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The real scandal hidden by gags is what goes on in family courts
The walls of secrecy surrounding snatched children are creating a one-sided justice system, argues Christopher Booker.
In all the fuss about the secrecy of our courts – after MP John Hemming named a footballer in the Commons – the point where the issue began has been almost entirely lost. Mr Hemming’s concern stems from his longstanding campaign to expose the secrecy surrounding our family courts, where one of the most shocking scandals in Britain today is flourishing, out of public view. This is the increasing number of children who are seized by social workers from loving, responsible parents, thanks to a system which often defies basic principles of justice, humanity and common sense. For example, last week, a woman was warned by a judge that if she raised her case with John Hemming or with a local MP, she would be imprisoned – contrary to one of the most ancient rights of a citizen.
It is hard to convey just how one-sided this system has become, behind its wall of secrecy. Another case I have been following concerns a devoted mother who lost her daughter, some years back, after complaining to social workers that the father was abusing their child. Astonishingly, although the couple had parted, the courts gave the father custody of the girl.
Two weeks ago, when the mother yet again told social workers that the father was abusing their daughter, they did nothing – but, independently, the police were called and the father was arrested. Social workers asked the mother to sign a document giving her child into foster care. She refused, asking for the girl to be returned to her, and was told to attend court at three o’clock last Monday to hear the council’s application for an emergency care order.
She arrived to find the council officials had not turned up, and was told to return at 10 o’clock on Tuesday. Again the officials did not show. Then the mother was told that the order had been given over the telephone the previous evening, by a magistrate at home, which appeared to break all the rules laid down for the granting of an emergency care order. This was apparently confirmed by a judge on Thursday – who nevertheless granted an order according to the proper procedures (the mother not being allowed to speak) and called them all back on Friday to hear an application for an interim care order. Thanks to the complications of the case, he then ruled that the council’s application should be heard in the High Court next month.
The mother’s only wish is to be reunited with her child – who apparently says her only wish is to be with her mother. But the implacable system, having made its error, seems determined to stand between them. Thus, hidden from public view, another unhappy family drama unfolds.
Dutch ‘drug tourism’ set to go up in smoke
A long-smoldering debate over the Netherlands’ tolerance toward public marijuana use is heating up, with the Dutch government announcing last week that it will start banning tourists from pot-selling “coffee shops” by the end of the year.
“In order to tackle the nuisance and criminality associated with coffee shops and drug trafficking, the open-door policy of coffee shops will end,” the Dutch health and justice ministers wrote in a letter to the country’s parliament on Friday.
While marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, it has been sold for decades in designated cafés and police make no arrests for possession of small amounts.
RELATED: Will Mendocino County become the Napa Valley of pot?
Under the new anti-drug rules, cannabis shops will be restricted to Dutch residents who sign up for a one-year membership, or “dope pass,” London’s Daily Mail reports.
The policy will roll out in the southern provinces of Limburg, Noord Brabant and Zeeland by the end of the year and the rest of the country next year, Reuters adds.
Amsterdam, home to about 220 coffee shops, is already in the process of closing some in its red light district. And some Dutch border towns including Maastricht and Terneuzen have already restricted the sale of marijuana to foreigners.
The new policy must still be approved by the country’s supreme court, and “there will be many challenges in bringing the so-called pass system from a concept into a reality,” says Jon Foster, an American who has owned Amsterdam’s popular Grey Area coffee house since 1994.
But “drug tourism,” which by some estimates draws up to 40% of Amsterdam’s 16 million annual visitors, is already taking a hit.
“For the moment it’s just bad for business, because everybody seems to think the law is already in effect as of this weekend,” says Foster.
Most pot smokers “stay for three to ten days, eat at restaurants, go to museums and entertainment, and buy a little cannabis each day,” he adds. ” Many coffee shops will probably close because of the diminished tourism, but the effect will be much greater as the results of the ban trickle down to the hotel, restaurant, entertainment, and overall tourist industry.”
Fears Grow Over Greece Bank Run as Country Seeks Bail-out
Wednesday, 01 June 2011 09:46
‘Greece’s banks are being hammered by a run on their reserves, leaving the country’s main lenders increasingly reliant on the European Central Bank for funding.
The latest figures from the Bank of Greece paint a grim picture, with foreign lenders and individuals withdrawing funds from Greek banks at an alarming rate. Simon Ward, chief economist at fund manager Henderson, likened the situation to Britain’s Northern Rock, which was eventually nationalised to save it from collapse.’
