What follows is a transcript of a conference call organised with UK Column contacts. It is planned to make this a weekly briefing, at 7pm UK time each Tuesday. If you would like to join the call, please email the editor.

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OK, let’s get started. There’s a lot to cover this evening, so I’m just going to get straight to it …

The most serious strategic situations at the moment are the provocations against Russia, the increased levels of global chaos, and the economic situation, all of which become more serious daily.

Britain, the EU and the US are all working hard to start a war with Russia.

The Russians are getting, understandably, somewhat perturbed by the presence of US, German, Polish, Turkish ships in the Black Sea. There are, in all, due to be 18 foreign ships in the Black Sea within a few days.

Yesterday, Russian Armed Forces Deputy Chief of the General Staff Gen. Anatoli Nogovitsyn gave a briefing to the press. I’m not going to go through it all, but he did make reference to the possibility of renewed conflict:

He confirmed the presence already of two U.S. Navy vessels in the Black Sea, as well as one each from NATO members Spain, Germany and Poland, as well as four Turkish ships. Nogovitsyn said that the presence of this group of ships raises the temperature in the region. A Russian Information Agency Novosti wire, reporting Nogovitsyn’s remarks, said that the combined firepower of the NATO group includes 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles, half them aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul. Novosti also reported that the missile cruiser Moskva, flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, is sailing for the eastern part of the Black Sea.

Regarding the potential of renewed conflict with Georgia, Nogovitsyn made two remarks. He said, “We shall be following closely the composition and the defensive and offensive capacity, and what the Georgian side is preparing for and being prepared for. We are constantly studying the situation and drawing conclusions if the Pentagon now starts to implement its promise, as the Georgian Minister of Defense is asking, to quickly restore things to the level existing before the aggression. This is not our choice, it is forced upon us. But military men must draw conclusions from these statements and, most important, actions. That is what we are doing.”

He added, “The capability of the Georgian Armed Forces is being restored only for a new aggression. Nobody in the region is threatening Georgia, but the attempt to resolve the territorial problem at any price essentially announces the preparation of another aggression.”

The White House announced yesterday that Dick Cheney is to visit the Caucusus in order to inflame the situation further, I guess because Condi Rice wasn’t being inflammatory enough. Cheney will leave the US on the 2nd September to visit Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, as well as to Italy for meetings with foreign leaders. In Italy, in addition to meetings with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and President Giorgio Napolitano, Cheney will also address the Ambrosetti forum, which will focus on the issue “Intelligence on the World, Europe and Italy.” Intelligence and Cheney … now there’s an oxymoron.

The Cheney trip was one of the major topics at the White House press briefing yesterday. Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto attacked Russia for remaining “in places where they should not be” in Georgia. Asked about Bush’s statement that Russia’s response to Georgia’s unprovoked attack on South Ossetia “would not go unanswered,” Fratto said, “we’re reviewing our entire relationship with Russia, both for the medium term and the long term. As I said, clearly in the short term, I think they are paying a price for the disproportionate actions that they’ve taken. But our focus right now is on supporting Georgia.”  He went on to say that “there’s no question that Russia hasn’t lived up to the cease-fire agreement … there are six points in that agreement. And we still see large numbers of Russian troops in undisputed (his word) territory. We still see them maintaining checkpoints. We still see the activity in Poti.”  He also announced that the U.S. is “trying to move in the OSCE monitors” and get about 100 monitors on the ground in Georgia to watch the Russians.

One interesting snippet of news came from the LA Times today, who revealed that Cheney aide, Joseph R. Wood, was in Tbilisi just prior to Saakashvili’s attack on South Ossetia. Wood is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is the Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, with responsibility for policy involving Europe, Eurasia, Africa, the UN, and defense matters. What he was doing there I leave to you to guess.

In the meantime, all the usual suspects have come out to criticise Russia’s recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia:

David Miliband:  Russia’s action is “unjustifiable and unacceptable.” Miliband added that he is “holding talks today with international partners and will be visiting Ukraine tomorrow to ensure the widest possible coalition against Russian aggression in Georgia.”

Condoleezza Rice: Russia’s decision is “regrettable … Abkhazia and South Ossetia are part of the internationally-recognised border of Georgia and are going to remain so.”

