US postal service to cut 35,000 jobs as mail plants close

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/228318.html

The U.S. Postal Service, which predicts an annual loss of $18.2 billion by 2015, plans to eliminate 5.4 percent of its workforce by closing almost half its mail-processing facilities to decrease costs.

The service plans to shut 223 of its 461 mail-processing plants by February 2013, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in a telephone interview on Thursday. The closings will cut about 35,000 jobs, said David Partenheimer, a spokesman.

The service is shutting post offices and seeking congressional approval to end Saturday mail delivery as more people use the Internet to correspond and pay bills. Mail volume fell 6 percent in the quarter ended Dec. 31 and may drop 14 percent by 2016, led by declines in first-class mail, the most profitable, the Washington-based service said this month. Bloomberg

HIGHLIGHTS

The labor cuts will occur through attrition, said David Partenheimer, a spokesman. The service will eliminate about 30,000 full-time jobs with benefits. It will cut about 5,000 temporary positions, which include contract and part-time work and don't carry full benefits. sfgate.com

The Postal Service is in debt due to declining first-class mail volumes and a congressional mandate to prefund retirement healthcare benefits. moneycnn.com

Nearly every state is impacted and would lose a mail processing plant, according to the Postal Service list, which includes 14 in California, 12 in New York and 9 in Illinois. moneycnn.com

Mail processing plants closures can yield a particularly devastating toll on communities. A plant in Tulsa, Okla., slated to be consolidated, employs nearly 600 employees. moneycnn.com

The consolidations will affect four processing centers in Maryland: Cumberland, Easton, Gaithersburg and Waldorf. The Virginia sites are Lynchburg, Norfolk and Roanoke. washingtonpost.com

The cutbacks also mean the Postal Service would no longer be able to guarantee overnight delivery of some first-class mail. washingtonpost.com

18 statistics that prove that the economy has not improved since Barack Obama became president

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/227771.html

Has the economy improved since Barack Obama became the president of the United States? Of course not. Despite what you may be hearing in the mainstream media, the truth is that when you compare the U.S. economy on the day that Barack Obama was inaugurated to the U.S. economy today, there is really no comparison. The unemployment crisis is worse than it was then, home values have fallen, the cost of health insurance is up, the cost of gas is way up, the number of Americans living in poverty has soared and the size of our national debt has absolutely exploded. Anyone that believes that things are better than they were when Barack Obama was elected is simply being delusional. Yes, things have stabilized somewhat and our economy is not in free fall mode at this point. But don't be fooled. This bubble of false hope will be short-lived. The problems we are seeing develop in Europe will erupt into another full-fledged global financial crisis and economic conditions in the United States will get even worse. When that happens, what possible "economic solutions" will Barack Obama have for us? We never even came close to recovering from the last great financial crisis, and now something potentially even worse is staring us in the face. This is not a great time to have a total lack of leadership in Washington.

The following are 18 statistics that prove that the economy has not improved since Barack Obama became the president of the United States....

1] Today there are 88 million working age Americans that are not employed and that are not looking for employment. That is an all-time record high.

2] When Barack Obama was elected, the percentage of unemployed Americans that had been out of work for more than 52 weeks was less than 15%. Today, it is above 30%.

3] There are 1.2 million fewer jobs in America today than there were when Barack Obama was inaugurated.

4] When Barack Obama first took office, the number of "long-term unemployed workers" in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number is sitting at 5.6 million.

5] The average duration of unemployment in the United States is hovering close to an all-time record high.

6] During the Obama administration, worker health insurance costs have risen by 23 percent.

7] Since Barack Obama has been president, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has increased by 90 percent.

8] Since Barack Obama has been president, home values in the United States have declined by another 13 percent.

9] Under Barack Obama, new home sales in the U.S. set a brand new all-time record low in 2009, they set a brand new all-time record low again in 2010, and they set a brand new all-time record low once again during 2011.

10] Since Barack Obama took office, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen by more than 6 million.

11] Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the number of Americans on food stamps has increased from 32 million to 46 million.

12] The amount of money that the federal government gives directly to Americans has increased by 32 percent since Barack Obama entered the White House.

13] According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans living in "extreme poverty" is now sitting at an all-time high.

14] When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850. Today an ounce of gold costs more than $1700 an ounce.

15] Since Barack Obama became president, the size of the U.S. national debt has increased by 44 percent.

16] During Barack Obama's first two years in office, the U.S. government added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.

17] During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.

