Washington’s incendiary role in Asia

Bill Van Auken

Washington’s encouragement of South Korea’s live-fire military exercise in disputed waters off the North Korean coast is emblematic of the increasingly incendiary role played by US imperialism in Asia.

The latest round of war games was staged on Yeonpyeong island and was virtually identical to the live-fire artillery drill conducted by South Korean forces there last month. That operation provoked a retaliatory artillery barrage from North Korea that killed two South Korean civilians and two marines and sparked worldwide fears of an outbreak of all-out war on the Korean peninsula.

There was one notable difference between the two military exercises. This time the Pentagon ordered the deployment of some 20 US military personnel on Yeonpyeong to ensure that, in the event of a North Korean response, Washington would have a casus belli to join with the South Korean armed forces in unleashing massive retaliation.

There is no disputing the provocative character of these actions. Yeonpyeong lies little more than seven miles off the North Korean coast (and some 50 miles from South Korea). The waters into which South Korean artillery was lobbing shells and F-15K fighter bombers were dropping bombs are claimed by North Korea, which rejects the so-called Northern Limit Line, unilaterally imposed by the US military at the close of the Korean War in 1953.

Given the sequence of events last month, the US-backed military exercise amounted to a deliberate dare to Pyongyang to strike again, in order to provide the pretext for a South Korean counter-attack. Appealing to his right-wing base and to the military, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has instituted a new policy allowing South Korean forces to unleash disproportionate retaliatory force, meaning air strikes on North Korean targets.  [SEE: South Korea’s Chief of Army and Defense Minister Have Both Quit, Live-Fire Drills Continue]

After North Korea failed to make any military response to Monday’s exercise, Washington and Seoul were reportedly preparing still more drills in order to “send a strong message” to the North and potentially trigger an armed clash.

The US used its veto power and temporary presidency of the United Nations Security Council to turn an emergency session convened Sunday—after deliberate delay—to stonewall efforts to avoid a renewed confrontation between the two Koreas. Russia had called for the session in an effort to prevail on both the North and the South to refrain from further military actions that could lead to war and to have a UN special envoy dispatched to both Seoul and Pyongyang to seek a resolution of the conflict.

Washington, however, was interested not in diffusing the tensions, but in ratcheting them up as a means of pursuing its own strategic interests in the region. US Ambassador Susan Rice rejected any resolution outside of a unilateral condemnation of North Korea and dismissed any other action by the council as irrelevant.

What is the US ruling elite after in its pursuit of an increasingly bellicose policy on the Korean Peninsula, where nearly 34,000 US troops, at least 114,000 Chinese soldiers and as many as four million Koreans died in a brutal war half a century ago?

The principal aim of US policy is not that of preventing military conflict between the two Koreas, but rather exploiting the danger of conflict as a means of exerting pressure on China and countering its increasing economic and political weight throughout Asia.

In an effort to diminish tensions, China sought to convene a meeting of the participants in the Six Party Talks on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula—the two Koreas, the US, China, Russia and Japan—which have been suspended since 2008. Washington, however, adopted an opposite approach. It hosted its own meeting of the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan in Washington in what amounted to solidifying an anti-Chinese bloc over the Korean crisis.

This has been joined by the nearly continuous staging of a US military show of force in the region, with repeated war games and deployments of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington and its battle group in the Yellow Sea, South China Sea and Sea of Japan, in defiance of Chinese protests.

Posing as a champion of freedom of the seas and inserting itself as a defender of China’s adversaries in territorial disputes, such as those over the Spratley and Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Washington has sought to forge a series of military alliances and agreements aimed at encircling and containing China.

Washington is responding to a profound shift in the geo-strategic situation in Asia and internationally signified by China’s rise to the position of the world’s second largest economy and by the profound crisis of US capitalism. As in Afghanistan and Iraq, the response of the US ruling elite is an attempt to offset economic decline by ever greater reliance on the residual military power of American imperialism.

Increasingly, the US military is being trained to view China as its most likely adversary in the outbreak of a new major war.

This year’s US Joint Forces Command’s Joint Operating Environment (JOE) report—a strategic guide to perceived threats and future deployments of the US military—includes the chilling warning, “The course that China takes will determine much about the character and nature of the 21st Century—whether it will be ‘another bloody century,’ or one of peaceful cooperation.”

It goes on to sketch out potential scenarios for US-Chinese military conflicts, including the possibility of a war for oil between the world’s two largest economies. The document warns that “China’s concern for protecting its oil supplies [in the Sudan]… could portend a future in which other states intervene in Africa to protect scarce resources. The implications for future conflict are ominous, if energy supplies cannot keep up with demand and should states see the need to militarily secure dwindling energy resources.”

In other words, should China’s actions cut across US imperialism’s own attempts to militarily assert its hegemony over the world’s key energy producing regions, the result could be war.

The implications of such a war, between two nuclear-armed powers, are beyond horrific.

Curiously, last week the New York Times ran an article entitled “US Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable,” which dealt with the latest thinking within policy circles on the survivability of a nuclear war.

“We have to get past the mental block that says it’s too terrible to think about,” W. Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told the Times. “We have to be ready to deal with it.”

An article that appeared last December in the influential foreign policy journalForeign Affairs indicated that such consideration of the “unthinkable” has been directly focused on China. It cited a study by US nuclear weapons analysts on the “consequences of a US nuclear attack using high-yield warheads” to knock out China’s own intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal.

“Even though China’s silos are located in the countryside,” the article reported, “the model predicted that the fallout would blow over a large area, killing 3-4 million people.”

Two decades after the end of the Cold War, the danger of a nuclear conflagration is greater than ever and is growing, driven by the historic crisis of US and world capitalism. This danger carries with it a threat to the future of all humanity.

The only progressive answer to the poisonous growth of militarism in general and the incendiary role played by US imperialism in particular is the struggle to unite the working class across national boundaries in a common fight for the socialist transformation of society.

West’s Imperial Lust in Afghanistan

By Karamatullah K. Ghori, The Milli Gazette

Published Online: Dec 25, 2010

Print Issue: 1-15 December 2010

Historians through ages have regularly bemoaned Afghanistan’s tragedy as a victim of its geography. Its location as the gateway to India left it prone and vulnerable to the imperial lust of invading conquerors.

There is, however, a major difference between conquering invaders of the past centuries-from Alexander down to Imperial Britain-and those western powers that have been in occupation of Afghanistan since the end of 2001. The past invaders didn’t seek to occupy Afghanistan for the sake of it; they merely used its land corridor to make incursions into the South Asian sub-continent. The only exception to the rule was imperial Britain that tried to occupy it for good because it feared its rival imperial power, Russia, would do it if it didn’t. However, three wars spanning 80 years-later, even that British Empire that otherwise boasted that the sun never set on it gave up its incontinent lust to keep Afghanistan in its imperial bondage.

But the 48-countries-strong armed forces of occupation that have been keeping, or trying to, Afghanistan in their thrall for the past nine years think they will be able to re-write history by fashioning Afghanistan they way they desire it and thus disproving the old historical maxim that no outside power has ever been able to subdue the valiant Afghans.

The 48 armies making up the US-Nato-and like-minded countries’ military presence in Afghanistan believe that they are there not as a force of invasion or occupation but rather to prevent Afghanistan from ever again used as a launch-pad for terror activities in US or anywhere else in the western world. They have been calling themselves, accordingly, as an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to help the Afghan government created by them according to their own choice-and convenience, more than anything else-to combat the menace of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. They basically think they are in Afghanistan on a ‘humanitarian mission’ to protect and insulate its people against the depredation of the Taliban who had ruled Afghanistan with an iron hand before the cataclysm of 9/11 paved the way for western armies to swoop over the land.

But despite all the sophisticated fire-power at the disposal of this 150,000-strong force-and state-of-the-art weaponry and logistics at its command-this formidable force hasn’t, quite, been able to accomplish its mission of removing the cancer of the Taliban and cleanse the country of their continued presence. After 9 long years, there’s precious little for this huge occupation force to show by way of tangible accomplishments. The Taliban are on rebound. They are resurgent and the western armies have been put on to the back-foot because of their inability to keep the Taliban in check despite tall claims to the contrary routinely made by their leaderships.

ISAF, as the world knows, is basically a handmaiden of US, whose concerns in the wake of 9/11 for security of its homeland had forced its 28 Nato allies, and 20 other like-minded countries, to respond to Washington’s call for arms and men. Under George W. Bush the mission to teach the Taliban a lesson and make them run under the fierce onslaught of this formidable army of occupation was rushed because that warrior-president was anxious to settle scores. The Americans make up the largest contingent-of more than 100,000 soldiers- in ISAF and have, by virtue of it, been dictating policy on war and peace in Afghanistan to its minions and ‘allies.’

President Obama, taking a realistic assessment of the war front-and its impact on the American people-had announced last year that US would start withdrawing its army-in stages, of course, and spread over an unlimited period-with effect from July 2011, even though the Pentagon and its top military brass felt unhappy over their commander-in-chief announcing a timetable which they thought would only help the ‘enemy.’

It seems, however, that in keeping with his now-familiar flip-flop on policy issues and matters of importance, Obama is having serious second-thoughts about his strategy on Afghanistan. And true to esprit de corps that should, logically, be prevailing among the allies contributing to the American war effort and objectives, other western countries and leaders are also on the same page with Obama about a serious policy review on Afghanistan. Birds of a feather, in this case too, seem determined to flock together.

The Nato leaders assembled in Lisbon, Portugal, for two days-November 19 and 20-to take stock of the situation on ground in Afghanistan and devise a common strategy to serve their common interest.

