The american stimulus package could be a money scam.

February 12, 2009 at 1:23 pm · Filed under journalism, North America

Rahm Emanuel hands are on the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus package being sorted out in Congress this week, they belong to Emanuel, the former Illinois House member who is now the White House chief of staff.

But who is Rahm emanuel.Here you go is life,family and career.

Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois to Jewish parents.[4] His father, Benjamin M. Emanuel, a Jerusalem-born pediatrician, was a member of the Irgun.[

BUT WHAT IS IRGUN?

Irgun (Hebrew: ארגון‎; shorthand for HaIrgun HaTzva'i HaLe'umi BeEretz Yisra'el, הארגון הצבאי הלאומי בארץ ישראל, "National Military Organization in the Land of Israel") was a militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was established as a militant offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah (Hebrew: "The Defense", ההגנה). For reasons of secrecy, people often referred to the Irgun, during that time, as Haganah Bet (Hebrew: literally "Defense 'B' " or "Second Defense", הגנה ב), or alternatively as Haganah Ha'leumit (ההגנה הלאומית) or Ha'ma'amad (המעמד). In present-day Israel, Irgun is commonly referred to as Etzel (אצ"ל), an acronym of the Hebrew initials.

The Irgun was the armed expression of the nascent ideology of Revisionist Zionism founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. He expressed this ideology as "every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state".[1]

Some of the better-known attacks by Irgun were the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 and the Deir Yassin massacre (accomplished together with the Stern Gang) on 9 April 1948. In the West, Irgun was described as a terrorist organization by The New York Times newspaper,[2][3], The Times (of London) [4][5], the British Broadcasting Corporation [6], the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry[7], and prominent world and Jewish figures, such as Winston Churchill[8], Tom Segev[9], Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, and many others.[10] Irgun attacks prompted a formal declaration from the World Zionist Congress in 1946, which strongly condemned “the shedding of innocent blood as a means of political warfare”.[11]

Irgun was a political predecessor to Israel’s right-wing Herut (or “Freedom”) party, which led to today’s Likud party. Likud has led or been part of most Israeli governments since 1977.

When the family lived in Chicago, Emanuel attended Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, a Conservative Jewish day school.[10]

In a democratic country shouldn`t be space for extremism,especially when your country is fighting two very expensive and inhuman wars.

  • All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

    • Comments (22)

    Four f.ormer bank chief say sorry.

    February 12, 2009 at 10:00 am · Filed under journalism

    Four former bank chiefs were accused of saying sorry only as a public relations move yesterday, after refusing to admit significant personal errors in the run-up to the near-collapse of RBS and HBOS. Sir Fred Goodwin and Sir Tom McKillop, who ran RBS, alongside Andy Hornby and Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, who ran HBOS, began their appearance before MPs with public apologies for their role in the crisis. However, as they fended off sustained and often blunt questions from all 14 MPs, it was not always clear what they had apologised for, or why they had made the errors to which they had owned up. Lord Stevenson told the Treasury Select Committee that he and Andy Hornby, the former chief executive, were “profoundly sorry” while Sir Tom McKillop, former chairman of RBS, said that he would “echo” the comments.

    Sir Fred, previously chief executive of RBS, added: “I apologised in full and I’m happy to do so again.”

    However, the four bankers refused to concede significant errors, saying the failure of the money markets was the root of their problems. MPs compared their statements later to the limited apology given by Tony Blair over the Iraq war.

    Although Sir Tom conceded that the takeover of ABN Amro by RBS had been the wrong thing to do, he said that the problems had arisen because of the decline in the market rather than internal error.

    “We are apologising for what is happening to our business, and the key factor is the collapse of the wholesale money markets,” Lord Stevenson said.

    The plethora of apologies brought a sharp intervention from John McFall, the committee chairman, who asked: “What exactly are you apologising for? Are you expressing sympathy because your PR advisers tell you to?”

    Throughout the three hour fifteen-minute session, the four denied that their individual decisions directly led to the near-collapse of the two banks, which caused them both to seek state bailouts in October.

    At times the four looked uncomfortable, particularly when the questioning got personal, and they were asked whether they got carried away with their own publicity. Yet despite a dogged performance by most members of the committee there were no knockout blows.

    Sir Fred and Sir Tom faced accusations of “destroying a great British bank and costing the taxpayer £20 billion” thanks largely to their decision to buy Dutch rival ABN Amro in 2007 at the peak of the market.

    The pair admitted the £50 billion takeover was “a bad mistake” and was now virtually worthless.

    All four men vigorously defended their actions despite the apologies. Mr Hornby said that while he was “extremely sorry for the turn of events” that led to HBOS’s rescue takeover by Lloyds TSB and the government bail-out, he was “not personally culpable”.