18] The U.S. national debt has been increasing by an average of more than 4 billion dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.

Oh, but Barack Obama is promising that things will be much better very soon. Barack Obama is pledging that 2 million more jobs will be added to the economy in 2012.

Do you believe him?

Congress certainly seems to think that things will be getting better. Congress has reduced the maximum amount of time that the unemployed can receive unemployment benefits to 73 weeks. That change will go into effect later this year.

But there are still millions of very talented Americans that cannot find work after years of looking.

So what are they supposed to do?

A recent Business Insider article featured the story of Helen Hatat, a woman from southern California that has been unemployed since 2009....

She lost her job in public relationships in 2009 after more than 20 years of working in the entertainment industry, the Southern California resident said.

"When you don't have a job, you don't find a job, and when you don't have a job, you don't find a home," she said.

At first she tried moving into a homeless shelter, but left because they treated her "like garbage." Eventually she found a friend she could stay with, but this arrangement won't last forever.

"I've found you lose most of your friends, you know. If you have money people love you. If you don't have any money people hate you. They treat you like you are contagious."

As government finances get tight, things are going to get really tough for women like her.

When evaluating the health of the American economy, the key is not to focus on the short-term economic numbers. Sometimes they go up and sometimes they do down.

Instead, the key is to look at the long-term balance sheet numbers. When you do that, it quickly becomes apparent how appalling our economic decline has been.

The size of federal government debt is exploding, state and local governments all over the country are drowning in debt, our collective national wealth is decreasing and our ability to produce new wealth is also being reduced as our economic infrastructure is systematically gutted.

Of course all of the blame should not go to Obama. The truth is that the Federal Reserve has much more power over the economy than Obama does. But the American people are constantly told that the Federal Reserve is "not political" and that we should not criticize the Fed.

So it is kind of ridiculous that presidents are judged by the performance of the economy. Yes, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama have all greatly contributed to the mess that we are in, but they are not solely responsible for it.

In the end, however, the outcome of the next presidential election will probably be very heavily influenced by how the U.S. economy performs during the rest of 2012.

Sadly, as our economy declines it is bringing out the worst in many Americans. For example, "sugar daddy" websites are absolutely exploding in popularity. Young women that are hungry for cash are selling their "services" to sick older men who are willing to finance the lifestyles of these desperate young women in exchange for "companionship".

The following comes from a recent article in The Independent ....

In America's booming online dating market, few sectors are hotter than so-called "sugar daddy" sites, which help rich men to make "arrangements" with attractive and financially needy younger women. Between them, these specialist sites now account for 10 percent of the entire industry. That's no small beans, given that in the US the online dating business now generates profits estimated at $700m ($442m) per year and, according to the polling firm GlobeSpan, has helped just over one in five Americans to find their life partner.

As the economy gets even worse, millions upon millions of Americans are going to become extremely desperate and will do things for money that they never dreamed that they would do.

That is a very frightening thing.

America is changing, and not for the better.

You better get ready for what is ahead, because Barack Obama is not going to save you.

US in state of self-inflicted decline: Chomsky

legendary American academic Noam Chomsky (file photo).

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/226828.html

Renowned American academic Noam Chomsky condemns the concentration of wealth in the United States in the hands of the 1 percent, which he refers to as the “self-inflicted” American decline.

“The (US) policies are a failure for the large majority, the 99% in the imagery of the Occupy movements - and for the country, which has declined and will continue to do so under these policies,” Chomsky wrote in his article titled 'Losing' the world: American decline in perspective, part 1.”

From the 1970s, there has been a significant change in the US economy, as planners, whether private or state, shifted production off shores, partly due to the “declining rate of profit in domestic manufacturing,” then82-year-old senior academic noted.

He went on to say, “these decisions initiated a vicious cycle in which wealth became highly concentrated (dramatically so in the top 0.1% of the population), yielding concentration of political power, hence legislation to carry the cycle further: taxation and other fiscal policies, deregulation, changes in the rules of corporate governance allowing huge gains for executives, and so on.”

Whereas Chomsky maintained that “for the majority, real wages largely stagnated, and people were able to get by only by sharply increased workloads (far beyond Europe), unsustainable debt… creating paper wealth that inevitably disappeared when they burst (and the perpetrators were bailed out by the taxpayer).”

Meanwhile, the political system in the US has been increasingly torn up, he said, as “both parties are driven deeper into corporate pockets with the escalating cost of elections.”

