Heeft u enig idee hoe een slachtoffer van witte fosfor ~White Phosphorus~ er uit ziet ?!...

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A Vietnam War Remnants Museum photo of a victim of a white phosphorus bomb

Volgens ons behoeft deze foto géén enkele commentaar... buiten misschien "verbijsterend barbaars" !! Wat u hier net kwam te zien was een slachtoffer van de Vietnam-Oorlog die in de jaren 60-tig & 70-tig werden uitgevochten... Intussen enkele decenia verder & 'n ietsje verder "gespecialiseerd" ziet het er niet veel anders uit...

...een eerste toelichting...

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White Posphorus used in Operation Silence

Posted by Teeth Maestro July 14, 2007

On 12th July, AAJ Tv boradcasted a program of Live with Talat in which Talat Hussain visited Jamia Hafsa. While touring the bullet ridden compound a number of military personal hovered around, at a certain point Talat Hussain asked an accompanying Army personal about all the evidence of smoke around the area asking, “Why is there so much smoke?”, the solider replied “WP”, Talat put another question “Please explain WP?”, the solider answered “White Phosphorus.”

White Phosphorus is a flare / smoke producing incendiary weapon which is also used as an offensive Anti-Personnel flame compound capable of causing serious burns or death. White phosphorus weapons are controversial today because of its potential use against humans, for whom one-tenth of a gram is a deadly dose and according to the Geneva Convention which was later amended by the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons signed into effect in 1997, expressively prohibits the use against civilians. White Phosphorus weapons have been used in the recent past by Israel in Lebanon and US and UK in Iraq, but probably the first time ever by a an army against its own people

Article 1 of Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons defines an incendiary weapon as ‘any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target’. The same protocol also prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against civilians or in civilian areas. However, the use against military targets outside civilian areas is not explicitly banned by any treaty.

There continues to be a strong debate on how Musharraf should have handled this situation, but what surprises me is the inhumanity of this attack, dexterity of the assault should have meant targeted exchange of fire maybe an occasional rubber bullet to pacify the milder militants, but the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons, by the National Army against its own people. Is jaw dropping serious, its akin to the mass murder which happened in Karachi on May 12th when the Army headed off to the barracks leaving the city at the hands of ruthless killers for six hours..

To understand the gravity of the situation one has only to look at these two images of burnt bodies the sight is excruciatingly painful, when the Americans used White Phosphorous on the victims in Fallujah back in April 2004.

If you look at the top most image which appeared in Dawn on 13th July (link) one sees the classic signs of a high intensity flame, which reached astounding temperatures to melt the steel framework of ceiling fans, one must also noted that the public was not shown the remains of numerous people killed in the disaster and quickly buried them in concealed wooden coffins the next day.

I am shocked and stunned at what has just happened, it should be enough for the world to wake up and ask for an unconditional removal of the dictator

BRON :
http://teeth.com.pk/blog/2007/07/14/white-phosphorus-used-in-operation-silence

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Voelt u zich nog goed bij dit alles ?!... Wij dus niet !!...

Als we onze eigenste Belgistaanse pers mogen geloven, gebruikt Israël op dit eigenste moment fosformunitie & clusterbommen in Gaza tegen Hamas... & het staat dachten we daarbij buiten kijf dat de complete civiele bevolking van Gaza daar ook slachtoffer van is... Mannen, vrouwen... kinderen... ongeacht !!

"Nachtelijke beschietingen in Gaza"
duur : 0:30 minuten
VRT-journaal

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De feeërieke vuurregen die u zonet in het korte beeldfragment uit de lucht zag vallen is géén kerst- of nieuwjaarsvuurwerk... maar is wel degelijk witte fosfor !!

"White Phosphorus 0001"
duur : 0:49 minuten
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Owwww... u betwijfelt dit alles ?!...

Test van een fosforbom tot ontploffing gebracht boven de USS Alabama BB-8, September 1921.

An alleged White phosphorous shell fired by the Israeli military explodes in the northern Gaza Strip
- Saturday 3 January 2009 -

...& wat het goedje veroorzaakt :

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'Special Weapons' Have a Fallout on Babies in Fallujah

17 june,2008

The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after "special weaponry" was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.

After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah.

In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tons of DU in Iraq thus far.

Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among US veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.

"We saw all the colors of the rainbow coming out of the exploding American shells and missiles," Ali Sarhan, a 50-year-old teacher who lived through the two US sieges of 2004 told IPS. "I saw bodies that turned into bones and coal right after they were exposed to bombs that we learned later to be phosphorus.

"The most worrying is that many of our women have suffered loss of their babies, and some had babies born with deformations."

"I had two children who had brain damage from birth," 28-year-old Hayfa` Shukur told IPS. "My husband has been detained by the Americans since November 2004 and so I had to take the children around by myself to hospitals and private clinics. They died. I spent all our savings and borrowed a considerable amount of money."

Shukur said doctors told her that it was use of the restricted weapons that caused her children`s brain damage and subsequent deaths, "but none of them had the courage to give me a written report."

"Many babies were born with major congenital malformations," a pediatric doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "These infants include many with heart defects, cleft lip or palate, Down`s syndrome, and limb defects."

The doctor added, "I can say all kinds of problems related to toxic pollution took place in Fallujah after the November 2004 massacre."

Many doctors speak of similar cases and a similar pattern. The indications remain anecdotal, in the absence of either a study, or any available official records.

The Fallujah General Hospital administration was unwilling to give any statistics on deformed babies, but one doctor volunteered to speak on condition of anonymity -- for fear of reprisals if seen to be critical of the administration.

"Maternal exposure to toxins and radioactive material can lead to miscarriage and frequent abortions, still birth, and congenital malformation," the doctor told IPS. There have been many such cases, and the government "did not move to contain the damage, or present any assistance to the hospital whatsoever.

"These cases need intensive international efforts that provide the highest and most recent technologies that we will not have here in a hundred years," he added.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed concern Mar. 31 about the lack of medical supplies in hospitals in Baghdad and Basra.

"Hospitals have used up stocks of vital medical items, and require further supplies to cope with the influx of wounded patients. Access to water remains a matter of concern in certain areas," the ICRC said in a statement.

A senior Iraqi health ministry official was quoted as saying Feb. 26 that the health sector is under "great pressure", with scores of doctors killed, an exodus of medical personnel, poor medical infrastructure, and shortage of medicines.

"We are experiencing a big shortage of everything," said the official, "We don`t have enough specialist doctors and medicines, and most of the medical equipment is outdated.

"We used to get many spinal and head injures, but were unable to do anything as we didn`t have enough specialists and medicines," he added. "Intravenous fluid, which is a simple thing, is not available all the time." He said no new hospitals had been built since 1986.

Iraqi Health Minister Salih al-Hassnawi highlighted the shortage of medicines at a press conference in Arbil in the Kurdistan region in the north Feb. 22. "The Iraqi Health Ministry is suffering from an acute shortage of medicines...We have decided to import medicines immediately to meet the needs."

He said the 2008 health budget meant that total expenditure on medicines, medical equipment and ambulances would amount to an average of 22 dollars per citizen.

But this is too late for the unknown number of babies and their families who bore the consequences of the earlier devastation. And it is too little to cover the special needs of babies who survived with deformations.

(Inter Press Service)

BRON :
http://www.arabeuropean.org/article.php?ID=151

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...& Als u dacht het allemaal gezien te hebben, als u nog twijfelt over wat de effecten van deze onmenselijke smeerlapperij zijn, dan kunnen we u alsnog aanraden om naar volgende documentaire te kijken. Daar krijgt u het naaldje voor draadje uitgelegd... & voor eenmaal vinden wij het ontzettend jammer dat we u de geur ervan niet kunnen bijleveren, kwestie dat het even in uw geheugen zou doorbranden zodat u zulks nooit vergeet !!

The hidden massacre
by Sigfrido Ranucci

Produced by Italian state broadcaster RAI TV, the documentary charges U.S. warplanes illegally dropped white phosphorus incendiary bombs on civilian populations, burning the skin off Iraqi victims. One U.S. soldier charges this amounts to the U.S. using chemical weapons against the Iraqi people.

"The hidden massacre..."
duur : 27:08 minuten
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STOP DEZE WAANZIN !!

ONVERSCHILLIGHEID = DODELIJK !!

06-01-2009 om 02:21 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

Onderstaand delen wij met u nog een stukje dat we hebben "ontleend" van het programma "ongehoorde meningen" op radio 1, waarin Lieven De Maeyer het zal hebben over de gebeurtenissen in de Gaza strook met twee gasten.

De éne is de minder bekende Wim van Rooy, Directeur van de Vrije Israëlitische School Yavne & ook hoofdredacteur van Tijdingen, het blad van de P.E.N. club)

De andere is Etienne Vermeersch, u allen welbekend als ~mits enige overdrijving van onzentwege~ het morele geweten van onze Belgische natie...

Het desbetreffende interview

De Heer Vermeersch mept hier spijkers met koppen, zodat wij hier dus zelf niet veel meer aan toe te voegen hebben, behalve misschien het volgende :

De Heer Van Rooy vindt het in zijn argumentatie geoorloofd om de Palestijnen uit Gaza plat te bombarderen...

In het kort stelt hij dus dat de vrede gefaald heeft door de schuld van de islamo-fascistische ideologie & dat alleen de taal van de wapens troost kan brengen (noot: de Palestijnen hébben géén wapens.. enkel stenen, slingers & enkele zelf ineen geflanste fusees !!) & hij vindt dat Israël voor eens & voor altijd moet afrekenen met Hamas, "hoeveel slachtoffers dat ook zal vergen" (sic).

Door & door slecht zoals we steeds zijn, rijst in ons verdorven geweten natuurlijk meteen de vraag op : "Aan hoeveel slachtoffers had Meneer Van Rooy dan zo gedacht ?!..."

De teller staat intussen al bijna op 500... & Gaza begint dus nu al stilletjes aan de proporties van Deir Yassin, My Lai, Sabra & Chatila of Lidice aan te nemen... & de tanks zijn nog altijd maar aan 't warm draaien daar in 't grensgebied, als ze tenminste op dit eigenste moment niet de boel aan 't platwalsen zijn... Is 5000 aanvaardbaar voor dhr. Van Rooy ?!... Of 50 000 ?!... Of 500 000 misschien ?!...

...& Is een Arabier z'n leven dan evenveel of minder waard als dat van iemand anders voor de Heer Van Rooy ?!... Zou de Meneer Van Rooy zulke cijfers even aanvaardbaar vinden moesten er 500 Vlamingen, Zweden of Canadezen worden afgeslacht ?!...

Als in een reflex haalt Mijnheer Van Rooy er natuurlijk ook meteen Hitler weer bij & hij verwijst ook naar het "islamo-fascisme". Wij gaan daar nu niet verder op in, maar we hopen dat zeer binnenkort eens wat grondiger aan te pakken...

Wanneer hij in zijn betoog, om het zo te parafraseren, beweert dat de vrede gefaald heeft & dat de Palestijnen enkel de taal van de wapens begrijpen, vergeet hij echter één ding... & nu komen wij tot de kern van ons argument... & dat is dat er gewoon nog nooit een vredevolle oplossing op tafel is gekomen !!

Het is namelijk zo dat het Palestijnse Volk nù al meer dan 60 jaar door Israël onder de knoet gehouden wordt.

Heeft Meneer Van Rooy misschien zichzelf al eens de vraag gesteld hoe ie 't zou vinden om z'n ganse leven lang ~want Meneer Van Rooy is er nog géén 60~ in zo'n onderdrukt oorlogsgebied te leven ?!... Gebied dat in dàt geval dan van zijn voorouders is ontstolen & dat te pas & te onpas om welke futiele reden dan ook "uitgezuiverd" wordt, waarbij vrienden & familie voor 't minste zomaar door de onderdrukker gevangen gezet worden bvb...