    Sir Fred said that it was “just too simple” to blame it all on him.

    He denied that RBS had ignored warnings from the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority (FSA), insisting that nobody had expected the scale of the crisis.

    Committee members questioned the bank bosses over why they failed to spot – or even ignored – the risks of trading in toxic assets and relied heavily on wholesale money markets.

    RBS is expected to have racked up losses of as much as £28 billion in 2008, which would be the biggest loss in British corporate history.

    Sir Fred said that he did not receive a bonus last year and that he put every previous bonus into shares in the bank, losing £5 million as a result.

    His final salary pension pot is safe, however, while many people with pensions invested in shares of banks have seen their retirement funds devastated, MPs said. The committee heard that Sir Fred earned £1.46 million last year and Mr Hornby was paid a salary of nearly £1 million.

    The four found themselves having to admit that they possessed no formal banking qualifications between them but defended their suitability to lead banks. MPs said that it had been a central recommendation of theirs in light of the Northern Rock collapse that senior banking staff should hold a banking qualification, but the former titans of the banking sector were left struggling to say how many of their board directors held such qualifications.

    One MP was met with silence when he asked: “This committee thinks that a banking qualification is important. Does any one of you think a banking qualification is important?”

    After the hearing Mr McFall said: “They did give an apology and it seemed fulsome, but, as the session went on, I think they were drawing back from that and saying ‘Well, look, there were events outside our control’.

    “If you ask me my opinion – yes, they were advised to do it [apologise]. Was there a hint of arrogance still there? Absolutely.”

    Leave a Comment

    Sometimes videos speak by theirselves.

    February 10, 2009 at 2:44 am · Filed under journalism

    This is happening France against Sarkozy.

    This is happening in Russia against Putin.

    This is happening in Italy against Fiat.

    This is happening in Latvia against the economy collapse situation.

    This is happening in Bulgaria against the government.

    This is happening in Greece against the police and the government.

    This is happening in Britain against the foreigner workers.

    This is happening in China.

    Leave a Comment

    Election 2009 in Israel

    February 8, 2009 at 3:00 pm · Filed under journalism

    Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud have had a good three weeks, with no major slips, with brand new faces and with a good press, while Kadima is bleeding and Labor is disintegrating.

    The opinion polls are responding in kind: Likud opened a large, decisive lead of six MKs over Kadima. The right-wing bloc, led by Likud, is also firming up in comparison to previous polls, with 64 MKs versus 56 for the center-left. In effect, the right is much stronger than the center left, since its count also includes 11 MKs from the Arab parties: They will not be asked to join the governing coalition and in the current political climate their only use will be as part of a “preventive bloc” in the Knesset.

    These numbers are from a Haaretz-Dialog poll of a representative sample of the Israeli public conducted Tuesday under the supervision of Professor Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University’s statistics department. The main question is whether the significant improvement in the Likud’s showing is temporary, the inevitable result of the parade of new players presented by Netanyahu to the media at the rate of one a week – Benny Begin, Dan Meridor, Assaf Hefet and Moshe Ya’alon – or the start of a genuine trend. Only time will tell.

     

    Just three weeks ago, most of the polls predicted a draw between Kadima and Likud, and a near-draw between the blocs. Now Likud is racing forward and is nearing the results of the 2003 election, when Ariel Sharon, who was very popular at the time, scooped up 38 Knesset seats for his party.

    But the achievement (in the opinion polls, for now) of Netanyahu is much greater: He is less popular than Sharon was, more controversial than Sharon was, and today’s Likud is the post-2005 split Likud; Sharon’s Likud of 2003 was whole then, and Kadima was just a twinkle in Haim Ramon’s eye.

    Once more it must be noted that we are at the start of the campaign. The gloves are still on, Netanyahu has not yet been worked over by Kadima or by Labor. Things could definitely change. But it’s clear that the mood on the Israeli street is plainly in Likud’s favor. Labor isn’t in the game. It’s battling against Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu for the position of fifth-largest party. Potentially, it could lose additional Knesset seats to the new leftist movement coalescing around Meretz to become Israel’s sixth-largest party, and that is likely to spell the end of the Labor Party. In Tuesday’s poll, Meretz gained two seats over the poll carried out three weeks ago, going from five seats to seven, merely for being talked about and without anything significant happening.

    This week, former army chief of staff Lieutenant General (res.) Moshe Ya’alon joined Likud. The poll examined his suitability for the post of defense minister compared to Defense Minister Ehud Barak (Labor) and former defense minister Shaul Mofaz (Kadima). Mofaz and Barak are leading by a nose with just a slight edge to Mofaz and Ya’alon in third place. More could have been expected from Ya’alon: After all, this was his week. The spotlight was on him, Barak is unpopular, and it was also a week of Qassams in Sderot, Ashkelon and the Gaza-border communities. That probably did not help Barak’s numbers any.