Angela Merkel: “Absolutely unacceptable…. Dialogue should be maintained with Russia, in a form to be decided at an European Union summit to be held on Monday.” Merkel made the comment from Estonia, where Estonian officials called for a NATO buildup.

Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE): The decision “violates fundamental OSCE principles respecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia.”

Sarkozy: “This is contrary to the principles of the independence, the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Georgia.”

NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer: Moscow’s move is “in direct violation of numerous UN Security Council resolutions regarding Georgia’s territorial integrity; resolutions that Russia itself has endorsed.”

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, speaking before a special session of the Parliamentary Foreign Committee, condemned Russia’s action as “illegal,” but he added that the West “has humiliated Russia for ten years,” demanding “to supply energy and give opportunities to our firms,” without recognising “a political role” for Russia: “Russia was harboring a frustration that is now exploding.”

So, while NWO puppets are trying to escalate the situation and start WWIII, Menvedev continues to work hard with his neighbours to prevent the same.

The President of Moldova, Vladimir Voronin, was in Russia yesterday for talks on the third most prominent “frozen conflict” of the post-Soviet space, the Transdniestria district. Like Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia, Transdniestria broke from the central Moldovan government after violence in the early 1990s. Like the “autonomies” in Georgia, the current leadership of the unrecognised Transdniestrian Republic renewed their push for international recognition, after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia earlier this year.

Now, according to the Novosti information agency and a Kremlin transcript of Medvedev’s opening remarks before yesterday’s meeting, Russia is preparing a new diplomatic initiative to resolve the Transdniestria-Moldova situation.

Medvedev said that the South Ossetia crisis showed “what potential for conflict the so-called frozen conflicts conceal,” as became clear after the Georgian leadership “went off its rocker” and launched an unprovoked attack. “This is a very serious warning to us all, and I think that in this context we also need to examine the other problems that exist.” He noted that he and Voronin had already opened a discussion of the matter, around the CIS summit in St. Petersburg in June, and that today they would explore possible approaches. Voronin concurred, saying he was open to reviewing the 17-year status quo, because, “This kind of frozen, dormant conflict is a volcano and you never know what will trigger it and when it might erupt again. Of course, taking into consideration the recent events, it would be best to once again summon our wisdom and ability to ensure that nothing of this kind happens with us.”

It’s interesting that Milliband is on his way to the Ukraine. The FT today “speculates” that the Crimea will be the next flashpoint in the effort to start WWIII. “Among the lessons to be drawn from the Russian-Georgian war is that the next flashpoint between the European Union and Russia may turn out to be Ukraine,” said the FT. “There is a particular risk of trouble over Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula where ethnic Russians are in the majority and where Russia’s Black Sea fleet has a 20-year lease on bases that is due to expire in 2017.”

The FT’s comments are echoed by the European Council on Foreign Relations, the George Soros established “think tank.” Just as a reminder, George Soros is the Hungarian born Jewish financier that started his career as a courier for the Germans during WWII, where, as a teenager, he worked for the Nazi deportation program of Jews to the concentration camps. Nice guy. His Open Society Institute is behind Saakashvilli and most Georgian government officials, and supported and financed the “Rose Revolution” that put Saakashvilli in power. There’s a post on the UK Column website covering that.

Anyway, the ECFR has released a document calling on the EU to strengthen ties with Ukraine and support for Moldava. The report calls for “specific commitments to Ukraine,” and other countries in the region, in the wake of Russia’s military action in Georgia. These should involve “stronger engagement for democracy, prosperity and security in the broader region,” but keep “tough measures toward Moscow on the table if Russia resists.”

On the 9th September, there will be an EU summit with Ukraine. The report says that relations with Ukraine should be a key plank of such a strategy: “The EU should … make a special commitment to Ukraine. … It should recognise the right to EU membership in the future, agree to a more liberal visa regimen, offer a solidarity clause backing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and move to integrate Ukraine into the EU’s energy market.”

They go on, “the EU should also strengthen its membership pledge to Moldova, which borders Ukraine. “So this really shows the direction that EU politicians are expected to go in. This drive for war with Russia really has to be stopped, because its impossible to over-exaggerate the consequences.