The choice of Lisbon as venue of the summit may have been entirely coincidental but conveyed, as emphatically, the imperialist thrust of this latest western venture in neo-colonialism. Portugal, in the halcyon days of empire-building by maritime-wise- powerful European nations, had taken the lead in implanting the imperialist flag in far off African and Asian colonies.

Lisbon has produced, at the end of two days of intense deliberations, a new resolve by 24 member states of Nato to prolong their ‘mission’ in Afghanistan up to 2014 which according to the Taliban enemy, is a clear admission of the occupation force’s inability to subdue its quarries and prevail upon it on the battle field.

However, even this new deadline, four years hence, is not the bottom line to many a hardened imperialist involved in the game. The joint statement still attaches a caveat: this will be the date to taper off the combat mission if the security environment so permits. Old masters of the imperialist game like Britain, with its capital of experience of Afghanistan at the peak of the 19th century ‘Great Game’ still fresh at its disposal, spelled out unambiguously that combat activity will not, for certain, come to an end in 2014. David Cameron, the newly-anointed scion of the imperialist legacy, proudly and unabashedly informed the world media that his country will not be disappearing from Afghanistan for many more years after 2014.

Obama, whose vacillations on issues of substance are becoming nauseatingly too frequent, desperately tried to be seen still as a man seeking a way out of Afghanistan despite his pathetic foot-dragging, insisted that some token withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan would begin in July, 2011, as earlier committed. However, the combat mission will go on for another 3 years, at the very minimum, beyond that now laughable deadline. But, unsurprisingly, in view of his dismal record on keeping his deadlines, there would be few takers of his futile effort to market himself as a man of peace. It seems, increasingly, that Obama hasn’t only owned the Bush wars as his own but is also rapidly veering in the direction of embracing the Bush ‘phobia’ of imperialism, or Pax Americana in the 21st century. In his bid to thwart the neo conservative backlash against him Obama is trying hard to adopt as much of their agenda as possible. However, he’s embarrassing those in the process who had paved the way for him to the White House in the hope of seeing a real ‘change’ in US policies at home and abroad.

On the face of it, the Nato unanimity and consensus on postponing the process of draw-down of combat is an indirect admission of this super alliance’s inability to dent the Taliban resistance against their occupiers. For world and domestic consumptions, however, the change of face is being couched in palatable jargon.

The new mantra of an overwhelming western military presence in Afghanistan is that the local Afghan security apparatus-made up of army and the police-is not ready, yet, and not fully trained to take over the burden of securing the country against the Taliban ‘scourge.’ The combined strength of 200,000 of Afghan army and police is said to be not only half-baked, in terms of its preparedness to deliver, but is also insufficiently equipped. That in itself is an indictment of the puppet Karzai regime in Kabul which has failed to make the best use of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance poured into its coffers by its western mentors over the years. But the indictment applies equally to the mentors themselves; they know little about governance and the interaction of political forces inside Afghanistan. In the case of the Americans, a big chunk of the money is eaten away by private contractors and mercenaries deployed in Afghanistan. Their numbers exceed the strength of the US men in uniform.

The new target in numbers for the Afghan army and police, as enunciated at Lisbon, is to raise them to 306,000 by the autumn of 2011. This target, then, logically presumes that it would still take two to three years to train and equip them fully to live up to the expectations that may be reposed in them.

Cold logic dictates that the new deadline set by Nato, at the behest, clearly, of Washington, should be accepted as such. The made-to-order Afghan leader, President Hamid Karzai, was summoned to Lisbon to put his own seal of approval on the new Nato diktat, which he did without demur. What else could he do? He played strictly according to the guidelines laid down for him and hailed the new pragmatism-which is expediency and political chicanery to most independent observers-of his western supporters and mentors as the most realistic chance for Afghanistan to overcome the huge challenge standing in front of it. He was assured, publicly, by the Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, that “this process will be completed by the end of 2014.”

But the ink had hardly dried on the ostentatious declaration that IMF-that immutable guardian and protector of western imperial interests in the struggling half of the world-announced that Afghanistan will not be able to support, in terms of financing it, this huge number of army and police from its resources until 2023!

In simple language, it translates as giving the western powers at least another decade to keep Afghanistan at their mercy and in bondage.

All these shenanigans aside, however, the elephant in the room at Lisbon that none of the summit participants wished to talk about, was the issue of a national gas pipeline from the Central Asian Republic of Turkmenistan, through Kandahar, in Afghanistan, and down, finally to the Port of Gwadar on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast in the province of Baluchistan.

This pipeline project has been in the works for several years. It’s the very same project the details of which were being negotiated with the Taliban when they were in power until before the 9/11 cataclysm. The Taliban were then considered reliable partners to work with in safeguarding the huge profits that western multi-nationals planned to reap from it.

The pipeline project has already received the formal endorsement of G-8 at their summit in Toronto earlier in summer this year. All these of 8, with the exception of Russia, have their troops involved in Afghanistan. The Asian Development Bank in Manila is the project sponsor and financier. It’s, for all intents and purposes, a done deal.

Washington attaches huge importance to this gas pipeline project in more ways than one. For one, it would reap windfall profits and gains for a number of American companies involved in it. For another-and a major consideration for US enmity against Iran-its completion would then make it unnecessary for Pakistan to work on its bilateral accord with Iran for a natural gas pipeline from Iran to the gas-starved Pakistan. Islamabad has been under enormous pressure from Washington for years-and still is-not to proceed with its deal with Tehran. India will also be a major beneficiary of the Turkmenistan project. A four country summit-India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan-is slated for December this year, under US auspices, at which the formal agreement between these states would be signed to seal the deal.

The pipeline is expected to be completed by 2014, if all goes well in the region around Kandahar. No wonder that all the big guns of Nato are concentrated in and around Kandahar, which has also the notoriety of being the Taliban stronghold.

Any doubts in any minds as to how neatly and smartly the cards are being arranged to marry the imperialist ambitions of a neo-colonialist west with the corporate lust of its multi-nationals? Afghanistan is still the big prize that it was when arch imperialists of 19th century were facing off each other in the then Great Game. History is repeating itself in all of its vicious splendour.

This article appeared in The Milli Gazette print issue of 1-15 December 2010 on page no. 26

Pakistan Comes Through for Iran–Chabahar Bomb Suspect Apprehended

[Pak Ministry of Interior now claims no arrest has been made.  SEE:  Pakistan: No Jundallah man arrested]

Riggi may be handed over to Iran soon

Saturday, December 25, 2010

By Amir Mir
LAHORE: Jundallah chief Abdul Rauf Riggi, who was tracked down by Pakistani authorities through his wireless set while he was making a call to a London-based newspaper from his Pak-Iran border area hideout in Balochistan, may soon be handed over to the Iranian authorities after interrogation by Pakistani security agencies.

According to well-informed security officials in Islamabad, the Pakistani agencies had been making frantic efforts to track down Riggi, especially after the December 15 killing of 40 people in a deadly suicide bombing in the Iranian city of Chabahar, when the most wanted Jundallah chief appeared on their radar on December 21, making a call on his wireless set to the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, a leading international Arabic newspaper.

As the call had given the Pakistani authorities a fair idea about Riggi’s whereabouts on the Pakistani side of the Iranian border, they moved quickly and detained him in the next 24 hours following a brief commando operation.

Interestingly, the arrest came the day the Pakistani and the Iranian presidents were in Istanbul at the Economic Cooperation Organisation’s summit. Riggi will be handed over to Iran shortly after being interrogated by the Pakistani security and intelligence agencies.

Abdul Rauf Riggi had actually succeeded his elder brother Abdolmalek Riggi as the Jundallah chief following his arrest and subsequent execution in Iran. The elder Riggi was captured in February 2010 in a dramatic operation by the Iranian authorities while he was spotted on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan. The Iranian warplanes subsequently forced the commercial aircraft to land in Iran.

It is widely believed that the “Get Riggi” operation could not have been possible without the help of the Pakistani agencies, which had passed on vital information about his travel plans as soon as he had left an American military base in Afghanistan after holding a clandestine meeting with the Nato military chief there. After a quick trial, Abdolmalek Riggi was sent to the gallows on terrorism charges on June 20, 2010.

Jundallah is a Baluchi insurgent group that operates in the Sistan-Baluchistan province of Iran and has substantial presence in the Pak-Iran border belt of Balochistan. The Sunni majority of Sistan-Baluchistan has had tense relations with Iran’s central government since long and the Jundallah leadership claims it is fighting for the interests of Sistan-Baluchistan’s large ethnic Baluch community.

Jundallah or the Army of God claims to represent the rebel Sunni community of the Iranian Baluch. One of the brothers — Abdolgafoor Riggi — had executed a suicide car bombing on December 28, 2008, targeting the headquarters of Iran’s joint police and anti-narcotics unit in Saravan city.

Since then, Jundallah has carried out several deadly suicide bombings in Iran, the latest being the December 15 suicide bombings in the Iranian city of Chabahar. In a telephone call hardly 24 hours after the Chabahar attack, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had lodged a protest with his Pakistani counterpart President Zardari and asked him to order his security forces to quickly arrest ‘known terrorists’ and hand them over to Iran.

President Zardari assured the Iranian president that Pakistan would not withhold any help in uprooting terrorism. On December 20, a few days after Ahmadinejad and Zardari had spoken, the Iranian government hanged 11 members of Jundallah who were convicted of bombings in Iran that killed 15 policemen and 12 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

The next day, on December 21, a furious Abdulrauf Riggi made a phone call to the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper and threatened Tehran that an official of the Iranian nuclear plant, who was kidnapped by Jundallah in October this year, would be executed shortly if the group’s demands for the release of over 200 militants and political prisoners being held in the Iranian jails were not met.

