-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- The Religion Business Bank of Scotland Rethinks Deal with Pat Robertson Robertson says nasty bad things about Scotland THE Bank of Scotland was last night reviewing its business links with a Right-wing American television evangelist after he described Scotland as a "dark land" in the grip of homosexuals. Pat Robertson, who has been widely criticised for his extreme views on women, race and homosexuality, said Scotland had violated its Christian heritage by tolerating gays and lesbians. The bank, which is planning to set up a direct banking scheme in the United States with the preacher, said it was reconsidering its position, though it had "no definite plans to call off the deal". But as the bank's share price fell by four per cent, officials said that they were planning to meet Mr Robertson in America later this week. Around 500 customers have closed their accounts in protest, and politicians, union leaders and churchmen have called on the bank to end its relationship with the evangelist. During an interview on his Christian Broadcasting Network, the preacher said "in Scotland you can't believe how strong the homosexuals are". MSPs joined the protests yesterday after learning that the parliament account was with the bank. Andrew Wilson, of the SNP, described Mr Robertson's views as abhorrent, adding: "We cannot allow these kinds of views, which are utterly discriminatory, to be associated in any way with our new parliament." The bank began negotiations with Mr Robertson last year in the hope of selling direct banking to the 55 million viewers of his television channel. The scheme is due to be launched in the next few months, and the preacher's Christian Coalition is said to have paid around £30 million for a 25 per cent stake in the venture. Bill Speirs, of the Scottish TUC, called on the bank to stop debating the issue and withdraw from the deal. He said: "We believe his gratuitous and offensive attacks on Scotland and its people reinforce the message we have already given to the bank - Pat Robertson is bad news." The London Telegraph, June 3, 1999 Chinese Missiles China Plans Test of Submarine Launched Missile (Hope it doesn't accidentally hit the U.S. embassy) China plans this year to test a submarine-launched ballistic missile with a range of 5,000 miles, a decision that may raise tensions in the region and concern in Washington. The Julang II (JL II) missile, being developed to carry a nuclear warhead, would have the longest range of any sea-launched missile in China's armoury. Beijing already has about 18 land-based Dongfeng 5 nuclear missiles which, with a range of 8,000 miles, bring most of the US within striking distance. The unusual announcement of the test came in a respected official journal, Weekly Digest. It coincides with a swelling tide of nationalism in China following Nato's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and a gathering belief among Beijing's leaders that the US is preparing a cold war policy of containment against it. Last week, a House of Representatives panel chaired by Christopher Cox, a California Republican, published a controversial report covering transfers of US technology to China. That has heightened US sensitivity to China's military ambitions. Military analysts said the announcement might have been timed to satisfy recent demands from an increasingly influential People's Liberation Army (PLA) to develop a greater ability to project power well beyond the Chinese mainland. The missile's range is expected to be about three to five times that of its predecessor, the JL I. The manoeuvrability of submarines would also give Beijing the ability to launch an attack far from China's shores. Military analysts said the JL II might not become operational until around 2002 or later. They also said that China had yet to deploy the type of nuclear submarine - the Type 094 class - on which the missiles would be sited, 16 to a vessel. Richard Fisher, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said the Type 094 was not expected to be deployed until the middle of the next decade. The Cox report described the JL II as capable of striking targets throughout the continental US if launched from Chinese territorial waters. However, this statement is based on an assumed range of 7,500 miles - a figure disputed elsewhere in the report and by private analysts who say that they believe the Chinese figure of 8,000km (5,000 miles) is about right. The Cox report said the solid-fuel JL II is a version of the land- launched Dongfeng 31 missile, which it said could be tested this year and deployed by early 2002. Both missiles, the report suggested, would incorporate a variety of technologies obtained from US sources and carry a warhead using technology the report said had been stolen from US national laboratories. The prospect of deployment may unsettle some of China's neighbours and other regional powers such as India. New Delhi cited a perceived threat from China as one of the main reasons for its decision to go ahead with nuclear tests last year. The Financial Times, June 3, 1999 Chinese Economy Chinese Layoffs Put Millions on the Streets "Buddy, can you spare a renminbi?" HONG KONG - Once a workers' paradise, China is fast becoming a land of lost jobs. To try to combat an insolvent national banking system, falling foreign investment and slumping exports, the reformist wing of the Communist Party is forcing managers at stagnant state industries to meet quotas in firing workers by the million. On Wednesday, China's ''big four'' state commercial banks said they would start a campaign this year that would cut 130,000 to 420,000 workers, or 