Venezuela strongly condemns Colombian Government accusations

Caracas, Jul 30 ABN.- The Venezuelan Government expressed through a statement its contempt against the accusations issued by the Colombian Administration, with regards to an armament allegedly coming from Venezuela and which were seized to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and described as hypocritical the actuation of the Colombian authorities, which try to justify the internal conflict of their country by different means.

Following, the complete text of the statement.

The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela expresses its indignation before the irresponsibility with which the Government of the Republic of Colombia has destroyed the undertaken efforts so as to build a binational relation for the benefit of both nations, putting openly at risk the peace and stability of the region.

The accusation against the Venezuelan Government about an armament allegedly seized to the FARC and the statement of the Colombian Government, issued on July 29 2009, are the illustration of the hypocrisy with which the Colombian authorities act when it deals with justifying the warmonger madness they develop domestically and which they try to impose to the rest of the countries as a single regional policy.

The Colombian Government, getting away from its own responsibility, expects to justify the installation on its territory of five military bases from the major world militarist power, alleging that three rocket launchers supposedly property of the Venezuelan Army would be in hands of a subversive group.

As usual, the Colombian Government does not explain how is it that thousands of arms circulate in their territory in hands of subversive groups, but it cynically demands Venezuela’s to explain the origin of three of them. Why do not they demand the United States or Israel to explain how is it that thousands of arms made in those countries are in hands of the guerrilla armies inside Colombia’ According to the hackneyed script of the Colombian elite, the sixty years of internal war are not Colombia’s responsibility but of its neighboring countries, with a specific preference for those in which today govern left-wing forces.

If the Colombian oligarchy, before its historical failure on building an affordable country, has taken the dishonorable decision of loan it free to the United States, it shall assume it openly before the Colombian people rather than protecting behind absurd pretexts. The Colombia today, military occupied and presided by a war-loving elite, has become into a latent risk for the whole region.

The Venezuelan Government ratifies its rejection to this vulgar campaign, and it warns that every aggression from the Colombian Government will be answered with steady measures. The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela reaffirms its call to the Colombian people and the governments and people of the region to, together, halt this warmonger policy that intends to become South America into an area of violence. We are on time of stopping the militarist madness of the elite that today governs in Colombia.

The Ugly Face of The Dictatorship in Honduras in Pictures. This is the “Democracy” the Bastards Proclaim Around the World

Venezuela: Class struggle heats up over in battle for workers’ control

by Federico Fuentes
On July 22, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez again declared his complete support for the proposal by industrial workers for a new model of production based on workers’ control.

This push from Chavez, part of the socialist revolution, aims at transforming Venezuela’s basic industry. However, it faces resistance from within the state bureaucracy and the revolutionary movement.

Presenting his government’s “Plan Socialist Guayana 2009-2019”, Chavez said the state-owned companies in basic industry have to be transformed into “socialist companies”.

The plan was the result of several weeks of intense discussion among revolutionary workers from the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG). The CVG includes 15 state-owned companies in the industrial Guayana region involved in steel, iron ore, mineral and aluminium production.

Israel:”Breaking the Silence:” Testimonies of Israeli Soldiers

“Breaking the Silence is an organization of veteran Israeli soldiers that collects anonymous testimonies of soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories during the Second Intifada.” They recount experiences that deeply affected them, including abusing Palestinians, looting, destroying property, and other practices “excused as military necessities, or explained as extreme and unique cases.”

They believe otherwise in describing “the depth of corruption which is spreading in the Israeli military” to which Israeli society and most Western observers turn a blind eye. “Breaking the Silence” was established to force an uncomfortable reality into the open to “demand accountability regarding Israel’s military actions in the Occupied Territories perpetrated by us in our name.”

Its new booklet features 54 damning testimonies from 30 Israeli soldiers on their experiences in Operation Cast Lead. They recount what official media and government sources suppressed with comments like:

Stealth Bull Market: Imminent Market Correction

The price action following the SELL signals earlier this month can only be described as a VICIOUS BEAR TRAP !, We got sell signals, good ones for Stock BULLs such as myself (as of Mid March 2009) it was a clear sign to get ready to accumulate more, for bears it was a sign to double up for the long awaited bear market RETEST and maybe to make back some of the money lost shorting the rally ?

