has tabled where treaty change plays a role. But this is the beginning. It is very early days as yet,” she said.

She added: “I have made it clear that we need to stabilise the euro but at a later stage we will be able to say what we can do and how should we do it.

“And then we will see what the majority will want and the interests of the eurozone.”

Mr Cameron showed that he had not given up trying to persuade Mrs Merkel to relax tough new proposed EU rules for hedge funds driven by Berlin and Paris.

“We do have our concerns because we do not think actually hedge funds were the cause of the problems in our financial markets and in our economies,” Mr Cameron said.

“We accept the need for regulation but it does need to be fair and proportionate.

“We have a particular issue about hedge funds that are based in other countries but have operations within one EU country and whether they would be able to access the so-called passporting system. So we have concerns; it is still being discussed.”

He refused to be drawn into open criticism of Mrs Merkel’s surprise decision this week to ban certain types of risky trading in shares and bonds, which began a slide of confidence in European shares that continued today.

Mr Cameron said: “Obviously we should respect each other’s decisions on these issues.”

“All I would say is this, and I’m sure there would be agreement on this: what matters is are we dealing with the real causes rather than just the symptoms?

“It seems to me that the cause of many of our problems in the European economies is excessive debt, excessive deficits, financial systems that haven’t worked, banking systems that have ground our economies down.

“Those are the problems. We’ve got to tackle the problems and get to the source of the problems and then actually we’ll find the symptoms will be less of a problem.”

Relations between Mr Cameron and Mrs Merkel were soured by the Conservative pull-out from the centre-Right European group over its support for closer political union in Europe.

Mrs Merkel is understood to have told him that she was saddened by the move which saw the Tories ally themselves with right-wing parties from Poland, the Czech Republic and Latvia.

Peter Ramsauer, the German Transport Minister and old Etonian, who forged links with Mr Cameron through their alma mater, said: “I have tried my very utmost best to try to keep things together. I said ‘David, can you imagine the great British Tories can be a partner of people like Topolánek from the Czech Republic? Never, ever.’ Maybe we can bring them together again. There are lingering hopes very far on the horizon.”