France’s Socialist President Defends his 75% Tax Rate

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Francois Hollande last night tried to justify his plans for multi-billion-pound tax rises to an increasingly disillusioned France.

The Socialist president, whose popularity has slumped, appeared on live television to convince the public his policies could help turn the country’s economy around.

During the 25-minute appearance, he unveiled plans for tax increases of ‘between 15 to 20 billion euros’ (£12billion to £16billion), targeting wealthy households, savings and firms.

The money raised will be used for public services, including thousands of new civil servant jobs.

He confirmed that ‘all earnings over one million euros will be taxed at 75 per cent’, adding: ‘It’s symbolic, it will show an example.’

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Pacific Rim Nations: Food Security Mounting Problem

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Asia-Pacific leaders focused their attention on rising concern over food security on Sunday, as they prepared to wrap up their annual summit with an agreement to slash tariffs on trade in environmental goods and a call to keep markets open even in hard times.

Food security “is one of the most acute problems of our time,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in convening Sunday’s second and final “informal retreat” of the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum in this far eastern Russian seaport.

“Without ensuring food security, we cannot achieve our goal of enhancing the quality of life for our people,” he said before the closed door session got under way.

The explicit focus on food security by the leaders of the 21-member APEC reflects abiding concern over the potential for food prices to surge to politically volatile levels.

Current prices are high, though they remained flat in August and are below the levels that triggered rioting and unrest in parts of the developing world in 2007-2008. Another food crisis, in 2010-2011, also caused hardships for poorer consumers, especially in countries heavily dependent on food imports.

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Israel’s Knesset Speaker: Democratic ‘Jerusalem Mistake’ No Accident

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The absence of Jerusalem’s status as the capital of Israel in the Democratic Party platform was no oversight, and not the result of a “bureaucratic snafu,” as some Democrats tried to claim in the face of the embarrassing flip-flop on the matter at the party’s convention Wednesday night, Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin said Thursday. The Democrats intended to leave Jerusalem off the agenda, and only changed their minds due to the sharp criticism from Republicans and supporters of Israel in the U.S., he said.

“And I see no cause for optimism on their decision to change the platform to reflect Jerusalem’s status,” Rivlin said in a radio interview Thursday. “This was no mistake or slip of someone’s mind. I have no doubt that President Obama restored Jerusalem to the platform because of political and electoral pressure, and because of the sharp criticism in Israel and the U.S.,” he said.

The party most definitely suffered a black eye over the brouhaha, media reports in the U.S. said. After sharp criticism earlier in the week over the removal of a section in the platform saying that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, as well as removal of all references to G-d, party officials moved to reinstate both sections. The proposed change would include a line that said that “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel,” and that “it should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths.” G-d was also restored t the platform, with the sentence that Obama, on his second term, will conduct “an administration that will give every hard-working American the opportunity to realize his G-d given potential.”

However, when convention chairman Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, called for a voice vote to approve the insertion of the Jerusalem sentence, he was met by a loud chorus of opposition – with witnesses saying that at least half, if not more, of delegates voicing opposition to inserting the clause about Jerusalem. Voice approvals require a [two thirds] majority, and after the first vote, Villaraigosa awkwardly called for a second vote, citing “interference” that prevented him from clearly hearing the results. Only after three votes was the resolution declared approved. In response, witnesses said, the crowd turned on Villaraigosa, jeering him as he left the stage.

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Fruits of Biden’s Iraq Policy: Iran using Iraqi airspace to Supply Assad

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Iran has resumed shipping military equipment to Syria over Iraqi airspace in a new effort to bolster the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, according to senior American officials.

The Obama administration pressed Iraq to shut down the air corridor that Iran had been using earlier this year, raising the issue with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq. But as Syrian rebels gained ground and Mr. Assad’s government was rocked by a bombing that killed several high officials, Iran doubled down in supporting the Syrian leader. The flights started up again in July and, to the frustration of American officials, have continued ever since.