    Leave a Comment

    economic crisis in Russia.

    February 8, 2009 at 2:14 pm · Filed under Economy

    The Kremlin’s rule is beginning to look much shakier than at any time since Vladimir Putin came to power, after a series of protests in cities across its vast landmass this weekend by Russians disgruntled about the economy. And as the country starts to feel the effects of the global credit crunch, there are also signs of a growing rift between Prime Minister Putin, and his hand-picked successor as President, Dmitry Medvedev.

    In Vladivostok, 2,000 protesters took to the streets, with some carrying banners reading “Kremlin, we are against you”, and other people chanting directly for the removal of Mr Putin. The Pacific port city, seven time zones away from Moscow, has become a focal point for dissent after riot police broke up a march last year over car imports and detained 100 people. Saturday’s demonstration, under the watchful eye of the police, passed off peacefully.

    Nearly every major city had a street rally, and though most were low key, the unusual scale of dissatisfaction is likely to worry the authorities. The Russian economy has been hit hard by falling oil prices, many oligarchs have seen billions of pounds wiped off the value of their shares, and ordinary Russians are feeling the pinch as factories struggle to stay afloat and companies lay off employees.

    In Moscow, a motley band of communists, anarchists and liberals gathered at several points across the city to protest against Kremlin rule. At one spot, a dozen protesters taped over their mouths with white tape, held up white placards with no slogans, and handed blank white flyers to passers-by. Bemused by such a conceptual approach to protest, the police rounded them up and arrested them anyway, and the organiser got five days in prison.

    Mr Putin has made several speeches blaming the economic chaos on America, and says he expects things to improve by the end of the year. State-controlled television is playing down the crisis, and most newspapers are also toeing the Kremlin line, but the internet is a worrying medium for those in charge, and offers a forum for dissenters to exchange ideas. Tiger, an acronym for The Society for Proactive Russian Citizens, is an online community of anti-government activists based across Russia’s 11 time zones. Participants use the online forum to discuss how best to oppose the government. Those involved estimate that about 10,000 people have signed up since last autumn.

    “We’re waiting for warmer weather because it’s simply difficult to stay outside for long when it’s minus 20,” said Maria Baranova, a 27-year-old resident of Vladivostok active in the Tiger movement. “But in the spring we plan to mount protests every weekend. Before I got involved I never realised how many people are unhappy. I can’t believe that there are so many people living near me who are politically aware and saying smart things.”

    While there are signs that the ripple of anger could turn into a tidal wave, few analysts expect street protests to have any chance of bringing down the government. “There will be more unrest, but it will be localised,” says Dmitry Oreshkin, a political analyst in Moscow. “There is not the organisational structure in place for anything more.”

    But, says Mr Oreshkin, the business and political elite, who largely accepted the trade-off of political freedoms for the economic prosperity of the past few years, is becoming disillusioned. “Two or three years ago, we could talk about the ‘Putin Consensus’ among the elites. Now that consensus has broken down. The elites are better informed than the rest of the population, have more to lose, and understand just how bad things are.”

    Leave a Comment

    Just one of Madoff victims.

    February 8, 2009 at 1:24 pm · Filed under journalism

    Imagine working your whole life hard and then,suddenly,all your savings disappear.For many of  Bernie Madoff investors that`s the reality.

    Robert Chew spoke about his reaction to the suicide of a man who lost over $ 1 Billion in Madoff money scam.

    Bernie madoff is accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme,and according to the last news,the number of investors reached 13,000 includind popular names such as the actor Jhon malkovich.

    In this interview Robert Chew sais that is just the beginning of the scandal,and maybe the victims are now sitting in expensive cars or living in luxurious  houses but,in reality,they have two or three month cash available.

    At the same time,he added,they are trying to move forward in a positive way.

    Leave a Comment

    Politician shoes throwing targets.

    February 6, 2009 at 6:34 am · Filed under journalism

    Everything started with George W. Bush in Baghdad,it carried on with the chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in London and the last victim is the Israel ambassador Benny Dagan.Obviously we are talking about the shoe throwers victims.

    Ambassador Benny Dagan was addressing students at Stockholm University, where he had been invited to speak on the upcoming elections in Israel, when a young woman in the audience hurled a shoe at him, hitting him in the chest.
    According to a statement by the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who had members at the scene, the woman, along with a young man, then shouted “Murderers!” and “Intifada!” while pelting Dagan with books and a notepad.

    Police arrested a 35-years-old woman and 25-year-old man immediately after the accident.

    Leave a Comment

    Older Posts »
    Follow

    Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.