A report by the Russian desk of Britain's secret intelligence service sees a "growing possibility" President Vladimir Putin is prepared to resurrect the climate of the Cold War. The report by MI6 chief John Scarlett to Downing Street comes at a time when a series of flashpoints are threatening to plunge relations between Russia and the West back into deep freeze - or possibly worse.

The report concludes Putin is willing to use Russia's very substantial oil and gas reserves as leverage. "He demonstrated that when he switched off the gas supplies to the Ukraine last year to win a political battle between Moscow and [Kiev]. Increasingly Europe, and ultimately Britain, will become dependent on Russian gas supplies," the report says.

The nation's largest public policy women's group is asking President Bush to commit to a veto of a "hate crimes" plan that, as WND has reported, opponents fear would target Christians and be used to demolish both freedom of speech and religion in the United States.

"Last week the House Judiciary Committee, egged on by radical homosexual groups, passed what can only be called a Thought Crimes bill," said former White House insider Chuck Colson in his Breakpoint commentary. "It's called the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. But this bill is not about hate. It's not even about crime. It's about outlawing peaceful speech - speech that asserts that homosexual behavior is morally wrong."

The call for the veto promise came from leaders at Concerned Women for America, who said they have written to the president with their request, because Congress is poised to approve H.R. 1592 as early as today.
"This bill would grant individuals who engaged in homosexual behavior ("sexual orientation") or those who cross-dress ("gender identity") preferential treatment over other citizens by elevating them to a specially protected class of victim," the organization said.

"The 14th Amendment guarantees all citizens equal protection under the law, regardless of their chosen sexual behaviors. There is no evidence to suggest that homosexuals or cross-dresser do not receive equal protection under the law," the CWFA said. "Victims are, and should be, treated equally in the justice system, regardless of their 'sexual orientation.' This 'hate crimes' bill would overturn this balance, creating second-class victims and a federal justice system that discriminates against grandmothers, children, women and men simply because they are heterosexual," said CWFA President Wendy Wright.

"Some say we need this law to prevent attacks on homosexuals. But we already have laws against assaults on people and property," Colson continued. "Moreover, according to the FBI, crimes against homosexuals in the United States have dropped dramatically in recent years. IN 2005, OUT OF 863,000 CASES OF AGGRAVATED ASSAULT, JUST 177 CASES WERE CRIMES OF BIAS AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS"

He said that's known because during debate over the plan, U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., offered an amendment to assure that the law would not be used to limit the religious freedom of any person or group, and majority Democrats on the committee refused it. "It also refused to adopt amendments protecting other groups from hate crimes like members of the military, who are often targets of verbal attacks and spitting. They also shot down amendments that would protect the homeless and senior citizens Nothing doing, the committee said " THE ONLY GROUP THEY WANTED TO PROTECT: HOMOSEXUALS."

"Clearly, the intent of this law is not to prevent crime, but to shut down freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of thought," he said. The concerns also were echoed by Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth. "This is really about getting the heavy hand of the federal government in promoting homosexuality as a 'civil right,'" he said.

POWERFUL supermarkets are on the verge of becoming Britain's "one-stop shop" by selling everything from football tickets to four-bedroom homes, experts have warned. With bigger stores already having as many as 100,000 different product lines, it is only a matter of time before there is nothing "the silent, slightly guilty majority" of shoppers will not be able to get from the major chains, according to the trade magazine the Grocer.

Golf-driving nets, airline tickets, pet insurance and electricity supplies are among the unconventional items available in supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda and Morrisons. Some offer discounts on Open University courses and children's nurseries and are planning to have GP surgeries and community police services on sites.

The Grocer said members of the public might one day be able to equip themselves from cradle to grave simply by going to the supermarket - a worst-case scenario for Britain's struggling smaller traders.
Supermarkets now account for three-quarters of Britain's £76 billion retail market. Sales of non-grocery items sold by supermarkets increased by 61 per cent between 2000 to 2004 to reach £12.8 billion, and it is growing much faster than grocery sales.

A spokesman for the Scottish Consumer Council said: "There is concern about the effect [supermarkets] have on smaller retailers, who cannot compete with the buying power of the supermarkets. This is seen today in the boarded-up shops in many town centres across Scotland."

