Russian military border moves worry allies: US official
NATO members behind the former Iron Curtain are concerned by Russia's military moves in its Baltic territory of Kaliningrad, a senior US arms-control official said Friday."Clearly there are concerns, and I've heard them expressed not only here in Poland but in other countries in the region," said Rose Gottemoeller, US assistant secretary of state.
Kaliningrad, sandwiched between the Baltic Sea, Poland and Lithuania, is a military hub.
On Tuesday Lithuania's Defence Minister Rasa Jukneviciene told the media Russia had deployed short-range nuclear missiles there.
And another story regarding famine in the coming months:
China's wheat crop at risk, world wary
There is bad news on the global food front. In an alert issued this week, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that more than two-thirds of China's gigantic wheat crop may be under risk "because of substantially below-normal rainfall" this winter.
The affected areas in the northern plains of China produced over 75 million tonne of China's total production of 112 million tonne of wheat last year. Any shortfall in Chinese production would have serial effects on availability and prices of wheat around the world.
For some reason, this story isn't receiving much attention by the MSM in the U.S., but elsewhere in the world, this has become a big story - one that has raised significant concerns:
High food prices have been feeding growing restlessness and anger in a swathe of countries including West Asia. Egypt had experienced an 18.5% rate of inflation driving up prices of all food commodities except bread which is subsidized by the government to the tune of $1.5 billion annually.
This was a major contributory factor to the 18-day uprising that dislodged the three-decade-long dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. Protests against high food prices have taken place in Oman, Israel and Jordan and have contributed to political unrest in Yemen, Tunisia and Algeria.
Wheat flour prices were 16% higher than a year ago in China driven by fears of drought
Nervous governments across the world are trying to stem the tide in different ways. Several countries in West Asia are stocking up on foodgrain. Iraq, where agricultural production has declined considerably, has placed orders for 300,000 tonne of wheat from the US, with options for another 100,000 tonne.
Jordan and Lebanon submitted tenders for 100,000 tonne and 22,500 tonne respectively. Algeria, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia too placed large orders recently. Others, like Russia, have banned exports.
All these point to an impending crisis in food availability and prices that could lead to further turmoil globally.
Don't forget, Jesus warned us that famine would be a growing problem in this last generation, and indeed it is becoming a reality.
Back to the Middle East:
Israel has many concerns after Mubarak regime falls
First, while the peace between Israel and Egypt under Mubarak was cold, it still served to balance Israel’s rivalry with Iran and mounting tensions with Turkey. As the situation stands now, there is no regional Arab superpower tipping the scales in Israel’s favor.
Egypt has completely lost its status in the area, while Turkey and Iran are on the way up,” former Israeli Ambassador to Cairo Zvi Mazel told Israel’s Ynet news portal. “As long as we had Mubarak, there was no void in our relations with the region. Now we’re in big trouble.”
At present, former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) directory Mohammed ElBaradei is emerging as the leading opposition figure. But ElBaradei is aligned with the radical Muslim Brotherhood, which has vowed to return Egypt to a state of war with Israel if it ever came to power.
The Brotherhood has said it will not directly contest the presidency, but exercising influence over a puppet like ElBaradei would be enough to drastically and catastrophically alter the regional balance that existed prior.
Mubarak and Anti-Semitism: A Boomerang Effect?
Mubarak is gone, chased from power by the pressure of the Egyptian “street,” but also by that of Western capitals and the Western media. The latter made itself virtually as a whole into the propaganda arm of the “revolution,” ceaselessly extolling its virtues, while steadfastly refusing to see, much less examine, its dark side.
As I showed in two previous PJM reports ( see here and here) the evidence of anti-Semitic and/or anti-Israeli sentiment among the anti-Mubarak protests was extensive.Moreover, the evidence reveals not only the protestors’ hostility to Israel and/or Jews as such, but also that this hostility was inseparable from their opposition to Mubarak.
Once again, a story that isn't being covered by the MSM. The boomerang effect is now described:
As such evidence began trickling out, a common response among supporters of the “revolution” was to suggest that the pro-Mubarak forces were also employing anti-Semitic insults against the protestors and/or foreign journalists.
Such claims were typically unsupported by any evidence at all, let alone the mass of evidence revealing the anti-Semitic/“anti-Zionist” current among the protestors themselves. The ultimate source for the claims appears to have been Al Jazeera.
There is also, however, a more sophisticated variant of the same sort of argument. According to this variant, Mubarak has fallen victim to a kind of “boomerang effect.” He had himself been responsible for fomenting the widespread anti-Semitism in Egyptian society, and hence if he had now become the principal target of this anti-Semitism, he was merely reaping what he had sowed.
There is much more in this article, that is well worth reading.
And this - again, under the category of "News you won't find in the MSM":
The Coming Battle for Egypt
The Egyptians, in what has become the first social networking-precipitated revolution, (as described by Google marketing executive Wael Ghonim) have succeeded in the first phase of revolution.
With the military now assuming power, the rest of the world and in particular the citizens of the United States will quickly and at their country's peril turn their attention to other matters.
That is so true. The U.S. and its infamous "short-attention span" will quickly move on to other news.
However, history has shown, starting with the French Revolution in 1789 through the Iranian Revolution in 1978, that these uprisings succeed or fail based on either economic or social factors or a combination of both, particularly when there is no one standing in the wings ready to assume immediate power.
The key to the future government of Egypt is economic. While there is never an ideal time for an overthrow, there are factors at play that will make peaceful transition to a true democracy exceedingly difficult and open the door for the radical Islamists to either take over or play a dominant role in any future government.
This is a guarantee. A lock. Something one can count on. This will be precipitated by the following:
The key to the future government of Egypt is economic. While there is never an ideal time for an overthrow, there are factors at play that will make peaceful transition to a true democracy exceedingly difficult and open the door for the radical Islamists to either take over or play a dominant role in any future government.
These problems include significant unemployment, decline in foreign investments, significant inflation, rising interest rates, rising food prices and famine.
The interim government in Egypt will be faced with high unemployment, rising food prices and shortages as well as agitation from the radical Islamist elements. This is a recipe for further massive upheaval and the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood, who by standing on the sidelines throwing rocks at the government can proclaim to the populace that they can solve Egypt's problems.
Whether the Brotherhood has the ability to solve these issues is immaterial; they will attract the attention of those living below the poverty level that makes up, per the World Bank, 43% of the population.
You can count on this scenario. We've seen it too many times under identical situations that Egypt now faces.
As the U.S. media moves on to more important topics, such as what Lady GaGa is wearing or whether Demi has had more botox, we prophecy watchers will be following events in and around Egypt closely as the last days headed into the Tribulation approach.
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