Peter Fonda Calls President Obama a Traitor

Everytime I read something about the Obama Administration I think this has to top everything, that is until I read the next stunner. Anyone that has any doubts about which way the Manchurian President is leaning has to only read the following report.  I don't know how much more the people are going to take before the revolution starts.

A Christian who wins the Presidency of the Ivory Coast, is then thrown out of office and a Muslim installed by the UN and the US and now they are out to kill the Christians. This is just an outrage, where are the voices of Christian churches, Christian organizations, Christian Media, and the Tea Party? This Government is worst than a communist Government, at least Communist leaders don't run around in sheep's clothing, you know where they stand! I guess this is just one more reason for Obama to have that stupid smile on his face that he wears like a Halloween mask. A more accurate mask would be the skull and bones and the look of death, which is exactly what he is bringing about in the country and the world. If he's not the Antichrist, he is sure giving a good imitation so far.

See Peter Fonda's comment below, I always liked this guy, now I know why. Where are the Christian voices? Where are the Tea Party Voices? Where are the conservative voices? That's the real disgrace.

Victor

MUSLIMS TO CHRISTIANS: 'WE'RE COMING FOR YOU' (Ivory Coast)
Missionary says plight desperate after political unrest in Ivory Coast

"Once we take control we're coming for you." That's the message Christians in the Ivory Coast got from Muslims during a long-fought dispute over the nation's presidency, an election late last year apparently won by a Christian candidate when the government found voter fraud in Muslim regions. But that result was overturned following intervention by the United Nations and the United States, who insisted that the Muslim candidate be given the office. Which puts Muslims now in "control." A missionary who asked to be called only Pastor Andrew serves in the Ivory Coast and says that the administration of newly inaugurated president Alessane Ouattara, a Muslim, has shut off the Internet and now likely is tapping the Christians' telephones. "Just before (the civil war), they were warning the Christians that when we get in power, the first [thing] we're going to do is come against the church. We're coming to get you," Andrew revealed. "And so they did. Right at this moment we've been cut off for over a month. They have shut down the Internet so they (the Christians) can't communicate with the outside," Andrew said. "Then we were advised not to talk to them by phone because they have phone taps. So to protect them, we're not communicating directly into the country," Andrew added . . . The actions of Ouattara's forces since his installation as president point to the issue of why the international community would support Ouattara. Andrew says there is a threefold reason. "This has been between the predominantly Muslim north and the Christian south. It has been a mandate of the Islam world to take more control of more land, more people, and more resources and that's part of their mandate," Andrew explained ... [emphasis added]

Cannes 2011: Peter Fonda encourages his grandchildren to take up arms against President Barack Obama

Peter Fonda, the star of Easy Rider, says he is training his grandchildren to use rifles for a conflict with President Barack Obama.

By Richard Eden 6:28AM BST 22 May 2011

Lars von Trier, who was banned from Cannes for praising Hitler, was not the only one making unsavoury comments at the film festival.

                                Actor Peter Fonda at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival Photo: Getty

“I’m training my grandchildren to use long-range rifles,” said the actor, 71. “For what purpose? Well, I’m not going to say the words 'Barack Obama’, but …”

He added, enigmatically: “It’s more of a thought process than an actuality, but we are heading for a major conflict between the haves and the have nots. I came here many years ago with a biker movie and we stopped a war. Now, it’s about starting the world.

“I prefer to not to use the words, 'let’s stop something’. I prefer to say, 'let’s start something, let’s start the world’.

“There’s no room any more for a cissy and, like I said, don’t forget that I’ve got grandsons who I’ve trained with long-distance rifles. We have to run like mofos to change this world.

Cannes 2011: Peter Fonda calls Obama a 'traitor'

Peter Fonda, star of Easy Rider, attacks President Barack Obama and BP over Gulf oil spill.            

Peter Fonda launched a four-letter attack on US President Barack Obama - and BP - at the Cannes film festival, calling him a traitor over the handling of the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill.

The star of the 1969 road movie Easy Rider was in Cannes for the premiere of The Big Fix by Rebecca and Josh Tickell, the only feature documentary in the official selection at the Cannes film festival this year.

Fonda - a keen environmentalist and co-producer of the film which centres on the explosion of the BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon, the ensuing spill and its consequences - accused Washington of trying to gag reporting on the issue.

"I sent an email to President Obama saying, 'You are a f------ traitor,' using those words... 'You're a traitor, you allowed foreign boots on our soil telling our military - in this case the coastguard - what they can and could not do, and telling us, the citizens of the United States, what we could or could not do'."

Fonda, who said he sent the email last week, appears in The Big Fix trying to get on to Louisiana beaches to assess the impact of the biggest oil spill in US history, only to be turned away by BP clean-up personnel. 

Speaking at a press event at the American Pavilion to promote the film, Fonda denounced BP as "a bunch of Brits - I thought we kicked them out a long time ago. They tried to get back in in 1812, but they didn't make it."

Dark Energy Is Driving Universe Apart

Dark Energy Is Driving Universe Apart: NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer Finds Dark Energy Repulsive

New results from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Anglo-Australian Telescope atop Siding Spring Mountain in Australia confirm that dark energy (represented by purple grid) is a smooth, uniform force that now dominates over the effects of gravity (green grid). The observations follow from careful measurements of the separations between pairs of galaxies (examples of such pairs are illustrated here). (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

ScienceDaily (May 19, 2011) — A five-year survey of 200,000 galaxies, stretching back seven billion years in cosmic time, has led to one of the best independent confirmations that dark energy is driving our universe apart at accelerating speeds.

The survey used data from NASA's space-based Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Anglo-Australian Telescope on Siding Spring Mountain in Australia. The findings offer new support for the favored theory of how dark energy works -- as a constant force, uniformly affecting the universe and propelling its runaway expansion. They contradict an alternate theory, where gravity, not dark energy, is the force pushing space apart. According to this alternate theory, with which the new survey results are not consistent, Albert Einstein's concept of gravity is wrong, and gravity becomes repulsive instead of attractive when acting at great distances.

"The action of dark energy is as if you threw a ball up in the air, and it kept speeding upward into the sky faster and faster," said Chris Blake of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Blake is lead author of two papers describing the results that appeared in recent issues of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "The results tell us that dark energy is a cosmological constant, as Einstein proposed. If gravity were the culprit, then we wouldn't be seeing these constant effects of dark energy throughout time."

