-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- World Economy Europe Raises Interest Rates Slowly, but surely, the vise closes. The European Central Bank on Thursday raised interest rates by 0.5 percentage points in a bid to contain inflation and lay to rest uncertainty over the course of monetary policy. The increase, the first since the launch of the euro, took the ECB's refinancing rate to 3 per cent. It was accompanied in London by the Bank of England raising rates by 0.25 percentage points to 5.5 per cent. Financial markets had anticipated the ECB's move, which reversed a reduction of 0.5 percentage points made in April in response to fears of recession and deflation in the euro-zone. Wim Duisenberg,the ECB's president, said: "We were very sure that, had we moved by 25 basis points, we would have created expectations and speculation in markets that there would be another step to follow. That is precisely what we did not want." He said the rate rise was intended to counter accelerating private credit and money supply growth, rising industrial producer prices and the possibility of high wage settlements in next year's pay negotiations. "All indicators point in the direction that the risks on the upside are increasing," he said. The ECB signalled in July that it was moving to a tightening bias in its monetary policy but Ernst Welteke, the new Bundesbank head, was reluctant to support an early rate rise because Germany's economic recovery was less strong than in other euro-zone countries, notably France. The ECB's forecasts, and those of other international institutions, suggested that annual inflation would remain below the ECB's target ceiling of 2 per cent, but there was a risk that the level of 1.5 to 1.7 per cent would be breached, said Mr Duisenberg. Economists welcomed the size of the increase, saying a smaller rise might have fuelled suspicions of a dispute in the ECB's 17-member Governing Council. In the UK, robust pay growth, soaring house prices and buoyant consumer spending have strengthened the case for a tighter monetary policy. Underlying inflation, at 2.1 per cent, is below the government's 2.5 per cent target. However, the rapid recovery in output is expected to stoke price pressures. British banks reacted to the rate rise, the second in three months, by raising their interest rates. Halifax, the country's biggest mortgage lender, has put its lending rates under review, with a decision expected today. The rate rise disappointed exporters, who said it would hurt manufacturers by sending the pound higher. The Bank did not explain the move, only the second time it has failed to issue a statement with a change in interest rates. This prompted speculation of a dispute among members of its monetary policy committee and a rift over policy. The pound ended London trading at $1.637 against the dollar, half a cent down. The euro traded slightly weaker at $1.074. The Financial Times, November 5, 1999 Drug Policy Reno's Ibo-Gate Did Friends of First Family Steal the Cure for Heroin Addiction? Ibogaine...Is the first true cure for drug addiction being withheld from the American people while powerful insiders close to Janet Reno try to steal the patent from the man who invented it? Based on its own, independent investigation, the Miami newsweekly NEW TIMES concluded the Howard Hughes Foundation-backed U. of Miami was perpetrating an outright rip-off of Howard Lotsof's Ibogaine cure--the first one-dose, broad-spectrum treatment for polydrug dependency (coke, dope, nicotine, alcohol, speed..).[ see http://miaminewtimes.com/1997/091197/feature1-1.html] But did Dr. Deborah Mash and her husband Joe Geller (chairman of the Dade County Democratic party and close buddy of Hugh Rodham; brother of Congressman Geller of Miami) use their insider status and powerful connections to have Howard Lotsof brought up on specious criminal charges in Holland when their civil suit failed? When Deborah Mash and Lee Hearn (Dade Co Medical Examiner & long time Reno associate) testified in that proceeding, was their way have been cleared or facilitated in some way by the Attorney General of the United States, as part of a broader conspiracy to blacklist and defraud? Ibogaine is the story of how a small band of 60's radicals cut off behind enemy line under Ronald Reagan developed a super-weapon against Oliver North and the Contra crack conspiracy...an African rainforest substance that could wipe out coke and heroin addiction and end the drug war on terms favorable to the counter-culture. It is the story of how one man, Howard Lotsof, his wife Norma Alexander and a handful of followers started an international movement and forced authorities to do something--how the National Institute on Drug Abuse finally looked into it, spent $4 million at Medication development and another $20 million in block grants, then stopped development in 1995, telling Dr Deborah Mash she had to "get rid of" Lotsof or Ibogaine would never be approved. Who was behind the decision to blacklist Lotsof? Deborah Mash has bragged that she personally got the White House to intervene with David Kessler of the FDA to approve Phase I safety trials--only to suspend work and leave Lotsof twisting slowly, slowly in the wind. If Bill Clinton moved Ibogaine at FDA in because of public demand or in the interest of science, that would be proper--indeed, laudable. But if he did it as part of a scheme or conspiracy to rip off Lotsof, it's a crime. Deborah Mash also brags about her connections with the First Family; displaying on oversize picture of her and the Prez on the wall of her office. Her buddy Hillary has even been quoted plugging Ibogaine before a community group in Oakland, Ca, in 1994. Clinton is known to be several million dollars in debt. But under Deborah Mash's offer, 98% of Howard's billion-dollar invention would be available to distribute among her "investors." Will the politically -correct friends of the Attorney General using