While all this is going on, quite a lot of other places in the world are in the process if exploding into chaos. Pakistan is in the process of collapsing since the resignation of Musharraf.

Muslim separatist groups in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir intensified their actions against Indian rule, starting with a massive protest in the capital city of Srinagar on Saturday, said to have been attended by 350,000 people from all over Kashmir. During the protests in Srinagar, a clash between Indian troops and militants near the border with Pakistan resulted in the deaths of at least 12 militants and 3 soldiers. The separatist groups then called a three-day general strike which was reported to have shut down most of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. According to various news reports, separatist leaders are demanding a referendum on Kashmiri independence from India.

The current round of demonstrations ostensibly began as the result of Muslim protests against the Indian government granting land for a Hindu shrine, which it then withdrew, causing a Hindu backlash against the government. It should be noted, however, that the Saudis have been funding Pakistani militant groups set on “liberating Kashmir” since at least the 1970s, as part of a broader scheme to break up both India and Pakistan.

In the Phillipines, fighting between government forces and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) continues on the southern island of Mindanao in the wake of the failure of the disastrous agreement to create a separate Moro homeland. Troops are attempting to capture two Moro leaders who lead their forces in terrorist attacks on several villages, killing dozens of civilians, after the Philippines’ Supreme Court issued a temporary restrainng order against signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), on constitutional grounds.

Ebrahim Murad, the MILF chief, called for a cessation of the government’s ongoing military operations against the two MILF military commanders, rejecting a government demand that the rebel commanders be surrendered to face the criminal justice system. “We cannot subject our members to the laws of the government. We are a revolutionary force,” Murad said.

This is the same Murad with whom U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney held a personal meeting in his jungle headquarters in February.

Murad also threatened all-out war:  ”We are calling for cessation of hostilities. We can go back again to the negotiating table with Malaysia as mediator. But the MOU is non-negotiable…. War is among the options. It is part of the struggle. The MILF is determined to continue that struggle.”

Then we have the Human Rights Foundation, an NGO run by film-maker Thor Halvorssen, and linked directly to George Soros, which has launched a campaign charging that the Presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela are not sufficiently “democratic,” and in effect, calls for them to be removed. So keep an eye on that.

Finally, we have the activities of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), and the Young Turks destabilisation of Turkey. This is linked to the massive production of opium in Afghanistan, which is totally funding Taliban, and other groups. To give some examples, though in most of the cases the perpetrators aren’t known, last week 16 people were injured in Turkey when a parked car bomb exploded as two buses carrying police and soldiers passed by. Police reported plastic explosives, remotely detonated, were used, and that no group claimed credit. Also in Turkey, car exploded in southern Turkish province of Mersin, killing the suicide bomber and injuring 12 police officers. The explosion occurred when police stopped a white car which they had been following after a tip off on Adana-Mersin motorway, that there would be a suicide bomber.

In Azerbaijan the Abubekr Mosque in Baku was bombed. According to a Voice of America discussion picked up on MiK.ru, somebody broke a window with a rock, then tossed in two live hand grenades. Two or three people were killed, 11 injured, including the Imam. Imam Haji Hamet said, “The explosion in the mosque was terrorism, directed at disrupting stability in Azerbaijan….”

In Afghanistan, in addition to the Taliban ambush of French troops, “dozens” of suicide bombers and Taliban fighters tried to breach the defenses of U.S. base of Camp Salerno in the eastern city of Khost near the Pakistan border.

And in Algeria, 43 people were killed by a suicide terrorist bombing attack on a police barracks. The assailant rammed his car into a group of recruits as they lined up to sign
up for classes at the paramilitary gendarmerie school in the Boumerdes province. Another 39 people were injured. While no group claimed credit for this, Al Qaeda in Maghreb has been involved in recent attacks on security forces, reported the London Financial Times

Of course the reason for these provocations - and in all cases the same people are behind them in some shape or form, Britain, the US and Saudi Arabia - is that the financial elites are really starting to panic about the speed and uncontrollabity of the financial collapse. Central Banks, and others, are stumbling from one crisis to another, and we’re only just half way through the so-called “credit crisis.”