Dark energy is thought to dominate our universe, making up about 74 percent of it. Dark matter, a slightly less mysterious substance, accounts for 22 percent. So-called normal matter, anything with atoms, or the stuff that makes up living creatures, planets and stars, is only approximately four percent of the cosmos.
The idea of dark energy was proposed during the previous decade, based on studies of distant exploding stars called supernovae. Supernovae emit constant, measurable light, making them so-called "standard candles," which allows calculation of their distance from Earth. Observations revealed dark energy was flinging the objects out at accelerating speeds.

The new survey provides two separate methods for independently checking these results. This is the first time astronomers performed these checks across the whole cosmic timespan dominated by dark energy. Astronomers began by assembling the largest three-dimensional map of galaxies in the distant universe, spotted by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

"The Galaxy Evolution Explorer helped identify bright, young galaxies, which are ideal for this type of study," said Christopher Martin, principal investigator for the mission at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It provided the scaffolding for this enormous 3-D map."

The team acquired detailed information about the light for each galaxy using the Anglo-Australian Telescope and studied the pattern of distance between them. Sound waves from the very early universe left imprints in the patterns of galaxies, causing pairs of galaxies to be separated by approximately 500 million light-years.
Blake and his colleagues used this "standard ruler" to determine the distance from the galaxy pairs to Earth. As with the supernovae studies, this distance data was combined with information about the speeds the pairs are moving away from us, revealing, yet again, the fabric of space is stretching apart faster and faster.
The team also used the galaxy map to study how clusters of galaxies grow over time like cities, eventually containing many thousands of galaxies. The clusters attract new galaxies through gravity, but dark energy tugs the clusters apart. It slows down the process, allowing scientists to measure dark energy's repulsive force.
"Observations by astronomers over the last 15 years have produced one of the most startling discoveries in physical science; the expansion of the universe, triggered by the big bang, is speeding up," said Jon Morse, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Using entirely independent methods, data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer have helped increase our confidence in the existence of dark energy."

For more information about NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/galex and http://www.galex.caltech.edu .

Hedge Fund Farms for Doomsday

Hedge Farm! The Doomsday Food Price Scenario Turning Hedgies into Survivalists

By Foster Kamer

May 17, 2011 | 8:16 p.m

So the logic is that not only is the dollar worth far less than we think it is, but everything is more expensive and will only move further in that direction. Especially food, the value of which may have risen due to population increases, especially in places like China, where a consumer-happy middle class has finally started to emerge.

 The rising cost of food can be seen even in New York's yuppiest enclaves, where prices are high to begin with. Bloomberg food critic Ryan Sutton has been running a blog called The Price Hike wherein he measures the shifting costs of food at the plate in Manhattan restaurants. Mario Batali's Del Posto is charging 21 percent more per meal since October. Gordon Ramsay at The London? Sixty-nine percent more since last month. Michelin favorite Bouley? Forty percent. The Breslin, at the Ace Hotel? Thirty-three percent. And so on.

But farmland isn't an option for most investors. Farming is still mostly made up of family-run businesses, in the U.S., at least. Much of the farmland being purchased in America is purchased at estate sales. Pure-play farming isn't a readily available product.

You can invest in John Deere for equipment; you can invest in Monsanto for seeds and agricultural tech. You can even invest in Kraft, which puts the plants on the supermarket shelf. But for now, it's difficult to invest in a one-stop-shop farm. Additionally, there isn't much arable land out there, it's not increasing, and the quality of the land varies from parcel to parcel. And to make money off a farmland investment, you can't just sit on it. You have to know what to do with it. "If you farm it like we do, you can generate a yield," says the hedge fund manager. "We think the farmland will be worth 5 to 10 percent more every year, and on top of that, you get the commodities yield." In other words, hedge funds are growing, picking and selling corn.

Asked if the American public would eventually see a chance to invest in Old McHedgeFund's farm one day, the manager replied in the affirmative:  "Yes. Without a doubt." He estimated it would be only a few years before this happened. Just two weeks ago, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that El Tejar SA, the world's largest grain producer, is planning on selling $300 million of bonds this year before a planned IPO. The plans for the IPO will be fast-tracked pending the sale of the bonds. If farming IPOs begin to emerge en masse, then farming-already often a dicey proposition simply on the basis of its being difficult to do correctly, the volatility of the weather and the possibility of entire crops going bad-may be vulnerable to a bubble.

There is, of course, a slightly more sinister reason to develop a sudden interest in agriculture. Last year, Marc Faber recommended to anyone: "Stock up on a farm in northern Norway and learn to drive a tractor." He sees a "dirty war" on the horizon, playing on fears of a biological attack poisoning food supplies. Those sort of fears drive capital into everything from gold (recently at an all-time high and a long-time safe haven for investors with currency concerns) to survivalist accoutrements. In this particular case, one might buy the farm in order to avoid buying the farm.

That may seem extreme, but even the lesser scenarios are frightening to some. When asked if this is an end-of-the-world situation, the hedge fund manager replied: "It really is. I tell my fiancée this from time to time, and I've stopped telling her this, because it's not the most pleasant thought." He pauses for a moment. "We just can't keep living the way we're living. It'll end within our lifetime. We're just going to run out of certain things. We'll just have to learn how to adjust."

So the logic is that not only is the dollar worth far less than we think it is, but everything is more expensive and will only move further in that direction. Especially food, the value of which may have risen due to population increases, especially in places like China, where a consumer-happy middle class has finally started to emerge.
 The rising cost of food can be seen even in New York's yuppiest enclaves, where prices are high to begin with. Bloomberg food critic Ryan Sutton has been running a blog called The Price Hike wherein he measures the shifting costs of food at the plate in Manhattan restaurants. Mario Batali's Del Posto is charging 21 percent more per meal since October. Gordon Ramsay at The London? Sixty-nine percent more since last month. Michelin favorite Bouley? Forty percent. The Breslin, at the Ace Hotel? Thirty-three percent. And so on.
But farmland isn't an option for most investors. Farming is still mostly made up of family-run businesses, in the U.S., at least. Much of the farmland being purchased in America is purchased at estate sales. Pure-play farming isn't a readily available product.

You can invest in John Deere for equipment; you can invest in Monsanto for seeds and agricultural tech. You can even invest in Kraft, which puts the plants on the supermarket shelf. But for now, it's difficult to invest in a one-stop-shop farm. Additionally, there isn't much arable land out there, it's not increasing, and the quality of the land varies from parcel to parcel. And to make money off a farmland investment, you can't just sit on it. You have to know what to do with it. "If you farm it like we do, you can generate a yield," says the hedge fund manager. "We think the farmland will be worth 5 to 10 percent more every year, and on top of that, you get the commodities yield." In other words, hedge funds are growing, picking and selling corn.

