Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets

France paralysed by a wave of strike action, the boulevards of Paris resembling a debris-strewn battlefield. The Hungarian currency sinks to its lowest level ever against the euro, as the unemployment figure rises. Greek farmers block the road into Bulgaria in protest at low prices for their produce. New figures from the biggest bank in the Baltic show that the three post-Soviet states there face the biggest recessions in Europe.

It's a snapshot of a single day – yesterday – in a Europe sinking into the bleakest of times. But while the outlook may be dark in the big wealthy democracies of western Europe, it is in the young, poor, vulnerable states of central and eastern Europe that the trauma of crash, slump and meltdown looks graver.

Exactly 20 years ago, in serial revolutionary rejoicing, they ditched communism to put their faith in a capitalism now in crisis and by which they feel betrayed. The result has been the biggest protests across the former communist bloc since the days of people power.

Europe's time of troubles is gathering depth and scale. Governments are trembling.
Revolt is in the air.

Sources:
guardian.co.uk

Dawn of new age of industrial unrest as wildcat strikes spread across UK
business.timesonline.co.uk

The word went out on the web: every skilled man should strike
business.timesonline.co.uk

Nuclear power workers threaten to join protest
telegraph.co.uk

Come on America and Canada.....join in!!

Mystery Lights Over The Midlands UK

A "spectacular" display of dozens of UFOs has been reported in the skies over the West Midlands.

Eyewitnesses told Sky News that up to 70 bright circular objects could be seen near Halesowen.

Stunned residents watched in disbelief, convinced they were viewing an extra-terrestrial spectacle.

Each object was encircled with lights and had lights in the middle, according to witness Steven Randall who lives in Halesowen with is wife and three children.

He said: "This was incredible and so spectacular. The lights seem to climb into the sky to the north of us, just before 8pm last night.

"A neighbour had shouted for us to come and look. There were so many objects. From a distance they looked like bubbles rising in a fizzy drink.

"Then they came towards us and flew right over the top. Some were so close they were almost touching and were only a hundred feet or so above us.

"The objects were absolutely silent and travelling at probably twice the speed of a normal aircraft.

"They were all circular and had 13 to 15 lights around the rim. Each had lights in the centre which were flashing on and off. They went south at a terrific speed."

Birmingham International airport is to the east of the sightings, but according to Mr Randall, the flight path comes nowhere near the houses.

"Aircraft are not allowed to fly over this area. We regularly see air traffic in the distance and I can assure you that this was something very different," he said.

Air traffic control at Birmingham International airport had nothing on their radar to suggest anything out of the ordinary.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said that independent experts have concluded there are straightforward explanations behind alleged UFO reports, such as aircraft lights or natural phenomena.

Reports of UFOs were examined by the MoD solely to establish whether UK airspace may have been compromised by hostile or unauthorised military activity.

If required, sighting reports are examined with the assistance of the Department's air defence experts. Unless there is evidence of a potential threat, no further work is undertaken to identify the nature of each sighting reported.

The MoD has no other interest or role regarding UFO matters and does not consider questions regarding the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life-forms.

Eyewitness Steve Randall believes defence officials will be very interested when they see the video.

Footage of the sighting that has rocked the UK tonight can be seen here:
news.sky.com

UFO Cheshire UK 2008

An object appears to buzz close to a plane, then in the last frames speeds off at a high rate of acceleration.

Is this real?

Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.

The move is targeted at monitoring the owners of Britain’s estimated 40m prepaid mobile phones. They can be purchased with cash by customers who do not wish to give their names, addresses or credit card details.

The pay-as-you-go phones are popular with criminals and terrorists because their anonymity shields their activities from the authorities. But they are also used by thousands of law-abiding citizens who wish to communicate in private.

The move aims to close a loophole in plans being drawn up by GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, to create a huge database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.

The “Big Brother” database would have limited value to police and MI5 if it did not store details of the ownership of more than half the mobile phones in the country.

Contingency planning for such a move is already thought to be under way at Vodafone, where 72% of its 18.5m UK customers use pay-as-you-go.

