Today, Philippine President Gloria Arroyo will again address the Congress to give a report on the achievements of her government, and at the same time express her primary focus for the next year. As she did during her previous State of the Nation Address (SONA) speeches, she may yet again boast the economic feats of her administration, including the strengthening of the peso and the recent booming of the stock market.

In today's story ''The execution 9/11 shows the criminal tendencies of a Nazi Clique" editor Iain Mackenzie writes that: "9/11 is the apparent work of a demonic consciousness associated with the pursuit of commercial profit and materialistic power. And concerning this clique the story behind the story indeed is more exciting and criminal than many can imagine. Who ever thought the Bush's helped to finance Hitler?

"I'm retired now. But five years ago I helped blow up the WTC complex. What you call murder, I call the perfect crime. What you call an act of terror, I call the perfect diversion."

September Twenty-One Protest against Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (STOP-GLORIA)

On the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) together with the World Bank in Singapore, the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) and other civil society organizations blame “the Fund�? for being the single most influential factor for the worsening poverty in the Philippines and other countries in the South.

Jubilee South and the Freedom from Debt Coalition of the Philippines, two of the proponents and lead organizers of the International Peoples Forum vs the IMF and World Bank, denounce the latest move of the Singapore government to prevent the exercise of freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.

In my life-time as an independent Dutch foreign correspondent - also in Latin America - I've seen some 'Foreign Offices' been undressed, tarred and feathered: but this beats everything! Red alert, Hugo Chavez!

We are not mobilizing for this year’s World Bank / IMF meetings? What?! You will not find a rally and a march from one part to another filled with speeches and empty platitudes. BUT, YOU WILL FIND LOTS OF ACTION! Don’t come to Washington, DC, April 21 – 23 if all you intend to do is march. However, if you want to take effective action, you can march and do a whole lot more!

The World Bank, IMF etc. bring countries to their knees even by sending the 'jackals': "Jackals' are CIA-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn't work, they perform assassinations, or try to." *[Important video below]

A momentum to break open debtors' prisons that the Washington Consensus built in the global south has been building up, demonstrated by Argentina's ability to compel 75% of its creditors to accept 35 cents on the dollar. The nomination of Paul Wolfowitz for WB presidency can only invigorate the global justice movement, which will have an inviting target at the IMF and the WB's 2005 Spring Meetings on April 16-17 and their 2005 Annual Meetings on September 26-27 -- both in Washington D.C. At the same time, the Wolfowitz nomination, like John Snow's performance, underscores the empire's lack of global economic policy. To be sure, there is no lack of clarity in the domestic business agenda, but all elements of the domestic agenda (the class action "reform," the bankruptcy "reform," the medical malpractice liability "reform," tax cuts, Social Security privatization, etc.) either do nothing to defuse or make bigger ticking economic time bombs -- the ballooning housing bubble, mounting consumer debts, the credit bubble, the widening current account deficit, rising oil prices, the falling dollar, and so on -- that may go off any time.

A Better World Is Under Construction!!

Were you at the first A16 demonstration against the IMF and World Bank in Washington, DC in 2000? Come back once again to challenge these illegitimate institutions and their plans for a world of unbridled greed! Did you miss out on the first mass protests against the IMF and World Bank? Now's your chance to be part of the second A16! The Mobilization for Global Justice is calling for all those interested in helping to construct a mass movement against neo-liberalism and the devastation it is wreaking on the world to converge on Washington, DC from April 15th-17th. Come help us celebrate the successes of our movement, which in the past five years has not only put these institutions on the defensive and on the run, but has begun construction of the new world that has for so long been in all our hearts.

For fliers to distribute in you community, logistical information, meeting times and updates e-mail mgj@riseup.net or visit www.globalizethis.org . GET INVOLVED! IT’S A BLAST!

 
We are getting stories about increasing anti-Americanism in Canada, mainly coming from sources that are the Canadian equivalent of the Voice of America. They are pretty much the same people who told us we must support a friend who goes to war, neglecting to distinguish the case of a friend who has gone stark raving mad and decided to burn down someone else's house.

 
"World Needs More Canada" hollered the lead opinion in last Monday's Globe and Mail. The fallacy of this claim was confirmed to me a minute later when I flipped to the business section where the main headline read, "Canada resists British plan to revalue IMF [International Monetary Fund] Gold Reserves."

According to the Globe article, Canada successfully blocked a plan to help forgive the debt of heavily indebted poor countries by revaluing 103 million ounces of IMF gold reserves. Currently the IMF appraises most of its gold at U.S. $40 an ounce while gold is trading at ten times that price on the world market. This simple reevaluation could increase the IMF's balance sheets by tens of billions of dollars and would undercut the argument that debt forgiveness could harm the institution.

 
Energy -- widely recognized as a fundamental need for human development -- has become increasingly inaccessible in Armenia. At the insistence of the World Bank, control over this precious commodity has been handed over to foreign interests, where social priorities are sacrificed in the name of corporate profit and capitalist ethos.