Burma Hires Washington Lobbyists Podesta Group

(Megan Wilson’s article from The Hills on 16 April 2015.)

Tony Podesta.

The government of Myanmar has hired lobbyists in Washington for the first time in more than a decade, signing a contract worth $840,000 with the Podesta Group. Myanmar, also known as Burma, has had a tumultuous history, with colonization giving way to years of military rule. The country is in the midst of political reforms spurred in 2010 that were intended to move the country toward democracy.

The contract comes ahead of crucial elections in the country later this year that could go a long way toward determining whether the country’s rapprochement with the United States continues. “The breadth of the transition that’s going on in the country is so wide and so deep that it’s having a lot of unintended consequences in the country and in the society,” said Priscilla Clapp, a U.S. envoy to Burma from 1999 to 2002. She served as the diplomatic liaison during what she calls “the bad old days,” the “deep military days.” 

“I suspect that this is some of the reason the embassy would want to have a very highly reputable, politically savvy firm representing them here,” she added, “because they don’t have the capacity to maneuver the political system here in the U.S., they want to make sure that the policy community in Washington understands them better.”

Saudi Arabia Beheaded Burmese Woman In Public

 (Walid Shoebat’s article from Shoebat Foundation on 15 January 2015.)

“I did not commit the murder. I did not commit the murder” cries out the woman as she was dragged off to the street to get beheaded. “I will not forgive you. I will not forgive you” she adds telling her executioners that she will not forgive them for what they were about to do to her. She insists crying out “This is injustice. This is injustice”.

The scene shows what the Saudi authorities have carried out Tuesday morning, the seventh death sentence since the beginning of 2015, this time it was a lady from Burma (Myanmar) who as the report claims was “accused of killing her seven year old step daughter using a broom stick in her vagina and anus”.

Is it possible that the young girl was molested by a family member and died to only frame this foreigner? We will never find out, but the Saudi justice system has been known for its abuses against foreigners in order to cover up for the Saudi pedigree.

China Rapid Slowdown To Hit Australian Economy

(AAP article direct from the YAHOO Finance News on 14 April 2015.)

China's worst economic slowdown in 25 years will hit Australia as iron ore prices tumble, the World Bank says. One of the bank's top economists says a more severe moderation was possible in the economy of Australia's biggest trading partner.

Australia's growth pace had deteriorated sharply since the first quarter of 2014 as declining prices for key export commodities depressed mining investment, the World Bank noted. China's growth in 2014 was the weakest since 1990 but the bank says things are set to get worse - just a month after the Chinese government cut its growth target to seven per cent.

"The significant negative impact on Australia and New Zealand, among the world's largest commodity suppliers, would lead to indirect spillovers on the Pacific Island countries, given their tight links through trade, investment and aid," its East Asia and Pacific Economic Update report predicted.

Pope Francis Called “Armenian Genocide” The Genocide

 (AP article direct from theNew York Post on 12 April 2015.)

Armenian Genocide (1915).

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday called the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks “the first genocide of the 20th century” and urged the international community to recognize it as such, sparking a diplomatic rift with Turkey at a delicate time in Christian-Muslim relations.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who was on hand to mark the 100th anniversary of the slaughter at a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, praised the pope for calling a spade a spade in an interview with The Associated Press. But Turkey, which has long denied a genocide took place, immediately summoned the Vatican ambassador in Ankara to complain.

“The pope’s statement which is far from historic and legal truths is unacceptable,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted. “Religious positions are not places where unfounded claims are made and hatred is stirred.”

Amos Yee: The Teen-Ager Dissident Of Singapore

(Nathan Heller’s article direct from the New Yorker on 10 April 2015.)

Singaporean dissident Amos Yee and his father.

The most winsome political dissident you’ve never heard of, Amos Yee, is a Singaporean, a YouTube personality, and an activist who takes his cause more seriously than he takes himself. 

He has hair like a haystack in late afternoon and the nervous timing of a standup nebbish. He curses as imaginatively as a Scotsman in an Iannucci script, and, despite his perfect vision, he wears glasses on camera, for style.