Read more: Fears Grow Over Greece Bank Run as Country Seeks Bail-out
E. coli Cucumber Scare: Spain Angry at German Claims
Wednesday, 01 June 2011 07:48
‘Spain has expressed anger at links being made between Spanish cucumbers and a deadly E. coli outbreak. The country’s agriculture minister said Germany pointed to Spanish cucumbers “without having reliable data”.
Meanwhile, German officials have voiced doubts about whether the Spanish cucumbers they are investigating carried the deadly E. coli strain. The outbreak has led to 16 deaths – 15 in Germany and a woman who died in Sweden after travelling to Germany.’
Read more: E. coli Cucumber Scare: Spain Angry at German Claims
Libyan Lawsuit Filed Against Sarkozy
Tuesday, 31 May 2011 05:17
‘Two French lawyers are to take legal action against French President Nicolas Sarkozy for crimes against humanity over NATO-led military operations in Libya.
Attorneys Jacques Verges and Roland Dumas have offered to represent Libyan families that have fallen victim to NATO strikes against Sarkozy, AFP reported. “The two lawyers are going to file a complaint in the French courts in the name of the Libyan families,” a Libyan justice ministry official Ibrahim Boukhzam said.
Verges denounced a French state led by “hoodlums and killers,” adding that he and Dumas were “going to break the wall of silence”.’
Rothschild Bank of England to Take Full Control of UK
‘The reason such an inquiry might seem appropriate is that over the next few years the Bank acquires new powers and responsibilities that will make this 317-year-old institution arguably the most powerful authority in the land – more powerful in terms of its influence over the economy than the Chancellor himself.
It’s a grand experiment in macroeconomic management the like of which has never been tried before. In addition to its existing powers to set interest rates and manage the money markets, the Bank of England will acquire responsibility not just for banking supervision but for controlling the credit cycle in the round – a function known as “macroprudential regulation”.’
Read more: Rothschild Bank of England to Take Full Control of UK
‘US lawmakers forced to support Israel’
Sun, 22 May 2011 18:33:40 GMT
Former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney says every candidate for Congress has to sign a pledge to vote for supporting the military superiority of Israel.
“Every candidate for Congress at that time had a pledge. They were given a pledge to sign … that had Jerusalem as the capital city,” McKinney said in an interview with Press TV on Sunday.
“You make a commitment that you would vote to support the military superiority of Israel that the economic assistant that Israel wants that you would vote to provide that,” she added.
McKinney said that if a candidate does not sign the pledge or perform accordingly, “then you do not get money to run your campaign.”
The former Congresswoman said that after she made the pledge issue public “the tactic changed.”
“But this is what is done for 535 members of the United States Congress, 100 senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives have to now write a paragraph which basically says the same thing.”
He comments came as US President Barack Obama vowed to sustain Israel’s military superiority over its neighbors at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual gathering on Sunday.
“We (the US) will maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge”… “We have increased military financing to record levels,” Obama said.
All US Gold Gone? Russia says IMF Chief Jailed for Discovery.
new report prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Federal Security Service (FSB) says that former International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn [photo with Putin top left] was charged and jailed in the US for sex crimes on May 14th after his discovery that all of the gold held in the United States Bullion Depository located at Fort Knox [photo 2nd left] was ‘missing and/or unaccounted’ for.
According to this FSB secret report, Strauss-Kahn had become “increasingly concerned” earlier this month after the United States began “stalling” its pledged delivery to the IMF of 191.3 tons of goldagreed to under the Second Amendment of the Articles of Agreement signed by the Executive Board in April 1978 that were to be sold to fund what are called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as an alternative to what are called reserve currencies.
This FSB report further states that upon Strauss-Kahn raising his concerns with American government officials close to President Obama he was ‘contacted’ by ‘rogue elements’ within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who provided him ‘firm evidence’ that all of the gold reported to be held by the US ‘was gone’.
Upon Strauss-Kahn receiving the CIA evidence, this report continues, he made immediate arrangements to leave the US for Paris, but when contacted by agents working for France’s General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) that American authorities were seeking his capture he fled to New York City’s JFK airport following these agents directive not to take his cell-phone because US police could track his exact location.
Once Strauss-Kahn was safely boarded on an Air France flight to Paris, however, this FSB report says he made a ‘fatal mistake’ by calling the hotel from a phone on the plane and asking them to forwarded the cell-phone he had been told to leave behind to his French residence, after which US agents were able to track and apprehend him.