The office of Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, said it anticipated that a compulsory mobile phone register would be unveiled as part of a law which ministers would announce next year.

“With regards to the database that would contain details of all mobile users, including pay-as-you-go, we would expect that this information would be included in the database proposed in the draft Communications Data Bill,” a spokeswoman said.

Simon Davies, of Privacy International, said he understood that several mobile phone firms had discussed the proposed database in talks with government officials.

As The Sunday Times revealed earlier this month, GCHQ has already been provided with up to £1 billion to work on the pilot stage of the Big Brother database, which will see thousands of “black boxes” installed on communications lines provided by Vodafone and BT as part of a pilot interception programme.

The proposals have sparked a fierce backlash inside Whitehall. Senior officials in the Home Office have privately warned that the database scheme is impractical, disproportionate and potentially unlawful. The revolt last week forced Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, to delay announcing plans for the database until next year.

Source: timesonline.co.uk

UK ID Cards – More Than Identification

You may have heard that legislation creating compulsory ID Cards passed a crucial stage in the House of Commons. You may feel that ID cards are not something to worry about, since we already have Photo ID for our Passport and Driving License and an ID Card will be no different to that.

What you have not been told is the full scope of this proposed ID Card, and what it will mean to you personally.

The proposed ID Card will be different from any card you now hold. It will be connected to a database called the NIR, (National Identity Register) where all of your personal details will be stored. This will include the unique number that will be issued to you, your fingerprints, a scan of the back of your eye, and your photograph. Your name, address and date of birth will also obviously be stored there.

There will be spaces on this database for your religion, residence, sexual tastes, number of partners, medical records status and many other private and personal facts about you. There is unlimited space for every other details of your life on the NIR database, which can be expanded by the Government with or without further Acts of Parliament.

By itself, you might think that this register is harmless, but you would be wrong to come to this conclusion. This new card will be used to check your identity against your entry in the register in real time, whenever you present it to 'prove who you are'.

Every place that sells alcohol or cigarettes, every post office, every chemist, and every Bank will have an NIR Card Terminal, (very much like the Chip and Pin Readers that are everywhere now) into which your card can be 'swiped' to check your identity. Each time this happens, a record is made at the NIR of the time and place that the Card was presented. This means for example, that there will be a government record of every time you withdraw more than £99 at your branch of Nat West, who now demand ID for these transactions. Every time you have to prove that you are over 18, your card will be swiped, and a record made at the NIR. Restaurants and off licences will demand that your card is swiped so that each receipt shows that they sold alcohol to someone over 18, and that this was proved by the access to the NIR, indemnifying them from prosecution.

Private businesses are going to be given access to the NIR Database. If you want to apply for a job, you will have to present your card for a swipe.

If you want to apply for a London Underground Oyster Card,or a supermarket loyalty card, or a driving licence you will have to present your ID Card for a swipe. The same goes for getting a telephone line or a mobile phone or an internet account.

Oyster, DVLA, BT and Nectar (for example) all run very detailed databases of their own. They will be allowed access to the NIR, just as every other business will be. This means that each of these entities will be able to store your unique number in their database, and place all your travel, phone records, driving activities and detailed shopping habits under your unique NIR number. These databases, which can easily fit on a storage device the size of your hand, will be sold to third parties either legally or illegally. It will then be possible for a non governmental entity to create a detailed dossier of all your activities.

Certainly, the government will have clandestine access to all of them, meaning that they will have a complete record of all your movements, from how much and when you withdraw from your bank account to what medications you are taking, down to the level of what sort of bread you eat – all accessible via a single unique number in a central database.

This is quite a significant leap from a simple ID Card that shows your name and face.

Most people do not know that this is the true character and scope of the proposed ID Card. Whenever the details of how it will work are explained to them, they quickly change from being ambivalent towards it. The Government is going to COMPEL you to enter your details into the NIR and to carry this card. If you and your children want to obtain or renew your passports, you will be forced to have your fingerprints taken and your eyes scanned for the NIR, and an ID Card will be issued to you whether you want one or not. If you refuse to be fingerprinted and eye scanned, you will not be able to get a passport.