10 percent to 30 percent of their payrolls, the official Wenhui Daily reported, according to Agence France-Presse. The four banks - Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China - employ 1.3 million to 1.4 million nationwide, AFP said. The banking-industry moves are just the latest in a series of announcements. In recent weeks, China has put 400,000 workers in the country's coal mines on notice that their inefficient, polluting mines will be closed. China's two largest oil companies, operating at just over 60 percent of capacity, said last week that they planned to cut almost 1 million jobs over the next five years. Last year, more than 4 million civil servants lost jobs. The waves of layoffs mirror similar untraditional strategies in South Korea and Japan as the prolonged economic downturn unleashes massive restructuring in the region. Workers throughout Asia who once thought they had jobs for life are facing the unpleasant reality of no job at all, and no immediate prospect of one. The firings take China a long way from its original vision of quotas. In the heyday of central planning, the Communist Party's propaganda department spewed stories heralding the heroic feats of factories that exceeded their production quotas for tractors or rolled steel. Now, as orthodox communism recedes, to be replaced by ''market socialism,'' companies grappling with little revenue and fat payrolls must meet deadlines in jettisoning workers. The firings strike deeply into the Chinese way of life. A worker's well-being is intimately linked to his work unit, which provides a range of social benefits from cheap accommodations to food. Workers cut off from their units often have to scramble to survive. Despite the risk of social unrest, Chinese officials appear determined to press ahead with the mass layoffs. In recent weeks, the job losses have accelerated, with a socialist emphasis on meeting officially mandated targets. In May, the China Business Information Network, affiliated with the official China Daily newspaper, featured the shrinking of the country's textile industry in 1998. The network reported that the industry had exceeded targets for reducing capacity and eliminating workers. It said 5.12 million spindles had been dismantled and 660,000 textile workers laid off during the year. Analysts expect the trend toward a leaner work force to continue. ''According to some estimates, the state-owned enterprises still need to shed 25 million workers even though they have already laid off 17 million,'' said a recent report by Nomura International (Hong Kong) Ltd., a brokerage. ''These numbers inspire fear and awe.'' Though the pace of industrial reform slowed in the second half of last year, the painful economic restructuring in China will continue, said Nomura's regional strategist, William Overholt. ''As one talks to officials,'' he said, ''you just don't hear talk of, 'Well, we've done too much, this is a mistake, we've got to take a different course' - whereas in Thailand and Korea, you do.'' Still, some Communist traditions die hard. Even amid all the layoffs - perhaps out of fear of social unrest - China is continuing to prop up some state-owned companies. In April at a seminar in Hong Kong with Credit Lyonnais Securities, Nicholas Lardy of the Brookings Institution pointed out that in 1998 China increased the percentage of investment resources dedicated to the state sector for the first time in 20 years. ''It is the least productive part of the economy,'' he said. ''It is the least efficient in generating new jobs, so in a sense it runs against the underlying growth objective to deal with unemployment problems that are beginning to emerge in the economy.'' Most state companies fail to turn a profit, and those that do make returns on assets of less than 5 percent. That's a steep decline from the late 1970s, when the state sector reported returns on assets of 25 percent. The problem for China's leadership is that the more money goes to state industry, the less there is for productive enterprises that could absorb some of the newly unemployed. Dong Tao, an economist at Credit Suisse First Boston in Hong Kong, said rising unemployment ''could trigger social and political problems.'' But he added that looking at national unemployment rates in China could be deceiving. Unemployed workers in large cities such as Shanghai stand a better chance of landing another job than do workers in China's rust belt in its northeast or people living in towns dependent on a single coal mine that is closing down. Analysts estimate that the official urban unemployment rate of about 4 percent is probably understated by half, with far higher rates in one-industry towns that have all but ceased economic activity. As a possible solution, China is experimenting with the sale of rust-belt industries to foreigners, a practice previously barred on the grounds that steel, for instance, was a ''strategic'' industry. In March, a government-owned pig iron mill in Nanjing was sold to the Swiss commodities group Glencore, which immediately dismissed more than two-thirds of the workers. Municipal officials said that keeping one-third of the work force employed was better than the likely alternative: shutting down the mill altogether. China also is considering opening up its banking sector to foreign competition, though the initiative is currently stalled. Since state banks lend overwhelmingly to loss-making state companies, there is little money left over for China's growing private sector. Foreign banks are eager to lend in China but have yet to receive permission. Negotiators on China's admission into the World Trade Organization had been hopeful that