Among the unusual services offered by supermarkets is a full-size nursery at Sainsbury in Bournemouth, while Tesco Clubcard offers discounts on Open University courses. Tesco also has its own anti-virus software and its website sells a "Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit". Lidl sells airline tickets for Air Berlin through a voucher system, while Asda has a property website and is planning after-hours GP services.

For the majority, there appears to be little doubt that America is at the zenith of its military power, capable of shaking up the world as it sees fit and charged with the mission of bringing the light of democracy to the darkest corners of the globe. Does it make sense, they will undoubtedly ask, to talk of a new Dark Age, when American power extends so far and wide?

Yet for some members of this society, the title might not be so farfetched. For them, the future appears potentially treacherous; they believe that it is not at all clear where we are going as a civilization, or whether we can throw any light on other people, much less on ourselves. These individuals have become quite jittery, or even despondent, about America's terminal decadence. For them, the downward spiral of our culture and the exponential, even cultlike growth of forces that threaten our long-standing secular and humanistic values are causes for increasing alarm. For this segment of the population, then, the title Dark Ages America is not likely to be as anomalous as it might first sound.

My question for the reader is this: in all seriousness, which direction do you believe the United States is going in, at this point in time? IT MIGHT BE INSTRUCTIVE TO CONSIDER THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE FOUR POST-ROMAN EMPIRE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WEST APPLY TO OUR PRESENT SITUATION.

THE TRIUMPH OF RELIGION OVER REASON

Interviewing a number of policy advisers and people who had known or been close to Mr. Bush at one time, journalist Ron Suskind discovered a consensus among them: they felt the president -- along with his evangelical base -- believes he is on a mission from God and that faith trumps empirical evidence.

David Gergen, who has been an adviser to four presidents, pointed out -- "closing down dissent and centralizing power in a few hands." We are moving, or so it seems, toward a one-party system, a kind of presidential dictatorship, one that is fundamentally theocratic in nature.

THE BREAKDOWN OF EDUCATION AND CRITICAL THINKING

Increasingly, the evidence piles up that intellectually speaking, this nation is very obviously "living in the dark." What is one to make of the fact (reported in the New York Times early in 2005) that a number of school districts around the country are now making sobriety tests a regular feature of the school day?

Millions of American adults are ignorant of the most elementary facts, such as the identity of our enemy in World War II? Or that more often than not, our children graduate from university not knowing the difference between an argument and an assertion, are unable to reason clearly, and don't really know what evidence is?

LEGALIZATION OF TORTURE

More than anything else, I suppose, torture evokes the culture of the Dark and Middle Ages. We associate these eras with barbarism, with "cruel and unusual punishment," and use phrases such as "medieval torture chamber" to characterize them. What, then, are the implications of Abu Ghraib, which, along with Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, constitutes only "part of an American gulag," as Al Gore candidly put it? Just to understand the larger picture, for a moment: Not only are we supporting governments that routinely practice torture, but in the wake of 9/11 we began transferring suspected terrorists to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Morocco to do our dirty work for us, which includes hanging prisoners from the ceiling, subjecting them to electric shocks, forcing objects up their rectums, tearing their fingernails out, and fracturing their spines.

Alberto Gonzales, the man who wrote the legal briefs justifying the use of torture, is now, in Orwellian fashion, head of the Department of Justice? Add to this the substantial evidence that many of these practices are a standard feature of the domestic prison system, and our return to the Dark Ages would seem to be complete.

MARGINALIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES ON THE WORLD STAGE

Would you believe it if I were to tell you that the U.S. infant mortality rate is among the highest for developed democracies, and that the World Health Organization rates our health care system as thirty-seventh best in the world, well behind that of Saudi Arabia (which came in as twenty sixth)?

That the American legal system, at one time the world standard, is now regarded by many other nations as outmoded and provincial, or even barbaric, given our use of the death penalty? That we have lost our edge in science to Europe, that our annual trade deficit (half a trillion dollars) reveals a nation that is industrially weak, and that the US economy is being kept afloat by huge foreign loans ($4 billion a day during 2003)? What do you think will happen when America's creditors decide to pull the plug, or when OPEC members begin selling oil in euros instead of dollars?

HISTORY IS NO LONGER ON OUR SIDE.