Wie in een plas modder op de grond ligt met een legerbottin in zijn nek gedrukt kan in de meeste van die gevallen nogal moeilijk de hand reiken aan de eigenaar van die bottin... als dat al niet als vijandelijk wordt beschouwd tenminste... want in tijden van oorlog weet men immers nooit... & daarom is dit argument van de Heer Van Rooy voor ons dus waardeloos.

De vredelievende oplossing kón gewoon niet falen, omdat ze er nog nooit gewéést is !! ...& misschien is het eens een keer de moeite waard om eens te proberen om Vrede te bereiken door de Bezetting te beëindigen ?!...

"Vrede" houdt echter wel in dat beide partijen pijnlijke toegevingen zullen moeten doen... & we kunnen bezwaarlijk gaan ontkennen dat de Palestijnen de laatste 60 jaar nog geen pijnlijke toegevingen hebben gedaan.

Deze bezetting van de Palestijnen door Israël was er overigens reeds vóór Hamas (1987) er was.

Dezélfde bezetting was er ook al vóór Arafat er was... & nu Arafat verdwenen is, is die bezetting er nog steeds. De énige constante in het conflict is dus niét de aanwezigheid van Hamas, of die van Arafat, maar wél die ellendige 6 decennia durende bezetting van de Palestijnse gebieden door Israël !!

Er is dus geen sprake van een "fascistische (Islam)ideologie", maar wel van een 60-jarige bezetting... & de Heer Van Rooy verwart dus duidelijk het begrip "Vrede" met een soort status-quo of "gezellige rust", terwijl de Palestijnen verder verdreven & weggepest worden...

Het verleden zou ons één ding moeten geleerd hebben... & dat is dat, waar er bezetting is, er nooit vrede kan heersen. Waar er bezetting is zal er dus automatisch ook verzet zijn, zoals dat in "Den Oorlog" ook al het geval was met "Den Weerstand"...

Zodra de bezetting van onze streken door den Duits ophield had ook de Weerstand hier geen reden van bestaan meer & is deze korte tijd nadien dus ook gewoon opgedroogd.

Dus, Mijnheer Van Rooy... we gaan het nog één keer zeggen teneinde dat u het goed in uw oren zou kunnen knopen !!

Het is de bezetting die de oorzaak is van alle ellende... & dat geldt zowel voor de Israëli's als voor de Palestijnen !!

Enquête chez les seigneurs de la finance
Les naufrageurs
Ni remords ni excuses. Banquiers, gérants de fonds d'investissement, spéculateurs, ils portent une responsabilité écrasante dans la crise qui balaie l'économie mondiale. Certains y ont laissé des plumes. D'autres, à la faveur du krach, continuent de s'enrichir de plus belle. Tant pis pour le petit épargnant. Tant pis pour le contribuable qui devra boucher les trous. A Wall Street, Londres ou Genève, nos reporters ont rencontré ceux qui n'ont d'autre credo que celui du profit. Et ne sont pas près d'abjurer

Au désespoir ! A la ruine ! A ces marchés stupides qui me permettent de m'enrichir ! Simon Cawkwell nous reçoit dans son grand appartement dans le quartier chic de South Kensington, à Londres, et, en hôte attentionné, insiste pour sabrer le champagne et lever un toast en l'honneur du krach. Ce n'est pas tous les jours qu'on trinque avec le diable ! Avec ses 150 kilos débordant de sa chaise, ses chaussettes rouge vif, ses quatre écrans d'ordinateur où défilent non-stop les cours de la Bourse, le personnage rayonne d'une aura falstaffienne. D'ailleurs, son surnom à la city, c'est «Evil Knievil», alias «le chevalier du mal» ou quelque chose d'approchant. «Les krachs, j'adore, il n'y a pas de périodes plus excitantes. J'ai connu celui de 1987, mais j'étais moins riche à l'époque, je ne pouvais pas miser de grosses sommes. Cette crise-là est bonne, très bonne, pour mes affaires. Evidemment, il va y avoir beaucoup de chômage, des années de récession. Mais moi, je vais gagner beaucoup d'argent.» Cawkwell fait partie du club sulfureux des short sellers, ces spé-culateurs qui ont joué à la baisse les valeurs bancaires. Lui, il s'est attaqué à la banque anglaise Northern Rock. Et se rappelle encore avec délice ce jour d'août où il a entendu que la Banque d'Angleterre allait la renflouer. «J'ai compris que cela sentait mauvais et qu'il y aurait beaucoup à se faire.» Northern Rock a ensuite plongé, n'échappant à la faillite que par une nationalisation in extremis. Se sent-il coupable ? «Mais pourquoi, ma chère ? Je serais bien stupide de ne pas en profiter.» Au total, Evil Knievil pense que la crise lui rapportera 4,5 millions d'euros. «Une broutille... Si vous saviez combien certains ont raflé !» C'est peut-être le refrain le plus entonné dans le monde de la finance. Il y a toujours un plus coupable que vous. Les patrons des grandes banques comme Dick Fuld, de feu Lehman Brothers, ou John Mack, de Morgan Stanley ? Ils accusent les short sel- lers, type David Einhorn ou Philip Falcone (épinglé en une par le tabloïd «Daily Mirror» sous l'étiquette «porc milliardaire cupide»), d'avoir conspiré leur chute. Lesquels spéculateurs prétendent eux avoir fait oeuvre d'utilité publique en alertant l'opinion sur les dérives des banques. «On apprend aux enfants à dire pardon. Mais visiblement, dans le secteur financier, personne n'a appris les vertus du mot magique», ironisait une éditorialiste de «l'Evening Standard».

David Freud, petit-fils de Sigmund et exbanquier d'affaires, a l'explication de ce déni collectif : «Il n'y a pas de sens de la responsabilité. C'est un secteur très individualiste, perverti par la culture du bonus. Et le bonus, c'est gagnant-gagnant. Quand vous êtes performant, vous gagnez. Quand vous perdez, vous gagnez toujours, mais moins...» David Freud a lui aussi joué au jeu des bonus, ces mégaprimes qui font passer les salaires des footballeurs pour de vulgaires pourboires : «Si les gens savaient ce qu'on gagne, on rétablirait la guillotine et des têtes valseraient sur des piques.» 1, 2, 15, 20 millions... Pour le commun des mortels, les sommes ne veulent plus dire grand-chose. Pensez ! En plein krach des subprimes, Goldman Sachs, la star du milieu (voir article p. 22), versait 18 milliards de dollars de bonus, soit 600 000 dollars par employé en moyenne... Mais ces dernières années, les mercenaires de la City savaient pouvoir trouver encore mieux ailleurs. Les banques plus «pépères», traditionnellement peu enclines à jouer les acrobates sur les marchés, ont voulu, elles aussi, monter en Ligue 1, celle des Goldman Sachs et autres. Et, pour s'acheter les bons joueurs, ont aligné toujours plus de cash. Et tant pis si les patrons en question furent bien vite dépassés par les tours de passe-passe de leurs nouvelles stars. C'est exactement ce qui s'est passé dans nos Caisses d'Epargne. Ou chez Citigroup, où le PDG, Chuck Prince, ancien avocat, débarqué l'an dernier pour avoir plombé sa banque de subprimes, confessait ingénument son manque total de compréhension des mécanismes financiers en vigueur dans sa boutique : «Aussi longtemps qu'il y a de la musique, vous devez vous lever et danser. Nous dansons toujours.» Les banquiers ont dansé. Les milliards ont valsé. Les chiffres donnent le vertige : les fameux Credit

Default Swaps, ces instruments techniques pour se couvrir contre le risque de faillite d'une entreprise, qui sont en train de faire tomber les banques, ont été inventés fin 1997 : ils représentent désormais 55 trilliards de dollars, soit plus que le PNB de la Terre... «Personne n'avait intérêt à tuer la poule aux oeufs d'or, soupire David Freud. Ni les politiques, ni les banques centrales, ni surtout les banquiers, qui s'enrichissaient tellement. Alors on s'est tous allongé et on a écouté la musique.» Et la musique, qui la dictait ? Tout en haut de la pyramide, voilà les demi-dieux de la finance. La caste mystérieuse des hedge funds, ces fonds spéculatifs qui font désormais la pluie et le beau temps. L'écrivain Tom Wolfe explique ainsi que ces «maîtres de l'univers» qu'il a immortalisés dans «le Bûcher des Vanités» ne sont plus à Wall Street, mais à Greenwich, petite ville près de New York où s'agglutinent les hedgies ou à Londres. Là où l'unité était la dizaine de millions de dollars, les hedgies brassaient des milliards, et comme ils se servaient à la source, ils ont fait exploser les bonus. «Ils n'avaient aucune régulation, et gagnaient tellement plus d'argent. Le rêve de tout trader, c'était évidemment de devenir un hedgie», dit un trader. Et de déménager, à Londres, des bureaux impersonnels de Canary Wharf ou de la City vers l'antre des superriches, le quartier de Mayfair, ses immeubles victoriens, ses milliardaires russes, ses restaurants huppés comme le Gavroche et ses repas à 1 500 euros... Même les conférences busi ness étaient moins ennuyeuses : au rassemblement Hedge Stock, en 2006, sorte de Woodstock de la finance, les rendez-vous se faisaient sous des tentes à fleurs, le tout bercé d'un concert des Who. Autre événement incontournable, le gala de charité annuel du financier Arpad Busson, fiancé d'Uma Thurman, où l'on pouvait l'an dernier enchérir pour gagner une séance de yoga avec Sting, ou une leçon de guitare avec le chanteur de Coldplay suivi d'un dîner avec sa femme, Gwineth Paltrow... Cette année, en juin, il n'y avait «que» Tony Blair, désormais conseiller à mi-temps à la banque JPMorgan, et un concert de Stevie Wonder. 30 millions d'euros furent néammoins levés, malgré les subprimes...
Aujourd'hui, à Mayfair, les hedge funds commencent à fermer : on estime que plus de la moitié risquent de passer à la trappe. Les panneaux «Bureaux à vendre» fleurissent. Peter Wetherell, agent immobilier dans le très haut de gamme, constate un ralentissement de 40% des transactions. «Après la fête, la gueule de bois... Mais pas pour tout le monde. La semaine dernière, il y avait un petit raout chez George, le club privé de Mayfair le plus coté. Il y avait ceux qui pleuraient. Et ceux qui riaient. Personnellement, je ne suis pas inquiet pour mon business. Les riches ont perdu un peu de leur patri moine, mais ils restent toujours riches...» Pauvres riches ? «C'est le paradoxe de la City. Vous êtes riche, mais vous n'en avez jamais assez. Car il y a toujours un plus riche que vous.» Geraint Anderson, un analyste réputé, a décidé de larguer les amarres après avoir amassé «seulement» 3 millions d'euros. Trop de cocaïne, trop de stress, trop de cupidité. «Je devenais un vrai connard. Et puis, au fond de moi, je savais bien que je ne valais pas mon superbonus annuel» Dans la City, le sujet de conversation préféré est le fuck-off money, le montant avec lequel vous pouvez tout plaquer. «On avait fait un pacte il y a trois ans avec des copains en se fixant un seuil de 3 millions d'euros. Eux, ils n'ont pas décroché. Ils doivent être entre 5 et 10 maintenant.» Geraint dit que personne ne décroche dans la City : «C'est comme dans ces films avec ces braqueurs qui disent «encore un dernier hold-up» et c'est fini. En général, ça se termine dans un bain de sang.»
Aujourd'hui, alors que 3 000 milliards seront injectés dans les banques, on pourrait penser que le système fou des bonus a vécu. Pauvres naïfs ! Selon les estimations du «Guardian», les 10 plus gros établissements financiers de Wall Street projettent de distribuer 70 milliards de dollars en primes cette année, soit 10% du plan Paulson ! Ironie du sort, certains des ex-Lehman, la banque qui a largement participé au cataclysme, pourraient même en profiter : Nomura, qui a repris une partie des équipes, a promis de ?
maintenir les bonus que s'était engagé à distribuer leur ancien employeur. «Je ne vois pas pourquoi je paierais les pots cassés ! Si je n'ai pas mon bonus cette année, j'irais voir ailleurs, se justifie un trader. Les banques sont obligées de continuer le jeu pour ne pas perdre ceux qui leur rapportent encore de l'argent. C'est la loi du marché.»
Impunité totale, donc ? Philippe, un des hedge funders les plus connus de la place, nous reçoit à Genève. Off. «Nous, les hedgies, nous sommes les boucs émissaires idéaux. Même l'archevêque de Canterbury nous tape dessus ! Nous sommes comme les joueurs de foot et les chanteurs de rock : les personnes qu'on aime haïr.» Pourquoi Genève ? L'homme qui pèse aujourd'hui 200 millions d'euros a été en bisbille avec la Financial Services Authority, le gendarme de la City. Et a donc quitté Londres pour la cité de Calvin. «On me croyait fini, et puis me revoilà. J'ai survécu à bien des choses, et ce krach-là n'est pas le pire que j'ai connu.» En deux ans, il a créé son propre fonds et levé 5 milliards de dollars.
Une partie de ses fonds sont domiciliés aux îles Caïmans, l'une des destinations favorites des hedge funds. Alors évidemment, la régulation, ça le fait rire. «Ils sont mignons... Si Brown ou les autres veulent se mêler de la politique des bonus et durcir la politique fiscale, pas de problème ! Tout le monde fera comme moi et on ira tous en Suisse.» Et si la Suisse se fait taper sur les doigts ? «Il y aura toujours un autre endroit...»
Doan Bui
Le Nouvel Observateur