Asked if the American public would eventually see a chance to invest in Old McHedgeFund's farm one day, the manager replied in the affirmative:  "Yes. Without a doubt." He estimated it would be only a few years before this happened. Just two weeks ago, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that El Tejar SA, the world's largest grain producer, is planning on selling $300 million of bonds this year before a planned IPO. The plans for the IPO will be fast-tracked pending the sale of the bonds. If farming IPOs begin to emerge en masse, then farming-already often a dicey proposition simply on the basis of its being difficult to do correctly, the volatility of the weather and the possibility of entire crops going bad-may be vulnerable to a bubble.

There is, of course, a slightly more sinister reason to develop a sudden interest in agriculture. Last year, Marc Faber recommended to anyone: "Stock up on a farm in northern Norway and learn to drive a tractor." He sees a "dirty war" on the horizon, playing on fears of a biological attack poisoning food supplies. Those sort of fears drive capital into everything from gold (recently at an all-time high and a long-time safe haven for investors with currency concerns) to survivalist accoutrements. In this particular case, one might buy the farm in order to avoid buying the farm.

That may seem extreme, but even the lesser scenarios are frightening to some. When asked if this is an end-of-the-world situation, the hedge fund manager replied: "It really is. I tell my fiancée this from time to time, and I've stopped telling her this, because it's not the most pleasant thought." He pauses for a moment. "We just can't keep living the way we're living. It'll end within our lifetime. We're just going to run out of certain things. We'll just have to learn how to adjust."

DOES THE TRUTH MATTER?

Does this building look like it's falling
or exploding?

Our mantra is, "know the TRUTH and the TRUTH will set you free".  So does the truth matter to you? Can you discern the ring of Truth when you hear it? Where do you get your information to decide what the truth is?

These are important questions, which could end up saving or costing your life. For example, millions of people in Nazi Germany were killed, because they failed to understand the truth about their Government. Many will say, oh but that was Nazi Germany that could never happen in America! That's exactly what the Democratic people of Germany thought too! Naomi Wolf wrote an excellent book on this entitled “The End of America” and compares what was going on in Germany in the 1930’s to what is going in America today. This is one good resource where you can get some factual historical truth. 

You have to understand how the ruling elite think and how they get the masses to go along with the their New World Order Programs.  Zbigniew Brezezinshi stated the following:


"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."
(p. 211 in his book, “The Grand Cheesboard”).

Brezezinski was just more ambiguously quoting Hermann Goering who said the same think years ago in Nazi Germany. 

 "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Hermann Goering
German Nazi marshal & politician (1893 - 1946)

The naked girl was hit by a US Napalm Bomb.
Do you think that was a terrorist act?

So with that historical perspective, let's look back on what happened in Vietnam War.  Robert McNamara, the then secretary of defense, in his Book called “In Retrospect”, stated  "WE WERE WRONG".  In that wrong war the US killed 3 million people, including 60,000 US troops. How did we get into that WRONG WAR? It was based on a BIG LIE, stating that the North Vietnamese attacked our destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin. That prompted the US Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing military action. The BIG LIE, that was knowingly told by the US Government, later came to light, but not before the US had killed millions over ten years. 

Why use road side bombs when you have these?

Think about that for a minute….the US Government killed 3 million plus people during that wrong war and no one was tried for war crimes. How many people do you think Osama Ben Laden and Al Queda have killed in the last 10 years? Nowhere near that number. Why? Because they don't have the vast military and state of the art weapons to to kill vast numbers of people. Forget about truck bombs, car bombs or road side bombs. The US pulls out all their weapons of mass destruction, B29 and Stealth Bombers, ship launched cruise missiles, attack planes, helicopter guns ships and of course the Predator Drones. We launch these weapons at God knows who and often times they end up killing thousands of innocent people. 

So who is the bigger terrorist?

Air Strikes are much more destructive that car bombs.

The definition of a terrorist is one who uses violence and indiscriminate acts of violence that kills numerous people in order to achieve one's ends, especially one's political ends. What's the difference if the Taliban uses roadside bombs that kills innocent people indiscriminately trying to achieve their political ends, or if the US military uses Predator Drones that kills innocent people indiscriminately trying to achieve their political ends?  The truth is there is no difference, dead is dead, whether it’s people killed by road side bombs or Predator Drones, it's still an act of terrorism, no matter who detonates the bomb!

Air Strikes kills 12 children and 2 women. (see smoke)

By SOLOMON MOORE and MIRWAIS KHAN, Associated Press Solomon Moore And Mirwais 

Khan, Associated Press – Sun May 29, 9:38 am ET

KABUL, Afghanistan – 


A NATO airstrike targeting insurgents inadvertently hit two civilian homes in the volatile southwestern Helmand province, killing 12 children and two women, an Afghan government official said Sunday.

Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the alliance launched the airstrike late on Saturday in retaliation for an attack earlier in the day on a U.S. Marine base in Helmand's northwest district of Nawzad. He said NATO hit two civilian houses, killing five girls, seven boys and two women. President Karzai blamed American troops for airstrikes that killed the 14 women and children and two men, injuring of six other civilians. "The US is committing terrorists acts just as bad as the Taliban, this has to stop, it's making the problem worst".

Since the US launched theirr war in Afghanistan in 2001, tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed by US  bombs, many of them women and children. Every time we kill one person we create a hundred new enemies who then want to kill us because we killed their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers or friends. It then becomes all about revenge and it will never stop until the US stops the killing and that is when the war is stopped.

Has all this killing made us safer? Not one bit and in fact it has made us less safe especially from our own Government. That is why THE TRUTH about what happened on 911 is so important; it was the justification for going to war.  A war that is going on 11 years now, which is getting thousands of people killed every week. Was 911 just another BIG LIE, like the BIG LIE in Vietnam?  Then it was the communist phobia, now it's the Muslim terrorist’s phobia. What’s the difference?  They both use fear mongering as a motivator for the American people to support false flag wars without end.

Again, does this building look like it is
falling or exploding?

THE TRUTH about 911 needs to come out. Millions of people are coming to understand that the Government story is another BIG LIE and that lie is being covered up by the major news media.  Below is a link to a video, which I believe, is the best video ever produced about what really happened to the world trade center buildings and building number 7; and what caused those buildings to come crashing down at free fall speed and in their own foot print just hours later. Keeping in mind that building number 7 was not even hit by a plane.  

