Muslim Brotherhood calls for Syrian protest 'declaration of war' - expert

A banned Syrian opposition group's call on anti-government protestors to take to the streets ahead of Friday prayers is a direct challenge to the country's authorities, a political experts says.

It is believed to be the first time that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood has called for street action since a popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began six weeks ago.

The "Day of Rage" demonstrations expected today would express solidarity with the besieged southern city of Deraa, where at least 50 people are reported to have been killed by security forces.

Deraa has been the focus of unrest which has left at least 500 people dead, human rights groups say.

"This means an open war," Syrian political expert Hamid al-Abdullah told RIA Novosti on Friday.

"By issuing this call they [the Muslim Brotherhood] have acknowledged that they are a power that is in charge of the processes in the country," al-Abdullah said. "On the other hand, that fact that their call has appeared at a time when the West is increasing pressure on Syria means that they are going on the same plan."

He said however that the group's call would do little to affect the situation in the country.

MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti)

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Israel FM says Palestinian deal crosses 'red line'

The Palestinian unity deal agreed in Cairo crossed "a red line," Israel's Avigdor Lieberman said on Thursday, warning that an array of measures could be taken against the Palestinian Authority.

"With this accord, a red line has been crossed," the ultra-nationalist foreign minister told Israel's military radio a day after the Palestinian parties announced a surprise reconciliation agreement.

"We have at our disposal a vast arsenal of measures including the lifting of VIP status for Abu Mazen and Salam Fayyad, which will not allow them to move freely," he said referring to president Mahmud Abbas and his prime minister.

"We could also freeze the transfer of taxes collected by Israel for the Palestinian Authority," added Lieberman, who leads the Israel Beitenu party in the coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

After 18 months of largely fruitless reconciliation talks, delegations from Hamas and Fatah meeting in Cairo on Wednesday announced a deal to form an interim unity government with a view to holding presidential and legislative elections within a year.

The deal raises the prospect of an end to the devastating political divide that has seen the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority govern the West Bank while the Islamist Hamas movement controls the Gaza Strip.

But the agreement was criticised by Israel, with Netanyahu warning on Wednesday, shortly after the deal was announced, that Abbas must "choose between peace with Israel or peace with Hamas."

Lieberman said the reconciliation deal would mean the "freeing of hundreds of Hamas terrorists detained by the Palestinian Authority in Judaea and Samaria" -- the biblical name for the West Bank.

He said the elections envisaged under the agreement would allow Hamas "to take control of Judaea and Samaria."

Lieberman said he wanted to see the international community insist that any unity government comply with conditions announced by the Middle East peacemaking Quartet, which includes the United Nations, United States,European Union and Russia.

"We hope that the whole international community will maintain the conditions imposed by the Quartet on the Palestinians, which means an end to violence, recognition of Israel and past agreements, and Hamas does not accept any of these conditions," he said.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said "the latest events do nothing but reinforce the necessity of relying only on ourselves.

"The army and the security services will use an iron fist to deal with any threat and challenge," he warned.
BREITBART

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Treasury quietly plans for failure to raise debt ceiling

The White House is warning that catastrophe will strike if Congress fails to raise the limit on the national debt: With too little cash to pay creditors, the U.S. government would default. Interest rates would skyrocket. And the economic recovery would collapse.

But behind the scenes, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has already begun juggling the books to conserve cash, draining a special account at the Federal Reserve. And with the debt forecast to hit the legal limit of $14.3 trillion in just a few weeks, he has a range of tools at his disposal, including borrowing money from a pension fund for federal workers.

Geithner also has authority to pay investors first for interest they’re owed on the debt, according to a decades-old legal opinion. A growing number of conservatives argue that by making interest payments first, the government could avoid default and the Obama administration’s predictions of economic Armageddon.

But the nation could pay a substantial price in the form of higher interest rates if it relied for long on such evasive maneuvers, the Government Accountability Office said in a recent study. And financial analysts say market confidence could be shattered if Geithner had to cut off pay to combat troops or stop writing Social Security checks — even if he never missed an interest payment.