Even though rising prices for a bull during the stealth bull market is good, however, the vicious rally FOLLOWING Clear Technical SELL SIGNALS is something that signals alarm bells, as while it can be entertaining to gloat at the crushing of the bears, however when I look in the mirror, I have to wonder will I be next to be caught in a vicious BULL TRAP ! This is a vicious market and whether one is a bull or a bear one NEEDS to be on their guard as the consequences of getting sucked into TECHNICAL ANALYSIS, as opposed to REAL TRADING i.e. REACTING to Price movements in REAL TIME, could easily wipe traders out. More on REAL TRADING in my site walayatstreet.com which will go live once it is ready, yes people have been patiently waiting but the site cannot go live until it has the requisite articles to explain the many aspects of trading as the consequences of not doing so will result in a deluge of emails, so as with the markets PATIENCE is in order.

Back to the stock market, let’s dissect what happened, the precise point where the summer correction scenario abruptly terminated and where we are heading to next:

Original Analysis

The analysis of April 26th concluded that the Dow is targeting a high of 8,750 by mid May 2009 which was expected to be followed by a significant correction of 14% towards a Dow target of 7,500.

Dow Hits 8750 Target

The Dow hit the target on 2nd of June which was confirmed in the quick update at the time, and therefore expectations were for the significant correction to materialise.

Dow Gives Sell Signals During June and Early July

Analysis of of 7th July – The Dow spent early June distributing along 8,800, which gave plenty of time to put on short positions with tight stops. The key chart trigger was the lower high at 8,600 which targeted a break of 8,200. The pattern size is 400 points which projects to 7,800 before the next expected bounce. The overall pattern size was about 650 which projects to 8,200 minus 650 = 7,550, which is pretty close to the original projection of April 26th for the target for the Correction AFTER the peak around 8,750. The chart also showed a head and shoulders price pattern with a similar measuring move.

The conclusion was that the Dow was still projecting towards a target of 7,500 to suck in more traders on the bear side before the resumption of the stealth stocks bull market. The Mega-trend remained for the stocks stealth bull market to move towards a target of 9,750 by the end of this year.

Dow Busts TA Expectations by Triggering a Series of Buy Triggers

Technical analysis was busted – There is no point in second guessing as to why the pattern changed, the fact is simple technical analysis DOES NOT WORK MOST OF THE TIME, hence one needs to always have at the FRONT of their mind, (not the back) that the MARKETS ARE MANIPULATED! As I have voiced throughout the year at key market turning points to ignore the fundamentals and listen to the price, as you are trading the price not the data! Still the price re-action observed was not something that could have been anticipated by anyone, rather only reacted to in real time trading environment.

Where Next for the Stock Market

Near 1000 point moves spread over just over a week makes this a great traders market but is it still a forecasters market ? I have say it is tough to call a market as vicious as this but my existing analysis as of March 09 is for a rally to 9750 for the Dow this year, the price action to date is inline with this expectation. So taking into account that this is a potentially very vicious market here is my analysis -

Dow Analysis and Projection

TREND ANALYSIS – The rally off of 8,090 has been strong and powerful and could carry for some more points before correcting. The key change to the behaviour of the trend is the development of a new primary trend line that should now contain all corrections and in fact projects towards 9,750 into December 2009. Therefore implying that we could see the Dow touch this line several times during the year. The anticipated immediate correction is expected to bounce off of this line.

RETRACEMENT LEVELS - The Dow Rally from 8087 has retraced 100% of the decline from 8877. The correction therefore was 8877 to 8087 or 33% which is a sign of strength. A rally of 200% of the correction projects towards a target of 9667. With intermediate term targets of 133% 9137, 150% 9272, 166% 9400 as key potential resistance areas. Therefore this is suggestive of a sustained trend along these price points, to be accompanied by corrections of between 33% to 50%.

PRICE POINTS - Immediate support is at 8,600, which would represent a 50% retracement from the above 9137 % level. The heavy consolidation area between 8,600 and 8,900 is indicative of further price action in this range which is suggestive of the Dow spending further significant time in this zone for several months. This is suggestive of more sharp rallies followed by downtrends back into this price zone for some months. Key support is at 8080 a break of which would negate this scenario.