This video was produced by Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth and is based on hard evidence and facts and not speculation. Take a little time to view it and then make up your own mind about what you think brought those buildings down, and the implications if they were brought down by controlled demolition. Did the Government pull off another false flag operation like they did in the Gulf of Tonkin to give them justification to launch these wars without end?  Be your own detective, keep an open mind and in the end you will find out what the truth really is and then you can act on it. 

Same question, does this building
look like it is falling or exploding?
WATCH THE VIDEO AND FIND OUT!

Don't be deceived by another BIG LIE! 911 was carried out by elements of the US Government in concert with the ruling elite to bring about the New World Order. They used it as a pretext to eviscerate personal freedoms and the constitution. The President has become a dictator that ignores Congress and rules by directives and through his Czars. They want to crash the country with debt so they can use that crisis to raise up the New World Order out of the ashes, which will relegate people to economic serfs. The TRUTH does matter…watch this documentary about 911 and let the truth set you free to act! Pass this on to everyone you know. Let Freedom and the Truth Ring! DON'T BUY THE BIG LIE!

 "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."  Hermann Goering

http://www.filmsforaction.org/ Watch/911_Blueprint_for_Truth_2010/

What is a False Flag Attack? Would You Believe it's an American Tradition?

There is ample evidence that 911 was a false flag attack, please read out reports entitled "911 Truth Report" and "Scientists find thermite explosives in the 911 dust. Yes that's right there was nano thermite in the 911 dust and why isn't that being reported by the lame stream media? 

So what is a false Flag Attack. There is an excellent report by Stephen Lendman who lays it our pretty well and I thought I would share it with you on the Truth Report 101. Believe it or not it is an American Tradition and it has been used over and over again by the US Governement to get us into one war after another. 

False Flags - An American Tradition 
By Stephen Lendman 
May 7, 2011

Wikipedia defines false or black flags attacks: as "covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities." 

They're "big lies," defined by Merriam-Webster as "deliberate gross distortion(s) of the truth used especially as a propaganda tactic." 

America's decade from September 11, 2001 to May 1, 2011 was punctuated by the (big) lie of our time and (big) lie of the moment. 

Put another way, the official stories are falsified, myths, widely believed fantasies contrary to reality. 

In his exhaustive research and writings, David Ray Griffin provided convincing evidence that 9/11 was an inside job and that bin Laden died of natural causes in mid-December 2001. 

The former spawned a decade of overt and covert "war on terror" lawlessness at home and abroad. Policies and events following the second have yet to unfold, but expect little at best to be positive. 

Past US false flags provided pretexts for militarism, wars, occupations, domestic repression, and national security state extremism, antithetical to democratically free and open societies. Allegedly removing America's "Enemy Number One," in fact, may intensify, not diminish, Washington's scheme for unchallengeable global dominance. More on him below. 

With or without bin Laden, bogymen threats are plentiful. Since WW II alone, America's had numerous ones, including communists, Al Qaeda, WMDs, the Taliban, Gaddafi, and a host others yet unnamed, as well as numerous "foiled" domestic ones. 

Among others, they include: 

-- a fake shoe bomber; 

-- fake underwear bomber; 

-- fake Times Square bomber; 

-- an earlier one there; 

-- fake shampoo bombers; 

-- fake Al Qaeda woman planning fake mass casualty attacks on New York landmarks; 

-- fake Oregon bomber; 

-- fake armed forces recruiting station bomber; 

-- fake synagogue bombers; 

-- fake Chicago Sears Tower bombers; 

-- fake FBI and other building bombers; 

-- fake National Guard, Fort Dix and Quantico marine base attackers; 

-- fake 9/11 bombers; and 
-- others to enlist public support for the fake war on terror and very real ones it spawned. 

America, Pakistan, Bin Laden, Official Lies, and Misreporting 

On May 5, New York Times writer Elisabeth Bumiller headlined, "Pentagon Breaks Silence on Pakistani Role," saying: 

A "top Pentagon official said....Pakistan would have to work hard to rebuild relations with the United States Congress," including a commitment "to fighting terrorism...." 

It suggests what some analysts suspect: namely, planned destabilization, confrontation, and balkanization for greater Eurasian control, as well as future terrorist false flags. 

On May 5, Times writers Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane headlined, "Data Show Bin Laden Plots; CIA Hid Near Raided House," saying: 

Alleged "computer files and documents seized at the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed," reveal "considered attacks on American railroads, (but) there was no evidence of a specific plot." 

Perhaps no files and documents either. For sure, no bin Laden. 

Nonetheless, "(s)ince Sunday night, counterterrorism officials have been alert to (possible) new attacks from Al Qaeda to avenge its leader's death," especially at airports, rail facilities, and other strategic locations. "American officials and terrorism experts have warned that this is not the end of Al Qaeda," not, of course, if they're blamed for planned false flags to intensify US imperial wars. 

Another May 5 Bumiller Times report ran cover for shifting official accounts about what really happened on May 1 headlined, "Raid Account, Hastily Told, Proves Fluid," saying: 

"(I)t was a classic collision of a White House desire to promote a stunning national security triumph - and feed a ravenous media - while collecting facts from a chaotic military operation on the other side of the world. At the same time, White House officials worked hard to use the facts of the raid to diminish Bin Laden's legacy." 

She continued, quoting an unnamed Pentagon official claiming no "intent to deceive or dramatize," adding that "Everything we put out we really believed to be true at the time." She also quoted Victoria Clarke, Bush Pentagon spokeswoman, saying, "First reports are always wrong. It's a fundamental truth in military affairs." 

In other words, it was OK first to claim a fierce firefight in which no US forces were killed or hurt, then 24 hours later call the battle one-sided, Navy Seals quickly dispatching bin Laden's guards and "Enemy Number One," shooting him unarmed in the head. 

Notably, however, there's no body, no photos, no video, no evidence, and no truth, just the media regurgitated big lie. 

In fact, more lies compounded it, including about: 

-- Pakistan's alleged knowledge of his presence; 
-- claimed evidence confirming it and assault specifics; and 

-- fabricated bad theater, explained in a slapdash, keystone cops manner. 

High Level Skepticism 

Appearing on CNN May 5, former Pakistani intelligence chief, Hamid Gul, told "In the Arena's" host Eliot Spitzer that bin Laden died years earlier, saying: 

"Yes, I think he died - he perished some years ago, and I think this was a story which was created (because) nobody would want to believe this version....I (don't believe) the story which was given out by the American media and by the American administration." 