Your ID Card will, just like your passport, not be your property. The Home Secretary will have the right to revoke or suspend your ID at any time, meaning that you will not be able to withdraw money from your Bank Account, for example, or do anything that requires you to present your government issued ID Card.

The arguments that have been put forwarded in favour of ID Cards can be easily disproved. ID Cards WILL NOT stop terrorists; every Spaniard has a compulsory ID Card as did the C.I.A Madrid Bombers. ID Cards will not 'eliminate benefit fraud', most of which is done by government by withholding due payments, which in comparison, is small compared to the astronomical cost of this proposal, which will be measured in billions according to the LSE (London School of Economics).

This scheme exists solely to exert total surveillance and control over the ordinary free British Citizen, and it will line the pockets of the companies that will create the computer systems at the expense of your freedom, privacy and money.

If you did not know the full scope of the proposed ID Card Scheme before and you are as unsettled as I am at what it really means to you, to this country and its way of life, I urge you to email or photocopy this and give it to your friends and colleagues and everyone else you think should know and who cares. The Bill has proceeded to this stage due to the lack of accurate and complete information on this proposal being made public.

We can inform the entire nation if everyone who receives this passes it on.

Source: thetruthseeker.co.uk

UFO sightings at peak in Britain

Some 150 unidentified flying objects have already been reported to British authorities this year, making 2008 a bumper year for UFO sightings, officials say.

Just 135 sightings were reported by police and the Ministry of Defense in 2007 and only 97 in 2006, reported The Daily Telegraph Saturday, which obtained the figures under a Freedom of Information Act request.

"Something really bizarre is happening in the skies over the U.K.," said Malcolm Robinson, founder of the research group Strange Phenomena Investigations. "I've been dealing in sightings for 30 years and we currently have something very real which mankind cannot explain."

But British officials were more non-committal, although a spokesman for the Department of Defense insisted they remained open minded. He said as long as sightings presented no threat to British airspace, they were not investigated further.

Source: upi.com

British UFO sightings at 'bizarre' levels

Whether alien activity or natural phenomena, reports of UFOs have flooded in this summer from across the country.

Plotted on a map of Britain, the sightings can be seen to stretch from Liverpool to Dover and from Llanelli to Derby.

Whatever the explanation, experts agree that the number of suspected flying saucers has hit unusual highs this summer.

Malcolm Robinson, who studies the phenomenon, said: "Something very bizarre is happening in the skies over the UK."

The founder member of Strange Phenomena Investigations, added: "There has been an unusual number of sightings recently.

"Some experts believe it could be linked to global warming and craft from outer space are appearing because they are concerned about what man is doing to this planet."

Among mysterious flying objects spotted in recent months was a 'glowing' disc spotted above the M5 motorway.

Royal Navy aircraft engineer Michael Madden said he watched the UFO for three minutes before it 'zoomed off' near Weston-super-Mare in Somerset.

Earlier, in Basingstoke, witnesses claimed to have seen a fleet of 12 orange objects in the night sky for half an hour.

And in St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan a police helicopter crew gave chase to another UFO after it appeared to veer at speed towards their aircraft.

One UFO spotter however was left red-faced after his report of a mysterious flying saucer in South Wales turned out to be nothing more other-worldly than the moon.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Blackouts hit thousands as generators fail

Barely reported in the mainstream media 6 MAJOR power stations here in the UK all shut down within minutes of each other on Tuesday. Despite millions of people being without any power for hours it was hardly mentioned on the BBC or Sky News.

Operations had to be cancelled, people were stuck in lifts, yet the mainstream media remained silent....why? Does anyone know anything about this incident on Tuesday just after midday? It seems very suspicious that 6 power stations, including nuclear and coal spread right across the UK all shut down within minutes of each other and hardly a word from the government or the mainstream media.

Hundreds of thousands of people were hit by electricity blackouts yesterday when seven power stations shut down. The unscheduled stoppages were regarded as an unprecedented sign of the fragility of Britain’s power infrastructure.

