George Papandreou Says He Is Sorry For Saying "Money Exists"

Friends... we have said it many times, to understand George you must get into the mind of George... and seeing that this is medically and scientifically very difficult to do then just bare with us when we say that good old George at least tries to be understood. Unfortunately for him, he keeps on sticking his foot into his mouth, but nonetheless the chap tries. Today he did just that. He decided to explain to Greek citizens why he used the phrase "money exists" in his last election campaign but at the same time the man who plunged our economy into oblivion totally defended his former cabinet's decisions which led us to the open embrace of the Troika. Now correct us if we are wrong... but when you say "I am sorry" this means that you feel bad about something you did right? So why say you are sorry George and then defend your policies? Quick... help! A sedative please!

Commenting on the elections, he said that PASOK is the only serious choice if we want to avoid jeopardizing the country's presence in the euro and not waste the great sacrifices made so far by Greek citizens". The former leader of the PASOK party and ex-premier George Papandreou told the "Peloponnisos" newspaper on Thursday in an interview that the day after the May 6 elections Greece needs a stable government, "based on the broadest possible coalition of stability and progress, that can continue the effort to save the country".

(We agree... but it does not need PASOK)

"We paid, and will keep on paying the errors of past decades. I could not prevent these decisions. Greece needed to avoid a collapse. And this is the responsibility of all political forces without exception, whether they governed or not", he added.

Asked to comment on his controversial phrase "money exists", the former prime minister turned the questions around not wanting to obviously pin himself to the corner by saying that "I heard Samaras saying recently that "Greece is a rich country that was put under a heavy debt. What is the fortune of our country: it’s natural wealth and above all the talent of its people." I thank him for repeating what I have been saying for years. This is what I meant when I said money exists'. I never meant a mandate for benefits".

Asked about the opinions expressed for his referral to a Special Court that will investigate if there was wrongdoings in the manner we entered the Memorandum, Papandreou said that many have tried to finish off his family in special courts but the truth, according to him, reveals the schemers and this has been proven throughout Greece's political history.

"Intimidation and threats by specific interests or extreme voices toward the Papandreou family is a familiar phenomenon. So I will neither deal nor be afraid of such a possibility. I do not fear the truth; it’s others that need to so", he said.

He defended his government's decisions saying that "it’s better that Greeks are angry about what they are going through, than to have lived the ultimate destruction that comes with a bankruptcy. And we (PASOK) overturned this. We knew that it would be costly".

(Nooooooooo !!!)

"On behalf of all the politicians I would like to apologize," he noted, answering a question about salary and pension reductions, and increasing unemployment.

(Otan vgike to sygnomi... xathike to filotimo - No we refuse to translate!)

Editor's Note - tsk tsk tsk... Your condition is indeed serious. There, there... just follow those nice gentlemen with the white robes. They will take you to a BIG building where you can get up on a platform everyday and tell a load of "special" people exactly what you told us. And guess what... they are so out of tune that they will indeed believe you!

18 Bln. Euros To Four Banks On Friday

The ministerial meeting on Friday will bring an interim decision on the recapitalization of banks. It will give 18 billion euros in the four major banks (National Bank, Piraeus Bank, Alpha, Eurobank), with the decision on the amount that the shareholders will have to pay being transferred for September, after the final report of Black Rock. According to protothema.gr this move was deemed necessary in order to strengthen the banks, which announced historical losses, and to give a message of stability to the public in view of the elections. An additional amount of 7 billion euros is on hold for the TT Hellenic Postbank and the Agricultural Bank but will be disbursed after the elections.

US Outlaws All Protests Ahead Of Historic Banking Collapse

Has the Obama administration begun instituting what can only be described as one of the most brutal assaults of human rights and freedoms? Well according to a new report it has, after it effectively banned all protests against the US government under penalty of the offender being sentenced to 10 years in the American Gulag.

The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation is a federal ministry, responsible for general financial policy and for general management in the field of finance of the Russian Federation, and the American Gulag is the name given to the US prison system that holds an unprecedented 2.3 million human beings of whom “…more than 100,000 work in federal and state prison industry programs. This doesn't mean the usual cooking, cleaning and peeling potatoes, but work that produces products for sale -- about $2.4 billion dollars annually and has its own trade shows. UNICOR, the trade name of the government-owned Federal Prison Industries”, creating what is, in fact, the largest slavery system established in modern times by a Western nation.

The specific law signed by Obama, on March 8, referred to in a Russian report has raised serious concern among Moscow human rights officials is H.R. 347 that passed both houses of the US Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) and was not reported on by any American mainstream media organ being, instead, first reported on by the Russia Today News Service in their 29 February report titled “Goodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ will make protest illegal.”