Riggi had added that the likely execution of the Iranian official should also be taken as a reaction to the execution of 11 Baluch in Iran, who he said were innocent civilians and had nothing to do with Jundallah. While releasing his interview 24 hours before his arrest, the newspaper said that Rigi was speaking on the phone from ‘somewhere inside Balochistan mountains.’

Are Balochs Being Re-Branded As “Al-Qaeda”?

[What do you make of the following reports, apparently taking place within 24hrs. of each other, in the same town?  Are these reports two different versions of the same event?  If so, then there is some severe news spinning going-on to turn the Baloch insurgency into some bizarre IMU/Al-Qaeda thing?  Perhaps the most unusual aspect of this latest CIA/ISI gambit is that a column of Baloch foot-soldiers and another (or the same?) group of IMU terrorists methodically traveled from the Kandahar "surge" zone to the next intended target city, Quetta.]

Six Suspected Al-Qaeda Terrorists Arrested in Balochistan

QUETTA: Authorities in Quetta said on Thursday that they had detained at least six “international terrorists” linked with Al-Qadeda while trying to enter Quetta on their way from border town of  Chaman.

According to officials, six suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists were arrested while entering provincial capital Quetta. They were caught on the basis of information provided by the intelligence sources. Officials said they had discovered maps, laptop computers and discs from the custody of the foreigners who intended to blow up buildings and other installations inside Balochistan.

The head of the group was identified as Alam Najeebi while most of the arrested suspects were reported to be Uzbek nationals.

Authorities said the suspected Al-Qaeda activists had been shifted to an unknown location for further investigations. They said they were hoping to find out the names and locations of more terrorists during interrogations.  “Important revelations are expected during the investigations,” said one official requesting anonymity.

Shahzain Bugti held with `illegal arms`

By Saleem Shahid

QUETTA, Dec 22: In a deve- lopment with far-reaching implications, paramilitary troops arrested on Wednesday Nawabzada Shahzain Bugti, a grandson of the late Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti and president of the Balochistan chapter of Jamhoori Watan Party, along with several personal guards, after finding a huge quantity of illegal arms and ammunition in vehicles of his convoy coming from the border town of Chaman.

The arrest of one of the high-profile Bugti heirs on charges of possessing and smuggling arms and ammunition sparked tension in Quetta and other parts of the already volatile province, with people fearing a negative political fallout and a possible violent backlash.

Inspector General of Frontier Corps Maj-Gen Obaidullah Khan, addressing a press conference along with Inspector General of Police Malik Iqbal, said that acting on information provided by security agencies, FC troops intercepted the convoy of Shahzain Bugti in the Baleli checkpost area in the outskirts of Quetta.

He said that FC personnel informed the JWP leader that they wanted to check the vehicles but he allowed the checking of only three vehicles of the 16 vehicles in his convoy. He said Mr Bugti refused to allow them to look into other vehicles.

After three hours of negotiations the FC personnel took all the vehicles into custody and detained Nawabzada Shahzain Bugti and his guards after disarming them. He said that during the search of the vehicles a huge quantity of illegal arms and ammunition was found in the smuggled vehicles.

Gen Obaid said that the arms and ammunition recovered from the vehicles included anti-aircraft guns, rocket-launchers, mortar guns and other advanced weapons.

“Mr Bugti and his armed guards did not offer any resistance when security forces took them into custody,” General Obaid said.

The arms and ammunition recovered from the 16 smuggled vehicles included 50 SMGs, 4 LMGs, two 12.7mm AA guns, two 14.2 mm AA guns, one SPG-9, one 9mm pistol, one AUG, 46,000 rounds of SMG, 1,600 rounds of 12.7/14.5, 570 rounds of AUG, 880 rounds of sniper rifle, 39 rounds of 9mm pistol, 17 mobile phones and 16 vehicles.

 

 

Former Russian Intelligence Col. Kvachkov Arrested for Attempt To Incite Armed Rebellion



Investigators are going to search the apartment of Vladimir Kvachkov, the main helper of the case of the attempt on Anatoly Chubais, who was acquitted court

Kvachkov Back in Prison for ‘Coup’

The Moscow Times

Former intelligence colonel Vladimir Kvachkov, cleared Wednesday of involvement in a high-profile assassination attempt, is back in detention after being held on suspicion of preparing a violent overthrow of the government, Interfax reported.

Law enforcement officers also searched Kvachkov’s apartment before detaining him, his lawyer Alexei Pershin told the news agency.

Investigators did not comment on the case. Kvachkov told Gazeta.ru that he had barricaded himself in his apartment and attempted to prevent Federal Security Service officers from entering.

Kvachkov was earlier questioned by the FSB for calls to overthrow the government allegedly made by a member of the Minin and Pozharsky’s Public Militia group, which he heads, Interfax reported, citing Kommersant.

An outspoken ultranationalist, Kvachkov was charged with leading a shooting and bombing attack in 2005 on a convoy carrying Rusnano chief Anatoly Chubais, who at the time was head of national power monopoly Unified Energy System.

Chubais, an architect of the liberal reforms in the 1990s, is reviled by many for the chaos that accompanied the country’s rapid transition to a market economy.

A jury cleared Kvachkov, former paratroopers Robert Yashin and Alexander Naidenov, and nationalist writer Ivan Mironov in 2008. The Supreme Court overturned the decision in 2009 and a retrial ended with another acquittal in September, upheld by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

A new investigation has been opened into the attack on Chubais, the Prosecutor General’s Office said Wednesday.

 

GRU colonel acquitted Kvachkov was arrested on suspicion of rebellion. Behind him came in 1912 security forces

Detained and subsequently arrested Vladimir Kvachkov, the main person involved in the case of the attempt on Anatoly Chubais, who was acquitted court . Now he is suspected of facilitating terrorist activity and attempted to organize an armed rebellion, reports “Interfax” . ”The Russian revolution is inevitable!”, – Said Kvachkov, when the court announced the decision to arrest. Happy Tuesday Kvachkov himself and his lawyer were told that home to the Colonel came twelve siloviki – FSB investigator with a search warrant and the police. First, investigators have not reported in any criminal proceedings are conducted these acts.But in the decree of the search contains language that Kvachkov impute the preparation of an armed rebellion. - Near the house Kvachkov grabbed four of his associates - Kvachkov: the persecution initiated by Chubais. The story of the tolyattinskim crossbow Kvachkov locked himself in his apartment, in connection with which there called experts MOE for hacking. While it is unclear whether the door had to hack, or Vladimir Kvachkov voluntarily left the apartment and went to a detainee in court. The apartment is planned searches. According to the most Kvachkov, “plans are going to look for an armed uprising, weapons and ammunition.” In turn, the lawyer Kvachkov Aleksey Pershin, was quoted by RIA Novosti news agencyconfirmed that his client wants to take into custody and accused of organizing an armed rebellion. Kommersant newspaper earlier reported that the FSB is investigating the case “of public appeals to violent change of constitutional order” (Article 280 of the Criminal Code), allegedly committed by one of the members of “militias behalf of Minin and Pozharsky. Leader of this movement is Kvachkov, he was interrogated. On Thursday the Federal Security Service confirmed that a criminal case against Kvachkov. Later it was confirmed in Lefortovo Court of the capital, where he was taken to Kvachkov. There clarified: in the case file states that “the colonel suspected of” facilitating terrorist activities “and” attempted to organize an armed rebellion. “ The court clarified that part 1 of article. 205 approx. Criminal Code says about the decline, recruitment or persons involved in the commission of terrorist activities. The Court considered the petition of the investigation of the arrest of Vladimir Kvachkov behind closed doors, because the materials secret. Late in the evening it became known that the arrest warrant was issued. The term of arrest is set to February 23, 2011. The retired colonel was taken into custody in the courtroom during a meeting he was not handcuffed and was not in a cage. Near the house Kvachkov grabbed four of his associates Four associates of Vladimir Kvachkov detained Berezhkovskaya Moscow near his apartment. GRU colonel retired, allegedly on the site , “People’s Militia of Minin and Pozharsky” – an unregistered organization, headed by Kvachkov. “Close to Home V. Kvachkov arrested Tatiana Bragin and three other people.” They came to the house Berezhkovskaya in downtown Moscow, when received information about the detention of their leader, “- according to the website. Also in this communication contains clarification that the apartment Kvachkov actually taken by storm: cut electricity and broken door special means. “ In turn, the leader of the nationalist organization “Slav Power” Dmitry Demushkin said that the organization of Vladimir Kvachkov “Militia” limited and not a serious force. “Today, his people called me at the moment when the detectives broke into the apartment door, where he lives Kvachkov, and requested assistance, but rather the information” – said Demushkin. According to him, the organization Kvachkov “there are a few muddy people, but there does not communicate with anyone.”"We met at rallies, but I have long since severed relations with them, because they do not see any reason to continue,” – said Demushkin. Also, for its part, is one of the leaders of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) Alexander Belov said that his arrest Kvachkov was expected. I told him long ago said that the phrase, which he admits is too rigid. But he did not hesitate. I agree with what he does, but the methods he chose, could be interpreted wrongly, “- said Belov. “Against him opened a criminal case is not for specific acts, but for the ideas and words. In our time, to allow such statements, which he said, ihodya of legal practice is very dangerous,” – said Belov. Kvachkov: the persecution initiated by Chubais. The story of the tolyattinskim crossbow Vladimir Kvachkov himself told reporters that the reason for his new persecution began reading his teammate from Togliatti. “According to those documents which are, in Togliatti, armed with a crossbow for 10,000 rubles, stress, a person sent a group to Vladimir, which was preparing an armed rebellion there,” – said Kvachkov. He explained that the associate was the leader Togliatti branch of the People’s Militia of Minin and Pozharsky. ”He was arrested. After 10 days of interrogation, he gave evidence to me” – said Kvachkov, though this person really did not say anything. He could not specify where, according to the investigation, preparing an armed rebellion. ”Now we need to read” – added arrested. ”It’s the continuation of the events of July 20, when I have been searched,” – he said. Kvachkov believes that his prosecution was initiated by Anatoly Chubais. ”The Supreme Court after a nearly 6-year ordeal finally acquitted me,” – said the prisoner. According to him, no evidence that the “Militia” – a terrorist organization, which was preparing an armed rebellion, the investigation does not. “Articles that are imputed to me now, in particular, 205-I (facilitating terrorist activity) have been derived from the competence of jurors. Now everything is rovnenko. Chubais was rebuffed by a jury and went on the knurled pattern,” – said Kvachkov. In turn, associate Kvachkov, a member of staff “people’s militia” Yuri Ekishev told Interfax that this summer, in addition to searches of Kvachkov they were among forty of his associates throughout the country. “After this search, we came to court to get us acquainted with the grounds for investigation. It turned out that Peter Galkin from Togliatti office went to Syzran, there was conducted covert audio recordings, we did not hear. On the basis of such absurdities that’s been concocted excuse for searches across the country, “- said Ekishev. Petra was detained in Vladimir Galkin in the woods with a sports crossbow. He is, “said something about Kvachkov,” said Ekishev. In this case, Galkin, spent in pretrial detention for two days now, still at large. Law enforcement authorities on July 20 held a series of searches of dozens of activists of the All-Russian militia behalf of Minin and Pozharsky in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Kurgan, and Vladimir, including the apartment Kvachkov.He then called the raids “the present action of intimidation.” ”It’s about the attempt on Chubais was stalled, and apparently decided to come up with something else,” – said the colonel. According to his information, searches were conducted in a criminal case against one of the activists, accused of extremism. ”He supposedly once called for the overthrow of this government,” – said the colonel. Double-justified “killers” March 17, 2005 at 1,5 km from the village larks Odintsovo district of Moscow region on the roadside exploded controlled explosive device at the time following the official car, which was Chubais, who was at that time the head of RAO UES, and car maintenance with a guard. On suspicion of involvement in the assassination attempt on Chubais on March 19 of that year, was detained by Colonel Kvachkov. March 25 prosecutors charged him. Later, his colleagues were detained by Yashin and found.December 11, 2006 in Moscow, was detained by the fourth defendant in the case of the attempt on Chubais, a history teacher Mironov. On the same day he was charged. June 16, 2009 Mosoblsud on the basis of the verdict of a jury acquittedKvachkov, Yashin and Naidenov. However, the acquittal was repealed by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, and the case returned for reconsideration. In this case Mironov, considered until then separately, were merged into one proceeding with the other persons involved. The criminal case was pending in Mosoblsude since March 2006, when the court twice dissolved jury. A second trial at the request of defense also held with a jury. Defendants accused of endangering the life of the state or public figure (Article 277 of the Criminal Code) and the attempted murder of two or more persons who committed socially dangerous way a group of persons by prior agreement (Part 3. 30, Part 2, Article 105) . Kvachkov, Yashin and Naidenov also charged with the illegal manufacture of weapons by an organized group (Part 3 st.223), illegal purchase, transfer, possession of weapons, ammunition, explosives, committed by an organized group (Part 3, 222), and intentionally destroying or damaging property (Part 2, Article 167).