Operations were cancelled, people were stuck in lifts, traffic lights failed and fire engines were sent out on false alarms. Householders were unable to use any appliances or make phonecalls as the blackouts hit areas including Cleveland, Cheshire, Lincolnshire and London.

It was unclear last night why the power stations had failed. As the cuts escalated, the National Grid was forced to issue the most serious possible warning — “demand control imminent” — and urged suppliers to provide lower-voltage electricity to meet demand.

Energy suppliers affected by the shutdown, including British Energy and EON, said that they could not reveal the reasons for the cuts, nor would they say when some disrupted stations might resume service, because disclosure could affect the wholesale price of electricity.

A National Grid spokesman admitted that the the number of shutdowns was highly unusual. One power company insider said that such an incident had not happened in the past ten years.

After two power stations suddenly shut down within minutes of one another at midday, nine “generating units” also shut, and at least four other power stations suffered failures throughout the day. Wholesale electricity prices soared 35 per cent to £95 per megawatt hour, a new record, immediately after the cuts.

Operations had to be cancelled at Wycombe Hospital in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. When the cut struck, emergency generators kicked in, but one was affected by a fire. Surgery was abandoned in the catheterisation department. Elsewhere in the town, lights went off in the Eden shopping centre.

In and around the Lincolnshire towns of Market Rasen and Louth, 23,000 homes were affected. Thousands of households had no electricity in Wallasey, Birkenhead, Ellesmere Port and Runcorn on The Wirral.

Eight people were rescued from a lift in a library in Middlesbrough where, along with neighbouring Stockton and other parts of Cleveland, 30,000 premises were hit.

Thousands of people in South London were without electricity as the power shut some businesses. The cut lasted less than an hour but it affected stations, such as Clapham Junction, and caused road problems as traffic lights went out. North of London, Watford was also hit.

At midday the Sizewell B nuclear power station, run by British Energy in Suffolk, and the Longanett coal-fired power station, run by Scottish Energy in Fife, went offline within two minutes of each other. Later, “generating units” in power stations in Grain, Kent, and Ratcliffe, Nottinghamshire, and at EDF in Cottam, Nottinghamshire, Centrica in South Humber and International Power in Deeside each suffered cuts.

A National Grid spokesman said: “Nine generating units have become unavailable throughout Tuesday.”

David Porter, chief executive of the Association of Electricity Producers, said that the National Grid’s actions showed that the market was working well. However, he added that more investment was required urgently to prevent more regular problems.

Mr Porter said: “A lot of plant is getting old and is scheduled to close. More plant will be forced to close because of environmental pressure. The more clarity we can get from Government to help build new power stations, the better.”

The largest independent energy consultancy, McKinnon & Clarke, called on the Government to build new power stations to reinforce the crumbling infrastructure. David Hunter, energy analyst at the company, said: “The Government’s inability to make long-term energy security decisions over the last decade is coming home to roost. Since the ‘dash for gas’ in the 1990s, the lack of political will to make tough decisions has left Britain short of power.”

Some power stations remained shut last night. A British Energy spokesman said that the Sizewell B reactor was offline late yesterday, although a restart plan was under way. It is the first time the Sizewell B reactor has suffered a cut in three and a half years.

Source: Timesonline.co.uk

The truth really is out there as Britain's 'X-files' released

A reader informs us that the photo, which accompanies the Independent article, is itself a fraud as revealed in this video. We leave readers to decide if the issue surrounding the release of Britain's X-Files isn't an attempt to divert attention from more pressing issues. As the other pictures in the file are none too impressive. Naturally, this doesn’t mean that ETV’s don’t exist. Its just that we need to be a little more sceptical and cynical about anything coming from the authorities.

Her Majesty's Government may have concluded in 1979 that "it has never been approached by people from outer space" but the current Pope is entertaining the idea of aliens.

That was the bizarre clash of opinions that emerged this morning as thousands of pages of "Britain's X-files" were released by the Ministry of Defence in a move brought about by a "deluge" of Freedom of Information requests by UFO conspiracy theorists.