This is “a serious problem for working people and the middle classes, and a real disaster for the most oppressed, African Americans, who have never escaped the legacy of slavery and its ugly aftermath,” Chomsky concluded.

Chomsky’s comments come against the backdrop of months of Occupy protests in the United States. The Occupy protests owe their inspiration to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, which began when a group of demonstrators gathered in New York's financial district on September 17, 2011 to protest against the excessive influence of big corporations on the US policies and the high-level corruption in the country.

Barack Obama: Let's steal 150m dollars an hour from our children

Source: Press TV (US Desk)
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/226583.html

Do you think that someone could steal 150 million dollars and get away with it? Well, the truth is that such a theft is taking place every single hour of every single day. The federal government is stealing 150 million dollars an hour from our children and our grandchildren and Barack Obama thinks that is a good thing. The new Obama budget projects a $1.33 trillion federal budget deficit for the 2012 fiscal year. That is significantly higher than the $1.15 trillion that the Congressional Budget Office was projecting because it includes a whole bunch of stimulus spending that the Obama administration plans to do. So let's do a little math.

When you divide $1.33 trillion by 365 days, you get 3.6438356 billion dollars. So on average, the United States will be adding more than 3.6 billion dollars to the national debt every single day during fiscal 2012. And when you divide $3.6438356 billion by 24 hours, you get 151.8 million dollars. So on average, the U.S. national debt will be going up by more than 151 million dollars every single hour during fiscal 2012 if Obama has his way. This is a theft from our children and our grandchildren that is so vast that it is almost unimaginable.

The 2012 budget deficit that the Obama administration is projecting would be equivalent to approximately 8.5 percent of GDP. We simply cannot afford to be running these kinds of outrageous budget deficits year after year.

At the moment, the U.S. national debt is sitting at a grand total of $15,355,838,921,022.16. That is an amount that is so large that it is hard to even put into words.

At this point our national debt is greater than 100% of our national GDP. We are on the road to national financial disaster and yet our politicians keep piling up debt at a rate that is absolutely mind blowing.

The Obama administration is projecting that budget deficits will go down "in the future", but that is what our politicians always do. They always promise that the budget picture will improve "down the road", but that never actually happens.

According to the Bush administration, we were supposed to be swimming in huge budget surpluses by now.

So how did that work out?

Our politicians always promise to cut spending, but it never actually comes to pass. We are always told that cutting spending would be too damaging to the economy "right now" but that they will definitely start cutting things later on.

For example, just check out this recent quote from White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew....

"The time for austerity is not today," Lew told NBC News "Meet the Press." "If we were to put in austerity measures right now, it would take the economy in the wrong way."

They always put budget cuts off for another day. They never want to do anything that could hurt the economy right now and threaten their chances in the next election.

The Republicans were the same way. Vice President Dick Cheney once famously said "deficits don't matter", and the Bush administration ran up horrific budget deficits.

Both political parties have let us down horribly.

Both political parties have voted over and over to steal gigantic mountains of money from our children and our grandchildren.

But our founders never intended for this to be the case. In fact, Thomas Jefferson once stated that if he could add just one more amendment to the U.S. Constitution it would be a complete ban on all borrowing by the federal government...

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

Thomas Jefferson believed that it was fundamentally immoral for one generation to run up debts which must be paid back by future generations. Basically, he believed that such debts represented theft on a grand scale ....

And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

But that is what we are doing today. We are borrowing gigantic mountains of money which we expect our children and our grandchildren to pay back.

We have come to think of this as "normal", but the truth is that this theft is absolutely disgusting and if future generations get the chance they will curse us for what we have done to them.

Somewhere along the way, we seem to have lost all common sense when it comes to government spending.

The truth is that all of this does not have to be complicated. The following is what Clint Eastwood recently said about our budget problems....

"It's such a basic thing," Eastwood said. "Your parents always tell you when you don't have a dollar in your pocket, you don't spend two dollars. And that's kind of a basic philosophy of life."

Doesn't that make sense?

So why are we being so stupid?

When Ronald Reagan was elected, the U.S. national debt was less than 1 trillion dollars.

We are absolutely drowning in debt, and yet the Obama administration wants even more spending.

Some of his plans for "extra spending" during fiscal 2012 were detailed in an article posted on CNBC ....

For more immediate job programs, the White House will urge $350 billion in short-term job spending, as well as a six-year transportation and infrastructure program that would cost $476 billion. He will ask for $60 billion to refurbish at least 35,000 schools and help state and local governments hire and retain teachers, firefighters and police officers.

This is insanity.

