-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- The Adventures of Rapeman Mossad Blackmailed Clinton with Sex Tapes, Book Says Shut Down Search for White House Mole So what? Who cares? It was only sex. ISRAEL blackmailed President Clinton with phone-tapped tapes of his steamy sex talks with Monica Lewinsky, a blockbuster new book charges. The price Clinton paid for the silence of the Mossad spy agency was calling off an FBI hunt for a top-level Israeli mole allegedly installed at the White House. The allegation appears in "Gideon's Spies - The Secret History of the Mossad," written by respected author Gordon Thomas and due out next week. Asked for comment, White House spokesman P.J. Crowley replied, "The only thing I can possibly say is we'll skip the book and wait for the movie." Israel has denied conducting spying operations in the United States. But hints about the Mossad connection to Sexgate surfaced in evidence given to independent counsel Kenneth Starr last year. Lewinsky testified under oath that after a session of heavy petting and oral sex in the White House, Clinton told her that a foreign embassy was tapping the two phone lines in her D.C. apartment. She said Clinton advised her that if she was questioned about their phone-sex sessions she should claim that they knew their calls were being bugged - and were joking to make the phone-tappers look silly. Starr did not pursue the matter, as far as the public record shows, and Lewinsky apparently accepted Clinton's story without asking for details. But author Thomas says Danny Yatom, Mossad inspector general, succeeded in tapping Lewinsky's phone and amassed some 30 hours of sexually explicit conversations between the president and Lewinsky. Thomas says Tel Aviv used the tapes to stop the probe of an operative code-named "MEGA," who was, and could still be, deep within the White House. "So far as anyone knows, the Israeli agent MEGA - a much more important spy than the imprisoned CIA traitor Jonathan Pollard, and probably his controller - is still in place at the White House," Thomas said last night from London. "There was a flurry of high-profile counterintelligence activity which lasted as long as the bioleverage" - that is, blackmail - "took to work." His book - which coincidentally is published by St. Martin's Press, like Andrew Morton's "Monica's Story" - claims the decision to use the Lewinsky tapes reaches high levels in Israel. Israel's Committee for Central Intelligence, meeting in emergency session, decided to play dirty by exploiting Monica's steamy chats as a way of protecting their White House "asset," Thomas said. "FBI counterintelligence, which had also been taping Monica's calls, got the message and decided to go back off," the Welsh-born author claims. Verifying Thomas' account is difficult because spy agencies almost never comment on their activities or anything anyone writes about them. It's been reported that the Justice Department and FBI launched an investigation last year for a suspected mole, code-named "MEGA," based on undisclosed evidence that an Israeli spy had penetrated the White House. Israel heatedly denied a mole existed, saying it had ended such spying with the arrest of Pollard more than a decade ago. Officials in Jerusalem said MEGA was the code name for a U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing arrangement to fight terrorism. In any event, nothing has been heard of the U.S. pursuit of MEGA in a year. The alleged Mossad connection adds a new dimension to Sexgate - and could even support Hillary Clinton's charge that a "vast, right-wing conspiracy" was out to destroy her husband's presidency. Asked about that, Thomas replied: "That's not for me to say. "I can only report the facts as I found them. What you make of the facts is up to you. What Monica makes of them is up to her." The New York Post, March 3, 1999 Gold Market India's Scheme to Get Gold Deposits Put that "idle" gold to work A gold deposit scheme outlined in the latest Indian budget could bring into the banking system "idle" gold of up to 100 tonnes a year, according to early industry estimates. Under the proposed Gold Deposit Scheme, selected banks would be permitted for the first time to accept gold deposits - mostly jewellery and bullion held by individuals as a store of wealth - against which they would issue interest-bearing bonds. On maturity, the bonds could be redeemed for the weight of gold initially deposited. Yashwant Sinha, finance minister, announced the scheme in last week's budget as a measure to help cut India's high gold imports, with a broader eye on the rising pressure facing the country's external accounts. India is the world's biggest buyer of gold, officially importing 614m tonnes last year. The new scheme is also considered likely to herald further sophistication in India's domestic gold markets, encouraging banks to lend the metal and