“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

[We are a long way from the point where our Afghan follies are admittedly described as mistakes.  Even though most of us already understand that we have failed, very few are willing to admit that the entire terror war has been a huge mistake.  Just like our failure in Vietnam, there is a time lag of years between the point where we realize that we have lost and the point where we understand why we have lost--because we were wrong all along.  Between that future time where we understand our massive error and now, how many more people will die and how many more uncounted billions will be poured down the bottomless pit?

If America really had a peace movement, then we would now be witnesses to and participants in a massive effort to save our sinking country by hastening the day of our understanding.  Unlike the ending of the previous war, the resolution of the this war will affect our own survival as a functioning Nation.  The longer it takes to reach its inevitable conclusion, the worse our chances become to survive the impending economic/military collapse.  As long as we keep dedicating trillions to a lost war and trillions more to the corrupt financial centers who have financed that corrupt war (fueled on pure debt), we will have nothing left but austerity to deal with our real problems.   If we resolve it more quickly, devoting less resources to futile schemes at "winning," then the more resources will be available to fix the collateral damage.

There is nothing as costly to a Nation as an entire government of failed leaders who are intent upon hiding their mistakes.  A single admission of error is seen as the final fatal mistake.]

source

The costs of war

Katrina vanden Heuvel

“We are winning” in Afghanistan, says Gen. David H. Petraeus. President Obama declares that the December military review shows we are “on track.” No doubt the president and the general are right: We will keep “making progress” for as many months or years as we choose to fight what is now America’s longest war – until we finally pull out, in defeat or in political exhaustion, wondering what we have accomplished for all the blood and treasure spent.

The president’s review only confirmed what informed observers already know. U.S. troops can win nearly any firefight. But ultimately we are no more secure, and Afghanistan is no closer to becoming a stable and developing country. No matter how light or agile their “footprint,” U.S. and allied occupying forces end up generating as many enemies as they kill, not only in Afghanistan but in other Muslim lands. No matter how much help we give to the Afghan people, inevitably it is seen as being on behalf of a government that is more a kleptocracy than a democracy.

How does one measure progress in what should be more accurately described as a counterproductive and now unnecessary war? We’re chasing a diminished band of al- Qaeda terrorists who now pose little threat to us in the forbidding terrain of North Waziristan and Baluchistan on the Pakistani border, while our Pakistani allies cynically buy into both sides of the fight.

We’re spending $100 billion a year on a country that had a gross domestic product of a little more than $2 billion when we invaded in 2001. We manage this feat only by helping to fund both sides of the conflict (much of the aid ends up in the hands of the Taliban as well as regional warlords who don’t support the Karzai government). The military focus displaces attention that should be devoted to regional diplomacy and a political settlement within Afghanistan. Instead we are “making progress,” even as the review quietly shifts our departure date from 2011 to 2014.

Missing in the president’s review are the actual costs of the war. That includes what economists call “opportunity costs,” or what we miss by continuing this course. By 2014, this administration will have spent more than $700 billion on Afghanistan directly. Poverty is an unfashionable word in Washington, but it afflicts a record 43 million Americans. Childhood poverty is rising. Nationally, only one in seven black male teens held any type of job in the first quarter of this year. We should not fool ourselves: A generation of children raised on dangerous streets is being condemned to a life of misery – hunger, broken families, unemployment, drugs and crime. The nation we are failing to build in Afghanistan is our own.

If poverty is too liberal a concern, consider the costs of Afghanistan to our economic competitiveness. America is literally falling apart. Our aged and decrepit infrastructure is becoming a clear and present danger. Lives are lost when a bridge falls in Minneapolis or the levees collapse in New Orleans. SUVs are swallowed by collapsing sewage systems in New York. Children go to schools judged dangerous to their health. Hours are lost when aged train switches freeze, sewer systems collapse or traffic snarls. Even the basics of civilization, such as access to clean water, are increasingly at risk because of aging and leaky sewage systems. Our electric grid, our broadband system and our transportation system all lag behind those of global competitors. Combine the $700 billion spent in Afghanistan and the $700 billion to be squandered on tax breaks for the richest 1 percent of Americans over the next decade, and you have real money, even for Washington. Money that this increasingly challenged country can no longer afford to waste.

Notably absent in the commentary about the president’s review, too, are the war’s human costs. The service of those in our volunteer army is routinely praised on all sides. The Democratic Congress under President George W. Bush and Obama committed itself to improving military pay, educational benefits and medical and psychological care. But celebrating servicemembers’ courage ignores the basic question: How do you ask young men and women to give their life or limbs for a cause that you know is lost? Or worse, has no justifiable purpose?

The December military review has resulted in a predictable political straddle. The president fulfills his pledge that some troops will come home in 2011; General Petraeus gets a commitment for another four years of occupation before the Afghan government might “assume responsibility.” In the 2012 presidential race, the withdrawals can be advertised to unhappy doves, while the continuing commitment can be used to appease the appetite of hawks.

Afghanistan now awaits its Fulbright. It is time for the Senate to make an independent review of the war, and to challenge – as Sen. J.William Fulbright did during the Vietnam war – a president unwilling to end a conflict he knows will not be won. Surely, it is fate that the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is Sen. John Kerry. Nearly 40 years ago, as a brave, decorated, young Navy lieutenant returning from Vietnam, he challenged senators to do their duty, saying that each day “someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something that the entire world already knows . . . that we have made a mistake. . . . How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

Does Sen. Kerry, now steeped in Washington’s political culture, have the same courage as that young man? Will he stand up, as Fulbright did before him, to challenge a president of his own party in the nation’s best interest? A new generation of young men and women depends on him to lead.

Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of the Nation and writes a weekly online column for The Post.

World court to hear Costa Rica/Nicaragua border row

[This border dispute in a former Contra hot spot is a modern renewal of US/Nicaragua hostilities.  The early deployment of Nicaraguan troops to the area under former Contra/Sandinista "Commander Zero" speaks of hidden intelligence agency agendas, but whose agency?  It would seem on the surface to be a Moscow-sponsored prevarication, except for the fact that the man in charge of the operation, "Zero," Eden Pastora, has worked both sides of the fence in the past.  If the Russian/American "reset" is real, and if it applies to the relationship outside of the "pipeline war zone," then none of this would seem to make any sense.

Since America has some very definite military plans for the region, then that could indicate that this was another "false flag" type of operation, intended to justify American military actions in the region.  Judging from the ongoing love-fest between Obama and Medvedev/Putin, it seems pretty clear to me that they are looking to make a love child.  Costa Rica is toast.]