One of the few American writers commenting on this frightening new law, Jeanine Molloff, recently wrote in the Huffington Post,

 “… this bill, better known to those in the DC beltway as the 'Trespass Bill' -- potentially makes peaceable protest anywhere in the U.S. a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.” HUFFINGTON POST

Molloff further added in her article: 

“President Obama has claimed the right to declare anyone a 'terrorist' or 'terrorist sympathizer' based on nothing more than presidential opinion, and order their assassination. No evidence is required -- at least that the public can see. We are told to blissfully 'trust' our public officials even when they are unworthy of such trust. Now our right to protest, to be disruptive -- has been criminalized as a federal felony.” HUFFINGTON POST

Important to note are that Molloff’s fears of the ever growing Obama Regime police state are, if anything, understated, and as we can read, in part, read as reported by the WSW News Service on Wednesday:

“It is hard to conceive of a more profound constitutional violation than the torture of a US citizen on US soil,” wrote lawyers for Jose Padilla in a petition filed Monday with the US Supreme Court. A lawsuit brought by Padilla, who was illegally “disappeared,” imprisoned and tortured by the US government for four years, was thrown out by lower courts on the grounds that the courts have no authority to subject the wartime actions of the executive branch to “judicial scrutiny.”
Padilla’s treatment constituted a test case for the incommunicado detention and torture of US citizens by the military without any judicial process. The Padilla case, as much as any other to date, illustrates the disintegration of democracy in the US and the erection of the legal scaffolding of a police state.
According to the precedent set by the Padilla case, federal authorities and the military may unilaterally abduct, imprison and torture a US citizen, in clear violation of the Bill of Rights, without anyone ever being held accountable. If this can be done to one individual, there is nothing in principle preventing the government from doing it to hundreds or thousands or millions of individuals.” WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE

To what those Americans daring to violate the new H.R. 347 law signed by Obama will be facing, the WSW News Service further detailed and as we can, again, in part, read:

“Padilla’s torture featured the trademark sensory deprivation, sleep prevention, and sadistic round-the-clock abuse associated with Guantanamo, CIA “black sites,” and other torture camps operated by the US government. For ten months, Padilla’s mother was not even informed whether or not he was alive. Padilla’s Supreme Court petition includes a description of his treatment:
“His only human interaction was with interrogators or with guards delivering food through a slot in the door or standing watch when he was allowed to shower. The windows of Mr. Padilla’s cell were blackened. He was alternately subjected to prolonged periods of constant light and complete darkness. He was unable to fulfill his religious obligation to pray five times a day. Removal from his cell entailed additional sensory deprivation, with blackout goggles and sound blocking earphones. All outside information—papers, radio, television—was prohibited, and his Koran was confiscated.
“Mr. Padilla was denied a mattress, blanket, sheet, and pillow, left with only a steel slab upon which to sleep. His efforts at rest were hindered by deliberate banging, glaring artificial light, noxious odors, and extreme temperature variations. Interrogators injected Mr. Padilla with substances represented to be truth serums, shackled him for hours in excruciating “stress” positions, threatened to transfer him to a foreign country or Guantanamo where, he was told, he would be subjected to far worse treatment, and even threatened to kill him.”
In 2007, an expert clinical forensic psychologist determined that there was a “98 percent chance” that Padilla had suffered brain damage as a result of torture during his confinement, and explained that he now exhibits a “strong indication of cognitive impairment.” WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE

Important to note is that even though the US Supreme Court has been asked to rule on Padilla’s case they have not agreed to hear it, meaning, that if they don’t, the horrific precedents set in this case will, in fact, become the “law of the land” allowing any American citizen to be jailed and tortured at will by their government without either charges being filed or any way to defend themselves in Court.

American attorney Glenn Greenwald, the former Constitutional and civil rights litigator and author of three New York Times best selling books, in his most recent column holds little hope for the US Supreme Court allowing the Padilla case to be heard and notes the complicity of the US legal system in helping both the Bush and Obama regimes to establish a totalitarian police state, and as we can, in part, read:

“One of the most amazing statistics of the last decade: not a single War on Terror victim — not one, whether foreign or American — has been permitted to proceed in an American court in an effort to obtain compensation for illegal treatment by the U.S. Government; instead, American courts have unanimously dismissed those cases at the outset, without reaching their substance.
Even when everyone knows and admits that the U.S. Government abducted a totally innocent person and shipped him off to Syria to be tortured, as is true for Arar, American federal judges shut the courthouse door in his face, accepting the claims of the Bush and Obama DOJs that to allow the victim to obtain justice for what was done to him would be to risk the disclosure of vital “state secrets.” They accepted this Kafkaesque secrecy claim even after the Government of Canada published to the world a comprehensive report detailing what happened to Arar.”  SALON

[Note: Greenwald’s reference is to Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was abducted and tortured by the US government for no reason whatsoever who has since received an official apology from his nations Prime Minister and was awarded US $9 million in compensation by Canada.]