Thanks to all of this debt, a national financial nightmare is an inevitability at this point. As I have written about previously, if the U.S. government stops spending so much money we are doomed, and if the U.S. government continues spending so much money we are doomed.

The problem that we are now facing was once beautifully described by Ludwig Von Mises when he made the following statement ....

There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion.

The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.

We are rapidly reaching the "final and total catastrophe" once described by Ludwig Von Mises.

We inherited the greatest economic machine in the history of the world from our forefathers, and we will be known as the generation that totally destroyed it.

Future generations will inherit a collapsed economy and the biggest debt in the history of the world.

But we all prance around like we are the smartest people that have ever existed on the face of the earth.

The rest of the world is laughing at us.

So why don't some honest politicians step forward and tell the American people that we need to stop spending so much money?

Well, first of all there are very few honest politicians on the national level.

Secondly, most of the money that our government spends is money that is taken from the pockets of some Americans and transferred into the pockets of other Americans. Large segments of our population have become absolutely addicted to getting government checks, and it would be political suicide for any politician to propose significant cuts to those checks.

Well over 50 percent of the federal budget is spent on social programs that put dollars directly into the pockets of the American people…

…The American people tend to love politicians that feed their addiction to government money....

If we keep going into so much debt, how long can our system possibly continue functioning?

Well, as we have seen in Greece, a government debt spiral will keep on going until the day that it simply stops working anymore.

A day of reckoning is coming. We don't know if it will be this year or next year or several years from now.

But it is coming.

Our politicians should be doing something about it, but they continue to spend money like tomorrow will never come.

What we are doing to our children and our grandchildren is absolutely immoral.

How in the world can we steal 150 million dollars an hour from them?

We are literally stealing the future from those that will come after us.

Do you think that they will thank us for that?

AIPAC to Obama: Attack Iran or let Israel do it

US President Barack Obama makes his way onto the stage May 22, 2011 to address the AIPAC Policy Conference 2011

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/226156.html

The most powerful Zionist lobbying group in the US, AIPAC, is increasing pressure on the administration of Barack Obama to launch a military strike against Iran, a political writer says.

"It is clear that Israel and its neoconservative camp followers here in the United States are increasing pressure on President Obama to either attack Iran or let Israel do it," M.J. Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg, who was director of policy at Israel Policy Forum, made the suggestion in an article about a military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The author said the main reason behind his prediction is that "this is an election year and no one will say no to [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu in an election year."

He was referring to the 2012 presidential election in the United States that will be held in November.

Rosenberg also pointed out to an upcoming meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

"War enthusiasm will rise to a fever pitch by March, when AIPAC holds its annual policy conference," he wrote.

AIPAC, which has an influential and undeniable role in US policies, advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States.

The group urges all members of Congress to support Israel through foreign aid.

The US and Israel have repeatedly threatened Tehran with the "option" of a military strike, based on their allegation that Iran's nuclear program may include a covert military aspect, a claim strongly rejected by Tehran

Congress OKs drone flights in US airspace

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/225756.html

US Congress has passed a bill requiring the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to open the country’s airspace to thousands of drone aircraft within four years, Press TV reports.

According to the plan, which is part of a $63 billion funding package for the FAA, the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will fly beyond solely military airspace and begin to flood domestic US airspace by 2015.

The legislation requires the FAA to provide military, commercial and privately-owned drones with expanded access to US airspace by September 30, 2015.

The FAA has predicted that 30,000 drones could be in US skies by 2020. The bill is the result of an enormous lobbying effort from Washington insiders and the defense industry.

Even though the legislation restricts the use of the drones over populated areas, civil liberties groups are concerned the door into a sacred Constitutional tenant will be opened even wider.

“There are serious policy questions on the horizon about privacy and surveillance, by both government agencies and commercial entities,” said Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

However, many members of Congress who signed the bill don’t see expanded drone use as a problem. They believe the growth of the drone industry will create more jobs for their constituents.

US youth jobless rate highest in 6 decades

Job-seekers gather around employers' tents at an outdoor job fair at the Crenshaw Christian Center in South Los Angeles, August 31, 2011.

Source: press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/225765.html

A new study by the Pew Research Center shows American young adults are the hardest hit by the US economic recession as unemployment rate among them has reached a record high.

According to the survey, only 54 percent of Americans aged between 18 and 34 currently have jobs, the lowest employment rate since the US government started keeping track of the data in 1948.