develop gold hedging instruments. Pravinshankar Pandya, chairman of the Gems & Jewellery Export Promotion Council in Bombay, said he believed the scheme could reap up to 100 tonnes of gold a year, against current annual demand of more than 800 tonnes. Gold demand, including both imports and recycled gold, rose 11 per cent last year. Mr Sinha gave no details of likely interest rates or tenures for the proposed bonds, but said they would be exempt from tax both on interest and capital gains. He also made no estimate as to how much gold the scheme might glean from Indians, who for generations have cherished the metal as a safe, portable store of wealth - notably in rural areas. He only said he was confident of bringing large quantities of such gold into the system through the banks. "Domestic demand, the demand from jewellers, this is something we could meet out of a gold stockpile that we'll be able to create," he said after the budget. Industry associations said the success of the scheme would depend entirely on the bonds' interest rates and the success of banks marketing the scheme. Many Indians, particularly in rural areas, hold gold and jewellery out of suspicion of financial institutions. There is no accurate figure on the amount of gold in the country, but estimates range between 8,000 and 15,000 tonnes. By way of some precedent, a one-off gold bond scheme launched by the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, in 1993 attracted 41 tonnes of gold, based on a five-year bond bearing 2 per cent interest. However, the new scheme would differ by offering a continuous deposit service, while also forcing banks to earn from the recovered gold enough to service the interest payments. The latter is seen as encouraging gold lending to jewellery makers and eventually to the creation of hedging instruments and other gold-based financial products. India's gold and silver imports surged in official accounts from $936m during the first nine months of the last fiscal year to $3.3bn between April and November 1998, chiefly resulting from the government's decision in November 1997 to permit 11 financial institutions legally to import and retail the metal. However, concern over surging gold imports led the government to raise gold duties in January, a move criticised for reviving the smuggling of gold - the very thing the earlier decision to allow banks to import the metal was designed to curb. World Gold Council officials in Bombay say the rise in duty has already led to shrinking imports in gold centres such as Ahmedabad, western India, noting also a surge in imports to Nepal, where the duty is lower. The Financial Times, March 3, 1999 Economy in China China: The Bridge to the 21st Century Is Crumbling And so is most of the rest of recently-built infrastructure NINGBO, China - The young lovers who climb to the top of Zhaobao Mountain in this scenic port city gaze out on a varied panorama. Rolling green hills to one side. A tranquil island offshore. And a massive white elephant directly below. Officially, it is known as Zhaobao Mountain Bridge, and it was scheduled to open in October. But a month shy of its debut, the 2.4-kilometer-long (1.5-mile-long) span started to quiver and sway. Inspectors soon discovered the cause: cracks in the bridge from a design flaw. Workers who spent months erecting the concrete-and-steel structure have been forced to tear part of it down while engineers go back to the drawing board. The project completion date has been postponed, and its hefty price tag, $52 million, is sure to rise. For now, the span sits like a broken hyphen over the muddy Yong River, a monument to bad planning. As an isolated instance, Zhaobao Mountain Bridge would be embarrassing enough. But as the government goes on a three-year, $1.2 trillion spending spree to bolster the faltering economy, hundreds of bridges, roads and airports are being thrown up across China with startling speed and, in many cases, with a notable lack of attention to quality. Rampant corruption and slapdash construction have riddled infrastructure projects throughout the country. A highway in southwestern China fell apart less than three weeks after it opened. Embezzlement and poor craftsmanship have even plagued the mother of all public works sites, the Three Gorges Dam, according to media reports. Beyond the threat of derailing the central government's economic stimulus program, such unscrupulous practices may have more dire consequences, the Communist regime fears. Two bridge collapses in January in China killed 47 people and injured more than 30 others. In both cases, authorities arrested project officials, including a local Communist Party boss, on suspicion of graft or using shoddy materials. In a year when they are emphasizing social stability, China's leaders fret that such incidents may inflame popular anger against the government. Corruption already ranks as