Military experts say that the flights have enabled Iran to provide supplies to the Syrian government despite the efforts Syrian rebels have made to seize several border crossings where Iranian aid has been trucked in.

“The Iranians have no problems in the air, and the Syrian regime still controls the airport,” said a retired Lebanese Army general, Hisham Jaber, who heads the Middle East Center for Studies and Research in Beirut.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has played the lead role on Iraq policy for the Obama administration, discussed the Syrian crisis in a phone call with Mr. Maliki on Aug. 17. The White House has declined to disclose details, but an American official who would not speak on the record said that Mr. Biden had registered his concerns over the flights.

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Obama Preparing to Give Muslim Brotherhood-Controlled Egypt Billions

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Nearly 16 months after first pledging to help Egypt’s failing economy, the Obama administration is nearing an agreement with the country’s new government to relieve $1 billion of its debt as part of an American and international assistance package intended to bolster its transition to democracy, administration officials said.

Egypt’s economy is increasingly precarious. The instability that followed the toppling of former president Hosni Mubarak devastated tourism, one of the country’s greatest sources of foreign currency. The administration’s efforts, delayed by Egypt’s political turmoil and by wariness in Washington about new leaders emerging from its first free elections, gained new urgency in recent weeks, even as the United States risks losing influence and investment opportunities to countries like China. President Mohamed Morsi chose China for his first official visit outside of the Middle East, although a spokesman said the crisis in Syria was the main issue driving the visit.

In addition to the debt assistance, the administration has thrown its support behind a $4.8 billion loan being negotiated between Egypt and the International Monetary Fund. Last week, it dispatched the first of two delegations to work out details of the proposed debt assistance, as well as $375 million in financing and loan guarantees for American financiers who invest in Egypt and a $60 million investment fund for Egyptian businesses.

The assistance underscores the importance of shoring up Egypt at a time of turmoil and change across the Middle East, including the relatively peaceful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, Libya’s unfinished transition, the showdown over Iran’s nuclear program and the war in Syria.

Mr. Morsi has called for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to leave power and end the bloodshed there, while China, along with Russia and Iran, has been a supporter of Mr. Assad as his military assaults opposition strongholds and civilians.

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Chinese Engaged in Major Nuclear Arms Buildup; New Mobile ICBM Tested Last Week

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China’s military carried out a fourth flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile last week, firing off a new road-mobile ICBM on Thursday, according to U.S. officials.

U.S. intelligence agencies monitored the flight test of the DF-31A missile from China’s Wuzhai Space and Missile Test Center to an impact range in western China.

Thursday’s DF-31A test came 10 days after the flight test at Wuzhai of a silo-based CSS-4 Mod 2 long-range missile, and several weeks after flight tests of a new road-mobile DF-41 ICBM, on July 24, and a submarine-launched JL-2 missile on Aug. 16.

U.S. intelligence officials believe the DF-41 will eventually be outfitted with between three and ten warheads. It would be the first time China’s strategic missiles were outfitted with multiple, independently-targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs.

China is currently in the middle of a major strategic nuclear forces buildup that includes four new ICBMs – the DF-41, JL-2, DF-31A, and another road-mobile missile called the DF-31 that is assessed to have less range than the DF-31A.

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US to Iran: ‘In Case of Israeli Strike, Please Don’t Fire on Our Bases’

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The United States has no intention of joining in a preemptive Israeli strike on Iran and expects the Islamic Republic to refrain from attacking US targets in the case of such an attack, senior Washington officials told their Iranian counterparts, according to a report in Yedioth Ahronoth on Monday.

In recent days, senior administration officials reportedly sent messages to Iran, through diplomats from two European states, addressing the possibility that Israel would launch a unilateral strike and establishing that the US expects Iran to not draw it into a conflict by firing on American army bases and aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.

Monday’s report came amid widespread debate over the level of coordination between Israel and the US on halting Iran’s nuclear program, which — despite assurances by US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro on Sunday that the relationship is as good as ever — appeared to be strained.