World court to hear border row

Posted: Friday, December 17, 2010 – By Adam Williams

The Nicaraguan occupancy of the Isla Calero will go before the International Court in January. While Costa Rican officials enter the proceedings confident that Costa Rica will win the case, most aren’t considering the alternative: What if the court rules in favor of Nicaragua?

Tim Rogers | Nica Times

Quid Pro Quo: A Nicaraguan soldier checks papers aboard a Costa Rican tourism boat on the Río San Juan. Nicaragua is demanding navigation rights to Costa Rica’s Río Colorado, in exchange for Costa Rica’s navigation rights to the San Juan River.

Costa Rican officials are confident the International Court of Justice at The Hague will rule on their behalf next month in the dispute over Nicaragua’s alleged occupation of Costa Rica’s Isla Calero.

But what will happen if Costa Rica loses the case?

“The Hague is the final resource that exists for Costa Rica to be able to resolve this issue,” said Antonio Barrios, an international relations professor at Costa Rica’s National University.

“We’ve already taken every other diplomatic step to resolve the problem and we still haven’t been able to stop the Nicaraguans from damaging the area,” he said. “If we don’t win the case at The Hague, there are no other resources.”

The case at The Hague is scheduled to begin Jan. 11 and last for two days.

The border dispute between Nicaragua, country whose leader is increasingly authoritarian, Costa Rica, a nation known for its pacifism, has already been presented twice before the Organization of American States (OAS), to little effect. The 35-member OAS voted 22-2 agaainst Nicaragua’s presence of troops on the disputed land along the Caribbean coast. But the troops are still in the area and the environmental damage caused by the ongoing construction of an artificial river channel continues.

The sentiment among most Costa Ricans is that the law is on their side. But the world court’s decisions will rest more on its interpretation of a 19th century treaty than on Ticos’ public opinion. The fact that the world community increasingly looks upon Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s dictatorial policies with disdain might not have any bearing whatsoever on the case, analysts say.

Interpreting the Cañas-Jerez Treaty of 1858 will be a tricky task for the court.

Nicaragua’s claim to the area is based partially on the Caño Sucio, a small tributary that branches off the Río San Juan into Nicaragua. The land north of Caño Sucio, an area called Harbour Head, belongs to Nicaragua, officials from that country say.

Nicaragua also claims that the Río San Juan has changed course over time, and that the original mouth of the river was at Punta de Castilla, on the Caribbean coast. If the world court agrees, the northern tip of Isla Calero could be declared Nicaraguan territory – even though Nicaragua says it’s a separate island, and not part of Isla Calero, which Nicaragua says it has no claim to.

That decision would be a stunning blow to Costa Ricans, and an incredible political victory for Ortega and his Sandista administration.

Costa Rica will tell the court that Nicaragua’s occupation of Isla Calero is an “invasion,” and will argue that Nicaragua has violated Costa Rica’s national sovereignty.

Presenting the case to the world court will also be costly. An estimate by Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry put the price tag of taking a case to the world court at $2 million per year, but that figure may be exaggerated. However, some experts believe the Isla Calero case could drag on for years.

Last week, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza presented pictures taken by OAS representatives in late November that provide evidence of further land changes at Isla Calero. Nicaraguan crews have cut down trees and etched a water channel from the Laguna de los Portillos to the Río San Juan.

One overhead photo shows a long, canal-shaped deforested swath of land that is gradually filling with rain and seawater.

“You can see in the photos that they have already connected the canal from the Laguna de los Portillos to the Río San Juan,” said Allan Astorga, a University of Costa Rica geologist who is studying the potential environmental impact of the canal. “It is small now, but with more rain, it is only going to get wider and deeper. The damage has been done and will only get worse. The area will never be restored to be as it was originally.”

This is not the first time the two neighboring countries have met at The Hague to settle a dispute. In 2009, the court ruled on Costa Rica’s rights to navigate the San Juan, which forms the border between the two countries. That case took four years to resolve and cost $1.6 million.

“The unfortunate truth is that there are many more important cases that take priority over this conflict,” UNA’s Barrios said. “I’m not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic. Unfortunately, there are more pressing cases than the Nicaraguan occupation of the Isla Calero.”

Meanwhile, Nicaragua seems to be preparing an alternative strategy. On Tuesday, Sandinista lawmakers and their allies approved a package of national defense and security laws that will further militarize the country, especially the border region around the San Juan River (see separate story in The Nica Times, Page N1).

Ortega’s military bolstering has not interrupted Costa Rica’s pursuit of diplomatic dialogue. Even the World Court’s previous ruling seems to indicate Costa Rica has the advantage.

“The case for Costa Rica is solid,” said Nuria Marín, a lawyer and international policy expert at the University of Costa Rica. “In addition to the support of the OAS, an impartial body, the world court previously ruled that maps of the San Juan River from both countries coincided that Isla Calero is Costa Rican property. Now Nicaragua will [likely] present a new map to the court.”

Compliance is another issue.

“There is nothing the court can effectively do to make a country comply with the ruling,” Barrios said. “In the past, some countries have ignored rulings, others have not. If Nicaragua chose to ignore the ruling, the only other judicial step that can be taken is going to the United Nations Security Council.”

Several countries have ignored world court rulings, including the United States. In 1984, the court ruled against the U.S. government and in favor or Nicaragua over U.S.’ illegal war on Nicaragua. The United States was ordered to pay reparations, but never did. Ortega continues to demand payment until this day.

Costa Rica’s other international option is to take the issue to the UN Security Council. Ignoring a resolution there can result in trade sanctions and other measures.

“We will still pursue diplomatic dialogue with Nicaragua as a means to pressure them into finding a resolution,” Marín said.

“I advised President [Laura] Chinchilla to also apply pressure through allies that exist in both countries, including those that have companies and environmental organizations in Nicaragua, such as the Netherlands,” she said.

Currently, 14 cases are pending in The Hague and priority is given to those filed first.

Chinchilla, meanwhile, continues to press for peace. At Costa Rica’s annual Festival of Lights last weekend, she said her primary goal for 2011 is to restore national peace.

“We will continue to look for a way to restore peace and calm, and take whatever steps necessary to do so in 2011,” she said.

Deindustrialization–Death Sentence for the American Republic

19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind

The Economic Collapse Blog

The United States is rapidly becoming the very first “post-industrial” nation on the globe.  All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing.  It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution.  It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes.  It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.  But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America.  Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone.  Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period.  The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little.  Do you know what our biggest export is today?  Waste paper.  Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us.  The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now  just a shadow of what it once was.  Once upon a time America could literally outproduce the rest of the world combined.  Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world.  If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?

Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things.  So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation?  We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable.  Every single month America does into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.

So what happens when the debt bubble pops?

The deindustrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country.  But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.

For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them.  Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.

The following are 19 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind….

#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001.

#2 Dell Inc., one of America’s largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.

#3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in November.  Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.

#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cellphones were sold worldwide.  So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States?  Zero.

#5 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economywill lose over half a million jobs this year alone.

#6 As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

#7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.

#8 According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.

#9 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output.  In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.

#10 Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul, Minnesota. Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford’s new “global” manufacturing strategy.

#11 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing.  The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.

#12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.

#13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use.  Today it ranks 15th.

#15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

#16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products.  Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.

#17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States.

#18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.

#19 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it?

How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?

How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?

How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?

The deindustrialization of America is a national crisis.  It needs to be treated like one.

If you disagree with this article, I have a direct challenge for you.  If anyone can explain how a deindustrialized America has any kind of viable economic future, please do so below in the comments section.

America is in deep, deep trouble folks.  It is time to wake up.

Source

Weasly Words Cannot Change the Fact That the Durand Line Is a “Red Line”

US warned over Pakistan raids

• Zahid Hussain and Catherine Philp
• From:The Times

ISLAMABAD has warned the US their counter-terrorism alliance will be broken if Washington attempts to expand its ground war.

There are fears the war will move across the border from Afghanistan into Pakistani territory.

The warning came yesterday after the US military reportedly pressed for permission to open a second front against militants by using special forces in cross-border raids into Pakistan. One officer said: “We’ve never been as close as we are now to getting the go-ahead.”

US military officials told The New York Times that commanders had drawn up plans to attack Taliban and al-Qa’ida sanctuaries in Pakistan.

They had concluded that Islamabad had no intention of dislodging the militants, who are concentrated in the lawless tribal area of North Waziristan.

The officials said they were pushing for the White House to adopt the plan as a means of allowing a troop drawdown to begin as scheduled next year.

Abdul Basit, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman, reacted angrily to the suggestion that Islamabad would allow such incursions. “We have drawn a red line and any move to cross it will have a serious consequence,” he said.

Major-General Athar Abbas, Pakistan’s chief military spokesman, insisted: “There is a clear understanding that the Pakistani and US-led coalition forces will operate on the respective sides of the border.”

A senior Afghan official told The Times that the US cross-border plans were real, although he suggested that they were intended more to exert pressure on the Pakistanis than to prepare for an imminent incursion. “It is true but mainly symbolically and a mere warning,” the official said.

The New York Times report was denied yesterday by NATO’s deputy chief of communications in Afghanistan, US Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, who said there was “absolutely no truth” in it.

He added that NATO and US forces had developed a strong working relationship with the Pakistani military to address shared security issues.

“This co-ordination recognises the sovereignty of Afghanistan and Pakistan to pursue insurgents and terrorists operating in their respective border areas,” he said.

Signing off on special forces operations into Pakistan would effectively authorise the opening of a second front in the Afghan war, a high-risk strategy about which the White House remains highly sceptical.