02-01-2009 om 23:06 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

"Vuurwerk 2009"
duur : 8:30 minuten
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1 januari - 14.13 - Onze keuze om de kerst- & nieuwjaarstijd van 2008 tot in 2009 door te brengen had eigenlijk weinig of niets om het lijf... Net als de zovele roemloze & naamloze onbekende anderen, hadden wij weinig of géén andere keuze dan... of deze kersttijd op een zinnige manier trachten door te brengen in Nieverance... Het u aller welbekende gat aan de uitkant van de wereld, "In 't Hol van Pluto"... Of ten onder te gaan aan een zekere existentiele eenzaamheid & de daarbij horende quasi ondraaglijke dofheid van dit aardse bestaan... Wij kozen alvast voor het eerste & kregen er het tweede "GRATIS" & voor 't zelfde geld bij...

Ons algehele budget voor deze toch wel obligatoir te noemen schoolreis bij de aanvang van de schoolse kerstvakantie beperkte zich tot op de centiem na, tot het geweldige & te vermorsen bedrag van zegge & schrijven drieëntwintig €uro & achtenzeventig €urocent... & dat was dan voor àlle te maken kosten & alle uitspattingen die men zich daarmee kan veroorloven van het ganse aan ons toegewezen pretpakket... Het verblijf in onze kartonnen doos was al betaald, in dit geval was dit dus ook "GRATIS" te noemen... Onze 23,78€ kon dus losbandig worden opgesoupeerd aan vreten & zuipen voor onze 10-daagse ~zeg maar~ "nood-gedwongen" retraite aan de zelfkant van de maatschappij... Een maatschappij waar wij tot nader order tenslotte ook nog deel van dachten uit te maken, al had deze maatschappij dan misschien wel liever van niet...

Màààrrr dit àlles had ook zo zijn goede kanten, want daar waar anderen bijna overstresst de stad in moesten om nu eenmaal naar goede gewoonte te voldoen aan hun financiële eindejaarsverplichtingen, werden wij van deze waanzin bespaard... Wij konden & mochten dit alles overschouwen van op ons door ons telkenmale zorgvuldig uitgekozen centraal gelegen stadsbankje... Meestal een exemplaar waar we net niet aan vast vrozen, maar waar de koude wel ondergeschikt was aan 't plezier van het u aller bekende mensjes kijken... Ook al zijn wij reeds sedert geruime tijd uitgesloten van deelname aan zulke sociale spektakels wegens een chronisch financieel tekort aan harde cash, toch kunnen we nog wel iet of wat geamuseerd kijken naar dit op zich toch wel jaarlijks herhaald waanzinnige circus met alle sociale verplichtingen vandien die er blijkbaar nog eens aan vast hangen. ook.. Daarbij hoort meestal ook nog eens de telkenmale daar aan verbonden terugkerende schier onoverzichtelijke massa van wurmendende & veel te haastige mensen... een menselijk kluwen dat meestal bepakt & gezakt is, soms zelfs als sjokkende muilezels beladen, waarbij dan de één al wat meer dan de andere mee sjouwt aan vooral dan duur & gegeerd materialisme, in vele gevallen meestal ook nog eens onpersoonlijke consumenten-troep waarvan na nieuwjaar het één al nuttelozer zou blijken te zijn als het andere...

De als nijvere mieren wriemelende menselijke stroom, bijna allemaal zich quasi onophoudelijk haastig spoedend, sommigen een droeve blik op oneindig gericht met in het zog van hun naarstig geloop, anderen die het alfabeest dan maar gedwee of juist heel nors volgden om de meestal volgepropte kerstboodschappenlijst toch maar op tijd afgestreept te krijgen... De hoeveelheid beschamende taferelen die wij van dichtbij of veraf ~als toeschouwer wel te verstaan~ mochten aanschouwen, vooral dan van ruzie makende ~zo gezegde~ geliefden, "vol-van-goede-wil" over de te geven kado's waren soms zo grotesk dat wij ze u omwille van enige beschaafdheid bij deze zullen besparen... In de meeste der gevallen ging het dan ook aan ons voorbij als ware het slechte film met een slecht geschreven scenario, met nog niet te na gesproken meestal ook nog eens de verkeerd gecaste vertolkers van een vooral leeg & oppervlakkig geleefd leven... De menselijke nachtmerrie volgens Sartre... l'enfer c'est les autres...

De walmen van verse wafels vermengd met de weeë geur van veel te lang gebakken hamburgers & slechte gluhwijn hing overal in de lucht wat er voor zorgde dat er her & der enkele fanatieke entoesiastelingen waren die zich hieraan reeds al lang aan te buiten waren gegaan &/of dat duidelijk van plan waren te gaan doen... Groepjes debiele volwassenen met al dan niet flikkerende kerstmutsen of rendiergeweien op het hoofd... Horden van brallende zatte kerstmannen gevolgd door een troep van luidgibberende kerstmanwijfjes, losgeslagen door de kunstmatig opgepepte euforie van feeëriek verlichte kerstmarkten... Ons liet het ons slechts af & toe het water in de bek krijgen van de honger & voor de rest zorgde het alleen maar voor spontane krampen van onze opspelende lege maag, meestal dan nog eens gevolgd door een opvallend leeg gerommel van opspelende spasmisme darmen...

Af & toe herkenden we een lotgenoot, waarvan dan de ene al wat meer getekend was dan de andere door de aftakeling van de armoede... Want zulks wordt na een tijdje zichtbaar & voor wie hier bedreven in kijken & zien is... is één blik al dikwijls voldoende om de onderhuids tragiek te zien die zich bij de andere innerlijk afspeelt...

De zwarte sneeuw van Nieverance wordt dan ook vooral gekenmerkt door zij die deze winter-lente-zomer-&-herfststormen kennen & die ook reeds ettelijke malen hebben ~moeten~ doorstaan als waren zij dan geharde & ervaren poolreizigers & zij die er hebben horen over praten, als was het een zeldzaam fenomeen in Belgistan dat quasi ook onbestaande is & zeker als je het niet wilt zien of wilt weten... Niets is immers zou koud & kil als menselijke koudheid & menselijke onverschilligheid, niets is in zulke gevallen ook beschamender als onbegrip of domheid & blindheid voor elk ander menselijk lijden dan dat van henzelf...

Terwijl 8 miljoen Belgen zich nog quasi te goed konden doen aan ~dure~ kerstfestijnen met enigzins exubertante kerstmenu's & de bijhorende dure kado's, waren 2 miljoen anderen verplicht het met aanzienlijk veel minder te doen of gewoon zelfs met niks... Het feestmaal van ondergetekende beperkte zich tot 2 gebakken zwarte pensen met confituur & een broodje... & wij menen dat we het in vergelijking met sommige anderen dan nog goed hadden, want er zijn anderen die het bij ons weten met nog veel minder moesten doen...

Maar in tegenstelling tot ons, ligt u daar waarschijnlijk ook niet echt wakker van... Zo hebben wij toch mogen merken...

...

01-01-2009 om 21:54 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

...& Wàt met 2009 ?!...

31-12-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

If you've been watching the news, you know that Israel is under attack once again. This time, the weapon of choice comes from the skies. It is called the Kassam (or Qassam) rocket, and dozens of them have been landing in Israel.

In America we have a certain mental image that appears whenever we hear the word "rocket." We tend to think of something big, complex and expensive. We get that impression because we are used to seeing huge moon rockets or billion-dollar space shuttles flying precisely into orbit under the control of thousands of technicians.

The Palestinian Kassam rocket is just the opposite. It is small, simple and cheap. The idea is to create an easily manufactured, inexpensive terror weapon that one or two people can launch from almost anywhere.

How can Palestinians manufacture rockets in their basements? The key is to think small and to use everyday items wherever possible. Therefore, a Kassam rocket starts with a simple iron tube. In other words, you start with a piece of pipe. In a Kassam rocket, the pipe is usually about 6 feet long and 6 or 7 inches in diameter. At one end of the piece of pipe you weld on four simple fins made of sheet metal. The sheet metal can come from anywhere - an old car fender will do.

A Kassam rocket lands in a Sderot, Israel synagogue

Since this is a rocket, it needs some kind of rocket fuel inside the pipe. Palestinians use the simplest fuel possible. It is made of sugar and potassium nitrate, also known as saltpeter. The obvious question most people have is, "Sugar?" It turns out that sugar contains quite a lot of energy. You can see that energy when you are roasting marshmallows and one of them catches on fire. The problem is that sugar does not burn fast enough to use it as a rocket fuel. The potassium nitrate solves that problem by providing an oxidizer that accelerates the reaction. In the United States, there is a whole category of model rocketry called "Candy Rockets." American hobbyists hold competitions to see who can create the highest-flying sugar-powered rockets. The Palestinians have simply taken the hobby to an extreme.

Once you have filled your pipe with its sugar fuel, you need a nozzle for your rocket engine. In a Kassam rocket the designers use a round metal plate with seven holes drilled in it. Each hole is about an inch in diameter, because that is about as big as a standard drill bit can get. This round plate then screws onto the bottom of the rocket.

At the other end of the rocket is a small bomb. A Kassam rocket has a payload of 10 to 20 pounds and the bomb is very simple. It is made of a metal casing filled with an explosive like TNT. The TNT is probably the hardest material for the Palestinians to obtain, so they smuggle it in or harvest it from old military hardware. The shell of a rifle bullet acts as a blasting cap to initiate the TNT explosion.

When you put this all together, what you have is a rocket that can lob a 10 to 20 pound bomb through the air for a distance of five or six miles. It is very much like an artillery shell, with the advantage that you do not need a massive artillery piece to launch it. Instead, you need a couple of simple guide rails to act as a launch pad. You set up the rails, lean the rocket against them, light the fuse and stand back. 30 seconds later a 20-pound bomb explodes five miles away. By the time Israelis can react, the people who ignited the rocket can be long gone from the launch site.

Because they have no guidance system of any kind, Kassam rockets do have their limits. There is no way to know precisely where the rocket will land. However, as a tool of terror, that randomness can make the rocket very effective. The Germans employed the same tactic with the V-1 and V-2 rockets that they sent toward London during World War II.

[Editor's Note: Steven Plaut has suggested that Israel could stop the manufacture of rockets in Gaza by the simple expedient of blocking the importing of sugar into the Gaza Strip. Read his essay here.]