Washington Post

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/treasury_quietly_plans_for_failure_to_raise_debt_ceiling/2011/04/21/AFmo5PtE_story.html?wprss=rss_business
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Dollar Plunge

The dollar continues to plunge verses not only hard assets, but other fiat currencies as well. This morning's economic indicators didn't help at all, unemployment claims surged to 429,000, economists were expecting claims to fall to 395,000. GDP also came in at 1.8% pace in the first quarter, a drop from a 3.1% pace in late 2010. Gold, as we write this has surged to a new ALL TIME HIGH of $1,538.51 and silver has recaptured all of its losses from earlier this week, silver is now at $49.50. The dollar index is at 73.07.

Here is a one year chart of the dollar index, sometimes pictures speak louder than words, or in this case, a chart of our fiat currency vs. other fiat currencies.

Understanding The Gold & Silver Correction

FutureMoneyTrends.com believes that the best way to understand what is happening with metals is understanding the correction. With the COMEX, silver shortage, ETF's, and the amount of currency in the system, it is important to understand that when the precious metals go up in fiat dollars, that is the correction. With less that 1% of global financial assets in gold, any move up in price is gold correcting to its real value. Historically gold, in a modern society, has been around 20% of global financial assets. So, as you can see with it currently being less than 1%, the imbalance is the gold price being too low. Imagine what will happen if pension funds and other investors just move a small portion of their portfolios to gold, even seeing gold rise to 5% of global financial assets could put it at $8,750 per ounce!

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Putin says Libyan oil main goal of NATO campaign

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Libya's oil resources were the main object of the NATO-led military campaign in the country.

"Libya has the biggest oil resources in Africa and the fourth largest gas resources," Putin said during a news conference in Copenhagen. "It raises the question: isn't this the main object of interest to those operating there."

COPENHAGEN, April 26 (RIA Novosti)

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US: Assad no longer potential peace partner for Israel

WASHINGTON – After two years of pushing Israel to reach a peace agreement with Syria, a top US State Department official indicated Tuesday the Obama administration is no longer looking at the current regime as a partner for such a deal.

“It’s hard for us to stand by and see [President Bashar] Assad and his government engage in the kind of things they’re doing against their own people and to then think easily about how to pursue other diplomatic missions,” Jacob Sullivan, director of policy planning at the State Department, told reporters.

At the same time, he said that the US continues to believe it is important to engage with Syria in order to clearly communicate the US position on the actions Syria is taking in putting down opposition protests.


Sullivan said at this point there are no plans to withdraw the newly installed US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford or otherwise cut off contacts. He noted that the Syrian ambassador in Washington had been summoned to the State Department after the most recent attacks on civilians, and that Ford had held several conversations with top Syrian officials in recent days.

Jerusalem Post


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http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=218005

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Central banks pump £3 trillion into world economy

The world's central banks have pumped £3 trillion into the global financial system since the crisis, the equivalent of 8pc of the world economy, according to new analysis by Fathom Consulting.

The figures will intensify fears that the extraordinary injection of liquidity is responsible for rising stock markets, rather than any underlying pick-up in corporate health or investor confidence.

Erik Britton, a director at Fathom, compared the development to throwing lighter fuel on a barbecue. The question is, he said, "whether the coals are lit".

The warning is the result of the extraordinary measures to prop up the financial system, which have seen central banks resort to strategies such as buying up bonds to keep the flow of money circulating.

Fathom's economists are worried that last year may have marked the high point of the global recovery. "It remains unclear how much of the equity market rally has been 'genuine', rather than simply a 'mopping up' of that extraordinary injection of liquidity," they warned. "As that stimulus is gradually withdrawn, further gains in equity markets will be harder to achieve."

To reach the £3 trillion figure, presented in its calculations as $5 trillion, Fathom measured the liquidity injections made by the world's four major central banks, by tracking how their balance sheets changed in the wake of the crisis.

The Telegraph

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