Western European News Digest

Tremonti: Bank Bailout Threatens 'Dark Age'

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—Speaking at a public meeting in Munich, Germany, on Sept. 13, Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti warned that "the threat of a dark age is real," as a consequence of having "bailed out the most negative part of the banks," instead of restructuring them at the onset of the crisis. Tremonti said that "the mass of derivatives is as big as before the crisis," and that banks "nowadays issue currency, and states no longer do it."

Banks have been entrusted with drafting rules, but the first rules should be "to kick speculators out of the temple."

Tremonti spoke at an inter-religious meeting organized by the Sant'Egidio Community.

UBS Report Threatens War, Chaos, Dictatorship

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—Switzerland's largest banking house, UBS—formed by a 1998 merger between Union Bank of Switzerland and the Swiss Bank Corporation—issued a report in early September which threatens that there will be "authoritarian or military government, or civil war" if the Eurozone splits up because its bankrupt banks are not bailed out.

Lyndon LaRouche responded by charging UBS with attempting to start a panic, which is tantamount to criminal activity, and should be treated as such.

The UBS threats were issued in a lengthy study titled "Euro Break up—the Consequences", which includes the following mafia-like warning:

"Past instances of monetary union break-ups have tended to produce one of two results. Either there was a more authoritarian government response to contain or repress the social disorder (a scenario that tended to require a change from democratic to authoritarian or military government), or alternatively, the social disorder worked with existing fault lines in society to divide the country, spilling over into civil war."

Book on Britain's 'Secret War' vs. Italy Sold Out in Three Days

Sept. 14 (EIRNS)—Giovanni Fasanella's book The British Coup: From Matteotti to Moro—The Evidence of the Secret War To Control Oil and Italy (Il golpe inglese. Da Matteotti a Moro: le prove della guerra segreta per il controllo del petrolio e dell'Italia) was sold out three days after it hit the bookstands on Sept. 8. The book is a reconstruction of how Britain controlled Italian politics from 1924 to the present day, on the basis of original Foreign Office papers found by Fasanella's collaborator Mario J. Cereghino.

Highlights of the book are: The 1924 assassination of Mussolini's opponent Giacomo Matteotti, which consolidated Mussolini's dictatorship; the 1943 overthrow of Mussolini by the pro-British faction of Fascism, and the British plot for Italy's "unconditional surrender"; the British-engineered restoration of the Sicilian Mafia as well as British-controlled separatist plots; the British take-over of oil-rich Libya after 1945; the oil war between Enrico Mattei and Britain; the assassination of Mattei; the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) deployment in Italy; the British plot for a military coup in 1976; the kidnapping and assassination of Christian Democracy chairman Aldo Moro in 1978.

Belgian Parliament Approves Greek Bailout

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—Belgium's House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to ratify the country's participation in the Greek bailout scam decided at the EU summit on July 21; with 114 votes for, 13 against (Flemish separatists), and 1 abstention (Greens), Belgium is now the second country, after France, to vote up the bailout.

However, the Belgian Parliament will convoke a follow-up commission on the banking crisis. The first report of the Belgian Financial Commission implicitly called for a return to Glass-Steagall-style banking.

Italian Asset Sale Is Draghi Plan

Sept. 17 (EIRNS)—Liliana Gorini, chairwoman of the Italian Movimento Solidarieté LaRouche's movement in Italy, was interviewed yesterday by Radio Padania on the article appearing in Il Sole 24 Ore which discussed a "Britannia 2" plot to sell Italian state industries and assets in order to pay the Italian debt, an idea wrongly attributed to Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti.

Gorini took the opportunity to clarify, "I doubt that Tremonti is in favor of such a plan; he just demanded in Munich to chase speculators out of the Temple, and not to entrust banks with the solution of the problem, since they are the ones who caused it. As LaRouche often said, you do not entrust a fox with guarding the hen house. I would rather say these pressures on Italy come from Draghi [head of the Bank of Italy], who was the author of Britannia 1 in 1992, and from the ECB."

Sinn Fein To Run Presidential Candidate

Sept. 17 (EIRNS)—In announcing the decision of Sinn Fein Officer Board decision to ask Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, to stand for the election as Ireland's President, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said:

"This is a time of great challenge for all the people of Ireland. We need positive but authentic leadership. It will be a great honour for me to propose Martin McGuinness to contest this election on a broad, republican, citizen-centred platform.

"I believe that this election will give Martin the platform to continue the work which he has led in the North and in the peace process and to put it on a national footing.

"I believe he can be the people's president. If elected he will draw the average industrial wage. He will dedicate himself to a genuine national reconciliation and the unity of our people. He will personify hope in the great genius and integrity of all the people of this island, Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters...

"The campaign will give citizens the opportunity to make a stand for a better Ireland, for a united Ireland."

Genocidalists Create Ruckus Over Non-Nuclear Accident in France

Sept. 12 (EIRNS)—The explosion today of an incinerator that melts low-level radioactive metals at Condolet, France, located close to a nuclear site, Marcoule, which houses several decommissioned reactors, caused a ruckus among the anti-nuclear media. The accident took one life and injured four others, but it had nothing to do with nuclear technology. Nonetheless, immediately following the accident, France's Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) activated its emergency center in Paris.

"This accident bears no radiological risk nor (need for) action to protect populations," the ASN said in a statement. The building housing the incinerator had not been damaged, and none of the four injured, one of whom suffered serious burns, had been contaminated, ASN said. A security perimeter had been set up around the site, but the employees were not evacuated.

Opium Growing in British PM's Home District

Sept. 14 (EIRNS)—Stanley Collymore, in the website digitaljournal.com, says that "fields of opium poppy are presently being grown in England; that's not a wind up, it's true." Collymore claimed knowledge of an Afghanistan-type opium production den, with the telling exception that in Afghanistan such activities are in the open, in discernible contrast to what's going on in David Cameron's Oxfordshire as a very secretive affair.

Britain's Home Office has granted pharmaceutical company Macfarlan Smith a licence to harvest the poppies, and now they are being grown in tens of farms across Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Lincolnshire. Smith has declined to give any information about what it is up to, stating that it has been specifically instructed by the Cameron government not to say anything about the matter to anyone.