Marshall Brain has a degree in computer science. He is founder of the "How Stuff Works" website (www.howstuffworks.com), where he explains how things work -- from spud guns to hybrid cars. He lives in Raleigh NC and can be contacted at marshall@marshallbrain.com. Visit his website at
www.marshallbrain.com

This article appeared in Jewish World Review
(http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0507/HowStuffWorks.php3).

30-12-2008 om 23:27 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

If Gaza falls . . .

Sara Roy

Israel’s siege of Gaza began on 5 November, the day after an Israeli attack inside the strip, no doubt designed finally to undermine the truce between Israel and Hamas established last June. Although both sides had violated the agreement before, this incursion was on a different scale. Hamas responded by firing rockets into Israel and the violence has not abated since then. Israel’s siege has two fundamental goals. One is to ensure that the Palestinians there are seen merely as a humanitarian problem, beggars who have no political identity and therefore can have no political claims. The second is to foist Gaza onto Egypt. That is why the Israelis tolerate the hundreds of tunnels between Gaza and Egypt around which an informal but increasingly regulated commercial sector has begun to form. The overwhelming majority of Gazans are impoverished and officially 49.1 per cent are unemployed. In fact the prospect of steady employment is rapidly disappearing for the majority of the population.

On 5 November the Israeli government sealed all the ways into and out of Gaza. Food, medicine, fuel, parts for water and sanitation systems, fertiliser, plastic sheeting, phones, paper, glue, shoes and even teacups are no longer getting through in sufficient quantities or at all. According to Oxfam only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza in November. This means that an average of 4.6 trucks per day entered the strip compared to an average of 123 in October this year and 564 in December 2005. The two main food providers in Gaza are the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the World Food Programme (WFP). UNRWA alone feeds approximately 750,000 people in Gaza, and requires 15 trucks of food daily to do so. Between 5 November and 30 November, only 23 trucks arrived, around 6 per cent of the total needed; during the week of 30 November it received 12 trucks, or 11 per cent of what was required. There were three days in November when UNRWA ran out of food, with the result that on each of these days 20,000 people were unable to receive their scheduled supply. According to John Ging, the director of UNRWA in Gaza, most of the people who get food aid are entirely dependent on it. On 18 December UNRWA suspended all food distribution for both emergency and regular programmes because of the blockade.

The WFP has had similar problems, sending only 35 trucks out of the 190 it had scheduled to cover Gazans’ needs until the start of February (six more were allowed in between 30 November and 6 December). Not only that: the WFP has to pay to store food that isn’t being sent to Gaza. This cost $215,000 in November alone. If the siege continues, the WFP will have to pay an extra $150,000 for storage in December, money that will be used not to support Palestinians but to benefit Israeli business.

The majority of commercial bakeries in Gaza – 30 out of 47 – have had to close because they have run out of cooking gas. People are using any fuel they can find to cook with. As the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has made clear, cooking-gas canisters are necessary for generating the warmth to incubate broiler chicks. Shortages of gas and animal feed have forced commercial producers to smother hundreds of thousands of chicks. By April, according to the FAO, there will be no poultry there at all: 70 per cent of Gazans rely on chicken as a major source of protein.

Banks, suffering from Israeli restrictions on the transfer of banknotes into the territory were forced to close on 4 December. A sign on the door of one read: ‘Due to the decision of the Palestinian Finance Authority, the bank will be closed today Thursday, 4.12.2008, because of the unavailability of cash money, and the bank will be reopened once the cash money is available.’

The World Bank has warned that Gaza’s banking system could collapse if these restrictions continue. All cash for work programmes has been stopped and on 19 November UNRWA suspended its cash assistance programme to the most needy. It also ceased production of textbooks because there is no paper, ink or glue in Gaza. This will affect 200,000 students returning to school in the new year. On 11 December, the Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, sent $25 million following an appeal from the Palestinian prime minister, Salaam Fayad, the first infusion of its kind since October. It won’t even cover a month’s salary for Gaza’s 77,000 civil servants.

On 13 November production at Gaza’s only power station was suspended and the turbines shut down because it had run out of industrial diesel. This in turn caused the two turbine batteries to run down, and they failed to start up again when fuel was received some ten days later. About a hundred spare parts ordered for the turbines have been sitting in the port of Ashdod in Israel for the last eight months, waiting for the Israeli authorities to let them through customs. Now Israel has started to auction these parts because they have been in customs for more than 45 days. The proceeds are being held in Israeli accounts.

During the week of 30 November, 394,000 litres of industrial diesel were allowed in for the power plant: approximately 18 per cent of the weekly minimum that Israel is legally obliged to allow in. It was enough for one turbine to run for two days before the plant was shut down again. The Gaza Electricity Distribution Company said that most of the Gaza Strip will be without electricity for between four and 12 hours a day. At any given time during these outages, over 65,000 people have no electricity.

No other diesel fuel (for standby generators and transport) was delivered during that week, no petrol (which has been kept out since early November) or cooking gas. Gaza’s hospitals are apparently relying on diesel and gas smuggled from Egypt via the tunnels; these supplies are said to be administered and taxed by Hamas. Even so, two of Gaza’s hospitals have been out of cooking gas since the week of 23 November.

Adding to the problems caused by the siege are those created by the political divisions between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Hamas Authority in Gaza. For example, Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), which is not controlled by Hamas, is supposed to receive funds from the World Bank via the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) in Ramallah to pay for fuel to run the pumps for Gaza’s sewage system. Since June, the PWA has refused to hand over those funds, perhaps because it feels that a functioning sewage system would benefit Hamas. I don’t know whether the World Bank has attempted to intervene, but meanwhile UNRWA is providing the fuel, although they have no budget for it. The CMWU has also asked Israel’s permission to import 200 tons of chlorine, but by the end of November it had received only 18 tons – enough for one week of chlorinated water. By mid-December Gaza City and the north of Gaza had access to water only six hours every three days.

According to the World Health Organisation, the political divisions between Gaza and the West Bank are also having a serious impact on drug stocks in Gaza. The West Bank Ministry of Health (MOH) is responsible for procuring and delivering most of the pharmaceuticals and medical disposables used in Gaza. But stocks are at dangerously low levels. Throughout November the MOH West Bank was turning shipments away because it had no warehouse space, yet it wasn’t sending supplies on to Gaza in adequate quantities. During the week of 30 November, one truck carrying drugs and medical supplies from the MOH in Ramallah entered Gaza, the first delivery since early September.

The breakdown of an entire society is happening in front of us, but there is little international response beyond UN warnings which are ignored. The European Union announced recently that it wanted to strengthen its relationship with Israel while the Israeli leadership openly calls for a large-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip and continues its economic stranglehold over the territory with, it appears, the not-so-tacit support of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah – which has been co-operating with Israel on a number of measures. On 19 December Hamas officially ended its truce with Israel, which Israel said it wanted to renew, because of Israel’s failure to ease the blockade.

How can keeping food and medicine from the people of Gaza protect the people of Israel? How can the impoverishment and suffering of Gaza’s children – more than 50 per cent of the population – benefit anyone? International law as well as human decency demands their protection. If Gaza falls, the West Bank will be next.

Last update-14:56 30/12/2008

David Grossman / Is Israel too imprisoned in the familiar ceremony of war?

By David Grossman

Tags: ISrael, Israel News, Hamas

After its severe strike on Gaza, Israel would do well to stop, turn to Hamas' leaders and say: Until Saturday Israel held its fire in the face of thousands of Qassams from the Gaza Strip. Now you know how harsh its response can be. So as not to add to the death and destruction we will now hold our fire unilaterally and completely for the next 48 hours. Even if you fire at Israel, we will not respond with renewed fighting. We will grit our teeth, as we did all through the recent period, and we will not be dragged into replying with force. Moreover, we invite interested countries, neighbors near and far, to mediate between us and you to bring back the cease-fire. If you hold your fire, we will not renew ours. If you continue firing while we are practicing restraint, we will respond at the end of this 48 hours, but even then we will keep the door open to negotiations to renew the cease-fire, and even on a general and expanded agreement. That is what Israel should do now. Is it possible, or are we too imprisoned in the familiar ceremony of war?

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30-12-2008 om 21:01 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

29-12-2008 om 22:40 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

IMF Chief Warns Of Riots In Response To Economic Crisis

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that advanced nations will be hit by violent civil unrest if the elite continue to restructure the economy around their own interests while looting the taxpayer.

During a speech in Madrid, Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that “social unrest may happen in many countries - including advanced economies” if governments failed to adequately respond to the financial crisis.

“He added that violent protests could break out in countries worldwide if the financial system was not restructured to benefit everyone rather than a small elite,” reports the Guardian.

Strauss-Kahn’s comments echo those of others who have cautioned that civil unrest could arise, specifically in the U.S., as a result of the wholesale looting of the taxpayer and the devaluation of the dollar.

Widely respected trends forecaster Gerald Celente recently told Fox News that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.

Back in October, Senator Chris Dodd said that revolution would unfold if banks refused to lend money.

“If it turns out that they are hoarding, you’ll have a revolution on your hands. People will be so livid and furious that their tax money is going to line their pockets instead of doing the right thing. There will be hell to pay,” Dodd told the New York Times.

Last month, leading economist Nouriel Roubini said that food riots would be the ultimate consequence of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury’s current policies.

Riots and demonstrations have gripped normally sedate Iceland following a financial catastrophe that has wiped out half of the krona’s value and put one third of the population at risk of losing their homes and life savings.

Expectations of violent civil unrest have not gone unnoticed by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Institute, who recently issued a report warning that the United States may experience massive civil unrest in the wake of a series of crises which it terms “strategic shock.”

The consequence? The necessity to use “military force against hostile groups inside the United States,” according to the report.

Tens of thousands of active duty military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq are set to conduct “homeland patrols” inside the U.S. and their duties will include tackling “civil unrest and crowd control,” according to a Northcom announcement earlier this year.

Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out "Crowd Control"

By Naomi Wolf, AlterNet. Posted October 8, 2008.

28-12-2008 om 20:32 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

Hallgrímskirkja cathedral looms up out of the mists and gloom of downtown Reykjavík

Think of Ireland. Rotate it 90 degrees clockwise, make it a third bigger and hang it like a pendant from the Arctic Circle. Crack open the earth’s crust below to release limitless supplies of geothermal steam, then fill its territorial waters, all 200 miles of them, with an abundance of cod.

Give it a population of 300,000, about the same as Coventry, 70 per cent of them in the cities of Reykjavik and Akureyri. Ensure they are all related and give the majority the ability to trace their ancestry back to the times of settlement, more than a thousand years earlier. Endow these people with industry and ambition. Give them their own language – all but unchanged for a millennium – a literary tradition, three national newspapers, two television channels, free universal healthcare and education and close to zero unemployment. Give this country a consistently high ranking in the world standard-of-living charts and you have the Iceland of the recent past. Not a bad place, all in all.

Now allow this country’s banks – virtually unregulated – to borrow more than 10 times their country’s gross domestic product from the international wholesale money markets. Watch as a Graf Zeppelin of debt propels its self-styled “Viking Raiders” across the world’s financial stage, accumulating companies like gamblers hoarding chips. Then sit on the sidelines as the airship flies home and explodes, showering its blazing wreckage over this once proud, yet tiny, nation.

There you see the Iceland of today – the victim of an economic 9/11 and one of the very few places in the world where the words “financial meltdown” can be used without fear of exaggeration.

. . .

There is no daytime TV in Iceland. Parents are at work and children at school, so the test card, that feature of a bygone age, is the only thing aired. For the transmitters to be switched on in mid-afternoon and a sombre-looking Geir Haarde, the prime minister, to appear behind a desk, a national flag at his side, it had to be serious – and it was. The country was on the verge of bankruptcy; the government was taking control of the banks and was going to assume far-reaching powers to secure the safety of the nation and its savers.