Rome in the late-empire period is the obvious point of comparison here, and it is important to remember that it did not so much fall as fall away as it became socially and economically nonviable, as its military was finally strained to the breaking point by what has been called "imperial overstretch." Rome simply became irrelevant on the world stage.

As for the United States, all that awaits it on the domestic front is bankruptcy and popular disaffection; internationally speaking, we'll be looking at second- or third-rate status by 2040, if not before. History is no longer on our side; time is passing us by, and the star of other nations is rising as ours is sinking into semidarkness.

So the question remains, What kind of a future does the United States really have? Not a bright one, quite obviously. Why bother to write this book? IF WE HAVE NO WAY OF SAVING OURSELVES, WHAT'S THE POINT?

There are, in short, readers who find reality -- whether "good" or "bad" -- finally more fulfilling than fairy tales, and it is to this audience that Dark Ages America is addressed.

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down -- the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy, but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

"IT IS CLEAR, IF YOU ARE WILLING TO LOOK, THAT EACH OF THESE 10 STEPS HAS ALREADY BEEN INITIATED IN THE UNITED STATES BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION."

1. INVOKE A TERRIFYING INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ENEMY. After we were hit on Sept. 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on Oct. 26, 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. We were told we were now on a "war footing"; we were in a "global war" against a "global caliphate" intending to "wipe out civilization.

2. CREATE A GULAG. Once you have got everyone scared, the next step is to create a prison system outside the rule of law (as Bush put it, he wanted the American detention centre at Guantánamo Bay to be situated in legal "outer space" -- where torture can take place.

3. DEVELOP A THUG CASTE. The years following 9/11 have proved a bonanza for America's security contractors, with the Bush administration outsourcing areas of work that traditionally fell to the U.S. military. In the process, contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been issued for security work by mercenaries at home and abroad. In Iraq, some of these contract operatives have been accused of involvement in torturing prisoners, harassing journalists and firing on Iraqi civilians.

4. SET UP AN INTERNAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM. In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about "national security"; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent.

5. HARASS CITIZENS' GROUPS. You infiltrate and harass citizens' groups. It can be trivial: a church in Pasadena, whose minister preached that Jesus was in favor of peace, found itself being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, while churches that got Republicans out to vote, which is equally illegal under U.S. tax law, have been left alone.

6. ENGAGE IN ARBITRARY DETENTION AND RELEASE. This scares people. It is a kind of cat-and-mouse game. In a closing or closed society there is a "list" of dissidents and opposition leaders: You are targeted in this way once you are on the list, and it is hard to get off the list.

7. TARGET KEY INDIVIDUALS. Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don't toe the line.

8. CONTROL THE PRESS. Over time in closing societies, real news is supplanted by fake news and false documents. You won't have a shutdown of news in modern America -- it is not possible. But you can have, as Frank Rich and Sidney Blumenthal have pointed out, a steady stream of lies polluting the news well.

9. DISSENT EQUALS TREASON. Cast dissent as "treason" and criticism as "espionage." Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalize certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of "spy" and "traitor."

10. SUSPEND THE RULE OF LAW. The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. THIS MEANS THAT IN A NATIONAL EMERGENCY -- WHICH THE PRESIDENT NOW HAS ENHANCED POWERS TO DECLARE -- HE CAN SEND MICHIGAN'S MILITIA TO ENFORCE A STATE OF EMERGENCY THAT HE HAS DECLARED IN OREGON, OVER THE OBJECTIONS OF THE STATE'S GOVERNOR AND ITS CITIZENS.

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands is the definition of tyranny," wrote James Madison.

As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to Internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded."

The movie that has been astounding audiences in theaters around the world. In this provocative, critically acclaimed documentary, you will discover :-

- The early founders of Christianity seem wholly unaware of the idea of a human Jesus

- The Jesus of the Gospels bears a striking resemblance to other ancient heroes and the figureheads of pagan savior cults

- Contemporary Christians are largely ignorant of the origins of their religion

- Fundamentalism is as strong today as it ever has been, with an alarming 44% of Americans believing Jesus will return to earth in their lifetimes

- And God simply isn't there.

Dazzling motion graphics and a sweeping soundtrack propel this uncompromising and taboo-shattering documentary that Newsweek says "irreverently lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed."