The 160 files – the first eight of which, covering 1978-1987, are published today – throw up no "saucer-in-a-hangar smoking gun" in the skies, experts said last night.

However, the papers, viewable on the National Archives' web site, do show that officials conducted a full investigation into every claimed sighting until the 1980s. The files, one of which is more than 450 pages long, show that since the 1950s thousands of seemingly ordinary people have claimed UFO sightings in this country.

In June 1983 a woman in Sanderstead, Surrey, opened her curtains at 3am to see a giant rectangular object passing past her bedroom window. "There seemed to be no means of propulsion, the object was not being pushed, pulled, lifted or carried. Its movement was silent," she said. A picture of what she says she saw features in one of the files published today.

The development came as those who believe in extra-terrestrial life were given new hope from an unlikely quarter. In an article for the Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano headlined "Aliens Are My Brother", the Pope's official astronomer, Fr Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.

But, if aliens do exist, they appear not to have bothered to hover over Whitehall. In a definitive 1979 briefing note, the department wrote: "Her Majesty's Government has never been approached by people from outer space."

That the question was being raised, however, shows Britain was still investigating sightings well beyond when the US decided UFOs posed no threat and most reports were explained by natural phenomena.

The MoD's move is likely to attract considerable excitement in the Ufologist world. When France's national space agency released similar material last year its website crashed after 220,000 internet users logged on. The National Archives has subcontracted the section of its site in order to handle the expected online onslaught.

It will show that in April 1984 police in Edgware, north London, were called to investigate a light flashing "blue, white, green and pink", followed by a "blinding white ball with a tail". Women ran to their homes, screaming, with one declaring to officers: "I am not a nutter.”

Source: Independent.co.uk

Met Police officers to be 'microchipped'

First the police then every member of the public, this is getting very dangerous indeed!

Every single Metropolitan police officer will be 'microchipped' so top brass can monitor their movements on a Big Brother style tracking scheme, it can be revealed today.

According to respected industry magazine Police Review, the plan - which affects all 31,000 serving officers in the Met, including Sir Ian Blair - is set to replace the unreliable Airwave radio system currently used to help monitor officer's movements.

The new electronic tracking device - called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS) - means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers.

But many serving officers fear being turned into "Robocops" - controlled by bosses who have not been out on the beat in years.

According to service providers Telent, the new technology 'will enable operators in the Service's operations centres to identify the location of each police officer' at any time they are on duty - whether overground or underground.

Although police chiefs say the new technology is about 'improving officer safety' and reacting to incidents more quickly, many rank and file believe it is just a Big Brother style system to keep tabs on them and make sure they don't 'doze off on duty'.

Some officers are concerned that the system - which will be able to pinpoint any of the 31,000 officers in the Met to within a few feet of their location - will put a complete end to community policing and leave officers purely at the beck and call of control room staff rather than reacting to members of the public on the ground.

Pete Smyth, chairman of the Met Police Federation, said: "This could be very good for officers' safety but it could also involve an element of Big Brother.

"We need to look at it very carefully."

Other officers, however, were more scathing, saying the new system - set to be implemented within the next few weeks - will turn them into 'Robocops' simply obeying instructions from above rather than using their own judgement.

One officer, working in Peckham, south London, said: "They are keeping the exact workings of the system very hush-hush at the moment - although it will be similar to the way criminals are electronically tagged. There will not be any choice about wearing one.

"We depend on our own ability and local knowledge to react to situations accordingly.

"Obviously we need the back up and information from control, but a lot of us feel that we will simply be used as machines, or robots, to do what we are told with little or no chance to put in anything ourselves."

He added: "Most of us joined up so we could apply the law and think for ourselves, but if Sarge knows where we are every second of the day it just makes it difficult."

Another officer, who did not want to be named, said: "A lot of my time is spent speaking to people in cafes, parks or just wherever I'm approached. If I feel I've got my chief breathing down my neck to make another arrest I won't feel I'm doing my job properly."

The system is one of the largest of its kind in the world, according to Telent, the company behind the technology, although neither the Met nor Telent would provide Police Review with any more information about exactly how the system will work or what sort of devices officers will wear.