As I watched, I felt a detached sympathy for those poor people living on a blighted island – until it dawned on me that I was one of them. Recent events had savaged my net worth by 60 per cent and pushed up my cost of living by more than 20 per cent. Iceland’s plight was mine, too. What I failed to appreciate at the time was the emotion of this unprecedented television address, particularly in the way it finished:

“Fellow countrymen ... If there was ever a time when the Icelandic nation needed to stand together and show fortitude in the face of adversity, then this is the moment. I urge you all to guard that which is most important in the life of every one of us, to protect those values which will survive the storm now beginning. I urge families to talk together and not to allow anxiety to get the upper hand, even though the outlook is grim for many. We need to explain to our children that the world is not on the edge of a precipice, and we all need to find an inner courage to look to the future ... Thus with Icelandic optimism, fortitude and solidarity as weapons, we will ride out the storm.

“God bless Iceland.”

Edda, my partner, was in tears on the sofa beside me.

A drive across town later that afternoon, October 6, at first gave grounds for comfort. The roads were as full as usual for the Reykjavik rush-hour – a half-hour build-up of traffic. Aircraft flew in and out of the downtown airport, students made their way home from schools and universities – note the plural – while visitors went to hospitals and fitness fiends to sports clubs. Reykjavik showed all the outward appearances of carrying on.

But a different picture began to emerge from the hourly news bulletins on the car radio. The Icelandic krona’s freeze in the capital markets had now spilled over into the day-to-day transactions of Icelanders abroad. Holidaymakers and business travellers venturing “til Útlanda”, as it is called, found their credit cards refused, and those wishing to buy foreign currency could not find willing sellers, aside from one or two who limited their purchases to €200.

Trust in the banks had evaporated and people were trying to find a safe haven for their cash. One man had waited for six hours in a bank while his life savings, more than £1m in kronur (at IKr200 to the pound), were counted out in cash in front of him. “I feel like an innocent man dragged from his bed, put in a barrel and hurled over Gullfoss!” wrote one journalist that morning. “We have been brought down by a handful of men who bet our nation’s wealth, fame and prosperity on a throw of the dice.” Gullfoss is one of Iceland’s tourist attractions – a majestic 100ft waterfall.

On collecting our daughter from her handball practice, I learnt the news that her club could not obtain the foreign currency it needed to release their new team shirts from customs. The city’s myriad sports teams rely on local sponsors and our daughter also brought the news that this source of funding for her team was likely to dry up in the months to come. Later that evening, Skype, our communications lifeline, would not renew our credits with an Icelandic credit card. E-mails began to arrive from friends overseas, alarmed by news reports and asking if we were all right.

But all this was trivial compared with the financial distress, in some cases ruin, that now faces a significant proportion of the population.

Easy access to 100 per cent mortgages has seen a change to the traditional pattern of young Icelanders living with their parents until their mid-twenties. The suburbs of Reykjavik have grown by a third in the past decade, most of it housing for first-time buyers. Whole new neighbourhoods have emerged. New streets house young couples, many with children, most with two cars in the drive and furnished with the best that Ikea can provide. All bought with 100 per cent loans, many in foreign currencies.

Iceland is the only country in the world that indexes its loans in addition to charging interest. This means that when Icelanders borrow IKr1,000 from the bank and inflation increases by 5 per cent, the bank increases their debt to IKr1,050 at the end of the year. A great deal for the bank and fine for you, too – so long as the property’s value and your salary are increasing by inflation and more. The majority of Icelandic mortgages are based on this punitive system and with inflation running at nearly 20 per cent, they will see their IKr1,000 loan turn into a IKr1,200 loan. The interest burden will increase proportionally. This is bad enough, but when coupled with falling house prices, it means that many face a particularly savage variety of negative equity. The impact on highly geared borrowers, which in practice means most Icelanders, would be hard enough even with two incomes, but with unemployment set to soar, many households are going to go under.

A recent first-time buyer, a woman in her late twenties, said: “I took a 100 per cent loan to buy an apartment. I placed my savings in Kaupthing’s money market account, because it promised high interest rates, and my pensions in Kaupthing’s Vista 1 at the prospect of becoming a millionaire retiree. Both of these funds were based on stock investments and I knew that they were risky – but I took the bait and the risk. Now most of this money, if not all, is lost.”

Icelanders are by nature frugal people. It was one of the few countries in the world, perhaps the only one, that had a pension system that could meet the needs of its ageing population. But in recent years, many older people have been persuaded by the banks to invest their savings in high-yielding money-market accounts. As a result of the collapse of the banking system, many of these accounts have seen huge write-downs and some are now worth less than half of their previous values. The additional money people had put aside to top up their pensions has been hard hit.

Bjork, Iceland’s ambassadress of cool, summed it up in The Times on October 28: “Young families are threatened with losing their houses and elderly people their pensions. This is catastrophic. There is also a lot of anger. The six biggest venture capitalists in Iceland are being booed in public places and on TV and radio shows; furious voices insist that they sell all their belongings and give the proceeds to the nation. Gigantic loans, it has been revealed, were taken out abroad by a few individuals and without the full knowledge of the Icelandic people. Now the nation seems to be responsible for having to pay them back.”

A homemade banner, made of sheets, hangs over the main motorway in Reykjavik, tied to the railings of a bridge. “Stondum Saman!” it cries out. “Let us stand together!” It’s the new rallying cry of a beleaguered nation.

A cyclist in Reykjavík on a gloomy day

Icelanders have seen their economy swell and shrink from time to time over the centuries, and always handled it calmly. Perhaps their heritage in fishing and agriculture enabled them to meet good years and bad with equanimity. Now they must cope equally well with an attack of economic bulimia. To understand what makes this crisis – kreppa, as it is known here – so unlike any other, a little history is needed.

For Icelanders, the golden years were the early years, shortly after the land was settled in the ninth century. The Viking tradition, the Althing – the legislative assembly dating to 930 – and the literary canon of Sagas and Eddas are the nation’s cultural bedrock. But after that, Iceland almost disappears from the history books. While the agricultural revolution, the Renaissance, the industrial revolution came and went, while the fine cities of Europe were being built, while artists from Michelangelo to Mozart were pouring forth their creations, while the great inventions and discoveries were being invented and discovered, Icelanders were hunkering down in their turf houses, meeting the hardest challenge of all – survival.

They survived plague, famine, earthquakes and volcanoes. There were times when some even considered abandoning the island. But they stayed on. They stayed and survived. Icelanders will tell you that only the fittest survived, but that is only half the story, because survival requires another key attribute: stubbornness. And Icelanders have it in spades. It is a national trait, and they view it not as a weakness but as a virtue. It comes from experiencing hardship and enduring it. It means finding satisfaction in a simple task done well and sticking to it; finding comfort and solace in family and kinship and being bound by those familial bonds and duties. And perhaps most important of all, it means believing in the independence of the individual as part of the fabric of nationhood, and fighting for that independence. Put simply, the country has values.

And this is what sets this catastrophe apart from the earthquakes and plagues of former years. This is a man-made disaster and worse still, one made by a small group of Icelanders who set off to conquer the financial world, only to return defeated and humiliated. The country is on the verge of bankruptcy and, even more important for those of Viking stock, its international reputation is in tatters. It hurts.

. . .

Picture a pig trying to balance on a mouse’s back and you’ll get some idea of the scale of the problem. In a mere seven years since bank deregulation and privatisation, Iceland’s financial institutions had managed to rack up $75bn of foreign debt. In his address to the nation, Haarde put the problem in perspective by referring to the $700bn financial rescue package in America: “The huge measures introduced by the US authorities to rescue their banking system represent just under 5 per cent of the US GDP. The total economic debt of the Icelandic banks, however, is many times the GDP of Iceland.”

And here is the nub. Iceland’s banks borrowed more than $250,000 for every man, woman and child in Iceland, and placed an impossible burden on the modest reserves of the central bank in the event of default. And default they have.

Voices of caution – there were many in Iceland – were drowned out by a media that became fixated on the nation’s emergence from drab pupa to gaudy butterfly. Yet, Icelanders’ opinions were divided. For some, the success of their Viking Raiders, buying up the British high street, one even acquiring that most treasured bauble of all, a Premier League football club, marked the arrival of a golden era. The transformation of Reykjavik from a quiet, provincial fishing port to a brash financial centre had been as swift as it was complete, and with the musicians Bjork and Sigur Ros and Danish-Icelandic artist Ólafur Eliasson attracting global audiences, cultural prestige went hand in hand with financial success. Icelanders could hold their heads high before the rest of the world.

Hallgrimur Helgason, well-known for his novel 101 Reykjavik, said in a letter to the nation in a Sunday newspaper on October 26: “Deep down inside we idolised these titans, these money pop-stars. Awestruck we watched their adventures and admired them when they supported the arts and charities. We never had clever businessmen, not for a thousand years, not to mention men who had won battles in other countries...”

For others, the growth was too rapid, the change too extreme. Many became uncomfortable with the excesses of the Viking Raiders. The liveried private jets, the Elton John parties, the residences in St Moritz, New York and London and the yachts in St Tropez – all flaunted in Sed og Heyrt, Iceland’s equivalent of Hello! magazine – were not, and this is important, they were not Icelandic. There was a strong undertow of public opinion that felt that all this ostentatious celebration of lavish lifestyles and excess was causing the nation to disconnect from its thousand-year heritage. In his letter to the nation, Hallgrimur continued: “This was all about the building of personal image rather than the building of anything tangible for the good of our nation and its people. Icelanders living abroad failed to recognise their own country when they came home.”

What international sympathy there was for Iceland’s plight evaporated with the dark realisation that the downfall of Iceland’s three main banks – Landsbanki, Kaupthing and Glitnir – brought with it the potential loss of £8bn for half a million savers in northern Europe, the bulk of whom were British. The shrill media response in the UK was reported extensively in Iceland. The British government’s use of anti-terror legislation to freeze the assets of Landsbanki pushed Iceland’s banking system into the abyss. It was a move viewed in Iceland as hateful and unnecessary. A few days later the one remaining viable bank, Kaupthing, went under.

Pedestrians brave the cold in Reykjavík, beneath a poster of young Icelanders. The prime minister recently urged people to explain to children that ’the world is not on the edge of a precipice’

Then Landsbanki was placed on a British Treasury list of groups subjected to financial sanctions, along with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. A copy of the UK government webpage appeared in Icelandic papers and a new website, www.indefence.is, was launched. A picture on it shows a young girl with a placard that reads: “I am not a terrorist, Mr Brown.”

At this time of year, the most-watched TV show in Iceland is Saturday night’s Spaugstofan, which translates literally as The Spoof Room. It’s a hit-or-miss affair, but events of the past few weeks have provided the writers with a rich seam of source material. A recent episode featured a well-worked lampoon of the film Titanic, entitled Icetanic, with Geir Haarde and the chairman of the governors of the central bank, David Oddsson, standing on the bridge of “the economy that could not sink”. A sketch shows Gordon Brown throwing Icelanders off a life raft. “Get back in the water where you belong, you terrorist bastard!” he shouts as he throws another one overboard.

When I tried to explain Iceland’s plight to a friend in the UK who works in banking, I received short shrift. “You must have gone troppo, Robert! They may not have dressed up in burkas and strapped several kilos of Semtex around their waists. But to go into the high street, persuade charities, pensioners, local authorities to deposit money and then disappear, having trousered nigh on £8bn is, even by City standards, bad. Financial terrorism, grand larceny, call it what you will, but the government had to act and act quickly to stop funds leaving the country.”

Troppo can hardly apply one degree south of the Arctic Circle, but if its northern equivalent is to go polar, then evidently I have.

. . .

Fear, outrage, jealousy and guilt have mingled to form a volatile cocktail of emotions as the blame game has started, and Icelanders attempt to come to terms with it all. They are divided between those who blame the Viking Raiders and those who blame successive governments and central banks for allowing them to behave the way they did.

There have been demonstrations, previously almost unheard of in Iceland, in which families have marched on the parliament buildings, stringing up an effigy of Oddsson along the way.