Whoever was killed May 1 "was probably somebody else....(American authorities) must have known that he died some years ago....were keeping this story on the ice and they were looking for an appropriate moment" to announce it. 

"(P)eople simply not in Pakistan alone but around the world....don't believe the stories that have been put out." 

In other words, the entire account was fabricated, the event staged, Western media, including The New York Times, running cover for the big lie. Gul politely called it "a huge intelligence failure." 

Notable American and Other False Flags 

Discussed in earlier writing, numerous ones stand out, including: 

-- In 1898, Spain was falsely accused of blowing up the USS Maine in Havana, Cuba harbor. The Spanish-American war followed. 

-- On May 7, 1915, a German U-boat was accused of torpedoing the RMS Lusitania, killing 128 US citizens. It helped precipitate America's April 4, 1917 WW I entry, a war Woodrow Wilson wanted and got through a propaganda campaign, turning pacifist Americans into German haters. It was later learned that on board munitions, not a torpedo, exploded, sinking the ship. 

-- In 1933 Germany, a week before general elections, the strategically timed Reichstag fire (home of the German parliament) was blamed on communists. President Paul von Hindenburg's emergency decree followed. Civil liberties were suspended. Weimar Republic democracy ended, and Hitler assumed fascist powers after enough Nazis were elected to assure it. 

-- On August 31, 1939, Nazis impersonating Polish terrorists attacked the Gleiwitz radio station on the border between the two countries, starting WW II. 

-- On December 7, 1941, Roosevelt manipulated Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, giving him the war he wanted from the early 1930s, but had to convince a pacifist public of the threat. The fleet was also tracked across the Pacific, but Admiral HE Kimmel wasn't warned or given known intelligence to assure enough mass casualties for congressional and public support. 

-- Complicit with Washington, numerous 1949/1950 South Korean incursions north precipitated Pyongyang's retaliation in June 1950, giving Truman the war he wanted. 

-- In 1962, a US Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed false flag never happened because Kennedy rejected it. Called Operation Northwoods (a part of Operation Mongoose), it included sinking US ships, shooting down US commercial airliners, blowing up buildings in US cities, attacking America's Guantanamo base, other incidents, and blaming it on Cuba as a reason for war. 

-- The fake August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident initiated full-scale retaliation against North Vietnam after Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing war without declaring it. 

-- In October 1983, after ousting Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, US forces invaded Grenada, allegedly to rescue American medical students threatened by nonbelligerent Cubans building infrastructure. 

-- In December 1989, manufactured incidents precipitated America's Panama invasion, deposing Manuel Noriega, one-time ally turned enemy because he forgot who's boss. 

-- in August 1990, Washington colluded with the al- Sabah monarchy, entrapping Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. In January 1991, it launched the Gulf War, followed by over two decades of sanctions, more war occupation, and destruction of the "cradle of civilization." 

-- The September 11, 2001 false flag operation launched a decade of imperial wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Palestine allied with Israel, perhaps others to come, as well as proxy wars in Somalia, Yemen, Bahrain, Central Africa, Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, and at home against Muslims, Latino immigrants, and working Americas. 

On February 16, 2010, a Washington's blog web site (georgewashington2.blogspot.com) article titled, "Governments ADMIT That They Carry Out False Flag Terror" listed examples, including: 

-- The CIA admitted its 1950s role in toppling Iran's democratically government in 1953. 

-- Israel acknowledged a 1954 attack in Egypt, including planting bombs in US diplomatic facilities, leaving "evidence" of Arab involvement. 

-- Indonesia's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid, said the nation's police or military most likely were involved in the 2002 Bali bombing, killing over 200 people. 

-- A former Italian prime minister, judge, and military counterintelligence head, General Gianadelio Maletti, said America's CIA instigated and abetted right wing terrorist groups in the 1970s and earlier, including bombing a Milan bank in 1969 to rally popular anti-communist support in Italy and other European countries. 
-- Many others, including former Carter administration National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, telling a Senate committee that a false flag terror attack on US soil might occur to blame Iran and justify war. 

In his 1997 book, "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives," he said: 

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat," the kind 9/11 created - predicted, planned, orchestrated, and carried out to further new world order global dominance. 

Other False Flag Examples 

-- The March 2004 Madrid train bombings occurred three days before Spain's general elections. With no supportive evidence, they were blamed on Al Qaeda, yet they stoked public fear of threats against other Western cities, including American ones. 
 
-- The July 7, 2005 London underground bombings (called 7/7) were a series of attacks on the city's public transport system during the morning rush hour for maximum disruption and casualties. At precisely the same time, an anti-terror drill occurred, simulating real attacks. It was no coincidence, others in America and Britain came on the same day. 

-- On 9/11 morning, the CIA ran a "pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building." Held at the Agency's Chantilly, Virginia Reconnaissance Office, AP reported (on August 22, 2002) that it simulated "a small corporate jet (hitting) one of the four towers....after experiencing a mechanical failure." 

Unmentioned at the time was a later revealed (but unreported) Homeland Security conference announcement a year later to commemorate the 9/11 event. Held under the auspices of the National Law Enforcement and Security Institute, one of its speakers was John Fulton, CIA Chief of the Strategic War Gaming Division of the National Reconnaissance office in charge of the operation. Another coincidence, or was something more sinister afoot? 

In October 2000, the Pentagon simulated a commercial plane striking the Pentagon, coordinated by its Command Emergency Response Team and the Defense Protective Services Police. This and the 9/11 exercises are more than coincidental, given what's now known and the fallout. 

-- On June 30, 2007, a Jeep Cherokee with propane canisters crashed into Glasgow International Airport's glass doors, the BBC reporting that it "was in the middle of the doorway burning....The car didn't actually explode. There were a few pops and bangs which presumably was the petrol." 

The usual suspects were falsely blamed, Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists. 

In Miami, on January 11, 2010 (one day before Haiti's earthquake), the Pentagon's US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) simulated a hurricane striking the island in preparation for subsequent measures to be implemented. A carefully prepared military operation, they included occupying, controlling, and plundering the island. 

Also, Deputy SOUTHCOM head, General PK Keen, was in Haiti when the quake struck, ready to assume command when it did and use a communication tool called the Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project (TISC), linking other nations and NGOs with the Pentagon and US government to facilitate measures to be implemented. None were to help Haitians. 

A Final Comment 

Exposed as bad theater, New York Times writer Elizabeth Harris further discredited the broadsheet, headlining: 

"Al Qaeda Confirms Bin Laden's Death," citing an unconfirmed statement, warning of new attacks to come. It also said an audio recording days before his death will soon be released. In fact, past video and audio ones were exposed as fakes. 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site atsjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

The Wall Street Bankster Blowing New Bubbles in the Commodity Markets.

