Stephen Lendman

Residents fleeing their homes in Houla, near Homs, December 5,
2012. (Reuters/Misra Al-Misri/Shaam News Network/Handout)

News from Syria is grim. Libya 2.0 looms. Fabricating a chemical weapons threat looks like pretext for full-scale war.

On December 8, the Toronto Sun said Foreign Affairs officials urged Canadian citizens to leave Syria. Maybe they know something they're not explaining.

On December 9, Israel National News said the London Sunday Times said IDF special forces now operate inside Syria. Allegedly they're trying to locate "non-conventional weapons" and "sabotage" them. Israel considered ground and/or air attacks to destroy them. Perhaps they're still planned.

The Sunday Times said if evidence suggests Assad used chemical weapons, Washington and Israel "might coordinate to carry out a ground invasion." An unnamed military source told The Times that US forces could be ready "rapidly within days" if chemical weapons are used. "The muscle is already there to be flexed."

On December 9, The Times of Israel headlined "Syrian rebels claim new video shows victims of chemical attack." A You Tube clip depicts alleged victims. It shows dead and injured Syrians with disfigured faces. Assad is blamed.

Days earlier, a You Tube video showed Syrian insurgents testing chemical weapons on lab rabbits. Threats to use them against Assad loyalists followed. Lab equipment and chemical containers were shown. Some containers bore the Turkish chemical company Tekkim name. An Arabic text wall poster read, "The Almighty Wind Brigade (Kateebat A Reeh Al Sarsar)." A man shown begins mixing chemicals in a beaker. It emits gas. Rabbits in a glass box have convulsions, collapse and die. The audio states:

"You saw what happened. This will be your fate, you infidel Alawites. I swear by Allah to make you die like these rabbits, one minute after you inhale the gas."

Ellen Brown

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and the Bank of Scotland have been pillars of Scotland’s economy and culture for over three centuries. So when the RBS was nationalized by the London-based UK government following the 2008 banking crisis, and the Bank of Scotland was acquired by the London-based Lloyds Bank, it came as a shock to the Scots. They no longer owned their oldest and most venerable banks.

Another surprise turn of events was the triumph of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the 2011 Scottish parliamentary election. Scotland is still part of the United Kingdom, but it has had its own parliament since 1999, similar to U.S. states. The SNP has rallied around the call for independence from the UK since its founding in 1934, but it was a minority party until the 2011 victory, which gave it an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament.

Scottish independence is now on the table. A bill has been introduced to the Scottish Parliament with the intention of holding a referendum on the issue in 2014.

Arguments in favor of independence include that it will allow the Scottish people to make decisions for Scotland themselves, on such contentious issues as having nuclear weapons in their seas and being part of NATO. They can also directly access the profits from the North Sea oil off Scotland’s coast.

Arguments against independence include that Scotland’s levels of public spending (which are higher than in the rest of the UK) would be difficult to sustain without raising taxes. North Sea oil revenues will eventually decline.

One way budgetary problems might be relieved would be for Scotland to have its own publicly-owned bank, one that served the interests of the Scottish people. True economic sovereignty means having control over the national currency, credit and debt.