Of the various Viking Raiders, only one, Jon Ásgeir, of Baugur fame, has had the guts to turn up and face the music on a TV chat show. But any temporary benevolence towards him evaporated when it emerged that he had arrived back in Iceland with high-street billionaire Sir Philip Green in tow. Together they proposed to buy Baugur’s debt, reported at the time as £2bn, thereby acquiring the group’s UK retail assets, including House of Fraser and Hamleys at a significant discount that would involve massive debt writeoffs.

One of the most telling images was the departure of Jon Ásgeir’s private jet on news that the government had nationalised Glitnir Bank (in which his investment vehicle Stodir was a leading shareholder), wiping out his shareholding and rattling the debt-burdened house of cards that is his Baugur business empire. Painted black and as sleek as a Stealth bomber, the aircraft was photographed taxiing from its hangar by Morgunbladid, a daily newspaper. Like the last helicopter out of Saigon, the departure of Ásgeir’s jet symbolised the end of an era, the last act of Iceland’s debt-fuelled spending spree.

Bjorgolfur Thor and his father Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson have, to date, disappeared from the radar. Together they own a majority stake in Landsbanki, and Gudmundsson owns West Ham United football club. Their jets have also flown the coop. Downtown, beside the harbour, construction work on a landmark project underwritten by them, the National Concert Hall, is expected to stop any day now. Like Hallgrimskirkja, the striking cathedral that presides over Reykjavik and that took more than 40 years to complete thanks to a lack of finance, the concert hall might need a change in the country’s fortunes before it can be completed.

The government has announced that it will carry out a thorough investigation into what happened and determine who is to blame. It will be called “The White Book”, and “leave no stone unturned in getting to the truth”. It will not be a slender volume.

. . .

We live now in a foreign-currency lockdown, and although the government has assured everyone that there are sufficient reserves to buy essentials such as oil, grain and medical supplies for the winter, such assurances only serve to create a further sense of unease in a people who have learnt to take such commodities for granted.

There is some encouraging news. The International Monetary Fund is putting the finishing touches to a $2bn bailout package and this is likely to lead to a further $4bn from a consortium of Nordic central banks. These funds will come with stringent conditions that will impose external financial controls and impinge heavily on Iceland’s hard-won sovereign independence. But they should inject some much-needed confidence into the currency and into an embattled people.

There is an Icelandic expression: “We started with two empty hands.” Whoever coined it could not have expected that it would still be so pertinent in 2008, as the nation begins the process of rebuilding its economy and that thing it covets most of all, its reputation.

It is going to be a long, hard struggle.

Robert Jackson is a British journalist who has lived in Iceland since 2003

............................................................................

How the Icelandic banks got it all so wrong

“Let me get lunch,” I said, fumbling in my handbag for my wallet. “Your bank’s just gone bust after all.” But old habits die hard and anyway, the Icelandic banker wanted to find out if his company credit card still worked. He handed it over and drummed his fingers nervously on the bar in the gloomy City pub, writes Sarah O’Connor.

The payment went through. And with a whimper – two sandwiches and two lemonades – the bank’s six-year debt-fuelled spending spree sputtered to a stop. The next day his card was refused.

Barely a month earlier, at his bank’s annual September shindig in Iceland, international financiers who had arranged loans for the bank were treated to quad-biking, axe-throwing, belly-wrestling and copious alcohol – and challenged to run round a traffic cone 10 times while resting their foreheads on top of it. “Believe it or not, but some of the participating bankers fell over. And over. And ... well, you understand,” chortled Euroweek, a trade magazine also flown out for the party.

Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir sported all the trappings of fully fledged international banks. They had offices around the world, slick PR, extravagant parties and huge amounts of debt. That culture alone could have been enough to pitch them into trouble as the credit cycle turned. But at their core, something deeper was amiss. Two things, actually. The first has been picked over and over since the trio’s calamitous demise: they were too big, and the economy upon which they rested too small to support the huge liabilities they had taken on.

The banks don’t mind this explanation; neither do Iceland’s politicians. It paints them as fearless – if foolhardy – in their expansion, but ultimately as the casualties of a global crisis. They would have survived in spite of their size, they argue, if Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual had not collapsed, leaving their creditors empty-handed.

In September, creditors’ sense of security evaporated, and soon Glitnir was facing demands for extra money from the increasingly nervous institutions from which it had borrowed. It just didn’t have the money.

Glitnir went to Iceland’s central bank and asked for a bridging loan to see it through to the end of the month in which it was due to pay back a big bond issue. The central bank refused, and took a 75 per cent stake in Glitnir instead. The move triggered panic in international markets. Maybe the government was big enough to bail out Glitnir, but what about the other two Icelandic banks? It surely couldn’t afford to support all three.

In the face of a massive run on Landsbanki by foreign depositors and creditors, the government seized that bank, too, and soon after Kaupthing imploded as well.

A week later, in an upstairs room of the Ministers’ Residence in Reykjavik, Geir Haarde the prime minister looked weary but unruffled as he shook my hand and poured out coffee. “We spoke before didn’t we, earlier this year? As I remember you were very aggressive.”

His special adviser had called me out of the blue in March. She had heard I was writing a story about fears the government was not strong enough to underwrite the banks if they ran into trouble. Would I like to speak to the prime minister about it? I would.

In the interview, he seemed perplexed about the stratospheric cost of insuring against a default by Iceland’s banks on their debts. “If you’re worried about not being repaid, which is what the creditworthiness is about, you shouldn’t be worried when it comes to the Icelandic banks, let alone the Icelandic government,” he said.

But would the government be capable of supporting the banks, given that their foreign currency liabilities dwarfed the country’s ability to generate cash? He didn’t give a clear answer.

It was an odd episode, and highlights the other, deeper problem at the heart of Iceland’s banking system. How did the prime minister’s office know that a junior journalist in London was writing a story about Iceland? Presumably because someone from one of the banks told them. If so, why are they in such close contact? Because the whole system is run by a small group of men who go back a long way and, in the words of one businessman, “sit in the same hot tub three times a week”.

When the banks were privatised in 2002, the government – headed by David Oddsson, then prime minister, and Geir Haarde, then finance minister – sold chunky stakes to a select group of rich businessmen. Father and son team Bjorgolfur and Bjorgolfur Thor Gudmundsson, recently returned from Russia flush with cash, took a 45.8 per cent stake in Landsbanki after a process some have criticised as uncompetitive. These new shareholders used the banks to support their other businesses. For example, FL Group (which then became Stodir) – an investment company owned by the Icelandic retail entrepreneur Jon Ásgeir Johannesson – was both Glitnir’s biggest shareholder and one of its significant borrowers.

There were rumblings of discontent in Iceland over the way the system was being run, but few spoke out. Iceland’s government and supervisory authority did nothing to break up the close-knit network of relationships.

Sveinn Valfells is one malcontent. A private investor now living in London, his grandfather played a key role in setting up one of the banks that were merged to form Glitnir. Sveinn left Iceland in 2004 when he decided the banking system was spiralling out of control. “This was like Eastern Europe, this was like Russia ... In most respects it is a developed country, but the political system and business culture are significantly underdeveloped.”

The banks looked and sounded just like their large international peers. But as one businessman in Iceland says: “Astute investors should have asked themselves, ‘Does this smell right?’”

En we vonden nog andere interessante nieuwtjes:

Iceland Riots Precursor To U.S. Civil Unrest?

Demonstrators call for government to resign in wake of financial collapse

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Riots and protests in Reykjavik calling for the government of Iceland to resign have increased following a financial catastrophe that has wiped out half of the krona’s value and put one third of the population at risk of losing their homes and life savings. Could similar scenes of civil unrest be repeated in the United States as the economy continues to implode?

“It was the latest in a series of protests in the capital since October’s banking collapse crippled the island’s economy. At least five people were injured and Hordur Torfason, a well-known singer in Iceland and the main organiser of the protests, said the protests would continue until the government stepped down,” reports the Scotsman.

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

Hundreds more gathered in front of a local police station, pelting eggs at the windows, using a bettering ram to force the doors open and demanding the release of a protester.

A banner hung from a government building read “Iceland for Sale: $2,100,000,000,” the amount of the loan the country will receive from the IMF.

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

“We had a good country and they ruined it.”

These aren’t the actions of unwieldy mobs in third world countries, we’re talking about a country that had one of the highest living standards in Europe and a relatively wealthy and sedate population, the vast majority of whom are now in revolt over mass redundancies and the fast disappearing values of their paychecks and savings.

More peaceful protests against the Federal Reserve during the End the Fed events over the weekend were largely ignored by the U.S. corporate media, but the potential for wider chaos exists should the dollar finally cave in to the hyperinflationary bubble that is being created by the ceaseless printing of money to fund the multi-trillion dollar bailout.

Those who continue to assert, “It can’t happen here,” only need to look at the scenes in Reykjavik to realize that similar events could unfold across the U.S., where the reaction of militarized riot cops and even the military itself may be a little more heavy handed to say the least.

With top Russian analysts predicting the breakup of the U.S. into different parts, allied with people like deadly accurate trends forecaster Gerald Celente warning of food riots and tax rebellions, the scenes in Reykjavik may be amplified in the U.S. should a significant portion of the public wake up to the monumental fraud of the bailout and begin to feel the impact of its consequences as we enter 2009.

en voor de lezertjes die liever beeldjes horen spreken kunnen we deze filmpjes warm aanbevelen:

27-12-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

Het voordeel van de kredietcrisis

Geld moet rollen zei Wouter Bos, en zo is 't maar net!

Dus alle Hollandse IceSavers zijn - linksom of rechtsom - gered en krijgen hun centjes terug, tot het bedrag van €100.000. Wat wil je nog meer?

Nou, wij willen nog wel wat meer ja. Namelijk dat we die 120.000 spaarders niet via onze eigen belastingcenten gaan terugbetalen.En IJsland zegt niets meer te kunnen betalen, dus is dat land failliet. En zoals dat dan behoort te gaan, wordt de boedel verkocht ten behoeve van de schuldeisers. En die boedel is het - grotendeels lege - land zelf.

Ik stel dus voor dat we een boedelverdeling maken conform het bovenstaande landkaartje. Het cirkeltje linksonder is Reykjavik en directe omgeving. Daar passen alle IJslanders makkelijk in, dus dat mogen ze houden. Wie weet wordt dat, met een beetje professionele begeleiding en know how, nog eens een nordisch Hongkong, Singapore, of Dubai.

De rest wordt dan verdeeld tussen onze Engelse vrienden en ons, waarmee we weer terug zijn in de VOC-tijd, waar onze MP zo graag van droomt. We gaan dus weer koloniseren, maar nu op moderne leest geschoeid. Zonder slavernij.

Win-win-win-oplossing

Soms ligt een oplossing zó voor de hand, dat je die bijna over het hoofd zou zien. Want dit is natuurlijk geweldig, voor alle partijen!

Ten eerste is IJslandin één klap van al z'n schulden af. En vervolgens hebben wij én de Britten elk een nieuw - groot en waardeloos - gebied ter beschikking om nieuwe waarde toe te voegen. Handen uit de mouwen!

De Britten krijgen het westelijke deel, wij het oostelijke. Want dat is handig voor de aardrijkskundeles. Zodat de leerlingen het makkelijk kunnen onthouden. Engeland in het westen en Nederland ten oosten daarvan. En dat het dan op IJsland net zo is en niet andersom, want dat zou maar verwarring geven. Dan heb je voor je het weet de Vijfde Engelse Oorlog.Deze verdeling is trouwens ook gunstig - kijk maar naar het kaartje - omdat wij dan het grootste binnenlandse wateroppervlak krijgen, zodat er eindelijk weer wat in te polderen valt.

Totaaloplossing

Het is ongelooflijk hoe de gang der dingen, de loop van de historische gebeurtenissen, ons steeds weer verrast met nieuwe, onverwachte mogelijkheden en uitdagingen. Denk aan het Cruyff-adagium: 'Elk nadeel hep se foordeel'. En verdomd, het klopt als een bus, tot op de dag van vandaag!