"Young workers are on the bottom of the ladder, and during a recession like we've had, it's often hard for them to hold on," said Kim Parker, the associate director of Pew's Social & Demographic Trends project.

Parker noted that American youth “are clearly less satisfied with their current circumstances than they were before the recession."

"This may be where some of the anger and frustration being expressed in the Occupy movement is rooted," she added.

Pew survey also found that US young adults have suffered bigger income losses than other age groups.

The US Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke has expressed concerns over the status of the country’s economy, saying the unusually high levels of long-term unemployment in the US are worrisome.

More than 40 percent of the US jobless have been out of work for at least ten months.

Fed Ben Bernanke says US economy approaching EU crisis levels

US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/224849.html

US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned that an EU-type economic crisis is headed for the US economy if it fails to curb its debt issue, Press TV reports.

“Risks remain that developments in Europe or elsewhere may unfold and could worsen economic prospects here at home,” Bernanke said this week, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The Fed chief also suggested that eventually the government's increasing debt would inhibit the growth of the country's economy.

Experts think the US economy will dip into another recession in 2012 as the US Treasury report to congress forecasts the government's debt will rise to 19.6 trillion dollars by 2015.

The Congressional Budget Office reported that the US federal budget deficit will exceed USD 1 trillion at the same time as the US debt which is now more than USD 15 trillion and growing daily. The country's annual economic output now equals about the same as the debt level.

There are fears that more delays in resolving the eurozone debt crisis, which began in Greece in late 2009 and infected Italy, Spain and France last year, could push not only Europe but also much of the rest of the developed world back into recession.

Meanwhile, the US unemployment rate remains above 9 percent. Many economists, however, believe that the true unemployment rate is around 20 percent.

This has resulted in the Occupy protests that continue to rage across the country against the US's financial inequalities.

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement first began on September 17 in the financial district of New York City to protest at a number of issues including the US financial crisis, rising poverty, soaring unemployment, and high bonuses for Wall Street executives.

Fitch downgrades five EU economies

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/223428.html

Fitch rating agency has downgraded the debt ratings of five eurozone states including Spain and Italy, pointing to the growing vulnerability of their economies.

On Friday, Fitch downgraded the economies of Italy, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and Cyprus, while cutting its outlook on Ireland.

According to the agency, “near-term economic outlook highlight(s) the greater vulnerability to monetary as well as financing shocks faced by these sovereign governments."

Fitch cited that Italy faced “too-low” growth in comparison with its debt, while Spain faces "a significantly worsened fiscal and economic outlook." Italy, Spain, and Slovenia were cut by two notches.

Earlier, the European Central Bank released eurozone data suggesting that loans to the private sector fell by 1.0 percent in December in comparison with the 1.7 percent in the previous month.

Meanwhile, Spain's unemployment rate has soared to 22.85 percent-- the highest in 17 years as more than half of the country's youths remain without jobs.

There are fears that more delays in resolving the eurozone debt crisis, which began in Greece in late 2009 and infected Italy, Spain and France last year, could push not only Europe but also much of the rest of the developed world back into recession.

Romney stripped of Iowa win after recount

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/222027.html

The Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney has suffered a setback when the party stripped him of his victory in Iowa after a final tally of votes.

His rival, the socially conservative former senator Rick Santorum, emerged with the most votes, a majority of 34.

The party was scheduled to make an official announcement but the Des Moines Register reported its findings hours earlier.

The Register said the party was declaring the vote "unresolved" because there were "too many holes" in the certified totals to know the victor for certain, with the results from some precincts missing.

Romney said on Thursday the new tally showed it was "a virtual tie" between him and Santorum.

But it means that Romney can no longer claim to be the winner in Iowa. If another of his rivals, Newt Gingrich, wins the South Carolina primary on Saturday, this would mean they have one apiece: Romney the New Hampshire primary, held on 10 January, Gingrich South Carolina, and Santorum Iowa from 3 January. The race for the party nomination to take on Barack Obama in November would then be wide open. Guardian

Greece, creditors talk to avoid default

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos (file photo). The premier joined the Wednesday talks with the international creditors in an attempt to avoid a default by the country.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/221822.html

Greece and its international creditors have started a new round of talks to avoid a default by the country, with both sides under increasing pressure to work out their differences.

The two sides said little on Wednesday after an over-two-hour-long meeting except that they would meet again on Thursday. Greece has to strike a deal within days to avoid defaulting on the debt when bond redemptions, equaling EUR 14.5 billion (USD 18.5 billion), are due in late March.