the No. 1 grievance of ordinary Chinese. Mindful of the public mood, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji told a top-level meeting on construction safety in February that anyone caught skimming funds or skimping on quality should be severely punished. ''Otherwise, we shall become people condemned by history,'' Mr. Zhu warned his listeners, according to the official Xinhua press agency. ''Poor construction quality will bring calamity to the country and the people and will entail untold troubles.'' Mr. Zhu's speech was an attempt to keep China's ambitious, Keynesian-style spending program on track less than a year after it began. As the country's economic czar, Mr. Zhu is the chief architect of the huge infrastructure investments. Beijing is depending on the spending to make up for dwindling private consumption in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. The Chinese economy could not have achieved its growth rate of 8 percent last year without the stimulation from infrastructure spending, said Hu Biliang, senior economist at a French securities firm in Beijing. He estimates the rate would have been 5 percent or less. But the spectacular failure of several projects, some of them begun before the stimulus program was unveiled, has dampened popular enthusiasm for more large-scale public works schemes. On Jan. 4, as villagers crossed a small but busy footbridge in a rural neighborhood of Chongqing city in central China, the structure crashed down in a heap of bodies and rubble. Rescue crews recovered the bodies of at least 18 paramilitary police officers and 22 civilians. Outrage over the accident reverberated across the country. It rose further after an investigation showed that the bridge contractor had built other faulty spans in the area but had never been brought to account. A welder who worked on the fallen bridge came forward to say he had repeatedly tried to report the use of defective materials but that his complaints were shunted around and wound up nowhere. Worse, a local Communist Party cadre, a former classmate of the contractor, admitted taking $12,000 in bribes in connection with the project, which managed to go over budget by 40 percent despite its flawed execution. Less than a week after the Chongqing collapse, a bridge in Fujian Province also crumpled, killing seven people. The foreman in charge of its construction has been arrested for allegedly ignoring warnings that the structure was dangerous. The two collapses led Xinhua to acknowledge that ''an alarm'' had been sounded about careless construction. The central Ministry of Construction issued an emergency notice exhorting local authorities to ''learn from the bloody lessons'' of the accidents. International Herald Tribune, March 3, 1999 Year 2000 Banks Fear Japanese Y2K Problems Don't trust the preparations of Japanese companies Western banks are considering reducing their exposure to large Japanese clients because of growing concern that Japanese companies are insufficiently prepared for the Year 2000 problem, it has emerged. Western banks fear that Japanese companies in all sectors could face severe liquidity problems because their own computer systems, or those in related companies, may fail as computers misread the Year 2000, when represented by "00", as the year 1900. Western bankers are reluctant to talk publicly about their concerns because they fear they could face repercussions from Tokyo which insists that appropriate measures are under way to avoid a crisis. However, alarm will be fuelled by the US Senate's special committee on the Year 2000 technology problem, released yesterday, which ranked Japan's national level of preparation in the third of four "tiers". This puts Japan on a level with countries such as India, Kenya, Venezuela, and Turkey. The US, Britain, Australia and Canada were in the first tier, or most prepared. The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan had already warned the Japanese government that the Japanese financial industry was particularly vulnerable to the millennium bomb crisis. "Time is running out ... Soon international companies will need to make decisions as to whether Japanese intermediaries are sufficiently Year 2000 compliant to be permitted in the international financial system. Failure to act may result in further misunderstandings regarding Japan's financial system," the ACCJ said in its report, issued last year. Japan operates on an imperial calendar primarily and only secondly on the western calendar, which has stoked fears in the west that the failure to tackle the Year 2000 problem is a deeply embedded cultural one. The US criticisms have deeply irritated the Japanese government, which insists that Japan is taking rapid steps to address the issue. The Ministry for International Trade and Industry says most large industrial and financial companies are now Year 2000-compliant, and