He’s a humanist—a close student of street idiom and indie film—but he has a data wonk’s appreciation for comparative statistics and a wariness of received wisdom. On concerns such as gay rights, income inequality, and free speech, he’s outspoken on the right side of history. He is seventeen years old.

He is also, in his home of Singapore, an alleged criminal for what he’s said. On Friday, March 27th, Yee uploaded a video that criticized Lee Kuan Yew, the recently deceased founding father of postwar Singapore, and also took a swipe at organized Christianity.

Central Bankers’ Bubble: Boom To Bust In Australia?

(Lindsay David’s article direct from the DOMAIN.com on 27 March2015.)

Australia is in one of the worst housing bubbles we have ever seen!

By all accounts, Australia is experiencing what is one of the greatest credit-fuelled real estate bubbles in modern times. On the back of a collapsing mining sector, we can thank the RBA, APRA, ASIC and the political elite in Canberra for creating a flawed household wealth-creation strategy that shares all the hallmarks of a predictable economic disaster.

In plain English, since the mid-1990s, Australia's strategy is for home buyers and investors to borrow heavily from lenders and flip houses to the next buyer who has taken out even more debt to speculate.

Today, all this country has to show for it is a $1.9 trillion mountain of household debt that will make the US credit-fuelled housing bubble of the last decade look like a walk in the park when our housing bubble bursts.

The unfortunate victims of today's "wealth-creation" strategy are young home buyers and middle-income earners who are either completely priced out of the market or leveraged through the roof.

RBA Printing $ 4 Billion A Day Inflating Housing Bubble?

 (Sydney house prices are going through roof because of RBA’s massive daily cash injections.)

Crowded suburban houses in Sydney's West.

Twenty years ago one could buy an average house (3-bedder) in Sydney’s West or South-West for only about 100,000 Australian dollars. Today an average house in those West and South-west suburbs are fetching 700,000 A$.

At that inflated price one can easily buy a brand-new 4 or 5-bedroom beach house on a New York beach like the famous Rockaway Beach. But for a small old house on a bland street in a crime-ridden poor suburb in Sydney’s West or South-West? What the hell is going on in Australia, especially in Sydney?

The answer is quite simple. The Australian central bank RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) has been printing and injecting massive amount of cash into the banking system with the good intention of reviving the rapidly slowing economy apparently due to the slowdown in China.

Al Shabaab Muslims Slaughtered 148 Christian Students

(Kenya University Attack article direct from the ABC News on 3April 2015.)

A terrorist attack carried out at a Kenyan college campus has ended with 147 students killed, the country's interior ministry says. At least 79 others were wounded after Al Shabaab gunmen stormed the Moi campus at Garissa University College near the border with Somalia, authorities said.

"587 students have been evacuated from Garissa University College, 79 injured. All students have been accounted for," The Kenya National Disaster Operation Centre said on Twitter. Speaking to reporters in Garissa, interior minister Joseph Nkaissery did not specify precisely how many students, staff or security personnel had died but said four Al Shabaab fighters were killed.

One other suspected gunman was also captured while trying to flee the scene, officials said. Somali Islamist group Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack seven hours after firing on the college campus, and said it was holding Christian hostages inside.

Amos Yee’s Outburst On Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew

(AFP/Reuters article direct from ABC News on 31 March 2015.)

A Singaporean teenager arrested for posting an expletive-laden YouTube video attacking the country's late founding leader Lee Kuan Yew and Christianity has faced court. Amos Yee, 16, smiled and fidgeted as his charges were read to him in a district court.

He was charged with three separate counts, including one for actions that have the "deliberate intention of wounding the religious or racial feelings of any person". He was also charged with putting into circulation an obscene object, as well as for threatening, abusive or insulting communication under the city-state's newly enacted Protection from Harassment Act.

In an eight-minute video titled Lee Kuan Yew is finally dead, Yee launched a scathing attack on the 91-year-old political patriarch who was cremated after a state funeral on Sunday. In the video, Yee, who was arrested on Sunday, also likened the city-state's first prime minister to Jesus as he launched a tirade against Christianity.