Greece's debt stands at EUR 340 billion (USD 440 billion) -- a sum, which equals around EUR 31,000 debt per person in the country of 11 million people. The country has the highest debt burden in proportion to the size of its economy in the entire 17-nation eurozone.

Investors fear a default could mess with the international financial equation and send the global economy into recession.

Greek officials and international bankers have expressed optimism that a deal could be reached in the coming days, despite the fact that talks broke down last week over the issue of the interest rate Greece will offer on new bonds and a plan to enforce investor losses.

An agreement with banks and other institutional investors would open the door to a funding deal from the International Monetary Fund and European lenders and help stabilize the markets within the eurozone.

"They are working hard to breach differences and they will continue tomorrow," said a source close to the talks.

Greece's Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the country's Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, and Charles Dallara, the head of Washington's International Institute of Finance, who is also representing private money lenders at the talks, discussed both the issues.

Sarkozy target of thousands-strong rally

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/221828.html

Thousands of people have participated in a rally in Paris, attacking French President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans for dealing with the country's unemployment crisis, Press TV reports.

As France gauges the international fallout from losing its triple-A credit rating, Sarkozy has called for the formation of an emergency jobs council to try and boost his dipping popularity at home ahead of presidential elections, which are to be held in two rounds in April and May.

After a four-hour-long meeting at the Elysée Palace with labor and business leaders, the president on Wednesday announced an EUR 430 million (USD 550 million) plan to reduce unemployment and restart economic growth.

On Wednesday, the protesters took to the streets of the capital to voice discontent over the measures included in the plan.

activists have blamed Sarkozy's failed economic leadership for the official unemployment rate, which stands at over 10 percent, the unofficial figure amounting to over 17 percent, and the recent downgrading of France's credit rating by the New York-headquartered credit rating agency, the Standard & Poor's.

The downgrade comes, despite Sarkozy's having used to present himself as the person capable of steering the eurozone's second-largest economy out of crisis.

After the meeting, Sarkozy also said that he would introduce his employment plans before the end of January.

The president stated that he would shift part of the burden of social welfare from companies onto consumers and convince workers to agree to payment cuts in exchange for job security.

Occupy AIPAC prepares for DC action

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/221666.html

An alliance of activist groups in the United States has announced that they will occupy the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) headquarters in early March.

Anti-corporate protesters from over 120 groups are devising plans to occupy AIPAC headquarters in Washington, DC from March 2 to 6, the Occupy AIPAC website announced on Monday.

“With the Occupy movement that has swept the country demanding social and economic justice, many have concluded that AIPAC -- the powerful pro-Israeli government lobby that distorts US policy in the Middle East -- is a mandatory 'occupy target',” the Occupy AIPAC statement said.

“Right now AIPAC is trying to drag us into a disastrous war with Iran, just as they pushed the Iraq war. We must show our opposition by exposing AIPAC and standing against a war with Iran,” Occupy AIPAC added.

The Occupy AIPAC action has been scheduled to coincide with the Zionist lobby's policy conference in March 2012 and will include “teach-ins, cultural performances, protests and creative direct actions, and a sneak preview of the forthcoming film Roadmap to Apartheid.”

The endorsers of the Occupy AIPAC action include the Al-Nakba Awareness Project, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) - DC, American Muslims for Palestine, Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights, Artists Against Apartheid, Citizens for Palestinian Self-Determination, Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel, CODEPINK Women For Peace, Cultures of Resistance Network, Free Palestine Movement, If Americans Knew,

International Solidarity Movement, It is Apartheid, Philly BDS, Proposition One Committee, Rachel Corrie Foundation, Radio Against Apartheid, The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, US Boat to Gaza, US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and We Are Wide Awake.

US protesters plan to Occupy Courts

A sign found at the Occupy DC encampment in Washington. (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/221776.html

US Occupiers are planning to participate in “Occupy the Courts,” a one day protest at the Supreme Court in Washington, as well as at other federal court houses across the country.

Move to Amend, the group responsible for organizing the Friday event, proposes a Constitutional Amendment that ends the "judicial fiction of corporate Constitutional rights."

The event comes one day before the second anniversary of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons with 1st Amendment rights.

A news release from Occupy Cincinnati says that neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions corporations, which were rare when the US was founded.

Angry protesters say the US courts are places where there is no chance of a fair judgment for the 99 percent of Americans, against the power and influence of the 1 percent.

“Occupy the Courts” is an extension of Occupy Wall Street movement that began on September 17 last year.