I say half way, because the effects of personal debt defaults have not yet been felt. Banks, and even some very major ones, are already struggling under the curent $500 billion of losses due to the mortgage collapse. The list of “at risk” US banks has now risen to 117.

But they recognise that as people begin to stuggle with the cost of food and fuel, as well as an increasing negative equity situation, the use of credit cards to deal with day to day shortfalls is becoming more widespread. The UK alone has more personal debt than GDP, at just under £1.5 trillion. Consumer debt is currently running at about £230 billion. Secured loans, including mortgages, is over £1.2 trillion. What’s not clear, is what proportion of this is secondary loans on property. The total amount banks are expected to write down before they’re out of the woods is expected to be well in excess of $1 trillion. That’s a conservative estimate in my view, and will be too much for many small banks, and for sure a few bigger ones as well.

One of the interesting things of the last few weeks has been the increasing strength of the US Dollar. Its behaviour is strange, because the FED interest rate is low by comparison with the Bank of England and the ECB. In theory, people will hold currency that pays the best interest, so where’s the demand for dollars coming from? Definite hints of some kind of deliverate intervention to support the dollar.

It turns out, according to Ambrose Evans Prichard in the Telegraph, that China has been amassing US dollars, using indirect means to hold down the yuan and ease the pain for its struggling exporters as the global slowdown engulfs the economy.

I feel sorry for China. It’s just another victim of globalisation. The Chinese have been working hard for several years to build a decent nation state. They’ve been doing quite a good job, bearing in mind their recent history. Sure, there’s plenty wrong there, but they’ve been moving in the right direction.

With a billion people or so, they will eventually end up with an economy which can sustain itself from internal markets. In the meantime, though, they’ve played a shrewd game with the globalists, who, as far as I can tell, they hate with a passion.

So while Western corporations have been shifting their manufacturing capabilities to China to exploit the low wages there, the Chinese have been taking the long term view, patiently waiting and watching while the West part funded their economic infrastructure. While the West’s approach is unsustainable, China’s won’t be, in the long term, because they understand the concept of economic infrastructure and have been investing heavily in it. In the meantime they are getting a bit panicky, to say the least, because they can see the impending collapse of the Dollar, and they’re already holding too many of them. So in a last ditch attempt to keep as much value there as they can, they’ve decided to hold even more of them. A recipe for disaster, which is likely to result in them suffering a very major setback to their development plans, but they’re caught between a rock and a hard place.

Now, in Denmark yesterday, the Danish National Bank bailed out the 7th largest mortgage lender, Roskilde Bank. National Bank Governor Niels Bernstein said that a review of Roskilde’s books, on Friday, 22nd Aug., left no choice, as the bank was insolvent. The emergency action was taken, according to a National Bank statement, in order to prevent a collapse of the entire (!) Danish financial sector. All this is, of course, to be loaded onto the shoulders of the taxpayers, much like Northern Rock.

The final thing of note is the news released just a few hours ago that the US housing market suffered a massive 15.4% fall in Q2. That doesn’t bode well for the UK.

OK, nearly done. I just want to say a couple of things about the Democratic Conference in Denver.

First of all, I think its really interesting that these four guys were caught, apparently planning to assassinate Barak Obama. The police are saying that they were no risk really. But I have to say that the way it looks to me is that, and this really is sheer speculation - it just looks this way to me, that there is or was an assassination attempt planned, in an effort to destabilise the US, and that these guys were to be the patsies, dumb enough to be sacrificed, and just dumb enough to get caught too soon. So maybe the danger to Obama has passed - the physical danger, at least.

Obama has another danger, and that is that Hillary will steal the nomination. There’s certainly no guarantee that she’ll be able to pull it off. She can’t be seen to be acting in that direction, because that would guarantee the party splitting badly enough to destroy their chances in November. But the fact is that her name was placed on the ballot for the conference, and delegates are able to vote for her. There’s still plenty of support for her, despite her speech apparently backing Obama. There is a big effort behind the scenes to get her nominated, so that’s worth watching as well.

OK, so that’s it for today. Anyone wanting to, can hang on for some discussion of these issues an a moment or two …

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