Ottawa supports "coup plotters" and "destabilizers" in Venezuela...http://mostlywater.org/node/83516

Over the past two decades there has been an explosion in Canadian miners in the region. Canadian companies now control some 1,300 concessions in Latin America. These corporations have benefited from the privatization of state-run mining companies, opening the sector to foreign investment and reductions in royalty rates.

Growing calls for increased state control over extractive industries are a major threat to Canadian miners.And these are almost always among the first reforms pushed by those resisting neoliberalism. Put simply, Canadian miners profit-making in the region is closely tied to maintaining and expanding 'free' market capitalism.

Home to the majority of the world's mining companies, as well as many oil and gas firms, Canadian capital is highly dependent on an extreme version of 'free' market capitalism. In light of this reality, is it a surprise that Ottawa - Liberal and Conservative governments alike - has worked to undermine the government in the region most actively resisting neoliberalism?

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Pentagon Bracing for a Snap Offensive Against Venezuela http://www.tiwy.com/news.phtml?id=154

No doubt, any aggressive steps taken by the US would trigger overall radicalization across the continent. It is already obvious that the comeback of the right in several Latin American countries and the reversion to the ruthless liberal economic course that ensued are meeting with widespread opposition and that the rise of new populist regimes in the region is only a matter of time.

Mexico and Peru, the countries where F. Calderon and A. Garcia were propelled to power by the US financial and propaganda support regardless of how the poorest strata of the populations felt about the developments, are the prime candidates.  There will be no chance to contain the spread of populism reflecting mass discontent with poverty and with the prosperity being limited to a small cohort of “efficient asset-holders” in the settings of the ongoing economic crisis.

As in the epoch when Latin America was – with the US democratic blessing - run by cruel dictators, it is going to take bloodshed to impede the onslaught of populism in the region. Will the greedy operators of the XXI century world order with its permanent predatory privatizations and asset seizures dare to order shooting at the furious crowds of disillusioned people? After the very first shot, nations will have the moral right to respond to force with force.

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US Senators Seek Regime Change in Iran http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118814&sectionid=351020101

Two Republican senators have once again introduced a draft bill in the US Congress seeking full support for the Iranian opposition and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic government in Iran.

"Never has the cause of freedom in Iran been more urgent," Cornyn boasted."The biggest problem with Iran is not weapons or terrorism but the regime itself," Brownback said. "This legislation would put the United States firmly and unequivocally on the side of the Iranian people."

Observers point to the fact that both conservative Senators Brownback of Oklahoma and Cornyn of Texas have been on the payroll of pro-Israeli lobby groups in the United States and have regularly submitted anti-Iran measures in congress to satisfy the influential pro-Israeli lobby. 

American Israel Public Affair Committee (AIPAC) is the major Israeli lobby group that organizes such efforts by US Senators and Representatives. It, in fact, boasts its unlimited influence among both Republican and the Democratic parties and officials and openly announces its role in preparing the draft of such anti-Iran bills.

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Iran aims for an energy break-out http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LB19Ak02.html

Iran has invited China to join its "Peace" pipeline project to exploit one of the world's largest undeveloped reserves of natural gas, as India cools to the project in the face of possible UN sanctions against Tehran. Despite the pressing energy shortage of its ally, Pakistan, China is thinking twice before poaching the project from India

The world is in the middle of a boom in demand for natural gas and Iran happens to be sitting on one of the largest undeveloped reserves in the world - the offshore South Pars field. Tehran has carved the reserve into more than two dozen blocks or "phases", which it offers to foreign partners for development.

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Bangladesh rejects terms for £60m of climate aid from UK http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/bangladesh-world-bank-climate-finance/print

The Bangladeshi government objects to grant money being channelled through the World Bank, which it says will attach unfavourable "strings and conditions""If this money is channelled through the World Bank and the IMF it will attract strings and conditions which are not favourable to Bangladesh", said a spokesman for the Bangladeshi government. "If the money goes [via the bank] then it does not go to its real purpose. [We] want it to go through the UN."

The Guardian revealed last summer that under the UK plan, known as the Multi Donor Trust Fund for Climate Change, £4.9m of the pledge will not reach Bangladesh but will be siphoned off by the bank as administration costs. Campaigners from the World Development Movement (WDM), Jubilee Debt Campaign and Friends of the Earth plan to protest tomorrow at Dfid over the UK proposals. They are also concerned that further payments planned for Bangladesh are loans, the repayment of which they say will force the country further into debt.

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PRESS RELEASE: South Africans say no to Eskom's R29 billion World Bank Loan http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.11773.aspx

Today, community groups from Durban are protesting outside Eskom’s offices in Westville against an increase in tariffs, and are joined by more than 50 organisations from South Africa and the rest of Africa, all endorsing a call for the World Bank to halt the proposed loan. The loan, which funds Eskom’s ill-advised construction of coal-fired power plants – while the state-owned firm gives the largest metals/mining companies the world’s cheapest electricity yet demands annual 35% increases from ordinary South Africans-will result in:

energy poverty and environmental destruction; burdening the poor of South Africa with a dollar-based debt; increased ‘Climate Debt’ to Africa (SA already makes up more than 40% of the African CO2 with only 6% of its population, a worse ratio than even the USA to the world); and the World Bank’s ongoing rejection of advice from its own independent advisory panel’s recommendations - the 2004 World Bank Extractive Industries Review - which called on the Bank to phase out fossil fuel projects such as those Eskom proposes.

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Pastor Manning drops bombshell, Obama is CIA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYRrC32RBLI

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Olympic Inc: Inside the Secretive $6 Bill World of the IOC http://www.businessinsider.com/olympics-inc-inside-the-business-of-the-ioc?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29

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VIDEO-AN EXPERIMENT ON NEOLIBERALISM http://www.briankaneonline.com/2010/02/18/a-brief-lesson-on-neoliberalism/

SKIP TO 7 MINUTES...