Following are excerpts from the sermon that took place last month, courtesy of MEMRI.

Ahmad Bahr began: "'You will be victorious' on the face of this planet. You are the masters of the world on the face of this planet. Yes, [the Koran says that] 'you will be victorious,' but only 'if you are believers.' Allah willing, 'you will be victorious,' while America and Israel will be annihilated. I guarantee you that the power of belief and faith is greater than the power of America and Israel. They are cowards who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah. That is why America's nose was rubbed in the mud in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, and everywhere."

Bahr continued and said that America will be annihilated, while Islam will remain. The Muslims "'will be victorious, if you are believers.' Oh Muslims, I guarantee you that the power of Allah is greater than America, by whom many are blinded today. Some people are blinded by the power of America. We say to them that with the might of Allah, with the might of His Messenger, and with the power of Allah, we are stronger than America and Israel."

The Hamas spokesperson concluded with a prayer, saying: "Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one. Oh Allah, show them a day of darkness. Oh Allah, who sent down His Book, the mover of the clouds, who defeated the enemies of the Prophet, defeat the Jews and the Americans, and bring us victory over them."

Yet, tomorrow, elections in Scotland could lead to the very same union's destruction. Polls have repeatedly shown that the Scottish National Party - which has promised a referendum on independence - is likely to beat Labour in Scotland. They have also shown that a majority of Scots and a clear majority of the English favour an independent Scotland.

British ministers are clearly deeply worried about the threat to the United Kingdom - none more so than Gordon Brown, who was telling a Scottish TV station only this week: 'I will fight against a policy that will break up Britain.'
Yet the sad reality is that Mr Brown and his fellow ministers have come round to the importance of the Union far too late in the day.

For it is his own New Labour party - governed by an obsession with multiculturalism, constitutional tinkering, short-term political expediency and an utter disregard for history - that has in a few short years created precisely the conditions for the dissolution of this union. Any basic understanding of history will show you that the Treaty of Union turned out to be the most successful offensive and defensive alliance in modern history.

It was as a united state after 1707 that England, Scotland and Wales succeeded in building the greatest territorial empire ever - one that fought successfully against the totalitarian threats of Prussian militarism, Hitler's fascism and Soviet communism in turn.

The Great British union has shown that separate nations can work together for three centuries for their mutual advantage and - ultimately - for that of mankind. Our 1.3 per cent of the world's population is small enough as it is, yet we have the world's fifthlargest economy, a permanent seat on the Security Council of the United Nations, an independent currency (the creation of the 1707 Union), the best Armed Forces in the world (one-third of which is Scottish), an independent nuclear deterrent (largely based north of the border), and respected voices in Nato and the EU. Sever our union and all of these would be put at immediate risk.

Union was the root cause of British greatness; dissolution means the end of Britishness itself, with all the disastrous consequences that would flow from that for the two countries and the rest of the world.

Scotland Yard said that asylum seekers and other migrants who had witnessed violence in their home countries were having a "disproportionate negative impact" on other youngsters here. The report is the first official acknowledgment that refugees from war-torn and often lawless countries are at least partly responsible for an upsurge in gang violence. Police have identified at least 171 gangs operating in London alone.

David Green, director of the Civitas thinktank, said: "We are importing 15, 16, 17 and 18-year-olds brought up in countries with an anarchistic warlord culture in which carrying knives and guns is routine. "That is no exaggeration. We are asking for trouble if we do not confront this issue, and co-ordinate Government policy properly." He claimed "squeamishness" was preventing the Government or the police tackling the issue.

"If people come from a culture which is anarchistic, they are more likely to be violent, but the police will be frightened to target these people. "The fear is that it would be called stereotyping. Actually, it is a valid group generalisation."

Although 90 per cent of gang participants are male, there are believed to be three female gangs and women are often used "to mind weapons" for brothers and partners. The document states that half of gangs are based in the African-Caribbean community. However, it warns that gangs are emerging from other communities "where there is reluctance for victims and witnesses to engage with the criminal justice system partly due to their immigration status".