It wasn't bad enough that the Wall Street Banksters caused the housing bubble and financial crash of 2008 that resulted in investors losing 14 trillion dollars and untold misery. Now they are working their criminal derivative schemes in food and fuel. If you are wondering why commodities are going through the roof and causing fuel and food prices to soar then read the following article. Right now gasoline is taking 9 percent of family budgets and the cost of food is on the rise as well. This is causing food riots already in the poorer countries along with political instability. Most people have no clue what is going on, all they know is they are running out of money trying to pay for fuel and food. But hey, what do the Wall Street Banksters care as long as they can make billions creating the commodity derivatives Ponzi scheme. This time there is a new hitch, the derivatives are long and double long only, no shorts allowed in this derivative scheme. Where do you think this is headed? Another train wreck, no it's worse than that, how about capitalistic suicide? 

Think about this, we are fighting three wars, which is costing hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives. For what? Where is the real enemy?  In the fields of Afghanistan or in the buildings on Wall Street? Osama Ben Laden was just killed by the US and there was shouting in the street. But in the end who is really causing the more pain, suffering, death and destruction. The terrorists whose command and control is in the caves in Afghanistan and Pakistan carrying AK47's and RPG's or the Wall Street Banksters carrying their briefcases and IPHONES who engineer one financial disaster after another from their Wall Street Command and Control Centers? 

Are you reading about people in the US who are killing their families, their kids, their friends, their co-workers every week because they can't cope anymore due to the financial stress? According to a recent statistic 25 percent of people in the US have mental disorders. Why? Read the following and hopefully you will start to understand the magnitude of the problem. While the US Government has people living in fear and focused on fighting this war on terror, the real enemy is on Wall Street hard at work creating the next financial disaster as they line their pockets with billions in their latest terroristic Ponzi scheme. 

Victor

How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis

Don't blame American appetites, rising oil prices, or genetically modified crops for rising food prices. Wall Street's at fault for the spiraling cost of food.

BY FREDERICK KAUFMAN | APRIL 27, 2011

Demand and supply certainly matter. But there's another reason why food across the world has become so expensive: Wall Street greed.

It took the brilliant minds of Goldman Sachs to realize the simple truth that nothing is more valuable than our daily bread. And where there's value, there's money to be made. In 1991, Goldman bankers, led by their prescient president Gary Cohn, came up with a new kind of investment product, a derivative that tracked 24 raw materials, from precious metals and energy to coffee, cocoa, cattle, corn, hogs, soy, and wheat. They weighted the investment value of each element, blended and commingled the parts into sums, then reduced what had been a complicated collection of real things into a mathematical formula that could be expressed as a single manifestation, to be known henceforth as the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI).

For just under a decade, the GSCI remained a relatively static investment vehicle, as bankers remained more interested in risk and collateralized debt than in anything that could be literally sowed or reaped. Then, in 1999, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission deregulated futures markets. All of a sudden, bankers could take as large a position in grains as they liked, an opportunity that had, since the Great Depression, only been available to those who actually had something to do with the production of our food.

Change was coming to the great grain exchanges of Chicago, Minneapolis, and Kansas City -- which for 150 years had helped to moderate the peaks and valleys of global food prices. Farming may seem bucolic, but it is an inherently volatile industry, subject to the vicissitudes of weather, disease, and disaster. The grain futures trading system pioneered after the American Civil War by the founders of Archer Daniels Midland, General Mills, and Pillsbury helped to establish America as a financial juggernaut to rival and eventually surpass Europe. The grain markets also insulated American farmers and millers from the inherent risks of their profession. The basic idea was the "forward contract," an agreement between sellers and buyers of wheat for a reasonable bushel price -- even before that bushel had been grown. Not only did a grain "future" help to keep the price of a loaf of bread at the bakery -- or later, the supermarket -- stable, but the market allowed farmers to hedge against lean times, and to invest in their farms and businesses. The result: Over the course of the 20th century, the real price of wheat decreased (despite a hiccup or two, particularly during the 1970s inflationary spiral), spurring the development of American agribusiness. After World War II, the United States was routinely producing a grain surplus, which became an essential element of its Cold War political, economic, and humanitarian strategies -- not to mention the fact that American grain fed millions of hungry people across the world.

Futures markets traditionally included two kinds of players. On one side were the farmers, the millers, and the warehousemen, market players who have a real, physical stake in wheat. This group not only includes corn growers in Iowa or wheat farmers in Nebraska, but major multinational corporations like Pizza Hut, Kraft, Nestlé, Sara Lee, Tyson Foods, and McDonald's -- whose New York Stock Exchange shares rise and fall on their ability to bring food to peoples' car windows, doorsteps, and supermarket shelves at competitive prices. These market participants are called "bona fide" hedgers, because they actually need to buy and sell cereals.
On the other side is the speculator. The speculator neither produces nor consumes corn or soy or wheat, and wouldn't have a place to put the 20 tons of cereal he might buy at any given moment if ever it were delivered. Speculators make money through traditional market behavior, the arbitrage of buying low and selling high. And the physical stakeholders in grain futures have as a general rule welcomed traditional speculators to their market, for their endless stream of buy and sell orders gives the market its liquidity and provides bona fide hedgers a way to manage risk by allowing them to sell and buy just as they pleased.

But Goldman's index perverted the symmetry of this system. The structure of the GSCI paid no heed to the centuries-old buy-sell/sell-buy patterns. This newfangled derivative product was "long only," which meant the product was constructed to buy commodities, and only buy. At the bottom of this "long-only" strategy lay an intent to transform an investment in commodities (previously the purview of specialists) into something that looked a great deal like an investment in a stock --the kind of asset class wherein anyone could park their money and let it accrue for decades (along the lines of General Electric or Apple). Once the commodity market had been made to look more like the stock market, bankers could expect new influxes of ready cash. But the long-only strategy possessed a flaw, at least for those of us who eat. The GSCI did not include a mechanism to sell or "short" a commodity.

This imbalance undermined the innate structure of the commodities markets, requiring bankers to buy and keep buying -- no matter what the price. Every time the due date of a long-only commodity index futures contract neared, bankers were required to "roll" their multi-billion dollar backlog of buy orders over into the next futures contract, two or three months down the line. And since the deflationary impact of shorting a position simply wasn't part of the GSCI, professional grain traders could make a killing by anticipating the market fluctuations these "rolls" would inevitably cause. "I make a living off the dumb money," commodity trader Emil van Essen told Businessweek last year. Commodity traders employed by the banks that had created the commodity index funds in the first place rode the tides of profit.