Nu is er de kans om het integratievraagstuk in één uitdagend project aan te pakken en op te lossen. En het kan nu ook! Op 16 september, in haar Troonrede, sprak onze Koningin al over de mogelijkheid van een... gebiedsverbod. Dus voortaan sturen we alle rotjochies die niet willen deugen en de buurt terroriseren, met hun hele gezin voor een langdurig leer-werk-ontwikkelingstraject naar ... Oost Nederijsland.

Onze westerburen doen hetzelfde met hun eigen probleemgroepjes, die dan naar Great Western Britain-Iceland verhuizen.

Een unieke kans

Samen met onze Engelse vrienden gaan we hier een heel mooi project van maken. Voormalige probleemgroepen worden geprikkeld om zich te ontwikkelen tot volwaardige burgers, streng maar rechtvaardig begeleid door de beste deskundigen gerecruteerd uit kringen van PVV en TON.Zijn we daar ook meteen vanaf.

Denk nog even terug hoe de Engelsen vanaf 1788 al hun zware criminelen naar de strafkolonie Australië stuurden. Afgevoerd worden naar 'Down Under' betekende zoveel als 'levenslang'. En kijk nu eens, wat een keurig land dat geworden is!

Let op mijn woorden.

Als dit plan een kans krijgt, zal IJsland over tien tot twintig jaar de leidende positie hebben overgenomen van de VS. Engelse en Nederlandse gastarbeiders zullen zich er melden, bij gebrek aan werk in eigen land.

Hoezo 'crisis'? 't Is maar wat je er van maakt.

26-12-2008 om 19:06 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

25-12-2008 om 22:44 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

Kijk beste lezertjes... u kunt er van zeggen wat u wilt, maar wij hebben intussen toch maar mooi een generatiepact dat volop werkt !!...

...Het werkt zelfs zó goed, dat we de politiekers die ons landje van de ondergang nog kunnen ~of beter gezegd : zouden MOETEN~ redden, allemaal uit de geriatrie moeten gehaald worden...

Ok, er zijn er bij die dank zij de inplanting van varkenskleppen & waarschijnlijk ook van ossekloten, nog wel erg actief bleven op de huwelijksmarkt, maar om terug een land op het juiste spoor te zetten... allez kom... Laat die oudjes toch met hun kroost in Disneyland blijven... of den andere in zijnen hof in Vilvoorde... Laat die mensen nu toch eens gerust & laat ze toch eens van hunne "Ouwen Dag" genieten...

Plots wordt Martens nu ineens opgevoerd, alsof ie de koene redder des vaderlands is... Wij herinneren ons anders nog héél levendig dat we op een gegeven moment de tel waren kwijt geraakt, aan de hoeveelst Martens-regering we nu eigenlijk zaten... Maar één ding was & bleef ook zeker !! De buitenlandse schuld blééf stijgen, dus op dat vlak hebben we wel degelijk te maken met "een expert" ter zake als we van die kant een oplossing moeten verwachten...

Daarna kwam er onzer, u allen welbekende & bekwame "Gids-Loodgieter" die het allemaal min of meer terug wat onder controle kreeg, alleen hebben we eigenlijk nooit geweten hoe hij dat nu eigenlijk allemaal klaar heeft gespeeld. We ontdekken nog alle dagen truken van zijn foor, zoals afgevlakte indexen & index-sprongen... evenals verdoken taxaties op ziekteverzekeringen & vooral dan zijn gekende ~of zeggen we intussen, zijn beruchte~ "voorlopige" dubbele inhoudingen... maar dan wel "voorlopige" inhoudingen die ondertussen dubbel & dik "definitief" zijn geworden...

*ZUCHT*... & dàt Brabantse boerepaard met loodgietersallures zouden ze nu weer van stal halen ?!... Je zult hier anders in dit Surrealistische Belgistan maar eens twintig jaar oud zijn & dàt hele gedoe ~met grote argusogen~ bekijken met je I-pod op je oren... & dan vooral er het jouwe van denken, vrees ik... Want de huidige generaties Letermes, De Cremmen enz... zeg nu zelf, dat is wat wij noemen "gene vette", tenminste dàt zouden ze hier bij ons achter onzen hoek zeggen...

Maar wat is dan het alternatief zult u vragen... Wel, wij vrezen dat Vlaanderen dat al heeft uitgemaakt... de sossen !! ...We krijgen hier op de redactie haast de lachstuipen als we daar horen over praten...

Caroline Gennez, dàn tóch in een nieuwe regering ?!... Ja, mààr "mét keiharde" voorwaarden... Tja... & zoals wat ?!... De sluiting van onze kerncentrales ?!... In een land dat meer dan anderhalve percent boven het Europese inflatiegemiddelde zat... waarvan anderhalve percent volledig toe te schrijven aan de gestegen energieprijzen... moet je vooral die kerncentrales sluiten kameraden... dàn komen we makkelijk 4 percent boven de anderen uit... Je moet tenslotte in iets de eerste zijn...

Onze brulboei uit Oostende Jean-Marie & zijn LDD dan ?!... zo groot als de VLD voorspellen de peilingen nu reeds !!... Zijn beruchte programma ~verplichte literatuur voor wie denkt dat de man allemaal "goeds" met ons voorheeft~ vinden jullie ten andere netjes in dit blogje terug... & wij kunnen daaruit slechts besluiten... van deze olijke vrolijkerd & zijn bende zal géén enkele constructieve oplossing komen... enkel één groot sociaal slagveld & kerkhof !! ...Wees daar maar gerust in !! Alleen maar méér sores & pakken ellende !! ~lees : dus NIKS~ voor de kleine man... & des te méér voor de rijken !!... De kloof tussen rijk & arm... tussen "the have's" & "the have not's" zal er alleen maar breder, dieper & onoverkomelijker op worden... U gelooft het of niet, maar het kan dus wel degelijk "nóg erger" !!

2009 ziet er dus zéér veelbelovend uit voor onze steeds maar groeiende ergernissen... Dùs overwegen we ~omwille van "politieke & culturele" gezondheidsredenen~ toch maar het politiek &/of cultureel asiel op één van de waddeneilanden aan te vragen... Zijn onze Ollandse vrienden hiervoor te vinden ?!... Stuur ons anders eens een berichtje !!... Wij beginnen alvast al in te pakken & jullie hoeven dààr ècht niks speciaals te voorzien... We worden wel strandjutter of... hebben ze daar al een coffeeshop ?!... of 'n goed Belgische Café ?!... Misschien een Belgische Frituur ?!...

24-12-2008 om 00:53 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

Het behoeft waarschijnlijk niet al te veel tekst & uitleg, maar nog 9 keer slapen & we zijn alweer 1 januari 2009... dus zeg maar stilletjes aan tijd voor een klein jaaroverzichtje...

Nu eerlijk gezegd, we doen dit ook wel een beetje, omdat het blogsysteem van Bloggen.be zich namelijk beperkt tot slechts het weergeven van ~maximum~ de laatste 200 berichten die werden geschreven. Wij vinden het echter wel belangrijk dat onze lezers àl onze blogberichten op titel kunnen terugvinden, want soms wil een nieuwe lezer wel eens het prille begin ~het ontstaan~ van zo'n blog terugvinden bijvoorbeeld. Nu goed, je kunt dan wel met het systeem van Bloggen.be op de "weken" terug gaan, maar dat zegt dan nog altijd niks over de artikels die in die betreffende periode werden geschreven... Vandaar dus ook een beetje dit overzicht. Al bij al vinden we het eigenlijk wel wat jammer dat we met dit blogsysteem niet al onze geschreven artikels in één keer kunnen aanbieden... Maar goed, dit is dan bij deze opgelost...

Op 1 januari 2009 zullen wij ~de redactie van KITOKOJUNGLE~ dan ~juist geteld~ 341 dagen bezig zijn met dit kleffe blogwereldje te teisteren met onze schotschriften, die niet altijd ~hoe kan het ook anders~ bij iedereen in goede aarde zullen zijn gevallen... Dàt hadden we ook al wel door... & eerlijk gezegd, wij liggen van dat laatste niet echt wakker... Wij schoppen u trouwens maar al te graag een geweten als het er op aankomt...

...

So enjoy !!

...

OVERZICHT JANUARI 2008

# 26.01.08 - De beginselverklaring

# 27.01.08 - DE Mission Statement

# 28.01.08 - HET moreel gezag

# 28.01.08 - Opdracht 40 jaar later 1968-2008, je verbeelding aan de macht

# 29.01.08 - HET pestgedrag der filosofen

# 29.01.08 - DE foto

# 30.01.08 - foto als loketbediende te Beselare

# 30.01.08 - neoliberale gokspelen

OVERZICHT FEBRUARI 2008

# 01.02.08 - Carnaval is gek geworden

# 01.02.08 - Over de huilende pennen van Brijs en vettig Fonske

# 02.02.08 - Geert en Benno en de hoofddoekjes

# 02.02.08 - Flahaut en De Crem in Afghanistan als Kwik en Flupke

# 05.02.08 - kleine berichten

# 06.02.08 - god is een rukker

# 07.02.08 - Bloch en niet blog is de naam

# 08.02.08 - Geest van Van Severen verjaagt jood uit Panier d'Or te Brugge

# 08.02.08 - leuke medailles

# 09.02.08 - Kitoko Jungle Magazine

# 10.02.08 - De shariarechtbank in België

# 10.02.08 - Weer een ex teruggevonden !

# 11.02.08 - 177ste verjaardag van de overwinning op Van Speijk, leve België

# 12.02.08 - Ten strijde tegen N-VA !

# 13.02.08 - N-VA geprovoceerd !

# 14.02.08 - bericht aan de azijnpissers

# 15.02.08 - Verslag van de aanslag op Leterme

# 15.02.08 - Perscommunique

# 16.02.08 - Guido Gezelle is vette vis

# 17.02.08 - Bedankt Stefan

# 17.02.08 - De wonderlijke verandering van een merelveld in een mijnenveld

# 17.02.08 - Bob Van Geel is blauw

# 19.02.08 - Vlaamse handelspraktijken

# 19.02.08 - WRAAK

# 19.02.08 - Leterme gered door Pater Houben

# 20.02.08 - Mensaje del commandante en jefe of de story der Castrobrothers

# 21.02.08 - Vlaanderen wordt socialistisch

# 21.02.08 - Aftrekken op zijn Belgisch

# 22.02.08 - De oehoe van Peizegem is islamitische terreurcel

# 23.02.08 - Piessens Alfons vervalst Pakistaanse verkiezingen

# 24.02.08 - Vlaanderen verlost van het hellebeest uit Peizegem

# 26.02.08 - De mythe van de klassenloze klas

# 26.02.08 - Vlaanderen ontwaak ! Nieuwe kaakslag is er één te veel !

# 26.02.08 - zwijgende voettocht op het slagveld van de Peene ter uitwissing van de zoveelste kaakslag

# 27.02.08 - Het mysterie van de ontbrekende komma

# 29.02.08 - Beste Hollanders, wanneer rehabiliteert Sarkozy Sus van den Enden ?

# 29.02.08 - Geef ons Zeeuws-Vlaanderen terug of we klonen Balkenende !

OVERZICHT MAART 2008

# 01.03.08 - Copsa Mica of Charleroi geef ons Zeeuws Vlaanderen terug, Unoxmutsen !

# 01.03.08 - De Titty Twister staat in Oostende

# 02.03.08 - Volksverheffing in de overtreffende wijze

# 03.03.08 - Liever sexslavin dan met Vervotte en Leterme in de lift

# 05.03.08 - clochards bestormen vlaamse scholen

# 05.03.08 - Wilders geeft premiere van film in de Yab Yum

# 06.03.08 - Terreur bij de staatsveiligheid

# 08.03.08 - de blote billen van Ann en Goedele en ander triestig nieuws op vrouwendag

# 08.03.08 - Bart Dewever vraagt overheveling van Vlaanderen naar Frankrijk.

# 09.03.08 - fascisme is rampzalig, altijd en voor iedereen !

# 10.03.08 - Bintjes als oplossing voor aanslepende regeringsvorming

# 10.03.08 - Cartoonrel in Schouwen-Duiveland !

# 11.03.08 - het subtiele verschil tussen een Brusselse ordonnantie en verordening doen een japanse investeerder hara-kiri plegen