The association found that the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside metropolitan area had the worst air based on 2003 through 2005 figures.The Pittsburgh area was ranked as the nation's second most polluted metropolitan area followed by Bakersfield, Calif., Birmingham, Ala., Detroit and Cleveland. Visalia, Calif., Cincinnati, Indianapolis and St. Louis rounded out the top 10.

The news wasn't all bad for Los Angeles. Despite the dubious distinction, the number of days residents breathed the nation's worst ozone levels was fewer than in previous years.

"Nobody is surprised that LA has an air pollution problem," said Janice Nolen, the association's assistant vice president for national policy and advocacy. "The problems there are one of the reasons we have the Clean Air Act. But it is important for folks to know that there has been some improvement."

Nearly half of the U.S. population lives in counties that still have unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution, even though there appeared to be less ozone in many counties than previous years, the study found.

The only candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, failed to win the required majority after a boycott by secularist opposition parties. The parties, which accuse Mr Gul of a hidden Islamist agenda, asked the court to rule that there was no quorum.

The government vowed to restart the election process on Wednesday but it was unclear what form that would take.Mr Gul and Mr Erdogan are both from AK, which has Islamist roots and an overwhelming majority in parliament. They deny there is any hidden agenda.

But the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul says the army had made it clear it would not tolerate Mr Gul as president. It warned it would defend the separation of state and religion, the legacy of the state's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Our correspondent says the court is officially independent but had been under immense pressure to reach precisely this verdict. It is one that is likely to divide Turkey further, she says.

The prince - a 2nd Lieutenant in the Blues & Royals - will be the first royal in a war zone since his uncle, Prince Andrew, served as a helicopter pilot in the 1982 Falklands War.

Army Chief of Staff Sir Richard Dannatt said he had personally taken the decision to allow Prince Harry, known as 2nd Lt Wales, to serve in Iraq. But Sir Richard stressed the decision would be kept under review. He said he hoped his statement would end the media speculation surrounding the prince's deployment.

Sir Richard added: "I would urge that the somewhat frenzied media activity surrounding this particular story should cease in the interests of the overall security of all our people deployed in Iraq." Prince Harry has been trained as a tank commander and would head a 12-man team in four armoured reconnaissance vehicles.

The decision to send the prince to Iraq came despite fears that both he and his troops would be exposed to added risk because of his high profile. It had been hoped he would be able to perform his duties under the "anonymity" of being just another officer.

But a Shia commander in Iraq has already warned that spies from the Mahdi army had infiltrated British bases and that news of the prince's arrival would be leaked to insurgents. Abu Mujtabi, a senior figure in the Mahdi army, the Shia militia loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, warned: "One of our aims is to capture Harry - we have people inside the British bases to inform us when he will arrive.

"It is not only us, the Mahdi army, that will try to capture him, but every person who hates the British and the Americans will try to get him, all the mujahideens in Iraq, the al-Qaeda, the Iranians all will try to get him."

The Vatican statement said that the Pontiff encouraged the two sides in the dispute must respect human rights, promote dialogue and return to the negotiating table as "the only path" to ending two decades of conflict."The Catholic Church, which offers a significant contribution to the life of the country, will intensify the delicate work of educating consciences with the sole goal of promoting the common good, reconciliation and peace," the statement said.

While the Pope and President spent 20 minutes speaking privately, Rajapaksa's spokesman, Lucien Rajakarunanayake, told reporters the president was hoping that "the pope will better appreciate the efforts of the Sri Lankan government to resolve the conflict."

"There are shortcomings and human rights violations, as in any conflict, but the president wants peace and is open to any help to get the peace process going from its present logjam," the spokesman said. "The need to respect human rights and resume the path of dialogue and negotiations (was confirmed in talks) as the only road to end violence bloodying the island," the Vatican said.

During the meeting with the Pontiff Sri Lanka President explained that the Government was fully committed to a negotiated settlement to the matters regarding the rights of the minorities and that the Government did not believe in any military solution to the issue.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam the Tamil separatist outfit of Sri Lanka have vowed to fight on for an independent state for minority Tamils in the north and east. Nearly 70,000 people have been killed since 1983, and more than 4,000 have died since 2005 when a ceasefire began to unravel.