Vice-President Joe Biden has previously advocated stepping up a campaign in Pakistan that could include special forces raids, but did so as an alternative to the current troop surge in Afghanistan rather than as an added extra. White House officials fear the political backlash from expanding the ground war into Pakistan would far outweigh any military or intelligence benefits. Pressure is mounting on the Obama administration over how to ensure the promised troop reduction can begin on schedule next northern summer, with increasing concerns being voiced about Pakistan’s failure to tackle the source of the conflict — the presence of Taliban sanctuaries on its soil.

In recently leaked diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Islamabad, the American ambassador predicted “no amount of money” could force Pakistan to withdraw support for the Afghan Taliban. Military officials, however, told the New York Times that several recent combat operations had been carried out by members of the CIA’s covert Afghan militia based in eastern Afghanistan.

The Times

The Return of Fascism

[Fascism is driven by fear and impossible to bear economic conditions.  The more fearful and frustrated that people become, the more vulnerable they become to demagogues who know how to convince them that their troubles are caused by too many foreigners or dark-skinned people.  The key to negating the seductive power of fascism is the same as the key to a better future for all mankind--hope and opportunity.  Take away the power to strangle people into submission and turn it into a mechanism for giving people a real economic foothold and together we will all climb up the hill.

Hope it the only answer, people; find ways to multiply it.]

The Return of Fascism

By Boris Kagarlitsky

There was nothing unexpected about the racially motivated rioting and attacks that took place in Moscow and other cities during the past 10 days. But many people are still shocked by the image of Russian youth giving Nazi salutes against the backdrop of the Kremlin wall and by reports of an angry, blood-thirsty mob sweeping through metro cars and beating dark-skinned passengers.

The rioters had no political agenda or ideology other than their hatred for non-Russians. Even the most demagogic of the mobs did not chant a single slogan calling for social or political change.

The fact that both sides turned out in large numbers in several cities within a very short span of time creates the strong impression that their actions were coordinated in advance.

Regardless of whether there was a screenwriter behind the rioting, the scenario that is playing out suggests only one possible ending: the collapse and destruction of Russia.

The logic of Russian fascists has always stood in sharp contrast to the logic and traditions of the development of the nation. The problem is not that most ultranationalists are poorly acquainted with the history and culture of the people in whose name they claim to speak, which is true of fascist movements in all countries. The problem is that, historically, Russia developed as an imperial nation for which ethnic and cultural diversity is the natural and only form of existence. If fascist propaganda in ethnically homogenous societies could claim to be an ideology unifying the majority of the population, then Russian fascism never even attempted to present itself in that light.

From the moment it first appeared in the 1920s, Russian fascism has been an ideology of national division focused on opposition to and destruction of the existing Russian state.

It was natural for Russian fascists to fight with Nazi Germany against their own country. Hitler’s plan to eliminate the Russian state did not contradict the ideas of Russian fascists. That plan called for the existing Russian nation with its history and traditions to give way to a new ethnic community of pureblood Slavs and Aryans. This group had nothing in common with the larger Russian population — ethnically, culturally or even religiously, because Christianity supports a unity based on common faith, not shared bloodlines or tribal affiliations.

But where did all these fascists come from? How is it possible that they prefer Hitler to taking pride in their own country and its history?

Surprisingly, a significant number of those who turned out to beat Russia’s “blacks” are from well-to-do families, and they are graduates of respectable schools and universities. The cause of the unrest does not lie in the poverty or lack of privileges suffered by certain individuals or social groups, but in the larger social crisis gripping Russia. The mobs of modern-day Black Hundreds and the gangs of North Caucasus natives are the product of the general breakdown of the processes of social integration and education.

Many years ago, Erich Fromm in his book “Escape from Freedom” described how the unraveling of social ties in a society that lives according to the principle of every man for himself would create a psychological and cultural breeding ground for fascism. If the economic processes moving in that direction are not stopped, we will be headed not for a totalitarian nightmare.

Boris Kagarlitsky is the director of the Institute of Globalization Studies.

The Dictatorship of Chavez–Vs- the Power of People

Venezuelan opposition decries Chavez ‘coup’

CARACAS: Incoming opposition legislators decried as a “coup d’etat” new laws that clamp down on press freedoms and grant President Hugo Chavez sweeping new powers.

The mood was echoed in Washington, where an influential US lawmaker urged the regional Organization of American States (OAS) bloc to stand up against the Chavez “tyranny.”

The calls come after laws were pushed through Venezuela’s National Assembly by the ruling Socialist Party just weeks before a new assembly, in which pro-Chavez legislators lose their supermajority, takes office on January 5.

The measures include granting the president temporary power to decree laws, restricting Internet content and broadcast media freedoms, and punishing legislators who switch parties.

“We energetically condemn the coup d’etat that is taking place by the regime,” read a statement from the 67 opposition legislators set to take office in January.

They believe that supporters of Chavez, a key ally of Communist Cuba, “intend to implant a communist system in Venezuela through a totalitarian and militarized state.”

The statement called on the Venezuelan people “to unite, to reject and peacefully activate themselves” against the “absolute concentration of power in the hands of the president of the republic.”

The government “has become a tyranny that the Venezuelans should defeat, and will defeat,” added the statement.

Opposition legislators won 67 of the 165 seats in the single chamber National Assembly in September elections, shattering a five-year streak in which pro-Chavez legislators had an overwhelming majority.

Chavez supporters say the authority to govern by decree was necessary to handle a weather emergency, and that the media laws are designed to prevent abuses as well as regulate, not censor, the Internet.

Chavez said Wednesday that his opponents are “calling for someone to kill me.”

Speaking at a military base and surrounded by military officers, Chavez said that opposition leaders “have been driven mad, and are calling on the armed forces to refuse to recognize” the government.

In Washington, congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, soon to become chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives, blasted the OAS for doing little about events in Venezuela.

“Choosing to take no side in the battle between tyranny and democracy in Venezuela only helps the tyrannical side,” Ros-Lehtinen, who left Cuba as a child, said in a statement.

“It is shameful that Chavez’s actions to usurp power and impose Castro-style control over the media have been met with barely a whimper from most member-states of the Organization of American States, an organization that is supposed to promote and protect democracy in the Western Hemisphere.”

Ros-Lehtinen, 58, is a fierce critic of the Castro regime in Cuba, as well as the leftist regimes of Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

The Republican, who represents a south Florida district that includes thousands of Cuban exiles, has in the past proposed channelling Washington’s OAS dues instead to US programs.

The Washington-based OAS comprises the 35 independent states of the Americas, though Cuba and Honduras are currently excluded. Its goals include strengthening democracy and defending human rights.

Her call comes days after Washington warned that US-Venezuelan ties will suffer now that Chavez has formally rejected US President Barack Obama’s nominee for ambassador.

Meanwhile Chavez and his supporters “are once again ratcheting up the government?s power to punish critics,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director at Human Rights Watch.

HRW described the new measures as “an assault on on free speech (and) civil society.”

The new media law now gives Chavez “legal cover to expand its longstanding practice of bullying local human rights defenders and trying to keep international advocates away from the Venezuelan public,” Vivanco said.

-AFP/ac

Man Claims To Possess Video of 17 People Being “Disappeared” Near Peshawar

Petitioner tells PHC he has video of killing of missing people

* Claims 17 people, including his two sons, three relatives, shot dead by security agencies

* DAG directed to submit written reply about missing people

By Akhtar Amin

PESHAWAR: A father of two missing students on Wednesday informed the Peshawar High Court (PHC) that his sons and three relatives were shot dead along with 12 other missing people, who were allegedly picked up by the military and Frontier Corps, on suspicion of being Taliban during an operation in the Frontier Region (FR) Peshawar about 10 months ago.

Asghar Khan, the father of Rahim and Abid, students of 10th and 9th classes respectively, informed a division bench that he has a video of execution of 17 people. Among the executed were his sons and three youngsters, Dad Khan, a first year student, Noor Khan and Samiullah.

Asghar said about three months ago, a man met him at the Kohat bus stand in Peshawar and introduced himself as an MI personnel by the name of Sajid, and took the video from him. He told him that there was pressure on military officers concerned from Islamabad and they were sending the video to Islamabad.

Asghar said he had received the video from some people from Darra Adam Khel who told him that the youth and others were shot dead in Tor Spin Ghar, a semi tribal area of Darra Adam Khel and buried in a mass grave. Counsel for the missing people, Arif Jan, submitted that the video was made through a mobile phone, and the father of the executed students would provide it on a CD in the court on the next hearing. He contended that according to the family members of Saeed Nazir, he was still in the military’s custody.

When the court asked about the video, Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Iqbal Mohmand, who is representing intelligence agencies and the federal government in the case, showed his ignorance and said he would get details from the defence and interior ministries.

The court directed the DAG to submit a detailed written reply about the missing people on January 18.

Earlier, Mohammad Yousaf filed a petition submitting that on February 25, military and Frontier Constabulary personnel arrested his six relatives from his hujra during a joint operation in the area and detained them at an undisclosed place.

The counsel for the petitioner contended that the arrested men were neither involved in any anti-state activity nor had affiliation with any terrorist group. They had been unlawfully detained, which was a violation of Article 4 of the constitution. He prayed the court to direct the authorities concerned to produce the detainees before the court if they were involved in anti-state activities.

In another case, the bench issued notice to the MI directing it to submit a written reply regarding the whereabouts of a missing man. Abkar Ghani, a resident of Shah Dheri in Kabal tehsil of Swat district, had filed the petition claiming that the military had picked up his brother Roshan Ali in May for suspected links with the Taliban and his whereabouts were still not known.

Maj Majid, commanding officer of 24 Baloch Regiment of Pakistan Army, showed his ignorance about Roshan Ali.