ELLIOTT WAVE THEORY – Elliott wave count is straight forward and has not changed since the Stock market bottomed in March. The abc correction followed by the strong rally, is highly suggestive of an impulse wave 1, therefore implying a bull run of similar magnitude of the rally from 6470 to 8900, which projects to 10,500 that’s significantly above the original target of 9,750.

MACD - the MACD indicator cross has signaled a buy, which is supportive of an overall bullish trend, though not at a particularly oversold level therefore implying that the trend will be more volatile and laboured than that of the rally from 6470 to 8900. As well as signaling that the eventual peak may set the market up for a more significant decline.

CYCLES – The bull market is suggestive of a 3 months up, 1 month down overall cycle pattern, this suggests a target of late October for the rally peak before a more significant correction takes place.

SEASONAL TREND - The seasonal trend should be for stocks to decline into early September, therefore this is contrary to the building scenario.

FUNDAMENTALS – People always ask reasons as to why stocks should rise, though in reality the reasons always become apparent AFTER the market has already moved, as I warned in Mid March, however I did at that time also give possible reasons, which still remain as the primary reasons for explanations of why stocks are rallying into a stealth bull market -

A. The markets move ahead of the economy, whilst I don’t profess to know the EXACT reasons of why they will move AHEAD until that becomes apparent AFTER the market has already moved, however I do have some reasoning in that INFLATION, Zero Interest Rates (Forcing savers / financial institutions to take risks) Quantitative Easing (money printing), and HUGE Fiscal stimulus packages that are laying all of the ground work for the next bubble regardless of how bad things appear as any outcome that prevents another Great Depression will be seen as bullish! i.e. even a low growth high inflation stagflationary environment WILL be seen as a positive outcome against the present day data that points to a collapse of global demand on a scale not seen since the Great Depression. The governments HAVE learned the lessons from the Great Depression and WILL succeed in inflating the asset prices and ignite the next perhaps even bigger bubble, meanwhile the stealth bull market will continue which by the time everyone realizes what’s going on stocks will already by up by perhaps more than 50% from the low.

However in the final analysis one is trading the stock market and NOT the economic data, so yes reasons can always be found, but when it comes to actual trading they are irrelevant, especially at market junctures.

EARNINGS – Analysts are surprised !, earnings are surprising to the upside, the earnings ‘fundamentalists’ have been busy revising previous earnings forecasts that convinced many that fresh bear market lows were imminent and thus missing out on a stocks bull market that has already moved 40%!, Nevertheless its not surprising to me that earnings are surprising to the upside, expect even more ‘surprises’ later this year, after all where do you think a;; pf the bailout billions have gone ? It has to go somewhere and we are seeing it the profit surprises in master market manipulators of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan

STOCKS STEALTH BULL MARKET – My last analysis in the midst of the correction stated that the probability of an end to the current fledgling bull market being at less than 20%, with the rally to date confirming that we remain in a STRONG MULTI-YEAR stocks stealth bull market. I am amazed that a 40% rally over 3 months is STILL perceived as a BEAR market rally?, what happened to the 20% rule?.

MARKET MANIPULATION – The powerful rally following a HUGE technical SELL SIGNAL, is clear sign of market manipulation i.e. in terms of generating the sell signal AGAINST the bull market trend so as to PROFIT from the subsequent powerful short covering rally. Don’t forget this is a BULL MARKET, All corrections are to get sucker money in on the short-side as an enable for a larger more profitable subsequent rally.

CONCLUSION – My earlier fears about a bull trap appear to be unfounded, the stock chart is talking that we are in a stocks bull market, and is suggestive of a trend higher towards a 2009 target of between 9750 and 10,000, with a high probability that we may get there before the end of October!. Key danger areas for this scenario are a. for the trend line to contain corrections, and b. that 8080, MUST HOLD.

What are the Origins of Swine Flu?