The Occupy Wall Street movement first began when a group of demonstrators gathered in New York's financial district to protest against the unjust distribution of wealth in the country and the excessive influence of big corporations on US policies.

Despite police crackdown and mass arrests, the Occupy movement, which grew out of the Occupy Wall Street movement, has now spread to many major US cities as well as to Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and other countries.

IMF warns of eurozone downward spiral

David Lipton, First Deputy Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/221419.html

A senior IMF executive has warned that the eurozone could fall into a “downward spiral” of collapsing confidence, stagnant growth, and fewer job, if it fails to get its governance in order.

The International Monetary Fund first Deputy Managing Director David Lipton also said that the European outlook is grim and risks for the global economy are high.

"At the global level, the pace of economic activity is weakening, and the risks for Europe and the world are high," Lipton added on Monday.

Pledging to strengthen ties with Asian governments to minimize spillover risks of the European debt crisis, Lipton called for stronger ties between Asia and the IMF. He added that no country and no region would be immune to the catastrophe.

Lipton's remarks prompted European banks to put away record sums of money in the European Central Bank.

Lipton's comments comes after US-based ratings agency Standard and Poor's downgraded the sovereign credit ratings of nine eurozone countries on Friday, including top-rated France and Austria.

Europe plunged into financial crisis in early 2010. Insolvency now threatens heavily debt-ridden countries such as Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain.

There are fears that more delays in resolving the eurozone debt crisis, which began in Greece in late 2009 and infected Italy, Spain and France last year, could push not only Europe but also much of the rest of the developed world back into recession.

'Sanctions won't hinder Iran-China trade'

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/221086.html

China has once again condemned the United States' unilateral sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran, saying the US is seeking to internationalize its unilateral sanctions.

On Saturday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry says Beijing will maintain its normal cooperation with Tehran in the areas of energy and trade.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry made the announcement in response to Washington's decision to impose sanctions on a Chinese company for trading with Iranian firms.

Zheng Mei, a representative of the Zhuhai Zhenrong company, told the Legal Mirror newspaper, “The sanctions don't make any difference to our company's business.”

On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a press briefing that Beijing will maintain its trade ties with the Islamic Republic despite efforts by US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to convince Beijing to join an embargo of Iranian oil.

Liu added that China, as “a major developing country,” would continue importing Iranian oil to meet its “reasonable demand for energy.”

“We have repeatedly stated that China has normal and transparent energy cooperation with Iran, and that does not violate Security Council resolutions,” the Chinese spokesman noted.

Iran exported about 622,000 barrels of oil per day to China in November 2011, maintaining its place as the third largest crude supplier to the East Asian country.

The United States recently announced plans to attempt to impose a worldwide boycott on the Central Bank of Iran over the country's nuclear program in an apparent effort to punish foreign companies and banks that conduct business with the Iranian financial institution.

China sees militarism in Obama's new strategy

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/219821.html

China's state news agency warned against growing U.S. militarism, citing President Obama's new military spending strategy, which Chinese experts see as an effort to encircle them and reduce their influence in the region.

A number of news stories in China focused on this story, with a Chinese newspaper owned by the nation's ruling Communist Party warned against “appeasement” of the U.S. and urged China's military to adopt an “assertive” policy in response.

President Obama's strategy has been presented primarily as a “cut” in the U.S. media, even though it amounts to an overall spending increase. It reduces the number of ground troops but increases spending on both warplanes and naval power.

The change, particularly the increased focus on naval power, is seen by the Chinese as focusing on an inevitable intervention in the South China Sea, where China is in an ongoing dispute with other nations over some key islands. Antiwar

FACTS & FIGURES

The military strategy that President Barack Obama unveiled January 5 will lead to a smaller force in the Army and Marines and a shift to counter China's military might. USA Today

President Obama said the United States will strengthen its presence in the Asia Pacific region even as it cuts billions of dollars from overall defense spending. VOA

Administration officials have said they expect Army and Marine Corp personnel levels to be reduced by 10 percent to 15 percent over the next decade as part of the reductions. Reuters

The strategy emphasizes high-tech surveillance and drones, and the use of special forces to assist foreign militaries to quell conflicts. The U.S. nuclear force may also shrink. usatoday.com

China has warned the United States over its new military strategy, which includes a shift in focus to the Asia-Pacific region. globalpost.com

.. while boosting its military presence in the Asia-Pacific, the United States should abstain from flexing its muscles, as this won't help solve regional disputes. If the United States indiscreetly applies militarism in the region, it will be like a bull in a china shop, and endanger peace instead of enhancing regional stability. Xinhua