it is now testing most trading and settlement systems. The Financial Supervisory Agency, the banking watchdog, has also warned that it will suspend operations at financial companies that have inadequately prepared for the millennium bomb. A senior FSA official said: "I am confident that most large Japanese banks will have no problems with Y2K. The only remaining issue is their contingency plans. We have inspected some western banks and found that the situation was worse." However, these steps have not yet allayed foreign concern, says Christopher Wells, head of the ACCJ financial committee. Although western bankers believe that most large Japanese banks will be Year 2000 compliant, there is deep concern about closely related subsidiaries and clients. There is also particular concern about the situation in non-financial sectors such as the utilities. "People are going to have to start cutting credit lines and reconsidering who they do business with," said Mr Wells. The Financial Times, March 3, 1999 US-EU Trade Dispute Banana Split Continues Cincinnati billionaire Carl Lindner has the politicians in his pocket PARIS - The United States and Europe prepared themselves Tuesday for a trade war over a product grown by neither: bananas. Although the World Trade Organization had not formally approved the move, the United States was poised to impose 100 percent tariffs on $520 million worth of products exported by the European Union. Among them are Scottish cashmere, Italian ham, French handbags and German coffeemakers. A dispute-settlement panel at the WTO asked on Feb. 23 for more time to rule on how much money the European trade protections had cost American banana distributors, a ruling the U.S. side had hoped would impose partial political cover for the trade sanctions. The panel on Tuesday delayed presenting its finding. American officials said they could not comment on whether this affected their intention to impose the new tariffs by their self-imposed deadline on Wednesday. Amusing though the fruity subject of the dispute may seem, this struggle is deadly serious. At stake is the credibility of the World Trade Organization, international trade's forum for resolving disputes, and economic relations between the world's biggest trading partners. ''Because it's bananas we tend to trivialize the matter,'' said the U.S. Trade Representative, Charlene Barshefsky. ''But this case could have been about civil aircraft or computers. What's important is what has happened.'' The United States contends that the European Union's regime governing banana imports into Europe unfairly favors the producing countries Europe prefers - such small Caribbean islands as St. Lucia, Dominica and St. Vincent, as well as the Ivory Coast and Cameroon in Africa - to the detriment of countries the United States prefers - Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Also at play is the powerful political influence of Carl Lindner, the chairman of Chiquita Brands International Inc., a global distributor of bananas. A large contributor to both Republican and Democratic candidates in the United States, he is blamed by Europeans for the banana imbroglio. ''There is deep resentment in Europe that the United States, for internal political reasons and the huge influence of Chiquita with its campaign contributions, is pushing an issue that is not in its own economic interests,'' said Leon Brittan, the EU commissioner for trade. In fact, the dispute goes back to the 1960s when, in the early days of what is now the European Union, the French president, Charles de Gaulle, wrote in special import protections for banana-producing former French colonies in Africa. The regime has been modified since then, but it still grants special rights, Americans contend, to Europe's favorite producers. That has not stopped Chiquita from obtaining approximately 20 percent of the European market, and its competitor Dole Food Co. approximately 15 percent, about the same as the largest European distributor, Fyffes PLC of Ireland. But the American share used to be more. The regulations have been tightened in recent years, reducing the American share by 40 percent since 1993, the U.S. side says. The European Union has lost in WTO trade dispute-settlement procedures three times, most recently in 1997. After that, the import regime was changed - cosmetically, the Americans said - and European officials said they had complied with the ruling. In December, the United States, unsatisfied, said it would impose the high tariffs if further concessions were not made. Various WTO dispute-settlement panels are considering aspects of the case, but the United States contends it has the authority to act alone. International Herald Tribune, March 3, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris 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. 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