Bankers recognized a good system when they saw it, and dozens of speculative non-physical hedgers followed Goldman's lead and joined the commodities index game, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Pimco, JP Morgan Chase, AIG, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers, to name but a few purveyors of commodity index funds. The scene had been set for food inflation that would eventually catch unawares some of the largest milling, processing, and retailing corporations in the United States, and send shockwaves throughout the world.

The money tells the story. Since the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000, there has been a 50-fold increase in dollars invested in commodity index funds. To put the phenomenon in real terms: In 2003, the commodities futures market still totaled a sleepy $13 billion. But when the global financial crisis sent investors running scared in early 2008, and as dollars, pounds, and euros evaded investor confidence, commodities -- including food -- seemed like the last, best place for hedge, pension, and sovereign wealth funds to park their cash. "You had people who had no clue what commodities were all about suddenly buying commodities," an analyst from the United States Department of Agriculture told me. In the first 55 days of 2008, speculators poured $55 billion into commodity markets, and by July, $318 billion was roiling the markets. Food inflation has remained steady since.

The money flowed, and the bankers were ready with a sparkling new casino of food derivatives. Spearheaded by oil and gas prices (the dominant commodities of the index funds) the new investment products ignited the markets of all the other indexed commodities, which led to a problem familiar to those versed in the history of tulips, dot-coms, and cheap real estate: a food bubble. Hard red spring wheat, which usually trades in the $4 to $6 dollar range per 60-pound bushel, broke all previous records as the futures contract climbed into the teens and kept on going until it topped $25. And so, from 2005 to 2008, the worldwide price of food rose 80 percent -- and has kept rising. "It's unprecedented how much investment capital we've seen in commodity markets," Kendell Keith, president of the National Grain and Feed Association, told me. "There's no question there's been speculation." In a recently published briefing note, Olivier De Schutter, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, concluded that in 2008 "a significant portion of the price spike was due to the emergence of a speculative bubble."

What was happening to the grain markets was not the result of "speculation" in the traditional sense of buying low and selling high. Today, along with the cumulative index, the Standard & Poors GSCI provides 219 distinct index "tickers," so investors can boot up their Bloomberg system and bet on everything from palladium to soybean oil, biofuels to feeder cattle. But the boom in new speculative opportunities in global grain, edible oil, and livestock markets has created a vicious cycle. The more the price of food commodities increases, the more money pours into the sector, and the higher prices rise. Indeed, from 2003 to 2008, the volume of index fund speculation increased by 1,900 percent. "What we are experiencing is a demand shock coming from a new category of participant in the commodities futures markets," hedge fund Michael Masterstestified before Congress in the midst of the 2008 food crisis.

The result of Wall Street's venture into grain and feed and livestock has been a shock to the global food production and delivery system. Not only does the world's food supply have to contend with constricted supply and increased demand for real grain, but investment bankers have engineered an artificial upward pull on the price of grain futures. The result: Imaginary wheat dominates the price of real wheat, as speculators (traditionally one-fifth of the market) now outnumber bona-fide hedgers four-to-one.

Today, bankers and traders sit at the top of the food chain -- the carnivores of the system, devouring everyone and everything below. Near the bottom toils the farmer. For him, the rising price of grain should have been a windfall, but speculation has also created spikes in everything the farmer must buy to grow his grain -- from seed to fertilizer to diesel fuel. At the very bottom lies the consumer. The average American, who spends roughly 8 to 12 percent of her weekly paycheck on food, did not immediately feel the crunch of rising costs. But for the roughly 2-billion people across the world who spend more than 50 percent of their income on food, the effects have been staggering: 250 million people joined the ranks of the hungry in 2008, bringing the total of the world's "food insecure" to a peak of 1 billion -- a number never seen before.

What's the solution? The last time I visited the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, I asked a handful of wheat brokers what would happen if the U.S. government simply outlawed long-only trading in food commodities for investment banks. Their reaction: laughter. One phone call to a bona-fide hedger like Cargill or Archer Daniels Midland and one secret swap of assets, and a bank's stake in the futures market is indistinguishable from that of an international wheat buyer. What if the government outlawed all long-only derivative products, I asked? Once again, laughter. Problem solved with another phone call, this time to a trading office in London or Hong Kong; the new food derivative markets have reached supranational proportions, beyond the reach of sovereign law.

Volatility in the food markets has also trashed what might have been a great opportunity for global cooperation. The higher the cost of corn, soy, rice, and wheat, the more the grain producing-nations of the world should cooperate in order to ensure that panicked (and generally poorer) grain-importing nations do not spark ever more dramatic contagions of food inflation and political upheaval. Instead, nervous countries have responded instead with me-first policies, from export bans to grain hoarding to neo-mercantilist land grabs in Africa. And efforts by concerned activists or international agencies to curb grain speculation have gone nowhere. All the while, the index funds continue to prosper, the bankers pocket the profits, and the world's poor teeter on the brink of starvation.

Here is a companion article that will even make you more disgusted!

Glencore: Profiteering from hunger and chaos

The world's largest commodities trader is issuing a stock sale, and critics say the firm causes spikes in food prices. Chris Arsenault May 9, 2011