While Israel has warned that the Iranians are quickly approaching a potential weapons capability and that the use of force must be seriously considered, the US says sanctions and international diplomacy must be given more time to work.

Highlighting the disagreement between the two countries on the use of force were reports of a scaling-down of joint US-Israel missile defense exercises in October, and public comments by the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, who said last Thursday that he did not want to be “complicit” in an Israeli attack on Iran.

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The Strange, Strange Story of ‘Gay Fascism’ Deniers

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There has been an article floating around the Internet for a long time by a self-described “gay left-wing man” named Johann Hari, a columnist for the London Independent. The article is titled “The Strange, Strange Story of the Gay Fascists,” and you can read it for yourself at the vehemently pro-”gay” Huffington Post website. It contains the remarkably forthright admission that homosexuality and fascism have always gone hand in hand. Hari writes:

The twisted truth is that gay men have been at the heart of every major fascist movement that ever was – including the gay-gassing, homocidal Third Reich. With the exception of Jean-Marie Le Pen, all the most high-profile fascists in Europe in the past 30 years have been gay. It’s time to admit something. Fascism isn’t something that happens out there, a nasty habit acquired by the straight boys. It is – in part, at least – a gay thing, and it’s time for non-fascist gay people to wake up and face the marching music.

Now, I have a special interest in this article because I am the co-author, along with Orthodox Jewish researcher Kevin E. Abrams of “The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party,” which makes a nearly identical claim, but one backed with nearly 400 pages of documentation.

What I find most interesting about Hari’s article is that it has garnered virtually no opposition. The few comments on the HuffPo page are mostly benign, and if you do a search on Hari’s name you find not a single suggestion that his article constitutes “Holocaust revisionism” or that he, himself, is a “homophobic bigot.” That’s very strange, because I’ve been called both a revisionist and a bigot for writing “The Pink Swastika.” Indeed, the Southern Poverty Law Center (that legendary beacon of fair-mindedness) has labeled me a “hate group” for writing it (though they refuse to publicly debate me on the issue).

On a recent speaking trip to Oklahoma City, my arrival was featured in the newspaper in a story characterizing me as a “Holocaust revisionist.” This label has been permanently added to the “gay” activist talking points about me, as well as the canard that “the book has been discredited by historians.” It has not.

The Hari article is not the only admission by homosexuals that the Nazi Party was filled with “gays.” At least a fifth of the sources we cited in “The Pink Swastika” were homosexuals.

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Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Makes First Visit by an Egyptian Leader to Iran in Decades

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Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi arrived in Tehran on Thursday in the first visit by an Egyptian leader to Iran in decades.

The Egyptian president was attending a summit of the Nonaligned Movement, and is supposed to transfer leadership of the 120-nation bloc to Tehran.

Iran’s state TV in a live broadcast showed Morsi being received by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the summit conference hall in Tehran.

Tehran cut diplomatic relations in 1979 because of Egypt’s peace accord with Israel. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has considered Israel as its arch foe.

Iran’s leadership welcomed the 2011 uprising in Egypt that ultimately brought Morsi, an Islamist, to the presidency.

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Global Food Prices Soaring, Result of Crop Failures in US, Russia, ethanol

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Global food prices have leapt by 10% in the month of July, raising fears of soaring prices for the planet’s poorest, the World Bank has warned.

The bank said that a US heatwave and drought in parts of Eastern Europe were partly to blame for the rising costs.

The price of key grains such as corn, wheat and soybean saw the most dramatic increases, described by the World Bank president as “historic”.

The bank warned countries importing grains will be particularly vulnerable.

From June to July this year, corn and wheat prices each rose by 25% while soybean prices increased by 17%, the World Bank said. Only rice prices decreased – by 4%.

In the United States, the most severe, widespread drought in half a century has wreaked havoc on the corn and soybean crops while in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, wheat crops have been badly damaged.

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