US Penalizes China for Pakistani Reactor Construction

US-China firm fined $3.75m for Pakistan nuclear exports

WASHINGTON: The US on Tuesday fined the Chinese subsidiary of a US firm $3.75 million for exporting coatings to a Pakistani nuclear site.

PPG Paints Trading in Shanghai, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PPG Industries, agreed to pay $3.75 million over the exports – from which it had earned just $32,319 – the US Justice Department said.

The fines “represent one of the largest monetary penalties for export violations in the history of the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security” established in 1987, it said.

The company was accused of “illegal export, re-export and/or transshipment of high-performance coatings from the US to the Chashma 2 Nuclear Power Plant in Pakistan via a third-party distributor (in China)”, it said.

In addition to the maximum criminal penalty of $2 million, the two companies agreed to pay an additional $1.75 million in civil penalties and submit to a US audit.

US Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Machen said in a statement that the case should “serve as a warning to corporations that would violate US export laws”.

“It is not only unlawful, it is also bad business. In this case, the millions in fines to be paid by the corporate defendant are 100 times more than the gross proceeds generated by the unlawful export scheme,” he said. afp

 

Massive Arms Cache Seized from Bugti Convoy, Bugti Claims Govt. Set-Up

BalochHal

Shahzain Bugti held with `illegal arms`

From the Newspaper

By Saleem ShahidQUETTA, Dec 22: In a deve- lopment with far-reaching implications, paramilitary troops arrested on Wednesday Nawabzada Shahzain Bugti, a grandson of the late Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti and president of the Balochistan chapter of Jamhoori Watan Party, along with several personal guards, after finding a huge quantity of illegal arms and ammunition in vehicles of his convoy coming from the border town of Chaman.

The arrest of one of the high-profile Bugti heirs on charges of possessing and smuggling arms and ammunition sparked tension in Quetta and other parts of the already volatile province, with people fearing a negative political fallout and a possible violent backlash.

Inspector General of Frontier Corps Maj-Gen Obaidullah Khan, addressing a press conference along with Inspector General of Police Malik Iqbal, said that acting on information provided by security agencies, FC troops intercepted the convoy of Shahzain Bugti in the Baleli checkpost area in the outskirts of Quetta.

He said that FC personnel informed the JWP leader that they wanted to check the vehicles but he allowed the checking of only three vehicles of the 16 vehicles in his convoy. He said Mr Bugti refused to allow them to look into other vehicles.

After three hours of negotiations the FC personnel took all the vehicles into custody and detained Nawabzada Shahzain Bugti and his guards after disarming them. He said that during the search of the vehicles a huge quantity of illegal arms and ammunition was found in the smuggled vehicles.

Gen Obaid said that the arms and ammunition recovered from the vehicles included anti-aircraft guns, rocket-launchers, mortar guns and other advanced weapons.

“Mr Bugti and his armed guards did not offer any resistance when security forces took them into custody,” General Obaid said, adding that the JWP leader could not produce licences of the vehicles and permits for carrying such a huge quantity of arms and ammunition.

“Such a huge quantity of arms and ammunition cannot be carried for personnel protection,” the FC inspector general said, adding that Mr Bugti and other arrested people would be handed over to police for legal action.

Balochistan IGP Malik Iqbal said that Interior Minister Rehman Malik was closely monitoring the situation and ordered formation of a joint investigation team.

“A joint investigation team headed by the DIG investigation will conduct a probe into the recovery of illegal arms and ammunition from Mr Bugti`s motorcade,” he said, adding that the accused would be given full chance to prove their innocence.

The arms and ammunition recovered from the 16 smuggled vehicles included 50 SMGs, 4 LMGs, two 12.7mm AA guns, two 14.2 mm AA guns, one SPG-9, one 9mm pistol, one AUG, 46,000 rounds of SMG, 1,600 rounds of 12.7/14.5, 570 rounds of AUG, 880 rounds of sniper rifle, 39 rounds of 9mm pistol, 17 mobile phones and 16 vehicles.

DIG Operation Hamid Shakeel, DIG Investigation Wazir Khan Nasar and DIG Frontier Corps Brigadier Shahzad also attended the press conference held at the headquarters of Ghaza Band scouts (A wing of FC).

Meanwhile, JWP`s central President Nawabzada Talal Bugti, termed the allegation of smuggling of illegal arms and ammunition a conspiracy against his son and demanded an independent inquiry by a tribunal of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Addressing a press conference, he claimed that the case against Shahzain Bugti had been registered at the behest of Interior Minister Rehman Malik because Shahzain had unveiled his corruption.

He said that Shahzain had gone to Qila Abdullah for party work and when he was returning to Quetta three vehicles of secret agencies carrying arms and ammunition joined his motorcade. He said it was a big conspiracy hatched against his party.

However, Talal Bugti said if his son was found guilty by an independent inquiry tribunal set up by the Chief Justice of Pakistan, he would oust him from the party. “I will oust Shahzain Bugti if he was found guilty for smuggling arms and ammunition,” he told reporters while replying to a question.

He said he had no confidence in inquiries conducted by secret agencies, FC and police investigation teams.

He said his party would resist attempts to produce Shahzain Bugti before an anti-terrorism court.

“We are looking at all legal aspects of the incident and will fight against this conspiracy at all forums,” he said, adding that the JWP would not abandon its mission.

Meanwhile, Shahzain Bugti said that the drama of arms smuggling had been staged to stop him from holding a march to Dera Bugti on January 28.

Has Obama/Zionist Lobby Gone Soft On Armenia, or Abandoned Them To Putin?

[SEE: Attacking Armenia means attacking Russia]

White House Indifferent on Genocide Resolution

WASHINGTON—In what can be seen as the most indifferent response from any administration on the Armenian Genocide Resolution, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Tuesday told reporters that President Obama has not made calls to Congressional leaders to halt the passage of the H. Res. 252, the current iteration of the Armenian Genocide bill pending in Congress.

When asked what the president’s reaction was to a recent letter from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who expressed serious concern about the Genocide resolution, the impact of its passage on future relations with Turkey, or whether the President had called Speaker Nancy Pelosi to oppose the resolution, Gibbs, in his Tuesday briefing was indifferent, at best.

“Well, obviously our relationship — our bilateral relationship with Turkey is enormously important. I do not know that the President — I do not believe that the President has made any calls specifically on this, and I think his views on this are known,” said Gibbs in response to the inquiry.

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, hopes that the resolution would be placed to a vote on Tuesday faded, but the House leadership indicated that the House will be in session on Wednesday, as calls to Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer continued to pour in from Armenian-Americans in the thousands.

Also on Tuesday, a Dear Colleague Letter signed by members of the Armenian-American Caucus Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Ed Royce (R-Calif.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), urged fellow House members to vote for the Armenian Genocide Resolution.

On the other hand, four members of the Congressional Caucus on Turkey, were joined by one-time Genocide resolution supporter, Massachusetts Democrat Bill Dellahunt to oppose the resolution, citing the classic anti-Genocide talking points of US interests in Turkey and the Incirlik Airforce base.

Armenian-Americans continue to push for the passage of the resolution by this Congress and are urged to continue to call Pelosi’s and Hoyer’s offices to urge the leaders to place the bill for a vote Wednesday when the House convenes to hear other important issues on its agenda.

Connect: anca.org

Europeans March To Survive–Americans Play Army and Pray for Unemployment Extensions

[Because the people are so programmed to see things through the rose-colored lenses supplied by Hollywood, it is presently impossible to make a logical assessment of the American psyche and have it understood by more than a handful.  If, by some miracle, it was possible to write a comprehensible assessment, it could not circulate beyond the alternative universe.

For those reasons, it will be up to future historians to interpret why the American people of the current generation just sat on their asses quietly, passively, while their world caved-in all around them.  Maybe some of us who still bother to think for ourselves should leave them a few clues to aid them in their investigation of our collective dereliction of duty.  Perhaps they will have to look no deeper than our national addiction to electronic entertainment, but in my opinion, the downfall of the American Republic reflects mankind's genetic flaws, imperfections of the human experiment.

We were genetically programmed to fail, because man, the hybrid animal (neanderthal + homo sapien), has always been at war with himself--and modern man (Americans especially) has done nothing to bring that inner conflict to an end.  We have no science that is dedicated to healing the mental turmoil that is "Man."  To the contrary, every available means has been exploited by the American and British governments to exacerbate human conflict, in particular, primitive human reactions have been exploited by amoral political scientists to serve as the basis for an elementary system of behavioral mind-control.

Where man, the psychologically conflicted being, was naturally going to have problems evolving beyond his primitive state, Americans, as life-long subjects in a massive illegal mind-control experiment, have had to overcome a form of evolutionary sabotage coming from a hidden military dictatorship masquerading as a benevolent govt.  In my mind, where the Creator might have created us in an imperfect form, American govt. has compounded those imperfections and guaranteed the failure of the political experiment known as the American Republic, in order to multiply profits for a limited few, many of them not even American citizens.

America, the strong "superpower" is fast becoming a pauper state which cannot be saved by any conceivable military action, no matter what the brainwashed "warrior culture" believes to the contrary.  Americans will remain on their asses, while the TV tells them that some "surge," escalation, or other military ejaculation issues forth to cover the crime scenes with their superior warrior seed, thus miraculously saving the town and the blushing leading lady, and the "hero" rules the day.  The armchair patriots will wipe a tear from their eyes, knowing that all is swell here in "Pleasantville," and the bankers will really haved saved our Nation from the greed that enslaves us all, until their TVs are taken or have no power, and their busted armchairs sit propped-up on bricks in the alley or behind the local mall.