To the reason(s) behind this unprecedented crackdown on the freedoms of the American people, this Finance Ministry report says, lies in the fears of the Obama Regime to coming historic collapse of the entire global banking system and the associated upheavals and chaos it will cause to the elite ruling classes of the Western world.

Not being reported to these Western peoples about this coming banking collapse by their mainstream media organs is its cause lying in over $230 Trillion in what are called derivatives due to be paid out upon the economic collapse of the European Union and/or the United States, which equals, mind you, approximately 3 times the entire world economy, but that no government in world has the money to pay for.

The worst offenders of this historic banking collapse are, by far, the top 25 American banks which according to the 31 December 2011 report for the 4th quarter listed their combined assets at nearly $8.7 Trillion, but their combined derivative exposure at over $230 Trillion. 

So dire has the situation regarding the global banking system become, this report concludes, is that in the last 6 months alone, 611 of the top bankers in the West have resigned their offices and went into hiding while at the same time the “insider selling” of American stocks by their elite classes has reached levels not seen in over 10 years.

The famous US civil rights leader Malcolm X [1925-1965] once warned the American people, “If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”  Sadly, his words have not been heeded, and as the United States falls ever deeper into tyranny one, indeed, wonders when, or even if, these once great people will ever awaken before all is lost.

Sorcha Faal
WhatDoesItMean

Turkish Lobby In US Rallies In Favor Of FYROM - Sends Letter To Obama

The Turkish lobby in the US sent a letter to President Barack Obama in support to FYROM's accession to NATO. In its letter the lobby states that its in the US;s interests to "consider the interests of the Euro-Atlantic community with a clear indication of US support for FYROM's accession to NATO at the forthcoming Summit of the Alliance in Chicago" . The letter was signed by the heads of the associations of Americans of Turkish origin and the Turkish Coalition of America. The disclosure of the letter was from the united Slavic FYROM community, with which Turkey has very friendly ties with. The Turkish associations in the United States number approximately 800,000.

Translated from - geopoliticsdailynews

Disagreement Over Detention Center For Illegal Immigrants

Will the government finally open the first detention center for illegal migrants in Amygdaleza, (north of Athens)? No one knows. The decision is apparently hanging on a thread as a result of a disagreement between the Minister of Transport and and the Minister of Citizen's Protection (Makis Voridis and Mihalis Chryssohoidis, respectively).

On Wednesday Voridis said that the containers, in which the first 1,000 illegal migrants will be housed, are under his jurisdiction and not the citizen's protection ministry, stressing that they are built within the framework of earthquake protection planning. He added that his Deputy Minister Yannis Magriotis was aware of the issue, adding that the citizen's protection ministry was allowed to use the containers for the sum of six million euros as it is made clear in a letter addressed by Magriotis to the citizen protection minister.

Voridis, who stands as a candidate in the district where Amygdaleza is located (Attica prefecture), noted that Magriotis and Citizen's Protection Minister Mihalis Chryssohoidis (both PASOK ministers) "went behind his back" on the matter in consultation with infrastructures general secretary Yannis Economidis, in order to ensure "election gains". He appeared determined not to allow the containers to be used and proceed with their removal, clarifying that the sum of 173,000 euros has been earmarked for this purpose.

Samaras Unveils ND's Platform That Is Set To Change Greece's Social Structure From A To Z

The leader of the main opposition New Democracy (ND) Antonis Samaras on Thursday unveiled his party's platform on society, the institutions and citizens' security calling for change of the country's model of governance. Speaking at the Zappeion press center, Samaras said ND's target after the upcoming elections on May 6 is to change the models of both the economy and governance.

"We need to sign an agreement with the people on what we must change. Greece is a country, not a place, and Greeks are a people, not a population. Change can only come about with a clear mandate from the people. The messages for ND are very positive," he said.

The changes he spoke of propose for a revision of the Constitution, as well as the law on ministerial accountability. Also they address the incompatibility of ministerial and MP posts (meaning that one person cannot claim both posts), as well as the formation of a smaller ministerial Cabinet that would gradually be reduced to only ten ministers and an audit on the 'source of wealth' of statements from individuals who have served in government posts from 1974 onwards.

On security, he reiterated his commitment to clamp down on illegal immigration, so as "to take back our cities" as he said, while he pledged efficient policing and enhancement of the citizens' security. Finally he said that it was time to "take the hoods off" the forces that cause this type of violence.

Yesterday, and after meeting with a plethora of people from the arts, Samaras also promised to bring a national policy for culture. Speaking at the Mihalis Cacoyannis Foundation building, the ND leader presented a proposal that is set to unify the Education, Culture and Sports Ministry into one entity and referred to the need for a large cultural park in the area surrounding the National Archaeological Museum.