Nigel Lee, a workstream manager at the Met, said: "Safety is a primary concern for all police forces.

"The area served by our force covers 620 miles and knowing the location of our officers means that not only can we provision resource more quickly, but should an officer need assistance, we can get to them even more quickly."

Forces currently have the facility to track all their officers through GPS devices on their Airwave radio headsets, but this is subject to headsets being up to date and forces buying the back office systems to accompany them, according to Airwave.

Steve Rands, health and safety head for the Met Police Federation, told Police Review: "This is so that we know where officers are. Let us say that when voice distortion or sound quality over the radio is lost, if you cannot hear where that officer telling you where he is, you can still pinpoint his exact position by global positioning system.

"If he needs help but you cannot hear him for whatever reason, APLS will say where he is."

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

ESP and a very British Earthquake

Last week the UK experienced one of its worst earthquakes in many years. The earthquake measured 5.2 on the Richter scale. Thankfully no one was injured or killed following the quake. It was labelled by the press as a very British earthquake.

A day before the earthquake occurred a member of my family (who is believed to have much better ESP than myself) experienced very severe headaches and a feeling of being very ill. I shall call this person “H”. It is worth noting at this point that “H” rarely suffers from any form of headaches and the only illness “H” has suffered in the past is a slight cold.

On the morning of the earthquake “H” felt very weak and tired and still felt very un-well, because of this “H” decided to go to bed early.

At 12:55am (two minutes exactly) before the earthquake hit, “H” woke up very quickly. It is also worth noting for reference that H is a very sound sleeper and can sleep through most sounds and events. “H” awoke feeling very scared and suffered a feeling of their legs becoming very heavy. Then at 12:57am the earthquake struck. After the quake “H” suddenly returned to normal and no longer felt ill or scared.

Was the feeling just before the quake a genuine illness or had “H” experienced an ESP ‘feeling’, almost giving prior warning to the up and coming events? “H” told me what had occurred the day after the event and it got me thinking. Do animals experience the same feelings as “H” just before an event such as this? Did the animals in Asia, who fled the disaster area hours before the Tsunami, have the same feeling as “H”?

National Geographic.com

It would be of great scientific interest to most of the population of this planet if a study of this nature could be carried out. If we, as humans can “sense” an earthquake or Tsunami hours before they strike we could save so many lives and so much suffering that often follows such an event.

Have any readers ever experienced a feeling just like “H” before an earthquake or another impending disaster?

Wikipedia.org

Peter Power Flees From Confrontation On 7/7 Terror Drill

Former Scotland Yard official refuses to answer questions about who exercise was conducted for
The managing director of the company that eerily, and some charge suspiciously, were running drills identical to the events that unfolded on 7/7 in London had to flee from members of We Are Change UK this week when he was asked to explain who had hired his consultancy firm to run the exercise that coincided with the bombing.

Peter Power, head of Visor Consultants, was a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti-Terrorist Branch.

On the afternoon of July 7th, 2005, Power told a BBC radio interviewer that his company was running an exercise for an unnamed group that revolved around three bombs going off at precisely the same tube stations and precisely the same time as those that were hit that morning.

The odds of such a coincidence are absolutely staggering, which led some to charge that Power's drill was set up ahead of time by people with insider foreknowledge of 7/7.

Just as happened on 9/11, when exercises involving hijacked aircraft overlapped with the real attacks, some charge that the drill was a cover for the real attack in case any of its perpetrators were caught.

Power's culpability is seemingly minimal - after all why would he announce the drill on national radio hours after the attack - but his reaction to the questions asked in this video prove that he is very uncomfortable about discussing the subject now.

Power becomes agitated as soon as he realizes he is being filmed and jabs his finger at the camera as he begins to walk away.

Power is then asked about the mock terror drills he was running on 7/7 that coincided with the bombings and which company he was running the simulation for.

Power's only response is to storm off before ducking into a room and closing the door.

Watch the video here: youtube.com

Source: propagandamatrix.com