Sit on your asses and mock those stupid Europeans, as they pour into the streets and demand that government save their "Socialist" health care system.  Suppress your instinct to react to my words by smacking me in the face for a few moments, while your minds have time to reflect on what I have said, and your wiser internal voice will tell you that I am right.]

Italian students demonstrate against new education law

Italian students hold anti-government protests

ROME : Students took to the streets across Italy on Wednesday amid heavy security to protest against a radical reform of the university system planned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government.

The rallies came just over a week after protest clashes in the centre of Rome that injured nearly 200 people and saw cars set alight and tear gas fired in some of the most tourist-heavy streets of the Italian capital.

Protest organisers on Wednesday said they would avoid a confrontation with police by steering clear of the “palaces of power” in the city centre.

A student delegation was set to meet with President Giorgio Napolitano later on Wednesday to present a list of complaints over the planned reform.

“I hope that everything takes place without any serious incidents,” Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini told reporters.

Several hundred students clashed with police in Palermo in Sicily, as they tried to enter a local government building. A group of students was later seen throwing stones and bottles against the main police station in the city.

The university reform — which would merge some smaller universities, limit academic hiring and introduce non-academic university deans — is set to be adopted definitively by the Senate, the upper house of parliament, this week.

Napolitano would then have to sign the reform into law.

The student protest has become part of a wider opposition movement against the government’s austerity measures and high rates of youth unemployment.

- AFP /ls

Protesters gather during a rally in Athens

Protests in Athens ahead of 2011 austerity budget vote

ATHENS : Protests and rubbish clogged central Athens on Wednesday as lawmakers prepared to approve an austerity budget under a tough economic overhaul imposed after the debt-hit country’s international bailout.

Unionists, Communists and leftists staged separate demonstrations to reject the economic blueprint containing over 14 billion euros in savings for 2011 in a bid to restore balance to Greece’s woeful public finances.

The streets of the capital were already clogged with traffic since morning from a public transport strike — the fourth this month — against wage cuts and parts of the city are overflowing with garbage after a sanitation walkout.

The 2011 budget includes cuts in the badly mismanaged Greek health sector and public companies, a two-percent increase in the lower sales tax rate from 11 to 13 percent, a tax evasion crackdown, lower defence spending and a nominal pension freeze.

The Socialist government of George Papandreou has a six-seat majority in parliament and is expected to carry the vote to be held after midnight.

But the strain of the fiscal correction after decades of profligacy has exposed deep strains in the ruling Pasok party, with many prominent lawmakers now publicly questioning a strategy that has plunged Greece into recession.

“Is this budget reliable? The answer is no,” said Vasso Papandreou, the head of the Greek parliament’s economic affairs commission, and no relation to Prime Minister George Papandreou.

“It has shortcomings in its aims and execution,” she argued in the chamber.

Investors also doubt that Greece can pull off what it promises, despite having slashed its public deficit by some six percent of output this year.

One of the big rating agencies, Fitch, said on Tuesday it could downgrade its rating on Greece after a similar warning from another agency, Moody’s, last week.

In an interview with Newsweek magazine on Wednesday, the prime minister insisted that “reform was long overdue.”

“Greece is one of the richest countries in the world but was also one of the most mismanaged. The world financial crisis highlighted all our weaknesses.”

With thousands of jobs already lost, wages cut and prices climbing from tax hikes, the country’s influential unions have hit back with seven general strikes this year and waves of street protests.

“Right now people are in limbo,” Papandreou admitted on Wednesday.

“Our drastic measures are still fresh, and people feel the pain. Reforms need time to kick in and show results,” he said.

Fearful of further social unrest in the midst of the festive season, the government has opted to postpone to early next year a controversial reform to liberalise scores of regulated professions.

Officials say that existing entry or pricing restrictions in these sectors have stymied competition for decades but many of the professionals targeted in the reform, including notaries, pharmacists, engineers and architects, counter that the measure will harm quality of service and have pledged to resist it.

The economic overhaul has been mandated by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund which in May extended Greece a 110-billion-euro (145-billion-dollar) loan when the country came close to bankruptcy.

The money is released in instalments conditional on Greece making progress in its reforms.

Under the terms of the rescue, Greece agreed that its public deficit would be reduced to 7.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2011, aiming to eventually reach the EU limit of three percent.

But additional measures became necessary after the 2009 public deficit was revised upwards last month to 15.4 percent of GDP from the previous 13.6 percent by Eurostat, the EU statistics agency.

The resulting effect is that the 2010 shortfall will now be 9.4 percent of output, above the 8.1 percent target.

Accordingly, Athens has had to find extra savings to keep its finances on track to meet the 2011 target.

- AFP /ls

20% of Detroit To Be Abandoned By City Govt.–the shape of things to come

[Which film clip below represents Detroit's real future (or are both predictions correct)?]

Less Than a Full-Service City

Plan for Detroit Would Pull Resources—and Population—From Blighted Districts

By MATTHEW DOLAN

DETROIT—More than 20% of Detroit’s 139 square miles could go without key municipal services under a new plan being developed for the city, with as few as seven neighborhoods seen as meriting the city’s full resources.

Those details, outlined by Detroit planning officials this week, offer the clearest picture yet of how Mayor Dave Bing intends to execute what has become his signature program: reconfiguring Detroit to reflect its declining population and fiscal health. Yet the blueprint still leaves large legal and financial questions unresolved.

Associated PressDetroit’s Michigan Central Depot train station is now abandoned.

Audio

• Listen: Matthew Dolan reports on what the mayor’s plan would mean for the city.

Until now, the mayor and his staff have spoken mostly in generalities about the problem, stressing the need for community input and pledging to a skeptical public that no resident would be forced to move.

But the approach discussed by city officials could have that effect. Mr. Bing’s staff wants to concentrate Detroit’s remaining population—expected to be less than 900,000 after this year’s Census count—and limited local, state and federal dollars in the most viable swaths of the city, while other sectors could go without such services as garbage pickup, police patrols, road repair and street lights.

Karla Henderson, a city planning official leading the mayor’s campaign, said in an interview Thursday that her staff had deemed just seven to nine sections of Detroit worthy of receiving the city’s full resources. She declined to identify the areas, but said the final plan could include a greater number.

Ms. Henderson said her team amassed hundreds of data—on household income, population density, employment, existing city services, philanthropic investments and housing stock —in its effort to identify the neighborhoods with the brightest outlook—those that could be stabilized with additional city, state and federal resources.

“What we have found is that even some of our stronger neighborhoods are at a tipping point with vacancy,” Ms. Henderson said. “Vacancy adds to blight and blight is a disease that takes over the whole neighborhood. So the sooner we can get those homes occupied, the better for the city.”

Officials bristle when their efforts are described as downsizing, saying their aim is to repurpose portions of the city, not redraw its borders. “We will not be shrinking the city,” Ms. Henderson said. “We are 139 [square] miles and we’ll stay that way.”

Lynn Garrett, president of the North Rosedale Park Civic Association, applauded the mayor’s effort to reimagine how the city will function, especially as her own northwest Detroit area fights encroaching blight. But the wife of a former city fire-commissioner said many details remained unknown.

“I haven’t really quite got my arms around that,” she said of proposals to encourage people to move to more viable neighborhoods and convert vacant land to other uses, including farming. “It’s an urban city. I do understand that the population is decreasing, but what would the advantages be?”

View Full Image

The city plans to present its findings publicly in meetings this winter and spring, culminating in June with at least three options for supporting targeted areas and pulling services from thinly populated neighborhoods. The city estimates it has about 60,000 parcels of surplus land.

The final plan, though, may need local and state approval, as well as an influx of funds to rehabilitate vacant homes in neighborhoods deemed worthy of saving and to move residents wishing to leave areas with reduced services.

Already, city officials say, Detroit is failing to properly serve many neighborhoods, making the effort to refocus services all the more urgent. “If we have an honest conversation, we know there are many areas of the city where we are not providing adequate service at this time,” Ms. Henderson said.

Write to Matthew Dolan at matthew.dolan@wsj.com

Does Every Imperialist Country Muck About In Colombia?

UK helps Colombian commandos fight cocaine trade

By Frank GardnerBBC security correspondent

British intelligence and counter-narcotics agents are playing an increasingly active role in Colombia’s war on drugs.

British agents, we discovered, are helping to run networks of informants in the country through vetted units of Colombians and setting up communications intercepts to try to stem the flood of South American cocaine coming into Britain.

In a lush green valley west of Bogota the police commandos line up for their turn.

One by one they grip the rope that dangles alarmingly down to the ground far below, then step off the metal platform and shin down at speed, breaking their fall at the last minute.

It’s called “fast roping” and it’s how the men of the Jungla, Colombia’s elite police counter-narcotics commandos, train to descend from Black Hawk helicopters to seize remote cocaine laboratories deep in the jungle.

Set up by Britain’s SAS in 1989, and trained by them, then the Americans, the Jungla have become largely self-sufficient.  (read HERE)

In Neo-Soviet Belarus, Run for President Go To Jail for 15 Years

Belarus: 7 presidential candidates face 15 years

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — A Belarusian human rights organization says seven of the candidates who ran against the country’s authoritarian leader face charges that could lead to 15 years in prison in the wake post-election violence and massive arrests.

Ales Belyatsky of the human rights center Vesna said the charges have been filed by the KGB, as the former Soviet state’s security service is still called.

ELECTION: Belarus leader declares himself winner

Some 700 people, including the candidates, were arrested after Sunday’s election that gave authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko a fourth term in office. Many of the arrests came on Sunday night, when thousands protested over what international monitors called fraudulent results.

Two of the arrested candidates were later released, but Belyatsky said Wednesday that one of them, Grigory Kostusyev, had been brought in by the KGB for further questioning.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

the new paradigm: mass homelessness

the new paradigm: mass homelessness, posted with vodpod