their connections to rip-off this man for his life work, a billion-dollar medication that could change the world? Ibogaine is the one story with the potential to set off an investigation, under the Independent Counsel Statute, of an Attorney General who's stonewalled all attempts to investigate Bill Clinton because she has heretofore be above suspicion of personal wrong-doing. Yet if a single memo or letter on U.S. Justice Dept stationery should surface in the Dutch case, promoting the prosecution of Lotsof, it could be an impeachable offense... After three Dutch courts refused the Lotsof case, the Court in the Hague--the country's highest--ruled that Nicole Krebus died because she sneaked heroin into an Ibogaine treatment session, and smoked some 23 hrs into her treatment--a definite no-no. (The attending physician in the Dutch matter, a Dr. Bastiaans, recently passed away. He was of an advanced age, but the stresses of dealing with this legal matter may have adversely affected his heart condition...) Bringing charges against Howard Lotsof, and not the attending physician, would be roughly equivalent to indicting pharmaceutical company executives in the FAIU case. FAIU was responsible for several fatal liver failures, yet no one was held criminally liable....not that Ibogaine has ever been proven to be responsible for the fatality in the first place. That is a theory of Drs. Mash and Lee Hearn--disproved by Dr. Kenneth Alper, chief organizer of this weekend's (Nov 5, 6) International Scientific Conference at N.Y.U. But that has not stopped Mash and her crew from initiating a new criminal case against Lotsof in Germany! (Nicole Krebus was German)! Stay tuned to this channel for breaking news. New York University's Institutional Review Board has just approved the first clinical trial of Ibogaine for rapid interruption of heroin addiction. For more information contact Dana Beal @ 212-677-7180 ... one of the co-authors of The Ibogaine Story: Report on the Staten Island Project, expert on the science involved and familiar with all the personalities in the story. Russian Follies A Few More Escape Hell in Chechnya But most don't. TRAFFIC trickled over the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia yesterday, with refugees telling of atrocious conditions in the war zone. The faces of the few allowed through spoke volumes about the hell they had left behind. Many women wept as they were bussed through the last checkpoint; others searched desperately for relatives among crowds waiting on the Russian side. "We are hungry, so hungry," one woman moaned. A five-year-old boy on her knee was gulping down huge mouthfuls of bread, a "welcome to Russia" present from other refugees. The Ibragimov family from the village of Samashki, had spent five days camping out with thousands of other frightened civilians after the Russian military decided to close the border. They survived on water from a canal, boiled over bonfires, after running out of food. Having run the gauntlet of air and artillery bombardments, the refugees then came close to being crushed to death against the Russian barbed wire in the pushing and shoving by the huge numbers of people trying to flee. "It was impossible to breathe", said one survivor. "My nine-year-old son fainted several times in that terrible crowd." Another survivor said there was only one explanation for the military's decision to close the border and then only allow hundreds to leave. She said: "The cowards are using us as a human shield." Just as the military has fought this latest war in Chechnya out of the world's sight, so they seem determined to hide what is happening at the border from the eyes of outsiders. Only Russian television stations, all unreservedly supportive of Moscow's military campaign, are allowed to film close to the border. All the same, even Russian television has been unable to conceal the appalling scenes at the main checkpoint known as Caucasus One. Crowds of civilians, most of them women, plead to be allowed out while Russian soldiers, protected by earthwork fortifications and barbed wire, train heavy machine guns on them. This tableau symbolises the whole war Russia has waged since it began its air strikes and artillery bombardment. It says its targets are "rebel bases" but more often than not they turn out to be ordinary Chechen villages. The bombing campaign seems aimed at forcing peaceful Chechens to flee their homes en masse. But the Russian military tactics on the ground, and particularly at the border, seem designed to force them to stay. Nearly 200,000 Chechens have fled their homeland, the vast majority of them down this dusty road, which is part of the main highway connecting the cities of Rostov and Baku, before the checkpoint was closed. That closure can only be explained as the exercise of military logic. And it is that, rather than any long-term strategy or even political expediency, let alone concern for the Chechen people, which now appears to be driving this war. * George Jones, Political Editor, writes: Tony Blair yesterday urged Russia to halt its military advance on the Chechen capital Grozny and seek a political solution to the conflict. In a letter to Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, he expressed concern about civilian casualties and the plight of refugees and called on Russia to give free access to humanitarian relief organisations. It is the second time in the past month that Mr Blair has written to his Russian counterpart about the crisis in Chechnya. He told Mr Putin he understood Russian fears and the threat of terror but believed "a lasting solution can only be achieved through the political process". In another sign of mounting concern in London, Mr Blair discussed the Chechen conflict with Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary. The London Telegraph, November 5, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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