Within the past fortnight, this report continues, Strauss-Kahn reached out to his close friend and top Egyptian banker Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar to retrieve from the US the evidence given to him by the CIA. Omar, however, and exactly like Strauss-Kahn before him, was charged yesterday by the US with a sex crime against a luxury hotel maid, a charge the FSB labels as ‘beyond belief’ due to Omar being 74-years-old and a devout Muslim.
In an astounding move puzzling many in Moscow, Putin after reading this secret FSB report today ordered posted to the Kremlin’s official website a defense of Strauss-Khan becoming the first world leader to state that the former IMF chief was a victim of a US conspiracy. Putin further stated, “It’s hard for me to evaluate the hidden political motives but I cannot believe that it looks the way it was initially introduced. It doesn’t sit right in my head.”
Interesting to note about all of these events is that one of the United States top Congressman, and 2012 Presidential candidate, Ron Paul [photo bottom left] has long stated his belief that the US government has lied about its gold reserves held at Fort Knox. So concerned had Congressman Paul become about the US government and the Federal Reserve hiding the truth about American gold reserves he put forward a bill in late 2010 to force an audit of them, but which was subsequently defeated by Obama regime forces.
When directly asked by reporters if he believed there was no gold in Fort Knox or the Federal Reserve, Congressman Paul gave the incredible reply, “I think it is a possibility.”
Also interesting to note is that barely 3 days after the arrest of Strauss-Kahn, Congressman Paul made a new call for the US to sell its gold reserves by stating, “Given the high price it is now, and the tremendous debt problem we now have, by all means, sell at the peak.”
Bizarre reports emanating from the US for years, however, suggest there is no gold to sell, and as we can read as posted in 2009 on the ViewZone.Com news site:
To the final fate of Strauss-Kahn it is not in our knowing, but new reports coming from the United States show his determination not to go down without a fight as he has hired what is described as a‘crack team’ of former CIA spies, private investigators and media advisers to defend him.
To the practical effects on the global economy should it be proved that the US, indeed, has been lying about its gold reserves, Russia’s Central Bank yesterday ordered the interest rate raised from 0.25 to 3.5 percent and Putin ordered the export ban on wheat and grain crops lifted by July 1st in a move designed to fill the Motherlands coffers with money that normally would have flowed to the US.
The American peoples ability to know the truth of these things, and as always, has been shouted out by their propaganda media organs leaving them in danger of not being prepared for the horrific economic collapse of their nation now believed will much sooner than later.
yahoo.com – next financial crisis “even scarier”
In “Reckless Endangerment,” co-authors Gretchen Morgenson and Josh Rosner examine the origins of the crisis, starting in the early 1990s. The co-authors pull no punches and aren’t shy about placing blame. (See: Reckless Endangerment: Morgenson, Rosner Name Names — Point Finger at Fannie Mae. )
Having taken a long, hard look back, I asked Morgenson and Rosner about what worries them today and looking forward.
Too Big to Fail: Now, Even Bigger!
“We have even more ‘too big to fail’ institutions; more politically interconnected, very deep and wide institutions that could create another systemic event,” says Morgenson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist at The New York Times. “It’s almost as if the situation that brought us to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac having to be bailed out has now been squared or quadrupled. It’s worse, not better.”
Rosner, an analyst at Graham Fisher, wholeheartedly agrees.
“The risks are enormous” because there’s even more concentration of assets among the biggest banks, which are “too big to analyze and manage,” he says.
If the financial system was a “house of cards” before the crisis, the situation is worse today because back then investors had “some sense the numbers being given in annual reports and quarterly filings were accurate,” Rosner says. “Now we know the government seems to be [complicit] in allowing them to fudge those numbers.”
Toil & Trouble
Another issue which keeps Rosner up at night is the Fed’s uber-easy monetary policy.
“The Fed is still under the assumption all they have to do to revive an economy is blow a new bubble,” he says, suggesting commodities and emerging market bubbles have replaced housing, which in turn filled in after the Internet bubble collapsed.
At the same time, the Fed is creating “a lot of interest rate risk” by keeping rates at zero for so long. “As interest rates rise we’ll see which banks are in trouble,” he warns.
Speaking of trouble, Morgenson takes some solace that government regulators are (finally) starting to investigate alleged Wall Street crimes. “It’s hard to imagine a crisis this large, which created trillions of losses, was nobody’s fault,” she says.
Amen.
Believe nothing 