Beijing would loosen restrictions on foreign banks. But since the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by NATO warplanes in May, the talks have been on hold. In the meantime, fewer than 6 million Chinese are employed in private enterprises, out of a population of 1.2 billion. ''The ability to create net new jobs lies entirely outside the state industries,'' Nomura said in its report, ''so China's dilemma is that its financial institutions have virtually no capability to support the companies that will determine the fate of the economic reform and ultimately the fate of the entire political regime.'' International Herald Tribune, June 3, 1999 Single Currency Even More Faith in the Euro Benign neglect FRANKFURT - The euro slumped to a record low Wednesday, one day before a European Union summit meeting, as markets ignored the latest appeal by the European Central Bank to support the common currency. The euro fell to $1.0333 in early trading in New York, its lowest level since its introduction in January, and was at $1.0354 in 4 P.M. trading in New York. The currency, which has fallen 11 percent this year, failed to revive despite a statement by the ECB president, Wim Duisenberg, that the euro ''has a clear potential for a stronger external value.'' Analysts expressed astonishment that Mr. Duisenberg had failed to mount a more convincing defense when the currency markets, which trade $1.5 trillion a day, have begun a speculative attack on this new European symbol of integration and its future as a coherent political bloc. ''The ECB is misjudging the severity of the situation,'' said Adolf Rosenstock, a Frankfurt-based analyst at Nomura International PLC. The euro's long slump has been driven by a variety of factors. Analysts point primarily to the robust U.S. economy, whose performance so outstrips that of countries in the euro zone that the dollar cannot help but shine. The U.S. Federal Reserve Board's recent shift toward considering higher interest rates also has raised the prospect of further gains for the dollar. In addition, the war in Kosovo weighs on the euro. Traders and analysts further fret over the apparent lack of conviction among flagging euro-zone economies to attempt economic reforms. Confidence in the European single currency is increasingly at risk, economists say, as traders push the new currency ever closer to parity with the dollar. Although a weak currency can bolster exports of the sluggish economies in the 11-nation euro bloc, European leaders for months have viewed the slide toward dollar parity as an unexpected embarrassment. The fall toward dollar parity is a clear test of the resolve of European leaders and its new central bank, traders and economists say. ''Europe has the same value as the euro,'' the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote in a front-page editorial Wednesday. Appearing at the bank's monthly news conference, Mr. Duisenberg used a cautious tone to support the beleaguered currency only hours after it had slipped to its new low. Europe's top central banker studiously avoided any comments that would heat up the immediate speculative attacks on the currency and instead concentrated on the longer-term prospects of the euro. ''I am not going to express myself about being concerned or not about short-term volatility,'' Mr. Duisenberg said. Instead he drew attention to the low inflation outlook for Europe, adding, ''The euro is a currency firmly based on internal price stability and therefore has a clear potential for a stronger external value.'' Denying any loss of investor confidence in the euro, Mr. Duisenberg said long-term interest rates ''are low by any historical standard'' and reflect ''the confidence of global investors in the euro.'' Traders saw a green light to sell the currency after they interpreted Mr. Duisenberg's carefully phrased comments to mean that the ECB was unwilling to intervene directly in the markets. ''As far as the euro is concerned, this is the most important statement of today, which means the ECB is practicing a policy of benign neglect,'' Mr. Rosenstock said. The latest slump follows a decision by European Union finance ministers to allow Italy to overshoot its 1999 deficit target, which raised fears that euro-bloc officials could not coordinate the economic policies that underpin the euro. The euro also is also pressured by signs of economic divergence that resurrect long-standing fears among skeptics about whether a single interest rate is enough to yoke 11 economies and 11 governments. Less than half a year after the currency's introduction, some euro-zone economies such as Germany and Italy are growing at sluggish rates of little more than 1 percent. Ireland, Spain and Portugal, meanwhile, have shattered the notion of economic convergence as their economies are close to overheating. Analysts also were concerned that Mr. Duisenberg seemed to take an almost forgiving tone toward the inability of Italy to meet deficit targets. Referring to the euro-bloc pact on coordinating deficit spending, Mr. Duisenberg said: ''I derive great comfort that also in the case of Italy, the ultimate objectives of the stability and growth pact have remained intact.'' The 15 EU heads of state and their finance ministers, who will begin a two-day summit meeting in Cologne on Thursday, are expected to use the forum to try to restore faith in the euro. In other trading, the dollar rose to 121.37 yen from 120.55 yen Tuesday and to 1.5365 Swiss francs from 1.5217 francs. The pound fell to $1.6050 from $1.6118 International Herald Tribune, June 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! 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