The FY 2012 budget requests a total of $676 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD). The base budget for DoD includes $553 billion in discretionary funding and $5 billion in mandatory funding, and an additional $118 billion is requested for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The budget request also includes $19 billion for defense-related atomic energy programs and $8 billion for defense-related activities in other agencies, bringing the total national defense budget to $703 billion. businessinsider.com

Adjusting for inflation, the level of funding proposed for the base defense budget in the FY 2012 request is the highest level since World War II, surpassing the Cold War peak of $531 billion (in FY 2012 dollars) reached in FY 1985. businessinsider.com

The United States spent $728 billion on its military in 2010, about 45% of the world’s $1.6 trillion total. U.S. spending amounts to more than the next fourteen largest military spending countries combined. In fact, the U.S. spends nearly 6 times more than the next largest military spender, China. In addition, most of the top-spending countries are American allies. antiwar.com

What is being proposed (as military cuts) are minor reductions in the rate of growth in projected defense spending. antiwar.com

China warns US on new military strategy

US naval forces in the Asia-Pacific region (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/219773.html

China's state media has criticized the United States' major strategic shift into Asia-Pacific, accusing Washington of being a troublemaker responsible for tensions in the region.

"While boosting its military presence in the Asia-Pacific, the United States should abstain from flexing its muscles, as this won't help solve regional disputes," said an editorial published by China's state-run Xinhua news agency on Friday.

Xinhua warned that any American militarism in the Asia-Pacific region will “endanger peace instead of enhancing regional stability.”

The warning came a day after US President Barack Obama unveiled a defense strategy to expand the country's military presence in the Asia-Pacific and switch the Pentagon's focus to the Far East.

Obama claimed on Thursday that while the US military is in a "moment of transition" after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the government will "maintain our military superiority."

China is concerned that Washington's new defense posture is aimed at encircling Beijing. There are riding concerns in the United States about China's growing military stature during the recent years both in size and capabilities.

NY police raid OWS office, nab several

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/219221.html

The US police have attacked the Global Revolution Livestream office of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in New York, arresting several activists and journalists as the crackdown on media intensifies.

The Tuesday raid on the Brooklyn studio of Globalrevolution.tv, which covers OWS protests via live stream, followed a police order to the anti-corporatism protesters to vacate the studio.

Meanwhile, protesters have planned to rally in New York's Grand Central Terminal to protest against the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

They say the legislation is an attempt to restrict their civil liberties.

The National Defense Authorization Act provides USD 662 billion in funding for military spending, including military pay raises, weapon systems and funding for the war in Afghanistan in 2012.

The measure, passed by wide majority in Congress, says the US military has the power to detain terrorist suspects without trial for as long as the so-called US war on terror continues.

The bill contains several provisions that rights groups and advocates have vehemently opposed, arguing that they could allow indefinite detention and interrogation of US citizens and non-citizens suspected of being linked to terrorism and deny them legal rights protected by the constitution.

President Barack Obama signed the controversial bill into law on New Year's Eve.

US police have so far arrested over thousands of anti-corporatism protesters since the beginning of the movement in September last year.

The OWS movement began when a group of demonstrators gathered in New York's financial district on September 17 to protest against the unjust distribution of wealth in the country and the excessive influence of big corporations on US policies.

The protest movement has given voice to outcries and grievances of people against poverty, unemployment, war, and corporatism.

West scrambling to divide China: Hu

Chinese President Hu Jintao

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/219077.html

Chinese President Hu Jintao has warned against efforts by the Western countries to “westernize and divide” China through “cultural warfare.”

"Hostile international powers are strengthening their efforts to westernize and divide us," Hu said in an article published on the latest edition of the ruling Communist Party's magazine on Monday.

President Hu urged China's Communist Party to meet the "growing spiritual and cultural demands of the people" in a bid to fight the "hostile international powers."

"We must be aware of the seriousness and complexity of the struggles and take powerful measures to prevent and deal with them," the Chinese leader warned.

He also accused the West of using its international culture to target China's "ideological and cultural fields.”

Hu's warning comes as Western cultural events such as the Valentine's Day are growing in popularity among the Chinese.

In an effort to counter the Western media propaganda, China has allocated a 45-billion-yuan (£4 billion) budget to expand its overseas media, including the US and UK edition of the state-run China Daily, the state news agency Xinhua and China Central Television's (CCTV).