Is the H1N1 Virus Endemic in Canada’s Hog Farms?
The Case of British Columbia

by Alex Roslin

Remember when they called it “swine flu”? The first pandemic flu in 41 years was quickly renamed “H1N1” in its early days after the pig industry, in damage-control mode, proclaimed loudly that people couldn’t get sick from eating pork. And they said that it looked like the flu was spreading worldwide from person to person—not from pigs to people.
More than two months after the initial outbreak, it’s still not clear how the flu started. The most accepted explanation is that a farm worker at a massive swine operation in Mexico got the virus from a pig and carried it into the wider population, where it spread without any more involvement from pigs.

But a closer look at the data on H1N1 cases in B.C. and the rest of Canada suggests the pandemic has a much closer relationship with pig farming than suspected. That relationship is especially striking in the most serious cases of the flu that have caused hospitalization and death.

The Fraser Health Authority, the district with the largest number of pigs in the province—and one of the most intensively farmed areas in Canada—has a 39-percent-higher rate of confirmed H1N1 cases per capita (9.7 per 100,000 people) than the provincial average (7.0 per 100,000), according to data from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control as of July 6. B.C.’s first confirmed death from H1N1 flu occurred on July 13 in the region.

US Revokes Visas for Coup Officials from Honduras; Human Rights Abuses Escalate

The US has revoked the visas of four officials serving in the Honduran coup government. Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya had asked the Obama administration to revoke the visas in order to increase international pressure on the coup regime.

The U.S. has revoked the visas of four officials serving in the Honduran coup government. Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya had asked the Obama administration to revoke the visas in order to increase international pressure on the coup regime. Zelaya remains in a Nicaragua border town just outside Honduras.

Honduras: Anti-Chavez ‘free speech’ warriors linked to coup

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) is well-known for its mission to expose the Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez as a threat to free speech “all over the continent”.

These brave free speech warriors made a big deal this year about how they “dared” to hold a meeting in the Venezuelan capital, “defying” the repression of Chavez’s dictatorial regime.

It turns out that the IAPA has found little to condemn in regards to the dictatorship that has installed itself by military force in Honduras.

This regime has closed many media outlets, threatened and detained journalists, suspended constitutional rights, imposed nation-wide curfews and expelled the broadcasting teams of Latin America-wide station Telesur and Venezuelan state TV channel VTV from Honduras at gunpoint.

Bombing for a Juster World?

The Problem With the “Responsibility to Protect”

By JEAN BRICMONT

On July 23, a debate concerning the Responsibility to Protect took place in front of the General Asssembly of the United Nations. The responsibility to protect (R2P) is a notion agreed to by world leaders in 2005, that holds States responsible for shielding their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and related crimes against humanity, requiring the international community to step in if this obligation is not met. This last point is suspected to be related to the “right of humanitarian intervention » and is the source of many debates.The discussion was initiated by General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto (from Nicaragua) and gathered Noam Chomsky, Gareth Evans, a supporter of R2P, former Foreign Minister of Australia and, until recently, president of the International Crisis Group, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a prominent African writer and defender of human rights, and myself. Here is the text of my speech

I would like, in this talk, to challenge the intellectual assumptions underlying the notion and the rhetoric of R2P. In a nutshell, my thesis will be that the main obstacle to the implementation of a genuine R2P are precisely the policies and the attitudes of the countries that are most enthusiastic about this doctrine, namely the Western countries, and in particular the US.

Twitterers paid to spread Israeli propaganda.Internet warfare team unveiled

by Jonathan Cook

Nazareth. The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems.   Israel’s foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.   Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government’s line on the Middle East conflict.   “To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project.   The existence of an “internet warfare team” came to light when it was included in this year’s foreign ministry budget. About $150,000 has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.   The team will fall under the authority of a large department already dealing with what Israelis term “hasbara”, officially translated as “public explanation” but more usually meaning propaganda. That includes not only government public relations work but more secretive dealings the ministry has with a battery of private organisations and initiatives that promote Israel’s image in print, on TV and online.   In an interview this month with the Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, Mr Shturman, the deputy director of the ministry’s hasbara department, admitted his team would be working undercover.   “Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis,” he said. “They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed.”   Rona Kuperboim, a columnist for Ynet, Israel’s most popular news website, denounced the initiative, saying it indicated that Israel had become a “thought-police state”.