Africa’s classic depiction in the mainstream media, as a giant basketcase full of endless war, famine and helpless children creates an illusion of a continent utterly dependent on Western handouts. In fact, the precise opposite is true – it is the West that is reliant on African handouts. These handouts come in many and varied forms. They include illicit flows of resources, the profits of which invariably find their way into the West’s banking sector via strings of tax havens (as thoroughly documented in Nicholas Shaxson’s Poisoned Wells). Another is the mechanism of debt-extortion whereby banks lend money to military rulers (often helped to power by Western governments, such as the Congo’s former President Mobutu), who then keep the money for themselves (often in a private account with the lending bank), leaving the country paying exorbitant interest on an exponentially growing debt.
Category: Iraq
Sitting at a computer and killing people the government told you to deserves official veneration The Defense Department has decided to create a medal to honor US soldiers who sit at a computer and operate…
“If a mandarinate ruled America, the recruiting committee on September 11 would have had to find someone like Cheney.” Washington Post author Barton Gellman in his book “Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency” Terrorism. Emergency…
Personal information uploaded by British computer users to cloud services such as Apple’s iCloud and Google’s Drive can be spied upon by US intelligence without the need to apply for a warrant, it has emerged….
[The 4th Media Editor’s note: The following article was written in 2008. However, we believe the issue the article deals with is still very much contemporary and deeply appealing to most of our global readers.]…
132 Tunisians were killed in the Syrian city of Aleppo and the surrounding countryside. The Tunisians had been deployed to Syria to support the ongoing campaign by foreign backed insurgents, to conquer and secure Aleppo…
Truth told, this American observer has attended his share of international conferences and has traveled in more than 70 countries. But never has he visited such a complex country, evolving culture, and striving energized society, populated by idealistic…
Alfonso Luigi Marra charges secretive organization colluded to pick Mario Monti as Prime Minister Italian lawyer Alfonso Luigi Marra has requested that the Public Prosecutor of Rome investigate the secretive Bilderberg Group for criminal activity,…
In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released last week, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take…
Iran Buys Magnets That DO NOT FIT Its Centrifuges The paranoid David Albright of ISIS, the Institute of Scary Iran Stories (formerly the Institute of Scary Iraq Stories), has issued a newreport. The report alleges that one of 70 million…