# 12.03.08 - de huisstijl van de Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie brengt Japanse investeerders in opperste staat van opwinding

# 14.03.08 - Leterme weldra in pornofilms !

# 15.03.08 - Havermoutpap bij kaarslicht

# 16.03.08 - Amerikaanse callgirl krijgt tegen 4300 dollar per uur het lezersaantal van Kitokojungle omhoog !

# 17.03.08 - Excursies naar de sloppenwijken nieuwe trend

# 18.03.08 - Belgistaanse toestanden en de ware toedracht van de verkrachting van Waris Dirie

# 19.03.08 - wereldwijd belgisch nationalistisch complot ontmaskerd

# 20.03.08 - In memoriam Taslima Nasreen de levende dode en Claus de dode levende

# 22.03.08 - Vervotte nailed on an Alnokeuken en andere verhalen

# 23.03.08 - Romantische mijmeringen over Oostende

# 25.03.08 - Is de aarde plat, heeft de dood zin, wij eisen palliatieve zorgen voor euthanasiebeoefenaars !

# 26.03.08 - Dalai lama en Savonarola même combat !

# 27.03.08 - Dalai lama afgevoerd naar Guantanamo ?

# 28.03.08 - Haartooi Fabiola gaat terug op model van menselijke kanonskogel van admiraal Tromp

# 29.03.08 - Wilders omgeschoold tot mozarellaverkoper.

# 30.03.08 - daklozen worden weldra gehuisvest in dienstwagens van regering Leterme I

# 31.03.08 - Roy Orbison als ultieme tortuur in Guantanamo !

...& Ook dit is weer eens berichtgeving die onze gemiddelde Belgische ~kwaliteits (?)~ Pers niet haalt... Maar hoe kan het anders in tijden van regeringscrisisen die veroorzaakt zijn door daden van "Goed Bestuur"... Nietwaar ?!...

...& We geven het ook grif toe... het is ook niet echt het genre van berichtgevingen dat onze Belgen nu echt graag lezen &/of wakker houden... Want het gaat immers over een deel van de bevolking die we uitsluiten van deelname aan het Grote Maatschappelijk gebeuren... U moet er anders maar eens de lezersreacties op naslaan, die spreken voor zich...

Nochthans zouden we daar wel eens met z'n allen mogen van wakker liggen volgens ons, want het vertelt toch maar weer eens mooi welk een beschavingsniveau we hanteren...

In onze eerste beschouwing over het Belgische Gevangenissensysteem, namelijk : ″The Belgian Prison Factory - Inc.″ - PART I - ″Privatiseer de gevangenissen″ - DEEL 1″ & het bijbehorende & aansluitende ″DEEL 2″ stelden we ons reeds de vraag of we het gegeven van "straffen & gevangenissen" ~wat op zich oude & achterhaalde ideeën zijn~ niet eens vanuit een ander perspectief zouden willen ~& vooral durven te~ bekijken...

Het hoeft geen groot betoog, we zijn & blijven vooral onconventioneel & vooral onconformistisch... Zeker wat een aantal opvattingen betreft omtrent nieuwsgaring & nieuwsverspreiding... Wat er onder de aandacht wordt gebracht & wàt nét niet...

Wij blijven er dus over schrijven & berichten... Vooral om de publieke aandacht er te blijven op vestigen, want we vergeten nogal eens al te makkelijk wat er buiten onze grenzen gebeurd... aan de andere kant van Ons €uropa bijvoorbeeld...

Evenals om het ook wel eens uit een ander oogpunt te bekijken dan dat we via de traditionele pers voorgeschoteld krijgen...

Een zeer boeiende getuigenis vanuit de eerste hand...

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Greek riots :
the extended disco version

The protests about the murder of a 15-year-old by police are still continuing here, if on a slightly smaller scale than the first day. I realize at this point there’s probably zero interest in this outside of Greece, but I’m posting this for my own reference if nothing else.

Yeah, so I wish I had some articles that didn’t make me want to bang my head against the wall (or, more appealingly, bang the head of the journalist who wrote it). I’m not talking just coverage outside of Greece-our own media haven’t exactly covered themselves with glory-but then overreacting and spreading panic *is* what they do best.

As for the boy’s murder itself, this blog post has the best summary I’ve found in English:

Whatever really did happen on Saturday night, one thing is clear from the eye witness accounts (unfortunateley for the police, there are several and they all concur). Alexandros and his friends got into an argument with two police officers in the bohemian district of Exarcheio. There was no baying mob as the police claimed. Shots were fired, supposedly in the air, and an unarmed teenager lay dying on the road as the two officers calmly walked away.

That’s the shooting itself. The rest of the post is worth checking out too, as it gives some idea of why this lead to the shit hitting the fan in such a spectacular manner.

In case anybody does read this and has any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. But right now I’m too drained to even attempt an in-depth analysis, so instead I’ll post some of the best pictures of the events I’ve found online over the last two weeks:

Alex Grigoropoulos, the kid whose murder started it all.

Student protesters.

School kids protesting. School children are at the very epicenter of these protests, occupying schools, taking it to the streets, and having the shit kicked out of them by the police while their middle-aged parents mostly watch it on the news and comment on ‘these young punks’. A Greek comedian insightfully compared the situation to ‘watching a Reality TV show of our own kids’.

It should be noted that our glorious state thugs/police, who did very little in the face of the more violent protests/looting of the first day, saw fit to break out the tear gas and sticks during the peaceful demonstration consisting of school kids and their teachers.

According to numerous statements from kids on the news, they take special pleasure in shouting out classy things like “Come and get it, you little fa****s” and “where’s your Alex now?”, in order to provoke some of the more hot-headed teens and have an excuse to get violent.

I totally believe it, too. The other day, while walking around town, I passed a small demonstration consisting of about 20 University students, doing nothing more innocuous than blocking traffic and holding up some signs. Just as I was heading away, I saw a squad of riot police in full gear heading in their direction, with the air of the Romans about to invade Gaul. Intimidation > constitutional right of protest

Well, fuck you too.

Rioters have taken to using laser pointers to blind the cops during skirmishes. Between this, and blogs, youtube, and videos and police violence getting posted on the hour, I bet they’re really cursing those fucking kids and their damned technology.

Meanwhile, Greek police uses tear gas with an expiration date of 1978 (!). I don’t want to know what the effect would be from breathing an already harmful chemical that is older than me.

I’m just saying, it can’t be healthy.

One of the themes of protest is a demand of disarmnent of the Greek police. I fully support it, but am not exactly holding my breath.

My very own hometown of Thessaloniki.

Now, I’m not personally one to protest violently, but I if I still lived there, I might have been tempted to firebomb a certain TV station (this joke will only make sense to small portion of my friendslist who’s been here for years).

Those are not images commonly shown in the media. Doesn’t sell as much as clashes, fires and Molotov cocktails.

As an aside, among all my frustration at my government, the fucking cops and really, the world, I’m filled with a sense of hope because of those kids. Those kids, that I believed to be apathetic and too into their I-Pods and consumer goods, and Netspeak, those kids have made me so fucking PROUD these days, with their refusal to be bow their heads down, their political activism and surprising eloquence. I didn’t think this generation had it in them.

Of course, when I told ariadneelda as much, she pointed out to me that with every youth revolt in history, the previous generation is all shocked and surprised because the kids weren’t stuck in their own little world. Shit, does that mean I’m officially OLD?

Tear gas: the gift that keeps on giving.

The birthplace of democracy-sometimes the irony can become almost tangible.

I have nothing to say to these, not without exhausting every expletive I know.

A candlelit vigil.

High school students, taking their clothes off and playing symbolically dead in front of the central police station.

(They’re underage, but really, LJ, I’m sure if the news outlets show this, it’s not a ban-worthy picture…right?)

I love this one. So powerful.

This isn’t over.

Well, there's been a violent side to this, no doubt-but since the media have the showing of violence covered (and then some), I chose to show the other side of this.

Another thing to remember: the protest is no one group/ideology/tactics. Much of the violence has been from small groups that seek any occasion to smash and burn (including football games) and are not necessarily affiliated with any political ideology. And yes, there are anarchists that throw molotov bombs, but to reduce the whole unrest to that subgroup is ridiculous. More disturbingly, a tape (that some bystander took) shows groups of mask-wearing, bat-weilding 'anarchists' chatting with police and parting ways amicably, so at least some of it comes from agents provocateurs which, I'm sad to say, is neither surprising nor unusual here. It goes back to the complicated history between anti-authority groups and the police dating back to the military junta a few decades ago. Suffice to say, cops have a vested interest in discrediting any protesters in the public eye.

Anyway, glad you found this useful. I've been frustrated with the news coverage abroad and most of the comments people make online, but I keep reminding myself it's not my job to personally set the facts straight with everybody on the Internet. But I had to at least give my perspective in my own journal.

BRON :
http://ishtar79.livejournal.com/131703.html

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...U begrijpt waarschijnlijk dat wij iedere verdere comment van onzentwege hierbij overbodig achten...

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21-12-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

Vandaag speciaal voor diegenen die aan... *BURPZZ* ...kerstshopping hebben gedaan.

Ondergetekende, schrijver dezes moest vandaag dus een aantal primaire boodschappen doen & geloof het of niet, ik zal het dus geweten hebben.

Massa's jachtige consumenten die nog vlug-vlug cadeautjes moeten kopen... & Hopen idioten die zich volproppen aan gratis proefkraampjes in het grootwarenhuis... Je zou haast hopen dat het crisis wordt, om eindelijk verlost te geraken van dergelijk onbegrijpelijk gedrag vanwege wezens die zogenaamd zouden beschikken over rede & rationaliteit. Maar vergeet dat laatste gewoon. Ze zien een kerstboom met gekleurde ballen & wat weeïge muzak met bal- & belgerinkel & plots...

Bon, we moeten dàt soort taferelen niet verder beschrijven... Ga gewoon naar een supermarkt, of beter nog naar een winkelcentrum, zet je daar rustig op een bankje & geniet... Geniet van dit merkwaardig ~lees debiel~ kuddegedrag dat ~tegennatuurlijk~ niet gericht is op enige vorm van overleven. Je zou haast het tegendeel denken & eerder collectieve zelfmoordneigingen kunnen ontdekken.

Maar goed, wij hebben er dus in ieder geval een grondige hekel aan... & We zijn zo te zien dus niet meer alleen... In Athene is men er in geslaagd om de grote kerstboom op het centrale plein (Syntagma) in de fik te steken. Dat was al een paar dagen geleden...

"8/12/08 to Syntagma kaigetai"
duur : 0:52 minuten
Live

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...& We geven er nog graag enkele "àndere" sfeerbeelden bij... die niet altijd even vredevol zijn, noch getuigen van "Goede Wil"... want 't is niet alleen een kerstboom die daar brandt...

"Athen Innenstadt brennt!"
duur : 6:07 minuten
Live

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Maar... ~de ilussie doet veel~ ...de kerstsfeer zàl & moét er zijn !! ...Een nieuwe kerstboom werd dus neergepoot & tot nog toe houdt hij fier stand. Dat is zowaar een hele prestatie. Een gans cordon van de oproerpolitie bewaakt dag & nacht dit vredevolle symbool ...& maar gelukkig, want anders... Maar kijkt u zelf naar "The battle of the christmastree" een vervolg op "Hamburger Hill"...

"syntagma-prosagoges 20-12-2008"
duur : 3:09 minuten
Live

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Wij zeggen in elk geval alvast : Don't let them kill your dreams...

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20-12-2008 om 23:11 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever  

19-12-2008 om 12:33 geschreven door Vorser-Raadgever