Glencore controls more half the global copper market and almost ten per cent of the planet's wheat trade [Reuters] The rapid rise in prices for food, fuel and commodities has been disastrous for the world's poor, including Indonesian market vendor Lia Romi. But it's a bonanza for multinational trading firms such as Glencore. While Romi has trouble feeding her family, Glencore - the world's largest diversified commodities trader - is planning a US $11 billion share sale, likely the largest market debut ever seen on the London Stock Exchange. "The price for our daily food has at least doubled in the past two years," Lia Romi told Al Jazeera through a translator. "Food costs 100 per cent of my family's daily income [of about $3]. I have nothing saved and I owe [money] from my [market stall] business." While Romi, and millions like her, worry about feeding their families, the initial public offering from the commodity speculating giant will create at least four billionaires, dozens worth more than $100million and several hundred old fashioned millionaires. Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg is set to make more than $9bn from the share sale. And speculating on food prices is an important part of his wealth. Controlling prices Valued at about $60billion, Glencore controls 50 per cent of the global copper market, 60 per cent of zinc, 38 per cent in alumina, 28 per cent of thermal coal, 45 per cent of lead and almost 10 per cent of the world's wheat - according to information the firm disclosed prior to its share sale. It also controls about one quarter of the world market in barley, sunflower and rape seed. "They are possibly one of very few mining companies that are price makers, rather than price takers," said Chris Hinde, editorial director of Mining Journal magazine. "They are the stockbrokers of the commodities business [operating] in a fairly secretive world. They are effectively setting the price for some very important commodities. The firm employs about 57,000 people, generated a turnover of $145billion in the past year and has assets worth more than $79billion. Glencore's media department refused our interview request. Lia Romi has had trouble feeding her family in Indonesia because of high food prices, which some analysts link to speculation [Credit: Oxfam] Based in Baar, Switzerland, where regulation is minimal, the company's sprawling interests span Bolivian tin mines, Angolan oil, zinc producers in Kazakhstan, Zambian copper mines and Russian wheat operations. "Glencore's vertical integration really is unprecedented," said Devlin Kuyek, a researcher with GRAIN, a non-profit international organisation working on food security. "Glencore owns almost 300,000 hectares of farm land and it is one of the largest farm operators in the world. They are engaging in speculation on the grain trade and have immense market power. Global food prices have climbed recently, returning close to their 2008 peak, when bread riots swept parts of the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.  "A disturbing amount of price increases, I fear, is being driven by speculative activity," Marcus Miller, a professor of international economics at the University of Warwick stated. "Bets [on future price rises or declines] can become self-fulfilling if you are big enough to affect the market." In March 2011, the World Bank's global food index was 36 per cent above levels from a year earlier, although prices for commodities have dropped in the past few weeks. Some analysts believe price increases have more to do with a growing global population and rising middle classes, particularly in India and China, who are eating more meat and thus driving up prices for corn and other animal feed. Duncan Green, the head of research at development organisation Oxfam Great Britain, said international markets for food and other commodities can be compared to the shape of a champagne glass. "There are a lot of people producing, and a lot of people consuming, but there is a pinch point in the middle, controlled by corporations who can walk away with the final value. "Many of the world's poor are -bizarrely - people growing food." In 2010, investment bank Goldman Sachs warned of "violent price spikes" in commodities markets, and that prediction has more or less come true. Knowledge and power To make money betting on food, metals and energy, Glencore – like other trading houses and hedge funds – relies on one crucial commodity: Information. "They have offices all over the world and unique access to information about production and distribution," said food security researcher Kuyek. "When the people who have that information are also the ones speculating, there is grave cause for concern; they can purchase forward contracts when they know prices are going up." Trading firms can capitalise on instability in world food markets [EPA] In August 2010, for example, Russia issued a ban on grain exports, after droughts ravaged crops. On August 3, the head of Glencore's Russian grain unit encouraged the government to halt exports. The government followed his advice on August 5, causing prices for cereals to rise 15 per cent in two days. "Days before the export ban went into place, Glencore made huge bets," said Kuyek. "They had some kind of information there; companies with information are in the best place to capture profits from volatility." Glencore, for its part, said it also lost money as a result of the ban, because it had to fulfill delivery obligations to clients outside Russia at the new, higher price. In addition to manipulating food prices – potentially with insider information - the trading giant appears to have broken laws on several continents. Prosecutors in Belgium charged Glencore employees with criminal conspiracy and corruption, alleging they illicitly sought confidential information on European export subsidies from a public official. The case will be heard in Brussels on May 12. Shady deals During Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq, and the UN sanctions which accompanied its final years, Glencore made handsome profits marketing embargoed oil. In February 2001, Glencore bought 1million barrels of Iraqi crude oil destined for the US and diverted the black gold to Croatia, where it was sold for a premium of $3million, according to a UN Security Council report.  When the news broke, the Sunday Times newspaper in the UK headlined their investigation "Secretive Swiss trader links City to Iraq oil scam". Glencore's founder and lifelong commodities hustler Marc Rich was dubbed the "face of scandal", by Vanity Fair magazine. After founding the company in 1974, Rich rose to prominence by pioneering "combat trading" -aggressive deal making in countries facing turmoil. He traded oil for Ayatollahs when Iran was blacklisted by the US, did business with South Africa's apartheid government and skirted US trade embargoes on Cuba and Libya to make trades under the motto: Do whatever it takes. In Lia Romi's community, people have to choose between sending their kids to school and buying food               [Credit: Oxfam] "There will always be allegations that they [Glencore] are dealing with some unsavory folks," said Chris Hinde from Mining Journal magazine. "But I wouldn't say that makes them unusual for traders." Tony Hayward, the disgraced former BP CEO who presided over the worst oil spill in US history, has been approached by Glencore to become a non-executive director on the board of the company when it becomes public. While Rich sold the company in 1993, his take-no-prisoners approach to the commodities business lives on in today's traders and speculators, including the South African CEO Ivan Glasenberg, who gave Rich's trading empire the name Glencore. In a January interview with the Financial Times newspaper, his first in 20 years, Rich supported the share sale, although he acknowledged that it is "much more convenient" for a trader not to be a public company as mandatory disclosure and regulatory oversight "limits your activity". Perhaps, Glencore is going public to increase its size, allowing it to acquire large competitors, particularly the mining giant Xstrata. "They are so big now, that they cannot get any bigger unless they are listed," Hinde said, adding that some of the firm's 800 partners might want to take the company public with the hope of cashing out their millions over the next few years. Food insecurity Regardless of the firm's reasons, institutional investors from the US, East Asia and the Middle East have all committed to buying. Aabar, the sovereign wealth fund from the United Arab Emirates, controlled by Abu Dhabi's oil-rich monarchs, is expected to become the largest "cornerstone investor", pledging to buy about $1billion worth of stock. "It seems that they are buying a stake to strengthen the UAE's control over the global grain trade, for their own food security," said Kuyek. "In the absence of anything meaningful being done at the international level, - except for the same prescriptions of open markets and trade liberalisation." Food insecure countries in the Gulf, Northeast Asia, Korea and other regions are attempting to gain more direct control over food, as the market economy "can’t guarantee decent prices", he said. Back in her hut in Indonesia, on the front lines of the global food crisis, Lia Romi hasn't been following Glencore's stock flotation. She is worried about how to feed her three kids. "I've sacrificed several times not to buy books or clothes for my daughter and son, just for our daily food because I have no savings at all," she said. As Glencore's directors prepare to pocket their billions, it's unlikely that they will bet on Romi's future, as fluctuations in the global market could push her family over the edge. "Stability is to be prized," said Oxfam's David Green. And that is the last thing Glencore wants, as it's instability which is most profitable - for those who have the inside knowledge to exploit it.