Back in 1966, the most esteemed Alan Greenspan himself wrote the following in an essay entitled "Gold and Economic Freedom":

"When business in the United States underwent a mild contraction in 1927, the Federal Reserve created more paper reserves in the hope of forestalling any possible bank reserve shortage. More disastrous, however, was the Federal Reserve's attempt to assist Great Britain who had been losing gold to us because the Bank of England refused to allow interest rates to rise when market forces dictated (it was politically unpalatable). "

"The reasoning of the authorities involved was as follows: if the Federal Reserve pumped excessive paper reserves into American banks, interest rates in the United States would fall to a level comparable with those in Great Britain; this would act to stop Britain's gold loss and avoid the political embarrassment of having to raise interest rates. "

The "Fed" succeeded; it stopped the gold loss, but it nearly destroyed the economies of the world, in the process. The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market-triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in braking the boom. But it was too late: by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed. Great Britain fared even worse, and rather than absorb the full consequences of her previous folly, she abandoned the gold standard completely in 1931, tearing asunder what remained of the fabric of confidence and inducing a world-wide series of bank failures. The world economies plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930's."

The two major players in the world financial system at that time were the United States and Great Britain. The United States was the emerging industrial power, whereas Great Britain was the mature and stagnating industrial power. The central bank of the emerging industrial power (the US) printed money in an effort to prop up the economy of the mature industrial power (Great Britain). The inflation of the money supply resulted in the overheating of the economy and the stock market of the emerging industrial power. It was the crash in the stock market of the emerging industrial power (the US) that brought about the crash in all the world's stock markets and the Great Depression followed later.

Now fast forward to today, and what you see is China as the emerging industrial power and the United States as the mature and stagnating industrial power. China is printing money in an effort to prop up the economy of the mature industrial power (the US). The inflation of the money supply is resulting in the overheating of the Chinese economy and stock market. Very interestingly, on February 27, 2007, it was the sharp 9% one-day drop in the Chinese stock market that led to the sharp drop in stock markets worldwide, including the US. People may be conditioned to think that economic events in developing countries pale in significance to economic events in the US, and may fail to see how what happens "way over there" in China would have any significant impact on their economic well-being.

But how different the truth really is. I think most people even now after the February 27th turn of events, fail to grasp why the US stock market sold off so sharply after the Chinese stock market sell off occurred first. The idea that a foreign stock market could dictate what happens in the US stock market almost offends the American sense of national pride (so the event is casually dismissed as "market irrationality"). A word of advice: you better get used to it, as there is much more of that to come.

The crash is coming.

Turkey came under mounting pressure from the European Union last night to rein in the influence of its generals, after the country's powerful pro-secular military threatened to intervene in the Islamic-oriented government amid growing turmoil over the election of a new President.

Olli Rehn, the European Union enlargement commissioner, who has been a keen supporter of Ankara's eventual accession to the bloc, warned the military to stay out of politics, saying the election was a 'test case' for the Turkish military's respect for democracy.

Rehn issued the salvo after Turkey's general staff weighed in on the dispute, saying they would not flinch at intervention if it meant upholding the Muslim state's cherished secular values. The country's secular elite has voiced grave concerns over the government's choice of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as a presidential candidate, given the politician's Islamist beliefs - his wife and daughter wear the headscarf.

'The Chief of the General Staff is answerable to the Prime Minister,' declared Cemil Cicek, justice Minister in the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is a former Islamist but has pledged his commitment to Turkey's secular political system. Military intervention would be 'inconceivable in a democratic state,' Cicek said.

Within hours of Gul's failure to win enough votes in a first round of balloting on Friday, the military, which has staged four coups in the past 50 years, posted a statement on its website invoking its role as defender of the country's secular traditions as laid out by Turkey's modern soldier-statesman founder, Mustafa Ataturk.

'In recent days, the problem during the presidential election has focused on secularism discussions,' the statement said. 'This situation has been anxiously followed by the Turkish armed forces. The Turkish armed forces maintains its firm determination to carry out its clearly specified duties to protect these principles and has absolute loyalty and belief in this determination.'

The military made the announcement after the secular opposition appealed to the state's constitutional court to cancel the election. Many fear that if elected, Gul would be in a position to do away with the checks and balances built into system by eroding the secular nature of the courts and other autonomous bodies and appointing Islamic-oriented candidates to powerful civil service positions.